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"The Color of the Cross" Film Interview with Writer/Director Jean-Claude Lamarre

*Actor-turned-writer/director Jean-Claude LaMarre made his screen debut in Spike Lee's Malcolm X, and then appeared in Dead Presidents and Basquiat and on TV shows like Law and Order and New York Undercover before deciding to try his hand on the other side of the camera.

His initial two efforts, Higher Ed and Go for Broke, were both comedies featuring Fugee refugee Pras. His third was a Western with Lil' Kim, Macy Gray, LisaRaye and Bobby Brown. Jean-Claude took the title role of his next endeavor, Sugar Valentine, a love story co-starring Ingrid Sonray.

In 2005, he returned to the Western genre with Brothers in Arms, and later last year, he again occupied the lead role in Pastor Jones, a relationship drama about a minister who falls for a parishioner in a bad marriage.

In his latest opus, the controversial Color of the Cross, LaMarre portrays Jesus during the last days of his life. Here, he talks about his decision to make the first picture portraying Christ as black.

Kam Williams: Tell me a little bit about your background.

Jean-Claude LaMarre: I was born in Brooklyn, New York, but I was raised in Haiti from the age of one, till I was nine. Then I landed in Brooklyn, and was there until about six years ago.

KW: One of my outlets is a Haitian publication, so I'm sure they'd be interested in any memories of the island you'd like to share.

JCL: Oh, I was brought up by my grandmother's sister, an amazing woman who really taught me a lot about self-esteem, and how to look at myself in relation to the world. So, she really shaped the basis of how I look at the world now. So, she had a lot to do with this movie in terms of my even approaching this subject.

KW: Where in Haiti did you live?

JCL: It's called Leogane.

KW: Did you expect to be stirring up so much controversy with Color of the Cross?

JCL: Nope, I didn't. I knew it was going to be an issue of discussion, but I didn't know it was going to be as controversial as it is.

KW: Has anyone complained about it possibly being anti-Semitic, after all it seems to be saying that not only did Jews kill Christ, but they were racist, too, because they refused to accept him as the Messiah because of the color

of his skin?

JCL: No, it's definitely not anti-Semitic in any way. In fact two of the people who worked on putting it together were Jewish. My producing partners, Lila Aviv and Kenneth Halsband, are both devout and faithful Jews. We really, really took time to highlight the fact that within the Sanhedrin there were varying Jewish interests at work. Unlike Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ that pretty much presented the Jews as one unified anti-Jesus voice, our film really sort of presents the case for various viewpoints. The Sanhedrin, as you know, was composed of the Pharisees, the Zealots, and a string of other Jewish interests. So, there were Jews there, within the Sanhedrin, who were sympathetic to Jesus' cause, there were Jews who were angry, and there were Jews who remained silent on the issue. Because we didn't want the same kind of backlash that Mel Gibson experienced, we really took time on this film to show all this.

KW: That's interesting. I didn't realize there was an historical basis for your theme. Still, I would assume that you're the first person to insinuate that Christ was put todeath because he was black.

JCL: Yes, for us, understand what black represents in this film. Black is used as a metaphor for Jesus Christ's status. He is a member of the undesirable class, a member of the disenfranchised. And so, us saying that he is black just means that he is not a member of the privileged and powerful. For the most part it's not a color that we use in the same context as when we refer to him as a black Nazarene, or a black Jew. It's not really a color, but a station in Jesus' ancient Judea.

KW: Tell m a little about the character Leah, played by Ananda Lewis. Is she Jesus' sister? Did Jesus even have a sister? I don't remember ever hearing that?

JCL: Yes, in fact, Jesus had two sisters. There are two brief scriptural references to them in the New Testament. Very, very few Christians know this, because it's not a very big part of the story. And we all know that James the Lesser is his brother. Because this is a film which will hopefully be seen by a large number of black people, we really wanted to explore the family relationships in the film.

KW: Why so?

JCL: Because the black community has been in recent years plagued by the phenomenon of the broken home.

KW: What is your religious background? Coming from Haiti, I'd guess you were Catholic.

JCL: I was raised Catholic, but my father is a Protestant minister. After he and my mother divorced, I went back to the Catholic Church. I pretty much grew up in and around the image of Christ in one form or another.

KW: If you consider yourself a Catholic now, do you think you'll get excommunicated for making such a blasphemous movie?

JCL: [laughs] I would consider myself a Christian.

KW: What made you think people were finally ready to see a black Christ in a film?

JCL: We're smart enough to send information to people halfway across the world in milliseconds, and yet we would accept an image of an individual who couldn't possibly have looked at the time like the image he's currently represented by. From an intellectual or practical standpoint, it doesn't make any sense. From a psychological standpoint, I think that black children for way too long have worshipped an image of their God outside of their own.

History has shown us that a powerful people typically worship their God in their own image, while a conquered or a weakened people typically worship the image of their God in the form of their conquerors, or their oppressors.

So, I think in order for us as black people in this country to start really growing psychologically, and to move away from some of the damage that slavery has inflicted, we need to begin at the core of our existence. And that is God.

KW: So, do you see the movie as making a political statement in addition to a religious one?

JCL: Absolutely! I think you can make a direct correlation between the state of black people in this country and the God that they worship. It's not healthy to have a white Jesus in a black household.

KW: Now for the Jimmy Bayan question: Where in L.A. do you live?

JCL: Beverly Hills.

KW: Finally, what advice do you have for anyone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

JCL: Just go out there and do it. That's the advice Spike Lee gave me when I first approached him with this idea. Don't waste your time trying to go out there and raise money for something no one will give you money for. Just go and do it. I took that to heart.