Sansone (Samson, 1961)

I'm writing on, reading about and teaching on Italian cinema at the moment and have a session on the 1950s peplum films in a few weeks, so I thought it was time I watched Gianfranco Parolini's Sansone (Samson, 1961) as I've never seen it before. It was a film that I had looked into a little when I was compiling my book, but couldn't remember all the specifics of why I decided to include I grandi condottieri (Samson and Gideon, 1965). It was practically the only film to cover the story of Gideon and that was all I remembered.

Turns out that another big factor is that, despite the title, Parolini's Samson has nothing, really, to do with the biblical strongman, aside from the characters' mythical super-strength. As I mentioned in my list of films "about" Samson many of the Italian-produced Samson films from this era "have very little to do with the Book of Judges". 

Indeed these peplum films all play pretty fast and loose with the original stories of their heroes, even to the extent that the names of the title characters changed from country to country. For example, the strongman hero of Giovanni's Pastrone's Cabiria (1914) – Maciste – was then made the star of many of his own films,[1] such as Maciste nella valle dei re (1960) and Zorro contro Maciste (1963), but these titles were changed in English language regions to Son of Samson and Samson and the Slave Queen respectively.

In this case, the title in English regions was a straight translation (Samson) but in France it was released as Samson contre Hercule – Samson against Hercules. That would clue most people in to the fact that this is very much a new story spinning off the mega success of Le fatiche d'Ercole (Hercules) three years earlier in 1958, the film which is usually credited with sparking the peplum trend in Italian filmmaking. Hercules does not feature in the Bible. Interestingly, in both English and Italian this character is called Hermes (these days renown as a popular mail delivery service) but not generally regarded as a legendary strong"man" who might be passed off as Hercules (as he was in Spain as well as France). Ironically one of the traits if Hercules in these films is his association with pulling huge chains. Here though, it's Samson (played by Brad Harris, who starred in Il vecchio testamento (1963)) who gets that particular task (see below).

So in fact the film has nothing really to do with the biblical story. There's no Delilah, lion-wrestling, woman from Timnah, honey riddle or jawbone of an ass, or even a mention of God or the Israelites, just a super-strength hero running around in little more than his underpants. 

Plot-wise the film is fairly conventional, fitting neatly into the broad plot summary given by Robert A. Rushing in his book on the peplum "Descended from Hercules" 

A cruel, unjust, and foreign ruler has usurped the throne and oppressed the people. There can be minimal variations in this setup – for example, the unjust ruler may not be foreign but instead may be manipulated by foreign agents; he may be the proper, just ruler, but under a magic spell (cast by a foreign agent); or the unjust ruler may be an evil, seductive (often redheaded) queen – but the basic structure is always the same. Hercules must depose this cruel oppressor and free the people by restoring the legitimate ruler to the throne. The strongman is almost always a disinterested outsider with minimal or no ties to the throne in question; any suggestion that he could be a political threat or represent the forces of instability and anarchy is completely absent.[2]

Here there is a seductive queen, Romilda (Mara Berni) who is being manipulated by Serge Gainsbourg's "weasel-like" Warkalla who as Barry Atkinson goes on to point out never really convinces you that he "could boss whole legions of hard-bitten soldiers around.[3] Samson and Hermes (peplum regular Sergio Ciani aka Alan Steel) team up along with two of Samson's sidekicks and after seeing off scores of soldiers many, many times, manage to return the kingdom of Sulom to its rightful (boy) king.

There are a few good moments. Samson's tug of war across a fire-pit with a whole troop of soldiers (pictured above) sticks in the memory. As does a scene where the spiked walls on Samson's cell gradually close in on him (powered by a group of soldiers working a slave-powered mill - similar to that Victor Mature pushes at the end of DeMille's 1949 take on Samson and Delilah). Simultaneously, the mechanism also stretches out Samson's female friend Janine (Luisella Boni). It's tempting to think this scene may have inspired the walls closing in scene from the original Star Wars (1977), but that seems a stretch even if it's impossible to to think of that scene when you see this one.

Speaking of Janine, there's very little chemistry between she and Samson, or between him and either of the other two significant women in the film, even though he has scenes alone with all three of them. Indeed the only real chemistry seem to be between Harris and Steel. Otherwise it's all fairly lacking in interest. The scenery and cinematography look good though.

Incidentally, I kept going back and forth about whether to watch this one in the Italian dub or the English one (pepla rarely use live sound and often actors recorded their lines in the own language. There is no "original" version so to speak), and eventually went for the English which paid off. Although Harris gets surprisingly few close-ups or even mid-shots, he does get a sizeable chunk of the dialogue and I didn't find the dubbing of the other characters as troubling as it is sometimes.

So this isn't required watching for Bible film enthusiasts, but it's a reasonable example of Italian peplum even if it's hardly the sub-genre's finest.

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1 - Wikipedia currently lists 29 Maciste films (including Cabiria) in the silent era and a further 25 during the 1960s as well as a couple by Jesús Franco in 1973.

2 - Rushing, Robert A. (2016) Descended from Hercules: biopolitics and the muscled male body on screen,  Indiana University Press, pp.13-4.

3 - Atkinson, Barry (2018) Heroes Never Die: The Italian Peplum Phenomenon 1950-1967, London: Midnight Marquee Press. p.133 & p.134.

Samson dan Delilah (1987)

 

Bible films are acts of adaptation and invention. Sometimes filmmakers try and stick as closely as they can to the original text. Sometimes they are happy to strip away all but but a story's essential points in the service of exploration or entertainment. Samson dan Delilah, by Indonesian director Sisworo Gautama Putra, is a film which very much falls into the latter category.

The success of the Italian film Hercules (1958) led to a string of peplum films being made which traded on the names of a mythical strong men. Hercules, Goliath, Odysseus and Samson all ended up appearing in films which borrowed their names, but very little else from their original stories. Indeed there were several occasions when films bore Hercules' name when released in Italy, were re-titled and repackaged as films about Samson when they were re-dubbed and re-released further afield.

Putra's film is doubtless influenced by pepla such as Samson and the Sea Beast (1963) or Samson and the Pirate (1964). Indeed, just as Hercules cast an American bodybuilder as the mythical strongman (Steve Reeves), so too Samson is played by Paul Hay, an Australian whose muscular credentials are laid out, somewhat oddly, during the opening credits. As with those films, the hero battles fantastical foes such a very unconvincing Cyclops - whose pointed shield grinds against Samson's naked torso without a scratch. Shortly afterwards Samson steals another attacker's sword/axe and slices him in two from top to bottom, only to see the two halves reform, like something from Terminator 2 (1991), and for him to redouble his efforts. Even when, moments later, Samson slices clean through his waist, his attackers legs continue to kick him. The cartoon gore, which is not in short supply, is a hangover from Putra's better known work in horror.

The film's most obvious innovation is the introduction of several elements of the kung-fu/martial arts film. The choreographed fights, the exaggerated foley work and poor dubbing are strongly reminiscent of the late seventies 'shenmo' TV series Monkey or the films produced by the Shaw brothers. The fight scenes in Samson are not particularly well executed but they are entertaining nevertheless, though perhaps because of their sheer over-the-topness, rather than in spite of it. 

Yet in contrast to the pepla, Putra's film sticks more closely to the biblical material. Samson's affair with Delilah (played by Indonesian horror queen Suzzanna), her betrayal of him and his subsequent blinding and enslavement are all included. Also like the account in Judges Samson regains a little of his former super-strength, although bizarrely the film also has him regain his site after a woman rubs her breasts in his face, and finishes by him destroying his captors' temple destroing both himself and his enemies.

There are other similarities too. The key to Samson's strength still lies in his uncut hair.  He exists in a world where he belongs to an invaded and oppressed people. Like the biblical character, his motive is as much about revenge as fighting injustice, indeed the film's title for its release in France was La Revanche de Samson (The Revenge of Samson). Adaptations of his story often overlook this thirst for revenge. Yet in one scene Samson is prepared to give himself up, as per Judges 15:9-17 in order to stop the ruling regime's soldiers attacking the villagers (only for him to escape again later). 

However, arguably the most interesting deviation from the biblical text is the time and place where the story is situated. Instead of Israel around 1000 B.C. the film relocates the story to colonial Indonesia in the early 1800s. The soldiers who plot to destroy Samson are white Europeans wearing tall hats and smart, full length, powder-blue coats as if picked from a Quality Street tin or a Jane Austen novel (1). While in this case they are Dutch, they stand for the dark, still glossed-over era of European history - our brutal invasion, colonisation, repression and rule of countries across the world. Putra and those from former European colonies doubtless experience this film from white Europeans like myself - a painful reminder of a shameful era in our history that refuses to provide an easy way out.

It's perhaps these elements that mean whilst hardly a work of great artistry, Samson dan Delilah is worth viewing. The action sequences and a food-inspired love scene between the two leads make for a trashy, rather than profound, adaptation of the biblical stories, albeit one that has it's own oddly entertaining appeal. Yet at times it manages to rise above all that to remind us that while Samson stood on the side of the oppressed often those claiming to be on the side of his god, have not.

There are some other reviews, plot outlines and screen grabs of this film at Ninja Dixon, Backyard Asia, Ballistic Bullets and DevilDead.

*Quality Street are a UK brand of chocolates who for for about 80 years have sold their products in decorated tins such as these.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

I wanted to jot a few notes down on Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) while they were still fresh in my mind as I think I may want to reference them at some point. Obviously Hedy has long been someone I've been interested in due to her role as Delilah in DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949), so I've known for quite a while about her role in the invention of channel hopping - the pivotal technology behind secure communications technology such as wi-fi, bluetooth and a host of military technology.

Lamarr's invention came about during the early 1940s. Born in Austria to a Jewish family the documentary tells us that her father died from a heart attack due to the stress of the way Hitler was treating Jewish people. Lamarr herself was married to a munitions magnate at this point and whilst Hitler was apparently never a guest at her and her husband's Austrian mansion - supposedly due to Lamarr's race - they did host Mussolini. However, the marriage was loveless and Lamarr, sensing the change in the air hatched a plot where she hired a look-a-like maid, sewed her best jewels into her overcoat and one evening disappeared into the night in order to flee to London. This almost sounds like a movie plot in and of itself.

At that point in time Louis B. Meyer was securing potential actor talent and just so happened to be in London. Lamarr already had acting experience - having already gained notoriety for her performed in Ekstase (1933) which featured both nude scenes and an implied orgasm scene. Lamarr turned down his initial offer, but quickly booked herself on the same boat to New York as Meyer and made sure she caught his eye. He signed her up for £500 per week.

However, despite having signed her up he then refused to give her any decent parts, supposedly because he still judged her for her role in Ekstase despite he protestations that he had been duped. Eventually though she begged her way into a relatively small role in Boom Town (1940) and her career suddenly took off. Not only was she working crazily hard as an actress she was causing a revolution over partings which saw a number of other prominent movie stars adopting a Hedy-style centre parting.

At this stage America had still not joined the Second World War, but Hedy's mum was desperately trying to escape from the growing Holocaust back in Austria. A combination of her mother's plight, and the sinking of ship carrying numerous allied children, made her decide to do something about it. Her father had already encouraged her mental skills development, by explaining to her how various devices worked. Lamarr had her greatest success after she met composer George Antheil and the two of them formed a strong, and indeed productive, friendship. Around this time she was also friendly with Howard Hughes and claimed to have helped with his inventions too.

The documentary suggests that Lamarr and Antheil's breakthrough with channel hopping (wifi had two sources of inspiration. The first was the invention (by someone else) of a new remote control that enabled people to skip from one channel to another. The other was the player piano which played music by recognising the holes in a piece of paper. Lamar realised that if both the emitter and the receiver of the radio signal had a pre-determined pattern of when to switch channel then they could use radio signals to remote control the missile right up to the point of contact. Whilst the invention was patented and adopted by the Inventor's Council, the navy rejected the technology and it sat unloved in a drawer for several years. Instead Hedy was recruited to entertain the troops and to sell Bonds. There was a strong sense in the documentary that Lamarr wanted to be judged based on her ability and intellect, but she found that people (men mainly) could not get past people judging her solely for her good looks.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the documentary was the way it largely skipped over his success with DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949), The film was the second highest grossing film of the entire 1940s, only losing out to Gone With the Wind (1939). Today it's the film that Lamarr is best remembered for. Perhaps her children and other relatives, whose contributions make a significant to the documentary in question, did not recall anything about it. Nevertheless it seems a little odd that it was largely overlooked.

The success of Samson and Delilah enabled Lamarr to produce her own independent film. This was certainly not something her studio was happy with, and the box-office failure of the epic film she made gave her significant financial problems. She married again (it's implied it was for the money) and moved to Texas and then to Colorado where she also designed a ski resort. (Aspen) in line with those she knew from Austria. Her final claim to innovation came in the field of plastic surgery. She first had surgery in her 40s and made numerous suggestions to her surgeons, some of which had not been done in quite the same way before, yet went on to become popular. Sadly later facial surgeries left her (relatively) disfigured and she became something of a recluse. Fortunately she did give an interview late in life with reporter Fleming Meeks, who did nothing with the tapes for a long time. Both the tapes and Meeks' comments comprise a significant chunk of the film which ends by talking about how she began to get a small amount of recognition for her frequency hopping invention in the 1990s - the decade leading leading to her death in 2000. The film more or less ends with Lamaar reading out the words of Kent M. Keith's Paradoxical Commandments.

Overall the documentary was pretty good, with plenty for those who have only a brief understanding of Lamarr's even if it's a shame it doesn't given more time to Samson and Delilah.

Samson and Delilah (Collins, 1922)

1922 saw two films released about Samson and Delilah, but aside from the titles and the source material it is difficult to confuse the two. Korda's Samson und Delila mixes the biblical tale with a modern story, and fits in most of the biblical story's spectacular moments. The acting is portentous and stylised, the cast is vast, the sets enormous and the titular strongman towers over all who dare approach him.

In contrast this version, directed by the UK's Edwin J. Collins, is an altogether more restrained and naturalistic affair. At only fifteen or so minutes in length it lacks its rival's ability to go into all the stories, yet nevertheless the way it does spend that quarter of an hour is very telling.

The film consists of barely more than four scenes, and even the first of these is really only a prologue. Samson (W..D. Waxman) is shown in the opening shot praying. But as he does the Philistine High Priest and two of his soldiers walk into the rear of the shot and mock him. Moments later an unassuming Delilah (Madamoiselle De Valia) also enters from the same side, at the very back of the shot. When the soldiers "mock his God" he beats them to the ground and leaves the shot accompanied by an intertitle explaining that he has "received a divine instruction" and is to "wage war on the Philistines". Delilah clutches her chest and the camera cuts to a close up of her looking thoughtful. The shot ends in an iris - the first of many in the film's short run time, encouraging the audience to read the scene romantically even though this doesn't quite correspond with De Valia's face.

Theologically there are a number of differences as well. As noted above Samson starts the film praying, on his knees in worship, something he rarely does in the biblical account. The second main scene consists of Samson sitting calmly surrounded by three young women looking at him adoringly. Delilah moves in, wins his heart and takes him back to her place for the third, and main scene. Here she persuades him to have a drink which, itself, would have invalidated Samson's Nazarite vow even without going near a pair of shears.

I point these minor alterations out not so much as an exercise in theological nitpicking (fun though that can be), but because they are consistent with this film's calmer, more homely tone. Korda's Samson feels more wild and uncontrollable, almost an animal. There, the really remarkable thing about that Delilah's achievement is that she tames him, not in the way she gets him to reveal his secret. Here, however, things are more complicated. Initially Delilah's motives are hard to read, but when he loses interest in here, she throws herself at him once more in order to take her revenge on him.

The homely tone is greatly increased by the way these two middle "scenes" are shot outdoors.¹ The natural daylight and the way the actors' hair occasionally blows gently in the wind, makes their affair feel more romantic even as we know that Delilah is misleading him all along. It also seems somehow more intimate, thought less overtly sexual than the equivalent scenes in Korda's film. This third scene alone accounts for around half the film's total run time, and the comparatively gentle development of Delilah's seduction of Samson builds greater depth into their relationship and the way she gets him to reveal his secret. Even then as she sits shearing away his hair, her mixed emotions are palpable in the way she pauses and bites her lip before making that first decisive cut, and in the way her laughter once the deed is completed suddenly cuts short with momentary regret. Her spurned love has driven her to revenge, but even as she unleashes it she is struck by the thought she may have gone too far.

In contrast, the final scene is dealt with relatively quickly and the final six shots are telling: a close up of Samson as he summons his energy one last time; a brief shot of one of the pillars; a close up of a horrified Delilah as she turns to witness what is happening; a brief wide shot of the pillars dislodging and the roof falling in; a close up of a now peaceful Delilah partially under the wreckage; and the corresponding shot of Samson. The whole sequence is over in 25 seconds, yet the abrupt pairing of the final two shots seemingly unites the two lovers in death like they never quite were in life. In captures the tragic tone of the original albeit in a somewhat different fashion. 

Campbell and Pitts note how the film is based on Camille Saint-Saëns's opera "Samson et Dalila" (13), but in truth it is Korda's film that feels the more operatic. Collins' film finds a gentler, more muted key which manages to replace showy spectacle with something more emotional and heartfelt. Both films have their merits, but Collins' is the more effecting.

This film is available to view onYouTube.

1 - The actual number of scenes here is hard to work out. There is a nine minute sequence in total which all seems to take place on the same set, but the identity of the supposed locations seems to vary and be a little inconsistent. Thus whilst it feels like two scenes, it could perhaps be four or five,
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Campbell, Richard H. and Pitts, Michael R., (1981) The Bible on Film: A Checklist, 1897-1980, Metuchen, N.J., & London: The Scarecrow Press.

Samson und Delila (1922)

Samson und Delila is an Austrian-made silent by the Hungarian-born director Alexander Korda, one of two Samson themed films which were released in 1922 (the other being a British production directed by Edwin J. Collins). Flushed with the success of another historical epic The Prince and the Pauper (1922) Korda seemed like a natural choice to direct the film - the first made at the Rosenhügel Film Studios - but the film's subsequent failure marked a temporary downturn in his career.

The success of Griffith's Intolerance (1916) inspired a string of biblical films which mixed a 'modern' story with a biblical one, including Cecil B DeMille's first biblical picture The Ten Commandments (1923) and  Carl Dreyer's Blade af Satans bog (Leaves from Satan's Book, 1920) cotinuining into the early sound era with Noah's Ark (1929). Here the film combines the modern story of an opera star, with he biblical tale of Samson and Delilah. Early in the film the modern day star Julia, seeking inspiration for her new role as Delilah, seeks out the advice of an old rabbi she knows and he begins to tell the first of two major sequences set in ancient Israel.

What is particularly interesting about the film is the way it represents the basic story from the Bible in four distinctly different ways. On the first level there is the literal text from Judges which is presented on numerous slides throughout the production complete with chapter references. Whilst this isn't word for word, certainly large chunks of the biblical text are placed on screen.

The second level is the biblical story sections of the film. Whilst these are intercut with the largely 'biblical' intertitles, they also deviate from the text in significant ways. In particular the first of the two biblical sections is largely dramatic licence which is somewhat surprising given that it is meant to be the rabbi's recounting of the biblical stories.  His account starts with Delilah being picked out from a slave market en route to becoming the next queen of Philistia (or at least part of it). The setting quickly switches to Gaza, which is not only already in Israelite hands, but is now also on the verge of being re-conquered by the Philistines. But Samson rebels, throws a rock killing numerous Philistine soldiers before ripping off the gates (of his own city?) and using them as a shield as he carries Deilah off to Hebron.

In the modern section of the film the story operates at two further levels. The modern character, Julia, (played by María Corda, who also plays Delilah) is starring in an opera as Delilah, presumably Camille Saint-Saëns's "Samson et Dalila". Whilst footage of the opera itself is only momentary it is nevertheless significant.

The fourth and final level at which the story is represented is that of the semi-allegorical modern day story, which begins to unfold in the second half of the film. Following a disruption at the opera's opening night, a Russian prince (who also doubles as the king of the Philistines) persuades Julia to give a special performance on board his yacht. However, upon arrival she realises the prince is to be the only person in attendance, which, unsurprisingly, Julia finds creepy and so refuses to perform.

The tension of the situation is heightened when the ship's crew discover the lifeboats have been cut loose. Moments later they find a terrorist has boarded the ship and is warning them that he has hidden a bomb on board which he intends to detonate in the near future. Armed with her newly-acquired knowledge of the story of Samson and Delilah, Julia decides to try and seduce the terrorist in the hope that he will reveal the whereabouts of the bomb, and it's here that the film cuts back to its second ancient sequence.

This time the material is more firmly biblical and covers Delilah's betrayal of Samson, his subsequent imprisonment and his final 'victory' over the Philistines. What is most interesting, however, is the way that this section has been set in context by the modern terrorist story. The parallels between Julia / the terrorist and Delilah / Samson highlight that Samson's final act of destruction, from a Philistine perspective at least, is essentially a terrorist act - the ancient equivalent of a suicide bomb. Whereas Exum dismisses the way the "two storylines are not particularly well integrated" (84), I would argue that this is its strength - the re-contextualising of a story where a Hebrew hero has traditionally been celebrated for killing thousands of innocent people.

The film's treatment of Delilah is particularly striking. Firstly she is the film's central character. The camera repeatedly frames her, rather than Samson, as the shot's focus. It is also significant that María Corda plays both Delilah and Julia whereas different actors play Samson and the terrorist, and the film is far more interested in developing Delilah into a three-dimensional character than it is in doing so to any of the male characters. The two main interpretations of Samson are very much a blank canvas.

In contrast the film's portrayal of Delilah is far more complex, not least because of the tension between the film's images; the German intertitles spoken, theoretically at least, by the rabbi; and their English translation (at least on the version I have). The opening title is "Whilst Delialh was still a child..." accompanies her being sold into slavery, but it is clear she is already a grown women.

Soon afterwards another intertitle describes her as "Wollüstig und tot jeder liebe, ausser der gemeinen, schloss sie sich selbst aus, von allem, was gut war auf Erden". The English translation of this is given as "Wanton and dead to all love except the sordid, she shut herself out from all that was good on earth", but this reflects more harshly on Delilah than the original German and is accompanied by such shocking behavious as stretching and taking a shower. The next intertitle says "Und ihre Seele war schwärzer als die Nacht Ägyptens" ("And her soul was darker than the Egyptian Night"), but cuts to Delilah playfully splashing in a fountain.

Whether this disparity was the original intention, or indicates the producers changed the tone of the original seqeunce, or represents a sharp change in values since 1922 is anyone's guess, but whilst the intertitles seek to portray Delilah and Julia (who is called a "primadonna") in a bad light, she comes off rather better from the images alone. Later in proceedings the film seemingly attempts to rehabilitate Delilah to a certain extent, even portraying her as a victim in a later scene where Samson begins to strangle her. Exum also notes how the two main characters have their "roles reversed in the ancient and modern stories, for it is the Samson figure Ricco who turns out to be the deceiver" (Exum 84). That said it is hardly a positive portrayal even on a visual basis alone. There are many negative aspects to the portrayal and in both stories the Samson figure triumphs over her / her people.

There are two other key points to make regarding the film's visuals. Firstly, whilst the sets, most notably in Gaza, are fairly impressive (and were apparently very costly) they owe far more to Cabiria (1914) and Intolerance (1916) than historical likelihood. Even if the film's assertion that Gaza were in Jewish hands at the time of Samson were to be accepted, it seems highly unlikely that it would feature pagan imagery so prominently on it's great walls.

The film's other notable visual feature is the variety of grand staircases going up and down the middle of the screen in scene after scene. Whilst this certainly emphasis again the size of the sets it also recalls the angels going between Heaven and Earth on Jacob's ladder as well as the theme of redemption which runs throughout the film, as well as the rise and fall of the Philistines and Israelites. It also splits the screen into two echoing the conflict felt at various points by different characters. Not withstanding the meaning of these image, many of them are strikingly composed.

These victories aside, from a technical angle Samson's victory was apparently a complete disaster (pun absolutely intended). Campbell and Pitts tell a tale about the destruction of the temple "which would not tumble under the might of Samson", but then collapsed under it's own weight "while the cast and crew were on a lunch break" (14).

Despite the film losing "a great deal of money for its backer", in the long run, things worked out well for Korda. After periods in Berlin, Hollywood and France he settled in Britain, but after his success with 1933's The Private Life of Henry VIII he focused more on production ultimately working on an array of major British films such as The Thief of Bagdad (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942), The Third Man (1949) and Richard III (1955) and becoming a major figure in the Rank organisation.

You can watch this film, with German intertitles and Spanish subtitles on YouTube

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Campbell, Richard H. and Pitts, Michael R., (1981) The Bible on Film: A Checklist, 1897-1980, Metuchen, N.J., & London: The Scarecrow Press.

Exum, J. Cheryl (2016) "Samson and Delilah in Film" in Burnette-Bletsch, Rhonda (ed.), The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film. vol. 1, 83-100, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Shepherd, David J. (2013), The Bible on Silent Film: Spectacle, Story and Scripture in the Early Cinema, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Samson (2018)

Throughout the history of the Bible on film six stories have predominated: Jesus, Moses, David, Lot, Noah and Samson. In particular, during the two golden eras of biblical films, in the 1920s and the 1950s/1960s each of these stories received a major film release. Recently we've been seeing a bit of a revival in biblical films and, unsurprisingly, these same stories have again proved popular. The Passion of the Christ (2004), Noah (2014), Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) are self explanatory. 2009's Year One, whilst not a serious reinterpretation, was nevertheless a big screen adaptation of the story of Lot. 1985's epic King David is perhaps a bit too far in the past and recent TV adaptations have not proved successful, but nonetheless the continuing interest in the story is palpable.

It's not entirely unexpected, then to see a new version of the story of Samson returning to cinemas. It's not quite the Hollywood epic that Noah and Exodus were, but nevertheless it's opened at an impressive number of screens across the US.

Samson, directed by Bruce MacDonald is the latest bible film from Pureflix, the faith-based producer and distributor who also run a Christian version of Netflix. Whilst five years ago they produced the more modest Book of Daniel they went on to have greater success with God's Not Dead and the subsequent sequels, and an inventive adaptation of Lee Strobel's book The Case For Christ.

The latter films were criticised for being a little too heavy on the proselytism. The Times' Kevin Maher dismissed The Case for Christ as "profoundly silly Christian recruitment propaganda masquerading as newsroom drama" whilst The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Farber criticised the way God's Not Dead "stacks the deck shamelessly in defense of its credo".

The story of Samson though is a different matter. Whereas the story behind both of the above films were essentially adversarial, being based on debate and controversy, this is a more conventional narrative. The religious element of the story is upfront and to some degree unavoidable (though numerous 60s Italian 'Samson' pepla managed it), but not necessarily evangelistic. I think most critics will find Samson, better in this regard, if only because the point it's trying to make is not quite so painfully obvious from even before the film starts.

As a narrative, the film sticks fairly closely to the biblical narrative. Samson (Taylor James) has grown up knowing he has a calling from God. Before to his notorious affair with Delilah (Caitlin Leahy) he wrestles a lion to death, rips the city gates off the walls at Gaza, beats up the Philistines with a donkey's jawbone and gets married to a different Philistine woman. At the same time the film creates a couple of other side stories to bring the story more in line with modern storytelling.

Firstly it portrays Samson as someone who is struggling to accept God's call. Whilst this is a fairly common device in biblical films, here instead of merely embellishing the biblical portrayal, it actually seems to run contrary to it. The biblical Samson is an impulsive hothead who is as likely to tie up foxes and set fire to their tails in anger as he is to give his big secret away to his untrustworthy girlfriend because he's feeling warm and fuzzy.

In contrast this Samson resists the call to become a 'judge' because "we need peace". The violence in the story is not so much down to his unpredictable nature as God's will as his father Manoah (Rutger Hauer) reminds him. The film's Samson is "chosen by the living God to be his hand of vengeance." When told "it's his will", Samson retorts "but it is not mine."

Given the film is most likely to prove successful with a conservative audience, it's not hard to read Samson as a kind of idealised NRA archetype of a responsible gun holder. He has all the means to kill at his disposal, but is extremely reluctant to use them. In contrast, the biblical Samson is more like the kind of irresponsible type that the left like to point to - constantly teetering on the edge of another violent outburst.

The other major sub-plot revolves around father-son conflicts of a different kinds between the Philistine King (Billy Zane) and his slimy, usurping, son froPrince Rallah (Jackson Rathbone). Whilst Zane is Samson's adversary, he seems to have little idea how to defeat him. For all his son's conniving he seems to be the only man who is using his head, even if he is ultimately undone by his own self-satisfaction.

Another major difference between this film and the God's Not Dead/Case for Christ films is the sheer scope of Samson. Both the costumes and the size of the cast are far grander than those previous films. echoing historical epics old and new. Some of the overhead shots are fairly impressive, certainly for a faith-based film. The film may have its flaws, but a lack of budget isn't one of them.

Only time will tell if any of this proves popular enough with audiences to become something of a hit. One of the reason's DeMille's 1949 version of the story proved such a big hit was the way its display of human flesh so brazenly contrasted with the modern-day, fully-dressed dramas of its day. Not dissimilarly Samson is a decisive breakaway from Pureflix's previous offerings. Certainly they will be hoping that James's muscles, combined with a generous helping of action sequences will give Samson a broad appeal. Whether it can draw the kind of audience that Noah and Exodus: God's and Kings did so that it can round out my theory, remains to be seen.

Please note, this article is not a review of the film. I will hopefully get around to writing that at some point in the future, but given the various other projects I have on at the moment, I imagine it could be some time.

I grandi condottieri (Great Leaders of the Bible: Samson and Gideon, 1965)

Of the handful of filmmakers who have made several biblical films, Marcello Baldi is perhaps the most underappreciated. I grandi condottieri, known in the English-speaking world as Samson and Gideon was the last of four films that Baldi made in the early to mid sixties along with I patriarchi (The Patriarchs, 1962) Giacobbe, l’uomo che lottò con dio (Jacob, the Man Who Fought with God, 1963) and Saul e David (1964) (see here for more details).

Here Baldi is only officially credited as the producer, but there's a good deal to suggest he shared at least some of the directing honours with the Spaniard Francisco Perez Dolz. Whilst the first part of the film - dealing with Gideon, was shot in Spain, the second half was shot at Cinecittà in Italy. There are also several moments which feel like Baldi's work elsewhere.

The differences between the two halves of the film, however, extend far beyond filming style. The first stars an affable Ivo Garrani as Gideon (below), but also Fernando Rey as God's messenger. The two form an unlikely friendship. Having delivered his initial message, Rey's character stays on help Gideon slim down his burgeoning volunteer army, advise on strategy and give Gideon the some much needed encouragement. The film has moments of humour (having had to reduce his army still further Gideon quips "I wonder why we don't charge the Midianites, just the two of us") and sees and initially grumpy Gideon become a more relaxed and inspiring leader. As one of only a tiny number of films covering the story of Gideon it's surprising that it goes beyond his initial victory over the Midianites to show him pursuing their leaders until they are captured and killed as well as some of the incidents with his son.

In contrast, the latter part of the film is more self-serious, even including moments of pathos. This section of the film is more typical of the Italian peplum films of this era, specifically the mythical muscleman movies that sprang up following the success of Pietro Francisci's 1958 film Le fatiche di Ercole (Hercules). These supernatural heroes pepla starred characters such as Hercules, Machiste and Goliath, tossed together with those from other historic myths in invented stories. In the ten years following Hercules at least 15 other such films were named after Samson (although on occasion the name of the lead character varied from country to country). The difference with this film however is that it is based on the established story, rather than one made up for the film.

Whereas Gideon remains covered up for the entirety of his section of the film, Samson is frequently shirtless. Whereas God's messenger is present with Gideon almost throughout, in the Samson segment he is experienced only as wind blowing and, perhaps, a voice-over. God doesn't appear again until the end of the film, and, even then, Samson is unable to perceive his presence.

As with the Gideon half of the film, the story sticks reasonably close to the original narratives, whilst still developing the characters a little. Samson (Anton Geesink) has been repeatedly defeating the Philistines's until one day he allows himself to be bound and carried into the Philistine camp, only to wreak victory with the jawbone of an ass. Samson then turns up at Gaza and destroys the gates before the Philistine leaders decide to enlist Delilah (Rosalba Neri) to trap him.

The real strength of the film though is its host of memorable images. Midianites burn Israelite fields as early as scene two. The burning of the Midianite camp, and Garrani's face superimposed over a montage of Israelite victories. In the Gideon section there's a view from the bottom of a well, the moment of realisation when Samson spots the ass' jawbone, shot of the upper echelons of Dagon's temple. All of these testify to Baldi's eye for striking composition.

Sadly though, the lack of a decent copy of the film - the main versions of it available for home viewing are cropped, dubbed and have a very poor quality image - make it hard to appreciate its strengths. Christopher Mulrooney gives it a good go, and makes some interesting observations about two of Baldi's other biblical films, but overall the film gets rather less attention than I think it merits. Perhaps one day Baldi's work (and indeed aht of Baldi/Francisco Perez Dolz) will become fashionable again and his contribution to both the sword and sandal genre and to the Bible on film will be re-evaluated and more widely appreciated.

Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Samson and Delilah (1978)

I have a few Samson movies on my list of key films that I still need to review, so with the release of a new Samson film next month, I thought now would be a good time to run a short Samson series. However I didn't have time to watch those films and review them, so I settled for the Samson and Delilah entry from the late 70s series The Greatest Heroes of the Bible.

At the start of the film starts Samson is already an adult, aware of his powers and his God. When some Philistine soldiers threaten his parents and a girl from his village, he lashes out to defend them. He soon regrets being so hotheaded and retreats some distance to reflect and pray, only to have his prayers answered. A billowing cloud and echo-effect voice-over portray God affirming Samson and commissioning him using the words from Judges 13:3-8 that were actually spoken to his parents by an angel before Samson was born.

The leading roles here are played by John Beck and Ann Turkel neither of whom are familiar names today, which is something of a departure from the other entries in this series (at least amongst those I have seen) where at least one of the cast had a decent TV role, a minor movie role, or went on to become more famous following their appearance. Beck is particularly unconvincing in the role here. He's fairly tall, I suppose, but not particularly muscular, which rather works against him. On the one hand if God was the source of Samson's power then there's no need for Samson to be big, but in contrast once Samson's hair is cut off, it seems inconceivable that he would not be able to put up more of a fight.

The lack of a known name is not this film's only departure from the series formula, however. One real positive here is that the script avoids the spurious fictional sub-plot to spur things along. These tend to be one of the biggest weaknesses of the other films and Samson and Delilah does far better without it.

The film does focus quite a bit on the role of leader and judge, something that is often rather skipped over, not least by the source text. Here however the film constantly shows Samson carrying round a large shepherds crook - which he uses to fight with in several scenes, portraying the protecting shepherd leader and prefiguring King David. But we also see Samson struggling with and gradually coming to terms with his responsibilities as leader. After the initial fight scene the Philistines wage a campaign against the Israelites which they promise to continue until Samson is brought to them. As with the rest of Judges 15:9-16 the people beg Samson to turn himself over, which he does only to break free, grab a convincing weapon-like ass's Jawbone and rout his captors.

This leads to a sort of peace which lasts for a while until an unfortunate turn of events. The girl from Samson's village encounters a lion, runs off in panic, and falls and dies. Samson kills the lion - in a manner that seems far more realistic than in the DeMille's version, but instead of leading to riddle making sends Samson into a downward spiral of depression. Samson is seen out drinking in Gaza calling out "What good am I to God? Or he to us?". Thus whilst there's not much sub-plot, there is this invented motive for what happens next.

In the words of the film's narrator, Samson has a crisis of faith and becomes "a man adrift" and whilst there's no sign of activity with a prostitute in Gaza he does end up in trapped in the city overnight with the authorities unwilling to open the gates. Here, though, the gates Samson rips off are rather small, made out of wrought iron (in the Bronze age?) and Samson doesn't so much carry them the 16 or so miles to Hebron, as turn and chuck them at some soldiers. Perhaps this was just down to the budget, or an attempt at presenting a more likely scenario that then got exaggerated through centuries of storytelling. Either way it doesn't really work as it seems neither realistic, nor the kind of particularly spectacular act of which one who was channelling God's strength might be capable.

In the midst of this is the Philistine plot involving Delilah. She's seemingly aroused by what she hears of this strongman and thus keen to meet him and the two become attached. But after her initial attempt to trap him fails, he heads back to his people to resume his judging duties. It's clear though that both are torn between doing their duty for their respective countries, the financial difficulties of their circumstances and their feelings for one another. The film does a reasonably good job of portraying these varying tensions not least their national loyalties. Samson of course gets sucked back in, Delilah reluctantly strikes again and the Philistines have their man.

The climatic scene, though, is a bit of a calamity, as the cheap 1970s special effects have aged particularly badly. God starts to speak to Samson - again more echo chamber and billowing clouds - but soon key members of the crowd hear him too. Then suddenly Samson goes white, and then, in the films most bizarre moment his (already shoulder-length) hair grows back to it's previous luscious length. Samson leans on the pillars, which structurally don't appear connected to much else, yet nevertheless the walls all tumble down like only large blocks of polystyrene can.

For an episode that tried a few interesting things, the ending is a bit of a let down then. The script made a reasonably good attempt of fashioning a reasonably sturdy plot out of a series of episodes that cohere rather badly in the original. If only architecture in the finale had been assembled to the same standard.

Trailer for Pureflix's Samson

I try to space out my posts here rather than doing them in one go and, to be honest, time commitments usually enforce that anyway. In any case, the result is that I've been a little slower posting about this year's forthcoming PureFlix Samson, for which the above trailer has just been released.

For those not in the know PureFlix are a faith-based producer, who run an online Christian film content subscription service in not dissimilar fashion to Netflix. This is not their first foray into the Bible film genre, back in 2013 they produced the adaptation The Book of Daniel. (I wrote a little about that here).

It's been a while since I wrote anything about film portrayals of Samson. Indeed the last post, prior to this one, with a Samson tag is over 8 years old. Nevertheless I watched a few since then, most memorably the episode from the History Channel's The Bible series back in 2013. Three things struck me from this trailer in particular, then.

Firstly, we see a shot of Samson lifting the gates of Gaza. This is quite rare as I recall. Certainly it's not a part of DeMille's famous version of the story. According to my scene guide for the Bible Collection's version of this story, the incident with the prostitute from Gaza is included, but I don't recall seeing Samson lift the gates. I'll check on The Bible's version and report back. I'm also due to review the 1922 silent version shortly. For some reason, I suspect it will feature in that one.

Secondly, the weakest aspect of DeMille's 1949 version is the scene where Samson wrestles with a lion.Not unreasonably actor Victor Mature was reluctant to be too closely involved, the final sequence featured scenes of a stunt man (who seemed a little reluctant himself) wrestling with a live lion and Mature wrestling with a fake one. It's hard to tell in the latter scenes who turns in the better actor performance...

Finally we also get to see a brief shot of , what I presume is, the climatic scene where (and I don't want to give too much away here) Samson destroys the temple. I guess most of Pureflix's audience will know the story, but still it's unusual to see a trailer give quite this much away, even if the story in question claims to be 3000 years old.

My good friend Peter Chattaway has also made some interesting observations, including that the trailer suggests that this film's Samson "seems to fall into the 'reluctant hero' trope" adding that "he does fight back, but usually as a way of seeking personal revenge rather than to fulfil any sort of divine destiny." He has also posted a whole group of stills in this post.

The film is due for release on February 16th  - the first Friday after Ash Wednesday - and stars James Taylor in the lead role, with Caitlin Leahy as Delilah and Bladerunner's Rutger Hauer as Samson's father.

Samson, Delilah and Weetabix

I've just been watching the latest Weetabix ad (starring Michael Gambon I think) on YouTube. As ever with YouTube there are relevant recommendations down the side, and as you'd expect there were several others, including an Errol Flynn-esque Robin Hood one. Then I noticed there was also a Samson and Delilah one featuring a cover of Tom Jones' song for good measure. As you can probably tell from the above screen shot, the quality is not great, but it's enough to get the idea.

Samson et Dalila

Ferdinand Zecca, Pathé, France, 1902, 3 mins.
The earliest film of those shown at the Ancient World in Cinema event was Samson et Dalila (Samson and Delilah) from 1902. Strangely it was also one of the few shown on the day for which I've been able to find any sort of production image.

Given its age, it's no surprise that this is also one of the shortest of the films shown. Indeed the film starts when the story of Samson is almost over. Delilah has already extracted Samson's secret from him; all that now remains is for her to out it to the test. Putting aside from the other incidents in Samson's life, and looking solely at the Samson and Delilah story, it seems to me that the dramatic interest in the tale is about the conflict between the two, which climaxes when Samson finally reveals his secret. So it's strange that this film begins its version of events immediately after this point.

Samson isn't really shaved here, in fact when he awakes he still has rather more hair and beard than is typical today, but I guess something more convincing may have been more difficult to pull off at such an early stage in proceedings (though an "O Brother Where Art Thou-type beard-on-a-string would probably have bee acceptable in 1902.

There follows Samson's arrest and imprisonment tied to a millstone, but it's the temple scene that's really interesting. Firstly because Samson's appearance is preceeded by a troupe of dancing girls giving a fairly lengthy performance. Given the very short total running time of the film, this sequence takes a very large proportion of it. One wonders how this came to be. Of course, what's interesting is that such deviations would become a staple part of the biblical epic genre. You don't have to think for too long before numerous descendants of this sequence - scantily clad girls dancing for the benefit of the viewer, if not the plot - spring easily to mind. And introducing non-biblical episodes into the story, sometimes at the expense of great chunks of a film's runtime, has gone on to become the norm, rather than an exception as it was in the time of these films.

The downside of this portracted sequence, at least from the point of view the story is meant to be understood from, is that it gives us a degree of sympathy for the girls whose performance is rewarded by being crushed by not-particularly heavy looking cinema stand-in stones. That contrasts with Samson who we've had little time to get acquainted with. The moments we do have do this quite well - his despair at finding his hair cut, the forlorn figure operating the mill and his thoughts (And prayers) moments before brining the roof down on the Philistine temple.

The biggest surprise, however, is Samson's ascent to Heaven, portrayed in a style very familiar to those conversant with Zecca's The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ. Given that that film was compiled over a number of years, it's hard to know which scene came first. There are plenty of other Pathé trademarks as well, such as the hand coloured film and the distinctive cotuming.

The film is the first to be mentioned in "The Bible on Film" (as the Old Testament section comes before the New). Campbell and Pitts have this to say:

SAMSON AND DELILAH
1903, France, Pathé, 15 minutes B/W
Director: Ferdinand Zecca
Perhaps the first film version of the story of mighty Samson, from the Book of Judges, whose physical strength could not keep him from falling under the spell of the beautiful, but evil, Delilah.

There's a slight discrepancy in the film's stated length which is somewhere between Campbell and Pitts's 15 minues and the BFI's 3. The BFI archive has little more to say although they may be behind this synopsis on the UCL website:

Delilah cuts off Samson's locks. Bereft of his strength, he turns a millstone in prison. Brought back, the shackled Samson tears away the pillars of the temple where he has been publicly humiliated, causing it to crash down in pieces. Samson's triumphant spirit, accompanied by angels, rises out of the ruins.

And there's also an entry (in French) from the Pathé database.

Weiss to Play Lamarr Playing Delilah?

Peter Chattaway is wondering whether Rachel Weiss will indirectly play Delilah given The Hollywood Reporter's story that Weiss has taken the leading part in a Hedy Lamarr biopic. Lamarr's most famous role was, of course, as the titular honey-trapping Philistine in DeMille's 1949 Samson and Delilah. Peter asks "Will the new film depict the making of DeMille's film in any way, shape or form?". I would have to guess "yes", but would be surprised if it showed any actual footage.

The film, with the working title Face Value will be directed by Amy Redford, daughter of Hollywood legend Robert.

First Kings now Samson

With the release of NBC's Kings just weeks away, the show's director Francis Lawrence (I am Legend) has signed up for another futuristic Bible adaptation. Variety is claiming that Lawrence has signed up with Warner Bros. to make Samson "a futuristic retelling of the Samson and Delilah story." Scott Silver (8 mile) will be writing the script with Erwin Stoff producing. Thanks to Peter Chattaway for this one.

Oh and Kings will now première on Sunday, March 15, at 8 pm, not Thursday March 19th as previously stated.

Samson and Delilah and Sunset Boulevard

I've been meaning to post this for weeks and weeks, but for some reason I've failed to, delaying other plans elsewhere. Anyway, perhaps as long as two months ago now, I had my first viewing of Sunset Boulevard. It was one of those films I'd been meaning to see for ages, and as I was reading Robert S. Birchard's "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood" it seemed a particularly good time.

Unsurprisingly, the scene which most caught my attention was the one where Norma Desmond (played with relish by Gloria Swanson) goes to the Paramount Studio to meet her former director Cecil B. DeMille. For those not in the know, DeMille plays himself and it's interesting to see how closely his brief cameo coincides with the portrait of him in Birchard's book. Birchard repeatedly cites examples of DeMille's faithfulness to, and his care for, his former stars. Here he has a difficult case to deal with; one of his former, silent, leading ladies is deluding herself that she can make a comeback and has sent DeMille her own script. Meanwhile, one of DeMille's team has contacted Norma to try and borrow her vintage car for another film. Misinterpreting a call from DeMille's office as a sign of his interest in her script she rushes to Paramount to meet with him. There she is treated like the star she once was (see picture below), not least by another DeMille old timer who lets her experience life in the spotlight for one final brief moment. DeMille's sensitivity and care is apparent throughout, and whilst we should not forget that hie words are both scripted and directed, it also seems to come very easily to someone who only stepped in front of the cameras to act on a handful of occasions.The other thing that grabbed my attention was the fact that this scene appears to take place on the set of Samson and Delilah. I don't know much about this kind of stuff, but I would guess that this is the real set of Samson and Delilah. Firstly, Henry Wilcoxon (above) is filmed, but is not given any dialogue. Wilcoxon played a leading role in Samson and Delilah, but was also DeMille's associate producer . His presence would be easily explained if the Sunset Boulevard crew came onto the Samson and Delilah set, but it's unlikely that they would pay a star such as Wilcoxon just to be an extra.

Secondly, the scene in question is being filmed on a studio sound stage as most of Samson and Delilah was. Would the makers of Sunset Boulevard really build a set that was identical to one that already existed? I suppose there is the possibility that the existing set didn't give the the right angles for the pulled back shots they required, but it still seems like the most probable answer?

One final point, it took me a little while to figure out the chronology. After all Sunset Boulevard is set in, what was then, the modern day, so audiences assume that it's 1950. But Samson and Delilah was actually released the year before in 1949 suggesting that Boulevard actually takes place 1948-1949. I can't remember if there is any other evidence in the film that suggests a more specific date.

Bible Films that Never Were

Cecil B. DeMille's name will forever be associated with the biblical epic even though he only ever made three and a half films based on the Bible - his two versions of The Ten Commandments (1923¹ and 1956), his Jesus film The King of Kings and 1949's Samson and Delilah. Indeed, given that Samson and the second Ten Commandments were two of the last three movies he ever made , it's a reputation he might never have earned at all. True, there were a number of other ancient epics in his seventy-film canon, but it was those last two films in particular, that cemented his place in the popular imagination as the man that made biblical epics.

However, I've been reading Robert S. Birchard's "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood" recently, and one of the appendices lists the veteran director's unrealised projects. Given the vast number of movies he made, it's surprising that there are only twelve sucfilms, but it's interesting that four of them are Bible films.

The first of these is The Deluge which I discussed last year. DeMille was considering making the film in the late 20s, but when it became apparent that Michael Curtiz was already making Noah's Ark he switched his attention to The King of Kings instead. Aspiring filmmakers considering adapting the story of Noah take note.

The second film on Birchard's list was Esther (or The Story of Esther) and he notes that MacKinlay Cantour was working on this in the summer of 1934². Birchard doesn't say anymore, but given that this was the same year that DeMille directed Cleopatra, my guess is that he ultimately decided he could only handle one heroine-driven ancient epic at a time.

There's a good deal more information on Queen of Queens, DeMille's planned story of Jesus's mother, (though it's hard to believe that such a title would ever have been taken seriously).

Jeanie Macpherson worked on the script from November 20, 1939 to July 27, 1940. William C. DeMille also worked on the script from March 4, 1940 to June 7, 1941, and William Cowan wrote on the project from September 3 to October 9, 1940. Queen of Queens met some resistance from the Catholic Church , and the film was never scheduled for production.³

Lastly, Birchard tell us that Macpherson also started work on a script for the story of King David, Thou Art the Man.⁴ This was six years before David and Bathsheba reached the screen with its take on David's adultery, so it seems unlikely that once again DeMille had been put off by a similar project at another studio. Perhaps, given his long-standing desire to bring Samson's story to the screen he decided to focus on that instead.

Aside from the list of DeMille's films-that-never-were, I was also interested to read that Steve Reeves and Cary Grant had both been considered for the leading role in Samson and Delilah. Reeves is not in the least surprising, given that he went on to play Hercules and Goliath, but it's incredible to think that any kind of consideration was ever given to Grant. Of course, the whole point of the Samson and Delilah story is that the source of Samson's strength isn't obvious. So it wouldn't have been inconceivable for Grant to play him, but when you look at the final film, and it's emphasis on, and love for, Mature's oiled torso, it's hard to imagine Grant in that same role.

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On a not unrelated note, Eric David of Christianity Today has written a short piece on French director Robert Bresson which claims that he was initially approached to direct Dino de Laurentiis' The Bible: In The Beginning.

In the mid 1960s, Dino de Laurentiis planned a series of films based on the Bible, featuring top directors of the day, including Huston, Visconti, Welles and Fellini. When Bresson, slated to direct Genesis, told de Laurentiis that he planned to film it in Hebrew and Aramaic, and wouldn't show any animals on Noah's Ark, only their footprints in the sand, he was fired. Huston took over and The Bible: In The Beginning, was released, but did not perform well enough to justify the other directors helming their respective films. Bresson yearned to film Genesis the rest of his life, but it never came to pass.

That would certainly have made for a very different film, but given that Bresson instead went on to direct his masterful Christ-figure film Au hasard Balthazar that same year, and that Huston's version has so much to commend it, it may well have all been for the best.

Online Trailer and Reviews for van Eijk's Samson and Delilah

There's a trailer online for Corina van Eijk's Samson and Delilah which has now been and gone at the VIFF. It looks fantastic, if odd. I've also found a handful of short reviews.

Ron Reed has replaced his original post about the film with his review, which includes the following paragraph:

This radical reinterpretation of the celebrated Saint-Saëns' opera is a splendid example of cinema offering many things that the stage cannot. Ingenious ideas abound, from the political sparks of the contemporary setting to the sensational use of the simplest of décor to the very entertaining use the singers make of the freedom cinema allows for facial expression.

Sandra Peredo has also reviewed it for Intermedias.

Opera Spanga director Corina Van Eijk’s take on Camille Saint-Saens’ 19th century opera Samson and Delilah is replete with bizarre meanderings. Love her style or resent it, Saint-Saens’ music is still gorgeous.

Lastly, there's a capsule review on the film from Matthew Englander which I'll quote in full. He hated it, giving it only 1 out of 10.

The French-language opera adapted for film with some kind of modern middle-east setting. Boring and cartoonish, I almost walked out several times and I wish I had. Shot in digital video, the movie looked terrible; perhaps just the way it was projected but all the reds and blues were garishly ugly. The music was loud and unpleasant and never let up. The singing voice of Klara Uleman, playing Delilah, was particularly grating.

I had also quoted a bit of blurb on the film from the VIFF organisers and it turns out that that was part of a longer write up which is now available on the VIFF website.

The Book of Judges and Pulp Fiction

First off, let me start by saying that I realise this is a bit tenuous, but sometimes idle speculation can be a lot of fun and not entirely worthless so I though I'd post this anyway.

I'm currently running a course called Through the Bible in Five and a Half Years, and this month we're looking at the book of Judges. It's about eleven years since I did some detailed study on the book, but one of the things I remembered thinking all that time ago was how Judges was the Pulp Fiction of the Bible.

It's no doubt partly down to the fact that I first watched Pulp Fiction at around the same time, and partly down to the fact that there I was encountering various literary features of the book which I'd not really come across before. Anyway, as part of my preparation for Monday's session I thought I'd re-watch it, particular as I've not seen it since that initial viewing.

The comparison with Judges is certainly interesting. There's not been a film made about the book as a whole, at least not as far as I'm aware. Furthermore, despite a number of interesting, colourful, narratives only two characters have been represented in film at all. The first is Gideon who has only featured in two obscure films - Great Leaders of the Bible: Gideon (1965/6), and Gideon: The Liberator (1958). The other is, of course Samson. About a year ago I listed at least 49 films about the legendary strongman, and the recent appearance of Corina van Eijk's Samson and Delilah nudges that tally up to 50 (making his the second most filmed biblical story after Jesus).

The two things that first led me to connect Judges and Pulp Fiction were the violence in each story and the non-linear chronology. At first citing "violence" appears somewhat superficial - after all much of the Old Testament is horrifically violent. Yet Judges particularly seems to revel in the violence, and at times use it for humour, and the same could be said of Pulp Fiction. The most pertinent example from Judges is when Ehud's sword is swallowed up by Eglon's fat belly. The narrator seems to wallow in this detail and delight in spelling it out. It's worth pointing out that Ehud is effectively a hit man. The same could point could be made about Samson (although from the perspective of the Philistines his final act is perhaps a suicidal act of terrorism). Pulp Fiction was Quentin Tarantino's second film, and the violence was much commented on at the time. Indeed Tarantino's first film Reservoir Dogs was initially banned from video release due to it's violent imagery.

The second point is the non-linear narrative style that both writers adopt. At the time of the film's release this was one of the film's two major talking points (the other being the snappy dialogue). The film ends with the same scene it started with, albeit from a different perspective. Furthermore rather than the film consisting of one main story split into many different scenes, this is more of a collection of stories woven into a broader narrative. In between the opening and closing stories various other stories are told which, chronologically speaking, are from both before and after it. Whilst there is no one-reason why Tarantino adopted this approach, Roger Ebert noted how "if you told the story in chronological order that would get monotonous, this way the audience stays on its toes".¹ Certainly the tension that emerges in that final scene would have been greatly dissipated. Re-arranging the chronology of the individual parts of the story allows the film to draw different themes to the fore.

In the same way, Judges consists of a collection of individual stories sewn together to form a broader narrative. Indeed it's noticeable that whereas these various stories generally only concern a tribe or two at a time, the redactor uses them to comment on what was happening in the whole of Israel at that moment in time. Now whilst a minority of scholars would still claim that the historical data presented in Judges is accurate, the vast majority, including many conservative scholars, consider the chronology to have been highly stylised in order to give the overall story greater impact. Judges contains a prologue and epilogue that are often held to be later additions to the text, and these are generally set aside when looking at the core of the book's literary structure.

Both works have a kind of symmetry with their opening and closing stories both reflecting one another, but also being notably different. In Pulp Fiction we see the same scene, but from a different perspective. In Judges the differences are more significant that the similarities, but we effectively see Ehud paired off with Samson. As noted above, both are lone hit men whose actions are so strategic that they turn the course of the conflict decisively in Israel's favour. Whilst the similarities in Judges are weaker, this chiastic pairing is continued as we move towards the core of the book. Deborah and Jephthah are both social outcasts who Israel calls in during a desperate period to lead them to great victory. Both victories require the one of the heroes to break a part of their respective social codes. Whilst Jael's disregard for hospitality seems, to us, trivial compared with Jephthah breaking the laws against child sacrifice, the two taboos would have been far closer in the minds of those at the time. The final pairing is Gideon and Abimelech who are almost opposite in terms of their character and their faithfulness to God - and it's this contrast between faithfulness and unfaithfulness, and the impact of each, that is the book's major concern.

By contrast, Pulp Fiction uses it's non-linear chronology to shield the film's major theme from the viewer until the end. When the sequence of events is unjumbled it becomes apparent that both Jules and Vincent both witnessed the same "miracle", but responded to it in very different ways. Jules realises that he has to leave his life as a hit man behind him. Vincent carries on as before and is shot by Butch shortly afterwards. In fact "every one of the major sequences in Pulp Fiction ends with a character being saved".² Mia is saved from her drug overdose, Butch is saved from a life on the run. Pumpkin and Honeybunny are saved from the new style life of crime they were about to embark on, and Jules is saved from his life as a hitman.

This leads to a further similarity then: both works are deeply moral calling their protagonists to leave behind them horrifically sinful lives and be righteous. Samuel L Jackson, who plays Jules in the movie claims that "the story is totally about redemption. Everyone in the script who's life is spared is given another chance to do something with their lives".³ In this way it actually differs from Judges. Pulp Fiction's moral cycle works it's way up. It's greatest act of salvation occurs at the end of the movie. By contrast, Judges portrays a downward spiral where the morality of the characters descends with each new segment.

It's easy to be so disturbed by the degradation that is on display in Pulp Fiction that this theme is missed, and not dissimilarly its surprisingly how many of those reading Judges fail feel to feel the heaviness with which the author regards his countrymen's apostasy. Actually both find characters pulling their way to bloody salvation - both spiritually and in terms of their physical security, and the end to the threats under which they had previously been held.

I'm sure I had a few more observations, but they all escape me for the time being. I'll post up any that come back to me.

1 - Roger Ebert on "Siskel and Ebert - At the Movies: Pulp Faction"
2 - Roger Ebert on "Siskel and Ebert - At the Movies: Pulp Faction"
3 - Roger Ebert on "Siskel and Ebert - At the Movies: Pulp Faction"