Again, pickets and boycotts: the furor from the religious right over Godard's 1985 Hail Mary was nothing compared to that provoked by Scorsese's mini-epic about the King of Kings. Based on the Kazantzakis novel, The Last Temptation of Christ is not so much a reappraisal of Christ's martyrdom as it is a fleshing-out of the possibilities of his spiritual journey. In Scorsese's film, Christ is a troubled and unlikely savior. Willem Dafoe's earthy portrayal of Christ has him wrestling-body and soul-with the fearsome burden of divinity. In the most disputed sequence of the film, an agonized, gruesomely crucified Christ succumbs to a tormented hallucination in which he weds Mary Magdalene and sires her children. This arresting vignette crystallizes the profundity of the last temptation: Christ's sacrifice is made meaningful in his renunciation of human desire. The Last Temptation of Christ was met by vehement attacks focused on the film's alleged blasphemy-condemnations voiced by religious leaders, many of whom had never seen the film.