Dinah and the Shechemites in Film

Having looked at The Red Tent last month I thought I'd things off with a quick look at how different films portray the incident with Dinah, her brothers and the Shechemites. Given that it's a relatively obscure part of Genesis, it has only been covered a few times on the screen, but there are some significant variations between the four depictions with which I am familiar.

The Bible: Genesis (1979)
The first Bible film to cover the story of Dinah was one that pretty much had to. The New Media Bible project was meant to deliver a word for word portrayal of the whole Bible, though in the end only Genesis and Luke were covered and even then I say "pretty much" because certain parts of Genesis (e.g. the Tower of Babel) were omitted.

At the time this film was made the broadly accepted view of what constituted rape was different than it is today. Most, now, (in the UK at least) would agree that what is sometimes called date rape fully qualifies as rape. 36 years ago when this film there was no such cultural consensus. So it's perhaps not surprising that this film depicts the rape of Dinah as being of the more violent variety. She is grabbed, out of the blue, in the town square and pulled off to a more discrete location. This is the only film that depicts the incident in quite such a black and white manner.

In a not-dissimilar vein, it's interesting that as Dinah is "rescued" from her brothers from the smouldering ruins of Shechem, she is shoved around by them as if they are angry with her. I think this blaming of the victim seems to be something the film wants us to see and accept as offensive, though whether this is due to what they see as her complicity in her rape, or her acceptance of her subsequent marriage is unclear.

The strangest thing about this clip is the way in which the men of Shechem are so compliant in accepting their fate. On hearing the news they simply shrug and walk off and the camera neither seems to anticipate a further reaction or find their fate shocking in any way. The scene is only a little longer than 5 minutes.

The Bible Collection: Joseph (1995)
The Bible Collection devotes separate films to the stories of Jacob and Joseph and, perhaps surprisingly, this episode is covered within the longer Joseph film rather than the more obvious location within her father's story. In the cultural understanding of the time, daughters were seen as the property of their father's before marriage.

The story is given quite a more screen time here - around 15 minutes - and is set at a wedding celebration, contrasting the "right" way of doing things, rather than the way Shechem chooses to act. Dinah herself is far younger here: she's very much still a girl rather than a woman. This is a slightly tricky area. Whilst on the one hand marriage did take place at a far younger age (and of course Dinah has not yet been considered ready to be married) the Bible Collection's leading actors are consistently very much of the western contemporary world, ethnically white and of ages to match (e.g. Louise Lombard who was 29 when she played the young virginal Esther in the Bible Collection's 1999 adaptation).

The situation is further complicated by the seemingly flirty eye contact between the obviously underage child and her rapist-in-waiting. When she is suddenly taken ill and is lead out to a back room her attacker makes his move. Whilst the scene makes it clear there was no consent, not least Dinah's screams, I find the eye contact rather troubling. I'm not convinced the film wants to rule out any blame on Dinah's part.

When Hamor subsequently approaches Jacob the idea of these Shechemites getting circumcised is very much Jacob's idea and, again, there are more objections from the sons of Israel than from the soon to be scarred men of Shechem. They attack and give a rather clichéd war cry as they 'sneak' up to the "unsuspecting" city, but the depiction of the slaughter is not very graphic and Jacob's rebuke to his sons is no particularly powerful.


La genèse (1999)
The longest and most interesting portrayal of these events is from Cheick Oumar Sissoko's La Genèse (1999) which retells the story as an African tribal conflict. Like Joseph it does seem to hold Dinah partially responsible. She is depicted as a precocious flirt who, along with a couple of young boys, pushes Shechem too far.

But the film's African perspective highlights other concepts that westerners easily overlook. For example the city dwelling Shechemites resent the nomadic Israelites and criticise thm for being rootless and without culture (all the while Dinah is being held in their city). There's also the grim image of a bloodied sheet being displayed for the waiting crowd's approval. They are made complicit in the act which somehow transforms from an ac of sexual frustration to a political act on behalf of Hamor's subjects.

Perhaps it is a father defending his son, but initially Hamor blames Dinah for what has occurred, but then the film becomes the first to give Dinah a voice. She speaks back and rebukes Hamor and he seems to respond to her chastisement. Throughout the film Dinah is portrayed as a strong woman, unwilling to submit to what the various men and the patriarchal culture expects of her.

When Hamor seeks out Jacob he does not do it face to face initially as Jacob remains mourning in his tent. It is left to Leah to express the family's anger, even in the face of many gifts from Hamor. The idea to tell Hamor's people to get circumcised arises only once Jacob has held a second discussion with his sons.

But in marked contrast to 1979 version this film grimly portrays the Shechemites mass circumcising in wince inducing fashion. Firstly there is the queue of men waiting ominously (and unforgettably) for their appointment with the man with a meat cleaver and then there are the post-operation scenes of the various men hobbling around trying to minimise the pain. I highlights the link between the crowd complicity in Dinah's rape and their communal punishment. Meanwhile their womenfolk just stand by and mock them. The Hebrews mock Shechem also. "His crown has fallen and he can't bend to pick it up"

When the slaughter does come  it is disturbingly thorough. One of the Hebrews gives pause when faced with a baby boy, but a fellow countryman insists in no uncertain terms that all the males should be killed. The only survivor is Hamor - in stark contrast to the text where he also is killed by Simeon and Levi - left to face the cruel implications of his fate: not only has he lost his son and his friends but his tribe will die out with him.

The Red Tent (2014)
I've expressed my views on this film already elsewhere but essentially what The Red Tent does is stress how in the cultural of the time the story occurred/was written rape was primarily about the lack of the father's consent rather than the daughter's. This is why, for example, in that rather troubling passage in Deut. 22:23-29 we find s girl potentially being given in marriage to her rapist, or even stoned, but not being punished if the "rape" happens in the country. The passage simply doesn't start from the perspective that consent is the woman's to give. So in this film Dinah is not taken against her will, but her father and brothers are incensed because Jacob has not given his consent.

The film also has Dinah staying over at Shechem/Shalem's palace the night they have sex which hints at the importance of ancient near east hospitality codes. This further softens up the ground for the brutality of the slaughter scene which follows. It is considerably more violent than any of the previous four.

I must admit I'm in two minds as to what I think about the way this film portrays the "rape". On the one hand it could be seen as powerfully exposing the sexism of this part of biblical culture where a woman didn't even have a right to control who had sexual access to her own body. But on the other hand it could be criticised for airbrushing or infantilising a potentially horrific event into a teenage girl's romance fantasy. The sheer brutality with which the film shows Dinah's brothers wreaking their revenge suggests the former, but even with that Shalem and Dinah's love affair still feels a bit twee.

The Red Tent - Scene Guide

I reviewed Roger Young's adaptation of The Red Tent a few weeks back, but I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the way the scenes relate to the text in Genesis. However, in contrast to my usual scene guide format I'm not going to point out where there's extra-biblical material.

Part 1
Jacob and Rachel meet - (Gen.29:1-14)
Jacob marries Leah - (Gen.29:15-26)
Leah's sons born - (Gen.29:31-35; 30:17-20)
Birth of Dinah - (Gen.30:21)
Joseph's coat - (Gen.37:2-7
Jacob splits from Laban - (Gen.31:1-18)
Jacob reconciled to Esau - (Gen.33:1-17)
Move to Shechem - (Gen.33:18-20)
Rachel's idols - (Gen.31:19,30-35)
Dinah and Shechem meet - (Gen.34:1,3)
Dinah And Shechem marry - (Gen.34:2,4)
Hamor and Jacob meet - (Gen.34:5-19)
Shechemites circumcised - (Gen.34:20-24)
Shechemites slaughtered - (Gen.34:25-29)

Part 2
Jacob denounces Simeon and Levi - (Gen.34:30-31)
[A lot of extra-biblical material]
Joseph sold into slavery - (Gen.37:17-36)
[A lot of extra-biblical material]
Jacob reunited with Joseph - (Gen.46:26-30)
Death of Jacob - (Gen.49:29-50:14)

A Few Notes
As you would expect for a 3 hour film that is essentially based on a single chapter of Genesis Red Tent covers chapter 34 and those around it pretty comprehensively, albeit with a radically revised interpretation of the key verses in that chapter (34:1-4). A quick glance a above shows that all of the chapters between chapters 29-37 get referenced at some point, with the excuseable exception of Genesis 36 which is jus a list of Esau's descendants and the subsequent rulers of Edom.

That said a few key passages do get omitted and a couple of these are fairly interesting. Perhaps the most curious exclusion is that despite the numerous birthing scenes, we don' get to see Rachel giving birth (and if I remember rightly the same is true of Bilhah and Zilpah). This seems strange seeing the film's emphasis on sisterhood and motherhood, and given Rachel's particular expertise in midwifery i would have been interesting to see the roles reversed.

Another important scene from the Biblical story that is largely passed over here is Jacob wrestling with God the night before his confrontation with Esau. It's not hard to see why this is played down. The supernatural aspects of the whole story are largely in he background here. It's presented as a human story rather than one driven by a divine plan. An incident where God/an angel appears in bodily form to wrestle with God would seem somewhat out of step with the rest of the film. Furthermore, nothing in this parts of the origins of Israel narrative does more to underline Jacob's importance at the head of the tribe and to present him as the key figure. Again his goes against the grain of the story tellers' emphasis on he women of the tribe.

It would have been similarly contrary to the filmmakers' intentions to include the story of Judah and Tamar (Gen. 38). In many ways this mini-series is about exploring a tangent to the Jacob story. The story of Tamar represents another tangent to that story, so the connection here is slight anyway. Furthermore the feint suggestion of disharmony between the leading women of Israel also would go against the narrative flow that is being presented.

In contrast to those omissions it's noticeable that the various episodes largely follow their biblical order. This is hardly unique to The Red Tent despite the fact that there's some evidence to suggest that the biblical order is not strictly chronological. Jacob's gift of the coat of many colours/special sleeves is brought forward a little, the disclosure about Rachel hiding her father's icons is moved back, but it's largely all in tact.

There are three other versions of this story that spring to mind. The New Media Bible Genesis is committed to following the story more or less word for word (although it misses out all of the Tower of Babel - go figure), so naturally this follows the biblical order. Roger Young's other take on this story, Joseph (1995), tells the earlier parts of Joseph's life in flashback, so the order is different, but it's not really subversive in anyway, it's just a narrative device. The fact that this episode appears in the Joseph entry in this series, rather than the Jacob section might be significant as some of the episodes there occur after this incident.

In contrast, Cheick Oumar Sissoko's La genèse rearranges things to emphasise a time of crisis for Jacob's tribe. When the film starts, Jacob is already mourning Joseph (Gen. 37), but he has not yet been reconciled with Esau (Gen.33). And the film's first major event is rape of Dinah (ch. 34). As Peter Chattaway summarises "Jacob is ineffectual in dealing with the rape of his daughter, and in making peace with Esau for that matter, because he has been mourning the apparent death of Joseph for 20 months, and he simply can't be bothered to leave his tent...". Compared to this The Red Tent's changes are just tweaks to make the story flow a little more easily.

The Red Tent (2014)

"My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust... I became a footnote, my story a brief detour between the well-known history of my father Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother."

So Dinah (The White Queen's Rebecca Ferguson) introduces herself at the start of both Anita Diamant's novel and this mini-series adaptation directed by Roger Young. The Jacob and Joseph referred to are those we meet in the latter chapters of Genesis - the founding father of Israel and his most beloved son. But this is not really their story; neither is it a conventional retelling of Dinah's own story. This is a fanciful exploration of the women of Jacob's clan on whom rests so much, yet receive so little credit. It's not just a film about Dinah; it's also about Leah and Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah, Rebecca, Tamar and the wife of Laban. It's an attempt to get behind the female names that tend to get skipped over, or only valued for their motherhood, and to look at the events of Genesis from their perspective and provide insights from their point of view.

So this isn't a film for those who might like to term themselves as biblical purists. For one thing the "rape" of Dinah portrayed in the film is nothing of the sort, at least by modern standards. Dinah is presented as a self-determining woman who falls in love with a tribal prince and makes her own decision to sleep with him. But of course in biblical times women were viewed as property of their husbands/fathers. It's at least possible that the prevailing view was that consent to sexual acts on their bodies were not theirs to give but that of their fathers. By this world-view it would be impossible for Dinah to give her consent - it was not seen as hers to give., it was Jacob's. The shocking possibility of that shows us what a radically different world we live in today, but in highlighting the difference the film perhaps strays too far into anachronism. If women really were as oppressed as this - denied consent even over their own bodies - then how likely it is that they would dare to defy this social consensus?

None of this is to suggest that Jacob (Iain Glen) is portrayed as that sort of patriarchal leader. Indeed he too is portrayed at taking a more progressive view of women's rights than the presumed cultural norm. In an early conversation in the titular red tent - the private space of the tribe's leading women - we're told that Jacob treats his concubines (themselves the daughters of Laban's concubines) as proper wives. Not dissimilarly Jacob is "in" on the switch that happens on the day of his first wedding. When Rachel gets cold feet, her similarly smitten sister Leah (Minnie Driver) offers to step in to prevent her embarrassment. Jacob discovers the switch before consummation, but he's happy to go along with the ruse and blame Laban in the morning. This the audience accepts because, really, Laban is the piece's only villain. He is later shown to beat his wife - behaviour that makes Jacob's, at times, rather suspect behaviour seem more acceptable.

Part of the interest of the camp's red tent is it gets to the heart of the question that intrigues so many about polygamous societies: how did the opposing wives get on? The obvious expectation is that there would be all manner of arguments, jealousy and disagreements, though some (mostly male) commentators have sought to suggest that the women would recognise that the system was the best for all and just get on with it as best they could. The film's take is a slightly different one - Jacob's wives are already sisters and the (initial) shared marriage is their idea rather than his (at least initially), furthermore Bilhah and Zilpah are shown as empowered and equal members of the family. I'm not sure it will satisfy feminists any more than it will biblical traditionalists, but it's intriguing to watch such a perspective played out.

The casting here is rather interesting, not least in this respect. Ferguson was excellent as Elizabeth Woodville in The White Queen - one of my favourite historical TV series of recent times. There's much common ground here as well. Both stories take traditional patriarchal stories and tell them from a female point of view - suggesting their leads wielded more power than they are traditionally ascribed. And then there is the similarity in the two character's social standing. Both start off as relatively well off women who fall in love with a man on his way to becoming king. Their marriage for love flies in the face of the conventional marriage-for-strategic-advantage that was expected of them and ends up causing a vast number of deaths. Furthermore, both Dinah and Queen Elizabeth rely heavily on the traditional female wisdom of their mothers, using curses and potions alongside a shared understanding of mid-wifery. It places them at odds with the patriarchal order, gains her not unfounded accusations of witch-craft yet proves to have access to a deeper understanding of the world that the dismissive men could ever appreciate. In fairness this it's not totally inconsistent with many of the beliefs of the time, even if the new-age spin on it is, at times, a bit over the top. The other casting is mixed. It's not hard to accept that Jacob, who the Bible seems to suggest was a fairly shallow man, might be so totally smitten for Morena Baccarin, but casting Minnie Driver as the "plain" one is a stretch too far. If the Leah had really looked like (film star) Minnie Driver, Jacob might never have felt the need to work for that second seven years.

Yet for all the female empowerment it's the actions of Jacob that drive the plot on into the second and third 'acts'. Dinah and the other women voice their displeasure at Laban's treatment of his wife; but it is Jacob who decides to return to the land of his father. Dinah's romantic involvement may be the spark that propels the violence between Israel and the inhabitants of Shechem; but it was Jacob's decision to move to the area and develop closer ties with Hamor that set the wheels in motion.

When the massacre of the Shechemites does comes it's vicious and very bloody. Up to this point everything about the production is typical of Young's work on The Bible Collection. It's filmed in Morocco and the skies, sets, costumes, indeed everything about the look and feel of the film - even the slightly uneven mix of lesser Hollywood stars with local extras - feels like the earlier series. But the massacre is jarringly out of sync with anything from that earlier work. Indeed it feels far more of a piece with the History Channel's recent series The Bible (2013), where the violence was very much ramped up. When I started writing this review I thought that discrepancy very much a weakness, but now writing these words it feels like it might actually be one of the film's hidden strengths. After all here, at least, it can be argued that Levi and Simon/Simeon's violence should shock us. It's an unprecedented tear in the social formalities of the day. Reparation had been made, or, at least, so it was thought. A treaty had been made. Simeon and Levi's act leaves Jacob reeling in disbelief and fear for his tribe's future. It's not insignificant that when this horrific event was written down centuries later, it's still Simeon and Levi who are still specifically remembered as being responsible. In many places Jacob's sons, and their tribes act as one, but not with this. Young's jarring change of gears jolts the viewer out of a relatively homely narrative of mutual sisterhood into the horrors of violent and dominant patriarchy when it operates without restraint.

Despite his horror at the events Jacob still struggles to appreciate the weaknesses inherent in the whole woman-as-property system. Jacob tries to put some of the blame for his son's actions on what he calls Shechem and Dinah's "sin". "There was no sin" Dinah fires back, "we were married...Your sons have slaughtered righteous men". The rift between father and daughter is so great that Dinah flees into the arms of her mother-in-law and the two move to Egypt, allowing the film to continue to interweave it's fictional exploration with the more established story of Joseph in Egypt. That said though, the film starts to become a little contrived in the second half and the points of interest, for Bible film fans at least, start to wane. That said Dinah's eventual reunion with Joseph is touchingly done.

Not infrequently I end reviews by describing them as "an interesting addition to the canon", but in some senses this doesn't quite seem apt given the projects aim to create an alternative story within and around the text of Genesis. Certainly that makes this an interesting experiment which, in turn, throws fresh light on one of the more overlooked parts of the Bible and offers a good deal of food for thought. It isn't for everyone, but, given that the original story is hardly beloved amongst the faithful, criticisms on its original release were rather half-hearted. It's appropriate I feel that The Red Tent is a film which nurtures thoughtful discussion rather than creating unnecessary conflict.

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Incidentally, you might like to read the less appreciative, but more humourous and thorough discussion of the film called "159 Thoughts We Had While Watching The Red Tent"

Bible Films Blog Review of 2014

In previous years, I’ve offered a review of the year, although this has rather fallen by the wayside in recent time. However, 2014 was a bit of a stonker, so it would seem remiss not to do at least something.

The big news was, of course, the long awaited release of a number of biblical epics, which hit not just the odd art-house cinema, or graced a local congregation with a decentish video projector, but in the local, everyday cinemas. Russell Crowe was talking about Noah in primetime TV shows. The Guardian was offering opinion pieces about Moses every time Ridley Scott coughed in a vaguely atheistic manner.

As it turned out neither film made the, um, waves, that their respective studios had hoped for and neither director will be pleased to hear that they are more likely to win a Razzie than an Oscar come the spring.

But before all that there was the matter of the Son of God - not so much the actual one as the cinema release of the Gospel footage from the History Channel’s 2013 series The Bible. Cutting down a TV series to a movie is a risky strategy. On the one hand the popularity of the “best of” genre might mean that he TV series might just be part of a lengthy marketing campaign – the world’s longest ever trailer if you like. But the question still remained, why would people get in their cars, drive out of town and pay through the nose to watch something they have already seen for “free”?

As it turned out Son of God did rather well, perhaps because compelling answers were found to that question. Buying a ticket to Son of God was a statement of faith, a chance to send a message to Hollywood. Or you could buy two and bring along a friend with whom you wanted to share your faith.

From an artistic point of view however the quality of the product was largely the same as that of the original 2013 series. Jesus was still too blond and off-puttingly good looking; the dialogue and the acting still left a great deal to be desired; and it still wasn’t really clear what Jesus was actually about other than being nice.

One Bible film hero who eluded, with consummate ease, any charge of being overly nice, was Russell Crowe’s Noah, who shifted from grunting environmentalist to genocidal maniac over the course of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. It’s the kind of precipice along which many edge along when they tell us how bad humans in general, and children in particular, are bad for the environment? But that’s another matter.

Actually the scenes where Noah contemplates whether he should kill his own granddaughter were, in my opinion, rather misunderstood. Noah didn’t want to murder members of his own family, he just thought it might be what “The Creator” was calling him to do. After all it was the logical extension of what he had already done – a point that may of the faithful struggle to appreciate. It was a great performance from Crowe, but the terrain of unlikeable anti-hero seemed to leave the film, rather than just its antihero rather unloved. It was a shame. Aronofsky’s bizarre epic was drenched in biblical and other religious references, many of which weren’t even half as odd as the original text.

December is often a busy time of year for those of us interested in Bible films and 2014 would prove no exception. In the cinema Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings (my review ) received a fairly lukewarm welcome in many western countries and was banned in several countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In the current climate it's hard to know which is more damaging, western indifference or Egyptian anger.

In the west the film's biggest talking point was the supposed white washing, casting Joel Edgerton and Christian Bale as an Egyptian and someone who manages to pass as an Egyptian for forty years. I must admit I can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand Christian art has always portrayed the faith's heroes in its own image as a way of relating to them. At the same time, as my comments above about Son of God suggest I also like to see more realistic casting.

One film that did embrace a more ethnically accurate Jesus was The Gospel of John the latest output from the Lumo Project (an offshoot of Big Book Media). The series, which is available on Netflix, narrates John's Gospel over dramatized reconstructed video footage. Jesus is played by Selva Rasalingam who is half Tamil. If his face is familiar it’s because he has been playing Jesus in various Lumo/Big Book projects over the last few years, including the music video for Deliriou5?'s "History Maker" and the BBC’s The Story of Jesus (2011). Also part of those projects, as well as 2012’s David Suchet: In the Footsteps of St Paul, is director David Batty.

The Lumo Project will eventually cover all four gospels in the same style, and Netflix features narration in both the King James and the New International versions of the Bible. As a medium it’s very similar to the Genesis Project’s Gospel of Luke (1979) which starred Brian Deacon and was recut as Jesus (1979), certainly it’s quite different in feel from other the two Visual Bible word for word projects Matthew (1994) and Gospel of John (2003).

Given that John’s Gospel only received the word for word treatment 11 years ago, it’s surprising that the filmmakers have chosen to start with John, particularly as John’s wordy gospel is perhaps the one least suited to such a treatment. Personally I wished they’d opted for the only gospel not, yet, to have been filmed this way, Mark. But that will later this year if the IMDb is to be believed. Hopefully it will get a UK Netflix release as well. Incidentally 2015 will also see Rasalingam star as James in a Jesus-cameo film Clavius

The appearance of The Gospel of John on Netflix seems to reflect a broader trend of niche faith-based films being broadcast away from traditional channels. Another such production in 2014 was The Red Tent, an adaptation of Anita Diamant’s historicalish novel of the same name. Diamant’s novel took the stories from around Genesis around Leah and Jacob’s daughter Dinah and re-imagines Shechem as her lover rather than her rapist. Young’s mini-series, which aired on the Lifetime network early in December, cast Rebecca Ferguson, star of 2013’s excellent The White Queen’s, and also features Minnie Driver, Debra Winger, Morena Baccarin and Hiam Abbass in prominent roles. Peter Chattaway has a great interview about the series with the director Roger Young.

The other TV film worth a mention was the BBC animated short film On Angel Wings, which aired in the UK on Christmas Eve. It starred an old man recalling the visit of the Angels on the first Christmas night to the group of shepherds he worked for and how one angel secretly flew him to the stable so he got to meet the baby Jesus. Readers may recall my enjoyment of the Fourth King a fictional tale about the magi. On Angel Wings would make a good companion piece dealing as it does with Jesus' other Christmas visitors.

Then there were several smaller films which brought the more poetic parts of the Bible to the screen. The Song re-imagined the life of King Solomon as an amorous country singer, with nods to both Song of Songs/Solomon and Ecclesiastes. Meanwhile Amos Gitai directed one of the short films in the anthology film Words with Gods. Gitai already has two fine Bible films under his wings, [Esther (1996) and Golem: l'esprit de l'exil (1992)] and here he took the on the work of his namesake, the prophet Amos.

Perhaps the most significant of the films dealing with the more poetic parts of the Bible was Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan. As with The Song it took the form of a modern story, this time the story revolves around a man fighting corruption in the coastal town where he lives, but there is also a healthy dose of the Book of Job. It's also likely to be the most successful of those films with a substantial link to the Bible, having been Russia's entry for the foreign language Oscar it's now one of the final nominations and has already won the Golden Globe in the same category.*

Documentary-wise it was a fairly light year, though it's more than possible I missed something. David Suchet did feature in In the Footsteps of St. Peter, the follow up to his 2013 In the Footsteps of St Paul .

However, there were a couple of new books about Bible Films that are worth a mention. David Shepherd's "The Bible on Silent Film" looks to be an excellent guide to an under-discussed period in the genre's development. I couldn't afford the hardback or a Kindle editions so I've only read excerpts but the bits I've read are full of fascinating detail and insight. Technically the hard back was released right at the end of 2013, but seeing as the paper back will be released in March this year, we can split the difference. I'm looking forward to getting a copy.

Another book to touch upon the sub-genre is Graham Holderness' "Re-Writing Jesus: Christ in 20th-Century Fiction and Film" which touched on Last Temptation of Christ, The Passion of the Christ and The DaVinci Code, as well as various books about the life of Jesus. There were also various books released related to the films mentioned above including a picture book for the team behind Son of God.

And lastly there was a conference. Not so much about a Jesus Films as a very close relation. "Jesus and Brian: or What Have the Pythons Ever Done for us?" ran for three days in June in Kings College, London and featured an impressive team of speakers, including John Cleese and Terry Jones, and even gained some national press coverage. Sadly neither time, nor money, nor health, permitted me to be there, but Mark Goodacre made it, blogged about it and did rather rub salt in the wounds of those of us who would have loved to be there but weren't. I mean, he got to meet John Cleese.

Anyway 2015 promises a great deal. There are various films due for release about which Peter Chattaway is doing some great blogging. He also posts numerous things on the Bible Films Facebook page, for which I'm incredibly grateful. There's also a few books to look out for, including David Shepherd's follow up volume "The Silents of Jesus" and there might even be a book with a couple of chapters by myself to report on in next year's review of the year.

*There were some subsequent edits here, made after the Oscar nominations