[It's] almost impossible to suggest the imaginative impoverishment, the sheer stupefying banality, of … [the] version of the last days of Christ [in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar]…. In another respect, however, I underestimated the work; I had expected the alleged anti-Semitism of the film to be no more than the random fallout of its pandering to the anti-establishment sentiments of its audience, to be, in that sense, unintentional. But though the villainy of the Jews "works," all right, so, too, would the villainy of the Romans, who, if anything, could have been a good deal more easily made standins for cops or American imperialists than can the Jewish priesthood be equated with any of the usual bêtes noires of the counter-culture. Yet the Romans are so thoroughly exculpated by the film of any responsibility for Christ's crucifixion as to become virtual instruments of the Jewish priests, who...