Podcast: The King of Kings (1927)

After a late night session early this morning, I've finally managed to upload the latest Jesus film podcast. This month I'm talking about Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings from 1927.

So far, there have been twelve talks in this particular podcast. It's not too late to download the other eleven:Jesus of Nazareth, Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Jesus of Montreal, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Miracle Maker, Il Messia, King of Kings, Last Temptation of Christ, Life and Passion of Jesus Christ and Jesus (1999).

Jesus of Montreal DVD on Offer

Even though the price of DVDs has dropped dramatically over the last couple of years, rare / foreign films still tend to be fairly pricey. So I'm keen to let readers know whenever there's a bargain.

Jesus of Montreal is currently on sale at Amazon
for £6.97, which in turn has driven the marketplace price down to between three and four pounds. That's no consolation to those of you in the US now that there are two dollars in the pound again.

But this is the enhanced widescreen version, rather than the other, awful, region 2 disc which just looks like someone's copied it from their VHS copy. The only advantage of that DVD is the packaging which is an improvement on this one as pictured above. I believe this is the only widescreen version of this film available, but at the moment I can't be sure.

Online Trailer and Reviews for van Eijk's Samson and Delilah

There's a trailer online for Corina van Eijk's Samson and Delilah which has now been and gone at the VIFF. It looks fantastic, if odd. I've also found a handful of short reviews.

Ron Reed has replaced his original post about the film with his review, which includes the following paragraph:

This radical reinterpretation of the celebrated Saint-Saëns' opera is a splendid example of cinema offering many things that the stage cannot. Ingenious ideas abound, from the political sparks of the contemporary setting to the sensational use of the simplest of décor to the very entertaining use the singers make of the freedom cinema allows for facial expression.

Sandra Peredo has also reviewed it for Intermedias.

Opera Spanga director Corina Van Eijk’s take on Camille Saint-Saens’ 19th century opera Samson and Delilah is replete with bizarre meanderings. Love her style or resent it, Saint-Saens’ music is still gorgeous.

Lastly, there's a capsule review on the film from Matthew Englander which I'll quote in full. He hated it, giving it only 1 out of 10.

The French-language opera adapted for film with some kind of modern middle-east setting. Boring and cartoonish, I almost walked out several times and I wish I had. Shot in digital video, the movie looked terrible; perhaps just the way it was projected but all the reds and blues were garishly ugly. The music was loud and unpleasant and never let up. The singing voice of Klara Uleman, playing Delilah, was particularly grating.

I had also quoted a bit of blurb on the film from the VIFF organisers and it turns out that that was part of a longer write up which is now available on the VIFF website.

Noah film to Rock the Boat

French Production company Gaumont have announced plans to release a 3D animated film about Noah in the run up to Christmas 2009.

According to Variety it'll be a $35 million production by Franck Chorot with first timers Andre Bessy and Fabien Suarez co-directing the latter's script. Also involved are French effects company MacGuff Ligne.

This is one of a number of Noah films that have either been recently released, or are in production (including El Arca which I somehow missed). It's funny how these things go. We're currently coming to the end of a run of 5 Moses films in 18 months, so now it looks like it's Noah's turn.

HT to Peter Chattaway

The Seventh Sign (1988)

Back in 1991, Demi Moore was at the heart of a controversy when a nude picture of her, taken whilst she was pregnant with her second child, appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. Was it sexual objectification or a symbol of empowerment?

What the coverage of this debate generally failed to take into consideration was that three years earlier, Moore had also been photographed nude whilst pregnant with her first child. On that occasion, however, it had been part of a reasonably successful film - Carl Schultz's The Seventh Sign.It's possible that Seventh Sign escaped the controversy because it was released in 1988 - the same year that Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ reached (or often didn't reach) theatres. Whilst The Seventh Sign was released first (in April), discussion about Last Temptation began a long time before it's eventual August release.

The two films have much in common. In addition to the nudity, both featured unconventional and unflattering characterisations of Jesus, had something of an apocalyptic outlook, and gave the role of Jesus to actors who made their names starring in popular war films. Of all the cinematic Jesus's, Jurgen Prochnow (Das Boot) is perhaps the least conventional-looking. With short, slightly curly, blond hair, no beard, a pockmarked face, and long, lean features is almost diametrically opposed to what the historical Jesus would have looked like. Furthermore, his 47 years make him the oldest screen Jesus of modern times. But this is not the Jesus of history (other than in a couple of brief flashes back to the first century), but the Jesus of Revelation. In fact it's not until a good way through the film that it's actually revealed who Prochnow's character actually is. Confronted by Moore he calls himself a messenger from God, "I came as the lamb and I return as the lion". The clues have been there from the start, of course. Prochnow has been wandering around opening the seals that unleash the various stages of the apocalypse. Only the risen Christ gets to do that.

Yet whilst there's no reason that the Christ of the apocalypse should resemble the Jesus of history physically, it's the contrast with the biblical Jesus's character that is so strange. Prochnow is cold and emotionless (a feature heightened in the minds of English speaking audiences by his German accent). In contrast to the compassionate Jesus of Hal Hartley's similarly themed Book of Life, this Jesus never seems to wrestle with his awful task, nor does he anticipate the greater future beyond the apocalypse that its author does. He briefly bemoans the world's inability to change, but it's very much delivered with a shrug of the shoulders. The problem with The Seventh Sign is it's a conventional genre picture. Whereas Book of Life was able to subvert and surpass the conventions of the supernatural/apocalyptic thriller, this film is unable to build on its good start and falls back on an amorphous vaguely-religious mix of obscure ancient texts, pick-and-choose prophecies, immortal villains, and reincarnation. It does give a passing tip-of-the-hat to goodness and self-sacrifice, but by then the film has already well and truly sunk under the weight of its own contrived nonsensical climax.

The handling of the seven signs is also weak. The concept of "seven signs" is taken from Revelation, but those signs are an overly literal, jumbled mixture of the events that accompany the breaking of the seven seals, the blowing of the seven trumpets, and the pouring out of the seven bowls. At the same time they are not actually literal - there are literal seals, but no bowls; a Christ figure ushers in some of the signs, but there are no angels; etc. etc. In other words it's a highly selective literal approach to the Bible's most symbolic book. The seals/trumpets/bowls section of Revelation lasts for 12 chapters, but in order to find seven distinct "events" to structure the narrative around, the screenplay just picks out a single word or phrase from here and there and labels it as a "sign". But these events are so localised that only experts can decode them, as opposed to the fact that in Revelation the signs are metonymic. Rather than being simply localised, unusual occurrences, a literal reading of this section would suggest that the signs actually are part of the end of the world. They would not be secret signs, but clear indicators. Of course, most scholars consider that the signs should be taken more symbolically, but that would be to move this film very much out of this genre. The supernatural/ apocalyptic thriller genre has two main paths - that of widesp read destruction or that of the secret conspiracy, and Seventh sign rather weakly opts for the latter.

It's not all bad. Those into early Christian legends will appreciate the references to the myths of Seraphia and Cartaphilus/the Wandering Jew. The story of the Wandering Jew was a popular choice for early film makers, with at least 4 silent films being made with that title. As far as I'm aware this is the first occasion that it has been made post-WW2, and it's notable that the character in question is now Roman rather than Jewish. More importantly, the film has aged incredibly well for one made in the 80s. Even that decade's best films are usually blighted by terrible wardrobes, awful hair, and badly synthesized soundtracks. Here, however, only Moore's oversized glasses, give the game away. More importantly, Schultz handles the tension well, and creates a good sense of mystery around his lead villains. It's just a shame that as one of them is widely renowned as a ground-breakingly compassionate teacher we never quite know who we're meant to be routing for. Jesus rarely makes a good villain.
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There are a few useful resources on this film, notably the full screenplay which is available at Drew's script-o-rama, and a collection of photos from the Movie Screenshots Blog. I've only discovered it today, but I'm sure I'll be returning. Finally, Danel Griffin's review is certainly worth a read.

Daniel Films Redux

Having discussed a number of films about Daniel earlier in the month, I've now watched a couple of those that I hadn't seen previously.

The Beginners Bible: The Story of Daniel in Lions' Den is a fairly standard cartoon aimed mainly at kids, albeit with the odd joke that might entertain adults. For example, during the incident with Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel 2, one of the bewildered magi summarises his master's request as "You want us to tell you know what we know so you'll know that we know what you already know?" If shows the following episodes:

Nebuchadnezzar conquers Jerusalem - (Dan 1:1-2)
Daniel and friends in Babylon - (Dan 1:3-7; 18-21)
Nebuchadnezzar's dream - (Dan 2:1-49)
Belshazzar's banquet - (Dan 5:1-31)
Daniel in the Lion's Den - (Dan 6:1-28)

So it misses out the incident where Daniel and his friends request a special diet from Dan 1; The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Dan 3); and the story of Nebuchadnezzar's madness (Dan 4). Given that the story is aimed at younger children these omissions all make some kind of sense. Trying to explain diet restrictions to younger children from another, ancient, culture is fairly difficult I imagine. Likewise introducing three other characters whilst Daniel is off screen might be distracting, and there's a fair bit of repetition in the telling of Nebuchadnezzar's second dream.

What's also interesting is the way that this cartoon is called The Story of Daniel in Lions' Den, but it's really a general account of Daniel in Babylon. The Lions' Den story only takes about a quarter of the total run time. The cartoon is fairly well animated, but offers very little insight for grown ups. (Which is obviously fair enough!)

VeggieTales: Daniel in the Lions' Den (on the Where is God when I'm S-S cared DVD) has much in common with the above cartoon. Again it's aimed firmly at kids, although it also includes the odd joke that adults might get more easily. I can't help feeling though that whilst all children will be entertained by this film, the story is more accessible to younger children in the Beginners Bible version. It's a play off because that version will probably not keep the attention of older children as this does however.

Like the Beginners Bible this programme contains scenes from Daniel's life other than the title story:

Nebuchadnezzar conquers Jerusalem - (Dan 1:1-2, 6)
Nebuchadnezzar's dream - (Dan 2:1-13, 25-30, 48)
Daniel in the Lion's Den - (Dan 6:1-28)

There are obviously fewer stories here, which partly reflects the shorter running time. The account of Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Jerusalem is shorter still, just the briefest of prologues. The only other story included (other than that of the Lions' Den) is that of Nebuchadnezzar's first dream. Strangely, the content of the dream is never revealed or discussed. It simply forms the motive for the wise men who then plot against Daniel.

Despite the shorter running time the events from Daniel 6 take longer than in the above film, mainly due to it having more songs, and lengthy sequence where Daniel first enters the den.

I also made a few comments on the Daniel entry from the Testament: Bible in Animation series, which also admits the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and compounds Nebuchadnezzar's two dreams into a single incident. Overall though it's the most complete animated account that I've come across.

Euphemism and Counter- Euphemism in The Story of Ruth

As part of last nights' Through the Bible in Five and a Half Years session on Ruth we looked at 3 different film portrayals of Ruth, the version that was part of the Testament series, Henry Koster's The Story of Ruth and Amos Gitai's Golem:Spirit of Exile which I hope to write about shortly.

One subject that we dwelt on perhaps a little more than was ideal was the issue of euphemism in Ruth 3. I've long heard it said that when Naomi tells Ruth to uncover Boaz's "feet", she actually means his genitals. There's debate about it, but it remains a possibility. Some of the discussion last night revolved around whether or not, if true, this act would necessarily be sexual. In our culture it's hard not to read it that way, but it's possible that in other cultures, this may not be so. For example in some cultures today it is the norm to walk around with genitals exposed.

Against this backdrop, the closing segment of The Story of Ruth is particularly interesting. Given it was made in 1960, it's no surprise that it doesn't offer the euphemistic interpretation, but even more surprising is that rather than playing it entirely literally, any hint of sexual behaviour is purged. So, in fact, Ruth doesn't even lie down, or touch his garment. Instead they sit together very briefly before Boaz sends he on her way.In the closing sequence, this episode is referred to again, and it is this, rather than issues of inheritance, which settles the issue of who will marry Ruth, Boaz or Tob (the closer kinsman). As part of his wedding speech Tob gives Ruth the chance to speak. Whilst she vocalises her agreement to the marriage she also declares that she doesn't love Tob, and in the spirit of "truthfulness" tells him that he should know that she "sought out Boaz on the threshing room floor".

Tob takes this as evidence that she has been unfaithful, and calls the wedding off leaving Boaz to claim her hand in marriage before explaining to the elders that "nothing passed between us on that night except spoken words of love". This is all very interesting, both in terms of what it says about the sexual standards of America in 1960, and about the way euphemism is treated.

Firstly, putting the feet euphemism aside, the film clearly considers it's heroine too chaste to have her lie down with a man. Societies standards may have been based on the Bible, but at that stage they had clearly advanced such that the implicitly commended behaviour of its heroines was still not good enough.The second point is more interesting. In saying "I sought out Boaz" and nothing more, Ruth's deliberate ambiguity acts as a kind of counter euphemism. Certainly Tob takes her phrase euphemistically (as an admission of an inappropriate act that compromises their proposed marriage) whereas the truth is that the phrase should be taken literally. Ruth use of this phrase seems to be to deliberately send out the wrong message as a last ditch attempt to marry Boaz. This contrasts strongly with the biblical account whereby the original may have suggested (what we would consider?) a sexual act, but then introduces a euphemism to cover up that particular meaning, leaving readers today to understand the description literally.

Two short additional point of interest. When Boaz seeks to clear things up with the elders his insistence that "nothing passed between us" is somewhat economical with the truth, because Ruth and Boaz did kiss at that point. Secondly, I can't help wondering when watching this scene what Tob's reaction would have been to this final revelation. Did he feel tricked, or was he still glad to have let Boaz marry Ruth?