Godspell

David Greene's 1973 film is the screen adaptation of the stage musical of the same name. A group of young people leave their daily jobs, gather in the streets of New York and act out the parables of the gospel through song, dance and clowning. Its most striking feature is the use of location: the scenes were shot in an emptied city, with nobody in Times Square and dancing on the roof of the still unfinished World Trade Center, so that the New York of the period becomes a kind of set. The tone is cheerful and at times childlike, while the closing section turns abruptly serious. The production carries the counterculture aesthetic of the seventies and now plays partly as a document of its time. Victor Garber plays Jesus. Who it's for: viewers who like musicals and images of seventies New York. Who it's not for: anyone expecting a serious reading of the religious text; the film plays.