Seven Forthcoming Books on the Bible and Cinema

I'm aware of seven books about cinema and the Bible being published either this year or next so I thought it would be worth me pulling all their details together into one place. I've contributed to two of them and know the other people involved, so it's an exciting time for publishing in this area. I may revise this post as time goes along and more details become apparent and hopefully I'll be able to review some of these in due course.

100 Bible Films - Matt Page
This is obviously going to be the best of those mentioned here (that's a joke) and if you can only afford one, then this is the one to go for ;-)

I'm covering what I consider the 100 most significant film adaptations of the Bible aiming for a really diverse mix of filmmakers from across 14 decades, 6 continents, with a wide range of beliefs and covering stories from across the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the deuterocanonical books. It's written in a more terse style than my rambling blog posts here and will have plenty of images as well as an appendix listing the entries by biblical character.

It's part of the BFI's "Screen Guides" series and I honestly couldn't be more excited.
Due: February 2022 [BFI]

Costuming Christ: Re-dressing First-Century ‘Jews’ and ‘Christians’ in Passion Dramas - Katie Turner
After a number of general books on the subject, it's good to see more specialist volumes staring to be published and so Katie's "Costuming Christ" will be most welcome. Building on her PhD thesis on the "Representation of New Testament Figures in Passion Dramas" Katie's book will look at a subject discuss less than I probably should and with the expert eye of a NT scholar. Katie's perhaps best known for her contribution to the collective volume "Jesus and Brian" called "'The Shoe is the Sign!' Costuming Brian and Dressing the First Century".
Due: 2022 [T&T Clark]

Jesus Christ Movie Star - Phil Hall
"Jesus Christ Movie Star" will explore how Jesus has been depicted by filmmakers from the beginnings of the motion picture industry in the 1890s through the digital cinema of today. Phil is a film journalist / historian who also runs the Online Movie Show podcast and has written nine other books. I sense from some of his tweets and blog posts that he'll be covering some of the less well known international films as well.
Due: May 2021 [Bear Manor Media]

Jesus, the Gospels and Cinematic Imagination (revised) - Richard Walsh and Jeffrey L. Staley
Richard is probably the greatest scholar in this area and the first edition of "Jesus, the Gospels and Cinematic Imagination" (also co-written with Jeffrey Staley) has long been one of my favourite books on the subject. However, it was written for a very different cultural context where DVD was king and before a number of recent Jesus films have been released.

Richard and Jeffrey's revision, then, is fairly wide ranging, including chapters on two of those recent releases  films, Jezile (Dornford-May, 2006) and Garth Davis' Mary Magdalene (2018) as well as revisiting Alice Guy's Vie de Jesus (1906) and Il Messia (Rossellini, 1975). Moreover there will also be more emphasis on films and film criticism and less on gospel criticism and more attention to location, actors' other roles and directors' other films. 
Due: Fall 2021
More info (publisher website)

Judas Superstar:  Judas Iscariot in Cinema - Christoph Stener
Having previously covered religious texts (vol.1), Christian art (vol.2) and dark legend / theatre / folklore / caricature (vol.3) in his series on the antisemitic iconography of Judas Iscariot,  Prof Stener arrives at cinematic depictions of Judas for volume IV.

While Stener is French, there is both French and English version available, The longer French version comes in two parts and covers 137 films over 1200 pages, but there is an abridged English version which discusses 121 films in 192 pages. He analyses each film for its respect for the Bible and qualifies its message either ecumenical or antisemitic.
Published: Feb 2021 [BoD]
More info (publisher website)

T&T Clark Handbook to Jesus and Film - Richard Walsh (ed.)
Walsh again, only this time he's editing the work of some of the best scholars in the field (and me...). There are 27 chapters broken into two sections. Part 1 covers "The Jesus Film Tradition" while part 2 looks at "Other Jesuses, Christs, Messiahs, Sons of Men…". A lot of those involved also contributed to Walsh / T&T Clark's 2018 book "Companion to the Bible and Film". This should be out already, but mine hasn't arrived yet, so I'm assuming there's been some kind of a delay. 
Due: Feb 2021 [T&T Clark]
More info (publisher website)

Edit:
Bible and Film: The Basics - Matt Rindge
I only learnt about this one after making the original post, but Matt Rindge's Bible and Film: The Basics is also due out this July. It joins the list of publication I like to call half-and-half Bible film books, following in the tradition of Baugh's "Imaging the Divine" where the author explores biblical adaptations (Bible on Film) before discussing Christ-figure, allegorical, metaphorical and thematic treatments (Bible in Film). The latter chapters "provide a hermeneutic by which readers can create their own new conversations with the manifold ways that Bible and film interact".
Due: July 2021 [Routledge]
More info (publisher website)

An Anouncement

 

Apologies to regular readers that it has been so quiet around here of late, but I have been writing my first book. 

"100 Bible Films" is to be published by the British Film Institute as part of their screen guides series. It's a project I've been dreaming about for 12 years since I came across the series in the BFI's bookshop in London. 

The text is being peer reviewed at the moment and in the meantime we've been looking at cover designs and so on. While the text is written there's still a lot that needs to happen to make that text into a book. We're currently looking at a publication date of February 2022. 

 I'll be posting more information about the book here and on my Twitter feed as the publication date draws closer. Until then thank you, as ever, for all the support.

T&T Clark Handbook of Jesus & Film

T&T Clark Handbook of Jesus and Film

Edited by Richard Walsh

Bloomsbury T&T Clark (2021)
352 pages - Hardback

ISBN 978-0567686916
Publication Date: 13/2/2021

Apologies if things have been quiet round here of late, but I've been working on an exciting project that I'm not yet had to go ahead to talk about in public yet. 

In the meantime, details have gone up on the Bloomsbury website about the next book to feature a chapter I've written. The "T&T Clark Handbook of Jesus and Film" contains 27 essays by various film scholars discussing Jesus films from all kinds of angles but particularly the Jesus Film Tradition (part 1) and Other Jesuses, Christs, Messiahs, Sons of Men etc. in part 2.

My chapter is called "Jesus of Cinecittà" and looks at specifically Italian Jesus films across the last 20 years and the distinctive perspectives the country has brought in contrast to Hollywood's Jesuses. I'm particularly excited by some of the contributors to this collection who I have not been published alongside before, including my friend Steven D. Greydanus, though it's also good to once again join some of the most significant scholars in the field.

The book is already available to order online on the Bloomsbury website where there is also a little more info. However, here is a list of the contents. I have posted a list of the contributions below.

================

T&T Clark Handbook of Jesus and Film

Introduction: The Jesus Film Tradition - Richard Walsh, Methodist University, USA

Part One: The Jesus Film Tradition

1. Obscure Gospel Elements in Jesus Films - Peter T. Chattaway

2. “Who Do you Say That I Am?” Responses to Cinema Sequences of the Woman Taken in Adultery - Peter Malone

3. One Hundred Years of Cinematic Attempts at Raising a Stiff (Jn 11:1-46) - Jeffrey L. Staley

4. Seeing Differently with Mary Magdalene - Michelle Fletcher

5. Inculturation and Actualization: Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche's Histoire de Judas - Reinhold Zwick, 

6. Through Other Eyes: Point of View and Defamiliarization in Jesus Films - Steven D. Greydanus, 

7. The First Seventy Years of Jesus Films: A Canonical, Source-Critical History - Jeffrey L. Staley

8. Reading the Gospel(s) in the Dark: The Gospel Effect - Richard Walsh

9. The “False Syllogism” of Archaeological Authenticity in Jesus Movies - Kevin M. McGeough, 

10. Jesus of Cinecittà - Matthew Page

11. Three Revolutionary Gospel Films: By the People, with the People, and for the People - Lloyd Baugh

12. Jesus in a Modern Contemporary Context - Freek L. Bakker

13. Miéville, Godard, and Dolto: The Psychoanalysis of Mary and Joseph - Anne Moore

14. From the New Testament to The Brand New Testament: Moving Beyond “Jesus” Films - Caroline Vander Stichele

Part Two: Other Jesuses, Christs, Messiahs, Sons of Men…

15. “Walk[ing] upon that Gospel Highway”: Experiencing Physical Pilgrimages, Places, and People in The Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus - James M. Cochran

16 Scorsese's Jesus: Christology in The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence - Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch

17. Obviously, It's a Christ-figure Movie…Or is It? - Robert K. Johnston

18. Sacred Subtexts and the Biblical Buttressing of Klaatu as a Christ Figure in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) - Anton Karl Kozlovic

19. Guillermo del Toro's El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) and the Subversion of the Cinematic Jesus/Christ figure - Matthew S. Rindge

20. Failed Christ Figures in Québec Films - Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, Canada

21. (Un)Holy Saturday - Tina Pippin

22. The Bible in the Star Trek Universe (2000-19) - Larry J. Kreitzer

23. A Modest Proposal for Christ-Figure Interpretations: Explicated with Two Test Cases - Richard Walsh

24. Messianism and the Horror Film: Transcendence and Salvation in The Mist and Martyrs - Brandon R. Grafius

25. “It's Alive!”: Frankenstein and His Horrible Fellows as Messianic Figures - Robert Paul Seesengood

26. Founding the New Old State: Messianic Cowboys on the Frontiers of Europe and America - Ward Blanton and James Crossley

27. Lars and the Real Girl as a Son of Man Story - George Aichele

Bibliography

Index

My Pasolini Book Review Published in "Studies in European Cinema"

My review of Luca Peretti and Karen T. Raizen's edited volume "Pier Paolo Pasolini Framed and Unframed: A Thinker for the Twenty-First Century" has been published in the journal "Studies in European Cinema".

https://www.tandfonline.com
/doi/full/10.1080/17411548.
2020.1741135

If you don't already have access to "Studies in European Cinema" (e.g. through your institution), the first 50 people to follow this URL should get free access to it.

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/PUS39ETNBM3SXC
QMR9N7/full?target=10.1080/17411548.2020.1741135

I'm a little new to all this though, so if that doesn't work, please just email me and I'll see if I can sort out what's wrong.

I'm really proud of this piece, as it's the first peer reviewed article I've written to be published in film-related book/journal (as opposed to something in theology / biblical studies). It also means that I've published on both Pasolini and Rossellini now.

To summarise the book far more briefly, it's a step on from a typical book about Pasolini, not only because it's less reverential, but also because it gives significantly more consideration to his lesser known films / poems / novels. There are some really interesting essays in there and it nicely complements the more famous previous works on Pasolini. At some point in the future I might publish some of the material I didn't put in the review itself, but we'll just have to see what I have time for as I currently have another exciting project on the go. Details of that will hopefully follow soon.

The Bible Onscreen in the New Millennium: New Heart and New Spirit

The Bible Onscreen in the New Millennium:
New Heart and New Spirit

Edited by Wickham Clayton

Manchester University Press (2020)
296 pages - Hardback
ISBN 978-1526136572
Publication Date: 13/1/2020

I've been meaning to post about the forthcoming publication of the latest book to feature an essay of mine. "The Bible Onscreen in the New Millennium: New Heart and New Spirit" will feature 14 essays by various film scholars on the biblical epics to have emerged since The Passion of the Christ in 2004. I'm particularly pleased that it's being published by Manchester University Press whose book "Biblical Epics" by Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans is one of the seminal works in this field.

My chapter is called "The Nativity Re-Born: Genre and the Birth and Childhood of Jesus" and in it I discuss various Nativity films released since The Passion and how they have stayed true to or innovated with the conventions of the genre. As well as the link with MUP it's also pleasing to be contributing to a book compiled with cinema scholars in mind rather than those approaching the theological angle. It's nice to have contributed to both.

The book is already available to order online. In the meantime, you can read a little more about the book at the Manchester University Press website, and I have posted a list of the contributions below.

================

The Bible Onscreen in the New Millennium: New Heart and New Spirit

Introduction - Wickham Clayton
Part I: Producing Biblical Film and Television
1-Battle over the Biblical Epic: Hollywood, Christians and the American Culture Wars - Karen Patricia Heath
2-Depicting 'Biblical' Narratives: A Test Case on Noah - Peter Phillips
3-Special Effects and CGI in the Biblical Epic Film - Andrew B. R. Elliott
4-The Phenomenon of Biblical Telenovelas in Latin America - Clarice Greco, Mariana Marques De Lima and Tissiana Nogueira Pereira

Part II: Modern Narratives and Contexts in Adapting the Bible
5-Mythic Cinema And the Contemporary Biblical Epic - Mikel J. Koven
6-The Nativity Re-Born: Genre and the Birth and Childhood of Jesus - Matthew Page
7-Convince Me: Conversion Narratives in the Modern Biblical Epic - Chris Davies

Part III: Critical Readings and Receptions
8-Controversy And the 'Culture War': Exploring Tensions Between the Secular and the Sacred In Noah, the 'Least Biblical Biblical Movie Ever' - Becky Bartlett
9-'Can Anything Good Come Out Of Southern California?'* (*Hyperlink to John 1:46): The Christian Critical Reception of Elliptical Jesus Narratives - Wickham Clayton
10-Examining the Digital Religion Paradigm: A Mixed-Method Analysis of Online Community Perception of Epic Biblical Movies - Gregory P. Perrault And Thomas S. Mueller

Part IV: Culture And Representation
11-The Devil and the Culture Wars: Demonising Controversy in The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion Of The Christ - Karra Shimabukuro
12-Ben-Her(?): Soft Stardom, Melodrama, and the Critique of Epic Masculinity In Ben-Hur (2016) - Thomas J. West III
13-The Biblical-Trial Film: Social Contexts in L'Inchiesta and Risen - Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Emiliano Aguilar
14-'Squint Against the Grandeur': Iconoclasm and Film Genre in The Passion of the Christ and Hail, Caesar!

The T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film

The T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film
Edited by Richard J. Walsh

Bloomsbury T&T Clark(2018)
Bloomsbury Companions Series
528 pages - Hardback
ISBN 978-0567666208
Publication Date: 19/4/2018

I'm pleased to announce the forthcoming release of the "T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film", which includes a chapter that I have written. Here's a brief excerpt from the official summary:

The Companion has three parts. First, 'context', focusing on the 'Bible in' specific film genres and cultural situations. Second, 'theory', with a focus on film theory or methodologies and how these can overlap with biblical and theoretical methodologies. Third, 'recent and significant texts', with a focus on which texts and themes have been most important in 'biblical film' and which are currently at the fore. The volume is unique in paying close attention to film genres, and film theory. Each section of the book begins with an extended introductory essay to provide a full overview of the themes discussed and introduced. Another key feature is the inclusion of non-Hollywood films, and films that do not at first glance appear to be 'biblical'.

My own chapter comes at the start of the book's third section, "Texts" and is called "Can We Try that Again? The Fate of the Biblical Canon on Film".

There are more details including a full list of titles and authors available from the T&T website, but the names of some of the other authors will be very familiar to those who like to read on this topic. In addition to Richard Walsh, Adele Reinhartz, Jon Solomon, Lloyd Baugh, Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch and David Shepherd have all contributed. Having enjoyed some of James Crossley's work in other areas of biblical studies, I'm also looking forward to his perspective.

Release is looking like being in April/May next year.

The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film

Editor: Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Date: February 15, 2016
Language: English
Length: 900 pages*
Price (Hardback/eBook): £180/$335
ISBN: 978-1614515616

It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of this two-volume work on the Bible in Film. A large part of the pleasure comes from the knowledge that two of the chapters in it will be mine, but also it looks set to be the the most comprehensive work on the subject to date with work from most of the leading scholars in this area. First here's the official blurb from the publisher's website:

This volume contains a comprehensive collection of original studies by well-known scholars focusing on the Bible’s wide-ranging reception in world cinema. Part I examines the rich cinematic afterlives of selected characters from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Part II considers issues of biblical reception across a wide array of film genres, ranging from noir to anime. Part III features directors, from Lee Chang-dong to the Coen brothers, whose body of work reveals an enduring fascination with biblical texts and motifs. Part IV offers topical essays on cinema’s treatment of selected biblical themes (e.g., redemption, lament, apocalyptic), particular interpretive lenses (e.g., feminist interpretation, queer theory), and windows into biblical reception in a variety of world cinemas (e.g., Indian, Israeli, and Third Cinema). This handbook is intended for scholars of the Bible, religion, and film as well as for a wider general audience

Based on the proofing copy I have seen it seems that his information is a little out of date. For a start it's now split into two volumes, with six parts in total. *Secondly, whereas the data in circulation at the moment suggests that it will be 710 pages, I suspect the final manuscript will be pushing 900. I've excerpted the contents pages below

I have one chapter in each volume. In the first I have an essay on the depiction of (King) David in film a character who has, hitherto, been rather overlooked by Bible film scholars. But I'm particularly proud of my contribution to the second part, a chapter on Roberto Rossellini. Rossellini is such a great, influential, but - these days - under-appreciated film-maker that it feels like a real honour to write about him. I've been learning some Italian, as much spurred on by my appreciation of his films, and I'm quite looking forward to being able to say I've been published on Rossellini.

It's also a tremendous honour to be published alongside so many of the writers whose work I have appreciated over the last 15 or so years as well as getting the chance to encounter some new (to me) names as well.

At 710-900 pages and £180/$335 a copy it's hardly for the casual reader (Amazon even gives it's weight as 1.7lbs!) and I imagine most copies will end up in academic libraries. Still I imagine if it sells well there may be a paperback release at some stage at a substantially lower cost. Certainly if you do get a chance to get hold of a copy I would strongly recommend it.

VOLUME 1
Part I: Biblical Characters and Stories (Hebrew Bible)
1. In the Beginning: Adam and Eve in Film
- Theresa Sanders
2. Noah and the Flood: A Cinematic Deluge
- Anton Karl Kozlovic
3. It’s all in the Family: The Patriarchs of Genesis in Film
- Peter T. Chattaway
4. The Cinematic Moses
- Jennifer L. Koosed
5. Samson and Delilah in Film
- J. Cheryl Exum
6. There Might be Giants: King David on the Big (and Small) Screen
- Matthew Page
7. Esther in Film
- Carl S. Ehrlich

Part II: Film Genres and Film Media
8. Scripture on Silent Film
- David J. Shepherd
9. Film Noir and the Bible
- Robert Ellis
10. The Bible Epic
- Adele Reinhartz
11. Western Text(s): The Bible and the Movies of the Wild, Wild West
- Robert Paul Seesengood
12. Mysteries of the Bible (Documentary) Revealed: The Bible in Popular Non-Fiction and Documentary Film
- Robert Paul Seesengood
13. From Skepticism to Piety: The Bible and Horror Films
- Mary Ann Beavis
14. “Moses’ DVD Collection”: The Bible and Science Fiction Film
- Frauke Uhlenbruch
15. The Word Made Gag: Biblical Reception in Film Comedy
- Terry Lindvall and Chris Lindvall
16. Drawing (on) the Text: Biblical Reception in Animated Films
- R. Christopher Heard
17. Anime and the Bible
- Fumi Ogura and N. Frances Hioki

Part III: Biblical Themes and Genres
18. God at the Movies
- Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch
19. Satan in Cinema
- Peter Malone
20. Creation and Origins in Film
- Gaye Williams Ortiz
21. The Book of Job in the Movies: On Cinema‘s Exploration of Theodicy and the Hiddenness of God
- Reinhold Zwick
22. Lament in Film and Film as Lament
- Matthew S. Rindge
23. What Lies beyond? Biblical Images of Death and Afterlife in Film
- Sandie Gravett
24. This is the End: Apocalyptic Moments in Cinema
- Tina Pippin

VOLUME 2
Part I: Biblical Characters and Stories (New Testament)
1. Jesus and the Gospels at the Movies
- W. Barnes Tatum
2. Women in the Cinematic Gospels
- Catherine O’Brien
3. Judas as Portrayed in Film
- Carol A. Hebron
4. Jews and Judaism in Bible Films
- Clayton N. Jefford
5. Paul and the Early Church in Film
- Richard Walsh
6. Mythic Relevance of Revelation in Film
- Meghan Alexander Beddingfield

Part II: Cinemas and Auteurs
7. David Wark Griffith: Filming the Bible as the U.S. Story
- Richard Walsh
8. Alice Guy Blaché and Gene Gauntier: Bringing New Perspectives to Film
- Carol A. Hebron
9. Oscar Micheaux’s Within our Gates: Emergent History and a Gospel of Middle-Class Liberation
- Nathan Jumper
10. Cecil B. Demille: Hollywood’s Lay Preacher
- Anton Karl Kozlovic
11. Reframing Jesus: Dreyer’s Lifelong Passion
- Caroline Vander Stichele
12. Luis Buñuel: Atheist by the Grace of God
- J. Sage Elwell
13. Robert Bresson: Biblical Resonance from a Christian Atheist
- Sara Anson Vaux
14. Roberto Rossellini: From Spiritual Searcher to History’s Documentarian
- Matthew Page
15. Federico Fellini: From Catholicism to the Collective Unconscious
- Marie-Therese Maeder
16. John Huston: The Atheistic Noah
- Gaye Williams Ortiz
17. Stanley Kubrick: Midrashic Movie Maker
- Nathan Abrams
18. In the Wake of the Bible: Krzysztof Kieślowski and the Residual Divine in Contemporary Life
- Joseph G. Kickasola
19. Peter Weir: Man of Mystery, Mysticism, and the Mundane
- Anton Karl Kozlovic
20. Cheick Oumar Sissoko: West African Activist and Storyteller
- Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch
21. Lee Chang-Dong: Exploring the Hidden Christ
- Fumi Ogura and N. Frances Hioki
22. Mark Dornford-May: Transposing the Classic
- Samuel D. Giere
23. Serious Men: Scripture in the Coen Brothers Films
- J. R. Daniel Kirk
24. Liberative Visions: BiblicaL Reception in Third Cinema
- Antonio D. Sison
25. The Reception of Biblical Films in India: Observations and a Case Study
- Dwight H. Friesen
26. “A Ram Butts his Broad Horns again and again against the Wall of the House”: The Binding Myth in Israeli Film
- Anat Y. Zanger

Part III: Voices from the Margins
27. Judaism and Antisemitism in Bible Movies
- Adele Reinhartz
28. Ethnicity and Biblical Reception in Eve and the Fire Horse
- Stephenson Humphries-Brooks
29. A Slave Narrative for the “Post-Racial” Obama Age
- Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch
30. The Temptation of Noah: The Debate about Patriarchal Violence in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah
- Erin Runions
31. Gay Male Villains in Biblical Epic Films
- Richard A. Lindsay
32. Imperialism in New Testament Films
- Jeremy Punt

==============
*This is based on the number of pages in the proofing copies I have seen. Final version may differ significantly.