Quo Vadis (1924)

Gabriellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby's 1924 Italian silent is not one of the more popular adaptations of Henryk Sienkiewicz's 1896 novel "Quo Vadis?", but it has now been given a decent restoration by Nederlands Filmmuseum who have made it available to watch on YouTube. 

Italian cinema found itself in a precarious state after the First World War. While the European nations were fighting among themselves, the American film industry was migrating to Hollywood (especially over the period 1911-1916) and making the most of the lack of competition from overseas. The resulting economic problems in much of Europe saw the number of Italian-made films dropped off from 371 in 1920 to just eight a decade later (1) as Mussolini's Black Shirts took power.

In an attempt to rally, Arturo Ambrosio attempted to return to the historical films of Italian silent cinema's glory days, namely Cabiria (1914) and, more pertinently, the 1913 version of Quo Vadis? Despite it's huge budget, the film flopped and, alongside the similarly disastrous Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii, 1926) took down the Italian epic for over a decade.(2)

Despite the public derision at the time (3), the film is pretty good. Certainly the expensive sets and costumes still look remarkable, particularly the scenes of Rome burning and the resultant punishment of the Christians in the arena are massive in scale, but not lacking in detail. The only off thing here is how most of the arena shots seem to be set in the Colosseum, but then suddenly they are in an arena big enough to host a chariot race (which presumably would have taken place in the Circo Massimo). Initially I thought that this was some used footage from the initial, disastrous, Italian-based shoot of Ben-Hur (1925), but a closer examination of the architecture of the arena remains consistent, even if the camera's placement feels like a little break in the continuity. 

Biblical content

The film is a bit more faithful to the book that the most famous 1951 adaptation, although it plays with the order a little and whereas the book (and the 1951 version) features both Paul and Peter, here Paul's  part is all rolled into that of Peter. So it's Peter that counsels the Christian heroine Lygia (American Lillian Hall-Davis) towards the start of the film.

We get several scenes inside the catacombs, included the shot above, where the lighting and composition are just beautiful. The use of the slope here is not just aesthetic, it enables Peter to be portrayed as still the humble fisherman of the Gospels, but also as a towering, elevated figure, already far closer to heaven than those who follow him. Of course, given this film was made where is it was, when it was, it's not surprising to see Peter's role built up and given primacy in this way.

There are also several scenes/moments not found in the book. Of particular relevance here is the flashback to the Via Dolorosa in the lead up to Jesus' crucifixion. Unlike the 1951 film, D'Annunzio and Jacoby are happy to show Jesus's face, not only from a distance, and then in a mid-shot, but also miraculously wiped onto Veronica's cloth. The quality of the image in this footage is significantly distorted compared to the rest of the film. I almost wonder if this too is a later insertion, either from an earlier Jesus film (or a significantly degraded later one) or of footage that was originally left on the cutting room floor. You can see what I mean at 1h42m17s.

Lastly, from a Bible-adjacent context, we get Jesus' appearance on the Appian Way (I guess the intention here might be to juxtapose the Via Dolorosa scene with the Via Appia Antica, particularly as they appear just 5 minutes apart). Here Jesus is shown (above)  as only a largely transparent, ghostly figure and his brief appearance is marred by a rare bit of damage on the filmstock. Peter does say the words "Quo Vadis, Domine?" before they fade into the translation. Interestingly the film has Peter persuaded by his closest confidants to leave Rome, so Jesus' rebuke seems a tad harsh,

Quo Vadis? and Fascism

D'Annunzio and Jacoby's adaptation arrived only two years after Mussolini came to power, so came very early in his 21-year regime. In some ways its an unusual choice for a film, at least aside from the previous adaptation proving to be a financial success. Essentially, it's a story that tells the story of an egotistical, Rome-based, dictator, so this could easily be seen as risky territory, particularly given that it concerns his conflict with the church of Rome. That said  D'Annunzio's father Gabriele, had been a significant influence on Mussolini and so this probably afforded the film sympathetic reception.

At the same time "(e)ven before the March on Rome in 1922, the Fascist party had constructed its own identity and legitimised its actions through the tropes of an ancient Rome reborn".(4)

The potentially negative parallel with Mussolini is also offset, or at least made more ambiguous / contradictory (itself a hallmark of small eff fascist filmmaking) by a number of factors. Firstly, while Emil Jannings portrays Nero, as per normal, as a childish, egotistical, psychopath, the film seems to make it clear that this is just him, not his constitutional position.

This becomes particularly true as the film reaches its climax, whereby the legions are described as having "Proclaimed Galba Emperor and are marching on Rome", something we're told "The city welcome". The specific use of "marching on Rome" is a clear reference to Mussolini's own (somewhat mythologised" March on Rome, particularly given it's not how Galba's rise to power is typically described. The fact that Galba held power for just 7 months also seems to have escaped scrutiny.

One further detail on this is that Nero kills himself as a troop of Roman soldiers bear down on him. Learning of his death they turn to their leader (who I think is Vincinius) and give the "Roman" salute (see above) and he returns it, which I suppose brings the Roman church into alignment with the Roman state in a decidedly fascist manner. I should point out that the Roman salute actually derives from the 18th century).

Fascism, crowds and spectacle?

There's a line of thinking that links fascism to the body. James Hay, for example, argues that

By accommodating masses of people, often for whom the central characters acted, the historical spectacles seemed to address a more extensive and consolidated audience. It is no wonder, therefore, that these films became ideal vehicles for presenting nationalistic themes. Through these throngs of extras, mass audiences were given a stake in the films, action, and they were able to visualise on the screen their own collectivity.(5)

Quo Vadis? very much fits the bill here. As with its predecessor and the majority of the biblical epics that have followed, the crowds of extras are seen in numerous scenes: Nero's "regal banquet"; Nero performing his music to a large crowd; the chaotic street scenes as the crows try to escape from Rome's fire; the arena scenes, naturally; and even the underground scenes of the early church at worship. And the sheer size of some of these crowds, in combination with the film's impressive architecture, give the film a sense of spectacle and power

What I find particularly interesting is how these crowds – totally opposed to one another at the start of the film – come together as it progresses. Gradually Nero's retinue deserts him and becomes more sympathetic to the Christians, such that ultimately the crowd in the arena – having turned up to see the slaughter – eventually take the Christian's side (as well as Galba's).

The is reinforced by the use of the camera. In the scenes in the catacombs it is very much located in and amongst the crowd (see top image) whereas in the orgy scene, the camera is typically placed in a slightly elevated position (though to a lesser extent with two-shots etc.). Likewise in the climatic arena scene, initially the camera's eye-line is within in the arena, but gradually switches to a seat in the stands and accompanied by individual reactions of nameless characters in the crowd ("She is a mother" one woman cries as the race wears on). Thus whereas Wyke is correct to observe that "(r)epeatedly, however, as Nero peers through his emerald ring... the camera takes up his point of view", (Wyke 129-30) it is important to note that ultimately that point of view deserts him in favour of the Christians and a more worthy candidate for Emperor.

Body Violence

There are further associations between the body and fascist cinema, both in terms of physical perfection and in terms of suffering, endurance and ordeal. These ideas were put forth by Susan Sontag in her stinging takedown of Leni Riefenstahl's photography book "The Last of the Nuba" (1974) which, Sontag argues, suggests that Riefenstahl's thinking had not moved on as much as she would have the world believe.(6) 

While there is less of a focus on physical perfection here (certainly compared to the cinema of our own day) this film does appear to increase the amount of violence against the human body, particularly compared to other adaptations. Even in the film's opening scene – where Nero relaxes by a fountain surrounded by beautiful women and apparently sycophantic men –  one unfortunate woman is thrown into pool full of Lamprey eels who devour her.   

On top of this we also get:

1. Nero attempting to rape Lygia only for Ursus (Lygia's Maciste-like slave and protector) to intervene and throttle / fishhook the emperor,
2. the burning of Rome, which is more widescale distress than specific body-violence,
3. once Nero blames the Christians, his retribution is to burn them on flaming on crosses. This is shot with some close-ups, and others where those are just the background in a prolonged scene,
4. Petronius and Eunice's suicides, where we see a "surgeon" slicing their wrists
5. Nero's own suicide, by stabbing himself in the neck

Of course, the biggest scene of violence against the body occurs in the arena where we witness various Christians being mauled by lions; dragged through the dirt during a chariot race and then finally Lygia being strapped to the back of a bull who Ursus has to fight with his bare hands.(7) In most of these scenes Nero is not only revels in this violence, but is (sexually?) excited by the cruelty of it. It's noticeable that Poppea (Elena Sangron who also starred in Rome-related Fabiola (1918) and 1925's Maciste in Hell) is not infrequently disturbed by the violence that her husband finds so appealing.

Despite Nero being the only character who seems to enjoy these scenes of torture and violence, and the fact that the film's cartoonish villainization of him takes tings to an extreme, there is still something a bit nasty lurking under the surface of these moments and the way the camera dwells on them.

Overall

I've dwelt on the fascist issues related to this film mainly because the time and place of its release seem pertinent, but cinematically this doesn't deserve to be remembered purely as a film that "flopped disastrously",(8) after it was deemed a "critical failure" and was "poorly received by both critics and the general public".(9) 

I've already mentioned the sets and the costumes, and the lighting, but the colour tinting is nicely used as well (with the exception of the fire scenes where it tends to suffer from low contrast making the scenes fuzzy. It is a little long, one or two subplots over complicate things, but some of the editing in individual sequences is quite impressive. Indeed, the editing is a significant part of the reason why the violent moments are so shocking, particularly the sequences with the lions and the eels. Perhaps Elley says it better in five words than I have in two thousand: "all spectacle and no content".(10) 

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

1 - Reich, Jacqueline (2013) "Italian Cinema in the 1920s" in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) Italian Silent Cinema (John Libby) p.137.
2 - Scipione l'Africano (1937), set almost 300 years earlier, ended that barren run, in one of the most pro-Fascist films of Mussolini's reign.
3 - Reich, p.137.
4 - Wyke, Maria (1997) Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History. Routledge, p.128
5 - Hay, James (1987) Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy: The Passing of the Rex. Indiana University Press, p.152.
6 - Sontag, Susan (1975) "Fascinating Fascism", New York Review of Books, Feb. 6. Available online – https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/33d/33dTexts/SontagFascinFascism75.htm
7 - This said, the terror here is mitigated somewhat by Lillian Hall-Davis being replaced by an unconvincing dummy being tied to the back of the bull instead.
8 - Elley, Derek (1984) The Epic Film: Myth and History (Routledge and Keegan Paul), p.20.
9 - Wyke p.130
10 - Elley, p.20

House of David (2026) s2e03

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). There are some major spoilers in what follows even though most are 2500 years old.

I'm running short for time, and don't have much to say for this one, but I'll start with a plot overview and see what follows from there.

Plot

Eshbaal is tortured by the Philistines, almost to the point of submission, but resists. He then appears before Saul and tells him he killed his captors to get free. Eshbaal also confesses that he was crowned and says he is willing to marry Dina, whom he slept with previously, leading to his banishment. Mychal comes to see David and they talk about "the story of Joseph" (Gen 50:19-20 quoted). Avner tells Saul Samuel is free. David asks Saul to let him marry Mychal (in vain). Mychal and Merab discuss who should be David's wife. David learning to fight meets Uriah. Training montage! Saul tells Ahinoam he knows about her crowning Eshbaal. Saul sends off Eshbaal with Jonathan and David to negotiate Eshbaal's marriage. Ahinoam sends away Besal, her seer. Doeg is tormented by dark visions. Saul explains to Mychal why it's best Merab marries David, and that it was her idea. Eliab's refusal to be supportive of David catches the Eshbaal's attention. Yahir, the leader of Dan, asks David to hunt with him. Eshbaal attempts to wed Yahir's daughter Dina who he supposedly seduced in series 1. Avner has Besal killed. Mychal has testy exchanges with Merab and Ahinoam. While Jonathan praises David's conviction, Saul chides Ahinoam for making decrees without him. David's party get ambushed killing Dan's leader. David asks for time before his wedding. Eshbaal proposes to Dina while Jonathan is falling for Sara. Adriel tells Saul it was David who was anointed by Samuel.

Eshbaal

This is quite an episode for Eshbaal. It opens with him (rather than one of his sisters) doing the voiceover for the opening montage, a montage in which he also stars. We see his torture, and it looks like he will succumb, but then he rallies and manages to attack his captors. We last see him in this montage holding a knife to the Philistine king's throat. He later claims to Saul that he killed his captors, but this is not actually shown. It may be true, but typically when TV shows leave such a door open, it's because they are going to walk through it a little later. We will see.

Eshbaal also reconsiders his relationship with Dina, daughter of Yahir, the leader of the tribe of Dan, and offers to marry her. She initially is not at all tempted by the idea, blaming him for disgracing her, but gradually a different side to the story, and to Eshbaal himself, emerges. Eshbaal does seem genuinely taken with Dina and he manages to either convince her of this, or at least charm her to a sufficient degree that she eventually confesses he didn't sleep with her.

From a dramatic point of view Eshbaal is a real gift to the script writers. On the one hand from re-constructing the purported history behind the biblical stories he would have been a very significant character: the son of Saul, and the only one to survive the Battle at Mount Gilboa (1 Sam 31).

But on the other hand, he's shrouded in mystery. Not only is there the ever-changing nature of his name (he's called Eshbaal or Ishbaal or Ishboseth at different points in the original texts), and the fact that he's not even mentioned in the first list of Saul's sons in 1 Sam 14:49, but also the fact he's barely mentioned until he appears being crowned by Abner/Avner in 2 Sam 2. It's possible he was much younger than Jonathan, Abinadab/Ishvi and Malchishua, or that he was a separate character who somehow got drafted into the Saul chronology (he's not crowned king in Chronicles, everyone just supports David as soon as Saul is killed).

Anyway, this leaves the writers a blank canvas which the writers of House of David have used to provide a bit more social interest to keep the dramatic flow of the series a bit more intact. And here they put it to good use. Eshbaal is very relatable, and both kind and realistic in his words to Dina. Dina agrees to marry him, on condition she doesn't bear him an heir or have to pretend to love him. At the end of the show he tells her he finds her "intriguing" she reveals that they never slept together, her father just assumed that they did (Eshbaal had passed out drunk).

Other stuff

Just a couple of points here. Firstly Mychal and David meet early in this episode and David reads to her from the written text of Genesis. Recognising what he is reading Mychal joins in and finishes his words from memory. This is sort of interesting from a few angles. Firstly, many scholars think that the text of Genesis was not in final form by this point. Of course, it could be that they have the J source in front of them (though even that would be pushing the timings), but that seems unlikely. Secondly the idea that Mychal would be reciting it also feels rather unlikely. This is something borrowed from The Chosen as an apologetics-driven way of promoting the reliability of the Bible and it feels even more out of place here, than there.

Lastly Queen Ahinoam (as pictured above in a conversation with Saul) gets a line that sounds rather portentous: "One day you will know what it's like to make terrible decisions in order to save the ones you love". She says this to (I think) Mychal, so it's not a nod towards something in the Bible, I don't think, unless it's to do with 1 Sam 19:11-17, where she puts an idol in the bed when Saul is trying to  kill David. But perhaps it just relates to another invented subplot inserted to keep the drama flowing. 

Ecoadaptation: Mediating Nature and the Environment

Ecoadaptation:
Mediating Nature and the Environment
Edited by Pamela Demory

Palgrave MacMillan
297 pages - Hardback
ISBN 978-3032098467
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007
/978-3-032-09847-4
Publication Date: 21/04/2026

I've just had a chapter published in this book Ecoadaptation: Mediating Nature and the Environment. It was a great privilege to be included in this book – my first time under the umbrella of adaptation studies – alongside some really great scholars. The book is part of the Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture (PSADVC) series. Having started my career in environmental consultancy, it was nice to see my academic work returning to a field that has always been important to me.

My chapter is called "The Ark of the Moral Universe: Recycling Genesis Toward Environmental Justice". In it I look at adaptations of the flood story, going back beyond Noah to the Sumerian flood myths of the third millennium BCE. Those of you who are regular readers might recall I ran a series on Noah adaptations back in 2024. This is the culmination of that. 

The book is available in both hardback and electronic versions now, with a paperback version due next year. I've listed the contents and the scholars names below and it will be available from all the usual places.

For the time being I am not planning to write any more chapters for edited collections, but to focus instead on my next book (though, I'm open to offers!). The last few of these I've done, my first draft has been several times the word limit and then I hate the process of cutting it down by so much. 

Anyway, congratulations to everyone involved and a special thank you to our editor Pamela Demory who was incredibly helpful and insightful with my contribution. I'm really grateful for her patience, expertise and generosity.

Contents

1 What is Ecoadaptation? And Why Should We Care?
Pamela Demory

Part I — The Nature of (Eco)Adaptation

2 Is Adaptation Natural? Ecocritical Repercussions of Conceptualizing Adaptation as Memetic Evolution and/or as (Re)Iterations in the Signifying Chain
Robert Geal

3 A History of Urgency: Cultural Transformations and Ecological Reflections in Czech Environmental Documentaries
Petr Bubeníˇcek and Tereza Dˇedinová

4 The Gloom in the Attic: Fungal Networks as Ecofeminist Adaptation Studies
Cat Champney and Juliana Jones-Beaton

Part II — Adaptation in the Age of Climate Change

5 Geo-Echolocating and Bio-Boomeranging: Rayco Pulido Rodríguez’s Nela as Ecoadaptation of Galdos’ Marianela
Christopher R. Carter

6 “I Can Hear the Glaciers Melting”: Tom Stoppard’s Radio Drama Darkside and the Exploration of Ecological Ethics via Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon
Thomas Grochowski

7 The Ark of the Moral Universe: Recycling Genesis Toward Environmental Justice
Matthew Page

8 “Posters of the Sea and Land”: Indexing Environmental Change in Alexander Abela’s Ecological Adaptation of Macbeth
Allen H. Redmon

Part III — Indigenous Nature and Culture

9 Indigo’s Challenge to The Tempest: Explorations in Ecophenomenology
Elizabeth D. Gruber

10 “A Huge Mass in a Single Hand”: Yellowstone and the Selling of Montana
Katie Kane

11 “This Is Indigenous Land”: Adapting and Protesting Colonialist Discourses through Graffiti in Forte Dos Reis Magos, Brazil
Augustto Correa Cipriani and Clara Matheus Nogueira

Part IV — The Nature of Genre Adaptation

12 The Dead Don’t Die and Zombies Don’t Run: Adapting the Zombie Apocalypse to Slow Cinema
Agnieszka Rasmus

13 Settler Ecologies and Western Adaptation: Unfitting Characters in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Susan Kollin

14 Against Nature? Queering the Romcom
Thomas Leitch

Part V — Adapting Nature

15 Biocinemimicry in The Birds
Christina Parker-Flynn

16 Material Worlds: Seventeenth-Century Vanitas Still Life and Contemporary Environmental Art
Kim Waale

17 The Nature of Experience and the Experience of Nature in Proteus: Artifact Edition

John Sanders

House of David (2026) s2e02

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). There are some major spoilers in in what follows even though most are 2500 years old.

I'm going to work with a different format this series, and generally go into a little less detail than I did with series 1 – I'm trying to be more effective in my use of time. Let's see how that goes...

Plot

Opening flash forward of a confrontation between Saul and David, before the action goes back to the procession celebrating their victory over the Philistines (a year earlier). Eshbaal is welcomed home. Avner confronts Samuel in his cell. Jonathan is "self-medicating" his battle wound before heads to the hills to recover. Daganor and Achish (remaining Philistine kings) arguing about whether they lost because they used bronze not iron. David returns home but when his new army sub-orderlies arrive Eliab refuses to submit to David and fights him. Sara removes Jonathan's arrowhead. Queen Ahinoam appeals to Samuel asking him to endorse Saul again. Merab meets with Saul and expresses her disappointment she is no longer lined up to marry. Doeg sent to torture Samuel but the prophet reveals intimate details about Doeg's past. Ahinoam suggest Saul to make David earn his preferred bride. Avner shows Saul a cowering prophet and explains that Samuel is liberated. David leaves for Jerusalem. Merib suggests a plan to Saul. Avner smuggles Goliath's sword to safety in Nob. Eshbaal brings Jonathan home (leaving Sara behind). David's return is blighted by the new that he is to marry Mirab's not Mychaal.

In contrast to the opening episode of this season, which was essentially just one long battle scene, this episode contains much, much more plot. It's a typical format for a show entering its second season to layout all the initial threads that the series will draw out and knit together as we go. And of course, those who are familiar enough with the texts can see where most of these stories are going. 

Relationships

David's relationships with Saul (the aggressor), Jonathan (the best friend) and Mychaal (the lover) are all picked up again. It's particularly interesting to see that the series looks to be delving into David's turbulent relationship with Mychaal. She isn't very well developed in the texts, but the few verses that are there in the text about Mychaal give plenty for screenwriters to work around. And the roles of Merab and Saul's queen, Ahinoam are also being developed nicely, though we know even less about them from the texts.

The Celebration

Processions are, I suppose, one of the regular markers in epic films, particularly Roman-Christian epics where the plot tends to involve the birth of Christianity coming out in opposition to Rome. The height of the Roman-Christian film was in the 1950s (Quo Vadis, The Robe, Ben-Hur and several others beside). Indeed, many came less than a decade after the falls of fascist regimes in Germany and Italy, so these processions echoed to a certain extent some of the processions of those regimes. (And Hitler had copied Mussolini who himself had tried to evoke the glories of the Roman Empire).

Here though, we're talking about a Hebrew Bible story and things are a little different. The celebration (from 1 Sam 18:6) is initiated, by the women of Israel, rather than being a top-down affair. (It also comes after a series of battle victories, rather than just one, but that's a minor detail) and it sounds much more relaxed and spontaneous ("singing and dancing... with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they made merry" NRSVUE). This is in sharp contrast to the order, discipline and structure of gleaming uniforms in rigid straight lines standing to attention for hours. I know at which one I'd rather be. 

In terms of David films, though, the procession scene following his slaying of Goliath has been a feature since at least David et Goliath (1910), where (to quote myself) David processes "through the town on a horse. He wears a crown on his head whilst a minion follows at a respectable distance with Goliath's head on a stick." (My review. You can see this film on YouTube).

There's no head on a stick here, but there are is a big speech, which is something that wasn't ideally suited to the silent medium. These do two things. Firstly the speech is by Saul which does just give the impression that the/this celebration(s) is being wrestled away from the women who organised it. But it also nudges proceeding towards that more ordered, patriarchal approach. But then this is Saul the show's antagonist, not David, its humble hero.

That more top down feeling is also reinforced by the absence of the only line of dialogue we do know from the text, where the women (specifically) sing "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands." (To some schools of thought, this poetic snippet of oral tradition is likely one of the oldest bits of text in the Bible). The use of the word "merry" in the NRSV also suggests alcohol-induced spontaneity in this chant.

Now, in fairness, I suspect that this ditty will appear later in the series – after all, in the text this isn't the account of a single incident but the stylised conglomeration of a series of events into a single story-like narrative – but nevertheless, its omission here does also move things away from spontaneity and towards something more stage-managed.

Lastly, on this. It's very noticeable that some members of the appreciative crowd also holding giant palm tree leaves. This, of course, is a nod towards Jesus' triumphal entry. As with David wearing his mother's Marian blue scarf/shawl/sash this is the show emphasising Jesus' connection with David. (Katie Turner has a little YouTube short on the textile in question). 

Metal Technology

The opening monologue to s2e01 had the narrator (who this time announces herself to be Mychaal) talking about how Goliath's sword "had a strength unmatched" developed by the "masters of the coming new age – the age of iron". This time we get the Philistines themselves discussing their technology. Daganor, a new character, comes to see Achish and tells him that the reason they lost was because he focussed on the power of his giant, rather than relying on the strength of his specially crafted sword.

"We are no longer in the age of bronze. Victory now hinges on the forging of iron." So this is the season's second mention of the transition from bronze to iron – a transition that (historically speaking) does seem to have given a military advantage to the more metallurgically advanced societies. So to put this dialogue in contemporary terms, Daganor thinks that to beat the Israelites they need to invest more in the added advantage of advanced technology. 

Interestingly he also adds that "When you created that sword for Goliath, you didn't fully understand what you had made". This, of course, is the kind of wording that lies at the heart of all dystopian sci-fi from "Frankenstein" onwards. Of course, it's worth pointing out (again) that these are what the show's bad guys are saying. And I suspect that the Philistine's reliance on iron will eventually become hubris and that Israel's dependence on God will eventually win the day. 

That said Jonathan, suffering from an infected piece of arrow lodged in his abdomen is taken into the hills to recover by Sara (another new character). She is also a tech-pioneer, and uses an arrow head removing tool that she has created. It seems oddly specific and is of a very advanced design given that using iron for anything is at the cutting edge of science (though the material it's made of is not mentioned).

Closing thoughts

There's plenty of good stuff here. Mychal's opening narrative deliciously lays out the arc for her character. She's looking back having loved David, but eventually come to see him as a man who usurped her father. But the show's going to take its time to get there. The use of the flash forward at the very beginning (in an episode that in several ways feels more like the first episode than the second) suggests that this will be where we return to by the end of the season (having not go close to it in this episode). It's still a long way from the point where Mychal might feel betrayed by David, this season is going to be about how she feels betrayed by her father.

Пустыня (The Wilderness, 1991)

A friend I know only as Shota, messaged me a while back hoping I could help them identify a European Jesus film they had seen. I couldn't, but thankfully they eventually tracked it down and were kind enough to let me know the details. They also found it on YouTube and were kind enough to provide English subtitles.

The film is called Пустыня (1991), which anglicises as Pustynya. Shota translated this as  The Desert while the IMDb page gives lists English title as The Wilderness. It was made in Odessa in 1991, then still part of the Soviet Union (just), but now part of Ukraine. To make the language situation more complicated for native English speakers, the language the actors are speaking is Aramaic, but then a man speaks in Russian translating most of what is said. 

In that way it's a little like the Lumo project only this is not by any means a word for word adaptation of one of the Gospels. Instead the film is based on two novellas by Leonid Andreyev, predominantly "Judas Iscariot" (of which there is a free translation of here), but also "Lazarus". It'll be interesting to have a look at those and see how they compare to this melded adaptation. The film has a very jumbled, non-linear storyline and it would be interestingly to see if that's a feature of the novellas, or a creative decision by director Mikhail Kats (who also wrote the screenplay).

Art film touches and the non-linear storyline

The non-linear storyline is not the only way this film eschews established Hollywood conventions. Most obviously is the way it frequently switches between colour and black-and-white, and back again. It adopts a very particular style which feels quite at home in the art films of the early late 80s/early 90s.

It generally feels quite low budget (except for the scene in Herod's palace). There are disjointed passages, a nonlinear storyline, nudity, modern music. It's quite shouty, with a screaming over-earnestness at certain points. It uses visceral imagery, for example a close-up of meat being sliced open, for example, reminiscent of certain scenes in Last Temptation of Christ. 

For anyone that was alive at the time, and watching film and TV, that style is familiar. At the same time, however, it's very unusual for a Bible film to pitch itself that way, though far from unique. There are elements of it that feel a little bit like Amos Gitai's work notably his 1986 film Esther (particularly the colour scenes within Herod's courtroom) and Golem, l'esprit de l'exil (Golem, the Spirit of Exile, 1992). There are also scenes that feel a bit like Derek Jarman's The Garden (1990), in terms of that slightly experimental, nonlinear, avant-garde sense of things. Perhaps it's somewhere between those three films — there is a narrative, but it's much more disjointed than Esther, but much more coherent than The Garden. Another film that came to mind watching this was Su Re, the Sardinian film, which is from much later (2016), but the jumbled timeline and at least the sense that certain scenes are repeated only played slightly differently when they occur again (I've not managed a second viewing). All of which makes for quite interesting watching, and its quite fresh way to approach the Jesus story.

The film starts in a remarkably bold fashion. Before the action even starts, as the credits roll, we hear a screaming voice. The image gradually comes into focus and we realise what we've been watching is an image of Jesus healing a man who was blind with mud, shown from the point of view of the man himself. This way of introducing Jesus is something Cecil B. DeMille did in The King of Kings (1927), but here it adds the element of the healing using mud, and the tone of this film: in addition to the scream, we witness to the muddy hands on Jesus, they pull away, and then we quickly get the reverse shot that shows the muddy face of the man himself. It's  quite a good strong image with which to start the film. 

Some extreme distance shots follow, where it's hard to be sure what, exactly, is going on. But then suddenly, we're then shown Judas being pulled down from a tree having hung himself. The moment in time has jumped. There's very much a sense of before or after, different narratives overlapping in a nonlinear way, making difficult for the audience to really piece together how all this works.

One of the timescales in view here is the disciple John, who seems to be reliving it. In this production John is not only the disciple, but also the writer of Revelation, and there's a reference to the sixth seal (Rev 6:12-17). It also seems that he is blind. The film then cuts back to the trial, where we get a particularly bad depiction of Caiaphas in terms of antisemitic stereotypes: he's got a hooked nose, a long, scruffy beard and hair, there's a lot of showy, but tacky-seeming jewellery / regalia that situates him among scores of very bad Jewish stereotypes.

At the same time as the trial is happening, we get what seems to be both Peter and/or Judas in the courtyard outside, Peter warming his hands, and occasionally denying he knows Jesus. And these scenes contrast with the moment we've already seen where the disciples recall Jesus saying to Judas "What you must do, do quickly", and calling Judas "traitor" and "filth". Incidentally, Jesus (pictured below) is often referred to as "Rabbi" during the film. He's also called Yeshua throughout this film and a couple of times called Yeshua HaNotzri. 

Language and biblical quotes

Another one of these 90s art-film elements is, of course, the way it uses language. The film mixes up biblical quotations and everyday language in quite an interesting fashion. Some lines feel very much rooted in the here-and-now. There's discussion of a broken gate "For a year now I can't get new bolts" mixed in with direct quotes from Jesus, usually presented out-of-context and quite esoterically. Often they appear in the lips of others who are quoting Jesus. In contrast to the every day language such as the above the quotes from the Gospels have quite traditional, recognisable, phrasing but they emerge in very unfamiliar settings, and very often quite isolated. That and the unfamiliar formal elements makes Пустыня feel like the work of someone who's a big fan of the Gospel of Thomas or perhaps the theoretical sayings 'gospel' Q.

Here are the ten parts of the script where a quotation was fairly unambiguously from the Gospels (I may have missed some)

• "A tree that bears no good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matt 7:19)(Thm.43c) 
• "Whoever saves his life will lose it." (Mark 8:35)
• "Many are called, few are chosen." (Matt 22:14)(Thm.75)
• "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matt 7:1-2)(Q)
• "Sooner shall heaven and earth cease to exist than a single stroke of the law given by my Father shall pass away" (Matt 5:18)(Q)
• "He who has ears, let him hear" (Mark 4:9)(Thm.96)
• "Do you not know that not a single hair can fall from one's head without the will of Him who sent me" (Mash-up of Matt 10:29-10; Luke 12:7; Luke 21:18)
• Mention of paying taxes to Caesar (Mark 12:13-17)(Thm.100)
• If you have faith even as a mustard seed, you could move mountains" (Matt 17:20)(Q)
• "The servant is not greater than his master" (John 13:16)
• "Whoever wishes to be first among all, must be a servant of all." (Mark 9:35)

In terms of the citations above (first bracket), where a quotation appears in more than one canonical gospel I've cited the one that is generally considered the earliest. All of the quotations are from the canonical gospels. However, in the second bracket I've marked whether the saying also appears in the Gospel of Thomas. Where the earliest citation is Matthew, but also appears in Luke I've indicated this by using the letter Q. This will probably annoy my fellow Q-sceptics, because this material should just be called the double-tradition material, but my reasoning is that this rather esoteric presentation of Jesus' words – plucked out of context, given an other-worldly feel, and not really presented in conventional life-of-Christ fashion – do feel more in line with Q than with the idea of Luke copying Matthew. (Besides, it doesn't have to have existed for writer/director Mikhail Kats to have believed in it.)

Other disciples

Part of the reason this feels a little more esoteric is because Jesus is not really on screen that much. He pops up in the occasional scene, and occasionally says or does something we recognise from the Gospels, but this is much more of a film about Judas, as might be expected given Andreyev's source material.

In contrast several of the other disciples are also more fully developed, and not just Peter and John as mentioned above. For example, we get introduced to Levi, and this name is used instead of "Matthew". As someone who is, himself, called Matthew, this grabs my attention. The Gospels never make this connection between Levi and Matthew explicitly. Mark and Luke name "Matthew" as one of the twelve, and tell a separate story of a converting tax collector called "Levi" without connecting them. Matthew's Gospel, however, changes the name of this tax collector to Matthew, so there is no Levi in his text. Given a number of more fluid name changes in the Gospels and the Bible more broadly it's very reasonable to assume this is another case. Yet Jesus films usually just go with Matthew presumably because he also holds interest as the Gospel writer. That said there is some dialogue in Jesus of Nazareth where Matthew introduces himself as, "Matthew... or Levi, I'm known by both names" and Peter fires back "and others". 

The role of Thomas is also significantly expanded. He first appears being carried into a scene by the disciples, who retrieve his battered body from a village in which he has been attacked. Initially, they say they killed him, but he is actually still alive, a broken, bloody, beaten body. The implication is that the attack took place while he was preaching in said village. The disciples describe how his eyes have been gouged and he was stoned.

Towards the end of the film both Levi and a restored Thomas both become more dominant and seem to have more power than Peter or John (who remains blind throughout). It's also not until the end of the film that we see any of Jesus' women followers. 

Herod and Salomé

We also encounter John the Baptist, and indeed there is quite a bit of talk about him when he is not on screen. There is quite a bit of detail about the events leading up to his death, and the scene of his execution at Herod's banquet is particularly long (particularly given the length of most of the other scenes in the film). It's also nearly all in colour, save a few shots of the corridors and minor rooms of the palace.

Herod, Herodias and her daughter (who is named as Salomé) are all there, but we get introduced to another character who is referred to, fairly consistently as Hegemon/hegemon. I don't know whether this is a name, but I suspect it's just a designation (as in "hegemon" someone from the ruling group) for Pilate. In contrast to a lot of other portrayals of Pilate here seems queer-coded, which is how many Jesus films have portrayed Herod. Certainly as also called Procurator a few times. He is also the one pushing Judas to betray Jesus.

Salomé's dance is one of the more erotically charged portrayals. We only ever really see from the waist down, with occasional full length shots, but it's difficult to really identify her as a figure until John the Baptist is brought and we actually see her face. In addition to Salomé's dance, the banquet is also served by naked waitresses, which adds to the unusual atmosphere in that place (as does the slap bass track accompanying it).

Eventually, we get the procession that brings John the Baptist's head to the table for Herod to show Salomé and, as with Jesus, Nuestro Senor (1971), we see John's severed head open its eyes. Unsurprisingly, this terrifies Salomé and she runs off. Herod however continues to look at John's severed head and hears John's voice.

Hebrew Bible Fabrication

John's voice returns fairly shortly after to haunt Herod. There's a fantastic extra-high shot of  Herod standing on the top of his palace, on top of high, rocky outcrop. As he looks out  John's words ring in his ears, which I'll quote in full here:

Listen to me.

The walls of your fortress shall crumble.

Dust from Parthian hooves shall cover your cities like a shroud.

The enemy shall brand your body with tempered iron.

Hungry dogs will lick your wounds on the last night of your death agony.

Such is the prophecy of the Lord God.

And then your pride shall scatter to dust.

When your name becomes merely a symbol of lawlessness,

I shall be glorified with your name.

I shall be glorified by generations to come, by elders and children.

Such is the prophecy of the Lord God.

What I find interesting about this is that to the casual listener, it sounds like it's a direct quotation from one of the prophets from the Hebrew Bible. No such passage exists. Indeed, it's cleverer than that because each line has 3 or 4 echoes from the Hebrew Bible, but it never really copies a specific line directly . I've combined all the echoes (A)I found into one giant Bible Gateway link. These combined together have the feel of quite late Hebrew Bible language / early apocalyptic sentiments which seems, broadly speaking, roughly in line with the little we know of John's message.

Part Two

Just before the hour mark an intertitle announces part two, though neither the disjointed narrative or the combination of two sources into one really give any clue as to why this is. Nevertheless, we reach of scene where the temple authorities have gathered and start to talk about Jesus and what he has been saying and doing. The story of the Samaritan woman at the well is recounted, while someone else mentions Jesus' evasive answer regarding paying taxes to Caesar. Then there are also mentions of his parables and miracles, notably his raising of Lazarus, and discussion about the clearing of the temple. All in all, this is one of the most informed sets of the temple authorities I've seen in a Jesus film. Finally one of the assembled delivers the line "Better that one-man perish than the whole nation."

The  authorities, aside from Caiaphas' ornate costume mentioned above, all have the classic tea towel and headband costumes style costumes. I imagine this is probably for budgetary reasons, it does really emphasise the very low-budget feel of this production (Herod's palace aside), while it also adding to its strangeness. And its worth stressing that while the budget might feel low, some of the cinematography is absolutely superb. The screengrab below (of John in front of the authorities) doesn't really capture the beauty of the shot (it's more the shot as a whole than one frame).

The debate between the authorities is paired with a similarly heated debate among the disciples among which of them is the greatest, but by the time we have joined it, this once theological discussion has descended into a macho competition to see who can chuck rocks the furthest off the edge of a cliff. This particularly inappropriate method of determining which of them will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven really highlights their pettiness in a way few films really tackle. 

Of course, eventually one of the disciples takes news of the argument back to Jesus, and returns to tell his confused colleagues that "he said that a servant is not greater than his master, and that whoever wishes to be first among all, must be a servant of all." (John 13:16 & Mark 9:35)

Death of Jesus?

We then cut to the flagellation scene, which is taking place inside somewhere with Jesus, already tied/chained in a cross position. It's here Jesus is referred to as Yeshua HaNotzri. We also get Judas referred to as "the son of Kerioth" (which is one possible meaning for "Iscariot"), and John as the son of Zebedee when it turns out that they are the witnesses for Jesus's trial. 

While Jesus' trial is happening, a large, raucous, Jewish crowd arrives carrying fire torches and chanting "Hit him! Crush him!". This is rather problematic, given the history of antisemitism, not least the way that Judas is also hounded by them. Indeed, then the film jumps back to a similar moment that turns out not to be to do with the trial. Instead Judas is being chased and comes to the disciples, and then to Jesus, to escape. Jesus faces up to the crowd, and then we see his heart bleeding.

There are a couple of quotations here from Isaiah (42:1 & 52:13) including part of the "suffering servant" passage: "Behold my servant, exalted and lifted up". and "Judas causing a money-loving fraud." There's a beautiful shot of John at 91 minutes (above) as he gives his testimony, and then a brief change between colour and black and white, as a battered Jesus is brought into the trial room. But it's only when John hears that a second testimony will be given by Judas that he starts screaming. He thought he was doing what Jesus asked him but now realises the predicament he is in. 

Hegemon/Pilate washes his hands, we get what looks like a reaction shot (close-up) of Jesus and then more words from Isaiah's suffering servant passage (Is53:4-5). And suddenly there's a flashback and we're back with the disciples and Jesus speaking aphorisms that are not from any of the ancient texts, such as "You pick a stalk of grain and crush it to make bread. Are you not killing? And when you pick the vine and press the juice from its berries — is that not killing?"

And this is more or less the last we see of Jesus. There follows much argument between the disciples and the flashbacks between John in Jesus' day and an older John continue and intensify. Eventually we see the older John feeling, embracing and then kneeling before a slightly less than life-sized sculpture of Jesus. And it's this that is as close as we ever get to seeing the death of Jesus. We see him battered at his trial and this memorial of his crucifixion, but it's unclear whether the event itself ever actually happened and whether that's because the creative team were aiming for a more artistic interpretation or more historically ambiguous one.

The scene after this shows a young man drop into a room carved into the stone containing empty tomb paraphernalia, such as a draped white sheet, flames, carved figures, beams of light and a simple memorial cross, and he then reads from a scroll "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God." And then there's another cut and a montage of people pacing thoughtfully, gradually coming together to form some kind of procession.

In the last six minutes there's a change in tone, almost without a clear end point. There's this silent procession. We get the operatic sounds of the Hebrew song "Él Málé Ráchámim-Gyászének", and t then the film's final image is of a candlelit boat floating on the water, away from the camera.

Final thoughts

Пустыня is a really interesting film because it takes a very different approach to the story. The disjointedness of it is particularly interesting, given that this is actually how people quite often experience the stories about and sayings of Jesus. Most people don't usually read them all the way through, even those of us who do that occasionally. 

With Jesus films, however, we tend to watch them all the way through and follow their conventional narrative (with some exceptions). But here, the Jesus material is a bit here, a bit there, and jumbled up, as they are, perhaps, bits of the Bible are read in church. So this film's approach is quite an interesting way of doing it.

It also means it puts the viewer a bit more on edge. The storyline is no longer familiar. You're not quite sure what is happening, what's going to happen next, whereabouts in the story you are, what is being portrayed. It's much harder to get a sense of it, and you have that disorientation that one could perhaps argue was felt by Jesus' first followers. 

So it's beautiful and strange, and certainly worth checking out for those who are interested in approaching the Gospels from a different perspective or for that matter those who are interested in late soviet era filmmaking.

House of David (2026) s2e01

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). There are some major spoilers in in what follows even though most are 2500 years old.

The new season of House of David has recently landed on Amazon Prime, and having enjoyed Season 1 I am keen to catch up on it, not least because it ended in the middle of the battle just moments after David has killed Goliath.

LORD of the Rings

But before we get to the battle, though the series tries to tap into some Tolkein-esque mythologising around Goliath's sword. As Goliath falls and the Israelites advance a young-ish female voice, narrating in slow measured tones, says 

They say there was none like it: the sword of Goliath. Born in the fire it had a strength unmatched for those who could harness it. It would change how wars are fought. Change the very world itself. Those who wield its power would conquer nations, destroy their enemies. Just as the Philistines sought to destroy us, desperate to claim their place as masters of the coming new age – the age of iron. This is what they say, but I know the truth: a sword is only as powerful as the one who wields it.

This voiceover is accompanied by scenes of the sword being forged in the fires of a furnace, molten metal, the writing in a strange looking script, scenes of battle as well as the ethereally soundtrack.  The tone and style of voiceover, the words themselves and the imagery leave no doubt that this is a nod to Cate Blanchett's famous opening voiceover to Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Here it is for comparison:

It all began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves; immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven, to the Dwarf Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern over each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret, a master ring, to control all others. And into this ring he poured all his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all.  

The most notable thing though, is that in contrast to Galadriel's monologue, House of David's narrator seems to want to debunk the mythology of the magical object of her world.

I find all of this interesting because I'm thinking quite a bit about more right-leaning politics in the current crop of biblical films being made at the moment. For one thing I'm writing this after one of the Evangelical pastors who prayed at the White House last week, Lorenzo Sewell, speaking about Trump's role in the Iran conflict said "The Bible is a book of war. God is a God of war".(1) For another I'm struck by the release of two major biblical productions, in the last 12 months that have focused on Israel's warrior king David (the other being the animated David 2025, not-yet released in the UK), though both went into production long before Trump began his second term. 

Still this Lord of the Rings-esque opening might not have grabbed my attention but for the fact that I also became aware recently of the increasing popularity of The Lord of the Rings among figures on the right such as Giorgia Meloni , Elon Musk and JD Vance.(2) Interesting co-incidences which I'll probably regret commenting on in future.

Anyway it's interesting that while this segment invokes Tolkein, it also ends by refusing to give in to the idea of magical tokens like the sword of Goliath. So, aside from trying to appeal to the large audience who loves LotR, it's difficult to know if this is trying to appeal to right-leaning fans of Tolkein; rebuke them; or find a middle ground where the show mirrors back to people what they want to take from it. 

The battle

The remainder of the battle takes up about two-third of this episode, but it's actually handled pretty well. There's a sense of chaos and disorientation, which intuitively feels like what one might expect a battle would be like, but it never loses either the sense of which characters are which; nor the overall sense that the battle is flowing Israel's way. In other words it does a great job of combing the personal and the bigger picture. 

On top of this, Jon Erwin and his team, do a good job of making this look more expensive than it surely way. Most of the battle takes place amid a heavy night time misty, dusty, smog, but these close-up shots are complemented by distance shots which portray the size and scale of the battle. And the costumes are good (by which I don't mean "accurate"), which certainly helps.

The battle, and indeed the whole episode, more or less seems to cover just a verse and a bit from 1 Samuel 17:48-53. Here the author describes the Philistines as fleeing back to Gath. I've always thought of this as being something that happened in a fairly linear fashion, but of course that is a gross over simplification of how a battle such as this would go. Here they very much spill into the surrounding area.

Personal stories

Amidst the fighting, there are four personal stories which are flowing in the middle of all of this. 

The first concerns Jonathan and particularly his attitude to both David and to Achish. Both men met as boys when Saul killed Achish's father after a similar victory and the two face each other again on this battlefield. But we also seem him reconnect with David and giving him an impromptu fighting lesson in the midst of the battle

Secondly, we find that Agag is still haunting Saul. While he ought to be focussing on the battle he can't get the slain king of the Agagites out of his mind. Eventually at the end of the episode he manages to kill his imagined image of him once again. While we know this is unlikely to  improve Saul's mental health overall, it seems we're at least meant to think he has point his torment over the Aga issue behind him. We also see a flashback to Saul's anointing. This is seemingly part of the reason why, at the end of the episode he has Samuel (who spent the battle on top of a hill overlooking the battle, only briefly having to pause to smash a couple of stray Philistines with his staff) arrested.

Then we see Saul's daughters Mychal and Merib imperilled as the battle spills out in their direction. It does perhaps seem a little unlikely the princesses would find themselves in a potential conflict situation. Anyway, just as in series 1 we see that they are both made of sterner stuff that might be assumed. Here  is pulls a trip wire and stabs a Philistine soldier, as does her sister Merib. 

Finally we get David's brother Nathaneel who fares rather less well. Having finally learned to appreciate his younger brother and just as he is celebrating victory he gets killed by an arrow. He's not had much screen time so it's in the series' favour that this is fairly affecting.

Anyway, a good start to the series. It will be interesting to see how quickly the rest of the season progresses through the rest of 1 Samuel.

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

(1) Sunday on BBC Radio 4. 5th April 2026. Available online at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002tp9g
(2) Counterpoint: I am also aware of many lovers of Tolkein who very much leftwards and would describe Lord of the Rings as a work about tackling fascism.

A few thoughts on The Chosen's "The Complete Last Supper"

It's been a year since series 5 of The Chosen, subtitled The Last Supper was showing in theatres. One of the most innovative things that series 5 did was in its portrayal of Jesus' last meal with his disciples. Rather than showing it all as one, rather long, scene, it broke it down into eight sections and began each episode with one of these sections. To add an extra twist they arranged the sections in reverse chronological order, Memento-style, so while the main part of each episode moves forwards chronologically, the Last Supper chunks are jumping backwards (and then playing through forwards to where the previous section had begun).

This was one of the more controversial decisions made during the last series, with many of those, even on the fan forums, saying they disliked this approach and would have preferred a more conventional, linear progression. Personally I always like it, not least because, as we've discovered today, the whole scene, shown in order, last for a full 50 minutes and is a little bit testing on the attention span.

Since the series' release, Dallas Jenkins and team have faced numerous questions and requests to show the whole scene in chronologically and had always said they had no plans to do so. That was until today, when The Chosen's official channel, release the entire scene in chronological order. Again, while I liked the original innovative approach, there was certainly a groundswell of support for this, so I'm pleased that they decided to acquiesce. I like the humility of accepting that maybe the people may have had a point. And Good Friday is a great time to do it.

Watching it like this, which was the first time I've revisited this series since I saw it in the cinema, I had a bunch of new (minor) thoughts about it so I thought I would get them down while I had a moment.

Dispensing with Mark

In The Chosen Mark is a teenage boy whose parents own the house with the upper room where the Last Supper takes place. Most people assume, then, that this is the same Mark who go on to write the earliest Gospel. 

The series suggests that the expectation was that Mark would be washing the disciples feet, but Jesus dismisses him so he could celebrate Passover with his family. Firstly, I like this because it does bring out the human side to this scene and some of the realities. If Jesus had to do it someone else would have had to instead. We don't know what happened to that person, but as speculation goes, this is quote nice.

It is another example of The Chosen double-underlining, though. It wants to make the point that Jesus is good. So it includes him washing the disciples feet (it's a key story after all), but that doesn't go far enough for the show. Jesus acting like this not only teaches his disciples an important lesson, it also enables a servant to spend the Passover with his folks.

It does, however, introduce a bit of a wrinkle into the series' determination to present the Gospel writers as eye-witness. Obviously as Mark's last (and possibly only) contact with Jesus, this moment would have had a major impact on him, especially given Jesus's generosity. So why, then, would Mark not include the foot-washing element, in his own Gospel (it's only found in John). This seems even odder [still not very odd, I grant you] given that Mark's presentation of Jesus is often described as that of the Suffering servant.

Banquo's Ghost

Next, and this is a brief one, is that part way through Jesus' pre-meal speech, just after he says "abide in me" (16 minutes), Jesus looks up to the end of the table and sees / imagines John the Baptist at the end of the table smiling back at him. No-one else sees the Baptist. It's a nice touch. It struck me, this time, however, that this scene – even if unwittingly – draws on the imagery of Banquo's Ghost from Macbeth. It's true that there, the story is about how the speech-giving king is terrified by this spectral presence, whereas here, this king is reassured and comforted by his insubstantial guest. I guess others might look at this and see Yoda, Anakin and Obi Wan at the end of The Return of the Jedi (where the tone is similar, but a different number of guests). And others will see other influences. It was just something that occurred to me.

The breaks

Without having run a close-ish analysis of the scene, my overall impression is that most of this scene is paraphrased from the Gospels. As ever, characters make little asides, the occasional additional prophecy / reference from the Hebrew Bible gets introduced, but overall there are only two major interludes. The second is the corporate recital of the Jewish prayer the Dayenu (where one person reads out a stage in Israel's history before the group choruses "it would have been enough"). This becomes a major element of this episode 4. Not only does the episode start with this section from the last supper, but at the end of the episode Jesus eats with the women of the group who craft their own appropriation of the phrase with Jesus, rather than God as it's focus. I wrote more about that in my review of The Chosen: Last Supper - Part 2. I'd forgotten, though, that James already begins this process of bringing Jesus into the heart of this traditional Jewish prayer

But the other major interlude occurs about 19 minutes in to the episode, where having just predicted Judas' betrayal he says "I need a moment" and gets down from the table. While this is happening others step away from the table and soon everyone is either seeking to demonstrate to the others that they are not the traitor, or to work out who it is, or to check with Jesus that its not them. 

I initially thought this was to allow the screenwriters to fuse Mark and John's accounts together, but actually on closer inspection I was wrong about this. I guess partly it just allows the filmmakers to introduce a bit of action into the scene and partly, it enables them to cover various one-to-one conversations that take place after Jesus announces his betrayal, without them seeming weird.

One of the ways this works is that it puts a big gap between the point when Jesus first announces he is going to be betrayed, the sign that Jesus gives as to who the betrayer is, and, Judas leaving the room. These things vary quite a bit between the Gospels (not least the extent to which Jesus gives away who is betrayer will be), Here, though Jesus announces, has a break and then after the break Jesus starts a new topic: a more compassionate response.

Camera friendly set up

One thing that struck me this time around was how camera-friendly the arrangement of the tables is here. Those seeking to compose this scene tend to give it a lot of thought. Some reproduce Leonardo's famous rendering of this scene, as a nod to our cultural heritage (or something). Others eschew such traditional approaches and try to do their own thing, such as the Y-shaped table in King of Kings (1961). 

I suppose Leonardo's own composition was to produce an image of this scene that worked for his medium. By having Jesus and his disciples all down one-side of the table (an otherwise impractical and unlikely scenario) he is able to show all their faces and not to have their faces hidden besides some one's head.

So it struck me how this arrangement was equally suited to the practicalities of this medium as it provides plenty of space for the camera and the lighting (critical for difficult-to-photograph candle-light effects). This is particularly useful for such a long scene where there are so many interactions between the differnt disciples (whereas often just Jesus speaks). The extra space not only allows Jesus to scoot round the outside and wash everyone's feet, it also allows the camera operators to move their equipment around and get the close-up / wide shot they need to the series.

A couple of lines

A couple of lines stood out to me this time around. Firstly, Jesus' final words to Judas are "He has you now..." followed by "Not God" when Judas asks "Who?". This seems, to me, to go beyond the harshness of the Gospels. The "He" in this case is never stated explicitly, but the audience has good reason to think it's Satan. But in John 13:27 it just says that "Satan entered into him" which, to me at least" seems a bit worse.

Lastly, in Luke's Gospel there is a slightly odd moment where Jesus warns that of they don't have a sword they should sell their cloak to buy one (Luke 22:36). when one disciple says that they have two swords he replies, slightly oddly "It is enough". Here the screenwriters smooth this out by having Zee state "Here are two swords. It's not enough to defend 12 men against violent attacks..." before Jesus then counters with his "It is enough" as per Luke, but here it works much better.

Bible and Film:An International and Intercultural Exploration

Bible and Film: An International and Intercultural Exploration
Melody D. Knowles
(with Ian N. Mills)

Wiley
226 pages - Paperback
Published 2nd April 2026 
ISBN: 978-1394350315

I was asked to endorse this new book on Bible films and I have done so very happily, as it's well worth getting. I thought I'd offer a few thoughts on it as it is the book's publication day today.

Firstly, here's the blurb I wrote that is excerpted on the back cover

With its important emphasis on films from around the globe, Melody Knowles’s “Bible and Film” is a really valuable addition to the ongoing discussion about cinema and Bible. The inclusion of international productions from well outside the Hollywood bubble should hopefully stimulate far wider discussion.

What is the book about?

As the title suggests Knowles is particularly interested in comparisons of how the Bible is adapted within different cultures. So, after an initial introduction to the subject (including "Interculturality and the Bible") each chapter then tackles a key story/group of stories from the Bible and focuses on three key films for each. The three films vary in their historic era and/or cultural backgrounds, so, for example, eight of the eighteen films focussed on here are from outside the United States. 

The six chapters cover Genesis (particularly Noah); Exodus/Moses; the David narratives; politics in Jesus's ministry; the crucifixion in musicals / comedy (written by guest author Ian Mills); and, lastly, examining Jesus traditions in the light of Jesus films. Chapters end with discussion questions and there's a glossary of cinematic terms, which pairs nicely with the practical section in the introduction offering tips for screening Jesus films from different contexts.   

What's good about this book?

Awareness of biblical films from outside Hollywood has grown substantially over this century, but even so it's great to see a book that not only celebrates and appreciates that, but makes it a fundamental part of its discussion. It brings in some Bible films that have only rarely, if ever, been discussed. For example, even I haven't seen Dornford-May's Unogombe Noye's Fludde (2013), and Milo Rau's Das neue Evangelium – from which the the book takes it's striking front cover – was only released in 2020. Some of these films take a breathtakingly fresh approach to their texts and it's great to see a fuller discussion of those.

The three-films-per-chapter structure works really well. It enables the reader to get a good feel for each movie (even if they haven't seen them, or been able to) and still allow enough time to dwell in the comparisons between them, which is the beating heart of this book. Placing Karunamayadu (1978) and Jesus of Montreal (1989) in trialogue with Pasolini's Il vangelo second Matteo (1964), for example, made me consider the political angles to those films in a way that I have never really considered. Knowles is not just saying 'hey these films are different' but actually getting to the heart of what they are about in their own cultural contexts. 

Similarly, I appreciated her not only approaching the David story from the gender angle (continuing the work of Cheryl Exum) but introducing Rei Davi into that discussion to update it. (I was disappointed not to be able to watch more of this series when I wrote about David films a decade or so ago). 

In addition to the main flow of the writing, Knowles includes a number of sidebars in boxes, which I think helps break-up the text in a way that is useful for those not used to reading long academic titles, or who like to read in short-bursts (guilty as charged....). These enable her to niftily add this useful extra information without spoiling the flow of the overall article and cover a diverse range of subjects from interpretative issues with biblical films (p.28-9) to explaining J-cuts and L-cuts (p.241) 

Any other thoughts?

I really admire the way Knowles, recognising the limits of her own "capacity as someone who focuses primarily on the Hebrew Bible", brought in Ian N. Mills to write an extra chapter (p.4). It's that kind of commitment to making the book the best it can that goes a good way to explaining why the book works so well.

Overall?

As said above, this is another valuable book on the Bible and Film and while it's aimed at an audience who is more at home in theology rather than film studies, Knowles works hard to make sure the cinematic elements are a fundamental part of the discussion. The helpful 'explainers' will mean it works well as an introductory text for those with little experience, but there's plenty of food for thought for those of use who are a little more well-versed in the field.

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→ If you're interested in other books on the subject you can read my other reviews.

→ Or you can find out about the books I have written and contributed to.

La Passione (Carlo Mazzacurati,2010)

I just came across this interesting sounding Italian "making a Passion play" film, La Passione directed by Carlo Mazzacurati in 2010. The plot seems to be that a film director reluctantly agrees to direct a small Tuscan town's Good Friday celebrations in order to avoid getting sued. So it's another film about people making a Passion play.

I came across it looking at the filmography of one of Nanni Moretti's frequent collaborators Silvio Orlando, who has starred in at least 4 of the films directed by Moretti as well as co-starring in Mia Madre (2014). 

From the look of the trailer its a comedy, perhaps albeit with some more emotional moving reflection at the end of the film. There also seems to be some borrowing from Jesus of Montreal (1989). This clip certainly has some familiar resonances, so I'm assuming an influence on some level, if not actual homage.

I'll try and get hold of a copy and see what it's like and report back. Meanwhile I've updated my list of Italian Jesus films to include this and a number of other titles I've discovered since 2019 when I first wrote it.