Marginal Noah's Ark cartoons

I recently posted a list of 'all' the screen productions to adapt the story of Noah and the flood. As ever with these things you soon remember how impossible it is to list them 'all': there are just too many. With a story as popular as this there are always brief fantasy sequences where lead characters imagine themselves as Noah, or something that someone has just created for YouTube (how many views of an original Noah adaptation make it a worthy production in itself).

Anyway, as part of that process I went back on forth several times on a handful of films that all landed somewhere around the cut-off line, and, seeing as I'm wanting to post some brief thoughts about some of the Noah / flood / Ark films I've watched recently, I thought I'd start with these, particularly as the first two go back to the 1920s.

Amateur Night on the Ark (1923)

Between 1921 and 1929 American animation pioneer Paul Terry produces a series of over 450 cartoons called Aesop's Fables Cartoons, the earliest of which, such as The Cat and the Canary (1922) were more closely related to Aesop than Amateur Night on the Ark. Terry had started out at Thanhouser animating a character called Farmer Alfa, and when he left them in 1917 to set out on his own he brought his "star" Alfa with him. 

The Alfa character a bald older man with a white beard, featured in many of Terry's silent animations and here he appears as the sole human aboard a steamboat called "Ark" which aside from the chimney emit smoke as it powers the boat forward, otherwise resembles Noah's Ark (see above). But he's never identified as Noah, and his role doesn't really correspond to the biblical character. The Amateur Night" is a variety show which families of animals (certainly not just pairs) turn up for, and Alfa is takes the door money. Later he appears on stage, but is chased off stage when a box match he is performing in is exposed as a fake. 

Really, then, Terry's black and white cartoon uses aspects of the Noah story, the shape of the boat, the look of the character, the exotic animals, in a more modern context, with a certain amount of  anthropomorphising of the animals. However, aside from the use of the word “Ark” and the presence of animals and an older man, Amateur Night has little to do with the flood story, other than cultural resonance, so I might not qualify it at all as a Noah film, but for it's similarities with... 

Availability: YouTube.

Noah's Lark (1929)

As with the above, Noah's Lark, directed by Dave Fleischer, starts off as recognisably as a modern-twist on the biblical tale. Noah is portrayed as a modern-era sailor replete with an anchor tattoo on his forearm and accompanied by The Sailor's Hornpipe. If that all sounds a little reminiscent of a certain spinach-chumping sea-farer then you won't be surprised to know that it was Dave Fleischer's big brother Max who adapted the Popeye comic strip for the screen in 1933 (the comic strip began in 1929 as well).

As with Amateur Night the original biblical premise, a bunch of animals stuck on a boat captained by a human, is merely a leaping off point for Fleischer's flights of fancy and artistic imagination. Here it spins it off far beyond the typical edges of what that usually entails, as the animals -- who here seem more of a crew -- arrive on land to a fairground and get involved in all kinds of antics and visual jokes (a monkey plucking a tiger's stripes as bass notes in the soundtrack being a particularly good gag given this cartoon was from the early months of the talkie era).

So again the links to the biblical story are fairly tangential, but the use of the song "The animals came in Two by Two" over the opening credits, the explicit reference to Noah in the title, and the pun on Ark, the fear of the (flood) waters and perhaps just the sense of their joy/relief when they arrive on land once again tip their hat just a little more in that direction than the previous film. 

Availability YouTube.

Yogi’s Ark Lark (1972)

As with the above films, Yogi's Ark Lark has little to do with the flood story, other than cultural resonances. Again the boat in question is called “Noah’s Ark” and their are animals (Yogi Bear and a host of his other, early 1970s Hanna Barbera cartoon colleagues) and an older man who is named Noah. Essentially Yogi and friends get together and share their worries about the state of their home environments, such as their homes are being destroyed by litter and over-population and so decide to leave it all behind on an ark and head off in search of "the perfect place" (a phrase that becomes the title of a song that is used regularly throughout the show).

What was interesting for me was how the complaints about the state of the world were far more soft-right than you would get on this kind of show today making a host of usually fairly wacky characters seem rather old in yearning for a lost past they (presumably) ever experienced. Moreover, ultimately , they decide on a rather ‘Big Society’ solution of sorting out those issues themselves, with Top Cat and Lenny, for example, deciding not only to clean up their alley, but their entire city.

It all makes for pretty dull entertainment. Jokes are thin on the ground, with even the moments of slapstick falling short (actually if anyone had literally fallen short of something, it might have been the funniest thing in the programme) and the Noah parallels are extremely thin indeed. The Noah character really only feels like he's been brought on board [wink] to make the catchy title stick.

Availablity: archive.org.

Animaniacs: Noah’s Lark (1993)

The Animaniacs take on the flood story comes in episode 33 Cartoons in Wakko's Body where it sits alongside two other stories The Big Kiss and Hiccup. I'm not overly familiar with Animaniacs, so my comments will probably seem a bit odd to those who know the show, but essentially this is a kids-focussed cartoon, although very much with a few adult jokes smuggled in for the benefit of any adults watching. The New York comic style of deadpan humour is particularly to the fore, not least in Noah’s detached cynicism. Other jokes include some late-to-the-party, yet snobby, hippos and Noah’s fear of spiders.

Jokes aside this one sticks fairly closely to the plot. It's certainly far more recognisably a Noah story than the three episodes above. Interestingly, Noah (pictured above) is a lot younger here with dark hair and no beard. He also likes playing with one of those table tennis bats with the ball attached to it with a bit of elastic. While I'd have to consult with an archaeologist to be sure, I don't think those are in the Bible...

Availability: The only place I found this online gave me PC issues.

(Image taken from the Cartoonatics blog)

Noah's Ark: A Musical Adventure (Arca de Noé, Brazil, 2024)

Despite all my research into the story of the flood in recent months, somehow I almost missed the release of Noah's Ark: A Musical Adventure, or as it is known in it's native Brazil, simply Arca de Noé. It's an animated film that sits squarely in the box of animation for kids and hit theatres in the UK rather aptly during the summer holidays when parents often find themselves seeking shelter from the rain.

Arca is inspired by a 1975 poem by Brazilian poet, musician, playwright and diplomat Vinicius de Moraes, perhaps best known outside of his own country for pioneering bossa nova music on the soundtrack for Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus, 1959) along with his co-writer Antônio Carlos Jobim, singer Elizeth Cardoso and guitarist João Gilberto. Moraes' poem (translated here) offers a loving tribute to the biodiversity of the flood story. Noah gets a mention, early on but Moraes quickly moves on to his family, before there's a flurry of neat little descriptions of animal activity overflowing with life.

If this adaptation of the flood story comes to us via Moraes, directors Alois Di Leo and Sergio Machado and their writers Heloísa Périssé and Ingrid Guimarães have certainly brought in plenty of their own ideas too. Neither the Bible nor Moraes talk about two musical mice who having not received an invitation to board the ark, delivered courtesy of literal blue birds, are determined to try and get on anyway. The bluebirds, certainly as represented by their leader Kilgore, tip the hat to various cultural landmarks: the delivery company; Apocalypse Now;* the former Twitter logo; and the computer game turned movie Angry Birds. In a way they typify the movie, which always feels like it's trying to be, or at least refer to, something else. At times it feels like Madagascar (2005) or Singin' in the Rain (1952) or The Lion King (1995). Even Noah's quirky coloured shades seem to borrow from El Arca (dir: Juan Pablo Buscarini, 2007) although I suppose that may in turn derive from an illustrated children's book based on Moraes' poem that's popular in both South American countries. 

Like various animated re-tellings of the flood story, Noah's role is fairly small (the last animated Noah film to percolate down to local cinemas in the UK, 2015's Two by Two, left him out entirely). We witness him hearing God's call at the start of the film, and he crops up regularly throughout, but we do so mainly because one of the film's two rodent heroes Vini and Tom/Tito awakes during the moment of revelation and so goes to investigate.

The moment itself draws on God's call to Moses in films like The Prince of Egypt, although here the booming words from the sky are accompanied by southern lights-style colours in the sky. This is particularly apt given that I've been enjoying their northern counterparts causing wonders this week amidst the aesthetically pleasing aftermath of the X7.1 electromagnetic solar storm.

In a strange sort of way it's God's part of the conversation with Noah that seems most reminiscent of the call of Moses. God does not come out of it particularly well. He's presented as unstable and unpredictable. Initially he tells Noah of his plans to destroy the world and the audience can sympathise with Noah when he questions what he's told with "don't you think that's a bit much?" Recently I've been comparing the way Jewish tradition contrasts Noah, who in the Bible fails to protest when God informs him of his plans, with Abraham and Moses, both of whom question God and win some concessions as a result. So if God is shown in this film to be a bit changeable, that certainly has its origins in the Bible. 

Soon after, God moves into a more angry mode when Noah fails to agree straight away: "am I stuttering?" he thunders back in a way that will perturb both fans of the Bible/Torah/Qur'an and anyone who, like me, is finding the repeated use of that particular phrase deeply grating. But then when Noah asks what God's going to do while he is building the boat, God seems slightly hurt as he suggests "I can get the invitations out". 

Having realised God's plans, the two mice (or are they rats? I'm sure they're called both during the course of the film) decide to try and sneak aboard, even though the invitations are quite clear that it's only one male and female of every species. Back at Noah's house this part of God's dictum is also causing some consternation. "What about other types of families?" Noah's granddaughter Susana asks. It's fair to say Susana is not on board with the whole operation. When her grandfather fist reveals his plans she exclaims "What if everyone drowns? That's going to look so bad for him."

Interestingly Susana becomes the film's most prominent human from that moment on. She's a similar age to most of the film's target audience (about 7 I would imagine) and is enchanted by and becomes friends with many of the animals. Still it's interesting that concerns that pass many by are put so simply and eloquently on the lips of a young child. From a biblical point of view, it's interesting that Noah's three sons are not really part of the film. Susana is not presented as an orphan, nor is there any mention of them. Given the kind of film this is, I think that's quite a bold and positive move. The symmetry of the eight people on board the ark in Genesis doesn't completely preclude infants, and it makes the story far more relatable to its core audience (children).

The film's other interesting decision in this respect is that -- aside from the call of Noah -- Noah's wife (called Ruth here) gets equal screen time her husband thereafter. This is something of a first. Both Jennifer Connelly in Noah (2014) and Joanne Whalley in The Ark (2015) play more-developed versions of Noah's wife than the character found in the Bible whose actions and contributions are not recorded; whose words are not documented; and who is mentioned only as a passenger. Here her contribution is certainly felt. She brings warmth, wisdom and compassion to proceedings, a care for the animals and for Susana. 

More recent depictions of the flood story, particularly 2014's Noah, have been criticised for their all-white casts (see Wil Gafney, Micah David Naziri and Ryan Herring for example). But this film is not a Hollywood film, it's from Brazil, a country where, according to its latest census, "45.3% of the country’s population reported being brown.... 43.5% reported being white... 10.2%, black". So it's perhaps not surprising that this ethnic mix is reflected in the three human characters: Susana is depicted with brown skin, Noah is White and Ruth is depicted as and voiced by a Black woman. It's surprising that it's taken so long for this mix of nationalities to emerge, given that the conclusion of the story is that all people (and thus all ethnicities)  come from the handful of humans who survive the flood.

If questions about "other types of families" and the use of a diverse 'cast' sound a little too modern, then this probably isn't the film for you. The film delights in slipping anachronistic elements of the modern world into this almost pre-historic story. There are mentions of selfies, body shaming and going viral. The Scar-esque male lion Baruk even tells the other animals to "give me a like" at one point. 

Anyway, having got wind of the ark's imminent departure, Tom and Vini (who is presumably named after Moraes) try to get onboard anyway. Their first effort sees them simply walking up the gang-plank along with all the other animals, simply hoping not to get seen. However, as they progress up the slope their mood turns to fear. Indeed, there's an unusual atmosphere among all the animals. The film really brings out their differing concerns. Big creatures are concerned about stepping on smaller ones. Some worry other animals will eat them. The latter fears turn out to be not without foundation. When the verbosely loquacious Baruk and some of his predator cronies see so many animals in such a confined space they draw on another modern phrase describing the scene as an "all you can eat buffet". I can't quite work out if giving the lion a very similar first name to a recent US President is a deliberate reference to American self-interest overseas, but perhaps I'm reading too much into that.

But the musical duo's initial efforts flounder when they meet Nina, the female mouse who had received an official invite. Having two male mice turn up throws her off guard and the resulting kerfuffle sees plan come into action. A second, much smaller boat, housing some of the other less-desirable animals has set sail to try and board the ark surreptitiously. Here we find that the cockroaches, mosquitoes and head lice turn out to be of a far greater moral character than the king of the beasts, Baruk.

Despite Baruk having seized control of the assembled animals, through fear and intimidation, he has one fatal flaw -- a desire to be lauded as a musician and it's here where the mice and their new friends are able to use their musical prowess to save the day. But this whole extended section is overly complicated and dull and even an interesting subplot involving a low-on-confidence dove can't keep the second half afloat. Moreover, despite a number of songs being crammed into this final section, none of the film's music really stands out. I wanted Tom and Vini to have at least one really good ballad. 

That said, the film is certainly not as bad as its current 4.3 rating on IMDb suggests. There are some interesting ideas as well as some fun ones and, among the plethora of nods to other films, there's some originality there as well. That's quite an achievement given 4000 years of adaptations of the flood story. So even if it's nowhere near The Prince of Egypt (1998) its certainly superior to 2002's Jonah a VeggieTales Movie.  

* I owe that observation to Jeremy Clarke's review of the film.

The Tale of the Ark (1909)

The earliest film about Noah and the flood is The Tale of the Ark (1909) by British animation pioneer Arthur Melbourne Cooper. It's currently available for free on BFIPlayer, in the UK at least, and seems to also have been circulated under the title Noah's Ark. I don't know much about Cooper, but he apparently learnt some of his skills from the legendary British cinema pioneer Birt Acres and while I'd love to get into all of that, I simply don't have the time at the moment. So I'll restrict myself to a few passing observations about the film itself.

The film begins with a young girl playing with a toy Noah's Ark, who soon tires and settles herself down for a nap. there's a cut, and the next shot is of the ark now resting on water, by grass. This is a charming framing device, which both contextualises this as a children's film (or at least one suitable for/aimed at children), while also putting it outside the scope of historical scrutiny. Years later another black and white film that featured Noah, The Green Pastures (1936) would employ a similar framing device.

The rest of the film is stop-motion animation. Plot-wise things are fairly straightforward. Noah opens the doors, the animals bring themselves on board, the rains comes forming a flood, then the water recedes and the animals disembark, but there are a number of nice touches here. Firstly while most of the animals file onto the ark fairly uniformly, the elephants provide a certain level of comedy, spinning and rolling about and heading off in different directions. This shows a level of advancement, of Cooper going beyond basic execution of a smoothly executed piece of animation, to include humour and give his characters personality.

Secondly I was struck by the way the waters gradually recede after the flood. I don't know whether the water was gradually drained off camera, or if it was gradually filled and the footage reversed, but again it perhaps could have been done with simple cuts but this seemed a superior approach.

Finally, Cooper again uses the elephants to lighten the tone and highlight his dexterity as an animator. When Noah and the animals disembark Noah lowers the ramp, but it's not placed quite right, at least, not for one of the elephants who uses their trunk to adjust it before going down. Again the fussiness / sense of  exasperatedly having to show Noah how to do it right is quite a complex thing to convey with animated figures.

For those wanting to read more about this film, David Shepherd wrote a paper on it for the Journal of Religion and Film back in 2016 called "Noah's Beasts  Were the Stars": Arthur Melbourne Cooper Noah’s Ark (1909)'.

The Chosen (2019) s1e03

The opening scene of the third episode of The Chosen is hard to place. Jesus is praying, outside, surrounded by trees and seemingly in a degree of anguish. If it weren't for the tent and campfire one could easily suppose this is a flash-forward to Gethsemane. The reason for Jesus's apparent distress is never clear, but eventually it emerges that this is still a time before his ministry (or at least a time he is without disciples) and that he is still working as a carpenter.

These scant clues emerge from the various conversations with a girl from the nearby village and a growing group of her friends. A title informs us that this is Capernaum AD26 and the girl approaches Jesus holding a (broken?) doll that evokes the scene in King of Kings (1927) where Jesus uses carpentry rather than a miracle to restore a girl's broken doll. 

When she asks Jesus tells the girl he is a travelling craftsman which includes carpentry, only the conversation summarises a fairly accurate translation of the Greek word tektōn with far more graceful writing than my explanation suggests. This goes some way to explaining the extensive gear he has with him, both for carpentry and for camping, I find myself momentarily wondering how he manages to transport it all.

Nevertheless the opening scenes bring home to me some of the practical implications of that well known verse from Matt 8:20 "foxes have dens…but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head". It's rare in Jesus films to see him and his disciples sleeping  anywhere besides the open air, or in a rudimentary bed in a home, but of course Jesus (in time with his disciples) was a travelling preacher and must have spent many nights on the road with nowhere to sleep. I have no idea how widely-used the tents that St Paul made were, but this does make me think differently about the day to day practicalities of travelling around a variety of Galilean villages. But it soon becomes clear that this isn't just a fleeting point, it's one of the major points of the episode. More or less, the whole episode takes place in and around Jesus' temporary camp.

The other major theme of this episode is emphasising that Jesus liked children and they liked him. This is certainly less original amongst Jesus films, but it's usually limited to a scene or two. Even The Miracle Maker (2000) where much of the action takes place from the point of view of Jairus' daughter can only devote a certain amount of time to it. Here however the series has a whole 30 minute episode to show Jesus interacting with children, without the burden of having to move on because there are three more miracles to squeeze in before the resurrection.

It's clear too that Jesus doesn't just peddle a childish version of his message, even if he blows raspberries and uses other techniques to gain their interest, build trust and make them feel welcome. He talks about the difference between intelligence and wisdom ("Many times smart men lack wisdom") and teaches them that the messiah might not meet expectations. At a first watch I thought this was peddling the idea that all Jews at this time had hopes for a military messiah, and it does voice that idea. (As Candida Moss explains here the Jews didn't share uniform expectations regarding Messiah. Different groups had very different ideas of what it meant including mythical readings, and multiple messiah-figures). Here, however, it's one of the children repeating something he's heard a rabbi say - it's hardly painted as a universal belief and Jesus here seems to encourage the children who specifically go to Torah school as well as praising those who have learnt what is taught in school even though they do not go.

I'm less taken by the extended scene in the middle where Jesus teaches the kids as they are all around sitting in a circle. There's just something unrealistic about it which makes the whole episode feel a bit too rose-tinted. Anyone who has had their own kids and/or tried to deliver "the serious" bit in a kids church group knows it rarely goes like this. I wonder if scenes like this - welcome as they are - maybe set unrealistic expectations. Jesus welcomed little children, but portraying him as such an exceptional children's worker feels a little much to me.

There's also something a little overly-innocent about the way Jesus spends huge amounts of time alone with these children. Perhaps there shouldn't be. It's a sad indictment on much of western society that a single man spending that much time alone with that many kids, would raise suspicion today, though partly this is because situations like this have been so abused in the past. The children's insistence that they keep it their friendship with Jesus a secret seems particularly odd in this respect. Again, Jesus is an exception - doubtless the filmmakers consider him far beyond such issues. Still, that line bothers me. Kids! Tell your parents if you meet strange men. Parents tell your kids to do likewise.

There are couple of nice artistic ideas in this episode. Firstly as nice foreshadowing of the resurrection when the children arrive at Jesus' camp early one day and one of them wonders if he's dead. Spoiler alert - he's not, but the tent and the way it's filmed foreshadow another time when people will arrive together, peer into a (possibly) similar hole/structure with uncertainty about if he that lay there the day before will reappear, and the relief when he does. 

Secondly, the rain that falls during the final scene, following Jesus' departure, which director Dallas Jenkins reveals in comments after a screening was a late decision, is nevertheless a poetic and poignant one. There's a palpable sense of nostalgia in this episode embodied in this final moment. People of faith often talk about how their path through life is far from straightforward. One day everything is sunny and it feels like Jesus is there beaming down upon you; the next you're alone in the rain left nursing your memories.

The Japanese Anime Bible SeriesTezuka Osamu no Kyuuyaku Seisho Monogatari/In the Beginning (1993)

Despite doing this for 20 years, somehow I'd been unaware of Tezuka Productions' animated Bible series In the Beginning only recently registered with me. The series is discussed in passing in Fumi Ogura and N. Frances Hioki's chapter on "Anime and the Bible" in "The Bible in Motion". I guess this is because there are so many hand-drawn animated series and so much else to write about I've never looked that closely.

Anyway, the series was actually commissioned by Italian TV network RAI to be primarily marketed towards children. Whilst Osamu Tezuka, the "Father of Manga", was the creative genius behind the studio,¹ the company's CEO at the time was Takayuki Matsutani who later recalled RAI's producer telling them "There are a few restrictions, but you are free to do what you want".² However, later there were disagreements with the series' biblical advisers.

The pilot, The Story of Noah, was finished around 1986 and although Tezuka continued to work on the other episodes, he died in 1989 and the series had to be completed without him. Director Dezaki Osamu is credited with the remaining episodes. Ogura & Hioki say that the series debuted on RAI in 1993, though various online sources cite 1997, including this one which also gives airing dates and a crew list. You can read what Ogura & Hioki say about it at Google Books and view all the entries on this convenient YouTube playlist.

The full list of titles in this series is as follows:

1 - The Creation
2 - Cain and Abel
3 - The Story of Noah
4 - The Tower of Babel
5 - Abraham, the Forefather
6 - Sodom and Gomorrah
7 - Isaac and Ishmael
8 - Isaac's Destiny
9 - Jacob's Children
10 - Joseph's Triumph
11 - Moses, The Egyptian
12 - The Fire in the Desert
13 - Moses and the Pharaoh
14 - The Exodus
15 - Laws Carved in Stone
16 - Israel's Treachery
17 - New Alliance
18 - Jericho
19 - One king for Israel
20 - King Saul
21 - King David
22 - King Solomon
23 - The Exile of Israel
24 - Release from Bondage
25 - Prophets in the Desert
26 - The Birth of Jesus

I'm going to watch some of these episodes and report back. Judging by the comments on YouTube they inspired a strong connection in some of those who watched them when they were young.

Incidentally this webpage also mentions a Brasilian anime series called "Superbook".
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1 - Osamu Tezuka is perhaps best known for his 1965-66 anime Kimba the White Lion which seems to have formed some of the inspiration behind The Lion King (1995).
2 - Ogura and Hioki give the following citation for this, but I've been unable to locate it - perhaps due to the anglicisation of the original Japanese title and my lack of Japanese:
Matsutani, Takayuki. 1994. "Seisho terebi shirizu-ka ni atatte." in Tenchi Sōzō. Ed Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka Osamu no Kyūyaku Seisho Monogatari Series 1. Tokyo: Shūeisha. Pp 284-286.

Der Stern von Bethlehem (1921)

(The above screen-grab is from Reiniger's 1956 film The Star of Bethlehem)
One of the lost biblical films that I dearly hope will turn up in someone's attic one day is Lotte Reiniger's 1921 Der Stern von Bethlehem. For years I laboured under the mis-apprehension that the 1956 film The Star of Bethlehem which I reviewed here, was essentially just the 1921 film re-released with narration. Sadly I've now found out enough about this to make this appear highly unlikely. For one thing most of Reiniger's pre-WWII films were lost during the bombing of Berlin, though thankfully her classic The Adventures of Prince Achmed - made five years later in 1926 -  has survived and enjoyed a couple of recent restorations. The European Lost Films Archive officially lists this as lost.

Another key factor is that the 1921 film appeared so early in Reiniger's career that it seems unlikely her style would have developed to the level of sophistication on display in the 1956 film. The layering on the backgrounds, the use of colour and just the smoothness of the movement all suggest an artist at the top of her game. Prince Achmed is considered a masterpiece, but even with that it's plain to see the development in her technique.

That said Reiniger always gave the impression that she was just doing what came naturally to her. In a rare interview with her in 1976, she talked about how she was able to cut-out intricate figures from card from almost as soon as she was able to hold a pair of scissors.(1) You can see her at work in the 1970 documentary, The Art of Lotte Reiniger, and the speed with which she works is certainly impressive. She also included an animated version of her scissors cutting out the figures at the start of another of her surviving early films Cinderella (1922). The intricacy of these cut outs, the sleeves on the dresses here for example - in a hand-cut moving image - are incredible. Furthermore "Reiniger’s great strength as an animator is her inclusion of delicate little motions that imbue her creations with life".(2)

Reiniger started her career as an animator working on Paul Wegener's Der Rattenfänger von Hameln (The Pied Piper of Hamelin, 1918) aged just 17. The film was a live action movie, but when Wegener was struggling to get his rats to follow his piper he turned to Reiniger to produce an animated sequence instead. The year after Hameln's release she directed her own short film Das Ornament des verliebten Herzens (The Ornament of the Enamoured Heart, 1919) making her work more or less contemporary with the women featured in Kino Lorber's Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers box set, released last month.

Der Stern von Bethlehem was only her third film then (following Amor und das standhafte Liebespaar) both of which were produced by the Institute for Cultural Research in Berlin.(3) Whilst the Institute Around the same time she began to work for advertising exec Julius Pinschewer and it's thanks to this partnership that we have her oldest surviving work Das Geheimnis der Marquise (The Marquise’s Secret, 1921/2).(4) The film tells of a woman who woos her lover thanks to her skin which is "as white as snow". When the Marquis begs to know which god gave her such radiance she tells him it was all down to her Nivea cream.

Whilst the plot and dialogue are hardly extraordinary it's an interesting reference point. For one thing Reiniger's art and creativity is plain to see. In particular the moment when she is applying her cream and her face appears in the mirror opposite is especially striking. It's also notable that the figures here are white on a black background, rather than the dark figures in the foreground that came to typify Reiniger's style.

Interpolating between Marquise and Cinderella gives us a fair idea of what might have been in Der Stern von Bethlehem. It's unlikely to have been as long as the 1956 film and the background would probably have been plain, rather than the striking, multi-planed backgrounds of the latter work.(5) The style may have been slightly different from all three films.

Reiniger and her husband and life-long collaborator Carl Koch eventually fled Nazi Germany and for many years moved from place to place including Egypt, Greece and Italy. Eventually they had to return home and were pressed into making work for the Nazis. After the war the couple moved to London where they enjoyed their most productive period, creating 22 films in just ten years between 1949 and 1958. Many of these films were based on German fairy tales including a remake of Cinderella so the 1956 remake was something of an exception.

Sadly, it seems likely we'll never get to see the original, but the 1956 version an be viewed on the Gospel Film Archive's Christmas Collection DVD, on YouTube, or on this DVD/Bluray release of  The Adventures of Prince Achmed which also includes her 1974 film The Lost Son based on the parable of Jesus.(6) If you would like to find out more about Lotte Reiniger there are a range of good podcasts or you could have a read of Whitney Grace's new book "Lotte Reiniger: Pioneer of Film Animation".

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1 - Kenneth Clouse Collection, Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Available online - http://uschefnerarchive.com/project/lotte-reiniger-recording/
2 - Kramer, Fritzi (2018). Cinderella (1922) A Silent Film Review March 18, at Movies Silently - http://moviessilently.com/2018/03/18/cinderella-1922-a-silent-film-review/
3 - Guerin, Frances and Mebold, Anke (2013) "Lotte Reiniger." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, Web. July 6, 2016 https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/lotte-reiniger/
4 - ibid
5 - Seemingly it was Reiniger, not Walt Disney, who invented the multi-planed camera, though he developed the design and patented it. Indeed, quite a lot of Reiniger's leagcy appears to have been consolidated into the Disney myth. Snow White (1937) is often credited as the first feature-length animated film, but of course this appeared a full eleven years after Prince Achmed which at between 66 and 81 minutes certainly qualifies as being feature length.
6 - The BFI have posted an excerpt of the film on YouTube and it's clear that this version of the film contains a male narration track which also features some singing in contrast to the voice of Barbara Ruick who provides the narration on the Cathedral Films version released by Gospel Films.

The Star (2017)

One of the things that neither Bible film fans, nor the people who write about them like to admit, is that, more often than not, they are a form of entertainment. We should all know this of course; anyone who has seen 80 year-old stutterer Moses portrayed by a young Charlton Heston fresh from the gym is kidding themselves if they think otherwise. We excuse all kinds of unlikely dialogue on the grounds of artistic license and accept many of the lines publicists feed us about films raising difficult questions or exploring issues. It's not that Bible films cannot both do those things and be entertaining, but that often those of us who take them seriously forget that, for many, they are just about entertainment.

Sony Animated Pictures' Christmas release, The Star, seems content simply to aim for entertainment. No-one would watch it's take on the Nativity story and think that this was how things really happened. The dramatic license makes no serious attempt to convince you that it has any kind of link to how historical reality. Instead it just aims for a fun, whilst not disrespectful, retelling of the story of Jesus' birth through the eyes of it's real main character, a donkey called Bo. Bo and his best friend Dave (a dove) end up getting adopted by Mary and Joseph in the weeks leading up to their trip to Bethlehem and unbeknownst to the holy couple bring with them a series of hazards which they somehow manage to, just about, keep at bay.

As family entertainment it's not bad. The pacing is sprightly enough to stop boredom setting in, the characters are generally appealing without feeling overly cutesy (Ruth the sheep and Felix the camel aside) and there are a few funny lines here and there. Whilst none of it is as amusing as the opening sequence in Despicable Me 3, it's at least on a par with the rest of Despicable Me 3.

The best thing about it, however, is its affectionate take down of both the typical biblical epic and the various ways in which the Christmas story has been told in the past. The opening title sets the tone, but it continues through the banter between Elizabeth and Zechariah ("I think I liked you better when you couldn't talk") and one of the camels' judgement on Herod's golden shoes ("That, Felix, is money and no taste"). Perhaps the best take down of all comes when Bo realizes the stable he has discovered is where Jesus is meant to be born. What really gives it away is that the poor animals that live there have suffered 9 months of bad sleep due to the star shining through a gap in their roof right on to the manger. It's a great spoof of the clichéd climatic shot in The Nativity Story (2006) and the works that inspired it and one of a number of places where the film playfully takes on the ways in which we have interpreted the original story, without trying to undermine its importance.

The other thing that is interesting about the film is the way it handles Joseph's reaction to the news of Mary's pregnancy. Having watched almost every available Nativity film this year, most of them take an remarkably adult angle on this story, which feels very much part of the post-1960s shift in attitudes to sex. Typically Joseph is angry or hurt, but never seriously considers stoning her to death. His attitudes are very modern in ways that our ancestors, and perhaps our descendants would not recognize. If you've ever watched one of these films with kids, it's hard to explain to them the nuances of what is going on.

As The Star is very much aimed at children (and younger, primary age children at that) it bravely decides to omit these very grown-up anxieties, save parents an awkward conversation, and focus instead on Joseph's concerns about how he can possibly father such a child. It's not a unique line of thinking - there's a similar line in The Nativity Story, for example, (a film which has clearly been a significant influence on The Star) - but I appreciate the focus this gives on issues that kids can relate to more readily ("Can I handle what is expected of me?"). It took me a while to get used to it, but it does allow us to see past what has become the dominant aspect of how Joseph tends to be viewed.

Where the film falls down, for me, is where it tries to move beyond being an entertaining celebration of the story of Mary and Joseph, and force out a cheesy lump of exposition. Suddenly it feels like you have been ambushed by a large dose of unwelcome propaganda, like someone 'splaining the film's life lessons when you've already fully grasped it. Seasonal goodwill had previously enabled me to overlook the awful, mega-churchy sounding soundtrack. Now I'm not sure I feel as generous.

Perhaps, though, I can forgive the film for that because of it's subtler moments. The nods to Lassie that are not wrung out for all they are worth, the Matera-like design of Bethlehem, and, most of all, the decent, honest, but realistic portrayal of Mary and Joseph who, in the midst of all the crazy animal antics, somehow retain a sense of poise and dignity. Thankfully The Star never lets you forget that behind all the entertainment, there is an important story that we need to celebrate and continue to share.

The Prince of Egypt (1998)

It's fair to say that when DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg began dreaming up his new studio with his partners David Geffen and Steven Spielberg he would probably have been shocked to know his studio would soon become a byword for popular but unremarkable kids' films. Katzenberg already had a prominent role at Disney doing just that, but a combination of internal politics, his frustration at getting overlooked for promotion and his desire to see animation reach greater heights lead him to launch first the DreamWorks studio with Geffen and Spielberg and then to head up its animation wing.

"I didn't want us to tell fairy tales" Katzenberg explained at the time, "I wanted us to pick an interesting, dramatic, epic...embracing all the techniques of animation"¹ It was an artistic vision that Katzenberg's team on The Prince of Egypt really bought into. As Nicola LaPorte wrote in her book charting the birth of DreamWorks "for visual inspiration, the artists had studied the painterly visuals of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, nineteenth-century illustrator Gustave Dor&eacute's Bible woodcuts and Monet".² 

As if to underline the point Thomasine Lewis was commissioned to produce a "Movie Scrapbook" for the film which devoted a two page spread just to explain the film's emotional beat board and explaining how the "selection of colours for each scene was influenced by the emotional tone of that scene". "At the movie's darkest point, when Ramsees' son is killed, the film became monochromatic".³ I wouldn't claim to be an expert in the field of 'books written to tie-in to animated movies', but I can't think of many that would even think of going behind the scenes, let alone go into them in such detail.

The result of all this thought, care, love, referencing and attention to detail is a stunning visual experience. Created at a time when traditional, hand-drawn, animation was still strong, but CGI was finally getting to the stage where it could have an impact, the film blends the two techniques to great effect. It's as if hand-drawn knew it no longer quite had the dominance of its past and CGI had not yet got too big for its boots and so was still eager to serve.

Indeed despite voices being provided by household names such as Val Kilmer (Moses), Ralph Fiennes (Ramsees) and Michelle Pfeiffer (Tzipporah), the real stars are the incredible backdrops. Richie Chavez's sweeping deserts and Darek Gogol's towering architecture make Prince of Egypt seem bigger and more splendid even than films such as DeMille's Ten Commandments, Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and Wyler's Ben Hur; all of which are given notable tributes as the film progresses. As the Israelites prepare to leave Egypt 75 minutes in, the film's catchiest song - "There Will be Miracles" - strikes up a reprise. The accompanying images, revealing the extent of destruction wrought on this once great kingdom, flick by. Each "scene" lasts only a few seconds but many are so immense in scope that no live action filmmaker would dare to attempt them. In one sixty second section alone there are thirteen shots, many of previously magnificent structures now brought low. The cost of producing the sets for just one of these shots with live action - let alone all of them - would be impossible to justify for the brief few seconds for which they flicker across the screen.

Gogol's work is particularly notable for the way his dominating architecture is so interconnected with the Egyptian psyche. The Egyptian's all encompassing self-belief reflected in stone and marble, physically towering over the slaves building it, as if as an expression of their masters' systematic dominance. At times both Ramsees and his father Seti unknowingly match the shapes and poses of the art that both surrounds and honours them (see above). All of which forms a startlingly contrast with Chavez's more expressionistic mountains and deserts.

Yet the most celebrated sequence in the film takes place inside, as Moses' world begins to unravel with the sudden revelation that he is a Hebrew saved from the very man he had come to call father. The moving hieroglyphics scene is repeated in Prince of Egypt's prequel Joseph King of Dreams but it is not a patch on the original. Here, there's a combination of drama, inventiveness and technical mastery as the story hurries from one surface to another, simultaneously providing an objective account of the events that happened in the past alongside a subjective account of what Moses is feeling at that very moment. And then the the two threads merge as Seti coincidentally appears at Moses' side to offer an unconvincing justification which morphs into Hitchcockian strings and the camera fading to black.

What is also impressive is the way the "camera" thinks like a real camera, occasionally leaving part of the shot out of focus, or placing certain objects or characters on the edge of the frame. There are zooms and shifts in the depth of focus all of which make the images feel like they are more real than they actually are. The burning bush is first observed by the shadows and flickers it casts upon the cave wall and only then do we get the slow pan right to reveal the thing itself.

Indeed what's strange is that the weakest part of the visuals is the part that the team seemed most excited about at the time - the special effects. The burning bush, for example, becomes less interesting once it is actually appear in shot. The attempt to make the parting of the Red Sea extra dramatic results in it being over-the-top, a little too showy; likewise the pillar of fire. The plagues are a bit of a mix also. Generally they are carried out effectively - the use of fast cuts and short shots adds to the impression of terror - and generally the Angel of Death scene is eerily unnerving, but not dissimilarly the odd moment feels over fussy.

But that's a minor criticism, even less so when you consider how badly much CGI from the era has aged. Which is just as well as The Prince of Egypt does rely on its visuals to carry a lot of the plot and themes, from the way the camera moves through the mists upto the giant carved face of Pharaoh at the start, through to the various montages that accompany the musical numbers. Indeed, due to the film's relatively short running time (88 minutes, compared to 150 minutes for Exodus: Gods and Kings and 220 minutes for The Ten Commandments) these montages carry considerable weight, making the film feel like less of a musical than most of Disney's output (though more, obviously, than the majority of Moses films).

The film breaks with The Ten Commandments in other significant ways too, particularly in its portrayal of the two princes. Whilst both films contrast Moses with his 'brother' Ramsees, their characters are very different. In DeMille's film, even as an Egyptian, Moses is upright and honourable, whereas his brother is proud, arrogant and scheming. Here however, whilst both brothers are prone to bouts of teenage irresponsibility, Ramsees' problem is his worry and self doubt. As heir to the throne, his father repeatedly reminds him that he is a link in a chain going back centuries. Ramsees is weighed down by his fear of being the Pharaoh who lets his ancestors down and sees Egypt slide into ruin. It's a bitter irony that it's this fear of failure that leads him down the very path he is so desperate to avoid.

In contrast, Moses is the carefree playboy, getting his brother into trouble. When he tells Ramsees that is problem is that he "care(s) too much" his brother counters "your problem is that you don't care at all". It's not that Moses is callous - life simply hasn't exposed him to suffering. However things change for him when, in his desire to be the centre of attention, he humiliates the women who will eventually become his future wife. He laughs uproariously, but then he notices the effect his loutish behaviour has had on his victim and he's struck by a sudden pang of guilt. Moses is a hedonistic playboy with a heart. His killing of the Egyptian (above) is an accident - again the result of him witnessing a kind of suffering with which he is totally unfamiliar.⁵ As he later reflects "I did not see because I did not wish to see".

Given the degree of personal transformation Moses undergoes after his encounters with Tzipporah and Miriam, it's perhaps no wonder that the Bible's own moment of Moses' conversion is rather truncated. God commissions him and then gets angry with him for failing to grasp the point is what ends up being a few seconds. Pretty quickly, then, Moses is back in Egypt warning his much-missed brother, outsmarting lightly-entertaining priests, dispatching plagues and leading his people to freedom. The sea parts and the people go through, taking a smattering of Egyptians with them, and the film ends with Moses standing above a huge crowd nursing a couple of stone tablets. It perhaps feels a little rushed, yet, like so many of the shots that have preceded it, it is nonetheless an indelibly majestic image.

==========
1 - Katzenberg from Making of documentary on DVD.
2 - "The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks.", Nicole LaPorte p.116
3 - Thomasine Lewis, "The Prince of Egypt: The Movie Scrapbook - An in-depth look behind the scenes" pgs 32-33
4 - As my 7 year old son put it "you don't have to get so angry".
5 - Perhaps it's just the way my DVD player works but it you watch this in slow motion the falling Egyptian goes up instead of down, allowing the "fall" to take longer. Again the contrast of the shots from below and the overhead shot from above is particularly effective.

Animated Stories from the Bible - Moses: From Birth to Burning Bush

There are a lot of animated re-tellings of the story of Moses. More even, perhaps, that there are about Jesus. As a result, I've never really tried to track them all down,nevertheless, when I come across one, I'm usually pretty happy to take a look. This one was made in 1993 and is taken from the sister series to Richard Rich's Animated Stories from the New Testament. Once again it's Rich (The Fox and The Hound) at the helm here.

And as Moses cartoons go, it's not bad. For a start there are no silly sidekicks or overly elaborate sub-plots, the story just sticks to its main focus and tells the story with a nice balance between economy and fleshing out the characters. A meal-time scene from Jethro's tent captures this approach nicely. The group holds hands for a pre-meal blessing - as is apparently the family's custom - but the way it's shown captures both the sense that this is a new custom for Moses, and that there is a spark of attraction between he and Zipporah.

The biggest drawback with it, however, is that the story only goes as far as the burning bush. Whilst it's unclear why this happened, the most likely explanation is that Rich planned to return to the Exodus as later date, but never did. Given that the episodes from the New Testament series were produced over an 18 year period, that would hardly be surprising. But it does tend to leave the story hanging in mid air. Whilst an encounter with the divine has formed the climax to many a tale, it's always just a means to an end in the story of Moses.

It's a shame that the rest of the story never got made however because there's an interesting premise here: In contrast to many versions of the story Moses, indeed everybody from the slaves to the Pharaoh, knows he is a Hebrew. The slaves criticise him for doing Pharaoh's dirty work. The overseers moan about having to work for a Hebrew ("I don't like it, a Hebrew ruling over us"), but broadly speaking there is no major problem with such a state of affairs, nothing to suggest this is totally out of the ordinary.

The most interesting by product of this narrative stance is where it locates Moses' attitude to slavery. We tend to think of Moses as the first anti-slavery pioneer, but in fact the Torah not only accepts the existence of slaves but legislates for the situation. Here Moses is not troubled by the fact that Pharaoh uses slave labour, he's just cares more about how they are treated, increasing rations, ending beatings and allowing a sabbath.

There's some nuance here as well. When making arguments for treating the slaves better to his fellow Egyptians his arguments are all based on capitalism and extracting the greatest benefit. "Treat them better" Moses says, gesturing towards the slaves "you'll have better workers". Privately, however, it's clear that whilst Moses thinks his economic arguments will prove to be the more persuasive, he is driven more by compassion describing a beaten Hebrew as "A man, a person, a living soul".

Ultimately, however, that's an argument that never gets resolved. Moses kills an Egyptian and, when it becomes known, he is sentenced to death. The system, it seems, can tolerate an Israelite in power, but murdering an Egyptian, strips away any such privilege. Moses is foolhardy enough not to realise the bigger implications of his act. He fails to appreciate the meaning of crossing that particular line and it is only a moment of compassion from his adopted mother, and apparently good luck, that he manages to escape with his life.

So whilst this is very much a film for children in terms of form there's a little bit more going on in terms of content and Rich's decision not to pander to the lowest common denominator by introducing twee quirkiness more than pays off.

Two by Two/Ooops Noah has Gone (2015)

Earlier in the year the BBC’s Tony Jordan told us the first draft of his script for The Ark ended with the first drop of rain. Now it’s two months later and for this new Noah movie that’s the starting point rather than it’s end.

You see whereas many Noah films are concerned with the protagonist and his struggle with his role, in this one Noah is entirely absent. Instead the focus is on the animals on-board the ark, or rather those that are not quite on-board. You see somehow our hero Finny, and his new friend Leah have missed the boat, literally. Finny wasn't meant to be on it in the first place. He and his dad Dave had stowed away on board disguised as the other half of Leah’s family. But when the two go exploring they get separated and end up not being on-board when the ark gets swept away.

It all leads to a Finding Nemo type plot only involving two children and two parents (Leah’s mum, Hazel, is also part of the cast). There’s been criticism in some circles for that similarity of theme, but I don’t think those are warranted. Separation of children from their parents is such a primal fear (in both directions) that it’s territory worth exploring - let's face it, it even crops up in the story of Jesus. And the way that plot device is used to examine the issue is fairly different and different themes emerge.

One of the most interesting of these is the way the film examines the issue of nature versus nurture. Other films look at how we can break free from our upbringing, or move past traumatic experiences from the past. By assigning personality traits to the evolutionary make up of species Two by Two is able to look at the issue of how much of who we are is due to hard wiring and how we might overcome it. Leah and Hazel are grimps - their status as aggressive loners is built into their DNA. Yet the film raises the possibility that they might even overcome the limitations of their birth, such that, by extension it suggests, so might we. In a not dissimilar vein it also seems to advance the theory that if we can discover the place we really fit we can thrive in a way we might never have thought possible.

Part of the reason that the film can explore these issues is because rather than using known and familiar animals as its lead characters, it uses made up ones instead. This raises interesting possibilities in a way that using rabbits and guinea pigs would not. Had it used familiar animals then any sense of tension would be gone - the audience would know in advance that their survival was guaranteed. Here, whilst it seems unlikely that all of the leading characters are going to be wiped out, it does suggest some latitude, particularly when you bring evolution and adaption into the mix as well. It opens up a range of options and lead to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion.

Sadly, for me at least, it doesn't really have a great deal to say about the biblical story of the flood. The basics are there (although the eponymous two by two rule is seemingly not adhered to religiously) and it’s an interesting idea to take away the human focus, but it doesn't have much to offer in its place. There are a number of moments when the characters pull through in unlikely ways, but these are clearly just down to a question of genre rather than God-acting-in-mysterious-ways moments. Everything just happens because it does and leaves the whole film feeling like an unsatisfying plot device. The original story has layers of meaning - it’s an origins story, a story of faithfulness, of a god purging his subjects, of deliverance and of new creation. None of these themes really emerge and the film ending where it does leaves little conclusion other than a bit of self realisation.

The other thing that was lacking, for me at least, was humour. I stress the personal angle in this not merely because humour is notoriously subjective, but also because I’m wary of veering into abusing national stereotypes. The film is a collaboration between Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland and three of those nations have a notably poor reputation for humour amongst the English. I strongly suspect it’s just a difference in what one is used to. Nevertheless, it did seem like it would have been rather easy to inject a little more humour at numerous points in the story. Humour that would be a bit more lowest common denominator (meant in the original, rather than the more modern - and derisory - sense).

Overall Two by Two: Ooops Noah is Gone is not a bad little film. I enjoyed it more than I expected and the kids did as well, and some of its lessons are certainly valuable. But it’s not really a Noah film, it just came along for the ride.

Joseph, King of Dreams (2000)

Back in 1998, The Prince of Egypt was a surprise hit, not only turning in a profit, but launching a whole new animated studio to challenge the dominance of Disney. Hardly surprising, then, that two years later Dreamworks sought to cash in on their successful début by adding another film in the series, Joseph, King of Dreams.

At the time the term "prequel" was on the ascendency - Star Wars: The Phantom Menance was released just a year earlier. The fledging studio must have considered it made good sense. Having escaped from Egypt the story of the former Hebrew slaves is far less suitable for a children's film - 40 years in the desert lacks dramatic promise and Joshua's conquest of Canaan could hardly be classified as kiddie friendly. The Joseph story however was not only more suitable, but allowed the studio to rework some of what made the original film succeed, with the promise of more moving hieroglyphics and soaring, dramatic architecture.

Sadly, it was an unmitigated disaster. Joseph falls well short of both the quality and the entertainment of its predecessor. Furthermore, far from offering an additional, tidy, return, the film was released straight to video - still the only Dreamworks film to carry that particular stigma.

There are three main reasons why Joseph fails. Firstly, as if anticipating a lesser return, Dreamworks clearly cut corners. Whilst both Ben Affleck and Mark Hamill are relatively big names, the rest of the cast was largely unknown. In comparison Prince of Egypt boasted at least ten major stars. And whilst much of the animation is of a similar, if not better, standard, one or two of the dreams are rendered so poorly that they cast a shadow over the rest of the film. History has not been kind to turn of the century CGI, but even at the time Pharaoh's cows would give anyone nightmares. Corner cutting such as this isn't necessarily that obvious, but it often has the effect of permeating through a whole film, leaving it flat without any one thing clearly being out of place.

Ironically, the film's second major problem derives from those very aspects of Prince of Egypt which won it such acclaim. Again we have scenes of wall paintings coming to life and these are complemented nicely by some excellent early dream sequences. The problem is that these aspects were so striking and notable in the original movie that, here, they just feel derivative and unoriginal. There's a reason most magicians don't do their tricks more than once to the same audience: it's easier to reproduce a really good trick than it is to reproduce the experience of seeing it for the first time.

Perhaps the weakest aspect of the film, though, is the music. I read a quote recently that attributed 70% of film to the music. Whilst the occasional song in Prince of Egypt is a little mawkish, generally the music is pretty strong - the opening scenes in particular. Here almost all of the songs are dreary, forgettable, sub-par pop ballads, performed with very little heart or invention. It drags the film down again and again and leaves it bereft of soaring high points.

Which isn't too say it's all bad. Most of the animation is very good: indeed, one or two of the pieces of it are stunning. The Van Gogh inspired sequences with the sunflowers are particularly impressive. The characterisation is also fairly strong. Joseph's (voiced by Ben Affleck's) transition from spoilt brat to mature and forgiving man is well worked, relying on both a process and a epiphany or sorts.

It's also good to see an animated family film that doesn't have to resort to cute animals or fart jokes. Whilst Joseph has it's faults, there's never a moment that could have been improved by the simple addition of a cat with a quirky sense of humour. And if there is, perhaps, one too many montage it's almost forgiveable given the sleek efficiency with which they are executed. The opening song - miracle child is a particularly good example.

So whilst King of Dreams is no match for Prince of Egypt, it's a lot better than some of the films that Dreamworks have turned out subsequently. Ultimately, though, it's biggest problem is that it leaves you wishing you had watched the Moses film instead.

The Passion, Last Supper, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

Possibly the longest ever title for a Bible film, this cartoon is part of the "Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible" series. I believe it was originally released as simply as The Passion, Last Supper, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, so this version seems to be some kind of rebrand to cash in with the release of Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The dates are a little unclear, the copyright on the DVD says 2004, one retailer gives it as April 2003 and the IMDb doesn't seem to cover it.

As with the other entries in this series there is a fairly lengthy and rather dull introduction to the topic by the late Charlton Heston. I suspect I won't be the only parent to have forward wound through it having to concede that the kids had a point.

Heston aside the series is fairly cheaply made, but visually is fairly good. But there's an awful song about Judas that trails through various episodes. It has enough of Jesus Christ Superstar about it to make it fairly clear that that was what they were going for, but unfortunately it seems like it was written in about 10 minutes.

The central tension for the filmmakers was how much violence to show given that on the one hand the focus was on the Passion, but on the other it is aimed at kids. It varies from child to child I suppose, but I was a bit unhappy with certain decisions the filmmakers made in this respect. I would be interested in knowing the relationship between the making of the film and The Passion of the Christ. There certainly seems to be some influence. Aside from the overall feel and focus of the film, all the beatings are shown, though the episode with Herod is omitted. It also bucks the trend towards incorporate historical findings. We're shown Jesus carrying just a crosspiece, and being helped by an African Simon of Cyrene. That said, this might all be just a coincidence.

However when it comes to the crucifixion there is very little shown. We're shown Simon helping Jesus but the next moment he is on the cross. The actual process of being put on a cross is omitted. This makes a strange contrast with most films on the subject which tend to dwell on the nailing to the cross, and the raising of the cross. It seems strange to cut this completely, but go into such detail about pushing the crown of thorns into Jesus' head (though it's implied rather than fully shown). On the other hand the Bible doesn't focus on the moment of Jesus being attached to the cross and raised, and the original audience for the gospels would have known that the truly horrific bit of being crucified wasn't so much the nailing as the hours of agony fighting for every single breath before a slow painful suffocation. All of the films, pretty much, seem to get this balance wrong though (from memory) the BBC's 2008 Passion is something of an exception.

As for the resurrection, it's harmonised in a fairly interesting manner. It's most reminiscent of another animated film - The Miracle Maker - even bringing the incident with Thomas a week forward to Easter evening, but there's also an interesting switch between Mary meeting Jesus at the tomb, and a group of women telling the disciples the good news.

Young Avraham Movie to Première at Vancouver Jewish Film Festival

Over the years, I've become somewhat jaded about the seemingly endless flow of people telling us they are making new Bible-related films: all too often they are never heard of again. So I'm a bit surprised that of all of them, one that actually has gone the distance is Young Avraham.

As its title suggests, Young Avraham is a story of the early life of the biblical patriarch, from his childhood to the point where he appears in the Book of Genesis. It's based on Midrashic tales but with an eye firmly on 21st century sensibilities.

Anyway, whilst the film has been available on DVD for sometime now, it's having it's North American première on Sunday night (3rd April) as part of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.

I'm hoping my favourite Vancouverite Peter Chattaway, who had a good bit to say about this film when news broke in 2008, will make it to the screening as I'd like to hear what he has to say about it. Whilst I find the idea interesting, the medium doesn't really appeal. As I noted earlier in the week, 3D CGI dates pretty quickly, and is easy to do badly. Two of the four clips on the film's official website have been available on YouTube since August 2007 and, to be honest, don't look great. That said, I've seen worse and they do make me think that the film will be interesting. In the first we see Abraham's father being told to kill the boy by his king, echoing the request that God makes about Isaac many years later. The second contains a scene of a magus pointing out the presence of a new star coinciding with the boy's birth, echoing the star that accompanied the birth of Jesus. The latter certainly gets me wondering if this is a modern flourish, or something that's found in the account in the Midrash. Either way it's interesting. The former suggests this decidedly Jewish film riffing on the birth of Jesus. The latter would be highlighting the way Matthew is riffing on the birth of Abraham. The former seems unlikely, whereas I'm sure that I would have heard of this detail were it to be the latter. Time to do some research...

The Kingdom of Heaven

Not the Ridley Scott crusades epic, but an episode from the series The Animated Stories from the New Testament which I managed to pick one up cheaply from "The Works" at Christmas. The series has also recently appeared in my local Christian bookshop. Whilst my daughter has watched this entry a couple of times now, yesterday was the first chance I'd had to sit down and watch it with her.

The Kingdom of Heaven, directed by The Fox and the Hound's Richard Rich, is the 8th entry in the 24 part series and deals with Jesus' teaching on the Kingdom from Matthew 13. Thus we get enacted versions of the parables of the Wheat and the Weeds, the Merchant and the Pearl, and the 10 "Maidens" (Matt 25) as well as an explanation of the Parable of the Sower. This main section of the film is introduced and concluded by the same scene showing the return of of a glowing, Ready-Brek, Jesus, based on Matthew 25.

The most obvious criticism of this film, and I presume the series in general, is the filmmakers decision to use the King James Version of the Bible whenever Jesus speaks. This made it very difficult for my 4 year old to understand even the gist of what he was saying - despite the fact that she occasionally enjoys stories read straight from an adult Bible. To animate these stories, particularly using playful and appealingly animated characters, but to make the words they are saying (and the points of these parables) utterly impenetrable, seems rather foolhardy. I know that there are Christians who hold the King James version in very high regard indeed, but surely this is a case where, even for them, pragmatism should have triumphed idealism. That said, given the General Synod of the Church of England's failure to do the same in its recent vote on women bishops, perhaps it's me who is being too idealistic.

Whilst the animation is nothing special, it's competent enough and is reasonably in keeping with various other TV cartoons, though as it was made in 1991 it obviously predates CGI. There's a nice dissolve from the future return of Jesus introduction to the historical Jesus teaching to a largish crowd, but otherwise nothing too spectacular. The cartoon doesn't introduce wacky characters or gimmicks to get the story across, although it does personalise some of the crowd members and people in the parables.

The stories themselves are told in a reasonably straightforward fashion, but with the occasional obvious omission. Take for example the Wheat and the Tares. We're told that the weeds are thrown into fire, but just as someone is about to explain this part of the story they are conveniently interrupted.

Sometimes, however, telling the stories in such a straightforward fashion means that the viewer is no more informed than they were before, perhaps even more confused. Take for example the story of the 10 virgins. The parable is contextualised a bit, we meet the groom and 3 of the girls, but its far from clear why what happens to the 5 girls needed to. In reading the story we are aware of the strange cultural gap separating us from the parable's original context. But visualising it and drawing us into the characters creates more problems than it solves. The bridegroom is left turning away the 5 girls simply because they don't have enough light. They don't offer an explanation for their lateness / lack of light. He doesn't suggest they move a few feet closer so he can see their faces. The result is that the Jesus figure comes across as inflexible and mean. We're left thinking poorly of him, not the ill-prepared women.

That said, such visualisation can work in a positive way too. The Parable of the Merchant and the Pearl - told in a song, rather than in prose - really made me wonder what was it about the pearl that made the merchant sell up. There's a real contrast here with the man who discovers buried treasure. He makes a risky but sound investment. Who wouldn't have acted likewise? The merchant, on the other hand, presumably knew the comparative value of the various items, so unless the pearl's seller has undercharged him (which is certainly not stated or implied in the text) then he stands to gain very little, if anything, on a purely material level. The value the merchant assigns to the pearl is far higher than that of the majority. Perhaps it's irrationality, perhaps it's just an attachement that surpasses his physical needs, but whatever the explanation, he finds the pearl / the kingdom utterly compelling.

So whilst the decision to use the KJV cripples the series pretty severely, the film does produce a few new ways of looking at familiar gospel stories which is, of itself, something of great worth.

Testament: The Bible in Animation Finally Comes to DVD

Over the years I've made various posts about the short series of Hebrew Bible films Testament: The Bible in Animation. Whilst these short films have been available on Region 1 DVD for a while, potential purchases have had to buy them individually, putting pressure on shelves as well as pockets.

So I was really pleased to discover that the Bible Society has now made them all available on a 2 DVD box set. I can't seem to find out whether the set is region 2 or region 0, but hopefully I'll find that out fairly soon. The Bible Society never do these things by halves, so in addition to the nine films, there are also resource packs to download for teachers and church groups. The DVDs have subtitles, but seemingly no other extras.

The 9 titles are as follows (with links to my reviews)

* Episode 1: Creation and Flood (25 mins)
* Episode 2: Abraham (25 mins) - pictured
* Episode 3: Moses (27 mins)
* Episode 4: Jonah (26 mins)
* Episode 5: Ruth (25 mins)
* Episode 6: Elijah (27 mins)
* Episode 7: Joseph (26 mins)
* Episode 8: David and Saul (27 mins)
* Episode 9: Daniel (24 mins)

For those not familiar with the series, it was made by the same team who went on to create The Miracle Maker, and like that film they use a variety of different animated techniques across the series - although they stick to one technique per episode. Whilst the films certainly are suitable for children, they have a fairly grown up take on things - don't think for a minute that they are just for the kids - and the animated medium used is itself often very expressionistic.

Like any series some are better than others, though that's due in part to individual preferences about animation styles, but overall this is a great series,with certain instalments offering the best film interpretation yet of their particular story.

Lion of Judah-Another CGI Bible Film

2007's animated version of The Ten Commandments may have been something of a first, but it was only a matter of time before computer animated Bible films were popping up all over the place. FilmChat has news of another - the first CGI film to be made in South Africa in fact - Lion of Judah.

In comparison to The Ten Commandments it's taken on a somewhat easier task. That film was widely criticised for what was perceived to be substandard CGI. It's far more difficult to animate humans well with CGI than it is to animate animals (for example it wasn't until The Incredibles that Pixar used animated humans as the lead characters). So it's a wise move by the makers of Lion of Judah to focus on a story about a group of farm animals and the titular lion instead.

Unusually, that's just about as much information about the film's plot as there is on its official website. There may be a trailer, a guide to the characters, screensavers to download and a few other bits and pieces, but there's no mention of the fact that this is a film about the Easter story. At least, that's what the IMDb says. Indeed even articles in Variety and Cartoon Brew seem to skirt the issue.It looks like the film is trying to promote itself purely as a goofy animated movie with loveable animal characters, citing the odd known actor (Ernest Borgnine, Michael Madsen) along the way to appeal to the adults. I can see why that makes good marketing, although it may be that the publicists reveal more about the film's plot as we near the release date.

The one point that will interest Jesus film fans though will be the news that Bruce Marchiano of the Visual Bible's Matthew and Acts will be reprising the role of Jesus. Marchiano is, of course, still trying to raise funding to make his own word for word version of the Gospel of John. The Visual Bible films were filmed in South Africa by the South African director Regardt van den Bergh so I can't help wondering if there is a connection there somewhere.