The Red Tent - Scene Guide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Red Tent (2014)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dinah and the Shechemites in Film

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matriarchy and Feminism in Genesis

I've been looking at the biblical Matriarchs on film and particularly how that is viewed from a feminist perspective. Part of the problem with this starts with the question of who exactly qualifies as a Matriarch in the Bible. For the men it is easy - the Hebrew patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the fathers of the nation. For the women though it is more complicated. The inclusion of Sarai and Rebekah is simple enough, but Jacob had two wives Rachel and Leah., Furthermore, some of his sons were the children of his servants Bilhah and Zilpah, should they be included? And if so what about Abraham's servant Hagar? And then there's the question of Eve, technically she is the mother of humanity itself, but there seems a stronger link somehow between her motherhood and Adam's fatherhood. Should she be included in such a discussion? Should Noah's unnamed wife?

Like the biblical stories themselves, film adaptations of Genesis have tended to prioritise their Patriarchs over their Matriarchs. Cinema has tended to adopt a male point of view and done little to minimise the inherent sexist assumptions of the text.

Eve
Perhaps the Matriarch, if we can call her that, who has fared least worst amongst the films based on Genesis is Eve, who typically enjoys as much screen time as her husband. That said Eve portrayal is typically no less problematic for two main reasons. Firstly, despite the fact that most theologians would tend to accept a metaphorical interpretation of the story of The Fall, the vast majority of film adaptations literalise it and hence tend to portray Eve as more culpable than her husband. This is frequently intensified by the number of films in which Eve is initially portrayed as the object of the male gaze. Several films emphasise this point further by ensuring the audience's first sight of Eve being via a shot from Adam's point of view.

The second reason that portrayals of Eve are problematic is their sexualisation of Eve. Whilst Eve's nakedness is found in the text, it is often used as a form of titillation. Eve is typically depicted as a slim, beautiful, young, and often blond woman whose body is almost entirely exposed but for the odd strategically-placed plant. One imagines that pornographic films such as Bible (dir: Wakefield Poole, 1974), do not stray too far from the approach of the more mainstream releases.

Sarai and Hagar
In recent years more progressive visions of the women of Genesis have begun to emerge, in contrast to films such as The Bible (dir: John Huston, 1966) which, for example, leaves the text's repeated shaming of the childless Sarai very much unchallenged. One more recent film to draw attention to the problematic portrayal of Sarai in the text is 2003's comic The Real Old Testament (dir: Curtis Hannum) which juxtaposes ancient values against modern ones by relocating the characters from Genesis in the format of a reality TV show (specifically The Real World which has been running since 1992). As there is so little biblical material to define her, Sarai (Kate Connor) naturally channels modern values and thus appears as a more sane, rational character than her more awe-struck and compliant husband or than the egotistical "God". The narrative sticks closely to the Bible, but the camera gives Sarah more time and a fairer hearing than most films she is presented as the wittiest and most attractive character of the three. When God and Abraham talk about circumcising Abraham's entire tribe or sacrificing Isaac, she double-takes or raises an eyebrow to the camera expecting viewers will see the same peculiarity as she does.†

Sadly the next major portrayal of Sarah, in the TV series The Bible (2013) (pictured) reverts very much to type, unmoved by the fifty years of feminism since Huston's earlier film. Few films seek to understand Sarai, let alone sympathise with her, often depicting her dealings with Hagar in an even poorer light than the texts, for example making Hagar carry heavy loads even when very heavily pregnant.

However. the portrayal of Hagar is often similarly unsympathetic. Whereas the text says only that she "despised" Sarai, several films show her criticising Sarai to her face for being barren. I wrote more about this in my piece on films about Ishmael a few years ago.

The intention here consistently seems to be to portray Abraham as decent, sympathetic and essentially good. Unfortunately given that he would have been her social superior. He comes across as weak and controlled by Sarah, rather than the master of his own destiny. The consistently shrewish portrayals of Sarah are bolstered by many films using a voice-over to inform the audience that God has also reassured Abraham that he is making the correct decision. The efforts to beatify Abraham also extend to the portrayal of Ishmael's conception. Almost universally this is depicted as Sarah's suggestion, for example in Abraham (Joseph Sargent, 1994).

Rebekah
In contrast to Sarai, the Bible portrays Rebekah in marginally more positive light. She hears God for herself (indeed her husband is bypassed) and takes an active role in ensuring the words she has heard from him come to pass. Yet, if anything, Sarah's daughter-in-law Rebekah fairs even worse in cinema and television. Things started well enough, with Henri Andréani making a film for Pathé in which she was the lead character. Rebecca (1913) told the story of Abraham's servant meeting with her at the well in village of Nacaor. She has featured in few films since, however, with Marcello Baldi's Giacobbe: L'uomo che  lottò con Dei (Jacob: The Man who Fought with God, 1963) and Peter Hall's Jacob (1994) being notable exceptions. In both she is shown as the initiator of Jacob's deception of Isaac in order to fulfil his mother's prophecy. In Baldi's film, Jacob view's Esau selling of his birthright for a bowl of soup as "just a joke", but Rebekah has the foresight to see it as a fulfilment of her prophecy. Hall's film further justifies Rebekah's actions by giving her the additional insight that, of her two sons, Jacob would make the better leader of the tribe after her husband death. Giving her the additional insight that Jacob would make a better leader of the tribe than his brother because he is "a man who cares about the tribe", emphasising her wisdom rather than her deception.

Leah and Rachel
Unsurprisingly both films also feature Rachel and Leah. The actresses playing the role in Baldi's film looks so physically different that it is hard to imagine they are sisters. Rachel is blonde and fair-skinned, whereas Leah has looks more typical of the region, but also has noticeable hair on upper lip. Given the way that the Bible contrasts Rachel's beauty with her supposedly "plain" sister (Gen 29:17-19), it is not difficult to interpret the differing appearance of these two actresses as reinforcing racist/sexist western notions of perceived beauty.

One incident that tends to get very little coverage in bilical film is the passage from Genesis 30 dealing with the birth of Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah's children. Typically the important and more human, fallible details of the passage tend to get glossed over to produce a mere genealogy on the "sons of Jacob" (when his involvement would have been relatively minor compared to that of the four women). There is an significant amount of potential human interest in this story which rarely gets picked up by dramatists. There's also a slight comic undertone to the text's portrayal of Jacob's wives trading sex with him for the hallucinogenic fertility-aid mandrake plant (Gen. 30:14-17). Only two films depict this incident, the word-for-word adaptation Genesis (director unnamed, 1979), produced by John Heyman for The New Media Bible and The Real Old Testament which makes the most of the peculiarity of the passage. Again the spoofing of both the biblical text and 90s youth culture mean that the incident is played as a bunch of college students getting high, where sex is a far lower ranking commodity than drugs.

Having died before the start of the film, Rachel is physically absent from La Genèse (Cheick Oumar Sissoko, 1998), yet her absence (along with the 'loss' of her son Joseph) haunts the film, which charts the woes of Jacob's clan later years. Beset by grief, Jacob remains in his tent for much of the film, only being persuaded to leave when relations with the neighbouring tribes come to a crisis point. Unwilling or unable to cope with his troublesome sons and in fear of his brother the tribe is cast into crisis which manifests itself in various ways not least the story of another kind-of-Matriarch Tamar, and her dealings with her husband's father.

Leah, however, has survived, making La Genèse the only film to depict her but not her sister. It gives voice to the unfair treatment she has received from Jacob. In her opening line she exclaims "I have no husband! My children are fatherless. I have no place in your heart." She is also shown as an active character protesting about the rape of her daughter Dinah by interrupting and disrupting the conversation between Jacob and Hamor, overturning Hamor's gifts and also complaining about her sons failure to respond properly to Dinah's rape.

Dinah is the subject of arguably the most radical retelling of the Matriarch's stories, The Red Tent (Roger Young, 2014) which not only tells various stories from the latter part of Genesis from her perspective, but also places the other women in the stories at its narrative centre. Dinah describes her mother Leah as "strong and capable and splendidly arrogant" and Zilpah and Bilhah as aunts, rather than mere slaves. At the centre of the story (and it is implied the tribe) is this community of women and their private space, the red tent of the title. It also takes the radical step of making the bridal night swap Rachel's idea, to which Leah acquiesces, unbeknownst to either man. The series over- idealises the way these four women share one husband, however, alternatively it could be read as highlighting the impossible expectation that one woman should embody all qualities: wisdom, beauty and motherhood.


I've not had a chance to survey all the films based on Genesis for this piece, but I find it interesting how more recent films have attempted to grapple with some of these issues, even as others manifestly have not. There's a challenge at the heart of it all however: given that this was a deeply patriarchal society and the similarly patriarchal nature of the texts, how should these stories be portrayed. Whilst the approach of The Red Tent has its admirable qualities, it does just end up making things a little too cosy. Jacob is a good man and the women generally get on and so the potential issues are glossed over. At the other end of the scale The Real Old Testament is so scathing in its approach it rejects and space for genuine spirituality despite the patriarchal society and assumptions of the times the story occurred in and was written about. La Genese perhaps manages a good balance of the two - the nature of the society is exposed, but that is very much at a human level, allowing the film's finale to still allow for the possibility of a God who may one day right these wrongs.


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†In one of my favourite moments in this film God visit's the couple's tent in the middle of the night whilst Sarai is sleeping, involved much shrugging and mugging for the camera. Later in a camera diary moment she observes "It's like, he invented time…can he tell it?"

Which Bible Films Celebrate a Significant Anniversary in 2024?

This should really have been a start of the year post, but I'm thinking about possible screenings I could introduce or films reaching significant milestones this year that might be good to write about / talk about at festivals / discuss on podcasts etc. so I thought it would be good to create a (non-exhaustive) list of the main ones.

100 years (1924) 

Die Sklavenkönigin (The Moon of Israel, Michael Curtiz)
Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio & Georg Jacoby)

75 years (1949)

Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille)

70 years (1954)

Day of Triumph (John T. Coyle & Irving Pichel)
Demetrius and the Gladiators (Delmer Daves)
The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville)

60 years (1964)

Il vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Saul e David (Marcello Baldi)

50 years (1974)

Moses the Lawgiver (Gianfranco De Bosio)
The Story of Jacob and Joseph (Michael Cacoyannis)

40 years (1984)

Samson and Delilah (Lee Philips)
Second Time Lucky (Michael Anderson)

35 years (1989)

Jésus de Montréal (Denys Arcand)
Visons of Ecstasy (Nigel Wingrove)

30 years (1994)

Al-mohager (The Emigrant, Youssef Chahine)
Genesis: Creation and Flood (Ermanno Olmi)
Jacob (Peter Hall)

25 years (1999)

La Genèse (Genesis, Cheick Oumar Sissoko)
Jesus (Roger Young)
Mary, Mother of Jesus (Kevin Connor)
Noah's Ark (John Irvin)

20 years (2004)

The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson)
Shanti Sandesham (P Chandrasekhar Reddy)
Judas (Charles Robert Carner)

10 years (2014)
Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott)
Noah (Daren Aronofsky) 
The Red Tent (Roger Young) 
Son of God (Christopher Spencer)
The Savior (Robert Savo)

I guess there are three that really stand out for me at least. Firstly, the 60th anniversary of Pasolini's Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, 1964). It's a film that has interested me for a long time and one I've written about both here and in print many times, particularly last year when I contributed a (extra-long) chapter on it for Ken Morefield's book "Film as an Expression of Spirituality: The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films".

Then there's the 75 year mark for Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) a film which really kick-started the 1950s revival of classical era historical movies in general and of biblical films in particular.

The other is the 20 year anniversary of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004). The milestone is much smaller, but the film still looms relatively large in the collective mind and has been quite significant in its impact it's had on what has come to be called "faith-based" films. The experience of that film being released was formative for me -- I learnt so much from the debates and the scholarship that surrounded the movie.

Anyway, if you're a cinema/church planning on screening any of these films; a festival organiser wanting someone to discuss them; an editor looking for an article on them; or a podcaster who'd like a knowledgeable guest to chat about them, then it would be great to hear from you.

Lastly, there are obviously a bunch of films I've missed off (some due to debatable dates, but are there any major ones I've not included?). 

Bible Films Blog Review of 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to See the 100 Bible Films

If you're reading this you've probably found the URL from my book "100 Bible Films", if so, thanks for reading!

While it was a point of the book to focus on films that still exist in some form some are difficult to track down, there are even one or two in archives which I'm hoping to do something about in the future. For now though this is where you can see the films. If you find any where the links have gone dead, or you know a better /alternate source, please let me know.

If you've found this some other way, you can view a sample or buy my book here.

1. La vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (1898)
(Louis Lumière, Georges Hatot, IMDb)
Freely available via the US Library of Congress..
Link
Alt text.
Link

2. Martyrs Chrétiens (1905)
(Lucien Nonguet, IMDb)
One of the films featured on the BFI's "Fairy Tales: Early Colour Stencil films from Pathé" DVD.
Link

3. La vie du Christ (1906)
(Alice Guy, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link
Also on DVD.
Link

4. Vie et Passion de N.S Jésus-Christ (1907)
(Ferdinand Zecca, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link
Also on DVD.
Link

5. Jephtah's Daughter: A Biblical Tragedy (1909)
(Stuart Blackton, IMDb)
Not currently available, but email me if interested as a kickstarter campaign may be starting in the future

6. L'exode (1910)
(Louis Feuillade, IMDb)
Not currently available, but email me if interested as a kickstarter campaign may be starting in the future

7. Jaël et Sisera (1911)
(Henri Andréani, IMDb)
Can be viewed in the BFI's Reuben library.
Link
A kickstarter campaign may be starting in the future.
Link

8. From the Manger to the Cross; or, Jesus of Nazareth (1912)
(Sidney Olcott, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link
Also on DVD.
Link

9. Judith of Bethulia (1914)
(D.W. Griffith, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link
Alternate version on YouTube.
Link

10. Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)
(D.W. Griffith, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link
Also on DVD.
Link

11. Blade af Satans bog (1920)
(Carl Theodor Dreyer, IMDb)
DVD.
Link
Also at Daily Motion.
Link

12. La Sacra Bibbia (1920)
(Pier Antonio Gariazzo, Armando Vey, IMDb)
DVD

13. Der Galiläer (1921)
(Dimitri Buchowetzki, IMDb)
Available free via Internet Archive.
Link

14. Salomé (1922)
(Charles Bryant, Alla Nazimova, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube

15. Sodom und Gomorrha (1922)
(Michael Curtiz, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube
Also on DVD.
Link

16. The Ten Commandments (1923)
(Cecil B. DeMille, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube
Also on DVD.
Link

17. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
(Charles Brabin, Christy Cabanne, Rex Ingram, Fred Niblo, J.J. Cohn, IMDb)
Included in this DVD box set.
Link
Can stream via Amazon & Apple.
Link

18. The King of Kings (1927)
(Cecil B. DeMille, IMDb)
Lobster Bluray/DVD
Also on YouTube.
Link

19. Noah's Ark (1928)
(Darryl F. Zanuck, Michael Curtiz, IMDb)
US DVD

20. Lot in Sodom (1933)
(Melville Webber, James Sibley Watson, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube

21. Golgotha (1935)
(Julien Duvivier, IMDb)
Available free via Internet Archive.
Link

22. The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)
(Ernest B. Schoedsack, Merian C. Cooper, IMDb)
DVD

23. The Green Pastures (1936)
(Marc Connelly, William Keighley, IMDb)
DVD
Also at Vimeo.
Link

24. Jesús de Nazareth (1942)
(José Díaz Morales, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link

25. Samson and Delilah (1949)
(Cecil B. DeMille, IMDb)
Bluray

26. David and Bathsheba (1951)
(Henry King, IMDb)
DVD

27. Quo Vadis (1951)
(Mervyn LeRoy, Anthony Mann, IMDb)
Bluray

28. The Robe (1953)
(Henry Koster, IMDb)
Bluray
Rent on YouTube.
Link

29. Sins of Jezebel (1953)
(Reginald Le Borg, IMDb)
DVD

30. The Prodigal (1955)
(Richard Thorpe, IMDb)
DVD

31. The Ten Commandments (1956)
(Cecil B. DeMille, IMDb)
Bluray

32. The Star of Bethlehem (1956)
(Lotte Reiniger, Vivian Milroy, Jan Sadlo, IMDb)
Extra on BFI "Adventures of Prince Achmed" Dvd
Also on Gospel Films Archive DVD.
Link

33. Celui qui doit mourir (1957)
(Jules Dassin, IMDb)
Available on YouTube (in French with Eng subtitles).
Link

34. Solomon and Sheba (1959)
(King Vidor, IMDb)
Bluray

35. Ben-Hur (1959)
(William Wyler, IMDb)
Bluray
Rent on YouTube.
Link

36. Esther and the King (1960)
(Raoul Walsh, Mario Bava, IMDb)
DVD

37. The Story of Ruth (1960)
(Henry Koster, IMDb)
DVD

38. Barabbas (1961)
(Richard Fleischer, IMDb)
DVD
Available on YouTube.
Link

39. King of Kings (1961)
(Nicholas Ray, IMDb)
Bluray
Rent on YouTube.
Link

40. Il vecchio testamento (1962)
(Gianfranco Parolini, IMDb)
DVD (German one is best)
Various versions free on YouTube (here best visuals but Italian audio).
Link

41. Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964)
(Pier Paolo Pasolini, IMDb)
Bluray
Also free on YouTube - chose subtitled & black & white.
Link

42. The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
(George Stevens, David Lean, Jean Negulesco, IMDb)
Bluray
Free on Amazon Prime or rent on YouTube.
Link

43. I grandi condottieri (1965)
(Marcello Baldi, Francisco Pérez-Dolz, IMDb)
DVD

44. The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966)
(John Huston, IMDb)
DVD

45. Les Actes des apotres [Atti degli apostoli] (1969)
(Roberto Rossellini, IMDb)
Available on YouTube

46. La voie lactée (1969)
(Luis Buñuel, IMDb)
DVD

47. Son of Man (1969)
(Gareth Davies, IMDb)
Not currently available

48. Jesús, nuestro Señor (1971)
(Miguel Zacarías, IMDb)
US DVD

49. Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
(Norman Jewison, IMDb)
DVD
Free on Amazon Prime.
Link

50. Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (1973)
(David Greene, IMDb)
DVD

51. Moses und Aron (1975)
(Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, IMDb)
Bluray

52. Il messia (1975)
(Roberto Rossellini, IMDb)
DVD
On YouTube (Italian w Eng subs despite video title).
Link

53. The Passover Plot (1976)
(Michael Campus, IMDb)
DVD
Currently on YouTube.
Link

54. Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
(Franco Zeffirelli, IMDb)
DVD

55. Karunamayudu (1978)
(A. Bhimsingh, Christopher Coelho, IMDb)
DVD
Free on YouTube.
Link

56. Jesus (1979)
(Peter Sykes, John Krish, IMDb)
DVD

57. Life of Brian (1979)
(Terry Jones, IMDb)
DVD
Free on YouTube.
Link

58. Camminacammina (1983)
(Ermanno Olmi, IMDb)
DVD

59. Je vous salue, Marie (1985)
(Jean-Luc Godard, IMDb)
DVD

60. King David (1985)
(Bruce Beresford, IMDb)
US DVD

61. Esther (1986)
(Amos Gitai, IMDb)
DVD

62. Samson dan Delilah (1987)
(Sisworo Gautama Putra, IMDb)
French DVD

63. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
(Martin Scorsese, IMDb)
Bluray
Rent on YouTube.
Link

64. Jésus de Montréal (1989)
(Denys Arcand, IMDb)
DVD
Free on YouTube.
Link

65. The Garden (1990)
(Derek Jarman, IMDb)
DVD

66. The Visual Bible: Matthew (1993)
(Regardt van den Bergh, IMDb)
DVD
Also on YouTube.
Link

67. Al-mohager (1994)
(Youssef Chahine, IMDb)
DVD
Streaming on Netflix.
Link

68. Jeremiah (1998)
(Harry Winer, IMDb)
DVD

69. The Prince of Egypt (1998)
(Simon Wells, Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, IMDb)
DVD

70. The Book of Life (1998)
(Hal Hartley, IMDb)
DVD
Streaming on Vimeo.
Link

71. La genèse (1999)
(Cheick Oumar Sissoko, IMDb)
DVD

72. Jesus (1999)
(Roger Young, IMDb)
Bluray

73. The Miracle Maker (2000)
(Stanislav Sokolov, Derek W. Hayes, IMDb)
DVD
Rent on YouTube.
Link

74. The Real Old Testament (2003)
(Paul Hannum, Curtis Hannum, IMDb)
Occasional DVD on eBay
Clips on YouTube.
Link

75. The Visual Bible: The Gospel of John (2003)
(Philip Saville, IMDb)
DVD

76. The Passion of the Christ (2004)
(Mel Gibson, IMDb)
Bluray available but seems to have a problem. DVD
Free on Amazon Prime.
Link

77. Shanti Sandesham (2004)
(P. Chandrasekhar Reddy, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link

78. Color of the Cross (2006)
(Jean-Claude La Marre, IMDb)
DVD
Free on YouTube.
Link

79. Jezile [Son of Man] (2006)
(Mark Dornford-May, IMDb)
DVD
Free on YouTube.
Link

80. The Nativity Story (2006)
(Catherine Hardwicke, IMDb)
DVD

81. Mesih [Jesus, Spirit of God] (2007)
(Nader Talebzadeh, IMDb)
Available free on YouTube.
Link

82. The Passion (2008)
(, IMDb)
DVD

83. El cant dels ocells (2008)
(Albert Serra, IMDb)
Available on Mubi

84. Oversold (2008)
(Paul Morrell, IMDb)
Download from Amazon

85. Year One (2009)
(Harold Ramis, IMDb)
DVD

86. Io sono con te (2010)
(Guido Chiesa, IMDb)
DVD

87. Su re (2012)
(Giovanni Columbu, IMDb)
DVD

88. The Bible (2013)
(, IMDb)
Bluray

89. Noah (2014)
(Darren Aronofsky, IMDb)
Bluray

90. The Savior (2014)
(Robert Savo, IMDb)
Rent on Amazon.
Link

91. Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
(Ridley Scott, IMDb)
Bluray

92. The Red Tent (2014)
(Roger Young, IMDb)
DVD

93. Os Dez Mandamentos: O Filme (2016)
(Alexandre Avancini, IMDb)
Brazilian DVD/Bluray.
Link

94. Risen (2016)
(Kevin Reynolds, IMDb)
DVD

95. Get Some Money (2017)
(Biko Nyongesa, IMDb)
Director to make available soon

96. Mary Magdalene (2018)
(Garth Davis, IMDb)
DVD
Rent on YouTube.
Link

97. Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018)
(Andrew Hyatt, IMDb)
DVD

98. Seder-Masochism (2018)
(Nina Paley, IMDb)
Free online download via director.
Link

99. Assassin 33 A.D. (2020)
(Jim Carroll, IMDb)
Available from Amazon.
Link
Also released as Black Easter.
Link

100. Lamentations of Judas (2020)
(Boris Gerrets, IMDb)
Currently unavailable

Moses the Lawgiver - Review

In many ways Moses the Lawgiver is Jesus of Nazareth's forgotten older brother. Both are made for TV productions by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment. Both have Italian directors, were written by Anthony Burgess and feature impressive star casts. The photography in the two productions is strikingly similar, and both films even had a glossy illustrated novelization to sit on the nation's coffee tables.

Given the many similarities, it's surprising to see how differently the two films have fared since their initial release. For many people Jesus of Nazareth is the definitive portrayal of the life of Christ – even those who have never seen it would identify Robert Powell's bearded face and piercing blue eyes as being Jesus. It was a role that made him a household name. It was the role he would always, henceforth, be identified with.

In contrast Moses the Lawgiver had chosen an existing star – Burt Lancaster – to play Moses, with his son Willliam playing Moses as a younger man. Ironically, it was Lancaster who Cecil B. DeMille had in mind when he began his hunt for the man to play Moses in his version of the story - The Ten Commandments - almost twenty years earlier. Initially Lancaster's presence made the series a success, so much so that the green light was given for Franco Zefferelli to make his famous Jesus biopic.


Thirty years on, however, Moses the Lawgiver is almost forgotten. There is a mound of information, analysis and reviews of Jesus of Nazareth, but Moses is mentioned only very rarely, and, even then, only in passing. Director Gianfranco De Bosio made just 4 more films over the next 20 years and today he doesn't even seem to merit a Wikipedia page. The last decade has witnessed a number of new movies about the Exodus, and on each occasion the film makers talk about showing a more human Moses, perhaps even unaware of De Bosio's film.

So it's pleasing, then, that Moses the Lawgiver has finally been released, uncut, on DVD, because in many ways it's the more interesting film. For all it's strength's Jesus of Nazareth is a fairly unimaginative telling of the life of its hero. Complexity, challenge, doubt and struggle are largely sidelined to make way for Powell's slow delivery, Zefferelli's admittedly beautiful iconography, or just more shots of those azure blue eyes.

DeBosio's film, however, is altogether deeper. Whereas God is made man in Jesus, here he is largely off screen. His words are mediated only through Moses. Even the viewer only hears him speak in Lancaster's voice. His (miraculous) actions are shown through subjective point of view shots, or meet, shortly afterwards, with a rational explanation.


In other places De Bosio toys with the idea of myth. We witness the staff turning into a snake when God first address Moses, but it's a sign that Moses never gets to perform. Once inside the palace Pharaoh seems to anticipate what Moses is about to do and he disparages it before his cousin gets the chance. Elsewhere Pharaoh lists and refute exaggerated claims about Moses which are, apparently beginning to circulate. They far exceed anything Exodus has to say about Moses.

Later in the film the visuals suggest contrasting versions of what really happened. The shots of the people crossing the Red Sea switch between huge waves and remarkably shallow water. Whilst some of this can be accounted for by the low budget, that explanation alone is certainly not adequate. Furthermore, the closing scenes seem to portray Moses dying twice. Initially Moses seems to have died in his tent in the same ordinary way that his siblings died before him. But then, Moses ascends the mountain overlooking the Promised Land and then lays down to die in the manner described at the end of Deuteronomy.

However, this is not purely modernist cynicism attempting to unstitch this great story. "Scientific" explanations for certain events may be voiced, but they are not entirely convincing. DeBosio refuses to give viewers (of any persuasion) the option of simply sitting back and having their viewpoint reinforced. He constantly challenges his audience to wrestle with the data and make sense of it.


Take, for example, the scenes where God's punishment is meted out. As a group of men picking firewood on the Sabbath are condemned to death, we sense Lancaster's struggles. Is he torn between his own feelings and God's will? Struggling with his own conscience? If Moses is making all this up why does he seemingly act against his own sense of right and wrong. If he's following God's orders, why do they seem harsh to him? If God is simply such a harsh God, then why is such compassion evident elsewhere in the film?

To present such delicate balance and such moral complexity in a film requires a great deal of skill, and it's a credit to DeBosio, Burgess, Lancaster, and no doubt many others that they manage hold it all together so remarkably.

Not all aspects of the film are handled quite as impressively. The series is a fairly low budget affair, and at times it really shows. In some cases this is the film's deliberate choice of aesthetic. As Lancaster explains in the DVD's bonus interview feature, the costumes are meant to look coarse, simple and inferior. The Israelites were slaves freed from poverty so they "deliberately tried to make it primitive", and it works well. At other times, though, things just look cheap, particularly the Egyptian sets and costumes. Admittedly DeMille style opulence is probably equally unlikely, but, as a result, the scenes in Pharaoh's court are probably the film's weakest.


The other weak point of the film is the acting in some of the crowd scenes. A great deal of this film is taken showing the opposition Moses faced from his people. Whilst some of this is crystallised into the complaints of a single figure Dathan (Joseph Shiloach), much of the moaning comes from the non-principals. As is often the case with such Bible film heckling it fails to convince, no doubt because the extras don't speak English so the voices are dubbed later.

Aside from those scenes, there are a number of good performances. In addition to Lancaster's own, as commented on above, Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia, Anne of the Thousand Days) as Aaron, and Ingrid Thullin (Wild Strawberries) as Miriam carry the series well. And you sense Lancaster would have been proud of the way his son William Lancaster played Moses as a young man.

Overall, then, Moses the Lawgiver is well worth watching. The few weaker aspects can easily be forgiven for the way in which it probes the Biblical accounts of Moses and the Exodus and compares them with modern understandings of the story. By playfully juxtaposing the supernatural with the rational, it refuses to allow viewers to take a comfortable position.