Bible Films Blog Review of 2018

It's that time of the year when everyone is doing a review so for the second year running I thought I'd do one here as well, not least because it's been a fairly eventful year in the world of the Bible on film. After all it's not often that there are four Bible films in one year, even if one is a Netflix special.

For me the highlight of the year was Mary Magdalene starring Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix. I enjoyed it so much I forgot that it still hasn't been released in the US due to the Weinstein affair. Apologies for those of you in North America, but personally I think it's worth the wait, but then it's always good, and quite rare, to get to see a Bible film in a cinema. And it's an interesting film which is why I added a couple of extra posts on it even after writing my review.

The same could not be said of another film that got released in Lent. Paul Apostle of Christ starring James Faulkner may have had the odd theatrical performance in the UK, but otherwise it was a much more US driven release. There's something a little strange about that given both Faulkner and his co-stars Joanna Whalley and John Lynch are all British. There were quite a few bits about this one I liked, not least the almost opening shot tracking Luke (Jim Cavaziel) through the night time streets of Rome.

The third film to be released in cinemas somewhere in Lent was Pureflix's Samson. I didn't get to see that one when it came out, and I must confess I still haven't seen it yet, though no-one has argued that I got anything wrong in my speculative non-review. That was my most popular post of the year. Alas, though, there was no sign of DJ Perry's final entry in The Quest Trilogy, The Christ Slayer. Maybe we'll see it in 2019.

What did get, rather unexpectedly was Netflix's The Last Hangover. Of the three new Bible films I did see I think this was probably the weakest. It wasn't terrible and had a few laughs in it, and, to be fair the concept was fairly amusing, but ultimately it always felt like a skit stretched way too thinly. If you're the kind of person that gets offended by the more out there portrayals of Jesus I would steer clear.

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The main news on the books front was the publication of "The T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film" which featured my chapter "Can we Try That Again: The Fate of the Biblical Canon on Film". There are some great writers amongst my fellow contributors (Adele Reinhartz, James Crossley, Lloyd Baugh, Jon Solomon and editor Richard Walsh) and I've really enjoyed the chapters I've read so far.

T&T Clark also released, "Biblical Reception, 4: A New Hollywood Moses: On the Spectacle and Reception of Exodus: Gods and Kings" edited by David Tollerton. Again there's a great group of writers involved in that one, including Cheryl Exum, David Shepherd and Michelle Fletcher.

There was also a book edited by Helen Bond called "The Bible on Television" looking at TV Bible documentaries. This included contributions from filmmakers Jean Claude Braggard and David Batty, presenters such as Robert Beckford as well as scholars such as Mark Goodacre and Bond herself. It was a busy year for Bond, having ticked off the theory she went on to front a TV documentary of her own with Joan Taylor (theological adviser on Mary Magdalene). Jesus' Female Disciples went out at Easter in the UK on Channel 4.

Having not received review copies for "The Bible on Television" or ""A New Hollywood Moses", this year's book review (and I tend to find time to do these is quite limited as it takes a lot of work to do them properly) was The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s, edited by Nicholas Diak. Whilst it didn't cover any biblical films in much depth, it gave some interesting discussion to recent close bedfellows such as Xena and the new(ish) Spartacus series, as well as films such as Ninth Legion. It was well worth a read even if a lot of the films being discussed are a bit more trashy than your typical biblical film (though DeMille fans might argue otherwise).

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I ended last year's post by making a couple of resolutions, so I thought I would revisit them here. I tend to see resolutions as being more useful when they are a positive act of doing more of something, rather than stopping doing something and my ones from last year were a - to watch more films directed by (or otherwise made by) women. and b- to finish the first draft of a book I've been working on. I had a degree of success in both. Despite viewing 400 films this year (including a lot of shorts) I still find it difficult to watch all the films I would like to, and so didn't hunt out as many female filmmakers as I'd like to. I'm going to roll this one over for 2019, something that should be made easier by Kino-Lorber's release Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers which is now available on Netflix.

In terms of my own book, well, I've only partially ticked this one off as well. I had a list of films I still need to cover, and I managed to review all of them, but then when it came to pulling it all together I realised there were several films I thought I had reviewed which in fact I hadn't. So those are now done as well and I have 115-120 reviews, some of which still need a lot of work, and some of which need culling, but it feels like it's getting there. Writing a book is all well and good, but getting it published, well it feels like that will be the bigger challenge. Time will tell.

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Lastly, there's just time to mention my top ten new posts of 2018. I did a separate post for this last year but thought I've merge it all into one this time around.

1. Samson [1245 views]
2. Paul, Apostle of Christ [658 views]
3. Mary Magdalene [505 views]
4. The Last Hangover [276 views]
5. Book Review: "The New Peplum" [170 views]
6. Jesus' Female Disciples [108 views]
7. Xena: The Giant Killer [108 views]
8. Giuda (1911) [103 views]
9. Judas in Mary Magdalene [89 views]
10.Why the Film Community Needs to Rethink its Stance on the Biblical Film [77 views]

A few points on this. Overall it seems that, no doubt thanks to the four biblical films being released, my top posts did a little better this year. Last year the leading post only had 323 views. This year the top three all eclipsed that. But by the time you get down to the lower places things have evened out a bit more. If you want to look at last years stats or see my top ten posts of all time you can see those here.

The appearance of two posts in particular make me happy. Firstly my review of Giuda (1911) which is not widely available. It screened in Bristol this year, and hardly anyone has ever reviewed it, so it as nice that the piece has been seen more widely, as I am turning into a silent film geek. Secondly my post "Why the Film Community Needs to Rethink its Stance on the Biblical Film" snuck into the top ten. This felt like something of a rally cry and something I'm increasingly looking to put across is just how many top filmmakers have explored this area and how there are such diverse ways of approaching the subject.

Bible Films Blog Review of 2017

Occasionally at the end of one year or the start of the next I like to do a little review of the previous year. Some years it happens, some years it doesn't. If nothing else though, this year I feel a little more on top of things so given that it's been a reasonably interesting year I thought I would revive the tradition.

Perhaps the most significant thing this year was the release of Sony's The Star. Living in a small town in the UK, it's a reasonable measure of the significance/size of a film if it plays at my local cinema and as with Ben-Hur last year, The Star did. It was also the first animated Bible film to do so since 2000's The Miracle Maker. My review is here.

Far less widely released was the similarly themed, but more thoughtful and serious, Chasing the Star, (my review) which had a limited release in a select part of the US before a planned early release on DVD. As things worked out it was released only a few weeks before one of its stars, Rance Howard, died.

There were a number of other cinema releases as well that were of interest to readers of this blog, even if not quite matching my typical definition of a Bible film. Technically Le fils de Joseph - which told a modern day story but with heavy biblical imagery - debuted last year, but it's main cinema run was this year. Darren Aronofsky, director 2014's Noah, ploughed a similar furrow with mother! It gained a far wider release and became one of the year's most talked about films as critics tended to either love it or hate it. Audiences stayed away more than was expected. Lastly, Martin Scorsese's Silence is definitely not a Bible film, even though it's sure to rank on many most spiritual film lists for years to come.

Releases to DVD/Bluray/downloads and streaming have become so complicated now that I'm not going to go into them all, just to pick out the two most significant of the year. Firstly, Day of Triumph (1954) is one of those films that has been on my radar for years - one of the first times I imported a film from the US around the turn of the millennium - and it was finally released for home viewing again this year. There are plans to remaster it, but no news on that yet.

Secondly, came the release of Straub and Huillet's adaptation of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (1973). At the time I heard of this I was under the impression it had never been released for home viewing, but it turns out there was a limited release a few years ago that I missed. With second hand copies of that currently going for over £200, it's good to see it get a re-release, particularly as two of Straub and Huillet's other films are included in the package. I wrote a few bits in preparation for this release last year, and I plan to write two or three more pieces on it this year, covering the opera itself, the film itself and perhaps a review of the set as a whole.

I tend to be less interested in Bible documentaries though I make a point of seeing them if they crop up on terrestrial. I only managed to catch the PBS/Channel 5 documentary Last Days of Jesus this year. It lent rather too heavily on Simcha Jacobovici for my tastes. Next year might prove interesting in this respect as Helen Bond has edited a book about TV documentaries called "The Bible on Television", lined up for publication later this month.

Lastly, books. The main news here was the publication of "Noah as Anithero: Darren Aronofsky's Cinematic Deluge", edited by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch (who edited the book in which I had two chapters two years ago) and‎ Jon Morgan. It's the latest in a string of offerings from Routledge and included essays from Robert K Johnston, David Shepherd, Richard Walsh and David Tollerton. Many of the same authors will also feature in two more volumes being published this year, a similar volume on Exodus Gods and Kings edited by David Tollerton and "The T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film" which will feature another chapter from me.

Two other books - a little more tangential to the core of what I cover here did catch my eye. S. Brent Plate edited the four volume "Film and Religion" as part of Routledge's "Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies" series. Not dissimilarly, Wendy I. Zierler's "Movies and Midrash: Popular Film and Jewish Religious Conversation" looked at films such as Magnolia and Memento from a Jewish perspective.

In terms of this blog I have covered a few mini-topics through out the year. The main one was a more thorough look at Nativity films (largely out of season). But I also wrote a few pieces on the epic genre, the Resurrection on Film, A.D. The Bible Continues, Daniel films and Moses und Aron. I also staked out my intentions regarding what I'm going to be covering moving forward, which is hopefully going to lead to finishing the first draft of a book this year. Well it's a New Year's Resolution, at least...

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

Bible Films Blog Review of 2011

It's perhaps fortunate that in a year in which I've struggled to blog regularly there's not been a great deal happening. 2010 was a quiet year; 2011 was quieter still.

From the point of view of this blog, major change was the start of the Facebook page. Apologies if I've been banging one but this, but I'd urge anyone disappointed by the lack of traffic on this blog to keep an eye on things over there, even if you "don't do Facebook". You don't have to start a Facebook account, or give them any information to read it, and all the news about new Bible films, or reviews by others on older ones is there.

I'd also encourage others to keep posting and commenting. I'm particularly grateful to Peter Chattaway who frequently adds new bits and pieces, and for all the others that have contributed. Ultimatey, I guess, I started this blog as a way to resource those looking into Bible Films, and as digital communication has moved on better ways have emerged to do that. Facebook provides a less top-down approach than this blog which means that there can be more interaction between users, and a wider pool of people contributing and so on. And if you just want to read that's fine - the same stuff is over there, but in general you get it much quicker. The blog will stay for more in-depth writing such a recent posts.

Despite the rumours which continue to fly about Bible films in the works (including the exciting news this year about Scott Derrickson filming Goliath) almost no new dramatic portrayals of the biblical narratives were released this year. The closest we came was the première of the midrashic Young Avraham at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. There was also the short film The Gathering and DVD releases of a new filmed version of Schöenberg's "Moses und Aron" and Where is my Father>, a new film about Job.

Thankfully, there were at least a few documentaries to keep up the interest. The BBC gave us a three-parter The Bible's Buried Secrets presented by Exeter University's Francesca Stavrakopoulou. The first part looked at the evidence (or lack thereof) regarding David and Solomon, part 2 raised the question as to whether God had a wife, before the final part looked at the origins of the Garden of Eden myth and proposed that the original story used Eden to talk about Jerusalem. The series was interesting, although not always convincing, and managed to avoid some of the modern TV documentary clichés, but was beset by overly dramatic rhetoric about "rocking" and "shaking" the very core of monotheism.

For those who felt the series was a little too one-sided in favour of atheists and liberals, the BBC, as always, redressed the balance at Easter offering a two-part documentary The Story of Jesus. Aside from such prominence being given to such a orthodox / traditional / conservative retelling of the Easter story, the programme was also notable for breaking from the standard format of having one expert narrating and interviewing others by using nine different scholars do the work on screen, occasionally meeting to hand on to the next. It also featured some good footage from Big Book Media.

The only other significant occurrence was about as tangential as things can get. BBC4 broadcast a rather surreal fictionalisation of the events leading up to the release of Monty Python's Life of Brian in general and the infamous TV debate in particular. Holy Flying Circus starred Charles Edwards as Michael Palin and Darren Boyd as John Cleese as they went head to head with Malcolm Muggeridge (played by Michael Cochrane) and Mervyn Stockwood, the then Bishop of Southwark (Roy Marsden). It contained a few good laughs, but was overall rather hit and miss and its greatest contribution was perhaps giving the BBC a legitimate opportunity to air the full version of the original programme Friday Night, Saturday Morning.

And that was more or less it! For the blog and me it was a year of great contrasts. The start of the year was busy with several different presentations and projects all happening within 10 days of one another at the start of the year and struggling to be able to even put metaphorical pen to non-literal paper. Whilst 2012 already has the publication of a new Bible films book to it's name (Catherine O'Brien's "Celluloid Madonna"), the popular Easter release window is looking rather unpopulated at the moment and there's precious little else on the horizon at the moment. Time will tell.

Bible Films Blog Review of 2010

2010 was a comparatively quiet year for Bible films, distinguished only by a couple of good TV series at the start and the end of the year. The start was Channel 4's series The Bible: A History, a seven documentaries that covered Creation, Abraham, The Ten Commandments, Daughters of Eve, Jesus, Paul and Revelation. Although it was Howard Jacobson's take on Genesis 1-2, a pre-Strictly Anne Widdecombe's defence of the Decalogue and, most of all, Gerry Adams's examination of the gospels that grabbed the headlines, it was the other programmes that proved the most interesting (Rageh Omar's tangential look at the Abrahamic faiths aside). Bettany Hughes's look at the women of the Bible, and Tom Holland's re-appraisal of Paul that stand out and Robert Beckford was, as ever, good value on the Apocalypse.

The length of Channel 4 series meant that it didn't end until early March, just a few weeks before Easter. The Easter period this year was certainly a disappointment. The last few years have seen a number of productions targeting Easter 2010 as a potential release date. Alas none made it through. The one exception was Eric Idle and Co's one-night-only screening of their oratorio Not the Messiah. It had been broadcast on New Year's Day in the UK, and didn't really grab me. It's funny enough in its own way, but most of the humour, for me, lay in remembering how funny the corresponding parts of Life of Brian are. Mark Goodacre disagreed.

One of the promised productions that was not released as originally suggested was the new Ben Hur mini-series. In the end it was only broadcast in Canada, which is funny because when I finally reviewed it, I did kind of like it.

And that was pretty much it until Christmas. While the world was preparing to celebrate Jesus's birth and the magi's journey to discover the new born king, the silver screen was being graced by what is, I suppose, another story of the same ilk. The story of the magi and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader are both stories about long journeys to seek the face of Jesus/Aslan which reflect our own journeys of faith. But despite having one of the longest titles in the history of popular cinema, Dawn Treader struggled at the box office. It was a shame given that it is arguably the best film in the franchise so far.

Top billing for 2010 however must go to the BBC's The Nativity. The four half hour episodes were striped across the week leading up to Christmas gaining decent viewing figures and good reviews. As much as I liked it, many of those I've read or spoken to seemed to like it a great deal more than me. For me, and this is probably just my rugby player side coming to the fore, it was just a little bit trite in places, a weakness easily forgiven in light of the other strengths the film displayed. It will be interesting to see what the BBC do with this. There was talk a while back of them releasing a series of animated films on the Bible, but it's been a long time since I read anything about that project.

There were a couple of other things worth mentioning about the last year. BBC2's series Rev, a humorous look at the life of an inner-city vicar was wince inducing and hilarious. Series 2 has been commissioned and hopefully we will see that next year. There was also a sad note as we lost one of the most prominent actresses from the (second) golden age of the biblical epic, Jean Simmons. Simmons starred in some of my favourite films and her versatile body of work will live on as testament to her talent.

Bible Films Blog Review of 2009

2009 was the year of the Old Testament. Whilst rumours of forthcoming Jesus films came and went, this year was all about his ancestors.

The biggest Old Testament film of the year was Year One. Harold Ramis's comedy had a good number of laughs, and made a few interesting points, and whilst the gross-out factor was always going to feature strongly, it seemed a little more reigned in than previous outings by various members of the cast and crew. I really meant to write more about this film than I did, but unfortunately it came at the busiest part of the year for me, and I didn't get a review copy to be able to re-watch certain parts. I did get it on DVD for Christmas so maybe I'll write more this year.

Year One wasn't the only film released in 2009 that used large chunks of Genesis for it's laughs. August saw the release of The God Complex. I owe the filmmakers a review here, but I'm not sure they're going to want to read it. I'd expected quite a bit from the film, and whilst there are certainly a few good gags early on, they peter out until all that's left is an anti-theistic rant. I'd certainly expected this to offend some, but I'd at least hoped for a good laugh. I guess it just wasn't my humour.

One of the characters to feature in The God Complex was Job and an modern take on his story was explored in A Serious Man. I'm a fan of the Coen Brothers anyway, so their most Biblical film to date has given me plenty to think about, and I hope to see it do well at this year's Oscars.

Modernised versions of Old Testament stories featured on the small screen this year as well. Kings attempted to modernise the story of David and Saul, but hit trouble early on, and in the end took a mid season break of several months before being allowed to run it's course. Whilst it managed to form a small but solid fan base, most reviews were only so-so, and viewing figures never matched up. 2009 was definitely the year of me not getting sent screeners, but this was the most annoying. NBC didn't send me a preview disc because I wasn't resident in the US. You guys do get what that WWW bit means don't you? So it bombed, and if the DVD price ever drops enough I might fork out and buy a copy, but I suspect it will be a while until I review it.

Lastly there was also Tutta Colpa Di Giuda(It's All Judas' Fault) about a passion play being performed inside a prison with a Jesus of Montreal-esque double meaning.

2009 also saw a number of Bible films released on DVD. Jesus the Christ was a new film mashed together from bits of the Visual Bible's , Gospel of Matthew. Johnny Got his Gun was a filmed version of a new stage production of the novel. There was also a special edition DVD release of The Robe as well as DVD releases for Kings and Year One.

There was only one new book written on the subject of Bible films. Pamela Grace's "The Religious Film" looked at how a number of Bible films compared to the characteristics of hagiopics. But the year also saw a reprint of Bruce Babington and Peter Evans' classic "Biblical Epics". And on the subject of books, a couple of chapters I wrote several years ago finally saw the light in Lee and Baz's Cut to the Chase 0.5.

As for miscellanaous highlights, the stand out event of the year was the Ancient World in Silent Cinema day, which screened a number of rare early silent Bible films. I've written a number of reviews for these films, but still have a few to attend to, if I can ever find my notes again. There was also the inaugural SBL consultation on The Bible in Film and the Reel Religion memorabilia exhibition at MoBiA. Also in this section are Ben Hur's enduring adaptability finding expression in a stageshow and on the radio.

On a more personal note, highlights for me this year included, my talks at Greenbelt (download mp3) and Regents Theological College, as well as being interviewed by Premier Radio and TWR radio.

2010 may produce a Jesus film or three, although I wouldn't be shocked if none of those lined up actually appear, and rumour has it that the BBC/HBO version of The Passion (although it may be under a different name).

Bible Films Blog Review of 2008

On a personal note, 2008 has perhaps been the best of all years and the worst of all years. The birth of my son, Digory, getting to know my daughter Nina on a whole new level, and moving in to what we hope will be our long term family home will mean that, in all probability we will look back on this year with extreme fondness. Yet at the same time it's been unremittingly tough - out house still unsold after more than 12 months on the market, and worth far less than it was when I wrote last year's review. I've also been trying to hold down three jobs, two of which have largely been a source of misery. On top of this my mother-in-law will be spending the New Year undergoing her second batch of chemotherapy, whilst my dad seeks to recover from the stroke that he suffered just a couple of weeks before his 60th birthday.

But one of the highlights of the year for me was Bible Film related. Easter saw the BBC broadcast The Passion - a dramatisation of the week leading up to Jesus' death. I'd been following the story for almost two years, and had, sadly, had to turn down an opportunity to visit the set, and so it was tremendously exciting to see it finally appear on the small screen. And I was invited to the premiere (where I got to spend some time with Mark Goodacre), and got some work out of it as well. The updating of the ReJesus website means that my work for them on this film is temporairily unavailable, but hopefully it will see the light of day again soon. The programme itself lived up to its promise. A strong leading performance by Joseph Mawle, a script that combined sound history with good drama, and a treatment of the resurrection that was so close to the biblical accounts that it left many from all over the theological spectrum a little uncomfortable. Two separate DVD releases followed, but no news yet on when this will air on the other side of the Atlantic.

Aside from The Passion, it was a relatively quiet year for dramatised Bible stories. Albert Serra’s retelling of the wise men saga, Birdsong (El Cant Dels Ocells) played at a number of Film Festivals (including London's), but Christmas came and went without any news of a wider release. Other than that, only the spoof short Prop8: The Musical gained any kind of release, although Hamlet 2 did feature Steve Coogan playing a music teacher, playing Jesus. There were also Jesus allegories with Prince Caspian (see my intereview with Douglas Gresham), The Dark Knight and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Next year looks like it will have a much stronger contingent, including two films based on Genesis (Year One and The God Complex) and two TV series in Kings and Ben Hur. At least one of the Noah films in production and one or two of the smaller productions may also make it, but it's difficult to tell.

Also thin on the ground were books about Bible Films. There may have been others besides Thomas R. Lindlof's "Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars", but if so, I missed them.

A number of films did get DVD releases this year for the first time. The Ten, The Final Inquiry, Son of Man, Color of the Cross 2 and
Dante's Inferno all got released, as well as the two disc version of Quo Vadis?.

Despite the paucity of new dramatic treatments there were a suprisingly large number of documentaries on the Bible. Easter saw Robert Beckford in action with Secrets of the 12 Disciples, which dared to go head to head with the final episode of The Passion. But it was Channel 5 who provided most of the interest in this areas. Their September series Secrets of the Cross featured 4 documnetaries: Secrets of the Jesus Tomb, Who Really Killed Jesus?, Mary Magdalene: Saint or Sinner? and Trial of the Knights Templar. In America The Bible's Buried Secrets aired on PBS continuing the use of the word "secret" in the year's documentary titles. The Channel 5 shows were all repeated at Christmas along with another repeated documentary on King Herod (which I still need to watch). All 5 showed early in the morning, leaving the later evening schedule for the BBC's Star of Bethlehem, and Beckford again in The Nativity Decoded.

Finally, 2008 also saw us saying a sad farewell to two of the great actors of all time. Paul Newman may only have starred in The Silver Chalice, but his body of work desrves celebration, but in the death of Charlton Heston we lost a man whose name was synonymous with the kind of biblical epic we are never likely to see again.