• Bible Films Blog

    Looking at film interpretations of the stories in the Bible - past, present and future, as well as preparation for a future work on Straub/Huillet's Moses und Aron and a few bits and pieces on biblical studies.


    Name:
    Matt Page

    Location:
    U.K.












    Saturday, January 28, 2017

    Judas Iscariot: Damned or Redeemed
    A Critical Examination of the Portrayal of Judas in Jesus Films (1902-2014)


    Judas Iscariot: Damned or Redeemed
    A Critical Examination of the Portrayal of Judas in Jesus Films (1902-2014)
    Carol A. Hebron (2016)
    288 pages
    Bloomsbury/T&T Clark 
    Paperback & ebook
    ISBN 978-0567686947

    Books about Jesus films have remained a popular both with academics and those in the pews for some time now. As the market gets bigger so it is starting to dviersify so it's good that the newer books in the arena are starting to become more specific. Catherine O'Brien's "Celluloid Madonna" was published in 2011 and now Carol A. Hebron has produced an excellent example of this is in "Judas Iscariot: Damned or Redeemed - A Critical Examination of the Portrayal of Judas in Jesus Films (1902-2014)". 

    After the introduction provides "Christianity's Evaluation of Judas" and the first chapter looks at how Judas' character in films might be studied, Hebron proceeds to work through the history of cinema looking at significant protrayals of Judas in film from the early Pathé passion plays, through to the 21st century and films such as Color of the Cross and the recent Son of God

     The penultimate chapter draws together the threads of the previous six and finds a transition from a theology of rejection through to a theology of acceptance. This is not to argue that the filmic character of Judas changes theology "but, rather, changes in theology reflect the way in which the filmic Judas is portrayed". The final chapter looks at issues around antisemitism and specifically the Holocaust and Shoah theology. It's a poignant and important way to end the book. 

    One one of the things I most appreciated about Hebron's book is the breadth of films it covers, not always going for the obvious choices. It's great to see films such as Golgotha (1935), El Martir del Calvario (1952), Karunamayadu (1978) and Color of the Cross gaining more critical attention and this brings a vital world focus to Hebron's arguments. In particular I found her reading of Golgotha to profoundly change my views on that film, based, admittedly on watching an unsubtitled version around a decade ago. Nevertheless Hebron makes a persuasive case for the level of antisemtisim in the film. 

    Finally, it's good to see a work such as this at the more affordable end of the price range, with both paperback version and the ebook being in the region of £20-£30.

    Thursday, January 26, 2017

    La Vie de Jesus (1997)


    The title of Bruno Dumont's La Vie de Jesus (The Life of Jesus, 1997) may catch the eye of those like me, but its biblical themes are far more subtle than the title would immediately suggest.

    La Vie de Jesus is about Freddy, a rebellious teenager from a deprived area of rural France. He hangs out with his mates, has sex with his girlfriend (Marie), moans at his mum and plays the drums for his marching band. He also has a form of epilepsy which limits his employment possibilities and leaves him reliant on his mates to go out.

    Whilst the film caused a degree of controversy when it was first released for his close-ups of penetrative sex, it's actually the racism of Freddy and his mates that proves the most uncomfortable. Yet when the group of them racially abuse, what they assume is, an Arab family, the son (Kader) decides to try and woo Marie - an act that eventually leads to him being beaten by Freddy and his mates and left by the side of the road.

    There are three Jesus-related images in the film which gran the attention and remind us of its enigmatic title. The first is as the brother of one of Freddy's friends lies dying in the hospital. Another friend spots a painting of the resurrection of Lazarus and tries to draw Freddy's attention to it. "Have you seen the picture" the friend asks "its the story of a guy who came back to life". "Shut up" Freddy replies. There's seemingly no place amongst this group of friends for Jesus the bringer of life.

    Yet a little unexpectedly it's a shot of the beaten and bloody Kader that provides the film's next Jesus-esque image and we're reminded that Jesus was not the one that we/they expect(d). He was a despised outsider. That said, shortly afterwards there's a shot of Freddy (above) that also seems to chime with traditional images of Jesus.

    A friend of mine, Mike Leary, has written a short piece on this film and its use of the name Jesus in the book "Light Shining in a Dark Place" and the relevant section can currently be read on Google books.

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    Saturday, January 21, 2017

    Le Fils de Joseph (2016)
    (The Son of Joseph)


    This essay isn't so much of a review as a look at some of the film's main themes. As such it will contain spoilers though there are not any particularly shocking twists that would be spoilt by what I discuss below. It's also very much a work-in-progress,so please don't judge it too harshly...

    Eugéne Green's Le Fils de Joseph is a Bible film but, crucially, neither a biblical epic nor a typical modernisation of the Nativity accounts. Instead of taking those two more well-trodden routes it opts for a different approach that is quite distinct from any other biblical adaptation I can recall. Instead Green's film explores the story via a modernised story of Vincent a teenage boy who begins the process of discovering who is father is. Whilst for a moment Green toys with his audience to suggest that there might be some kind of supernatural element to his birth, it quickly becomes apparent that, far from being divine, his father is not even a particularly good human.

    At the same time Le Fils de Joseph is far more than just an off-beat modern-day story with familiarly named characters. Instead it examines issues of fatherhood, divinity and parentlessness on a number of different levels, enhanced by a technical formalism which underpins these different elements.

    Firstly there is the way the film is divided into five acts, each of which is named according to a different biblical story as follows:

    I - The Sacrifice of Abraham
    II - The Golden Calf
    III - The Sacrifice of Isaac
    IV - The Carpenter
    V - The Flight into Egypt

    This is a relatively unusual formal element, made all the more notable by the fact that two of these intertitles are named after the story of Abraham and Isaac, and one after the Israelite's exodus from Egypt, rather than Mary and Joseph. They're also one of a number of ways in which the film references the work of Jean Luc Godard, whose own modernisation of the Nativity, Je vous Salue (Hail Mary, 1985) was a more straightforward, and perhaps less successful, adaptation of the narratives about Jesus' birth.

    Other formal elements of the piece however would appear to owe more to the work of other French filmmakers, most notably the work of Robert Bresson, whom Green acknowledges as a major influence.1 The second aspect, and perhaps the one that has been most remarked on by reviewers, is the manner in which the characters frequently speak or stare directly into the camera.

    Whilst not a few films allow their leading characters to speak into the camera, it is relatively rare that the majority of the lead characters do so. Interestingly, this is done in such a way that leaves the question open to interpretation as to whether the characters/actors are meant to be aware of the camera. There are no Alvy Singer / Frank Underwood moments when characters knowingly address the camera, but at certain times, certain characters seem to sense it without specifically interacting with it. This technique itself brings a level of meaning; the viewer observes from a position with some echoes of divinity - on the one hand present yet unable to intervene or interact with the characters. Likewise the characters sense our presence but do not interact with us.

    Thirdly, the actors often hold their poses in a certain way and underplay their acting style. Rather than pacing around set and twisting and turning to indicate their passion or emotions, generally they more or less remain standing on the same spot throughout a scene. They tone down the use of their limbs and keep their facial expressions relatively non-demonstrative. As in Bresson's work is a refusal to tell the viewer what to think, leave it instead to the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the character's thoughts and emotions. As Green has explained it's also about enabling the viewer "to see more deeply into the reality of the present....you have to take your time...I want to take the time to go into what is hidden behind the appearance of reality."2

    Finally, by keeping the actors' relatively stationary, Green is able to repeat the same sequence of shot types numerous times throughout the film, most notably for dialogue where he typically starts with a mid-length two shot of the characters, before alternating over-the shoulder shots which gradually edge forward until they become close-ups. Often the sequence will end up on a mid-shot again, without the characters appearing to have moved. Alternatively the sequence ends on a close up that is held for several seconds with the character starring into the camera.

    These techniques are consistent throughout the film and, as we have seen, provide one of the levels with which the film addresses its themes. The other levels, however, appear less consistently and in many places intersect with one another.

    The most obvious of these is the plot. Vincent has been brought up by his mother, Marie, in the knowledge that he doesn't have a father. One day however he opens Marie's desk and find a letter she sent to his father that was returned. When Marie refuses to give him any more details he tracks down his father, Oscar Pormenor, who is now a successful publisher. Later Vincent sneaks into Oscar's office, witnesses first-hand his father's philandering and disregard for his other children, and proceeds to attack him. But in fleeing the scene he has a chance encounter with Oscar's brother Joseph. The two become friends and together with Marie they flee to the country. Given this is a film about Mary and Joseph made by a Bresson fan it's perhaps no surprise that the final, and most iconic, scene features a journey with a seemingly watchful donkey.

    Attached to this basic structure are a number of individual conversations, particularly in Act i, which revolve around different facets of absent parents, in quite oblique ways - one of Vincent's friends is selling his sperm on the internet; his mother, who is a nurse, has to care for a young girl whose father has just been killed in a car accident; Vincent's father has obvious pride in his literary son, writer Mathieu Orfraie; Oscar and Joseph's conversation about their own judgemental father; Vincent and Joseph have various conversations about the biblical characters Joseph ("Through his son he became a father") and Abraham ("God didn't ask him to [sacrifice his son]. The voice he heard was his own."); and the pair watch the performance of a 17th century song written after the death of the author's son.

    Then there are all the small almost incidental references the film makes. Most obviously in this respect is the naming of Vincent's mother as Marie and of his "adopted" father Joseph. But many more exist far more fleetingly. Early on a shop banner reveals its name to be Pere & Fils, Orfraie's book is called "The Predatory Mother". Then there's the way that when Vincent first spots Pormenor he is wearing a red scarf and later on in the film Vincent mirrors that by wearing one himself. In a later scene Green captures a two shot of Vincent and Joseph both with the sweater tied around their neck in identical ways (above) - they are a mirror image, but together and now united on the same size.

    Surprisingly, the biggest "reference" makes in the film has nothing to do with Mary and Joseph. Caravaggio's painting "The Sacrifice of Isaac" (1603) plays a pivotal role in the film. A large copy of it is displayed on Vincent's wall and early in the film it features prominently in a discussion between Vincent and Marie, often with the shot arranged to make it, rather than Mary, the focus of attention. Green allows his audience plenty of time to take the painting in, as he wants them "to be able to have the same experience as they [the characters looking at the paintings] do".3

    When the scene ends Vincent takes a long stare at this image, which we are given as a point-of-view shot, and at the end of the act we see a shot which superimposes Vincent putting handcuffs around his wrists in the foreground with the Caravaggio in the background. Clearly the image forms part of his motivation in the following scene for his attack on his biological father. Pormenor, like Isaac, is bound (by those same handcuffs), gagged (using the aforementioned red scarf) and laid horizontal awaiting an attack that never comes. Vincent brandishes his knife and seemingly has every intention of going through with it (below). The only difference, aside from the role reversal, is that the angel that prevents Abraham from striking in Caravaggio's work is not depicted in Green's. Similarly, the second act - named "The Golden Calf" because it has become clear that Oscar cares far more for his literary prodigies than he does for his biological children - ends with another point-of-view shot of the painting. This time the camera moves slowly leading the eye towards Isaac's distorted face before panning back towards the angel and then back again to ending on a close up of the knife. The camera works in a similar fashion when the scene is re-enacted by Vincent, only rather than taking it in one continuous shot, Green uses cuts, making the experience more abrupt and shocking and replaces the angel with a shot of the closed door.

    Of course, whilst the title and subject matter of the film may prime the audience to expect Vincent to be a Christ figure, this scene confirms that this is not Green's intention here. Not only is this not how a Christ figure is expected to behave, but the film makes no explicit attempt to link Vincent to Jesus aside from the names of his mother and his adopted father. Whilst early in the film Marie says to Vincent "You have no father." it soon becomes clear that this is not meant in a literal sense. Furthermore there are no Christ figure poses, halos, sacrificial acts, pseudo miracles or people revering Vincent in some way, indeed quite the reverse. In the film's opening scene, Vincent leaves two of his friends as they torture a rat. One asks where Vincent has gone. "He's weird." replies the other. In the next Vincent takes a long walk straight towards the camera in a shot laced with an ominously meaningful-looking aura. But just as he opens his mouth, as if to make some profound utterance, a passing cyclist accidentally clips Vincent's rucksack and the profound moment is gone. This is not what audiences of biblical films have come to expect.

    If Vincent is not to be associated with Jesus, then it's tempting to align him with Isaac. Jesus, of course, had no earthly father; Isaac may have wished he also had not. Both were children who were subject to their father's desire for sacrifice. The use of Caravaggio's painting and the titles of acts i and iii ("The Sacrifice of Abraham" / "The Sacrifice of Isaac") may suggest that this is a more of a role reversal however with Vincent, the abandoned son, taking revenge on his errant father.

    These themes sit neatly alongside the two other paintings that feature prominently in the film. Indeed for Ben Kenigsberg of the New York Times, Green's films "draw as much on architecture, paintings, music and theater as on cinema".4 In the fourth act Joseph takes Vincent to the Louvre where the pair are shown looking at Georges de La Tour's "St. Joseph the Carpenter" and Philippe de Champaigne's "The Dead Christ on his Shroud". The first portrays Joseph (who bears a striking resemblance to the Abraham of the Caravaggio painting) with a young Jesus in his carpentry shop. As the filmic Joseph explains to Vincent the drill is in "the shape of a cross, to remind us how Jesus will die". The second shows us the aftermath of the crucifixion with the dead Jesus stretched out, his sacrifice complete. In the latter image Jesus' hand rests on his loincloth as if to draw attention to his 'humanity'.

    Throughout his career Green has been heavily influenced by the Baroque period and the idea of the hidden God who only appears "in certain moments when the natural moments of nature were suspended".5 Much of his interest, which goes back over to 40 years ago when he founded le Théâtre de la Sapience partly to perform Baroque productions, lies in the manner in which Baroque thought "gives a possibility to live in the modern world with a spiritual life".6 In addition to the three paintings that are so prominently featured, then, there is also a pivotal scene where Joseph takes Vincent to see a piece of Baroque theatre. After the trip to the Louvre the pair enter a church where a classical singer accompanied by a lute perform a version of The Lament of Euryalus's mother from Virgil's Aenid.7. This time it's an expression of another parent-child relationship a mother expressing the loss of her son. It's significant, then, that in the next scene Vincent is seen at home in his mother's company for the first time since Act 2. Having returned home Vincent decides to introduce her to his adopted father.

    Yet despite the depth of issues the film explores it remains surprisingly comic in tone, just one of the many departures from traditional biblical epics. Variety described it as a "mirthful contemporary remix of the Nativity story",8 the New York Times noted its "throwaway humor"9 and the Phoenix Cinema summed it up nicely as "A delightful and enjoyably off-beat comedy of misplaced paternity".10

    Indeed whilst the films humour comes and goes, it's usually used to make a point. At the beginning of the film Green shows us a shot of the high street where two people focusing on their phones unexpectedly crash into one another. Green has spoken about his concerns that "we live in a world in which the present doesn't exist. If you go out on the street you see people with their mobile phones...they have no contact with their present. But the present is the most important time".11

    The funniest scenes revolve around the literary world which Green, as an author of books has experienced first hand. In particular the scenes at the launch party for Mathieu Orfraie's book which satirises literary reviewers in much the same way Denys Arcand mocked film and television critics in Jesus d'Montreal. Vincent, for example, meets one self-aggrandising critic who, assuming he must be an author, proceeds to tell him how Oscar has told her he is "brilliant". It's not only a swipe at literary criticism, but it also reminds us ironically that Oscar has not even acknowledged his son Vincent, let alone made plans to publish his novel.

    Oscar is a comic-tragic figure. Despite having no interest in his children and cheating on his wife, Oscar believes himself to be "a man of principle", merely bored by the "details" of how many children he has. His chief principle however seems to be refusing to help his, once-errant, brother. It's a judgement that prompts Joseph's to reply "I hope you reap the fruits of your virtue", (a prophecy is fulfilled just moments later when Vincent knocks him to the ground and puts a knife to his throat). "Pormenor" is an ironically chosen name which translates as "details", which Green has explained is because whilst "he thinks that everything that's important is a detail" ultimately it is he who "turns out to be a detail".12 Significantly, we are told that Joseph did not take this surname, and that neither did Marie give it to Vincent.

    Since Oscar is Vincent's true father who leaves a man called Joseph to do his fathering for him, it raises the question of whether Oscar is meant to represent God. Certainly the distant father who having brought his child(ren) into existence then has nothing to do with him (them) close to the deist idea of a non-intervening god which is so critical to deist thought. However, whilst he may be the biological father of Mary's 'fatherless' child, that child, as we have seen above, is neither a modernised Jesus or Christ figure. Green's films are marked by this love of paradox and ambiguity. As Green himself has said, “Cinema is the place where the materiality of the world and the sacred, the visible and the invisible meet”.13 It's a quote that goes back to at least 2014's La Sapienza but it deftly captures the paradoxes and contradictions that lie at the heart of Le Fils de Joseph. It's a film where the world that is portrayed is not quite the world we live in. Instead its a world that tells us far more about our own world and makes us yearn to meet the hidden God even if only at the end of our journey.

    =============
    1 - http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/
    interviews/great-beauty-eugene-green-la-sapienza

    2 - Interview with Green at the Film Society Lincoln Centre - the Close Up podcast
    3 - Interview with Green at the Film Society Lincoln Centre - the Close Up podcast
    4 - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/movies/the-son-of-joseph-review.html?nlid=73642489&_r=1
    5 - Interview with Green at the Film Society Lincoln Centre - the Close Up podcast
    6 - Interview with Green at the Film Society Lincoln Centre - the Close Up podcast
    7 - Vergil, Aeneid 9.460-524
    8 - http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/le-fils-de-joseph-review-1201705952/
    9 - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/movies/the-son-of-joseph-review.html?nlid=73642489&_r=1
    10 - "The Son of Joseph". Online synopsis from Phoenix Cinema http://www.phoenix.org.uk/film/the-son-of-joseph/ - accessed 12 Jan 2017
    11 - Interview with Green at the Film Society Lincoln Centre - the Close Up podcast
    12 - http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/feature/2016-10-13-eugene-green-in-conversation-on-son-of-joseph-le-fils-de-joseph-feature-story-by-anne-katrin-titze
    13 - http://isalyinnroadtripblues.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/blog-post_27.html

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    Thursday, January 19, 2017

    A Few Moments of Silence


    Martin Scorsese's Silence is a film of contradictions. Narratively simple, but thematically complex. Hauntingly beautiful, yet unbearable ugly in so much of what it portrays. Its a film that bears so many of the hallmarks of Scorsese's style yet feels completely different to anything he has produced before.

    So much of the film is encapsulated in the opening scene of Jesuit priests and Japanese inquisitors amongst the hills supposedly just outside Nagasaki, where geothermal pools of boiling water create an eerie beauty. Yet as the scene unfolds the beauty changes to horror as the boiling water from the pools is dripped onto the Jesuits' backs as a form of torture. It's 17th century Japan and the shogunate inquisitors are attempting to stamp out Christianity in their country.

    The film bears many of Scorsese's little touches, the violence, the close male friendships, the mentor and the charismatic character with the extreme personality. In some ways Silence is the polar opposite of Scorsese's last outing - the greed, sex and drug duelled lifestyle of The Wolf of Wall Street, but in other ways the two leads have much in common. Both men rush headlong in pursuit of their goals, driven by an undiluted vision. Father Rodrigues' determination to track down his predecessor in Japan may be far more laudable and morally pure than that of "The Wolf", but it also undoubtedly causes the most suffering - even if it is not he who is ultimately responsible for it.

    Another one of Scorsese's repeated themes is the apparent silence of a hidden god. Here the theme is far more front and centre than one might expect. Rodrigues struggles with his faith and the question of whether he should respond to the crisis practically and recant to save lives and suffering, or should he remain faithful to his religion. The films refuses to provide any easy answers. Even Liam Neeson's pivotal speech is not entirely convincing. Is it about remaining resolute, or learning to compromise and respect others' beliefs? Morality or confession? Or is it about providing context to the cries of "persecution from the religious right. Thankfully it manages to steer clear of the white saviour complex... just about.

    There's probably much more that could be said but, for now the above will have suffice.

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