• 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.












    Friday, January 17, 2020

    Good Omens (2019)
    Episode 1:In the Beginning


    There's a surprising amount of biblically themed television on at the moment. Before Christmas Netflix released the one off First Temptation of Christ and they followed it up on New Year's Day with their modern-day series Messiah. The end of 2019 also saw the crowd funded app-release of The Chosen (read more at FilmChat) and now, just two weeks into 2020 and the BBC has broadcast the first episode of Good Omens a quaint comedy drama about the anti-Christ.

    It's usually clear how seriously the BBC is taking a production by the quality of the cast. Here Good Omens stars Neil Tennant and Michael Sheen suggesting this is a fairly high priority in their New Year's schedule. Tennant and Sheen play Crowley and Aziraphale (ever destined to be called "the other one" in our house) an angel and a demon who have been watching the fate of humanity since the Garden of Eden.

    The first episode starts with an introductory monologue delivered very much in the style of the original The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, only it soon emerges the narrator (Frances McDormand, more acting nous) is actually God. Then we're transported to the Garden of Eden, a small green enclave set in the wilderness (see here) where a snake emerges to tempt Eve, who passes the apple to Adam and moments later the two are stepping out into the wilderness.

    Adam and Eve scenes are hardly novel (see my list) but this brief segment is interesting for three reasons. Firstly, because Adam and Eve are both played by actors with African heritage, which will please all those who favour a relatively close alliance between Genesis and current scientific theory, (particularly the theory that Mitochondrial Eve was from Africa). Secondly, because the serpent here is very reminiscent of that in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), particularly because of the way the camera is more concerned with the snake than either of the humans. And then lastly because Eve and Adam leave Eden with the flaming sword. Wait a minute, what?

    The shot cuts to a now-flaming swordless Aziraphale (Sheen) standing on top of the walls of Eden. As he scans the horizon, he's joined by the snake who quickly transforms into the almost human form of Crowley (Tennant). The two get to chatting and it gradually turns out that they are both somewhat ambivalent about their commander's orders and concerned they might have already messed up their special roles. And it's this humanising of the supernatural beings which is the heart of the series. Sheen admits he gave away the flaming sword out of concern for Adam and Eve's welfare. Tennant that banishing them from the Garden was "a bit of an overreaction". "I can't see what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway". Sheen worries he did the wrong thing, to which Tennant shares his own concern that he may have done the wrong thing.

    [Ep.1 Spoilers] The two strike up an unlikely friendship, such that when the show fast forwards to just before the present day, they are still friends. The Anti-Christ is about to be born to the wife of a privileged White-House chief of staff. There's a mix-up at the hospital and the baby somehow goes home with the wrong couple. Meanwhile Crowley suggests to Aziraphale that Armageddon is good for neither of them and the two hatch a plan to work together incognito. Crowley's bad influence will be counteracted by Aziraphale's good influence - both will be able to claim they are acting in their employers best interests. Crowley by doing his job, Aziraphale by making the anti-Christ less evil.[End Spoilers] By the end of the episode we are up to the present day, though the period details are deliberately mixed up, presumably to give things a more universal flavour (time-wise at least, the series is stereotypically British)

    It's an interesting premise, with more than a few nods to Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore's Bedazzled (1967). There is some great writing made all the better by Tennant and Sheen's delivery. Part 2 of the six part series goes out next Wednesday at 9pm.

    Edit: I should also point out that this series first aired on Amazon Prime in Spring 2019, but as I don't subscribe to that service it had passed me by. The finer details of its release also passed-by a group of Christian campaigners called Return to Order who got 20,000 signatures on a petition to Netflix to cancel to show only to discover when Netflix duly obliged that it was only available on Amazon Prime...

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    Friday, October 27, 2017

    La Sacra Bibbia/After Six Days (1920)


    With so many silent films lost to the ages, we should be grateful even for those where the remains are only part of what was originally projected. Nevertheless, it's hard not to be a little aggrieved that the print of La Sacra Bibbia (also known as just La Bibbia) that remains is a butchered version edited down for a re-issue. Indeed Sacra Bibbia was reissued at least twice, once in 1929 (as After Six Days) at the advent of the sound era, and once as late a 1946, for which a trailer was put together boasting of a $3 million and promising a cast of 10,000. The film's publicists also made much of the film being shot at the "exact locations" though the artefacts that are shown seem more like modern re-creations than the famous landmarks themselves.

    The version that remains is the 1929 version, edited down from the original and replacing the original (reference free) title cards with an earnest, but dull narration. According to Campbell and Pitts La Bibbia was released as a series of one reelers (1981: 12) and a copy of the original Joseph reel found it's way into the Joye collection and survives in the BFI's archive. The fragment (which I reviewed here) indicates some of what was lost. In addition to the intertitles, the re-issue also cropped the image, disastrously on more than a few occasions.

    What remains, however, is still a testament to what was the strength of the Italian silent epic. It was in Italy that the historical epic was born (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, 1908) and for all the attention given to Griffith's Birth of a Nation it was Cabiria that took the epic film to a whole new level. Indeed Griffith is reputed to have admitted Cabiria inspired him to make Intolerance what it was. La Bibbia retains much of the grandeur and spectacle of those films and in its own right contains numerous shots for which it deserves to be remembered.

    The film was directed by Armando Vay and Dr Piero Antonio Gariazzo. These days Gariazzo is better remembered for his commentary than his filmmaking. Bertilini only mentions him for his 1919 book Il Teatro Muto and his expression of a sentiment more widely connected with Alfred Hitchcock, "Whether they are skilled or not, film actors and actresses are like puppets" (Bertilini 2013: 259).

    Unsurprisingly the acting is not particularly memorable, but the compositions and imagery are what really stand out. The earliest scenes give a sense of creation and must have inspired Huston and Dino De Laurentiis' sort-of remake in 1966. Eve appears for the first time as smoke rises from Adam's sleeping body. The two frolic in the garden before embracing and taking a bit out of the forbidden fruit almost simultaneously. Moments later a furtive Cain, dominating the foreground and shooting furious looks directly at the camera forlornly pokes his sacrifice knowing it will fail whilst in the rear of the shot, almost off camera, his brother contentedly carries on.

    The brief scenes of the Ark and are unspectacular, but nevertheless the curve of the unfinished boat's hull and the struts that support it form a pleasing backdrop to shots of Noah and his family. Once the rains come in earnest, however, the images are far more disturbing. First Doré's "The Deluge" is evoked as people desperately climb on a rock hoping for salvation; then a wider shot of dead bodies piled up just above the rising waters as the rains continue to lash down; then finally a double exposure brings the camera closer to some of these, now ghostly, corpses floating away whilst the camera ploughs on in the opposite direction.

    However it's the Tower of Babel that lives longest in the memory. Here's it's depicted as a towering ziggurat, so colossal that it's top disappears into the clouds off the top of even an ultra-wide shot. It both reflects and emboldens Bruegel's famous painting (1563) and Doré's engraving (1865) amongst others, soaring above the seemingly minute people milling about below. Another highlight of these opening scenes is the spectacular destruction of Sodom, as the disastrous angelic visit to Lot ends in brimstone raining down on the city in a whirl of sparks and smoke.

    In contrast to these more eye-catching, spectacular scenes, the Joseph episode neatly emphasises Mrs Potiphar's obsession with him, notably the voyeuristic pleasure she finds secretly watching him. In a darkened foreground she watches him silently through a grill, briefly facing the camera as she bites her bottom lip in ecstasy. The theme of the audience watching someone watching someone else has been replayed numerous times since, another reminder of Hitchcock. When Pharaoh remembers his dreams a matte shot shows cows running above his head, before animated stalks of wheat appear. The section's use of low and high angles to reinforce the power dynamics of the courtroom scene.

    Moses' appearance on the big screen here was possibly the last time before DeMille made his indelible mark two or three years later. The differences are striking. For example rather than carrying around a mighty staff, Moses' rod is more reminiscent of a magic wand. Suddenly it feels like DeMille might have been compensating for something. Moses also has horns in the style of Michelangelo's statue (1513-1515) - just one of a number of ways in which the film's portrayal resembles the famous sculpture, something DeMille made much of when promoting his 1956 remake with Charlton Heston. That said, the crossing of the Red Sea - here portrayed using a rather clumsy matte shot - is not a patch on DeMille's first attempt just a few years later.

    Indeed after such a striking first half the second part of the film is less impressive. Once Moses has installed Joshua as his successor and wandered up the mountain to meet his maker, the remaining footage skips to the story of Solomon, perhaps suggesting that a scenario or two are missing here. Solomon shows his wisdom, threatens to cut a baby in half before being wowed by the Queen of Sheba in a scene full of over-the-top headdresses. Eventually he ends up a pagan orgy with her in scenes strongly reminiscent of the later Solomon and Sheba (1959).

    By then, the film, or this cut of it at least, has rather lost its way and like the Hebrew Bible itself, the narrative thread rather trails off. Nevertheless, there is so much to be appreciated in the rest of the film it is a shame that it has had so little attention,  neither amongst silent cinema fans, nor amongst academics. Even if what we have is only a pale reflection of what once was, La Sacra Bibbia deserves to be better remembered.

    ==========================
    - Bertilini, Giogio (ed.) Silent Italian Cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
    - Campbell, Richard C. and Pitts, Michael R. (1981) The Bible on Film: A Checklist, 1897–1980, Metuchen, NJ, and London: Scarecrow Press.
    - Gariazzo, Piero Antonio (1919) Il Teatro Muto Turin: Lattes, cited in Pitassio, Francesco (2013) Famous Actors, Famous |Actresses: Notes on Acting Style in Italian Silent Films" cited in Bertilini, Giogio (ed.) Silent Italian Cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p.259

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    Monday, February 07, 2011

    Good Morning Eve (1934)

    Last Year I catalogued a fairly full list of films about Adam and Eve. One film I mentioned, but knew almost nothing about was Good Morning Eve from (1934). A while back Peter Chattaway emailed me this link which contained the following information:
    Ralph Staub's "Good Morning Eve'' (1934), which by Leonard Maltin's reckoning beat "La Cucaracha'' into theaters as the first three-strip, live-action Techicolor short, is an especially racy Leon Errol musical about Adam and Eve traveling through history.
    From a bit more research it seems that the film is available in two parts on YouTube. I've not seen it yet so you might like to take note of the use of the phrase "especially racy" above and that it was released in the pre-production code era. The IMDB also has a few reviews which mention that "Adam (Leon Errol) and Eve (June MacCloy) leave the Garden of Eden and stroll through history, stopping for production numbers in Rome with Nero and in England with King Arthur", and that the film was only the "second three-strip Technicolor film in history". It also ends with an early 20th century beach sequence. There are some nice photos of this scene (including the above) on Flickr courtesy of Kay Wrad.

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    Friday, September 17, 2010

    Proyas Signs up for Paradise Lost

    Back in April last year I mentioned two different attempts to adapt John Milton's poem "Paradise Lost" for the big screen (see all posts). There's been precious little about those two films since then, but now what seems to be a third potential version has entered the fray. According to Variety
    Alex Proyas (Knowing, Dark City) has signed up to direct the movie with Legendary Pictures. Stuart Hazeldine, Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi and Lawrence Kasdan have all worked on the screenplay. Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni will produce with Warner Brothers involved as well. Thanks to Peter Chattaway for that.

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    Friday, June 11, 2010

    Full List of Adam and Eve Films

    On Sunday I started compiling a list of films featuring Adam and Eve. I've now had a chance to work through that previous list, and eliminate a few films which seem only tangentially linked to the biblical story. In some cases however there isn't really enough evidence to tell. I've also arranged them in ascending order of year. Here's the full list, 44 films in total:

    Adam & Eve (1910)
    Adam & Eve [Vitagraph] (1912)
    The New Adam and Eve (1915)
    Young Eve and Old Adam (1920)
    Adam and Eve a la Mode (1920)
    Adam and Eve in the Andes (1920)
    The Bible: Creation (1921)
    Adam and Eve (1921)
    Good Morning Eve (1934)
    Green Pastures (1936)
    Adán, Eva y el diablo [aka Adam, Eve and the Devil] (1945)
    Der Apfel ist AB (1948)
    Adamo ed Eva (1949)
    Adamo ed Eva (1950)
    Adam wa Hawa (1951)
    Adan y Eva (1956)
    Stvoreni Sveta [The Creation of the World] (1958)
    The Creation of Woman (1960)
    The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960)
    Male and Female Since Adam and Eve (1961)
    Adam & Eve (1962)
    I Patriarchi Della Bibbia (1963)
    The Bible: In The Beginning (1966)
    La Creacion (1968)
    El Peco de Adan Y Eva [The Sin of Adam and Eve] (1968)
    El pecado de Adán y Eva [aka The Sin of Adam and Eve] (1969)
    Bible (1974)
    New Media Bible: Book of Genesis [Genesis Project] (1979)
    The Diary of Adam and Eve (1980)
    Adamo ed Eva, la prima storia d'amore (1983)
    Angyali üdvözlet (The Annunciation) (1984)
    Second Time Lucky (1984)
    The Diaries of Adam and Eve (1988)
    Genesis: Creation and Flood (1994)
    Testament: The Bible in Animation: Creation and the Flood (1996)
    In The Beginning (1999)
    Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999)
    Expulsion from Paradise (2001)
    The Story of Adam & Eve (2002)
    The Real Old Testament (2003)
    Iván Ávila Dueñas's Adán y Eva [Todavía] (2004)
    Adam and Eve: Uncensored (2006)
    The God Complex (2009)
    Year One (2009)
    The Unauthorized Biography of Adam and Eve (2009)


    There's also 3 Adam and Eve related films being produced at the moment:


    Keanu Reeves in a sci-fi version of the Adam and Eve story

    David L. Cunningham's forthcoming 3D In the Beginning
    Scott Derrickson's planned adaptation of Paradise Lost,

    Did I miss anything?

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    Wednesday, June 09, 2010

    Keanu to Play Adam in Space?

    Whoa...
    Keanu Reeves already has been locked up as the male lead, while his female love interest is still being sought for what the producers short-handed as "Adam & Eve in Space."

    ...Set in the future, "Passengers" centers on Jim Preston (Reeves), a mechanic on a 120-year journey to a distant colonized planet in another galaxy, who becomes the first traveler to experience pod hibernation failure. Having woken up 100 years too soon, he is stranded in the world of an interstellar spaceship with only robots and androids for companionship
    Thanks to Film School Rejects for highlighting this one.

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    Sunday, June 06, 2010

    Finding Adam and Eve Films

    Recently, I've been thinking about films about the creation of the world and Adam and Eve. In part this is because it seems to me that there are so many that I have heard of but am yet to see, and I struggle to distinguish some of them from one another. SO, just as I have previously tried to list "all" films on Noah and Samson, I'm going to try to do the same for this part of the Bible.

    Firstly there are the films I have seen (linking to my writings on them - though some you may have to scroll down to reach).
    Green Pastures (1936)
    The Bible: In The Beginning (1966)
    Genesis: Creation and Flood (1994)
    Testament: The Bible in Animation: Creation and the Flood (1996)
    In The Beginning (1999)
    The Real Old Testament (2003)
    The God Complex (2009)
    Next up are the films that Campbell and Pitts name in "The Bible on Film":
    Adam & Eve (1910)
    Adam & Eve (1912) - Vitagraph
    The Bible: Creation (1921-22)
    Good Morning Eve (1934)
    Der Apfel ist AB (1948)
    Adamo ed Eva (1950)
    Adan y Eva (1956) - poster above
    Stvoreni Sveta (the Creation of the World) (1958)
    The Creation of Woman (1960)
    The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960)
    Adam & Eve (1962)
    I Patriarchi Della Bibbia (1963)
    La Creacion (1968)
    El Peco de Adan Y Eva (The Sin of Adam and Eve) (1968)
    Bible (1974)
    In addition to this there are a number of other films which I'm aware of which are not included in the above:
    Mike Figgis's Loss of Sexual Innocence (pictured above)
    The Genesis Project: Genesis,
    Year One
    (2009)
    David L. Cunningham's forthcoming 3D In the Beginning,
    Scott Derrickson's planned adaptation of Paradise Lost,
    The Annunciation (Angyali üdvözlet) (1984)
    Iván Ávila Dueñas's Adán y Eva (Todavía).
    Leafing through the Internet Movie Database reveals a number of other likely possibilities. Firstly those named simply "Adam and Eve"
    Adam and Eve (1921)
    Adamo ed Eva (1949)
    Adam wa Hawa (1951)
    Adam og Eva (1953)
    Adam och Eva (1963)
    Adam i Heva (1969)
    Adamo ed Eva, la prima storia d'amore (1983) aka "Adam and Eve"
    Adam & Eve (2002) aka "Forbidden Fruit"
    Adam & Eve (2003)
    There is also Adam and Eve (2005) better known as National Lampoon: Adam and Eve, but from what I can make out that one has little to do with the biblical story.

    Then there are also these films which include "Adam and Eve" in the title, and might well be based on the Bible in some way:
    The New Adam and Eve (1915)
    Young Eve and Old Adam (1920)
    Adam and Eve a la Mode (1920)
    Adam and Eve in the Andes (1920)
    Adán, Eva y el diablo (1945) aka "Adam, Eve and the Devil"
    Male and Female Since Adam and Eve (1961)
    El pecado de Adán y Eva (1969)aka "The Sin of Adam and Eve" - USA
    The Diary of Adam and Eve (1980)
    The Diaries of Adam and Eve (1988) (TV)
    The Story of Adam & Eve (2002)
    Eve & Adam (2004)
    Adam and Eve: Uncensored (2006)
    The Unauthorized Biography of Adam and Eve (2009)
    I haven't had time to check the descriptions of the films on the IMDB as usually a few of them prove to be largely unrelated. So when I get another chance I'll work through all those, eliminate any spurious entries and post a complete list.

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    Tuesday, March 09, 2010

    Coming Soon, Genesis in 3D

    This just in from Jeffrey Overstreet: Paramount Pictures and Walden co-founder Cary Granat are making a 3D version of the creation story. In The Beginning will "will use 3-D visuals to transform the oft-told tale into a spectacle that the filmmakers hope will attract family and faith-based audiences". Granat was behind Walden's The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe which has been greeted with a mixed response amongst Christian film critics.

    The story, and the quotation above, originate in an exclusive at Deadline New York, but if it's true, it will be interesting to see how the film compares with the animated 3D Noah film that is also rumoured to be in production. THe race for the first 3D Bible film is very much on.

    Granat apparently "pitched the film by claiming that the Adam And Eve story has never really been told by a feature film" which is odd given that the title of his film seems to be a nod towards John Huston's epic The Bible: In the Beginning. Still given the occasionally lackadaisical approach to C.S. Lewis' tome, I can't say I'm greatly surprised. That said, it's hard to imagine any Bible film getting the budget to film in 3D without having to make it family friendly and tone down the Christianity a bit. Quite how you do that with Genesis, I'm not entirely sure.

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    Thursday, February 18, 2010

    The Bible: A History, Part 4

    On a personal level I found Sunday's fourth entry in The Bible: A History the most enjoyable so far. As you'd expect from its title, Daughters of Eve moved away from the format of the previous 3 programmes (all of which focussed on only one part of the Bible) to survey a range of woman from the Bible. As you'd expect, presenter Bettany Hughes started by looking at Eve, before moving on to examine Deborah, Bathsheba, Jezebel, Mary, Salome, Lydia and, most surprisingly, the second Jezebel from the book of Revelation. Along the way she spoke to various female scholars who gave us extra insights into the biblical text.

    I stress my personal enjoyment of the programme because for someone a little bored of the conventional takes on these characters, and comfortable with the possibility of bias in the biblical text, it was nice to have something a bit more interesting to think on. The attempted redemption of Jezebel for example is something I'm still thinking about and weighing even a few days later. And it was interesting to hear that some parts of Jewish tradition, and I stress the some, consider the woman of Genesis 1 not to be Eve but a different woman entirely, Lilith.

    The potential problem with all this is, I think, that this wasn't just a programme made for me and my ilk, but a broadcast programme on a national TV channel. Biblical literacy is low enough amongst the church, let alone the general populace, and I guess I'm a little uncomfortable with the weight given to some of these more obscure theories. And, as Doug Chaplin points out, it's strange that Ruth and Esther didn't get talked about, though sparing us another alternative take on Mary Magdalene was definitely a smart move.

    Having said all that, perhaps this isn't really too much of a problem; after all how many people are really going to turn to Channel 4 expecting a traditional take on anything? In fact, Channel 4 has done so many religious history programmes in this demythologising style that the majority of those tuning in are perhaps likely to be those open to alternative takes on these stories.

    What I did appreciate about the programme was the way it stuck to being about biblical history. Whereas the previous three programmes had used the Bible as a springboard for exploring their own agendas, this one (whilst undoubtedly still driven by Hughes's agenda) felt like it stuck closely to its core subject matter. Perhaps this is because Hughes is a historian, hence her agenda is a re-reading of the history advertised in the programme's title. There's seemingly no change of gears when her agenda comes to the fore. In contrast, Widdecombe is a law maker, once she gets onto her own agenda it is far more obvious.

    The other key strength of the programme was that Hughes came at it with a conviction that the Bible does, actually, indicate the strength of some of its heroines. Augustine may have obscured Eve, but the same church elevated Mary. Jezebel may be castigated for her show of female strength, but Deborah is praised for it. Bathsheba's reputation may only be slightly mitigated once we understand her context, but Lydia's is clearly strengthened once we understand hers.

    So all in all, whilst I have a few qualms about the programme's balance, it was certainly the strongest entry so far, and one which I'd like to watch again to pick up some of the subtleties of what was said. Next week Gerry Adams will launch the series' New Testament section with a look at Jesus. I'll be reviewing that one fairly soon afterwards at rejesus.co.uk where I currently have a piece previewing the Adams episode.

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    Thursday, June 25, 2009

    Caïn et Abel (Cain and Abel)

    Henri Andréani, Pathé, France, 1911, 5 mins
    I'm not going to be able to find stills for many of these silent films, so I'll use images from the Renaissance paintings instead. This is not entirely without merit. As I mentioned on Tuesday Judith Buchanan pointd out how these early Bible films will have been influenced, to some degree at least, by the paintings of the events they were portrying. This is Il Tintoretto from 1550-53. Thanks to Art and the Bible and Loving God Center for these.

    The opening scene of Caïn et Abel is a cramped shot of Cain and Abel arguing and almost coming to blows but for the intervention of Adam and Eve. It's a shot that's significant in a number of ways. Firstly, because much of this film is shot in a closer proximity than was standard for the time. The film is heavily marked with Pathé touches. Both its general 'look' and the style of the angels and the manner of their appearance etc. are all very familiar from The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ. But whereas those films stood at a distance as if the viewer were sat watching the production in a theatre, here there are a number of mid-shots.

    The claustrophobia nature of these shots, which may have been shockingly groundbreaking at the time, not only adds to the tension but expresses it in spatial terms. There's a real sense of cabin fever - these four people are the only humans in the world and they are starting to get on each other's nerves. The composition is interesting elsewhere as well, using foregrounding and backgrounding quite effectively.

    The opening shot is also significant because it introduces Adam and Eve into a story from the Bible in which they are not really involved. They are, of course, present in the narrative's prologue and epilogue, but their absence during the story itself has caused some scholars to suggest that the story itself has been incorporated, into the "J" source. It's notable, for example, that Adam's line grows from Seth rather than Cain.

    The third point of significance here is that all four memberd of the family are portrayed as cavemen, wearing animal skins - Eve looks like an archetype for Raquel Welch's One Million BC role for example - but also later we see Cain's murder weapon is a flint axe. For obvious reasons these four characters cannot really be located at a specific point in the accepted chronology, but [edit] Gen 3:20 describes God using animal skins to make clothes for Adam and Eve as they leave the Garden of Eden. (Thanks to Timothy D. Lee for reminding me of that one - see comments below). [/edit]

    What's striking, though, is the contrast with the Bible's early descriptions of Adam and Eve's attire - "and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." (Gen 3:7). Here, however, dead animal has usurped dead fruit leaves, as Abel's animal sacrifice will prove superior to Cain's fruits of the ground.

    Similarly, Cain is depicted as brutish, which is perhaps only to be expected, but also of low intelligence. Indeed, this is often used as a humourous device. And of course the timing is interesting given that the Cain and Abel story is currently doing the rounds in cinemas in Year One which is also a comedy.

    So all in all, it's interesting to watch how the narrative unfolds from this opening. The intertitles for this print were in German: there are so few copies of films of this age that you have to make do with what you have. Some of them followed the practice of citing actual scriptures. Gen 4:4-5, Gen 4:10 and Gen 4:14 are all cited. There's a brief scene guide at the bottom.

    God's rejection of Cain's sacrifice is shown by his sacrifice fire going out, whereas Abel's keeps on burning. IN contrast to the text of Genesis the murder takes place not in the field, but in the rock outcrop where the (attempted) sacrifices have just taken place. Cain goes and finds a flint axe and strikes Abel neither completely spontaneous, nor entirely premeditated.

    As soon as Abel dies Cain is wracked with guilt. He covers the the body with stones, as if making an altar or a monument. There was something very Girardian about this. Girard's theory about sacrifice, which approach the subject via anthropology, talks about mimetic desire (the mechanism by which someone else having something makes another person want it), which is present to a degree here here in that the two sacrifices take place at the same time and in the same shot, though Cain wanted to make the sacrifice anyway. But more significantly it talks about how human sacrifice used to happen to heal discord within the community, and, crucially, how the graves (or the memory) of the murdered / sacrificed individual becomes sacred, and revered. I'm not sure I've explained that very well, but the manner in which the body was covered - far more elaborately than was stricly required to cover the body, grabbed my attention.

    Of course God is not fooled, and an angel appears (accompanied by cardboard rays of light as in other Pathé films of the period, the line about Abel's blood crying out from the ground is given via intertitle and the body is revealed. Cain runs off, but then sees a vision of Abel's body, and then of the angel once more.

    What's interesting about this is that Abel's appearance seems to be a demonstration of Cain's inner torment. I don't think Abel's body is meant to be physically present anymore than the dagger is physically present in Macbeth. This is the first time I have seen such psychologising in an early film - aside from that expressed in the faces of the actors. Does it also suggest that the angel he sees is also in his mind?

    Lastly, there's quite a long shot at the end of the film of Cain dragging himself along the floor, through the narrow, muddy passageway between two rocks. It's fairly open to interpretation, but for me it symbolises both the journey he will undertake to Nod, and his now lowly status (he is dragging himself through the mud).

    The scenes are as follows:
    [Extra-biblical Episode - Cain and Abel argue]
    Cain and Abel's sacrifices - (Gen 4:3-4)
    Murder of Abel - (Gen 4:8b)
    God confronts Cain - (Gen 4:9-14)
    Cain flees to Nod - (Gen 4:15)
    Campbell and Pitts only mention this film is passing (p.5) as part of their discussion of the 1910 film Cain and Abel by Gaumon. They also mention a third film on this story, also called Cain and Abel made in the US the same year (1911) by Vitagraph. The summary from the BFI archive, which formerly cited the film as 1909 is this:
    The story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel and their parents, all dressed in skins, are standing around the camp fire. Cain argues with Abel but their mother, Eve, separates them and Adam sends him off (55). Cain and Abel both prepare to make sacrifices upon two stone altars. Abel sacrifices a lamb, which burns properly, but Cain's sacrifice of farm produce does not, and he throws it to the ground in disgust and envy. He makes threatening gestures towards Abel, who is praying at his sacrifice (129). Cain retreats a short distance and thinks about killing Abel, demonstrating how he will use his stone axe. Abel says a few words to him but when he turns his back Cain fells him with the axe, and covers his body with stone slabs (237). Cain is struck by lightning several times, and a shining ray appears from which an angel carrying a sword emerges. Cain cowers before the angel, who asks him what he has done. The angel points his sword at Cain, then causes the stones to fall from Abel's body. Cain rises and stumbles away (303). [Short section 297-298ft showing Cain rising to his feet, is repeated twice]. Cain clambers and stumbles over the rocks until he is stopped by a vision of Abel's body, which turns into the angel. The angel strikes Cain on the shoulder with his sword, and curses him, before disappearing (388). Cain crawls amongst the rocks, struggles through a wood, and falls to the ground (463). Blank. The end. (467ft. 35mm).

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    Thursday, April 30, 2009

    Paradise Even More Lost

    There has been the occasional bit of news about Scott Derrickson's plans to make a film version of Milton's Paradise Lost, though things seem to be progressing rather slowly. But not as slowly as they might be. The Hollywood Reporter is carrying a story that producer Martin Poll has been trying to make a movie based on the 17th Century epic poem since the late sixties.

    Encouragingly, for Poll at least, it seems he's finally got someone to bite. Granite Entertainment and STV Networks have decided to team up with Poll, despite the potential competition from Derrickson's picture. And what with the release of Year One this June, there could be 3 films about Adam and Eve in theatres in the next year or so. I always find it funny how these coincidences seem to happen. 2006 saw two films released within weeks of each other about Victorian magicians. As Jeffrey Overstreet points out there were also two films about Truman Capote around the same time. I wonder if anyone will play these on a double bill when the time comes.

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    Tuesday, August 05, 2008

    MTV on Paradise Lost,

    The publicity machine for The Day the Earth Stood Still is starting to get up and running which gives director Scott Derrickson the chance to talk about his next project - an adaptation of Milton's Paradise Lost. Even so, the recent piece at the MTV Blog is surprisingly lengthy for a film that's not due out until 2009. The official site contains nothing more than an email address.

    I'd recommend reading the whole article, but here are a couple of choice quotes to whet the appetite.
    Imagine the most evil creature that ever existed, a villain who commits atrocity after atrocity, who has scarred the world and each and every creature in it, a scoundrel so heinous he makes Heath Ledger's anarchist Joker look like Mother Teresa. Now imagine that you like him.

    Director Scott Derrickson says that when you see his upcoming adaptation of "Paradise Lost," the epic 17th-century poem by John Milton about the Fall of Man, you won't be able to help but have sympathy for its bad guy: the devil.
    I've not read the original, but I don't think the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose is meaning to be subversive here - he insists it's all in Milton's original work.
    In the movie, Satan goes from being a completely good being [an angel] to becoming the most heinous kind of evil, and you really have a hard time knowing exactly where he crossed that line because you were with him," the director said. "What is interesting about that story, in the way Milton laid it out, is that people jump off with him at different points and some never at all. Properly done, it's a story that tells readers a lot about themselves.

    "You have to respect that Milton created the first anti-hero with that poem, and certainly this was preserved in the script," Derrickson added. "At what point does love turn to jealousy, jealousy turn into hate and hate into evil?
    Thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for highlighting the article.

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    Friday, July 25, 2008

    The God Complex

    I just came across the website for The God Complex - an irreverent comedy that "takes the silliest stories from the Bible and makes them...well...just a little sillier". Although it's still in production there are a number of stills and several clips available to view. If you're bothered by bad language then these probably aren't the clips for you.

    It looks like the film mainly focusses on Genesis, though it also promises footage from today "where Jesus walks among us disguised as a mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper", and whilst it prides itself on being low budget there's at least one nifty special effect. All in all it looks like it will have a lot in common with The Real Old Testament.

    I'm going to contact the filmmakers to see if I can get more information, and I'll report back if so.

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    Monday, June 04, 2007

    First Paradise Lost, NowThis?

    I never quite got around to blogging the news that John Milton's Paradise Lost is being brought to the big screen by Scott Derrickson (Exorcism of Emily Rose). (Is it a Bible film? Having not read it I'm not really sure). There doesn't seem to be a great deal of information about it yet anyway. The official website(?) is very sparse indeed and whilst the IMDb page lists it as a 2007 film, it has no release dates, cast list or images related to the film. Anyone wanting to catch up on the story so far should check out the various posts at FilmChat, in particular the article at New York Times.

    The latest of these is Variety's report that Disney has bought the script for another Adam and Eve themed film - All About Adam. Scott Rudin is lined up to produce the film which will follow Adam as he follows Eve to modern-day Gotham "after they have a lovers' quarrel" and "Adam discovers Satan was behind the breakup". I'm not really sure of the advantages of this film being about Adam and Eve, given the bible tells us very little about them and the context is so uniquely other as to surrender their literary significance. Perhaps there will be some form of going back in time grand finale à la Last Temptation of Christ.

    Finally, I stumbled out of the cinema (having watched the excellent, if troubling, This is England) on Wednesday and walked straight past a poster advertising Paradise Lost. Surprised that it had crept up on me unnoticed I did a double take, had a closer look, and discovered that this wasn't the Milton project released early, but simply a tacky horror film. Apparently the US film Turistas has been released over here as Paradise Lost. Bizarre. Someone on the IMDb Message Board summed it up nicely: "Milton just died, again".

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    Thursday, May 17, 2007

    Scene Guide - The Real Old Testament

    Having reviewed Paul and Curtis Hannum's The Real Old Testament last week, I'd like now to give some scene analysis on the film. This is a fairly easy task as the individual episodes are given Bible references, and tie in fairly well with the chapter breaks on the DVD. Citing Bible references makes the film more authoritative, particularly for those who are not that familiar with Genesis, whilst also defusing some of the potential objections that its critics might raise. The main story headings (for each chunk of the story) are just cited as whole chapters, but each element within that chunk is accompanied by more specific references. To capture this I've made the main headings bold. All verses are as cited by the intertitles
    [Extra-Biblical Episode - Introduction]
    Gen 1-3 - The Garden of Eden
    The Forbidden Tree - (Gen 2:15)
    Temptation at the Tree - (Gen 3)
    The Fall From Grace - (Gen 3:9)
    Gen 4 - Cain and Abel
    Cain and Abel's Offering to God - (Gen 4:3)
    Cain kills Abel - (Gen 4:8)
    God Confronts Cain - (Gen 4:9)
    Gen 12, 15, 16 - Abram and Sarai
    God Comes to Abram - (Gen 12)
    Sarai is Barren - (Gen 16)
    Sarai Deals Harshly with Hagar - (Gen 16:6)
    God Find Hagar in the Wilderness - (Gen 16:7)
    Gen 19 - Sodom and Gomorrah
    Lot Visited by Two Angels - (Gen 19:4)
    Lot and His Family Flee - (Gen 19:15)
    Sin of Lot's Daughters - (Gen 19:30)
    Gen 17, 20-22 - Abraham and Sarah
    Abraham and Sarah meet King Abimelech - (Gen 20)
    Sarah Laughs at God's Pledge - (Gen 18:9)
    God Tests Abraham - (Gen 22)
    Gen 29-30 - Jacob and Rachel
    Jacob Meets Rachel - (Gen 29:9)
    Laban and Leah deceive Jacob - (Gen 29:23)
    Jacob and the Handmaidens - (Gen 30:3)
    Rachel Trades Jacob's Favours for some Mandrake - (Gen 30:14)
    [Extra-Biblical Episode - The Re-Union Show]
    Notes
    There are a number of similarities between this film and John Huston's The Bible: In the Beginning (in addition to covering the same subject matter). Firstly, the film's title suggests it covers a greater portion of the Bible than it actually does: Huston's film stops at Genesis 22 (after the aborted sacrifice of Isaac). The Real Old Testament goes eight chapters further.

    Secondly, from a textual point of view, both films offer a fairly literal reproduction, yet in both cases it is precisely because these films let the stories speak for themselves that they bring such uncomfortable challenges to the original stories. Finally both films star their directors in key roles: Huston plays Noah and Paul Hannum plays Snake whilst Curtis Hannum plays God. There are, of course, numerous other comparisons.

    This is the only film I can recall which shows the incident with Lot's daughters. It's absence in other Genesis films perhaps owes something to it's strangeness, and even though it's played for laughs here, it's uncomfortable viewing. Another episode usually glossed over is that of Rachel swapping sex with Jacob for Mandrake. Having recently watched Pan's Labyrinth (my review), where the legends surrounding the plant are explored, these aspects seemed particularly pertinent to me this time around. For more on this see the post on Rachel and Genesis 30 at Ralph the Sacred River.

    Whilst covering most of the first thirty chapters of Genesis there are a few notable omissions. In particular Noah and the Tower of Babel, as well as the stories of Isaac and Esau. I imagine that former pair were omitted for reasons of budget as much as anything else. (Interestingly the Noah scene is the only one in which Huston sought to bring out the humour). I'm curious as to why the story of Esau was left out. Perhaps the Hannums couldn't see the humour in it when they were creating the scenarios. Or perhaps it was filmed, but didn't reach the same standard as the rest of the film. One or two scenes are moved out of the order they occur in the bible, although their arrangement there is not actually chronological in any case.

    As with MTV's The Real World, the film ends with a "Re-Union Show" where all the characters get together again. Bring characters separated by time together produces a few new laughs, such as when one character calls Eve a "babe" before realising that they're supposed to be related, or Snake extolling the virtues of agents. It is however, the weakest part of the film. Interestingly though, it does raise questions about the treatment of women in the book of Genesis.

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    Friday, July 21, 2006

    Huston on making The Bible

    I realised the other day that I haven't blogged on a film about the Old Testament since the 5th June when I posted about the planned, Ten Commandments spoof, The Ten to star Paul Rudd. This is, of course, partly due to having time off for becoming a father, as well wanting to cover Radio 4's Silverscreen Beats series on the music of various Jesus films, as well as there being a fair bit of news about forthcoming Jesus films such as The Nativity Story, and the BBC's Passion. Anyway, it's clearly time to redress the balance.

    Recently, I picked up a copy of John Huston's auto-biography "An Open Book" (which you can search inside at Amazon). My main point of interest was of course his discussion of his 1966 film The Bible: In the Beginning which is one of my favourite Old Testament films, and which I discussed briefly in my review of films about Genesis. Huston, as the title suggests, is fairly open about the various comings and goings, and is much more interested in telling stories surrounding the production that giving a careful shot by shot analysis of every scene. Although he later denied any similarity with Cecil B. DeMille, they do, at least, have this in common.1

    Huston raises a number of interesting points. Firstly, he clearly has a love for animals, and readily gives the impression that the part of the film he enjoyed most was the scenes of Noah's Ark. Of course, ultimately Huston himself played Noah, and incorporated into the final film several of the quirky habits of some of his four legged friends such as the elephant that uses his trunk to force Huston to stroke him some more, the hippo who would open his mouth as soon as he heard Huston approach, and the giraffes that would block his path until he fed them sugar. Despite his love of animals, and the high level of care and personal attention he gave to them before and during filming, Huston originally had wanted Charlie Chaplin for the role.
    It would have been a strange choice, although perhaps it explains the strangely anachronistic scene where Noah gets a bucket of pitch stuck on his foot, and slides down the ark's sloping deck. That scene has always felt so out of keeping with the feel of the rest of the film. The other actor Huston wanted for the role was Alec Guinness who was at the time, popularly known as much for his (Ealing) comedy as his more serious work.

    My favourite sequence of the film is the creation scene, and Huston explains how they spent quarter of a million on these opening few minutes alone. The scenes were not shot by Huston, but by stills photographer Ernst Haas, who had no experience of motion picture photography and had to go on a crash course before flying to the far corners of the globe to get his footage. Huston explains how he wanted these scenes to be shown...
    ...not as a single event at the beginning of time, but as a continuing, eternal process. Each morning is a new creation - something now and forever.
    What is impressive about these, in addition to the jaw dropping beauty of the images, is the way they so skilfully plot a course between a seven-day literalist interpretation on the one hand, and more metaphorical readings on the other. Just like the written text, the viewer looks at the raw material and is able to apply their own interpretation. In fact, the whole film works in a similar way. the great strength of this film is how it manages to be rigidly literal to the text, whilst simultaneously suggesting a mythical reading.

    When interviewed about the film, Huston was almost always asked if he believed the bible literally, and he obligingly includes his stock response that

    Genesis represented a transition from Myth, when man, faced with creation and other deep mysteries, invented explanations for the inexplicable; to Legend, when he attributed to his forebears heroic qualities of leadership, valor and wisdom; to History, when, having emerged from Myth and Legend, accounts of real exploits and events of the past were handed down from father to son before the written word.
    The reading of Genesis marking a movement from myth to legend to history is not uncommon, in fact CS Lewis expressed a similar view in his essay "Is Theology Poetry" for "Screwtape Proposes a Toast":
    The earliest stratum of the Old Testament contains many truths in a form which I take to be legendary, or even mythical - hanging in the clouds: but gradually the truth condenses, becomes more and more historical. From things like Noah's Ark or the sun standing still upon Ajalon, you come down to the court memoirs of King David. Finally you reach the New Testament and history reigns supreme, and the Truth is incarnate.
    (You can read more of this here)

    Huston does reveal a few of the tricks of the film. The tower of babel was shot on two sets in two different countries. The base was built on the studio's back lot (presumably in Italy), whilst the summit was built on the top of a steep slope outside Cairo. However, to give the impression of a tall tower whilst filming at the base they used a glass shot (painting the top of the tower, in correct perspective, on a piece of glass positioned in front of the camera). He also discusses in some detail the process used to create the (seemingly unedited) creation of Adam sequence using three clay casts built by sculptor Giacomo Manzu.

    There are also a few interesting quotes. He recounts, for example, what is probably his most famous cry during filming "I don't know how God managed, I'm having a terrible time". It would appear that this was caused more by George C. Scott and the Egyptian authorities, than by animals behaving as they shouldn't.

    There are also a number of quotes on the nature of his faith. Perhaps the most extensive is his answer to the question "Do you believe in God?"
    in the beginning, the Lord God was in love with mankind and accordingly jealous. He was forever asking mankind to prove our affection for Him: for example, seeing if Abraham would cut his son's throat. But then, as eons passed, His ardor cooled and He assumed a new role--that of a beneficient deity. All a sinner had to do was confess and say he was sorry and God forgave him. The fact of the matter was that He had lost interest. That was the second step. Now it would appear that He'd forgotten about us entirely. He's taken up, maybe, with life elsewhere in the universe on another planet. It's as though we ceased to exist as far as He's concerned. Maybe we have.

    The truth is I don't profess any beliefs in an orthodox sense. It seems to me that the mystery of life is too great, too wide, too deep, to do more than wonder at. Anything further would be, as far as I'm concerned, an impertinence.
    You can read more of Huston's quotes on religion, faith and God here.

    1-Madsen, A., John Huston: A Biography, Doubleday and Company: Garden City, New York (1978), p. 212

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    Sunday, January 15, 2006

    The Green Pastures


    Peter Chattaway mentioned at his FilmChat blog last year that Green Pastures (1936)was about to be released on DVD, and I notice from Tyler Williams' Codex Blogspot that it is now available to buy (although only in region 1 format).

    I was slightly disappointed to hear it as I had only just bought a copy on VHS having held off for years. My wife, Mel, and I decided when we bought a DVD player that we wouldn't be people who replace their collections, so sadly I'll have to stick with VHS for now.

    It was one of the films I got to talk about in an interview I did for a documentary due to be shown on Channel 4 this Easter. It was a controversial film when it came out. The Klu Klux Klan sought to get it banned. At the other end of the spectrum, it has been criticised more recently for it's use of "Uncle Tom" style stereotypes. Even the Warner release of the film now carries a disclaimer at the start

    It's difficult to judge this film 70 years later. The original release date of this film (1936) was 20 years before the civil rights movement, and is approximately halfway between today, and the end of the American Civil War - race relations have changed so significantly in that 141 years that it's hard to tell how things actually were in 1936.

    In my opinion, the fact that the KKK sought to ban the film, and persuaded many cinemas to boycott it, perhaps underlines how progressive a film it was. It was pretty much the first film to portray God, and to depict him as a black man, just 71 years after the end of the civil war, seems a very bold step.

    On the other hand portrayal of the other characters is a little more complex. They are portrayed both positively and negatively, but few characters appear to be very intelligent. That said, the majority of the film takes place in the children's imagination, and so it could be argued that flatter more simplistic characterisations might be what we expect.

    Time Out notes that it doesn't find the characterisations as offensive as "the way in which the depths of plangent suffering that inspired the spirituals are totally ignored. Instead we get white society's wish-fulfilment image of happy Uncle Toms who will be content with their due reward of a ten-cent cigar and a fish-fry in heaven." That quote reminds me of one my major criticism of the film - it's handling of the Moses story. I'm led to believe that the story of Moses leading his people to freedom from slavery was key in the negro spirituals and the theology that accompanied it, such that it has still retained significance in modern day Black Theology. Sadly the Moses section of the story is drained of all it's resonant associations and significance, presumably for fear of the radical implications of associating black plantation workers with the Hebrew slaves.

    Overall I think that if you place the film in it's context you get a bold attempt to move race relations on further. By today's standards it certainly could appear to be regressive or oppressive. However, I'd tentatively suggest that judging it by today's standards is perhaps not appropriate - the content may be a poor portrayal, but the spirit behind it may well be far more progressive that many films today that are aimed at a black audience. That said I recognise that as a white middle class English man, I'm not the best person to judge.

    Moving away from the race issue I commented on this film in my article on Genesis Films, where I noted "The Genesis scenes, being seen through a child's imagination make no attempt to be realistic, but their gentle humour, and basic simplicity give the film a spiritual authenticity that is absent from the majority of these films". The soundtrack is great, and there's some really nice gentle humour in the film. At times the script explores aspects of God and the bible that would probably get veggie-taled under the carpet today. This is particularly interesting as the stories are told through the eyes of children, and as a result make the story very accessible for children.

    For the record the film covers:

    Opening real life scenes
    opening dream sequences in heavem
    Creation
    Cain and Abel
    Noah and the Flood
    Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (as characters rather than their stories)
    Moses and the Freeing of the Israelites
    A Generic Prophet (not a biblical one, but someone who seems to combine different aspects from various Old Testament Prophets)
    Jesus's coming (told theough Da Lawd's reaction)

    Matt

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    Thursday, October 06, 2005

    Genesis Films

    This is an article I wrote for the Open Heaven Church website back in the days before this blog really existed. It's likely that the article will disappear from that site shortly, so I thought I ought to repost it before it disappeared forever.
    ===
    Noah's Ark 1928
    Of all the events narrated in the Bible, perhaps the hardest to picture, let alone understand, are those in Genesis. Whilst there have been several attempts by filmmakers to capture these formative events on celluloid, their most productive time was actually back in the silent period. The most comprehensive lists cite around 20 films on the various stories made during the silent period, and a further six in the first 10 years of the “talkie” period. By contrast, the past 70 years have only produced a similar number.

    The first film made about a story in Genesis was the French film Joseph Vendu Par Ses Frères (Joseph Sold by his Brothers) made in 1904. Other notable films in this early period included 1928 silent version of Noah’s Ark (where allegedly some people actually died filming the spectacular flood scene[1]), and The Green Pastures (1936) a child’s daydreamed version of the stories she is hearing in Sunday School.
    The Green Pastures (1936)
    The Green Pastures was probably the first film to portray God, and certainly the first to portray him as a black man. Unsurprisingly the Ku Klux Klan were outraged and protested causing many theatre owners to refuse to show it. The Genesis scenes, being seen through a child’s imagination make no attempt to be realistic, but their gentle humour, and basic simplicity give the film a spiritual authenticity that is absent from the majority of these films.
    The Bible (1966)
    Perhaps the best known Genesis film was made by John Huston in 1966. The Bible looked at the first 22 chapters of Genesis, starting with a wonderfully filmed creation sequence (voiced by Huston himself), and progressing through to Abraham and Isaac. The Bible was made at the end of the golden era of the biblical epic, and wisely avoids making this into a spectacular but camp, bathrobe drama. Instead its dark lighting gives much of the film a strange sense of the dawn of time, and the primitive nature of the cultures involved.
    The Bible (1966) - backstage shot
    At the same time the literalism of the presentation will both find favour with those who take a more literal understanding of the “how” questions of creation, whilst also giving it the air of archetypal myth that adopt a more symbolic interpretation.
    Genesis Project  -The Bible: Genesis (1979)
    The Bible was the last Hollywood film based on the Old Testament for over 30 years, with the exception of Richard Gere’s 1985 turn as King David, (replete with his undignified monkey dancing in front of a returning Ark of the Covenant). Instead most bible films began to be made for the TV and the church market. Typical of this was the late seventies “Greatest Heroes of the Bible” series, which included the stories of Noah, The Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham, Joseph. Around the same time the American organisation Campus Crusade (who made the 1979 Jesus film) made Genesis. This was a word for word, bland narration of the whole book accompanied by fairly uninspiring images which lasted for four long hours. It’s biggest plus point was it’s use of Middle Eastern actors, but it’s no surprise that none of them subsequently became the new Omar Sharif.
    Mrinal Sen’s Hindi adaptation - Genesis (1986)
    The eighties were a dry old time for cinematic versions of the book. Only the intriguingly titled Italian film Adam and Eve: The First Love Story and Mrinal Sen’s Hindi adaptation of the first five chapters were even made.
    The Bible Collection - Abraham (1994)
    The nineties were a different matter. With Phil Collin’s namesake rock band out of the way, the bible’s opening tome was back in business. Whilst there were many Genesis movies made over that decade the majority were made by the Italian-American based company Lux Vide. Lux Vide put together 11 Old Testament stories as part of their “Bible Collection”, which also includes three New Testament films Jesus, Paul and The Apocalypse (my review), as well as four largely fictional spin offs, (each loosely based on a marginal New Testament character). Four of the Old Testament episodes were based on the events in Genesis - Creation and Flood, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, and all four have their points of interest. Abraham, Jacob and Joseph frequently pierce the Sunday School cocoon that surrounds many tellings of these stories, both in cinema and other media, by including stories such as The Rape of Dinah, and Judah and Tamar that are so awkward, real, embarrassing and controversial that they are usually excluded completely. And the performances of Richard Harris, Sean Bean and Ben Kingsley respectively are usually worth watching in their own right.
    Genesis: Creation and Flood (1994)
    Of the four, Genesis: Creation and Flood (1994) is possibly the jewel in the crown. Certainly it is strikingly different from the more traditional and straightforward tellings of the story that the other films give us. Instead of attempting to emulate the pattern of the earlier The Bible, or of the other films in the series, Genesis: Creation and Flood sets it’s own course. Covering the first eight and half chapters the film shows us the stories through the eyes of an old man telling his grandson the history of his people. Paul Schofield narrates in all but a few passages, only occasionally interrupted by a female counterpart.

    The narration is accompanied by a striking series of images, occasionally interspersed by shots of Grandfather and the child, and other members of their family. It is an unusual effect. As Peter T Chattaway notes how normally you would be able to “follow any film's basic narrative thrust with the sound turned off… Genesis would fail that test”.[2]  In other words the narration shapes how the images are perceived. In a sense, this is like the act of creation itself, bringing form and order to the otherwise chaotic and unintelligible. The slow pacing of the film also gives it a meditative feel, enabling the audience to let the images wash over them whilst highlighting the words that drive them, and bring them meaning. This relaxed pace also brings a level of internal calm and thus transports the viewer to another time and another place far more effectively.

    Ultimately then Creation and Flood is far more poetic than any of it’s predecessors, and it is ironic that a film which is essentially driven by such a narrative and literary work is ultimately so unliterary and poetic as a final product. It’s also interesting how the stress here on the story being passed down from generation to generation reflects the oral tradition that preceded and underlies the written text we have today.
    In the Beginning (1999) - Martin Landau
    Another film that takes this community narrative approach was a made for TV movie In the Beginning (2000). Martin Landau headed up a strong cast, playing Abraham; just four years after he had played Abraham’s grandson Jacob in the aforementioned Joseph. At over three hours, In the Beginning had plenty of time to cram in a number of these stories, and as a result, it could afford to continue well into Exodus. The creation scene here is also told by way of a flashback, but the sequence is so overloaded with explosive special effects, and cheap modern documentary footage it completely strips the event of its mystery and gravitas.
    Noah's Ark (1999)
    The end of the millennium brought with it a flood of biblical stories, and Genesis films were no exception. Chief amongst the offenders was another TV movie Noah’s Ark (1999), which was almost as unwelcome as the events it depicts. It is difficult to imagine what motivated the production of this film. Its attempt to weave futuristic elements into a pre-historic myth backfires more spectacularly than a seventies Robin Reliant. The bizarre futuristic elements evoke Kevin Costner’s mega flop Waterworld. Had that film been a success this at least could be called a cheap cash in, but as it was a commercial disaster that cannot have been the driving factor. Similarly terrible is the ludicrous attempt to pass off its idiotic amalgamation of the stories of Lot and Noah with the ridiculous off-hand comment “by the time they finish the story of Sodom and Gomorrah they will probably say we weren't even there."

    The only potential merit of the film is that it solves the debate on God’s foreknowledge for ever. Noah’s Ark is so bad that if God had known the flood would spawn this stinker, he may have opted for another method of world destruction, (or at least have made sure that this was destroyed along with everything else). Frankly, it deserves every “wooden acting” joke that critics can throw at it.

    Another poorly executed Genesis film is the straight to video Prince of Egypt  prequel   Joseph King of Dreams. The film does have some good points, notably the dream sequences which certainly benefit from a more creative and more expressive medium. However, the tiresome songs quickly become so dull that ultimately you begin to wonder if a spell in prison like Joseph’s might be far preferable.
    La Genese (1998)
    Perhaps the best Genesis film of recent years (and of all time) is Cheick Oumar Sissoko’s La Genèse(1998). Sissoko’s film tells the story of Abraham’s family from an African perspective, and as a result, it is recorded in the Bambara language of Mali, spoken by only few million people. As a result La Genèse understands the nomadic tribal context in which these stories are set, far better than any number of  Hollywood films, and brings with it a number of fascinating insights.
    La Genese (1998)
    It also refuses to lionise its protagonists, and emphasises just how dysfunctional this family was at times. Too often these characters have been stripped of their humanity, and shown simply as one dimensional heroes. La Genèse gives a more realistic picture which honours the God who uses such ordinary, broken unreliable people to further his will, and offers us hope that he can use us as well.

    La Genèse is also beautifully filmed capturing the wonderful landscapes, and capturing something of the empty space that typified the world several thousand years ago. Nevertheless, at times the film is very stark and brutal in what it captures – starring unflinchingly at some of the more earthy elements of the story.
    La Genese (1998)
    It’s the ability of this film to bring a new angle to well known and familiar stories that makes it so valuable. There have been many films on the various Genesis stories, but only a handful bring something insightful, interesting or challenging. Of these three stand out in particular. The Bible (1966) simultaneously shuns the worst excesses of the 50s and 60s Biblical Epics whilst subverting some of the genre’s standard features. La Genèse (1998) brings the tribal context to the fore, exploring the stories with an authenticity that is largely absent otherwise. Finally, Genesis: Creation and Flood (1994), offers us the chance to reflect on scripture anew as it draws attention to the poetic nature of the text.  


    [1] Various reports of this, the best online can be found at www.jimusnr.com/Noahsark.html

    [2] www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/bc.cgi?bc/bccn/0501/artvideos

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