First Photo from the New Noah Film

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.

Song of Songs in Radio and Film

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.

Roman Holiday and the Jubilee

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.

Adoption, Babbling Paul and The Silver Chalice

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.

Scene Comparion - Pentecost

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.

A Bit More on The Miracle Maker

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.

The Celluloid Madonna

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.