Two new biblical shorts announced:Jael Drives the Nail and Our Child

Two weekends ago I had the privilege of being a judge for The Pitch film fund, which offers production finance, support and training to filmmakers, particularly those based on stories from Bible. At stake were two opportunities to get £30,000 funding each to make their short film – one for comedy and one for drama. 

This year we were spoilt for choice and so it's really exciting to know these two films will soon be made, possibly even in the next year.

Jael Drives the Nail

The first is Maddie Dai's Jael Drives the Nail a comedy that takes place in Jael's tent in the moments leading up to Sisera's death (Judges 4:17-24). The story has been a long-term favourite of mine and I was so glad to be able to include the only other major treatment of – Henri Andréani's Jaël et Sisera (1911) – it in my book.

Dai is a New Zealand-born, London-based cartoonist, screenwriter, illustrator and filmmaker, whose cartoons – many of which play with religious/classical ideas – appear in "The New Yorker". As a writer she contributed to the second series of Our Flag Means Death (2023) and wrote the very funny short film Ministry of Jingle (2023) [trailer] which was also her first film in the director's chair.

Dai's degree was in religious art and hopes to make a feature on the Book of Judith, so expect that to influence proceedings, although The Pitch's announcement promises a "modern dark comedic twist" on the subject, which seems to me a perfect way to approach it. I cannot wait to see the final result.

Our Child

I'm also excited to see Anatole Sloan's Our Child, a modernised take on the story of Hagar, Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 16 & 21) relocated to modern day Hong Kong. My favourite take on this story is a comedic one (The Real Old Testament, 2003), so it will be good to see a more serious approach to it, brought into the modern day. Having contributed to an entry for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception on this subject and written a blog post detailing some of the other takes on it and Sloan's approach seems like an excellent way to approach the story.

Sloan is of mixed British-Chinese descent and he has explained how his take on the story, which will revolve around a young surrogate mother, will reflect "issues that I saw growing up in East Asia". Sloan has also professed his desire "to draw on the cinematic language of that region".

Sloan's previous work has been on documentaries, including The Speeches which enabled him to work with an array of household names including Idris Elba, Glenn Close, Woody Harrelson, Olivia Coleman and King Charles III.
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There's a further snippet about these films at the end of this article in Variety.

Matriarchy and Feminism in Genesis

I've been looking at the biblical Matriarchs on film and particularly how that is viewed from a feminist perspective. Part of the problem with this starts with the question of who exactly qualifies as a Matriarch in the Bible. For the men it is easy - the Hebrew patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the fathers of the nation. For the women though it is more complicated. The inclusion of Sarai and Rebekah is simple enough, but Jacob had two wives Rachel and Leah., Furthermore, some of his sons were the children of his servants Bilhah and Zilpah, should they be included? And if so what about Abraham's servant Hagar? And then there's the question of Eve, technically she is the mother of humanity itself, but there seems a stronger link somehow between her motherhood and Adam's fatherhood. Should she be included in such a discussion? Should Noah's unnamed wife?

Like the biblical stories themselves, film adaptations of Genesis have tended to prioritise their Patriarchs over their Matriarchs. Cinema has tended to adopt a male point of view and done little to minimise the inherent sexist assumptions of the text.

Eve
Perhaps the Matriarch, if we can call her that, who has fared least worst amongst the films based on Genesis is Eve, who typically enjoys as much screen time as her husband. That said Eve portrayal is typically no less problematic for two main reasons. Firstly, despite the fact that most theologians would tend to accept a metaphorical interpretation of the story of The Fall, the vast majority of film adaptations literalise it and hence tend to portray Eve as more culpable than her husband. This is frequently intensified by the number of films in which Eve is initially portrayed as the object of the male gaze. Several films emphasise this point further by ensuring the audience's first sight of Eve being via a shot from Adam's point of view.

The second reason that portrayals of Eve are problematic is their sexualisation of Eve. Whilst Eve's nakedness is found in the text, it is often used as a form of titillation. Eve is typically depicted as a slim, beautiful, young, and often blond woman whose body is almost entirely exposed but for the odd strategically-placed plant. One imagines that pornographic films such as Bible (dir: Wakefield Poole, 1974), do not stray too far from the approach of the more mainstream releases.

Sarai and Hagar
In recent years more progressive visions of the women of Genesis have begun to emerge, in contrast to films such as The Bible (dir: John Huston, 1966) which, for example, leaves the text's repeated shaming of the childless Sarai very much unchallenged. One more recent film to draw attention to the problematic portrayal of Sarai in the text is 2003's comic The Real Old Testament (dir: Curtis Hannum) which juxtaposes ancient values against modern ones by relocating the characters from Genesis in the format of a reality TV show (specifically The Real World which has been running since 1992). As there is so little biblical material to define her, Sarai (Kate Connor) naturally channels modern values and thus appears as a more sane, rational character than her more awe-struck and compliant husband or than the egotistical "God". The narrative sticks closely to the Bible, but the camera gives Sarah more time and a fairer hearing than most films she is presented as the wittiest and most attractive character of the three. When God and Abraham talk about circumcising Abraham's entire tribe or sacrificing Isaac, she double-takes or raises an eyebrow to the camera expecting viewers will see the same peculiarity as she does.†

Sadly the next major portrayal of Sarah, in the TV series The Bible (2013) (pictured) reverts very much to type, unmoved by the fifty years of feminism since Huston's earlier film. Few films seek to understand Sarai, let alone sympathise with her, often depicting her dealings with Hagar in an even poorer light than the texts, for example making Hagar carry heavy loads even when very heavily pregnant.

However. the portrayal of Hagar is often similarly unsympathetic. Whereas the text says only that she "despised" Sarai, several films show her criticising Sarai to her face for being barren. I wrote more about this in my piece on films about Ishmael a few years ago.

The intention here consistently seems to be to portray Abraham as decent, sympathetic and essentially good. Unfortunately given that he would have been her social superior. He comes across as weak and controlled by Sarah, rather than the master of his own destiny. The consistently shrewish portrayals of Sarah are bolstered by many films using a voice-over to inform the audience that God has also reassured Abraham that he is making the correct decision. The efforts to beatify Abraham also extend to the portrayal of Ishmael's conception. Almost universally this is depicted as Sarah's suggestion, for example in Abraham (Joseph Sargent, 1994).

Rebekah
In contrast to Sarai, the Bible portrays Rebekah in marginally more positive light. She hears God for herself (indeed her husband is bypassed) and takes an active role in ensuring the words she has heard from him come to pass. Yet, if anything, Sarah's daughter-in-law Rebekah fairs even worse in cinema and television. Things started well enough, with Henri Andréani making a film for Pathé in which she was the lead character. Rebecca (1913) told the story of Abraham's servant meeting with her at the well in village of Nacaor. She has featured in few films since, however, with Marcello Baldi's Giacobbe: L'uomo che  lottò con Dei (Jacob: The Man who Fought with God, 1963) and Peter Hall's Jacob (1994) being notable exceptions. In both she is shown as the initiator of Jacob's deception of Isaac in order to fulfil his mother's prophecy. In Baldi's film, Jacob view's Esau selling of his birthright for a bowl of soup as "just a joke", but Rebekah has the foresight to see it as a fulfilment of her prophecy. Hall's film further justifies Rebekah's actions by giving her the additional insight that, of her two sons, Jacob would make the better leader of the tribe after her husband death. Giving her the additional insight that Jacob would make a better leader of the tribe than his brother because he is "a man who cares about the tribe", emphasising her wisdom rather than her deception.

Leah and Rachel
Unsurprisingly both films also feature Rachel and Leah. The actresses playing the role in Baldi's film looks so physically different that it is hard to imagine they are sisters. Rachel is blonde and fair-skinned, whereas Leah has looks more typical of the region, but also has noticeable hair on upper lip. Given the way that the Bible contrasts Rachel's beauty with her supposedly "plain" sister (Gen 29:17-19), it is not difficult to interpret the differing appearance of these two actresses as reinforcing racist/sexist western notions of perceived beauty.

One incident that tends to get very little coverage in bilical film is the passage from Genesis 30 dealing with the birth of Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah's children. Typically the important and more human, fallible details of the passage tend to get glossed over to produce a mere genealogy on the "sons of Jacob" (when his involvement would have been relatively minor compared to that of the four women). There is an significant amount of potential human interest in this story which rarely gets picked up by dramatists. There's also a slight comic undertone to the text's portrayal of Jacob's wives trading sex with him for the hallucinogenic fertility-aid mandrake plant (Gen. 30:14-17). Only two films depict this incident, the word-for-word adaptation Genesis (director unnamed, 1979), produced by John Heyman for The New Media Bible and The Real Old Testament which makes the most of the peculiarity of the passage. Again the spoofing of both the biblical text and 90s youth culture mean that the incident is played as a bunch of college students getting high, where sex is a far lower ranking commodity than drugs.

Having died before the start of the film, Rachel is physically absent from La Genèse (Cheick Oumar Sissoko, 1998), yet her absence (along with the 'loss' of her son Joseph) haunts the film, which charts the woes of Jacob's clan later years. Beset by grief, Jacob remains in his tent for much of the film, only being persuaded to leave when relations with the neighbouring tribes come to a crisis point. Unwilling or unable to cope with his troublesome sons and in fear of his brother the tribe is cast into crisis which manifests itself in various ways not least the story of another kind-of-Matriarch Tamar, and her dealings with her husband's father.

Leah, however, has survived, making La Genèse the only film to depict her but not her sister. It gives voice to the unfair treatment she has received from Jacob. In her opening line she exclaims "I have no husband! My children are fatherless. I have no place in your heart." She is also shown as an active character protesting about the rape of her daughter Dinah by interrupting and disrupting the conversation between Jacob and Hamor, overturning Hamor's gifts and also complaining about her sons failure to respond properly to Dinah's rape.

Dinah is the subject of arguably the most radical retelling of the Matriarch's stories, The Red Tent (Roger Young, 2014) which not only tells various stories from the latter part of Genesis from her perspective, but also places the other women in the stories at its narrative centre. Dinah describes her mother Leah as "strong and capable and splendidly arrogant" and Zilpah and Bilhah as aunts, rather than mere slaves. At the centre of the story (and it is implied the tribe) is this community of women and their private space, the red tent of the title. It also takes the radical step of making the bridal night swap Rachel's idea, to which Leah acquiesces, unbeknownst to either man. The series over- idealises the way these four women share one husband, however, alternatively it could be read as highlighting the impossible expectation that one woman should embody all qualities: wisdom, beauty and motherhood.


I've not had a chance to survey all the films based on Genesis for this piece, but I find it interesting how more recent films have attempted to grapple with some of these issues, even as others manifestly have not. There's a challenge at the heart of it all however: given that this was a deeply patriarchal society and the similarly patriarchal nature of the texts, how should these stories be portrayed. Whilst the approach of The Red Tent has its admirable qualities, it does just end up making things a little too cosy. Jacob is a good man and the women generally get on and so the potential issues are glossed over. At the other end of the scale The Real Old Testament is so scathing in its approach it rejects and space for genuine spirituality despite the patriarchal society and assumptions of the times the story occurred in and was written about. La Genese perhaps manages a good balance of the two - the nature of the society is exposed, but that is very much at a human level, allowing the film's finale to still allow for the possibility of a God who may one day right these wrongs.


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†In one of my favourite moments in this film God visit's the couple's tent in the middle of the night whilst Sarai is sleeping, involved much shrugging and mugging for the camera. Later in a camera diary moment she observes "It's like, he invented time…can he tell it?"

Ishmael in Film - Part 3

The Ishmael of the Hebrew Bible is essentially a passive character acted upon by Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, but never an active initiator. This has resulted in his appearance in film roles being rather limited: no modern filmmaker has taken the sparse details of Ishmael's life from the Bible and used them as a starting point for a more creative/fictional/midrashic telling of his story, either as a leading role in his own right, or as a more significant character within the story of Abraham or Isaac. As a result Ishmael's appearances tend to be bland unimaginative and, as in the text, he is very much a character who is acted upon, little more than a moving prop.

This was not always the case. In 1912 Pathé released two reels (perhaps with the intention of distributors showing them together) Agar e Ismaël and Le Sacrifice d'Ismaël by Henri Andréani. Both films featured Ishmael in the title, even if the short running lengths prevented any complex characterisation.

Perhaps the most intriguing portrayal was in Huston's 1966 film The Bible. Ishmael, still a boy, desecrates a sacred ceremony marking Isaac's weaning. Sarah is appalled watching Ishmael snatch, toss, smash and bury the ceremonial doll, which is, presumably, Isaac's effigy. Sarah views this as a portent of the boys' future relationship, and Ishmael's desire to forcibly assert his authority over his younger brother. To the viewer this appears as simply childish play in an inappropriate context; the result of over exuberance, or perhaps bad parenting. Abraham, however, seems unsure not only torn by his love of his son and the complaints of his wife, he is perhaps as concerned by Ishmael's willingness to stray outside of the accepted religious ceremonial norms. God's voice-over assures him that he need not worry about Ishmael's fate, but also raises the question as to whether Ishmael would have been quite such a willing participant in Abraham's later "test of faith".

One consistent feature about the Isaac episodes is the negative portrayal of Sarai/Sarah. Whilst some of this is derived from the text itself, few films seek to understand Sarah, let along sympathise with her. Indeed most films depict her in an even poorer light than the texts, showing her treating Hagar harshly, (for example carrying heavy loads even when very heavily pregnant). The portrayal of Hagar is often similarly unsympathetic. Whereas the text says only that she "despised" Sarai, several films show her criticising Sarai to her face for being barren. The intention here consistently seems to be to portray Abraham as decent, sympathetic and essentially good. Unfortunately given that he would have been her social superior. He comes across as weak and controlled by Sarah, rather than the master of his own destiny. The consistently shrewish portrayals of Sarah are bolstered by many films using a voice-over to inform the audience that God has also reassured Abraham that he is making the correct decision.

The efforts to beatify Abraham also extend to the portrayal of Ishmael's conception. Almost universally this is depicted as Sarah's suggestion. Indeed the only film to show any flicker of interest from Abraham at the prospect of having sex with Hagar is the irreverent comedy The Real Old Testament (2003) where he feebly tries to shroud his glee at the very prospect. The 2013 miniseries The Bible sexualises Hagar still further by not only choosing an actress with "model looks", but also dwelling on her naked back as she lingers in the tent after conception, watching Abraham walk away unmoved by what has happened.

At this point in the biblical story, Hagar runs away, meets an angel/God in the desert and returns with prophetic words about his future ringing in her ears (Gen 16:6b-14). The similarities between this (Yahwist) account and that in Gen 21:14-19 (Elohist) have meant that the majority of films featuring Ishmael have only included one or the other, sometimes harmonising the two. The one exception is Abraham (1994), the longest portrayal of the Abraham story.

Ishmael's early days are captured in a variety of ways, in some films Sarai takes to the new addition to the family, whereas in other there is enmity from the start. Yet it's perhaps the 1994 film that is most interesting here as Sarai and Abram coo and delight in their son while a still recovering Hagar has to watch from a distance.

Such nuance is however generally absent from the later scenes featuring Ishmael, indeed it is only the Abraham entry in the Testament: The Bible in Animation series where he is given a proper line. There are a few hints of his prowess with the bow (Gen 21:20) in Abraham (1994) and The Bible (2013), but, aside from the incident in the Huston film, Ishmael only needs exist for Sarah's anger to be kindled.To that end it's perhaps not surprising that only one film, In the Beginning, (2000) shows Ishmael's appearance at his father's death bed (pictured above). It is clear from his arrival at the head of a group of horsemen that the angel's words about his prosperity are already coming to pass.

Ishmael in Film - Part 2

This is the the second of two posts about Ishmael in film. The first, it turns out, was rather error strewn, and anyone with any decency would have gone and made the corrections and added the labels and so on before writing the second. He or she would probably also write a better more meaningful post for part two and reply to comments more consistently. But unfortunately, you got me.

There are 6 films that I'm able to lay my hands on that depict Ishmael, but to be honest none of them really do much of great interest with him. This is, I suppose, mainly because he is a minor character. The Bible, and the films that do adapt his story, or rather his part in Abraham's story, are not really interested in him, they are interested in Abraham and Sarah and how they act and react. There's a certain amount of etiology in the Bible's account: Ishmael goes on to be the father of the Ishmaelites (popularly considered to be the descendants of the Arab people), and some of the Edomites (Gen 36) who both become enemies of the Israelites at times (although trusted servants at others - 1 Chron 27:30 for example). Gen 25:18 makes special mention of the Ishmaelites living in "hostility" to all the other tribes.

Essentially though Ishmael is a passive character, acted upon by Abraham, Sarah, and to a lesser extent Hagar, but never really an active initiator. The last mention of Ishmael the man is from Genesis 25. He is with Isaac when Abraham is buried (which raises the question as to how contact was made / maintained between the half-brothers) and dies himself at the age of 137.

This doesn't leave scriptwriters a great deal to work with, and although with some characters such a blank sheet might be seen as an invitation to be creative, the need to focus on Abraham means that none of the films really take it.

The Bible (1966)
Sarai takes the initiative here, calling Hagar over and whispering into her ear. She waits for Abram, explains to him her plan. The enmity between Sarai and Ishmael (Gen 16:4) is made explicit early on with Hagar disdainfully comparing Sarai to "dried-up fruits", but it doesn't go to the extent we find in the rest of Genesis as Hagar does not flee from Sarah. The scene then changes to Abram's rescue of Lot (Gen 14), before returning to Ishmael's birth and childhood. But it's Sarah who urges Abraham to send them away, after Ishmael seizes a doll at a celebration of Isaac weaning, and then smashes it and buries it. Sarah again urges Abraham to take action; he is reluctant, but ultimately yields. The narrator adds that God also endorsed the plan in a sentence that sounds too ludicrously anachronistic to be from the KJV but actually is ("Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad"). The next scene is of bright desert sands reflecting the sun and the suddenness of the switch from the previous night-time scene, to the brightness of this scene, is at once beautiful and momentarily painfully glaring. Hagar and Ishmael collapse in the desert and Hagar cries out to God before an angel appears and makes water spring from the ground.

Abraham (1994)
Again everything is Sarai's idea, though here she asks Hagar as her free choice and then proposes it to Abram. Once the baby is born however Hagar makes comments to Sarai about her affair with Pharaoh and then questions her choice of bed for the baby. Hagar then runs away and has a conversation with an angel in line with Gen 16 and including some prophetic words about Ishmael. Hagar and Sarai make up and Hagar gives birth whilst sat on Sarai's knee. But the film is very clear that the child is Sarah's such that even as she is recovering from childbirth, Hagar has to lie there watching Abram and Sarai bring up Ishmael. There's an interesting scene with Abram and Ishmael preparing a sacrifice, which heavily prefigures God "testing" Abraham.

Isaac is born and looks up dotingly to Ishmael, cheering him on as he wrestles with older men and bests them.But as the boys grow older, the tension re-emerges between their mothers.  Sarah fears that Ishmael will do what Hagar tells him, and that Hagar wants to usurp Isaac and make Ishmael the leader. So Sarah persuades Abraham to send the pair away. They go off into the desert (Ishmael with a quiver slung over his shoulder), and struggle for their lives before the visitation from an angel. The spring appears though it's not explicitly a miracle. This, I think, is the only film to show both the times Genesis records Hagar meeting an angel.

Testament: The Bible in Animation - Abraham (1996)
Testament makes the primary focus of the Abraham's whole story, his search for an heir. Right from the start, during Abraham's time in Haran, his failure to find an heir is seen as a big problem, highlighted by both the narration and Sarah's isolation from the children who play around her. Once the move to Canaan is completed it's Sarah's idea for Abraham to have a child through Hagar, the sex is skipped over and the next scene is of a heavily pregnant Hagar still doing tasks for Sarah. Sarah asks "Have you done your work", to which Hagar snaps back "I've certainly done yours". Hagar runs into the desert but is spoken to by angelic/God figure, who tells her to return and not fear Sarah: "Do not be afraid she will be kind".

Again the film seems to skip over another of the more human moments of the story by missing Ishmael's birth. Of all the films this is really the only one to give Ishmael a proper role. He's seen talking to his father and asking "It will be a brother won't it?". It also both shows and mentions Ishmael with a bow and arrow as per Gen 21:20. Ultimately, though it is Sarah who sends Hagar away telling her husband "I will decide". Abraham is reluctant but hears God concur. "Free them" commands this film's God, trying its best to put some kind of positive spin on an episode that doesn't really reflect well on The Almighty.

The Bible: In the Beginning (2000)
Abraham is the main character in the first part of this two part miniseries - indeed even the creation story is narrated by him (to his people). Sarai offers Abram a concubine. He initially refuses, but eventually he visits her tent in the middle of the night. Next scene a heavily pregnant Hagar argues with Sarah and escapes to the desert. Drinking from a pool of water she sees a shadow in the pool and a Godly voice prophesies about Ishmael. Ishmael is born. Abram is happy, Sarai less so. Soon enough she's pregnant and it's Hagar that's in a grump. Isaac's born, Abe's happy again, but soon Sarah becomes all protective and scolds Ishmael. (Hagar and Sarah argue again, Sarah really doesn't come out of her dealings with Hagar with much credit) and soon Hagar's heading back to the desert. Abram weakly tells her God will look after her but the provision of water in the desert is missed out. If that sounds like one of dullest pieces of writing ever to appear on this blog then its because the Ishmael episodes are dealt with in such a dully mundane fashion that it drains any interest from the task of recounting it.

What's a little more interesting though is that Ishmael reappears (at the head of group of horsemen) just before Abraham dies. He and Isaac verbally jostle over pecking order and then Abraham blesses them both equally, making a vaguely 21st century sounding statement about respecting different paths, which sounds a bit forced, but at least it's something of interest in an otherwise turgid portrayal. This is the only film to show the death of Abraham.

The Real Old Testament (2003)
Ishmael doesn't actually appear in this endlessly hilarious version of Genesis, but the chapters 16 and 21 of Genesis are covered and feature Hagar fairly memorably. It's Sarai that suggests Abram taking Hagar as a concubine, and has to explain to him what it actually means. Abram is rather more keen on the plan here than in the other films, and, as he spends his night with Hagar in a sillhouetted tent, is heard triumphantly shouting "I'm young again".

Hagar flees Sarai and meets God in the desert, and as the film doesn't really deal with the story from Genesis 21 that's more or less it. It does however pick up on a couple of parts of chapter 16 that the other film's miss. First is God's prediction that Ishmael will be a "wild ass of a man". In one of Hagar's talking to the camera sequences she clearly sees that as possible. "I have this uncle and he's a wild ass of a man". Also covered is Hagar naming God El-roi in Gen 16:13. God, however, is not impressed: "I'm not going to let that one stick".

The Bible (2013)
Of all the films discussed here, this is the one that simultaneously sexes things, whilst going to the other extreme to portray Abraham as whiter than white. When Sarah suggests that Abraham has his child through her, Abraham is initially vehement "no, no, no, no, no, no, no", but he does anyway. But as he departs from Hagar's tent he leaves the door open for long enough for Sarah and, more crucially, the camera to get a good look in. Hagar sits up, still naked, her beautiful back exposed to the elements. It's a very sexualised image, but in contrast, Abraham, fully clothed walks away as if he has been emotionally unaffected by the whole affair.

We also see Ishmael practising his archery (as per Gen 21:20), and Abraham celebrating his son's prowess. The story then cuts to the rather gratuitously violent story of Sodom before returning to the birth of Isaac. Ishmael and Hagar are dispatched fairly quickly - though there is a heavy implication that it is God's decision and that Abraham is assured by God that they will survive, and prophesies to Ishmael that he will have many children. The camera fades on the two as they walk into the desert and there's no death of Abraham scene for him to feature in.

Ishmael in Film - Part 1

This post is incomplete as there are a number of errors that need rectifying.

One of the characters who appeared in the History Channel's latest series The Bible was Ishmael, Abraham's first son by Hagar. Abraham in general hasn't appeared in that many films. As far as I'm aware his fleeting appearance in 1936's Green Pastures is the earliest remaining appearance in a film. I say "remaining" because I know of up to four silent films in which Abraham may appear.

The BFI film archive does list two films, which it seems are now lost, that are about an Ishmael, 1912's Pathé Hagar and Ishmael and The Marriage of Ishmael from the following year (Imperium films). I can't find a great deal of information on these films online - neither of them even appear in the IMDb, but the book on Pathé's silent historical films - Richard Abel’s "The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914" - might yield a little more information. The first sounds highly likelky to be about the biblical characters, but the second could very conceiveably be about a different Ishmael: the Bible only talks about his marriage in the future tense.

I'm also aware of some other films about Abraham courtesy of David Wilson. The Trial of Abraham’s Faith was made by British company Empire Films in 1910. According to a review in the 3rd February edition of Biopscope from the same year this is, as might be expected, about Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. The other is, yet again, from Pathé, 1911's Le sacrifice d'Abraham (1911). Neither appears to have featured Ishmael, although it is conceivable that he was included in a shot or two. Presumably though Ishmael does appear in Pathé's Le sacrifice d'Ismaël from the following year. Pathé were at it again the next year (1913) with Rebecca about Isaac's wife, though it seems unlikely Ishmael featured in this one. There were also brief appearances in 1918's Restitution and Le Berceau de dieu (1926), both of which tell a sweeping story across the whole Bible, rather than focus on a particular group of characters.

A few films from the sound era feature Abraham, but not Ishmael, including The Living Bible's entry Abraham: Man of Faith (1952), Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Abraham's Sacrifice (1979), Year One, The God Complex (both 2009) and 2011's Young Avraham. (N.B. I believe Hagar features in the Greatest Heroes episode, but no mention of Ishmael and I haven't seen it to be able to comment).

All of which leaves only 5 films that I can lay my hands on that deal with Ishmael: Huston's The Bible (1966); the longest available treatment, Abraham (1994) starring Richard Harris; Testament: Abraham (1996), The Bible: In the Beginning (2000) and this year's The Bible, I had meant to discuss these in this post but it's got too late so I will have to save it for another day soon.

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.

Abraham - Scene Guide

Yesterday I posted a review for Abraham, having written a few initial thoughts on Monday. Anyone interested in a second opinion might want to read Peter Chattaway's review originally written for Christian Info. News, back in July 1996. Peter's got a better grasp of the history of that period than me, and so he's a little more critical of the historical errors he sees.

Anyway, here is the scene guide for the film

Part 1
Extra-biblical episodes (loosely Genesis 11:26-32)
Call of Abram - (Gen 12:1-3)
Abram and Sarai leave Haran - (Gen 12:4)
Extra-biblical episodes
Altar built at Bethel - (Gen 12:7)
Clash with the Amorites - (Gen 12:6)
Famine in the land - (Gen 12:10)
Sarai given to Pharaoh - (Gen 12:10-16)
Extra-biblical episode
Pharaoh falls ill and expels Abram - (Gen 12:17-20)
Abram allied with Mamre the Amorite- (Gen 14:13b)
Abram and Lot separate - (Gen 13:5-18)
Lot captured - (Gen 14:11-12)

Part 2
Abram recounts Tower of Babel - (Gen 11:1-9)
Abram rescues Lot - (Gen 14:13-16)
Abram and the king of Sodom - (Gen 14:17)
God's covenant with Abraham - (Gen 15:1-20)
Abram and Melchizedek - (Gen 14:18-20)
Hagar and Sarai - (Gen 16:1-16)
Covanent of Circumcision - (Gen 17:1-27)
The Three Visitors - (Gen 18:1-15)
Abraham bargains for Sodom - (Gen 18:16-33)
Sodom sins and is destroyed - (Gen 19:1-28)
Birth of Isaac - (Gen 21:1-7)
Hagar and Ishmael sent away - (Gen 21:8-14)
Extra-biblical episode
Hagar and Ishmael in the desert - (Gen 21:15-21)
God tests Abraham - (Gen 22:1-19)

A Few Notes
It's noticeable that the film takes 50% of its runtime on just two and a half chapters (and even then only 2 verses from the half). By contrast the second half of the film covers seven and a half chapters worth of narrative.

The only major incident not included in this film is that from Gen 20 where Abraham again tries to pass of Sarai as his sister. This may well be because some scholars consider this to be an alternative version of the same story. Such an interpretation certainly seems to make Abram's repeated disowning of his wife more understandable. That said, the differences are also significant - differences of location, the man in question, the way Abimelech hears from God rather than getting a disease first, and the way Abraham prays for Abimelech's wife and slave girls at the story's end. This last incident is one of my favourites in the whole story. Sarah is still without her own son, at this point, which must have pained both her and Abraham. Yet Abraham finds the strength to lay these feelings aside and pray for Abimelech's wife and slave girls that they would receive the miracle that has eluded Abraham and Sarah all these years. I wonder how many times Abraham must have prayed this prayer for his own wife?

By contrast to it's exclusion of the Abimelech story, the film does include each of the occasions when God speaks to Abraham, even though there is some repetition here also.

Finally, its interesting how the portrays the crimes of Sodom. these are first depicted early on after Abraham rescues Lot, when some sort of homosexuality is awkwardly displayed. This is repeated once the two angels visit the city. However, the crime itself, still seems to be the more likely scriptural interpretation of "attempted gang rape". In some ways, then, the film wants to have it's cake and eat it, neither offending the homosexual community by showing homosexual acts as the sin that condemns Sodom, whilst failing to remove the suggestion that homosexual acts were a part of the problem. Reading this on a deeper level, this resultant linking of homosexuality to gang rape is potentially far more offensive than either of those on its own. It's also interesting how the film shows Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salf (right). This is shown but receives very little comment. There's some subtle suggestion that what happens to Sodom is linked to volcanic activity, but this is never explicitly shown or stated.