The Nativity Story Revisited

It's had been 3 years since I last saw The Nativity Story, indeed, after the hours spent discussing the build up to the film I had only seen it once in its entirety. So this year I decided I really should watch it again in the run up to Christmas.

After such a long gap I was pleased to see that the film was still largely as I had remembered it. The opening scenes were still striking in their portrayal of 1st century peasant life, the latter section moved far more towards Christmas card piety. The wise men were still irritating and the weak dialogue was still exacerbated by the slightly suspect use of middle-eastern accents. This time around though I even noticed that even in the school scene the children use this exaggerated accents ("steeel small voice").

There were a few other things I noticed this time that didn't really ring true however. Firstly, the arrival of the tax collectors in one of the early scenes seemed a bit showy. Not only were there a fairly large number of soldiers to carry out what is essentially an administrative duty (albeit one that might cause some trouble, but they all came complete with several standards and so forth. I suppose this may all be in keeping with how these things were generally done, but it didn't really ring true for me.

But what really stood out this time was once these tax collecting soldiers had actually begun to collect money. The people cue up to offer their excuses and we see the soldiers take a man's daughter as payment. It's a fairly disturbing scene for a PG-rated film. It creates tension, and as the girl is the same age as our heroine we begin to fear for Mary. Thankfully though her father is also unable to pay his full amount, he does at least have a donkey who the soldiers can take instead.

On seeing this Joseph, who we have already witnessed eyeing Mary up steps in and secretly pays off the soldiers to win back the family's goat. Its function is to establish Joseph as a good man. The thing is that I can't help wondering why Joseph redeems the donkey and not the daughter. It could be argued that he wants to impress Mary, but in all other matters he is happy to do his bidding through her parents. Or that he were trying to impress her father, except that he swears Mary to silence. Surely the actions of a good man with some means would be to save the other girl? This would also impress Mary (who is probably her friend and most certainly knows her), and if he wanted to help Mary's family he can always bring his offer of marriage and dowry forward a little.

The other two things that stood out for me this time around were more positive. The first concerns the census. Herod, aware of Micah's prophecy, states that he plans to use this to try and smoke out any potential messiah. What struck me is that we only know about the census because Herod tells us about it. There's no arrival of soldiers, or a messenger of any sort, so whilst it's natural to assume that this thing has the backing of the empire, it is an assumption, and this time around there was something about the way that Ciarin Hinds delivered the line that made me suspect that it might have been his fabrication.

If true this would be an interesting take on this problematic census. The census is recorded only in Luke, but according to non-biblical sources it did not occur until 6AD - at least 10 years after the most likely date for Jesus' birth. Is the film suggesting that Herod invented the census hence why Luke mentions it but the external evidence fails to corroborate it?

Finally, I also noticed the scene where Mary washes Joseph's bleeding feet. This obviously anticipates Mary's son washing his disciples' feet as an adult. It's a nice detail, particularly as it is one of the few things that Mary actually chooses to do. For most of the film she is acted upon - passive rather than active.

The Bible: A History7 Part Channel 4 Series Featuring Gerry Adams

Didn't have time to tag this onto Saturday's post about religious telly over the Christmas period, but Mark Goodacre mentioned this a couple of weeks ago so I've been meaning to post it ever since.

Channel 4 is to screen a seven part series called The Bible: A History. Like their earlier series Christianity: A History, each episode will feature a public figure from a variety of backgrounds who will examine the history of a certain part of the Bible "from their own, very personal, perspective".

As I mentioned in the title, the name grabbing all the headlines is Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. Having been brought up in an era when his voice was not even permitted to broadcast, it seems extraordinary that he will now be fronting his own show looking at Jesus' message of forgiveness.

Other names include Anne Widdecombe (who also featured in Christianity: A History), former BBC correspondent Rageh Omaar (Miracles of Jesus), Howard Jacobson (pictured above), Bettany Hughes and Robert Beckford. Mark Goodacre has been a series consultant and will appear in Beckford's episode on Revelation.

Channel 4's website for the programme includes an interview with Anne Widdecombe about the programme. There's also an article about the programme on the BBC website. There's nothing yet on the production company's website, Pioneer Productions.

Christmas UK TV Schedule 2009

As longer term readers will know I like to give an overview of the festive season's religious programming (see Easter '09, '08 and '07 and Christmas '08, '07 and '06).

This year is a bit of an odd one. There are very few Bible/Christian related documentaries, perhaps because BBC4 has just finished it's fascinating 6-part look at The History of Christianity. But for Bible film fans such as ourselves there's plenty.

It's a case of get in early though, so I'm glad I checked my TV guide tonight and didn't leave it until tomorrow, with a DeMille documentary tomorrow and various films showing in the next few days. Anyway here's what I have gleaned:

Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic
Channel 4, Sunday 20th December, 12:35am
Almost as long as one of his films, this documentary about everyone's favourite Bible film diector, Cecil B.DeMille kicks off in the early hours of Monday morning (though in TV guides it qualifies as Sunday so I've followed suit), and runs for over two and a half hours. I believe that originally theis documentary came in two parts: both are showing here.

The Silver Chalice
TCM, Various times as follows:
Sunday 20th December, 5:05pm
Monday 21st December, 8.55am
Wednesday 30th December, 6:20pm
Thursday 31st December, 10:20am

Samson and Delilah
Sky Classics, Various times as follows:
Sunday 20th December, 10:35am
Friday 25th December, 4:00pm
Sunday 27th December, 6:00am
Sunday 27th December, 2:10pm

The Ten Commandments (1956)
Channel 4, Monday 21st December 12:05pm
The film that needs no introduction, with DeMille and Heston both at the top of their games.

Christmas Tales
ITV1, Wednesday 23rd December 11:35pm
Last of a four party series looking at different parts of Christmas
No idea what this is, but the other three looked at more secular ideas anout Christmas.

The Nativity Story
Channel 4, Thursday 24th December 11:45am
The film's premiere on terrestrial television in the UK. Hardwicke's direction looks great but sounds poor in places, in oart due to an underworked script by Mike Rich. Gives a great contextto the nativity, but rarely feels convincing. But that's all forgivieable when everyone is feeling Christmassy.

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
BBC1, Monday 24th December 2:15pm
Christianity's best known allegory. The Jesus allegory is weakened, but certainly very much present, and this is generally fairly well made, if not, sadly, a masterpiece, it is at least better than the BBC1.

Dark City
TCM, Monday 24th December 11:50pm
Another Christ-figure film. Alex Proyas' dark futuristic thriller.

Ben-Hur (1959)
Sky Classics, Various times as follows:
Thursday 24th December, 11:30am
Thursday 24th December, 9:00pm
Thursday 31st December, 10:15am
Thursday 31st December, 8pm

The Robe
Sky Classics, Various times as follows:
Monday 28th December, 2:35pm

The Tektōn in Jesus Films

I've been catching up on some of Mark Goodacre's podcasts and in one of the most recent ones he asks "Was Jesus Really a Carpenter". The answer is that whilst there's some very old traditions that he was the word usually translated "carpenter" Tektōn is more the word for a general craftsman. Mark mentions how different Jesus films portray this part of his life, even ending the episode with a clip from Jesus Christ Superstar's opening number "Heaven on Their Minds"

Like his father carving wood he'd have made good.
Tables, chairs, and oaken chests would have suited Jesus best.

This got me thinking about the more notable examples of how this theme is dealt with in Jesus Films. Obviously I can't cover every single treatment so I will limit myself to the examples that have been, for me at least, most memorable.

Whilst From the Manger to the Cross doesn't show the adult Jesus working as a carpenter, we do see him assisting Joseph as a boy. There are various short scenes here, but the most notable shot depicts him carrying a plank of wood in the sunshine. The plank and his body cast a cross shaped shadow upon the ground. Mark actually mentions that one of the reasons that the tradition of Jesus as a carpenter has proved so enduring is, in part, because he dies hanging from a piece of wood.

By the time The King of Kings starts Jesus' ministry is already in full flow, but there is a scene where a child brings Jesus a wooden doll to be healed. Jesus doesn't heal it miraculously, but instead mends it in more ordinary ways. It's a nice joke, which in DeMille's day probably emphasised Jesus' humanity.

The "remake" also touches on Jesus' roots as a carpenter. I think there are a number of passing references, but the one that sticks out comes during his final visit to Nazareth. It's time for Jesus to go and he, somewhat absent-mindedly, points to one of his unfinished projects and says "The chair will have to wait until I return". Mary, wise to what is about to unfold fires back "That chair will never be mended".

Eight years later Dennis Potter's Son of Man featured Jesus eulogising over the high quality piece of timber that has been used to crucify another man. A heavy sense of ironic foreboding hangs over this scene for we know that Jesus will be on a cross very similar to this before the play has run its course.

All the film discussed thus far take the position that whilst Jesus worked as a carpenter until he was "about 30", once he began his ministry he left that life behind him. But in 1975 Rossellini's Il Messia took a decidedly different approach. Here Jesus' carpentry carries on alongside his preaching. Indeed often the two are shown happening at the same time. I have to say that this down to earth approach is one of my favourite treatments of the subject.

However, perhaps the film that shows Jesus the most at 'work' is Last Temptation of Christ. Here Jesus' carpentry is not merely a detail in the background, but part of the film's overarching theme. Jesus is using his skills to make crosses for the Romans in an a futile attempt to push God away. It earns him the hatred of his fellow countrymen, but not of God. There's an interesting moment in this early scene where Jesus stretches himself out on the cross to see if it's the correct size. The shot is not logical (the time for doing this was before it was cut), but symbolic - whereas here Jesus is trying to see if the cross measures up to him, the rest of the film explores whether he will measure up to the cross.

Like Last Temptation, Jesus (1999) also starts with Jesus the carpenter. Only here, Joseph is still alive, and the two of them are travelling round the countryside trying to get work. The two do some work for Mary, Martha and Lazarus, although it's clear that these days it is Jesus doing most of the work. I also seem to recall a later scene where these three try, unsuccessfully, to convince Jesus to stick with his profession.

One of the films MArk specifically mention is The Miracle Maker which also opens showing Jesus at work but about to finish. Here however Jesus is no longer specifically a carpenter, but a general labourer. He's working at the nearby town of Sepphoris, and whilst his ministry is yet to start he gains two new followers - Mary Magdalene whom he protects from being beaten, and Jairus's daughter Tamar, who witness this.

Lastly there is, of course, The Passion of the Christ with a scene where Jesus invents the modern day table. It's one of the film's low points. Not only is it anachronistic, but the whimsical tone seems completely out of step with the rest of the film. And, as Peter Chattaway points out in his essay on the film in "Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson's Film and Its Critics" [S. Brent Plate (ed.)], this scene also seems to introduce romantic touches to the relationship between Jesus and Mary.

Oops

Just realised this week that I seem to have been classing The Miracle Maker as a 1999 film rather than one from 2000. I have no idea that is, or how many times I have done it on various articles. All I know is that I used to call it a 200 film, and then I went wrong.

It also means I need to re-evaluate my various film related lists of the decade, although I'm not sure onto which it would force it's way.

Finding Christmas Clips Redux

I talked last week about my attempts to find a decent film clip of the wise men for one of our Christmas services so I thought I would report back.

In the end I went for a clip from Joseph of Nazareth. The wise men segment from this film is relatively concise (particularly when compared to The Nativity Story, although in the end I edited the 4-5 minute segment into one about 2 minutes 15 seconds.

It was an unexpected choice in some ways. The film is not great, and there are some bizarre moments around the birth of Jesus - not least Joseph missing the birth because he is out collecting firewood. But it does have it's merits. I particualrly liked the shot from which the above still is taken which starts off looking back at the wisemen from the front before the camera gently rises up in the air and to the side so it can watch the magi pass below. It somehow catches the strangeness and the majesty of these men from the east arriving in the city. It's also a sort of God shot which is interesting. That said, here, as with many of the Bible Collection's films, the acting / dubbing is poor in places, and it lets this clip down a little bit, but all in all, I think I got away with it.

Burial Cloth Found from Jesus' Era

Just Caught this on the BBC website:

A team of archaeologists and scientists says it has, for the first time, found pieces of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus in a tomb in Jerusalem.

The researchers, from Hebrew University and institutions in Canada and the US, said the shroud was very different from the controversial Turin Shroud.

It is of course being reported as disproving the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, though that seems like a bit of a leap. I have various questions about the srouds authenticity, but this find disproves very little. After all, it'ssurely possible that more than one type of burial cloth was in use in first century Judea.

Incidentally other news outlets are tackling this story from a different angle. For exmaple, The Jeruslem Post is focussing on the fact that this is the earliest discovered case of leprosy.

A Serious Man

I've been very slow off the mark with the Coen brothers' latest film A Serious Man, partly because I missed the pre-release discussion on the film's content, partly because it took an age to arrive in the UK, and then partly because it's taken it even longer to get to Loughborough. However I thought I'd make a few comments on what the film has to say particularly about how it relates to specific parts o the Bible.

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A Serious Man is the Coen's take on the Book of Job. Like Job the lead here – Larry Gopnik is running into calamity after calamity, and like the book, our hero is frustrated by the hopelessly unhelpful advice of three supposed sages. In contrast to Eliphaz, Zophar and Bilhdad – who are largely indistinguishable from oneanother – here the three rabbis are, on one level at least, very different. The first is very young, crammed into a tiny office and thinks the car park is profound. (Take that American Beauty).

The second rabbi is more senior but equally vacuous. He lacks the youngers useful enthusiasm and has little to compensate save a bizarre story of a dentist who found one of his patients had Hebrew scribed into his teeth. Finally there is the elusive Rabbi Marshak. He has the biggest office of all and is protected by an officious secretary just so he can sit an think. Yet when we finally meet him – and it's not Lary but his son who gets the opportunity – he has little else to add to his colleagues trite aphorisms.

But I've skipped ahead of myself a little. The film opens in what is appears to be some part of Eastern Europe. Certainly it feels like a deleted scene from Fiddler on the Roof only with subtitles (which are apparently easier to read if half of them are not chopped off the screen by a lazy and/or incompetent projectionist). This prologue concerns a man who, like Gopnik, has been having troubles of his own. When a man helps him put the wheel back on his cart he invites him back to his house for soup. But when his wife hears the name of their guest she is horrified. The man has been dead several years. This must be a dybbuk (an evil spirit). Determined to prove her husband wrong she stabs their guest in the chest. He takes it very well, and only bleeds a little, but now the couple know that either way they are cursed. Either they allowed a dybbuk into their home, or they have just murdered an innocent man.

Given that this is the Coen's take on the Book of Job, it's fair to assume that this story is as critical to the rest of the film as Job's prologue is to it. Whether this is simply a parable illustrated or an account of Larry's ancestor's never becomes clear. The key, for me, is the way that this story relates to the film's core. Larry suffers and cries out to God, but hears nothing. By contrast, the man in the prologue gets help almost before he asks for it, but his unlikely helper takes his identity with him to his grave. The Coen's picture God saying you ask for my help and expect my intervention, but then when I did help you, you stabbed me in the heart. It's no doubt an mistake to interpret this thoroughly Jewish film in terms of Christian theology, but I find myself powerless to resist - the man who unexpectedly steps in to help is killed by those he came to save.

There is another reading of this opening that has occurred to me as well, that this man is indeed a dybbuk. He then becomes the Satan figure who is roaming the earth at the start of Job. The dybbuk is not angry when he is stabbed by the wife. On the contrary he praises her for her cunning. Satan also seems to have been impacted by humanity's shrewd decision making. So this opening scene could represent the incidents before the book's prologue. After all the Coen's have been so upfront about the fact that this film is based on Job that it would be fair enough to assume that their audience is familiar with the cosmic bet.

Betting rears it's head later in the film in the most unlikely of people, Larry's brother Arthur. Arthur is convinced he has figured out a system of probabilities for predicting the future, and whilst it seems to work at cards it doesn't fare so well in the field of predicting approaching policemen.

I'm not sure whether ultimately Arthur is meant to represent Job's fourth advisor, Elihu, the/another dybbuk, or God himself. In fact to push the allegorical nature of this story too far would be a mistake. My hunch is that he is the Elihu figure. He's less qualified than the three rabbis but his words are occasionally more on the mark. The directors (god-like figures) don't seem to condemn him as harshly as the rabbis, and there is certainly some truth in the scene when he tells Larry about all the good things he has.

Like her literary equivalent, Larry's wife is part of the problem not part of the solution. Perhaps anticipating the sinking nature of the good ship Larry she gets out at the sart of the film. She doesn't quite tell him to ("curse God and) die", but is equally if not more unhelpful than Mrs. Job.

Another thing that intrigues me about the film is it's time period. I've been surprised that nothing I've read about this film comments on the fact that the film is set in APril/May 1967 - just a few short weeks before the six days war in Israel. For a film that has been praised for it's refusal to dumb-down its jewishness, the absence of any direct mention of the impending war cannot just be an oversight. Not when maps of the Holy Land adorn various walls. Yet having made that observation I find it hard to know what to make of it. Is the territory gained in the war a sign of the restoration and blessing we find at the end of Job? That seems unlikely. Is the suffering of Larry being linked to the suffering of Israel or Palestine. Is the absence of God in the film suggesting his absence from that conflict? I honestly don't have a clue, but I'm sure it's of significance.

[Spoilers]
Ultimately the film ends with an impending storm which recalls rather vividly the opening words of the final section of Job (38:1) where God answers Job "out of a storm". Yet whereas this is the point where things begin to turn around for Job - he's humbled, yes, but also vindicated and the beginning of his rewards are just around the corner - it's also the point where things are about to really start going wrong for Larry. His son looks likely to die in the tornado, he himself is about to receive a serious diagnosis, and perhaps fail to get tenure. Is this because he has finally decide that God will not come through for him, and he may as well take the money and solve two problems in one transgression?

And what about the unlikily named Korean student Clive (C[see] and live?). He is also the very opposite of Larry. Larry understands the maths but, by his own admission, doesn't understand the picture of Schrodinger’s Cat. He can't handle the mystery. Clive on the other hand understands the less tangible things in life. He gets Schrodinger’s Cat it's just the maths he can't do.

One of my favourite comments about the book of Job was a joke made by a friend of mine that it's ending seems "a bit Hollywood". It's notable, then, that in what is probably the fullest exploration of Job yet to emerge in American cinema the 'Hollywood ending' is nowhere on the horizon.

On Finding Christmas Clips

It's that time of year again when people ask me about finding nativity clips for Christmas meetings and services etc. It's actually quite difficult to find something that fits people's requirements, particularly if you are part of a young images conscious church like mine, because there simply isn't that much to choose from.

As a general rule, the earlier Jesus films used to include the nativity - although DeMille's The King of Kings is a notable exception, and this seems to run up as far as Monty Python's Life of Brian in 1979. Most of these films, however, would feel a little dated to most congregations. The one possible exception here is Jesus of Nazareth from 1977, but in fact the nativity scene for this production is almosy an hour and a half.

This leads me on to another grouping of potential nativity videos - those films that look solely at this story. In this category we, of course, have The Nativity Story. This is modern and reasonable enough to show - indeed when it was released we did a special screening with our church - but it too is an hour and a half - too long for a clip in a service. The same is also true of Godard's Hail Mary, though I suspect that the nudity in this film would put it beyond reach for most churches also. One useful option for summarising longer films is to show one of the trailers, although this works better when the story / film isn't so well known to begin with.

Modern films about Jesus have tended to avoid the events of the first Christmas. On the one hand as audiences get more secular there's a greater interest in the teaching and example of Jesus, but not so much in the incarnation, with it's sceptic unfriendly virgin birth. Interestingly on the other hand there is also less interest in the incarnation - the salvific impact of which tends to be underplayed in protestantism - in favour of a greater emphasis on Jesus' atoning sacrifice. Two notable exceptions here are the Miracle Maker and Jesus (1999). Both these films tell the story via a flashback which gets around the narrative awkwardness of starting a story with Jesus as a baby and then having to jump to his life as an adult. In theory these could work - and The Miracle Maker is leading the field for a clip for our Christingle service on Sunday - but because they are flashbacks they can only give a very limited angle of things, or at least they choose to.

Speaking of The Miracle Maker, a third area to look at it children's cartoons. There are a number of options here, but for British audiences there is a further problem - American accents. It may seem churlish to cite this, but it is a barrier for many congregations. I'm reassured by the fact that I know many North Americans find it equally unhelpful when Jesus iflms employ very British accents. But this and lower production values do for productions such as Charlton Heston's Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible. I've yet to make it all the way through The New Testament Stories: A King is Born, but my hopes aren't high.

A fourth area is what Barnes Tatum might call the alternative trajectory - those films which take a somewhat alternative take on the story. This could include films who look primarily at the life of one of Jesus' parents such as Mary the Mother of Jesus, or Joseph of Nazareth, or even a camel as in The Fourth King. But it also includes modernisations such as Jezile (Son of Man) and The King. Mary is too long, Joseph might be more suitable. I might have a closer look at that one today. Jezile would be a little tooabas a clip, though it is a very powerful retelling of the nativity, particuarly the slaughter of the innocents. The King, though, will suit some settings, and as it's three ten minute films which runs into one, it works well for a congregational setting. The whoel point of The Fourth King is that he never (knowingly) gets to Jesus, but serves him anyway, but this obviously discounts this from most church contexts. And whilst Liverpool Nativity works well enough as live TV, I'm not sure how well it works in other contexts.

All of which leaves us with YouTube. There are a couple of interesting takes, but there is so much poor quality material out there that wading through it all would take a lifetime. This five minute telling is well thought of, but I must admit I've never made it all the way through. I do like this 30 second take though which won a contest run last year by the Churches Advertising Network.

So all in all, there's not much to chose from, but a few possibilites. I hope this helps anyone trying to do a similar thing.

On a related note, last year I wrote a piece looking at 6 nativity films for The Reader magazine which is now available to view online (page 17). I looked at Hail Mary, The King, Jesus of Nazareth, Joseph of Nazareth, The Nativity Story and The Fourth King

Repphun, Goodacre, Rosson on The Passion of the Christ

Eric Repphun of The Dunedin School, a blog I've not read before, has posted his list of the Top 11 Religiously Themed Films of the Decade. I've been toying with the idea of doing a similar list myself, particularly as this morning I sent one of my editors my Top 10 films of the decade article. There are some good choices on there including a few I've not yet seen, but it's the 11th that has caused a bit of comment elsewhere. Repphun includes The Passion of the Christ as "the worst", listing many of the usual objections.

Quick off the mark as always, Mark Goodacre has posted a response, noting a few errors along the way. The one that left me somewhat gobsmacked was his assertion that the "primary source material for the idea that Jesus was crucified with nails going through the wrists is the Turin Shroud". I'd thought it was tied in with the research related to the find of a crucified man's ankle bone, but apparently not.

One of Repphun's objections that Mark counters is the general charge of historical inaccuracy. Mark's contends that a claim for historical accuracy "was not part of the publicity for The Passion of the Christ". Here I'd disagree. To quote what I wrote in Mark's comments:

Gibson did claim at least twice that he was trying to be historically accurate. Firstly in an interview with Raymond Arroyo in the Wall Street Journal on March 7th 2003 ("I'm trying to make it as authentic as I possibly can, right down to the clothing, right down to the eating customs of the Jews of the old law") and then later with Andrew Gumbel for The Independent on 16th August 2003 ("(the film) will show the passion of Jesus Christ just the way it happened... like travelling back in time and watching the events unfold exactly as they occurred")

Unfortunately neither of these articles appears to still be online, I don't have either of them to hand either, but recorded them and their source in an article I wrote previewing the film back in 2004.

Mark's response draws a line "between interviews before the film and the film's own publicity". I can see his point, but I personally I don't think such a line exists, particularly in this case where the director is trying to build grassroots support for his film. Indeed I seem to recall that Peter Chattaway went as far as to say that even Gibson's claim "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film...I was just directing traffic" was a pitch (though I can't find Peter's quotation so I may be wrong).

It's interesting though that Mark has found his involvement with the BBC's Passion has brought The Passion of the Christ down in his estimation, particularly with regard to the anti-Semitism issue.

Anyway Loren Rosson also discusses this and includes a link to his own thoughts on the film.

The Beginning of the End

Peter Mackie has sent me a copy of this delightful short film about the Christmas story that he made with his two daughters Rachel and Joanna. Peter was keen to stress that it's not a professional film and so in that spirit I'd like to make a few brief observations.

The Beginning of the End is Luke's version of the Christmas story told in claymation. The obvious point of comparison here is The Miracle Maker especially as this film is very accessible for children. But whereas the Christmas scenes from The Miracle Maker feature both the shepherds and the wise men, here only the shepherds appear.

The other difference from The Miracle Maker is that The Beginning of the End is wordless apart from the (original) songs which narrates the story as it unfolds on the screen. The song is a little uneven but has a strong chorus which brings the film nicely to an uplifting and memorable climax.

The animation is clearly claymation proper (as in the modelling done with modelling clay rather than puppets), and whilst Nick Park and co. make it look effortless, it's surely one of the trickiest of all media to work in. Given that The Beginning of the End was made by a 13 year old, and 11 year old and their dad it's an impressive achievement.

As you might expect, some parts work better than others, but the interaction between Mary and Joseph conveys a real tenderness, which must have been difficult to pull off. It also give us angels that not only sing of their good news, but who dance as well. This is something of a new angle, largely unexplored in film so far. It gives us heaven's viewpoint on the events on earth - this isn't just heavenly messengers fulfilling their duty, but real joy in what is unfolding before them.

The film is available to buy on DVD, with proceeds going to the Barnabas Fund. To get a copy contact Peter Mackie through his website.

Reel History: A Man for All Seasons

I'm a big fan of The Guardian's Alex von Tunzelmann's Reel History film reviews (I've previously mentioned her reviews for Life of Brian and the 1956 The Ten Commandments). So I was pleased to see that von Tunzelmann recently reviewed Fred Zinnemann's 1966 film A Man For All Seasons about the life of Thomas More. Ok so it's not a Bible film, but it is a historical film about a religious character, and as I wrote a little about it in my film chapter in Cut to the Chase 0.5 I thought I'd mention it. And, of course, it could also be classed as a hagiopic, and whilst it doesn't fit with Pamela Grace's classification, the exception only makes it more interesting. Hagiopics (according to Grace) are not only films about the life of a saint, but the story about their divine encounters, suffering and experience of God coming good. In A Man for All Seasons however More suffers plenty, but there is no divine encounter and ultimately God does not intervene.

Anyway, it's an interesting read. Anyone wanting a second opinion could try either Marilyn Ferdinand's review (Ferdy on Films) or Steven D. Greydanus's (Decent Films).

Biblical Studies Carnival 48

Photo by Tim Parkinson, used under a Creative Commons Licence

Doug Chaplain of Clayboy has posted the 48th Biblical Studies Carnival. I've not got time to make many comments at this stage, but it's a great entry in the series, and starts with a useful round-up of media resources.

The Logical Next Step for Ben Hur

First there was a book, then a stageshow and a film, then a courtcase, a film and another film. Now, all of a sudden there's a mini-series, an arena show, a radio play, a video game. Where else has Lew Wallace's Ben Hur to go? Why a theme park of course.

According to IMDB this is already on the way.

Whilst I imagine the sea battle ride and the chariot ride will be great fun, I can't imagine the queues will be too long for the weeks-long trek across the desert, and the crucifixion ride might attract the odd complaint. I imagine that attendance will cost a little more than a cold cup of water though.

My Nativity! Review Online

Jesus may only feature as plastc doll, but some of you may be interested to know taht my review of Nativity! is up at rejesus.co.uk. The word count always means that I have to be briefer than I would (at times) prefer, but I don't think I left much of substance out. I wanted to say somewhere that the film was hugely unrealistic - perhaps made most obvious by the costumes in the finished play - and that the ending could have been better if [spoiler] Ashley Jensen's return was without her boss cos she' decided to leave her job to be with her again[/spoiler]. Oh and that I liked the way it redeemed the teacher from the other school - a nice touch. I also thought it was interesting how they allowed all the children to play the lead roles, albeit briefly - an intersting way of allowing people to engage with the pivotal characters plus a very post-modernist angle on how we each identify with a shape Mary and Joseph in our own way.

I wouldn't widely recommend the film, but if you don't mind a bit of sentimental cinema in the run up to Christmas then this is worth a go.

MSN's "19 Actors Who Really Should Play Jesus"

Thanks to Joseph Hollies for pointing me towards this one.

MSN Movies has come up with a list of 19 Actors Who Really Should Play Jesus. It's a fun list and there are a couple of amusing choices (Sacha Baron Cohen for example). Just a few comments from me. Firstly, one of the names on the list is Christian Bale, but he of course has already played Jesus in 1999's Mary the Mother of Christ. Secondly Johnny Depp was one of the names talked about in relation to Anne Rice's Christ the Lord. Lastly Mel Gibson clocks in at number 14, along with the claim that his foot stood-in (see what I did there) for Jesus in The Passion of the Christ in the John 8 footage. I'm fairly sure this is a mistake. It's possible that after the hundreds of thousands of words I've read about this film that this fact has eluded me, but I figure it's more likely that MSN got confused between that and the oft repeated claim that Gibson used his own hands as those belonging to the soldier who hammered the nails into Jesus' hands.Edit: I've now had two comments from people verifying MSN's claim, so there you go. It looks like it is Mel's foot that we see in that scene (and of course the trailer).

Why Christ the Lord Film Failed

During the first year and a half of running this blog, there was quite a bit of talk about Anne Rice's "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" being adapted for the big screen. All that came to an end in August 2007 with the announcement in Christianity Today that the project was not going to "move forward".

Fast forward to 2009 and a Boston Globe story on producer David Kirkpatrick which includes some more detail about why this project never made it.

Rice had planned to sell Kirkpatrick the rights to her novel "Christ the Lord", which Good News executives were counting on to show that the new company was a force in movie-making. But Rice angrily withdrew when he didn’t pay her.

'David, you broke my heart', she wrote in a scathing e-mail, obtained by the Spotlight Team.

[snip]

Good News had no way to pay for the $263,420 advertising package - those bills still haven’t been paid. Good News had less chance of finding the $40 million Kirkpatrick estimated that it would cost to film a movie about Christ on location in Israel. But the publicity of the Kirkpatrick-Rice alliance was valuable, boosting the company’s profile as it prepared to raise funds for its own movie studio in Massachusetts.

Rice withdrew from the Christ the Lord project a few weeks after the ads ran because, she said, Kirkpatrick repeatedly rebuffed her requests for payment and did not seem to be preparing for movie production. She fired off a scorching e-mail after he began writing her letters that, she felt, were an attempt to bully her.

'As I look back on it now, the entire enterprise on your part looks like a scheme', Rice wrote in an e-mail in May 2007. 'Did you have some idea that you could draw me deeper and deeper into the project and then make a demand on me for funds?’

Kirkpatrick said that the split with Rice was painful, that he eventually attempted to pay her, but too late. Rice, reached by e-mail, declined to comment...

Thanks to Peter Chattaway for this one.

A New One to Me: ...And God Spoke

I got a message from someone called John asking if I had seen The Making of '...And God Spoke' as he'd just found out it existed and couldn't find any mention of it on my blog.

Alas I must admit that I'd not even heard of it until John's email. From what I can make out, the actual title of the film is simply ...And God Spoke, and it's a mockumentary about the making of a Bible film. I assume the "Making of" bit is a mistake by IMDb, perhaps because there is an extra fature on the DVD or something that has this name. I's easy to see where the confusion might set in as the film itself is about the making of another (fictional) film. If I'm right then that means that The Making of '...And God Spoke' is a film about the making of a film about the making of a film. Then again that could be the real title and this might be an odd Being John Malkovich affair.

Either way I'll know soon enough. I've just ordered a copy from Amazon - though only region 1 is available. Here's the plot summary from IMDb:

A documentary on the making of a big budget Bible picture. This is a spoof that shows the inside action on a film set where everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong.

There are various comments/reviews at IMDb where it scores and Rotten Tomatoes where it's 100% fresh. The review by the most well known reviewer - to me at least - is that from DVD Verdict.

Refelctions on Jesus Film Sessions at Regents Theological College

I was privileged to take a couple of sessions on Jesus films at Regents Theological College yesterday. I'd been invited by Richard Hasnip (star of the The Follower and The King) as parts of Regents' Performing Arts Track, which includes an entire module on Jesus in Film.

I was lecturing on Last Temptation of Christ and Jesus of Montreal, with 40 minutes on each. The technical set up was surprisingly quick and easy, and, a couple of minor things aside, that bit went fairly smoothly. I'm still trying to work out the best way of combining clips with PowerPoint, especially if the clips are from Region 1 DVDs. I'm not sure that what I did yesterday - flicking between a DVD player for the clips and a laptop for the notes - will really ever work that well, unless the clips start at the beginning of a chapter. Next time I think I'll either rip, trim and embed in PowerPoint (though my ancient version of PowerPoint can't really handle this that well), or perhaps look more closely at VLC and see if it's possible to utilise a more precise playlist or something.

Anyway... I was fairly pleased with how the session themselves went, particularly given the various computer nightmares I'd been having in the days running up to the event. It was a great group: friendly, interested, plenty of insightful questions and (surprisingly) the majority had seen more than 10 foreign language films.

There were a few notable observations. Firstly, someone asked me whether I thought that the alien sequence in Life of Brian was an obscure reference to Jesus' temptation because of the way the Jesus figure falls and is swept up by angels/aliens. It's an interesting theory, not least because I'm never really sure what that moment is about (aside from a nod to the then recent and hugely successful Star Wars), but my hunch is not. In honesty, it's too early to tell. At the very least I'll have to watch if before I can decide.

The other observation that stood out was from Last Temptation. According to one of the class, the filmmakers made it look like you can actually see Dafoe's hand underneath his skin as he pulls out his heart. I'm not sure I have a high enough definition TV/projector to be able to see this, but again, next time I'm watching I'll certainly keep an eye out for it. Incidentally, I also owe that man an apology. At one point I said that Last Temptation was an 18 certificate, which of course it was at it's time of release (and is on my VHS copy. He challenged me on it saying he thought it was a 15, but being the big-head I am I stuck to my guns. However, it wasn't long before I started to get the odd nagging doubt - after all I have the region 1 Criterion Collection disc for this film, not the UK version - and, alas, when I checked out the DVD cover on Amazon it appears that the DVD release has been downgraded to a 15. So, on the off chance you're reading this this morning, sorry!

The first session overran, even despite cutting down on quite a lot of what I had to say, but that seemed to work out for the best. Far more of them were familiar with Last Temptation than were with Jesus of Montreal, and whilst the latter film is fascinating in it's own right, I don't think it's as insightful or as interesting as Scorsese' with respect to cinematic portrayals of Jesus. It was a shame, though, that I only got to show one clip from Montreal. Having written my notes, prepared my slides and produced some notes for the session, it would be nice to have the opportunity to revisit these talks, not least to be able to tighten the content and delivery.

I may at some point record some of this session and put it on the podcast, though it's probably unlikely to happen until next year now. Obviously I'll post news of that here if I ever gat around to it.

Kingdom Come Gets a Website

Just when news about New Zealand Jesus film Kingdom Come seemed to have dried up, Paul McPherson has very kindly emailed me to let me know that the film now has a website (with blog) keeping us updated with the film's progress. No time to read it right now, but it's nice to be able to keep in touch with what's going on.

Carnival for the Complainers aka Dr Jim's 'Carnival of Slinky Bible Babes'

Stirred by his omission from the latest Biblical Studies Carnival Jim Linville of Dr Jim's Thinking Shop has channelled his energies into making his own carnival for the complainers, or a "Carnival of Slinky Bible Babes". Given that I did complain a bit after (though not about) the last Biblical Studies Carnival, and that I also didn't get an entry, I thought this sounded like a good idea. And it turns out that not only did I get a mention (twice!), but also it's all about the female stars of various Bible films.

This is only part one, so other names will follow, but for starters there are photos of Ulla Bergryd as Eve from the 1966 film The Bible, Pauline Frederick as Potiphar’s wife from circa 1910, Joan Collins in Land of the Pharaohs from 1955, Gina Lolabrigida from Solomon and Sheba, Hedy Lamarr from 1949's Samson and Delilah and Paulette Goddard (among others) from Sins of Jezebel. Great stuff Jim. Suffice to say I'm looking forward to part 2.

"Biblical Epics" Gets a Reprint

Biblical Epics:Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema
Bruce Francis Babington and Peter William Evans

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers (Jun 2009)
Language English
ISBN: 978-1606088159

One of the most frequently quoted books on Bible films is Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans' "Biblical Epics", one of the first books (1993) to really delve deep into films based on the Bible. Sadly the book has been out of print for many many years - a decade at least. It has been available on Google Books for a while, but it's just not the same.

So I was really pleased to discover just now that the book has recently been reprinted by Wipf and Stock. I wasn't particularly familiar with Wipf and Stock but it appears that they are a republisher (as opposed to simply a publisher) - someone on their Facebook page "once called Wipf and Stock 'the vultures of publishing' because of the academic reprints...in a good way", and I can see what they mean. This book is so long due a reprint that I'm glad someone has finally decided to pick it up. Courses studying Jesus films and beyond seem to be continuing to grow so hopefully there will be a ready market for it.

I'm going to try and contact Wipf and Stock to find out more details, particularly whether this is just a straight reprint, or whether there is any new content. I'll let you all know in due course.

In either case the book is available to order now from Amazon both in the UK, the US and Canada, although it is significantly cheaper to buy from Wipf and Stock direct.

Belated Bits on A Serious Man

There's been a criminal lack of discussion here about the Coen Brothers' latest film A Serious Man, in part due to the fact that it doesn't open here for another 10 days. Still, for a film that has been billed as a modernisation of the Book of Job, I probably should have mentioned it by now.

Given that it's been out in the States for a while, there are doubtless a hole host of links I could post, but for now I'll limit myself to just two. The first is some comments by Julia O'Brien, Many thanks to Eruesso for sending me the link over a month ago. I've been meaning to post it up for a while, but haven't had the time.

Secondly, my friend Ron Reed has posted 18 "Questions for Further Study" over at this Soul Food Movies Blog. Oh and here's Ebert's review for good measure.

Make Your Own Jesus Film

It's been a horrible fortnight for graphics here at Bible Films Blog, for which I utterly apologise. I'm tempted to put it to some kind of vote, but sadly I don't quite know how.

Anyway to bring the last two weeks to a fitting conclusion I decided to post this image from a film I just "made" online. The idea came from watching an hilarious video on xtranormal.com. It was only on watching it for the third time that I realised that it was being hosted on a site that allows you to make your own films using only a script, a few pre-defined scenarios and the odd choice with camera placing, gestures etc. (which, if anything, only enhances the genius of the above film).

So I thought it might be an interesting experiment to see how it worked with a bit of script from the New Testament. I should stress at this point that neither now, nor at any point, have I been under the illusion that I would craft a great movie. Please don't think that I could ever consider what I am about to link to as in any way "good". But I thought it would be a laugh, and might even be a bit interesting.

Two disappointments hit me early on. Firstly they didn't have an ancient Palestine scenario - no real surprise, but obviously this meant that this had to be some form of modernisation. Secondly, I could only convert a scene with one or two characters. This cut down my options a lot, but I decided to try and "film" the conversation between Jesus and Pilate from John 18:33-39. The result is pretty horrendous - and that's being generous.

The process however was actually very interesting and I'd strongly encourage others to give it a try. For starters the text is read entirely dead pan which kicks against not only our natural sense of drama, but also against the particular ways we, as individuals, envisage a given text. In theory, this passage has some particularly momentous lines, but in the hands of these "actors" they lose any impact whatsoever. "What is truth?" asks Pilate like the cheap cyberspacian construct he is. Gary Oldman's faux-rabid interrogation from Jesus (1999) leaps to mind as if summoned from the deep by such a fundamentally opposite rendering.

But it's also interesting to have to think through the many, many decisions that are there to be made. Even in a minute-long film such as this, limited in so many ways, there were a whole host of decisions I still had to make. Which of the available camera angles do I chose? What expressions should I use and when? Which accent should the "actors" speak with? And then there are a few limited techniques available for breaking up the speech, pauses etc. How do I best employ them?

And in fact, with all of these choices, another question came hot on their heels, why am I making these particular choices given that all I have is a flat, unadorned text. Something like "what is truth?" can be played so many ways in our time, language and culture. What basis do I have for choosing that over all of the other possibilities?

There's also something about the fact that the options are so limited that gets me thinking. Almost all creativity in the process has been replaced by an arbitrary choice from a very limited selection of options. In contrast, proper filmmakers on low budgets may also have to make do with limited options, but they have the freedom to harness their creativity to bring about something close to, and even occasionally greater than, their original vision.

Anyway, I'd love to see some other takes on the biblical material, so feel free to post links in the comments or email them to me directly.

Samson, Delilah and Weetabix

I've just been watching the latest Weetabix ad (starring Michael Gambon I think) on YouTube. As ever with YouTube there are relevant recommendations down the side, and as you'd expect there were several others, including an Errol Flynn-esque Robin Hood one. Then I noticed there was also a Samson and Delilah one featuring a cover of Tom Jones' song for good measure. As you can probably tell from the above screen shot, the quality is not great, but it's enough to get the idea.

Biblical Studies Carnival 47

Photo by Tim Parkinson, used under a Creative Commons Licence

It's that time in the month when the latest of the Biblical Studies Carnivals is posted and Kevin Scull has done a fine job over at Paul of Tarsus. Most welcome is the "Audio and Video resources" section which I hope future carnivals will also include. There are a growing number of these and I only regret that my Jesus films podcast has been put to one side for the present (although there may be new episodes coming shortly).

One piece that I was disappointed to read was the news that biblioblogs.com, run by Brandon Wason and John Hobbins, has decided to exclude bloggers who are not part of an institution, regardless of the quality and relevance of their work.

Whilst biblioblogs.com has never, to my knowledge, claimed to be an officially representative body, they do carry a certain weight, and it's rather depressing to think that their definition might begin to be taken up in other circles such as the Biblical Studies Carnivals or the Top 50 Biblioblogs site (whose latest list has also just been published by the way).

If my subject is considered too tangential, or my work is deemed to be of insufficient quality then it is absolutely fair enough if it's excluded or just overlooked, but it's a wholly different thing to be excluded on the basis of affiliation.

I'm not sure whether the decision has been made simply to narrow what is, admittedly, a very extensive field or whether it's an attempt to demonstrate legitimacy to those in academic circles who are critical of the biblioblogging movement. Either way it seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of web culture. Only the other day I was reading an article by Gary Hamel, (another academic - former professor at Harvard Business School) describing key aspects of the emerging web culture, and his first two points were as follows:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
On the Web, every idea has the chance to gain a following—or not, and no one has the power to kill off a subversive idea or squelch an embarrassing debate. Ideas gain traction based on their perceived merits, rather than on the political power of their sponsors.

2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
When you post a video to YouTube, no one asks you if you went to film school. When you write a blog, no one cares whether you have a journalism degree. Position, title, and academic degrees—none of the usual status differentiators carry much weight online. On the Web, what counts is not your resume, but what you can contribute.

Perhaps this is just sour grapes from me because I fear being excluded from something I have been a part of for the last few years. And sure they can argue that's it's my "choice" not to be an academic. Unfortuately I, and no doubt others like me, only discovered that this is what we would have liked to do once any realistic chance of actually doing so had already passed.

Finally, it's nice to see that next month's carnival will be hosted by fellow Brit Doug Chaplin, a great blogger who is also facing the chop, and whose cause is far more worthy than my own.

More on Noah's Ark

Following on from Friday's post about Noah's Ark there's also an official website and blog for the film. There's not a great amount of information up there at the moment, apart from the following synopsis:

To build an ark for all the animals, God chose Noah. To lead them to it, God chose... Gilbert?!?

Gilbert the Groundhog loves Caroline with all his heart. That's too bad for him, because Caroline plans to marry into the upper crust of groundhog society, and Gilbert dwells in the deepest, dingiest tunnels a groundhog can dig. That is, until they start to flood!

When a pair of very special doves warns Gilbert of the troubles to come, nobody in the burrow will listen. To get Caroline away from those groundhog snobs and on the road to safety, Gilbert tells a teeny tiny lie. Of course, lies don't stay little for long! Two-by-two, a menagerie of kooky, crazy animals begins to follow them. Day-by-day, the journey grows more perilous. Pretty soon, Gilbert finds himself leading a rowdy zoo of birds and beasts and all kinds of critters through deserts and jungles and much, much worse...

...all because he told a lie. Now, the storm is come. The waters are rising. All these animals want is to run wild and free, but soon there won’t be any place left to run to. Gilbert had better quit digging himself into a hole, because it takes a hero to lead his friends all the way to Noah's Ark!

Two thoughts spring immediately to mind. Firstly, If the hero is Gilbert the Groundhog, then who is the pink hippo in the above photo (taken from the website's only image at the time of writing)? Secondly, it seems a little strange to me that this synopsis suggests that lying is good and God's plan. It could be argued that there is some kind of biblical precedent for this, for example the Jacob story, but this kind of message is likely to repel the kind of faith groups who would otherwise be those most likely to watch a film based on the Hebrew Bible.

Meanwhile a growing number of articles have been posted at the blog. Some of these are fairly trivial such as the Dove foundation's report on the script - it praises "the theme of believing in one's self". How very original. (That's for Dove not the filmmakers / bloggers by the way)

On the other hand there are a number of interesting discussions of the film's approach to the Bible or examines the medium of animation (such as Sculpting in Virtual Space). It's good to see this level of discussion about a film at this stage in its production, and I'd encourage them to keep it up.

Rising India to Fund Noah's Ark

There are so many films about Noah rumoured to be on the way that news about any one of them sends me scurrying thorugh my previous posts on Noah films to try and work out which is the one that is being discusses. Anyway, the latest ark story to emerge on the pages of Variety concerns the Bob Funk / Unified pictures film Noah's Ark. The story simply says that US based company Rising India will be funding it to the tune of $40 million. Whether this is on top of or instead of previous financiers remains to be seen. In the current financial climate though it's encouraging to see companies still financing these movies as I suspect that many of the films I have previously mentioned as being in production will never get made as a result of it.

Here's the latest list anyway:

Not the End of the World - Illuminated Films

Unnamed Noah Film - Darren Aronofsky

Sold Out! - Uri Paster

Aardvark Art's Ark - Warner Bros. / Casey Affleck (above)

The Flood - Promenade Pictures' sequel to The Ten Commandments (2007)

Rock the Boat - French animation (Gaumont)

Noah's Ark - Unified Pictures / Bob Funk

El Arca - Patagonik (Argentina)

The Missing Lynx - Kandor Graphics

Thanks to Peter Chattway for the latest addition.

Gospel of Thomas on Film

Over at NT Weblog, Mark Goodacre has been writing quite a lot about the Gospel of Thomas recently. His latest post in the series is looking at clips from the 1987 Channel 4 documentary The Gnostics and in particular he discusses it's dramatisation of the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas. The most blatant observation is just how blond haired and blue-eyed this Jesus is. There are a couple of interesting points on that issue alone.

Firstly, this is quite the most Arian Jesus I have ever seen in film aside from Robert Elfstrom's portrayal in the Johnny Cash film The Gospel Road. When I saw this film back in 2006 I made a number of posts about it, one of which was a comparison between the gospels of Cash and Thomas. I should point out that I don't necessarily stand by everything I wrote in that post. I've learnt a fair bit about Thomas since then.

The other point on the blond Jesus of The Gnostics is that many commentators are at pains out that Thomas presents a significantly less Jewish Jesus than the canonical gospels and so it's interesting that both these films, linked as they are with Gospel of Thomas, present the most non-Jewish looking Jesus.

I may post more on these clips when I've had a chance to view them properly. Incidentally, I have been writing a series of posts about the Gnostic gospels for the rejesus blog including one on the Gospel of Thomas. I should point out that these articles have a word limit of 500, and are intended for an audience that has very little knowledge about Jesus and the gospels.

Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie

Through the Bible in Five and a Half Years has got as far as Jonah now, so I thought it was time for a long overdue review of 2002's Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie. Incidentally, I'm still deciding whether or not to use a clip from this film, but I think I will probably show a different short film version which I'm linking to here so I can find it easily in future.

===

For some reason Jonah has always been a popular children's story (despite being about a man-eating fish), and as a result there have been various cartoon versions over the years including an entry in the Testament: The Bible in Animation series.Yet, it's one that's been largely avoided by filmmakers. In the early days the technical challenges of the pivotal scene were far beyond the film's likely profitability. More recently, however, I suspect it's been the length of the story that has put off potential adapters. At just 4 short chapters there's not a huge amount to go on (although the majority of Hollywood blockbusters could have their plots scribed on the back of a postage stamp, so that's hardly critical).

Jonah circumnavigates this problem by telling Jonah's tale as a story within a story. The biblical tale is framed by a modern day story of a group en route to a gig, who get lost when their car breaks down. They stumble into a restaurant and meet three pirates who observing the animosity amongst the group, decide to tell them the story as a means to getting them to resolve their differences.

The story is presented as an account of events that actually happened to the pirates, but chronologically this wouldn't work at all, particularly when you consider that these pirates are not humans but harvested vegetables. So the link to the material is slightly detached: there's something vaguely reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz here in the way that the people in the framing device are inextricably linked to those in the story, but also somewhat detached.

All of which forms a rather interesting interpretative context in which to place the book of Jonah. Many scholars consider the book to be a kind of parable rather than an account of actual historical events, and so presenting the tale of Jonah as a story within a story fits this dynamic. Furthermore, since the book of Kings briefly mentions the prophet Jonah, there is that kind of link between him and the parable's anti-hero.

One of the things the film gets right is its portrayal of Jonah as an absurd figure. True to the biblical text Jonah is grumpy and proud, and his cartoonish characterisation fits the spirit of the original's portrayal rather well. It also includes the often overlooked final chapter of the book, and grasps that this is this, rather than the fishier elements of the story, that forms the book's interpretative key.

The film does tweak some of the other details however: Nineveh's primary sin is slapping each other with fish, which rather leaves the story run stranded in shallow waters; Jonah manages to get the king's attention when he is arrested because of his pirate friends; and his message grabs the attention of the fish-venerating Ninevites sole-ly because he happens to refer to his time inside the big fish. I'm curious to know whether that final point reflects an older tradition in any way, or some kind of historical knowledge. If so I've not yet encountered it in commentaries I've read.The biggest set piece in the story is obviously Jonah getting swallowed by the big fish. The book devotes a whole chapter to Jonah's prayer, which, from a dramatic point of view, works in the same way as a musical's biggest song and dance number. What's more the whole incident is shrouded in supernatural events (not only the fish but the storm, Jonah being highlighted by the casting of lots and the subsequent calming of the storm when his is ejected overboard).

The film, also gives plenty of attention to this incident, saving its most ambitious CGI for what is it's longest scene (the modern day equivalent of a miracle?). And once Jonah has been swallowed up, his prayer is indeed replaced with the film's biggest song and dance number - a black gospel number performed by a choir of singing vegetable angels. All of which is possible because Jonah has been swallowed by a whale rather than a big fish. I suspect that the Hebrew mind would have classified whales along with fish rather than with mammals, so this distinction is rather minor. What is interesting is that in the film's closing number - a summary of the story and its message - Jonah's story is illustrated using a fish. So the film backs both theories, deftly representing the ancient classifications.

The one character I've not yet discussed is Jonah's eternally optimistic sidekick, Khalil, a half worm, half caterpillar business man worm-pillar - the 'Donkey' to Jonah's Shrek, if you like. But his role gains far greater prominence in the books final act, for it is he who becomes the worm who eats the plant Jonah is using for shade. When Jonah confronts him Khalil then utters the words that God speaks at the end of the book.

What this highlights is the direct absence of God in the film. God speaks directly four times in the book, at the start, after the fish has spat Jonah out, when the Ninevites repent, and when the plant dies. Here we never hear him speak, though we witness Jonah hearing God when he prays at the beginning of the story, the middle too occurrences are skipped over, and at the end it is Khalil that speaks for God. This secularises the text somewhat. God is held at a distance so that even the miraculous elements of the story could be down to coincidence. It's not a major problem, but it is yet another example of VeggieTales sanitising the text.

Visually the film is rather poor. It always feels like an extended episode of a TV show rather than anything cinematic and the colour scheme often clashes. There are bright blue backgrounds, but dull yellow foregrounds, shiny green vegetables, but a lot of dirty yellow and grimy clothes. The whale sports a particularly repulsive olive green and yellow look and even Jonah looks off colour for much of the film.

The songs are fairly good though, echoing various musicals from down the ages, and the soundtrack includes a nice nod to Jaws as the whale closes in on the barely floating prophet. And so what I'm left with is "Jonah was a prophet" going round and round in my head. I'm told that the Germans call this an 'ear worm', which in the context a film which uses a worm not only to act for, but also to speak for God is certainly an intriguing metaphor.