Bible Films Blog

I did a talk a few weeks ago on different film portrayals of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and how they relate to the issue of poverty and the Christian message. I chose the reading of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16 as I have a hunch that it was somewhere in Charles Dickens’ mind when he wrote “A Christmas Carol”. Perhaps he wondered what would have happened if Abraham had been overruled? Certainly Dickens’ Yuletide yarn is eerily similar to today’s gospel reading. Both are parables about rich men and about the importance of how we treat those in need. Like Luke’s story Marley realises too late the dreadful error he has made, but in Dickens' novel Marley is allowed to warn his friend, Ebenezer Scrooge the peril he faces if he does not change his ways and seek “to interfere for good, in human matters” or to make “mankind his business”. "A Christmas Carol" is, in many ways, an extended parable.

As someone who has been reviewing films for the last decade you get used to people talking about the movies as 21st century parables. There’s a lot of discussion about what parables actually are. But by taking a moral issue and forging it into drama, parables help us to examine the ins and outs of that issue in ways that can be fresh, challenging and surprising. They give us fresh perspective and help us grapple with questions that may have ceased to grab us. And this is an ongoing process. Some scholars believe that in telling this parable Jesus himself was putting a fresh spin on an even older story. Dickens in turn made those issues more contemporary for his audiences and for more than 110 years different film directors have sought to take Dickens’ work and cast it in a new light for the people of their own day.

And ‘A Christmas Carol’ does seem to be particularly suitable to adapt. Of the 324 screen portrayals of Scrooge’s story on IMDB, at least 70 were based on ‘A Christmas Carol’, almost twice as many as adaptations of Oliver Twist and 3½ times as many as any of the others. Does I counted 7 playing on terrestrial TV over the Christmas period in the UK. The latest of which was made in 2009 starring Jim Carrey. It’s in 3D reflecting one of the ways this story adapts well to the fashions of its day.

Go back a few years and you’ll find Patrick Stewart starring in a version rich in CGI. In 1928 at the advent of sound the first Dickens talkie was "A Christmas Carol" and if you go back to the very first version of this story, from 1901 you’ll see how it uses very primitive special effects which were starting to be discovered. The BFI have made this film freely available on YouTube, and it's worth remembering that the film was made over a century ago in 1901, far closer to the publication of the original novel than to today.

The apparitions that fly past at around the 1m45s mark rely on people knowing the story, but essentially they show the events of the Christmases past that have shaped Scrooge. The first shows his return to his father’s house after years of spending Christmas at his decrepit school. His beloved sister welcomes him back. The second, with impressive economy shows the end of his relationship with Miss Fezziwick, who finds herself squeezed out by Scrooge’s pursuit of financial security.

It’s not something that is talked about often, but I think these two scenes are pivotal in the story of Scrooge’s life. Why else does the ghost, or if you prefer Dickens, choose to show us them? The villain we meet at the start of the story was not ever so. He was a rejected child even spending Christmas day at school, and a poor school at that - Dickens describes the decrepit school and classrooms at some length and noting that there was "not too much to eat". These early events seem to have shaped Scrooge quite significantly.

There’s sometimes a lot of talk about child poverty today in Britain. Government figures suggest that the number of children living in poverty is between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3. And such poverty doesn’t just have an effect on their past deprivation, or their present hunger, it affects their future health and shapes their attitude to life. They all too often believe that poverty is their lot in life, and lacking hope and aspiration settle for life at the bottom of the pile. No wonder the UK has one of the worst records on social mobility in the western world. Despite the occasional heart warming rags to riches story, the reality is that for the vast, vast majority, those who are born poor will, in all likelihood, remain that way.

Perhaps unexpectedly, Scrooge is one of those success stories. A poor apprentice who rises to run a successful business and grow wealthy. But “how profits a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?” Seemingly hurt by his childhood rejection and poverty, Scrooge’s brief foray into the warmth of love of his family and colleagues is slowly smothered by his desperation to avoid the poverty that afflicted his childhood. It’s not apparently greed but a yearning for security that drives a wedge between him and his finance. It’s a pivotal point in the story of his life:

From here Scrooge is done for. Having grown up in isolation he has learned to cope with it and since the death of his sister also seems to have occurred around this time, he seems to have retreated into isolation once more consumed by a desire to avoid poverty. As he explains “there is nothing on which (the world) is so hard as poverty”.

It’s not long before the next apparition - the Ghost of Christmas Present - is taking him to the household of his employee Bob Cratchitt. It’s arguably the most famous scene in a story crammed with iconic moments, but it relevance to Scrooge is easily over-looked. Firstly, here is a child also in poverty, but whose father has taken a different path to that of Scrooge’s father. Instead of sending him away, Tiny Tim is kept in the bosom of his loving family. Secondly, Crachitt’s family live in poverty, but have found the happiness that so seems to have eluded Scrooge. Tim has flourished despite his apparent adversity. Thirdly, I suspect there’s something of a grudging admiration for the fact that Crachitt has never begged - Scrooge is amazed to find out about Crachitt’s sickly child. These, I think, are what underlie Scrooge’s turn around rather than simply Tim’s cute way of saying “God bless us every one”.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that this part of the novel is where the brunt of its scriptural allusions are found. Most significantly Tim’s hopes for his presence in church which I’ll quote here “he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”

Given the course of the rest of this story this line is pretty significant. Prior to the haunting of Scrooge, Tim is on course for an early death, but as Dickens tell us in closing the book, Scrooge’s repentance and intervention means that Tim lives to a good age. And so there’s an interesting implication that whilst Jesus has apparently not healed Tim directly, Scrooge has been able to be a vessel for God’s purposes. By using his money to make a difference to Tim’s life he has stepped into the role of healer.

I don’t know what your views on God’s healing today are, but Dickens’ subtle suggestion is that by being more generous with what we have, we can actually change the life chances of those in poverty. It is as true in our own day as it was in his. On average, the 20% most deprived people in this country will die 7.5 years before earlier than the richest 20%, and in some places it’s even more extreme. In fact whilst we like to think our world has changed since Dickens’ day, it’s rather depressing to see just how relevant the book is to our world. Some films have sought to narrow that gap for us, such as the 1988 film Scrooged starring Bill Murray, or ITV’s modernisation on the story from the year 2000 starring Ross Kemp. Even the perennial Christmas Classic It’s a Wonderful Life is an inversion of the story. Yet so much of the original novel is relevant in its own right. Take for example an early scene where Scrooge is approached by two men seeking to help the poor. His arguments are not a million miles away from those that some offer today. (Here’s the scene as portrayed in the 1984 version starring George C Scott.)

There are no longer any workhouses or debtors prisons, but teachers still regularly encounter kids without beds at home or that come to school hungry - I’ve had reports of that from a teacher I know who works at a nearby school just a couple of miles away. Yet some people today when faced with the plight of those living in poverty still resort to these same tactics - denying the problem, convincing themselves that paying their taxes absolves them of any further responsibility, or claim that they are all idle. It’s disturbing how many newspapers and politicians are content to peddle the myth that the poor are idle, despite the fact that more than half of all children living in poverty in this country are from working households. And whilst the phrase "surplus population" is more in line with Thomas Malthus than any of our current populations there does seem to be a shift away from seeing children are a gift from God towards them being a burden on the tax payer.

The words Scrooge speaks here are repeated tauntingly by the Spirit of Christmas Present later on, as Scrooge’s heart begins to soften they remind him of how awful some of his attitudes have been. In fact it appears that Scrooge has been isolated from the realities of poverty in his own day. Faced with the image of the starving children "Ignorance" and "Want" he is horrified and gasps "have they no refuge or resource"?

"If you deny him, slander those who tell others about him, admit he exists but do nothing about him." The reality is that in our country it is scarily easy to become isolated from those living below the poverty line. Listen to any public debate about poverty and someone will cite poor houses with satellite dishes - as if they have done a properly sampled survey on the issue rather than just noticed them on houses in areas they wouldn’t care to live as they drive hastily by.

Scrooge’s about turn is radical, but the question that should haunt us is would it take such an extreme turn of events to soften our hearts to the very real suffering around us and amongst us? Poverty has a ghost of the past, and of the present, what are we prepared to do to ensure it has no future? Are we prepared to act at a cost to ourselves to alleviate the suffering around us?

I don’t know whether Dives and Lazarus were any more real than Scrooge and Crachitt. But Jesus, Dickens and the filmmakers that have followed in their footsteps have acted from the conviction that it’s in this world that we have to address the problems of poverty in our world. We can’t leave it until after we’re dead.

Labels: Other Films

Absolutely Fabulous star and British national treasure Joanna Lumley headed out to Mount Ararat in an attempt to find Noah's boat in Sunday's ITV documentary The Search for Noah's Ark.

Starting off in Tissington Derbyshire, before heading to Mount Ararat (in Turkey) via Istanbul. In Istanbul she "learns" that Noah is a celebrated figure in Islam as well as Christianity and Judaism: At Ararat she views the Arzap Drogue stone (rock anchor) and hears Ron Wyatt's theory that the Durupınar site is the final resting place of the Ark. Having spent time meeting the locals including those in the local museum, Lumley then meets a geologist who persuades her that the Durupınar site was simply formed by a standard geological process.

Yet whilst Lumley is put off from her initial quest to find the ark she then decides to head to the region around Mount Judi - named in the Koran as the ark's resting place - to find if there is any evidence for the flood. She visits one of the places that claims to house Noah's remains and eventually wonders if the area flooded was actually considerably smaller than worldwide - perhaps the area between the Tigris and Euphrates.

Lumley heads back to London next to meet with Rabbi Julia Neuberger who talks about the Noah traditions in Judaism and our lack of knowledge about the precise words used. "Was it a Raven?...sure about the names of the birds? I'm not sure". But instead of taking Neuberger's advice, Lumley goes to talk to a raven expert somewhere in the English countryside. Then it's time to meet Alan Millard in the British Museum who talks about the Gilgamesh epic and the Mesopotamian story that many suppose lies behind the story.

After the break Lumley heads to India to uncover a Hindu version of the story even more ancient than Gilgamesh, that of Vishnu and King Manu. Having heard about the Indus region's 5000 year old trade with areas as far away as the Arabian peninsula, Lumley heads to Oman accompanied, briefly, by an audio clip of Eddie Izzard's Noah routine. When she arrives she talks to Eric Staples who enlightens her and us about the kind of wooden boats built in the time, but suggests that boats the size of the ark were unprecedented at that time and would have had to be miraculous.

Finally Lumley meets geologist Mohammed Alkindi who finds evidence for some sort of catastrophic flood. Lumley sums up by saying that there probably is some kind of historical core to these stories, but one that has been adapted and transformed into a moral story, encouraging its audience to "be good".

It's a rather simplified summary of the role the story plays and whilst, I suppose, I broadly agree with the programme's findings - some evidence of a localised catastrophic flood which got passed throughout the wider region - the summary seems rather undercooked. If such an event occurred the results would have been so catastrophic as to reverberate throughout the region for centuries rendering itself rife for the type of mythology we find in the Noah story. Not so much simply a prod to "be good", but a fear of the danger of the untameable natural world, the hope of a deity who can rule over it and the warning to stay on his right side to avoid similar catastrophe happening to oneself.

The problem with the documentary, as is often the case with similar programmes is that the absolutely key information is often greatly abbreviated and given little more air time than the more trivial travel-journally type footage of, say, Lumley eating food in Istanbul and wondering if Noah had eaten a similar dish all that time ago. Lumley's opinion is apparently changed by what she hears, but the evidence which appears to persuade her is strangely absent.

None of this is to say it's a bad programme - far from it, and given ITV's relative paucity of this kind of documentary it should be applauded for providing something rather more demanding than the X-factor and indeed giving it a fairly high profile. Lumley is a high profile TV star, and whilst clearly not an expert also refuses to revert to the cliché of feigning total ignorance about her chosen subject. At the same time as a non-expert she is able to take the audience with her.

Secondly whilst I wish certain parts of the material could have had greater emphasis, not many aspects of the topic were entirely absent. More conservative believers might wish that more time had been given to Wyatt's theories and more literal interpretations of the Noah story, but in honesty there's not much that a documentary can really do with this kind of approach.

So whilst not perfect, The Search for Noah's Ark is a fairly good attempt to grapple with the wide variety of specialisms that shed light on the story of Noah which is hopefully sea worthy enough to encourage ITV to be involved in similar projects in the future.

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N.B. Richard Bartholomew has also posted a review of the programme.

Labels: Documentaries, Noah

Heavenly Holiday Film Classics is a collection of six lesser known Christmas films from days gone past. The majority go back to the fifties and sixties but at least one has their roots even further back. As a result these films are hard to get hold of and Festival Films has done a great service by collecting them and making them more widely available. But make no mistake, the films have not been digitally remastered or restored and Festival Films make no such claim.

Silent Night:A Story of the Christmas Carol (1953)
The first of two films on this DVD to look at the story of how "Silent Night" was written. This is the later film which focuses on the spread of the carol after an organ repair man chances upon the song in Oberndorf. Whilst this legend is popular, there's not a great deal pf evidence for it, in fact Wikipedia cites Silent Night historian Renate Ebeling-Winkler Berenguer as tracking this part of the story back only as far as 1965 - 12 years after this film (though it also mentions a 1947 play).

Christmas is Magic (1953)
Christmas is Magic is probably my least favourite of the six films on this DVD, although even then it's a nice film to look at even if the plot and the dialogue are rather weak. Frances Rafferty plays Julie, a young widow about to get remarried to the effortlessly grumpy, Christmas cynic, Brad. It's in this pairing that the plot first falters, aside from being stable, it's hard to really see what he has to offer her. Julie and her son Sonny meet an amnesiac war veteran by the Christmas tree in town, and when his Christmas cheer warms their hearts they welcome into their homes. If you're the type that loves Christmas schmaltz laid on thick then there's a chance you might enjoy this. This visuals do have a certain something. Unfortunately, on this one, I'm with Brad.

Star of Bethlehem (1956)
Star of Bethlehem (1956) is a film I've known about for quite some time, and been meaning to see, but never quite got around to it. It is one of the films available at the BFI's mediatheques. The original film apparently dates back to 1921, being the work of the German silhouette-animator Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (June 2, 1899 -- June 19, 1981). But in 1956 Cathedral Films re-released with narration in English.

The film itself is simply, but effectively made. Black silhouetted characters move in the foreground contrasting starkly with the film's coloured backgrounds. The simplicity of the medium should not be mistaken for a lack of sophistication however. The graceful, skillful movements are capable of evoking genuine feeling, the birth scene, for example, evokes surprising intimacy. The one notable change in style is the appearance of the angels to the shepherds. In contrast to the rest of the film, he its the angels who light up against a dark background.

The story is straight forwardly told, and whilst the medium and voiceover are both a little dated, younger children will still enjoy it. My 4 year old and 6 year old did at any rate.

Three Young Kings (1956)
Perhaps the best of the six films on offer here is Three Young Kings by director Richard Kinon. Kings tells the tale of three boys from the mission school who have the honour of playing the wise men in the village's traditional present-giving ritual. Parents provide presents for their children via the school and the eldest three children don magi costumes and go round the richer parts of town dishing round their gifts. But this year the trio take a short cut through the poorest part of the village and end up giving the presents away to those children instead - most of whom will not get presents. The pivotal scene is a delight with the three boys switching from mild annoyance at being inconvenienced to handing round other children's presents with gleeful abandon, but it's the final scene with echoes of the still-to-be-made Spartacus and 12 Angry Men in the mix that clinches it. The boy's main opponent is possibly a little too cartoon-like for my liking, but that fails to rob the story of it's genuine emotional wallop that makes it the film of all these likely to become a stable (sic.) of Christmas viewing in the Page household for years to come.

Star of Bethlehem (1954)
Star of Bethlehem (1954) was a pet project of actor James Mason who produced, directed and narrated the film and cast his own daughter as Mary.

It's an funny old project. The first half of the film consists of Mason dully narrating the nativity account from Luke. It's not helped by the use of a (now) fairly archaic translation, but Mason's famous voice is renders the story dull by its lack of intonation.

The second half however is very different, a charming adaptation of the story using children. Child actors can be a real hit-or-miss affair but these children do a decent job of playing their roles without swinging to far into honey-coated sentimentality. I'm not sure my kids would sit through the first half of this film again, but they would certainly re-watch the second part.

Starlight Night (1939)
The second "Silent Night" origins storyline the collection is actually the elder filmed in pre-war Austria in 1939. The timing of the film would have made it strongly political as it draws out parallels between Napolean's forced conscription in 1811 and similar events in the austria of their time, but its focus is more on the need for reconciliation once the conflict is over. These debates are focussed in on a single estranged family - a man who having lost his son in the hostilities can't forgive his daughter for marrying a survivor, not least because he is also the son of a survivor from a previous forced conscription. Even the birth of a grandson fails to melt the old man's heart. What is melting however is the snow above the young couple's house in the mountains, leaving the three of them homeless the night before Christmas.

Finding the family bedding down in a nativity-esque stable Father Mohr decides to take action, writing a song to accompany his homily on the scandal of unforgiveness and estrangement and when he teams u with Franz Gruber the world's most well loved Christmas Carol is born, leaving the old man defenceless to his grandson's advances. At times it's a little forced, but, I must admit, I'm a sucker for stories of reconciliation and, not for the first time whilst watching this collection of films, the odd tear might have been shed.

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All in all then an interesting mix of films with different degrees of quality effectiveness, emotion and religious content and for the completists, or those keen for a bit of nostalgic content this would make a great addition to your Christmas film collection.

Labels: Cathedral Films, Nativity - Mary Joseph, Short films

DeMille's Sign of the Cross is notorious for being the film that brought about censorship in American cinema. A quick image search confirms DeMille's instinct for the public's appetite. Claudette Colbert's nipples poking out of a bath of milk might seem tame today - even compared to the occasional pop video - but clearly these shots still hold a certain appeal. DeMille knew his audience.

I want to focus on other aspects of the film though because whilst it certainly showcases the worst of DeMille's excesses (titillation offset by faux piety, over-wrought melodrama and a kitschy sense of spectacle) it also displays some of his trademark touches and some of his best work.

The plot is, like so many Roman-Christian epics the story of two people from different backgrounds meeting, falling in love with the Roman finally converting to Christianity. And it's to this film's credit that it doesn't import a whole bunch of biblical characters as various versions of Quo Vadis? do. The only character mentioned in the Bible (aside, I suppose, from cryptic references to Nero in Revelation) is Titus, who has been sent by Paul from Jerusalem.

Interestingly though Titus' entrance suggests that he is Peter. He walks in, the sunlight illuminating his bearded face, and clutching a huge staff. Titus meets Favius, the two are arrested as part of Nero's post-fire crackdown on the Christians and the two are saved by the intervention of the Christian girl, Mercia, and Nero's second in command Marcus. The two fall in love and the rest of the film is driven by their growing love and the resulting negotiation about who is going to adopt to who's world.

As is often the case with these early-Christian films there are various quotations from the New Testament: a compound version "blessed are the meek" and "the first shall be last and the last shall be first" ("The meek will take the place of the mighty"; exhortation to be like children"; recitation of some of the beatitudes in the background; and a summary of Luke's account of the second thief on the cross.

The looseness of these quotations is certainly acceptable - after all the film tells us at the start that this is 64 AD and, according to most scholars, the gospels are yet to be written. We are also given Titus' account of seeing Jesus on the road to Calvary.

However the real triumph of this film is it's use of the camera. The print available in the DeMille collection is really good, and it reveals some beautiful composed and lit shots. Colbert in the milk bath is tawdry; but the shot of Mercia's and Marcus heading up the steps to their deaths I could look at for a good while. The various underground prison scenes are also wonderful, eerily lit and often shot from a low angle.

But it's after 95 minutes when there are three shots that are simply stunning - the kind of innovative and tricky long shot that would have been particularly difficult to execute in 1932. They pre-date Welles and most of Hitchcock's work and in that light are certainly innovative. The first is a pan down a three story section of the Colosseum stair well. It starts fairly close to capture one couple's conversation before panning down to capture a conversation on the next level before descending to ground level and coming to rest just behind a stall where various other conversations of passers-by are overheard.

There's a brief close-up of one of these conversations before the film's finest shot. The camera begins with a close up of a poster detailing the day's events. It then zooms in panning down at the last minute to go through the bars of the Coliseum's cells starting with a high shot before zooming in close to some of the conversations amongst the frightened Christians. It's an immensely impressive piece of camera work as evidenced by the acclaim that Orson Welles gained for a similar shot 9 years later in Citizen Kane.

The third such shot is that opf gladiators processing out at the start of the games. Here the camera starts wide, takes in a lot of the procession before zooming all the way in on Nero (Charles Laughton).

Once the games begin the scenes in the coliseum are also very interesting. In contrast to these long takes leading up to the games, the fights themselves feature a lot of short shots. But for most of this segment the focus is actually on the audience. It's true that from time to time DeMille can't help but dwell on the spectacle he has laid before us (a little like Nero perhaps?) but overall it's the crowds reaction, some horrified, but most enraptured, or focussed on gambling that is what seems important, and it's certainly a damning indictment of the coliseum's punters. These are very well constructed montages for the most part. The close up shots of rabid crazed viewers, occasionally mixed with a more 20th century reaction or a shot of what they are watching make disturbing viewing. This contrasts with more recent films such as Gladiator which want us to enjoy the fighting and in which the audience is largely faceless and very much in the background.

It's also interesting to see some of DeMille's touches from other films (particularly 1927's The King of Kings. The love of exotic animals goes into overdrive here: lions, leopards, elephants, bears, bulls and crocodiles (shown from ground level). We also see the technique from King of Kings whereby writing initially in a foreign language dissolves into English. And then there are the wire bikini tops...

So Sign of the Cross is a film full of contradictions. The publicity revolved around Colbert and Laughton, but they are only supporting roles to Fredric March and Elissa Landi. It's an exhortation to Christianity and Christian values but revels in it's titillation and erotic imagery. It's best known for that fact, but should be more widely celebrated for showcasing some of DeMille's best work. And then whilst it tells us so much about what made Emile tick it also asks some probing questions about our tendency towards inhumanity. And the scandal of the film, as well as the gospel is that the true sign of the cross is for those in the baying crowds just as much as those brave enough to go to their deaths without even a whimper.

Labels: DeMille

Click on image to enlarge

These days most of the news about Bible Films in production goes through the Facebook page, partly because so many projects start but never really finish. That said the best place to go for updates for that kind of thing now is Peter Chattaway's new blog.

But one film looks like it really is going to happen, not least because in addition to an impressive cast, a well known director and a production company, it has also started building the ark and sending round the above shot of the work in progress. I'm guessing this means that filming hasn't started yet (although it's possible they move all the machines out of the way every so often and get a few shots of Noah making the thing.

In case you've not picked up on the various bits of information doing the rounds of the movie papers the film is being directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler) based on a script he wrote with Ari Handel and which was then revised by John Logan (Gladiator). But the cast is pretty impressive. Russell Crowe is to take the lead role, Anthony Hopkins will play Methusaleh (the oldest man in the Bible who died aged 969 the same year as the flood if you go for all that stuff), Emma Watson as Ila Jennifer Connelly (presumably as the wife of one of Noah's three boys) and Jennifer Connelly as Naameh. If, as seems likely, Naameh is Noah's wife, then it seems Connelly is developing a nice line playing the wives of famous historical pioneers after playing Darwin'd wife in Creation. In fact it could be argued that Noah surely qualifies as a technological pioneer as well so if anyone is considering making a film about Isaac Newton, Connelly might be the actress for you.

The publicity is calling this the biggest biblical epic since The Passion of the Christ. I'm interested to know what they meant by that. The budget for The Passion was only $25 million. I suspect that were you to combine what those four actors will be paid for the film it will come in at more than that. So in that sense it will be bigger. Perhaps what they mean is that they are anticipating it taking more than The Nativity Story, but not as much as The Passion of the Christ. With the cast and crew lined up this would seem to be a reasonable hope, Crowe is still a massive star, particularly in the genre in which he became a household name, but his last film in that genre Robin Hood only made back half it's $200m budget in the US, but made an additional $215m everywhere else, making a decent profit. I'd imagine the overseas take would again be quite high, but I'm not sure Noah will make as much as Robin in either market. Still time will tell.

I'm looking forward to this film though. I've written about it several times before as well as about the various other Noah films that someone has announced were being made. In particular I hope he explores what he perceives as Noah's survivor's guilt.

Labels: Genesis, Noah, Noah (2014)

BBC Radio 4 has been broadcasting readings from Song of Songs juxtaposed with bits from Lamentations. The idea is to combine the most beautiful and erotic parts of the Biblical imagery with some of the most violent. I heard five minutes of it in the car at the weekend - somehow managing to catch what is probably the rudest part of Song of Songs - but liked the premise and the execution, and I'm hoping to listen to the rest soon via iPlayer.

Coincidentally around the same time that I heard about this production I also heard about a film called Song of Songs (2005) starring Natalie Press (Bleak House, Red Road). It's rated very poorly on IMDb (4.5!) though The Observer's Philip French and The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw both seemed to like it. 2005's Edinburgh Film Festival catalogue described it like this:

Devoutly religious Ruth returns from Israel to care for her dying mother, but when she tries to bring her estranged brother David back into the fold, in accordance with her mother's wishes, the result is a startling journey into the darkest realms of sexual obsession: a forbidden game under the guise of religious law. Dark, ambiguous and distinctly adult, this study of belief and desire, set in the cloistered world of London's Orthodox Jewish community, thoughtfully explores the links between faith and violence, denial and longing.

Whilst words such as "dark" and "intense" seem to pop up in reviews of that film another film that takes a decent look at the book is at the other end of the scale. Keeping Mum, also released in 2005, is a comedy starring Rowan Atkinson and Dame Maggie Smith. It doesn't fare brilliantly at IMDb either (6.8), but I'm told by my friend (@lizzystevey) that it "has some beautiful scenes looking at the Song of Songs." I never saw it when it first came out, though was sorely tempted by the promise of Rowan Atkinson doing one of the things he does best - playing a vicar. I've ordered both films and may report back on them in due course.

Neither of these is a straight take on Song of Songs, but then that's partly because the poetic books don't really lend themselves to a medim such as film that is dominated by narrative. What has happened is that films about Solomon have included little excerpts here and there, usually around the time the Queen of Sheba turns up (as in The Bible Collection's brief quotation). It's been a while since I saw Solomon and Sheba so I can't comment on how much Song of Songs is included in there, but I'm pretty sure it will be cited somewhere amongst the cheesy Hollywood blather. There were at least 2 silent films about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, but the 1921 Fox film is now lost, and I suspect that my review of Pathé's 1913 La Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba) would have mentioned it if Song of Songs had been cited in the intertitles.

Labels: Solomon

I can't think of a more perfect film to watch to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee than Roman Holiday. Released in 1953 the year of Queen Elizabeth's coronation it imagines the story of a young princess (Audrey Hepburn) who escapes her duty for a single day, enjoys a day of freedom and falls in love before realising her duty and returning to her life of regal service.

The timing and therefore the parallels are more than coincidental. The thinnest possible veil is pulled between Hepburn's Princess Anne and Elizabeth II: Anne is younger, unmarried, and not from Britain, but how many other royal families have the Queen's English as their first language? Those parallels give extra meaning to the film's deep seated themes. Not only was our new queen stepping into a new life, with it's additional duties, responsibilities and obligations, but also the shock of the abdication of her uncle Edward VIII just 15 years before still hangs in the background creating the plot's central tension: will she return or won't she?

Hepburn is most fondly remember for Breakfast at Tiffany's; Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird and director William Wyler for Ben Hur, but I think all three do far better work here. The final scene alone is a masterful piece of subtle acting telling a story that no-one else in the room understands. Quiet, dignified and understated it belies the raw and painful emotions that rage under the surface.

It's hard to imagine a film like this would be made today. Not only is Edward's abdication a distant memory, but the idea that the only thing in life that matters is 'being true to yourself' is so deeply embedded now that a character rejecting that for the sake of her duty just wouldn't wash. But it's that same dedication and self-sacrifice that Queen Elizabeth has given for the last 60 years, and why she is so widely admired, something grout back to me watching footage of her carrying on with her obligations throughout the Jubilee celebrations as if it wasn't pouring with rain, or her husband wasn't seriously ill in hospital.

I can't help but imagine what might have become of Hepburn's Princess Anne. When, and if, she became queen; if she married; if she ever had a day that matched one; if, in some imaginary kingdom a lot like Britain, she too is celebrating 60 years, an old grandmother smiling and nodding to give approval to members of the public and 'stars' she will never quite see the appeal of or understand. And whilst we're left with the image of Peck meandering down a grand, spectacular, but empty hall, the perfect image of the life the princess has re-adopted, I wish that more films about 'royalty' conveyed even a fraction of that captured in that long lonely walk.

Labels: Other Films

I'm preaching on Romans 8:12-17 on Sunday where Paul talks about us being adopted. Yesterday I read William Barclay's commentary on the passage where he talks in depth about adoption in Rome. One thing he mentions is how the adoption ceremony had to be witnessed by seven separate witnesses.

It brought to mind Paul Newman's role in The Silver Chalice (1954). It's been about 5 years since my only viewing of the film, but I do remember a sub-plot involving Newman's character, Basil, being adopted, but then after his new father's death there being trouble finding witnesses. The witness scene features early on, but there are only five original witnesses rather than seven. I'm unsure of Barclay's source for this information but it seems to be Justinian's "Institutes".

In any case, three of the witnesses have died, and one has turned against Basil. The other, Kester, is no longer in Rome and is eventually found in Jerusalem. (you can check this on the subtitle script here).

The other thing about the passage is the translation of the opening phrase of verse 12. The KJV, NKJV, NRSV and ESV all have "we are debtors, not to the flesh...". Other popular translations (NIV, NASB, GNT) have "we have an obligation (but not)". The problem is that such translations don't really make sense of the following verses.

Paul, as the Epicureans and Stoics pointed out, was a bit of a babbler. His letters and speeches are full of him going off on tangents in an attempt to cover all the bases (I suffer from the same affliction, only without Paul's eloquence). So to unpick Paul's train of thought, you often have to work out which bit is tangent and look at that separately from his main thrust. And if you try and do that neither of these translations above really make sense.

The key for me is verse 15 "For you received not a spirit of slavery...but a spirit of adoption". It's a classic rhetorical contrast between being a slave and being an heir. What I think is significant is that if you look through the earlier verses for a similar pattern you find it.

One such place is in what appears to be part of the tangent in verse 13 "For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if you live according to the spirit you will live". The other appears to fall either side of that tangent, but the above translations miss out the contrast, tying in the "not" to the bit that follows (which is most natural). My knowledge of Greek is exceedingly poor, but I've translated it below very roughly using numbers 1 and 2 to mark out the parts of the contrast with the tangent marked by square brackets and the contrast within the tangents marked with i and ii.

So then brothers...
1 we are not debtors to living to the flesh
[i For if you live according to the flesh, you die
ii But if {you live} by the Spirit [killing bodily malpractice] you'll live]
2 For those led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God

1 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery [again to fear]
2 but you received a spirit of adoption [hence we cry out,“Abba, Father]

Or taking out the minor tangents and straightening it out a bit:

1 We are not debtors to living to the flesh
2 For those led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God

[i For if you live according to the flesh, you die
ii but if {you live} by the Spirit you'll live]

1 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery
2 but you received a spirit of adoption

That seems to me to the clearest way of understanding a rather confusingly worded passage. Critically though that takes the exactly opposite view of most other translations. There are a couple of exceptions however. Some of those outside the tradition of the KJV such as the NEB, NLT and the Holman Christian Bible do tie the "not" in with the debtors.

This is significant because it says that actually we aren't debtors: indeed such a translation ties in very well with the image of Roman adoptions. That's not to say that we don't owe God a tremendous debt, but the thrust of the passage I would suggest is that we have been freed from the debts of our previous fleshy lives to be free (adopted) heirs. We may not have been born as his free sons (and daughters) but now that is what we have become.

The reason for making this post is not to show how great I am compared to Greek expert scholars, but perhaps to ask those who know more about Greek than I do why they translate it the way they do and not the way that makes sense to me? Is it lined in with not wanting to remove a verse that stresses the debt/obligation we owe to God? Because it seems to me that you can get that from elsewhere without having to force this passage to say it here. I'd be really interested in hearing some feedback on this.

My small group is looking at Acts at the moment and last week there was a bit of a mix up over who was doing what and so seeing as we were at my house I suggested watching the passage fr the day (Acts 2) in some different film versions.

Whilst there are quite a few film versions of a selection of stories from Acts a good number of them are Paul biopics and so are only really interested in Acts from the stoning of Stephen onwards. So films such as Paul the Emissary, Damascus, The Bible Collection's Paul and even, surprisingly, Peter and Paul all exclude this incident.There are however a number of films that do cover these events and here are some comments on a few of them.

Living Bible: Acts of the Apostles (1957)

If ever you want a stiff, very literal rendering of a story played out by men wearing tea towels, then  The Living Bible comes up trumps every time. The budgetary limitations area always obvious so for the start of Acts the Ascension is narrated and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the tongues of fire all occur off screen. The rest of the scene is dull in the extreme.

Power of the Resurrection (1958)
Peter is stuck in jail with a young Christian who is scared and so he tells the boy how he met Jesus and gained the courage he now has. So the retelling of Peter's life climaxes with Pentecost. It's strange, then, that there's no tongues of fire scene here either. We do see Annas and Caiaphas in the crowd as Peter preaches. The most interesting feature of this film, for me, is that both the younger and the older Peter are played by Richard Kiley, who would play another disciple turned writer Matthew in the Visual Bible's Matthew. What's most interesting is comparing how the film makers thought Kiley would look like as an old man, and how he actually does look. Had I not seen the latter production, I would have thought it a reasonably credible piece of make-up, but as things stand it looks more than a little naïve.

Atti degli Apostoli (1969 - pictured)
Overall I think Rossellini's film is my favourite of those that deal with Acts, partly because while it is still an obviously low budget piece it makes that into a virtue, rather than a constantly distracting flaw, but then I'm a big fan of Rossellini in general.

Again there are no tongues of fire, but the sky does momentarily go dark red before the disciples burst out into the public square. It's a wonderful moment, partly because it's been preceeded by a long and rather dry exposition of the story's cultural and historical context (from one Roman to another), which both give a better feel for that context but also because the disciples sudden arrival on the scene forms a striking contrast with the more stoic Romans. Furthermore there is something ambiguous about the moment. One the one hand it evokes Joel's prophecy about the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood, but on the other the disciples' absence from the moment distances them from it, as if to break the causal link. 

My favourite line in this story has always been Peter's "they're not drunk it's only nine o'clock in the morning: I remember laughing about that one as a ten year old at church. The majority of these films deliver it in a very po-faced and forced fashion. Here, Peter dismissively chucks it out over his shoulder as he marches through the crowd. It's reminiscent of Pasolini's Jesus making terse theological or political statements over his shoulder as the disciples struggle to keep up.

And then there's the climax, as Peter, the disciples and a bunch of keen to be new converts all rush in a state of high excitement to a watering hole outside the city. Are they ecstatic or just mad? Rossellini leaves it up to the viewer to interpret it. I imagine both interpretations happened at the time so it's nice to see this captured in the film and both sides thrown up for the viewer to pick over.

Incidentally, did I ever mention that this film is available to view (albeit without subtitles) here?

A.D. (1985)
Just as the series intercuts the story of the early church with tales of the Romans here we get the first Pentecost intercut with the Romans leading an execution. And just as the series often brings both stories together at certain critical points, so it turns out that the man who is due to be executed and is subsequently rescued is a friend of Stephen and other early Christians.

Inside meanwhile Mary seems to be taking a leading role within the early church - you don't have to interpret it that way but it seems to be the implication. On this occasion, Mary tells a story from Jesus' childhood. And then a very quiet wind starts up inside but someone notices it's not blowing outside. The effects look dated and the soppy looks on the disciples faces are rather comical, but Peter delivers his speech with real charisma, and it's probably the best delivery of that sermon of all of these clips.

Visual Bible: Acts (1994)
Whilst the special effect here will hardly have broken the bank it's actually very effective. In contrast to many of the other version - and my own prior visualisation - the moment of the Spirit's coming is initially very serene rather than ecstatic. Very little else works here though. Dean Jones' narration is more obtrusive than Richard Kiley's in Matthew, the word for word aspect feels very forces and
James Brolin is just to handsome, clean cut and all-American to pass for Simon Peter. It's interesting comparing his charismatic proto-TV-politician with the hapless dimwit played by Gerrit Schoonhoven in the Matthew film.

Where the forced literalism really doesn't work is during the crowd's lengthy response to what they are seeing, especially the various members of the crowd taking turns to recite a selection of the nations represented there. It wouldn't have been funnier if they had all done it together Life of Brian style ("Yes we're all individuals... from Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene.)

St Peter (2005)
The start of this film is so awful I've never been able to get past the first quarter of an hour or so, and the relevant scene here crops up about 35 minutes in. It's certainly one of the more interesting and creative explorations of the scene. The outpouring of the spirit occurs just at the very moment that the disciples are beginning to realise that language might be a barrier to the spread of the gospel.

Inside the moment is strikingly depicted with flames shooting up in the arches behind Peter and the other apostles. Outside however a shock-wave seems to strike everyone in sight. In contrast with the other versions Peter says very little of the sermon from Acts. So effectively this take on the story emphasises experience over explanations.

The scene ends on a rather sour note however. A Roman soldier - the very one who was present at the death of Jesus - wants to be baptised as well, but Peter refuses. I'm interested to see how this pans out: I have a hunch the soldier in question may appear later in the film.

Labels: A.D. (Anno Domini), Acts of the Apostles, Atti Degli Apostoli, Living Bible Acts, Peter, Rossellini, Scene Comparisons, St. Peter, Visual Bible

I've written about The Miracle Maker many times before, most commonly around Easter when I find myself watching it perhaps with my children, or perhaps just with others. This year we sat down to watch it as a family and I had a number of new thoughts about it that I hadn't really considered before. One of the things that demonstrates the film's quality is that despite multiple viewings over the years I still find myself noticing new things about it each time.

Some of the things I found most striking this time around occurred in the opening minutes. In fact the first is the first thing we see as the film starts - the story is dated as "Year 90 of the Roman occupation". The significance of this is that it places the film right away not in our own time frame - viewers of the film unaware that Jesus' ministry was around 30 AD will be none the wiser - but in terms that would have been very resonant in Jesus' day. Straight away it tells us that this is the story about a man, and a people, living under occupation and subjugation. Not just from their own lifetimes but from that of their grandparents and great-grandparents. And the hopes for a messiah are nudged a little into the limelight.

Our first real glimpse of Jesus is as his overseer is about to strike Mary Magdalene. Jesus steps in, parries the man's blow and saves Mary from being struck. This is a deft combination of two leading aspects of Jesus that the film is keen to emphasise: his strength and his compassion.

Having begun his ministry Jesus heads to the Jordan to be baptised. But rather than be baptised by John, Jesus crouches down and baptises himself. The early church is often accused of being rather embarrassed by Jesus' baptism by John. In Mark's Gospel it's a straightforward case of John baptising Jesus. Matthew has John question Jesus' request: surely this is inconceivable. By the time the fourth gospel is written Jesus is no longer baptised by John. Whether or not it's accurate to describe this as the early church being embarrassed by the incident, it's interesting that the film portrays things as somewhere between Matthew's version and John's. Jesus still gets baptised, but it's not John who does it.

Having returned from his post-baptism temptation in the desert Jesus comes out and meets up with his old friend Lazarus. Like much of the early part of this film this is dramatic fiction. What's interesting, though is that Lazarus seems to be attempting to tempt Jesus as well. His words are not suggestions of inappropriate miracles, or self-gotten gains, but simply to turn his back on his ministry and return to normal life. It's intriguing because temptation is often far more like that than the kind Jesus undergoes in the desert. Lazarus is Jesus' friend and doesn't realise what he is doing. The temptation is subtle, but then it so often is. 

The climax of the first half of John's Gospel (and of the first half of many a Jesus film) is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Whilst this story is included, the climax of the first part of the film is another of the occasions when Jesus raises someone back to life - the daughter of Jairus. The switch fits neatly with the films desire to appeal to children, but it also fits its desire to be more inclusive to women. Not only is Tamar female, but also the woman who is healed in the interlocking episode. It's also the moment when Jairus, his wife and Tamar decide to follow Jesus, which I suppose raises the question for children of whether they will follow Jesus, something backed up in the film's closing scene.

The lighting in this scene (pictured above) is really striking. I don't know a great deal about classic art, but it feels a bit like Caravaggio, though that probably exposes how little I know about that period/movement. That said it might also have been inspired by 19th century painting such as those by Carl Bloch, Gabriel Max and the Russian artist Ilya Repin. Given that the 3D scenes were created by the Russian teams of animators the latter might makes a good deal of sense. In any case it's beautifully lit and captures a certain painterly quality.

The raising of Jairus's daughter is Jesus' greatest triumph, but he comes down with a bump. The scene that immediately follows depicts Jesus hearing about the death of his cousin John the Baptist. Aside from the personal grief Jesus experiences, it's a painful reminder of what is to come for Jesus and in a sense it marks the start of the second half of the film, foreshadowing that which is to come. The first part has been about miracles, strength and compassion all three of which find their expression in raising Tamar to life. The second part will focus on Jesus' death.

Given that this film was made to appeal to children, it obviously had to include Jesus saying "unless you become like a child you will not enter the kingdom of God". Here the film includes the full incident which begins with the disciples arguing about who is the greatest (Mark 9:33-37, though whereas Mark places the story in a house in Capernaum, the film locates it by a camp-fire on the road). Indeed, the argument amongst the disciples flares up whilst Jesus is picking up firewood. This accentuates one of the other key themes of the film, and particularly the second half: Jesus as a servant. It also echoes the incident from John's Gospel where Jesus washes the disciples' feet. In both cases the disciples are arguing over who is the greatest (John 13 c.f. with Luke 22) and in both cases Jesus responds in the opposite spirit by doing the work of a servant.

The servant theme finds its fullest expression in Jesus' death as the suffering servant of Isaiah 40-55. One key hint to this is when Jesus appears before Herod and the film shows the tetrarch pull Jesus' beard. The man of strength and compassion, is now in need of someone to step in and defend him as he defended Mary Magdalene earlier in the film.

Labels: Miracle Maker

The Celluloid Madonna: From Scripture to Screen

Catherine O'Brien

Paperback: 224 pages

Publisher: Columbia University Press (13 Dec 2011)

Language English

ISBN: 978-0231161654

It's been a while since there was a new film out on Bible Films so I was really pleased to hear that Catherine O'Brien's "Celluloid Madonna" has finally been published. (I heard about it several years ago, but had lost touch with how things had been progressing.

I'm incredibly chuffed as well by the fact that this blog is mentioned in the Acknowledgements. This doesn't happen often to me so I hope you won't mind too much if I, rather egocentrically, quote what was written. Page viii says:

Matt Page's Bible Films Blog at http://www.biblefilms.blogspot.com/ has been discovered as a superb the source of news and film criticism

I've not had a great deal of time/energy at the moment and so I've made rather poor progress so far. What I can say however is that it talks about a few films that I am yet to see - mainly those that are Mary Hagiopics from primarily Catholic countries as well as a good deal of information about Mary that I was not fully aware of. I'm really hoping to forge some time soon to finish the rest of it off soon and then hopefully I'll be able to review it.

Labels: Books, Nativity - Mary Joseph

I'm going to be writing a short entry for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception on Fratricide, so I thought I'd sketch down a few thoughts here first of all.

The obvious place to start is with Bible films that cover the story of Cain and Abel. There are a good number of these going all the way back to 1911's Cain et Abel through to a brief cameo is 2009's Year One (pictured). Aside from those two others really stand out. Firstly there's Huston's 1966 The Bible: In The Beginning which has a visceral primitive quality about it. The other is from 2003's The Real Old Testament, which has some great lines in it. "I like Nod. Nod is great" and (on the mark of Cain) "Y'know those kinds of things are just so complicated that..."

Cain and Abel is such a prominent story that it's tempting to just leave it there, but there are a few other stories of (potential) fratricide in the rest of Genesis. Firstly you have Jacob and Esau, which whilst the story itself ends on reconcilliation echoed down the ages and seems to have played a part in the subsequent conflicts between the Hebrews and the Edomites (c.f. the famous verse in Malachi 1:3). Sadly no Bible film that I can recall covers this conflict.

The second is also more about fratricidal intent which manages not to avoid in murder - Joseph at the hands of his jealous brothers. Again Joseph hasn't featured in a huge number of Bible films, although the Emmy award winning entry for "The Bible Collection" series, starring Ben Kingsley, stands out amongst television (and as the emphasis for the EBR is on reception rather than specifically film that should be fine). And of course there's the Lloyd-Webber thing. Incidentally both of these passages are evoked in consecutive chapters of Paul's letter to the Romans (8:28-9 and 9:13), although the first doesn't use a direct quotation.

Finally there is the story of Hamor and Jacob from Genesis. Whilst the Bible doesn't really make it clear how closely Jacob and Hamor are, the story as portrayed in the 1998 Malese film La Genèse emphasises the "brotherly" nature of the relationships between the heads of the different tribes and clans. Furthermore once Hamor's son Shechem marries Jacob's daughter Dinah then the two men become related, through partaking in Hebrew ritual as well as marriage. The subsequent murder of Shechem by Jacob's sons more than touches on fratricide.

But aside from Bible films there are other, more contemporary films which explore the issues. Perhaps the most well known film to draw on the resonances of the Cain and Abel story is East of Eden starring James Dean (1955). The two brothers (Cal and Aron) squabble over their father Adam's favouritism as well as a woman they are both attracted to. Whilst the film does not end with fratricide, many of the same emotions are thrust under the microscope, and the film deliberately nods in the direction of the Biblical narrative.

Another film that has been linked to the Cain and Abel story is Milos Forman's 1984 Amadeus which has been likened to the Cain and Abel story by Gregory Allen Robbins.

Lastly, there is the TV series Kane and Abel (1985). I've never seen it although I remember my parents being taken with it when it aired on TV. Whilst the Kane and Abel here aren't brothers, there's a sense of brotherhood rivalry between the two men which draws additional mythical power from the similarly named biblical story.

The future actually promises a couple of further possibilities. Firstly there's rumours of Will Smith starring and producing a vampire take on the ancient story, likely to be called The Legend of Cain. There's also Warrior a cross between the story of Cain and Abel and that of Rocky. Actually that was released in September last year (2011), but I missed it then and haven't had a chance to catch it yet. I'd be interested to know what anyone who caught it thought. I notice it's currently sat at 145 in the IMDB top 250.

Labels: Cain and Abel, Dinah, Genèse, Genesis

Sunday's lectionary gospel reading (in the Church of England at least) was the story of the Wedding at Cana and Jesus turning Water into Wine. In the CofE's lectionary it is one of the few passages from Jesus' ministry to appear every year, and so it's perhaps not surprising that it occurs in a good number of Jesus films.

What's interesting about the various portrayals is that, particularly in the later films, the filmmakers tend to take the opportunity to stress the otherness of Jesus' culture from our own. On occasion, however, this clashes with the film's overall portrayal of Jesus. It's somewhat jarring to see a blond-haired Jesus at a more typically middle-eastern wedding.

The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905)
As is typical of this film, it prevents the action in a very straightforward manner. Jesus and his mother sit prominently at the front of the action, though the film's static camera, which frames the whole scene as if the audience is watching the action in a theatre, means that it's very much Jesus that is centre stage. The stone jars filled with wine are tiny - certainly not capable of holding 20-30 gallons. In contrast to the narrative where only the servants see what he is doing, here Jesus gestures to those at the back to get them to stand and see the action as if he's performing in a magic show.

From the Manger to the Cross (1912)
It's 100 years since Robert Henderson-Bland's Jesus came to our screens. In contrast to several portrayals this is not Jesus' first miracle, and it's one of the film's weaker moments. As with the above the miracle is performed somewhat theatrically and in full view of the guests. The chief steward is still surprised, but not so much because of an apparent breach of protocol. One notable innovation in this scene is that at the moment Jesus performs the miracle a light from above shines on his face.

Intolerance (1916)
The Judean Story, as director D.W. Griffiths called it, is the shortest of the four and is pure propaganda. The film as a whole is essentially campaigning against the temperance movement, showing the damage intolerance and its perpetrators have caused down the centuries. But it's the Jesus story where this intolerance coincides most closely with Griffith's biggest concern. In one intertitle he describes those objecting as "meddlers then as now". In another he adds a footnote explaining that "Wine was deemed a fit offering to God; the drinking of it a part of the Jewish religion". Not dissimilarly to Olcott's portrayal as Jesus conducts the miracle a cross shadow falls across him, only whereas the 1912 film used it to suggest divine approval, here it foreshadows Jesus' demise at the hands of intolerant humans.

The Gospel Road (1973) [pictured]
It would be over fifty years until this episode from the gospels was portrayed in the cinema, and when it came it was at the hands of one well acquainted with the pleasures and problems of alcohol. Johnny Cash's music provided the soundtrack for Robert Elfstrom to direct himself as Jesus. The scene has the surreal dreamy quality typical of much of the film which here reflects Cash's description of this episode as a parable (as some commentators think).

The wedding itself is very sparsely attended, and it's here that there's the greatest clash between the ultra blond Jesus and the effusive middle-eastern dancing. There's also a man smoking a hookah (water pipe) off to the side. Mary seems to be absent in this portrayal, although the camera does linger on a couple of women's faces as it becomes apparent that the wine has run out. Cash pipes up with his song "He turned the water into wine". A handful of particularly nice shots later (of the water being poured out and then changing colour) and Jesus has saved the day.

Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
This is one of the best scenes in the film, particularly because of the emphasis on the story's cultural context. Whilst, as noted above, this is fairly common for this episode, Scorsese nails it far more effectively than most of the other directors, despite Dafoe's blond locks.

The film also showed Jesus dancing, something absent previously but that most of the subsequent films would include, as well as a moment of levity as the miracle is performed. Nathanael, who has invited his new friends to the wedding, is convinced that the stone jars only contain water. Jesus is casual and playfully asks what's in the jars, before gently insisting that it's wine rather than water, and then raising a glass to his stupefied new disciple. Again Mary is absent, though Magdalene attends. When her attendance is challenged early on, Jesus uses the opportunity to talk about his father's feat where everyone is invited.

Jesus (1999)
In many ways Last Temptation is one of the foremost inspirations for Young's Jesus, using some of it's edginess, such as showing Jesus dancing at the wedding, whilst sanding down Scorsese/Kazantzakis's more controversial edges. This scene borrows heavily from Scorsese's, but adds in Mary, portraying her as a somewhat pushy mother catapulting her slacker son into messiahship (the moment Mary the mother of Jesus births the Christ one might say). Jesus is keen to stress that he's not ready, but for Andrew and John, who are having doubts, its the moment that they become convinced he is "the one". Eventually fed up with his reluctance ("My hour has not yet come") she lectures him ("it is time, for Andrew and for John") before forcing his hand telling a nearby servant "Jesus will help you with the wine". She ends by bossing poor Andrew around as well :"Drink Andrew, the cup you desired is here...He is the one Andrew. Have no fear in following him". The use of "he is the one" seems somewhat comical after The Matrix, but it's hardly the film's fault that it happened to be released the same year as one of the most talked about films of the decade.

The Revolutionary (1999)
Also released at the same time as The Matrix was the hilariously bad The Revolutionary. It also has a Jesus who dances, but here in contrast to the exuberance of Sisto and Dafoe, Jesus dances like a creep trying to hit on all the girls. When it becomes clear that the wine has run out Mary (who looks about the same age as Jesus) begs "please they'll be disgraced", whilst the hostess laments "How could this happen? I can't believe it". All of which at least provides a bit of cultural commentary about the severity of such a shortage. The scene is overshadowed however by the ridiculously snobby steward "you can't be serious" and his 'dramatic' change of heart - "This is the best wine I have ever tasted". This exaggeration of the text reflects the common interpretation that this 'sign' is about the wine of Christianity replacing the water of Judaism.

Mary, Mother of Jesus (1999)
Also released in 1999 was Mary, Mother of Jesus. The film makes a few interesting references in this scene. Firstly that the wedding in question is that of Jesus' cousin Joses, reflecting the Catholic interpretation that the brothers of Jesus named were actually his cousins (the precise meaning of the Greek word here is disputed). Secondly Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Jesus discuss Peter's view that women shouldn't "be allowed to follow the master". Mary asks Magdala what Jesus said: "that women are fit to guide becuase they raise our sons".

It's difficult to know what to make of this. Directing Peter's comments towards Mary Magdalene evokes the Gospel of Mary, although I'm not sure this is deliberate. But what is particularly interesting is how this relates to the issue of women priests. Peter could be read as a stand-in for the pope and, by extension, the Roman Catholic church. By getting Jesus to disagree the (Catholic) filmmakers might be offering a critique of the church's official church. But on closer inspection, Peter's words go far beyond Catholic teaching, denying the right for women even to be followers. Jesus' reply, in contrast, permits women to guide, but falls far short of condoning priesthood.

Gospel of John (2003)
After all that Saville's Gospel of John is rather unremarkable. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the use of the Good News Version of the Bible, providing a somewhat softer response from Jesus after Mary's initial comment.

Labels: Gospel Comparisons, Intolerance

It's perhaps fortunate that in a year in which I've struggled to blog regularly there's not been a great deal happening. 2010 was a quiet year; 2011 was quieter still.

From the point of view of this blog, major change was the start of the Facebook page. Apologies if I've been banging one but this, but I'd urge anyone disappointed by the lack of traffic on this blog to keep an eye on things over there, even if you "don't do Facebook". You don't have to start a Facebook account, or give them any information to read it, and all the news about new Bible films, or reviews by others on older ones is there.

I'd also encourage others to keep posting and commenting. I'm particularly grateful to Peter Chattaway who frequently adds new bits and pieces, and for all the others that have contributed. Ultimatey, I guess, I started this blog as a way to resource those looking into Bible Films, and as digital communication has moved on better ways have emerged to do that. Facebook provides a less top-down approach than this blog which means that there can be more interaction between users, and a wider pool of people contributing and so on. And if you just want to read that's fine - the same stuff is over there, but in general you get it much quicker. The blog will stay for more in-depth writing such a recent posts.

Despite the rumours which continue to fly about Bible films in the works (including the exciting news this year about Scott Derrickson filming Goliath) almost no new dramatic portrayals of the biblical narratives were released this year. The closest we came was the première of the midrashic Young Avraham at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. There was also the short film The Gathering and DVD releases of a new filmed version of Schöenberg's "Moses und Aron" and Where is my Father>, a new film about Job.

Thankfully, there were at least a few documentaries to keep up the interest. The BBC gave us a three-parter The Bible's Buried Secrets presented by Exeter University's Francesca Stavrakopoulou. The first part looked at the evidence (or lack thereof) regarding David and Solomon, part 2 raised the question as to whether God had a wife, before the final part looked at the origins of the Garden of Eden myth and proposed that the original story used Eden to talk about Jerusalem. The series was interesting, although not always convincing, and managed to avoid some of the modern TV documentary clichés, but was beset by overly dramatic rhetoric about "rocking" and "shaking" the very core of monotheism.

For those who felt the series was a little too one-sided in favour of atheists and liberals, the BBC, as always, redressed the balance at Easter offering a two-part documentary The Story of Jesus. Aside from such prominence being given to such a orthodox / traditional / conservative retelling of the Easter story, the programme was also notable for breaking from the standard format of having one expert narrating and interviewing others by using nine different scholars do the work on screen, occasionally meeting to hand on to the next. It also featured some good footage from Big Book Media.

The only other significant occurrence was about as tangential as things can get. BBC4 broadcast a rather surreal fictionalisation of the events leading up to the release of Monty Python's Life of Brian in general and the infamous TV debate in particular. Holy Flying Circus starred Charles Edwards as Michael Palin and Darren Boyd as John Cleese as they went head to head with Malcolm Muggeridge (played by Michael Cochrane) and Mervyn Stockwood, the then Bishop of Southwark (Roy Marsden). It contained a few good laughs, but was overall rather hit and miss and its greatest contribution was perhaps giving the BBC a legitimate opportunity to air the full version of the original programme Friday Night, Saturday Morning.

And that was more or less it! For the blog and me it was a year of great contrasts. The start of the year was busy with several different presentations and projects all happening within 10 days of one another at the start of the year and struggling to be able to even put metaphorical pen to non-literal paper. Whilst 2012 already has the publication of a new Bible films book to it's name (Catherine O'Brien's "Celluloid Madonna"), the popular Easter release window is looking rather unpopulated at the moment and there's precious little else on the horizon at the moment. Time will tell.

Labels: Reviews of the Years

In the absence of a significant Jesus film this year, the BBC version's of The Nativity remains the most recent portrayal of the events surrounding Jesus' birth. The first three half hour episodes I watched with the kids, but knowing the content was a little harsher in the final episode I watched that one alone.

It's hard to really explain to a 5 year old and a three year old why "funny Joseph" as they had been calling him suddenly got scarily angry, but it speaks volumes of Andrew Buchan's performance that as an adult I could appreciate that his reaction wasn't as extreme as might be expected in the circumstances.

The downsides were perhaps a little more obvious this time around. Whilst I still think this is one of the, if not the, best versions of the Nativity Story on film some of the things that make it good also rein it back from becoming great. Paramount in my thoughts here is the soap-operainess of the whole thing. On the plus side the characters are well rounded, and simply by making it a kind of soap opera a lot of the religious veneer is stripped away. It's unclear how special Mary and Joseph know they are. Weird things are happening to them, yet they are not being transported to another plain of reality - they remain the same people. But then at times it does just feel a little too like Eastenders. In a way that's no bad thing - Eastenders is a far better soap than most in the world as well as in this country - but there's nevertheless a tension between the side of me that likes to see religious fluff blown away, and the side that wants there to be some sense of gravity. Perhaps in the end it's just one or two moments that just take me out of things and make me feel I'm watching a soap opera, and, at the end of the day, I don't watch soap operas.

It also feels a little over long. I'd be interested to see the film cut down to one ninety minute feature. I think it would benefit from being a little leaner. Part of the problem here is that gradually drawing the three threads alive requires each to be kept alive, but that the side stories never land as well as that of Mary and Joseph. That said some of the birthing footage would be amongst the first to go were I trying to chop half an hour out of the programme.

What I do like about the final episode is the way Joseph is shown as returning to his ancestral home rather than, as is usually the case, just a random town. He still has family there, and it's there rejection of Mary, and Joseph's dislike at the way they treat her that sees the two of them stuck in a stable. Lastly the final few shots of this catch something of the otherness of this moment. Some films do it with soaring scores attempting to direct your emotions, other with lighting or dialogue. Here however, it's with quietness and humility. Suddenly it makes no sense that these Magi and these shepherds even, are on their knees worshipping a little baby. It's odd and yet there they remain rooted to the spot and aware of their own smallness in the presence of one smaller even than themselves.

Labels: BBC's The Nativity

I know Christmas ended yesterday in the west, but as there is at least one regular reader of this blog that celebrated Christmas yesterday, I thought I might make at least one more entry in this series before moving on. In fact, there might be at least one more give the last news from Mark Goodacre). Besides I got a new Blu-Ray / up-scaling DVD player yesterday and this is is usually the first Bible film I head for in these circumstances.

For a three hour film, the Nativity sequence is surprisingly short at just three and a half minutes, although, as with other entries in my series, that's excluding the slaughter of the innocents. In this film that's quite a significant point. The Nativity sequence is just a part of a much bigger prologue, which last for around 18 minutes in total. The thrust of this prologue is political and historical rather than theological. The film is big on the political context of the Romans invading and oppressing the Jews; the violent attempts to overthrow them by some; and Jesus' coming as the Prince of Peace.

The Nativity scenes themselves are a bit mixed. There are a couple of astounding long shots, but the closer scenes look too obviously fake. This is made worse by the voices not being in-sync with the actor's mouths.

Orson Welles narrates over a series of shots of the holy couple starting as specks in the distance and then in a wide shot and then in a mid shot. The next scene is Bethlehem which the voice notes has been "much corrupted by Rome" (again inserting the political) and Joseph struggling to find somewhere for Mary to give birth. Eventually they find the cleanest stable, not only in Bethlehem, but one suspects, the whole world.

One thing that is striking is that the birth happens entirely "off camera". There's not even an establishing shot accompanied by relevant sounds or a fraught looking Joseph. The first we see of it is a remarkably perky looking Mary laying down the new born king.

There's a beautiful shot of the magi following the star, one of those that relies on its movement for it's composition - I couldn't find a screen grab that captured its essence - shots like this are truly cinematic. Then it's back to the studio as the magi dismount and continue on foot to the rather twee "ah-ah-ahs" of the background chorus. Unlike the magi, the shepherds are not mentioned, but have already arrived and there's a couple of classic Nativity scenes before the scene ends in a classic pose. Interestingly this nicely composed shot bears very little relation to the reverse shot that is shown directly before it.Like other artistic interpretations of Matthew's gospel there is a certain level of parallelism between Jesus the new born king and Herod the Great. Here however things are ramped up. The scene after the stable scene is of Herod and his son who will also go on to be a king (or at least a tetrarch) in discussion with Lucius about the "King of Judea". Interestingly Herod senior almost seems to defer to his son as to the best course of action. Herod junior plays it with a straight bat, preferring to bide his time one the one hand whilst simultaneously giving tacit approval to his father's horrendous solution. Lucius objects but obeys, yet it's here that his long path to salvation begins - it seems as if this is the first time Rome's orders have ever clashed with his own morals.

Labels: King of Kings