In a study of his earlier pictures, Kolker notes that «Scorsese is interested in the psychological manifestations of individuals who are representative either of a class or of a certain ideological grouping; he is concerned with their relationship to each other or to an antagonistic environment... [and finally] there is no triumph for his characters» (A Cinema of Loneliness [Oxford University
Press, 19881, p. 162) The Jesus of the Last Temptation fits this pattern (as do Travis Bickel in Taxi
Driver, Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull and Paul Hackett in After Hours) By eschewing any reference to a resurrection — and, in an interesting theological note, allowing Paul to suggest that his preaching of the risen Christ is more important than the Jesus of history — Scorsese presents the crucifixion as the final willful act of a man driven by a God who makes strange
demands on his followers.