10 Reasons Movie Scenes Turned Out THAT WAY
6. The Kaleidoscopic Final Shot - The Last Temptation of Christ
Martin Scorsese's incredible biblical drama The Last Temptation of Christ is, like all of the legendary director's films, a supremely diligent piece of work where every single frame appears to have been crafted with 100% intention.
And that also goes for the surreal final moments of the movie, where Jesus (Willem Dafoe) dies on the cross and the image is distorted by a strange bright light, seemingly signifying Jesus' resurrection, before cutting to the end credits.
It's certainly an odd stylistic flourish and one that feels a bit at odds with the scene otherwise, and that's because it wasn't originally part of the plan at all.
In a 2019 interview, Scorsese revealed that after shooting this take, a camera assistant accidentally opened the film magazine, in turn exposing and compromising the footage.
When Scorsese later reviewed this take, he discovered it had been tainted by "edge fog" - the visual aberration from the closing shot which, obviously, he decided to keep because he actually loved how it looked.
In Scorsese's own words, "The edge fog became the resurrection." Brilliant.