The Bible onscreen in the new millennium: New heart and new spirit 9781526136589

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The Bible onscreen in the new millennium

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The Bible onscreen in the new millennium New heart and new spirit Edited by Wickham Clayton

Manchester University Press

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Copyright © Manchester University Press 2020 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher.

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Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 3657 2 hardback First published 2020 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-​party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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This book is dedicated, as always, to my son George, who asks me philosophical questions that challenge me in ways no theologian ever could, and to the memory of Dr Laurence Raw, the first person to take a chance on publishing my writing.

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Contents

List of figures List of contributors Preface by Adele Reinhartz Acknowledgements Introduction​ Wickham Clayton Part I  Producing biblical film and television 1 2 3 4

Battles over the biblical epic: Hollywood, Christians and the American Culture Wars Karen Patricia Heath Depicting ‘biblical’ narratives: a test case on Noah Peter Phillips Special effects and CGI in the biblical epic film Andrew B. R. Elliott The phenomenon of biblical telenovelas in Brazil and Latin America Clarice Greco, Mariana Marques de Lima and Tissiana Nogueira Pereira

Part II  Modern narratives and contexts in adapting the Bible 5 6 7

Mythic cinema and the contemporary biblical epic Mikel J. Koven The Nativity reborn: genre and the birth and childhood of Jesus Matthew Page Convince me: conversion narratives in the modern biblical epic Chris Davies

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Part III  Critical readings and receptions 8 Controversy and the ‘Culture War’: exploring tensions between the secular and the sacred in Noah, the ‘least biblical biblical movie ever’ Becky Bartlett 9 ‘Can anything good come out of Southern California?’* (*hyperlink to John 1:46): the Christian critical reception of elliptical Jesus narratives Wickham Clayton 10 Examining the digital religion paradigm: a mixed-​method analysis of online community perception of epic biblical movies Gregory P. Perreault and Thomas S. Mueller Part IV  Culture and representation 11 The devil and the Culture Wars: demonising controversy in The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ Karra Shimabukuro 12 Ben-​Her(?): soft stardom, melodrama and the critique of epic masculinity in Ben-​Hur (2016) Thomas J. West III 13 The biblical-​trial film: social contexts in L’Inchiesta and Risen Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Emiliano Aguilar 14 ‘Squint against the grandeur’: iconoclasm and film genre in The Passion of the Christ and Hail, Caesar! Martin Stollery Filmography Index

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Figures

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0.3 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

‘The Passion of the Jew’, South Park (2004): Kyle (voiced by Matt Stone), a Jewish child, goes to see The Passion of the Christ and later has scary dreams of himself as a member of the Sanhedrin. page 3 Friday Night, Saturday Morning (BBC 2, 9 November 1979): ‘You’ll get your thirty pieces of silver …’. Left to right: Mervyn Stockwood (Bishop of Southwark), Malcolm Muggeridge and Monty Python members John Cleese and Michael Palin heatedly debate blasphemy in Life of Brian (1979). 8 The Prince of Egypt (1998): In a moment of spectacle, lightning backlights the sea life in the wall of miraculously parted water as the Hebrews cross to safety. 10 Con Air (1997): Director Simon West’s use of a ray of light to illuminate Cameron Poe’s face (played by Nicolas Cage) directly references Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ (1940). 29 Greimas’ structure based around actants. 37 Greimas’ theory applied to a story of a prince helped by a magic horse to save a princess. 37 Griemas’ theory applied to the story of Noah. 38 King Arthur (2004): Bors (Ray Winstone) mocks Horton’s (Pat Kinevane) faith, as the corrupt Roman Christians occupy and later flee Britain. 123 Noah (2014): Noah (Russell Crowe) wrestles with his faith and undertaking ‘the Creator’s’ will. 130 Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014): God, or his messenger, represented as a petulant and vengeful child (Isaac Andrews). 131 Ben-​Hur (2016): Christianity as a source of redemption and domesticity is restored in the ending as Judah (Jack Huston) and Messala (Toby Kebbell) embrace their family. 136

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List of figures

9.1 The Young Messiah (2016): Jesus (Adam Greaves-​Neal) faces a Roman soldier. 9.2 Last Days in the Desert (2015): Yeshua (Ewan McGregor) rests with the Father (Ciarán Hinds) and Son (Tye Sheridan) as they build a new house. 10.1 Co-​occurrence network depicting perceived attraction to biblical epic movies. 10.2 Regression tree predictive model predicting experience of the divine. 10.3 Chart illustrating the correlation between church attendance (per month) and experience of the divine. 11.1 The Last Temptation of Christ (1988): The Girl Angel (Juliette Caton) saves Jesus (Willem Dafoe) from crucifixion. 11.2 The Passion of the Christ (2004): Satan (Rosalinda Celentano) in the Garden of Gethsemane. 12.1 Ben-​Hur (2016): According to the critics, Judah (Jack Huston) in the galleys looks more like George Harrison than Charlton Heston. 12.2 Ben-​Hur (2016): Messala (Toby Kebbell) has become, as Judah puts it, like one of the statues that Rome insists on putting everywhere. 12.3 Ben-​Hur (2016): This Ben-​Hur allows for a melodramatic reconciliation that occurs in the nick of time rather than too late. 13.1–​2  Risen (2016): Reminiscences of terrorism. 13.3 Risen (2016): Clavius (Joseph Fiennes) becomes a disciple. 13.4 L’Inchiesta (1987): In the film’s final shot, we see the corpse of Tauro (Keith Carradine) abandoned in the desert. 14.1 The Passion of the Christ (2004): Jim Caviezel as Jesus. 14.2 Ben-​Hur (2016): Crucifixion of Christ featuring Rodrigo Santoro, used for some marketing materials including posters. 14.3 Hail, Caesar! (2016): Baird Whitlock/​Autolycus Antoninus (George Clooney) struggles to squint against the grandeur.

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Contributors

Emiliano Aguilar has an MA from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. He has published on science fiction in journals such as Lindes and Letraceluloide and has chapters in Orphan Black and Philosophy, edited by Richard Greene (2016); The Man in the High Castle and Philosophy, edited by Bruce Krajewski (2017); Giant Creatures in our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture, edited by Camille Mustachio and Jason Barr (2017); Twin Peaks and Philosophy, edited by Richard Greene (2018); and American Horror Story and Philosophy, edited by Richard Greene (2017), among others. Becky Bartlett is currently a Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Glasgow, where her teaching has included courses on cult film and television and religion in film and television. She is currently working on her monograph (Edinburgh University Press, expected 2020)  and has contributed essays to Continuum:  Journal of Media & Cultural Studies and the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Cult Film. Her research interests include cult cinema, bad movies, religion and film and Hollywood gorilla men. Wickham Clayton is a Lecturer in the School of Film Production at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. He is the author of See!Hear! Cut!Kill!: Experiencing Friday the 13th (forthcoming), editor of Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film (2015) and co-​editor of Screening Twilight: Critical Approaches to a Cinematic Phenomenon (with Sarah Harman, 2014). He has written a number of essays on genre (primarily horror), aesthetics and adaptation. Chris Davies is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Blockbusters and the Ancient World: Allegory and Warfare in Contemporary Hollywood, and his research interests include history on film, principally the ancient world, westerns and war films, as well as sci-fi and comic book movies. He currently works as a Senior

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Compliance Officer at the British Board of Film Classification. His views are his own and do not reflect those of the BBFC. Andrew B. R. Elliott is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Lincoln, where he works on the representation of history in film, television and video games. He has published on a number of aspects relating to historical film, television and video games, from the classical world to the Middle Ages, and most recently has published on special effects in the epic film and the HBO/​BBC series Rome and is editor of the collection The Return of the Epic Film (2014), featuring essays on a range of topics relating to the alleged return of the epic. His most recent book is Medievalism, Politics and Mass Media: Appropriating the Middle Ages in the Twenty-​First Century (2017). Clarice Greco is Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in Communications at Paulista University (UNIP), São Paulo and a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo (ECA-​USP), having received a PhD and an MA from the same institution. She is a Researcher at the Centre for Telenovela Studies at ECA-​USP (CETVN) and at the Ibero-​American Observatory of TV Fiction OBITEL and Vice-​coordinator of Obitel Brazil-​USP. Karen Patricia Heath is a Senior Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. She is a historian of the modern and contemporary United States, with specialist research interests in the Culture Wars, political ideologies, and the place of the arts in public life. Karen is currently preparing a book manuscript for publication, provisionally entitled Conservatives and the Politics of Federal Arts Funding, from the Great Society to the Culture Wars. Mikel J.  Koven is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Worcester. He is the author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film (2006), Film, Folklore and Urban Legends (2008) and Blaxploitation Films (2010). Mariana Marques de Lima is a PhD candidate (funded by CAPES agency) in Communications at the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo and a researcher at the Centre for Telenovela Studies –​CETVN and at the Ibero-​American Observatory of TV Fiction –​Obitel. Thomas S.  Mueller is a professor of advertising at Appalachian State University and the senior member of his university’s Faculty in Residence programme. He is a quantitative analyst with research interests in analytics marketing, energy research and predictive models for consumer

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behaviour. His work has been published in the Journal of Higher Education Management, Journal of Bullying & Social Aggression, Energy Research & Social Science and the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. Matthew Page is an independent scholar who has been researching in the area of the Bible on film for almost twenty years. He recently had two chapters published in De Gruyter’s The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (edited by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, 2016) and has others in The T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film (edited by Richard Walsh, 2018) and the forthcoming T&T Clark Companion to Jesus and Film (edited by Richard Walsh). He has also contributed numerous entries to De Gruyter’s Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (2009–present). He currently runs the Bible Films Blog. Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns is Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) –​Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. He teaches courses on the international horror film. He is director of the research group on horror cinema ‘Grite’ and has chapters in the books Divine Horror, edited by Cynthia Miller (2017); To See the Saw Movies:  Essays on Torture Porn and Post 9/​11 Horror, edited by John Walliss (2013); Critical Insights:  Alfred Hitchcock, edited by Douglas Cunningham (2016); Reading Richard Matheson:  A Critical Survey, edited by Cheyenne Mathews (2014); and The Man in the High Castle and Philosophy, edited by Bruce Krajewski (2017), among others. He is currently writing a book about the Spanish TV horror series Historias para no Dormir. Tissiana Nogueira Pereira is a PhD candidate (funded by CAPES agency) in Communications at the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo and a researcher at the Centre for Telenovela Studies  –​CETVN and at the Ibero-​ American Observatory of TV Fiction –​ Obitel. Gregory P.  Perreault is an assistant professor of multimedia journalism at Appalachian State University. He is a media sociologist who primarily examines journalism, gaming and representations of religion. His work has been published in Journalism: Theory, Criticism & Practice, Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies, Howard Journal of Communication and Games & Culture. His research has been widely discussed in publications including VICE, Le Monde, Kotaku and Yahoo! Games. Peter Phillips is Research Fellow in Digital Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, and Director of the

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Research Centre for Digital Theology. His most recent work is ‘The Pixelated Text’ in Theology journal, November 2018 and The Bible, Social Media and Digital Culture (Routledge Press: 2019).

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Adele Reinhartz is a Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa and author of Bible and Cinema: An Introduction (2013). Karra Shimabukuro’s work analyses folkloric figures in medieval and early modern literature and popular culture for the ways they are vehicles for the fears, desires and anxieties of a particular historical and cultural moment, and how this opens new avenues of thinking about, and challenging, well-​known texts, genres and periodisations. She is an Assistant Professor at Elizabeth City State University. Martin Stollery is the author of Alternative Empires: European Modernist Cinemas and Cultures of Imperialism (2000), L’émigré (2004) and co-​ author of British Film Editors (2004). He has published numerous articles and book chapters on various aspects of North African and British film history. Thomas J.  West III is an independent scholar who earned his PhD in English from Syracuse University. His dissertation, entitled ‘History’s Perilous Pleasures:  Experiencing Antiquity in the Postwar Hollywood Epic’, explored the ways in which biblical epics of the 1950s and 1960s provided both an experience of and escape from the terrors of modernity. His work includes published and forthcoming essays on the HBO series Rome, the epic film The Robe and the Starz series Spartacus.

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Adele Reinhartz

The Bible epic has existed as long as cinema itself. Among the very earliest films to be made were movies based on great biblical figures. Among the first Old Testament films to be made were La Vie de Moïse [The Life of Moses] (1905) and Moïse sauvé des eaux [The Infancy of Moses] (1911), both by Pathé, and the much more ambitious, five-​ reel spectacular, The Life of Moses (1909–​10), by Vitagraph, which covered Moses’ life ‘from the bulrushes to Mount Pisgah’ (Pearson 2005: 69). Filmmakers soon broadened their horizons to other stories, such as Adam and Eve (1912), Joseph in the Land of Egypt (1914) and Cecil B.  DeMille’s first version of The Ten Commandments (1923). Patrons flocked to see films about Jesus, such as the Horitz Passion Play (1897), The Passion Play at Oberammergau (1898), From the Manger to the Cross (1912) and Christus (1916). The most popular and best-​loved Jesus film of the silent period was Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings (1927). This film remains highly entertaining even today, due to its witty dialogue (conveyed through intertitles) and creative back story (in which Mary Magdalene and Judas were lovers before Judas was ‘seduced’ by Jesus into following him around the Galilee and Judea). These films constituted the first phase in the history of the Bible epic genre (Reinhartz 2013). With the onset of the Depression, and later, the Second World War, the genre declined, primarily for economic reasons (Babington and Evans 1993: 7–​8). With the resurgence of the American economy after the end of the war, however, the epic genre also revived, with such films as Samson and Delilah (1949), The Story of Ruth (1960), David and Bathsheba (1951), A Story of David (1960), Solomon and Sheba (1959), King of Kings (1961) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).1 This period also saw the release of the most enduring and iconic Bible epic of all time: Cecil DeMille’s 1956 film, The Ten Commandments. This film, still viewed widely during the Passover/​ Easter period, remains for many viewers their main source of knowledge of the Exodus story.

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The return of the Bible epic in the postwar period was due not only to the booming economy but also social and political factors such as the Cold War, the creation of the State of Israel and the changing role of women. Bible epics were an important weapon in Hollywood’s anti-​ Communist arsenal, as illustrated by DeMille himself, who, in the opening scene of The Ten Commandments, steps out from behind the curtain to compare the ancient Israelites’ struggle against their Egyptian slavemasters to the mid-​twentieth-​century battle against the Red Menace of the Soviet Union. Postwar epics also convey a growing interest in and sympathy for Jews and Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel. This may have been a factor in the production of films about figures and stories from the ‘Old Testament’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 34). Special attention was given to female figures such as Ruth, Delilah, Bathsheba, Sheba, Mary and Mary Magdalene. These women are portrayed as strong personalities in their own right, yet they ultimately remain in, or return to, the domestic sphere. In this regard they mirror the American wives, mothers and sisters who went out to work, often in positions of responsibility, during the war, but returned, whether reluctantly or willingly, to their ‘ideal’ household roles afterwards. Finally, technology and competition also played a part in reviving the Bible epic in the postwar period. The advent of television created some anxiety for the film industry; large-​scale technicolor epics were one way in which the movie studios could claim superiority to the upstart technology that provided entertainment without the need to leave the house.2 The late 1960s saw another decline in the genre, to which the growing costs of the epic and the relentless popularity of television surely contributed. The highly patriotic and morally simplistic worldview conveyed by the epics seemed inappropriate in an era marked by the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and second-​wave feminism (Sobchack 1990: 40). Forty years later, along came Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, inaugurating what seems to be a third era of the Bible epic. Gibson’s film  –​and his meticulous marketing to evangelical Christian audiences –​may have encouraged others to see the economic potential of Bible epics. None of the films released since 2004 has seen quite the same attention and box office success as Gibson’s film did. Nevertheless, they keep on coming, at least for now. The optimism of filmmakers may well be due at least in part to the increasing public presence of evangelical Christianity. At least some of the new Bible epics convey messages that reinforce the values of this group and that therefore might be expected to do well at the box office.

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In addition to commercial potential, the return of the biblical epic is enabled by technological advances since the 1960s. These advances have made it easier than ever to make a movie of epic scope without the epic cost. Bible epics can capitalise on the obvious popularity of epic themes –​as exemplified by the Star Wars franchise as well as war movies, disaster movies, apocalyptic films and other grand narratives –​as well as the perennial appeal of the Bible. Just as the epics of the mid-​twentieth-​century Golden Age addressed the pressing social issues of that era, so too might we find that the new Bible epics address the issues of our time, such as environmentalism, sexuality, violence and democracy. The present volume addresses the films that have come out from 2004 to 2018 from a variety of perspectives and for that reason serves as a first foray into the New Biblical Epic. The films being considered are of varying aesthetic quality, but they all are worthy of study as glimpses into our present cultural moment. Notes 1 For history and discussion of the films in the silent era and the Golden Age, see Hirsch (1978: 11–​28). 2 See Wood (1975: 168).

References Babington, Bruce, and Evans, Peter William (1993) Biblical Epics:  Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University  Press. Hirsch, Foster (1978) The Hollywood Epic, South Brunswick, NJ: A. S. Barnes, pp.  11–​28. Pearson, Roberta A. (2005) ‘Biblical Films’ in Abel, Richard (ed.) Encyclopedia of Early Cinema, New York: Routledge, pp. 68–​71. Reinhartz, Adele (2013) Bible and Cinema: An Introduction, London: Routledge. Sobchack, Vivian (1990) ‘ “Surge and Splendor”:  A Phenomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic’, Representations 29, pp. 24–​49. Wood, Michael (1975) America in the Movies or, ‘Santa Maria, It Had Slipped My Mind’, New York: Basic Books.

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Acknowledgements

This book has very complicated origins. It is clearly a divergence from my research to date, but is part of a lifelong fascination with and personal exploration of the concepts of faith and theology. Of course, I am only the editor, and I would like to thank all of my wonderful contributors for working hard and being a part of this with me. I would also like to thank Matthew Frost at Manchester University Press for supporting this project and helping to bring it to publication. My family back in Virginia  –​Mom and Dad, Whitney and Catie  –​ who are devout Christians, are an indispensable part of this journey for me. I should also give recognition to the Reverend Don Davidson, who spent a significant part of my adolescence and young adulthood in discussing these Bible stories (which endlessly fascinated me) and conceptions of faith with me. Thank you all for sparking this lasting interest. This project started in the summer of 2016, when I first saw the trailer for Timur Bekmambetov’s Ben-Hur, a project which struck me as fascinating in concept. Unbeknownst to him, my good friend Kyle McCollum was sitting next to me as this project sparked a weird chain reaction in my brain, and Chiara Mestieri eventually accompanied me to see the movie later that year. Thank you both for being great cinema company. You never talk during the movie, as it should be. And when you do, you make it worth it. I am incredibly lucky to have so many mentors, colleagues, and friends in this strange career who are tremendous inspirations to me personally and professionally. Some of these incredibly important people are: Stacey Abbott, Claire Barwell, Lucy Bennett, Todd Berliner, Paul Booth, Simon Brown, Jerry Peter DeMario, Rhio Evans, Zalfa Feghali, Hattie Fell, Steven Gerrard, Maren Hahnfeld, Tiana Harper, Nuampi Hatzaw, Bethan Jones, Joe Ketchum, Shellie McMurdo, Laura Mee, Ed Oliver, Alex Pearson, David Roche, Karra Shimabukuro, Andy Small, Sarah Taylor-​Harman, Carol Walker, Johnny Walker, Tom Watson and many, many more.

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Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Tes and Isaac. They have been a source of continued enjoyment and intellectual stimulation. Tes and Isaac have joined me in fun over the last year and a bit (at the time of writing). They don’t quite ‘get’ what I do (or at least the way I do what I do (though Tes notably gave me some great editorial assistance)) but they have strongly encouraged it and I thank them for that. This book is dedicated to two people. I’d first like to take a moment to honour the late Dr Laurence Raw. I never had the pleasure of meeting Laurence in person, but he has left a tremendous impact on my life. Laurence gave me my first shot at publication with a book review in the Journal of American Studies Turkey (JAST). We have since stayed in touch, and he has given me a tremendous amount of faith, encouragement and support in my burgeoning writing and publishing career. His faith gave me confidence. Laurence had a major impact on me, as I understand he did on a large number of academics, particularly in the area of Adaptation Studies, which this book clearly builds upon in some ways. Therefore, this book is in part for Laurence. The other person I dedicate this book to, as I have my others, is my son, George. I can only say that he challenges me and brings me joy in every moment I have with him. I write this book for him, not only the financial benefits (which, let’s be honest, are likely to be fairly insignificant), but to enrich the environment around him –​both around the house, and possibly even in the contribution to knowledge and understanding. Kid, you’re hilarious. You mean the world to me.

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Wickham Clayton

I learned that –​well, have another Bible script handy because the studios are all going to want to do it now. I don’t know. That’s –​I’m sorry. I’m being flip. –​Mel Gibson. (Fox News 2004)

Seventeen years ago it would be nearly unimaginable that someone would have a Hollywood luncheon to discuss God. Mel Gibson was still a marketable star with no scandals to his name (yet) and some public but muted affiliation to traditional Catholicism. And this Hollywood star had tried, and failed, to get funding for his filmed version of the Passion Play, which existed in the form of cultic dramas in religions predating Christianity, and became a mainstay in organised Christian tradition at least since the medieval period. Out of his proclaimed intense desire to make the film, Gibson funded it independently and in 2004 The Passion of the Christ was released to lukewarm, at best, reviews and staggering box office success.1 The significance of The Passion of the Christ and its immediate commercial success as well as its enduring popularity (and infamy) have been subject to much theoretical discussion and debate. Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner identify the relevance of the contemporary socio-​political climate in the USA: Aside from the deep-​rooted and longstanding traditions of American identity that circumscribe the debates swirling around The Passion, the current climate of the war on terror and the broader mindset of an America still reeling from the shock of 9/​11 deserve to be given a more central role in framing the analysis of Gibson, his film, his audience(s), and his critics. (2006: 35)

Indeed, the significance of 9/​11 for American culture had an immediate and lasting impact with the religious right –​a right farther right than the established right which was instrumental in the popularity of the Tea Party and later the following, if not the election, of Donald Trump

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Introduction

in 2016 –​as a driving force for the film’s success. Brian Walter notes its political lineage in Hollywood, saying that the film ‘does mine a vein of conservative Christian separatism that Hollywood had sought to tap going back to the 1930 establishment of the Motion Picture Production Code’ (2012: 5). This is not to ignore its success with the religious faithful not descended from the 1980s Moral Majority –​according to Melanie J. Wright, ‘whilst Gibson belongs to a traditionalist Catholic church, the film found popularity with mainstream Catholics, Protestants, and other Christians’ (2008:  168). Furthermore, it does indicate the monetary power held by those adhering to a faith-​based worldview following a period of perceived social secularisation. And even this cultural moment, this film particularly, still has political resonances. According to entertainment journalist James Ulmer, Steve Bannon, the far-​ right former adviser to and continued supporter of Trump, identified the cultural significance of this moment. According to Ulmer: So [Bannon]’d go to this whiteboard and … he had the word ‘Lord’ on the whiteboard and he circled it, and there were all kinds of other circles on the whiteboard leading to different names of different movies. And I said ‘What’s that?’ He said ‘Well, think of it, James,’ he said, ‘2004, February 25th. Seminal watershed weekend in the history of the Hollywood right.’ I said ‘What do you mean “watershed”?’ And he said ‘Well, The Passion of the Christ is released on Ash Wednesday, and then four, five days later you have one of the great Christian allegories, Lord of the Rings’ he said ‘was at the Oscars and won eleven Academy awards,’ he said. ‘Now that’s,’ he says, ‘an example of the great Sodom and Gomorrah of Hollywood bowing to the Christian God.’ (Quoted in McEvers 2017)

It has also been argued that the film, quite apart from appealing to Christians, drew a mainstream crowd made curious by negative press. Adele Reinhartz writes that the film’s ‘heavy-​ handed violence and its negative representations of the Jewish authorities touched off a major controversy that may well have contributed to its box-​office success’ (2013:  61). Both the extreme violence and negative Jewish representation continue to be the subject of much debate in the media as well as in critical and scholarly writing. The contemporary mainstream conversation was bolstered by extensive media coverage, with Gibson and other members of cast and crew providing interviews. The Passion of the Christ was even the central focus of an episode of South Park (Comedy Central 1997–​present) entitled ‘The Passion of the Jew’ which engaged in its own brand of irreverent cultural criticism and observation.

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Figure 0.1  ‘The Passion of the Jew’, South Park (2004): Kyle (voiced by Matt Stone), a Jewish child, goes to see The Passion of the Christ and later has scary dreams of himself as a member of the Sanhedrin.

Whatever the reasons for its success, Gibson, in an interview with Bill O’Reilly, rightly observed that studios will be wanting to produce Bible scripts. Following from this success came, not an abundance, but a regular stream of films based on biblical stories, such as The Nativity Story (2006), One Night with the King (2006), Noah (2014), Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) and the TV series The Bible (History Channel 2013); or films based around biblical characters and events, such as Last Days in the Desert (2015), Risen (2016) and the latest adaptation of Ben-​ Hur (2016). And while these are the most visible, they are merely the American productions. It cannot be firmly said that these films have in any way dominated the entertainment industries, as the failed Fox Faith film label indicates. However, major biblical productions now see more mainstream representation than the small Christian film industry which caters specifically to its target audiences, such as Sony’s Affirm Films. Furthermore, the recently well-​publicised release of Mary Magdalene (2018), which makes efforts to view Jesus through a distinctly feminist lens, shows the efforts to revivify and make relevant these stories

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for the new cultural moment. But on the other hand, the announcement2 that Mel Gibson is currently in production on The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection (forthcoming), particularly in light of the intensifying partisanship of the current political climate globally, demonstrates the other side of the efforts to use biblical adaptations to capture the divisiveness we see around us. In fact, this partisanship can be illustrated through significant films on the political ‘left’. Several months after the release of The Passion of the Christ, Michael Moore released his unprecedented box-​office smash hit Fahrenheit 9/​11 (2004), which attempted to expose the corruption and ineptitude of the Bush presidency. The film covered Bush’s contentious election to the Iraq war, and filtered these events through the lens of 9/​11. It is also notable that a few months after Gibson announced the production of The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection, Moore released Fahrenheit 11/​9 (2018), exploring the political state of America, Trumpism and gun violence. This is not to say that there is any direct link between the two filmmakers and their respective (ostensible) series, but it does highlight the strongly partisan culture at each of these periods. Certainly, the simultaneous expression of politics and religion in popular culture is at least a notable coincidence, if not indicative of some real parallels. As a renewed fixture in mainstream entertainment, the biblical adaptation meets certain challenges in discourse, which have been debated at length in academia. Bruce Babington and William Peter Evans have gone some way to exploring the biblical epic within film scholarship. For example, they have identified the difficulty in using precise terminology to describe these films: ‘Attempts to be accurately inclusive produce unwieldy terminology like “the Hollywood Judaeo-​Christian Epic of Origins” or “the Hollywood Biblical (and immediately Post-​Biblical) Epic”. But even these would struggle to cover The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which in many ways takes leave of the Hollywood Epic style’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 4). It is with this that Babington and Evans utilise the term Biblical Epics as shorthand to indicate a broad range of texts, and in this collection variations of this term are applied. Of course, in using the word ‘category’ I have carried us directly into the long-​running debate over whether the biblical film is a ‘genre’ or a ‘mode’ of filmmaking. Do these films belong to a category which indicates types of stories with common, clearly identifiable structures and aesthetics, or are they simply similar ways of expressing whatever story is at hand? For myself, I would categorise the classical Hollywood biblical epic, which was a strong, profitable force in Hollywood until the 1960s, as a genre –​a view supported by a number of theorists such as Babington and Evans. However, this new breed of biblical film, running

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through the new millennium, is trickier and under-​defined. The stories may share general similarities, which engage in the use and deconstruction of generic iconography, but it could be argued that such texts are stylistically different, even taking into account these similarities. That said, there is an awareness of generic constants in the classical Hollywood biblical film and in order to deconstruct these tropes, there still needs to be an adherence to generic structures. However, this is a debate which can be undertaken anew with the modern biblical epic. Whether these modern biblical epics fit into genre or mode is still met with some disagreement, not only within film studies, but also within this collection. This collection represents a range of discussions, observations, methodologies and case studies undertaken by writers with a range of academic backgrounds. However, this is all with a view to exploring and understanding how these modern biblical epics situate within industrial, narrative, aesthetic, reception and cultural models as artworks for commercial public consumption. In some cases, these necessarily establish their relationship to earlier iterations of biblical epics. In short, it is my hope that these chapters may initiate discursive consideration of these texts, where they can be acknowledged as linking to earlier traditions while simultaneously containing qualities unique to these cinematic and televisual renderings of stories related to, based on and inspired by the Bible from 2004 onwards. However, it is useful to identify the development and existence of biblical adaptations onscreen in the years between their decline in the 1960s and the release of Gibson’s film, to provide an industrial context for the appearance of Passion. What happened in between? In the Preface, Adele Reinhartz has highlighted the key points in the development of the biblical epic. These points are certainly significant in showing where the biblical film flourished, succeeded and declined. What is often overlooked is this period between the perceptible decline in the 1960s and the success of The Passion of the Christ in 2004. These years, though sparse in successes for biblical adaptation, tell us much of the surrounding cultural conditions as well as reception practices of viewers in each period. Following on from the pre-​eminence of the counter-​culture, particularly the visibility of hippies in the late 1960s into the 1970s, we see some biblical adaptations echoing the ideals of youth at the time. American politics, steeped in the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and protests against the Vietnam War (and war more generally), provides a

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significant backdrop to cultural texts that re-​envision the ideologies of previous decades. Therefore, in the 1970s, we see adaptations of musical gospel films Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) and Godspell (1973), both of which overtly draw on music and ideals significant to this counter-​culture. These films herald a tendency in Hollywood to favour interpretation over re-​creation, or at least rehashing previous interpretations. While the Golden Age biblical adaptations attempt to tell these stories within a firmly conceived interpretational and faith-​based framework (typically Protestant Christian), the 1960s and 1970s saw efforts to tell these stories in ways that made them feel less rooted to the past. Instead, much like other films in the Hollywood New Wave, roughly 1967–​79, these films make efforts to demythologise and make contemporary story structures of the past. In other words, these movies push against traditional storytelling modes, rethinking and often making incoherent, to use Todd Berliner’s definition (2010),3 our internal sense of story tropes and patterns. For cinematic releases, these two 1973 films remain the most significant products created during this decade. The 1980s saw two key biblical films released in America. In 1985, Paramount released the Bruce Beresford film King David starring Richard Gere as the titular figure. Matthew Page writes, ‘At 114 minutes, the film manages to include all the key events of David’s life as well as some of the more obscure aspects, including Abigail and his other wives’ (2016: 111). However, the film was critically panned, as Page suspects that Gere’s Razzie-​winning performance ‘was clinched by the scene where David strips off and dances as the ark makes its way into the city. Gere’s dance in a large pair of white underpants is certainly undignified’ (111). The film was also a failure at the box office, only making back a fraction of its production cost. However, what is particularly fascinating about this film is the way it makes an effort to contextualise King David. It does not simply extract and adapt certain stories, but places the life of this monarch in relation to both its period as well as other events from the Bible, as identified by Page. The other important biblical film, perhaps the most important biblical film of this period, is Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). Apart from its significant aesthetic contributions, this film represents this period’s confluence of biblical interpretation in film and its tension with its political and social context. This volume addresses Last Temptation in several places, particularly in relation to the American Culture Wars. I’ll let these chapters speak for themselves, but this movie also significantly reflects the contemporary urge to reconsider and reimagine the tropes and themes of the biblical epic. In an interview with Richard Schickel, who says to Scorsese ‘It’s interesting to me how you

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got from The Robe and The Silver Chalice to Last Temptation’, Scorsese responds: Well, by seeing them many times, and by accepting their conventions, And then realizing that the time was right, in the early eighties, for another approach –​just to deal with the idea of what Jesus really represented and said and wanted, which was compassion and love. To deal with this head-​ on. To do it in such a way that I would provoke and engage the audience. The only way you can do that is to not make your films look and sound like the old biblical films. In those films, the characters were speaking with British accents. The dialogue was beautiful, in some cases, and the films look beautiful. They were pageants. But they had nothing really to do with our lives, where you ‘make up for your sins at home and in the streets, and not in the church.’ The transgressions you have to undo are with people. It’s not about going to church on Sunday. (Quoted in Schickel 2013: 168–​9)

I will return to this quotation later, but here it is necessary to show that Scorsese was both grappling with what faith, Christ and Christianity are, and how to make a biblical film that is pushing against the long-​ established tropes of the Golden Age of Hollywood with its biblical films. It is, in fact, the idea of grappling with faith and witnessing that process on film which brought the ire of the U.S.American right, certainly its vocal religious representatives, as happened nine years earlier in the UK with Monty Python’s Life of Brian. In both cases we see the questioning of core tenets of faith being deemed blasphemy. Life of Brian, a comedy about the man who was born in the stable next to Jesus, provides a useful point of comparison. According to director Terry Jones: it’s not blasphemous because it accepts the Christian story, but it’s heretical in terms of [being] very critical of the Church, and I think that’s what the joke of it is, really: to say, here is Christ saying all of these wonderful things about people living together in peace and love, and then for the next two thousand years people are putting each other to death in His name because they can’t agree about how He said it, or in what order He said it. (Quoted in Morgan 1999: 247; brackets and italics in the original)

Python member Michael Palin recalled the controversy around the film in a conversation with his mother. He writes in his journal, ‘At last I feel she realises what Brian is saying and perhaps feels that we do have a point, that religion can be criticised without malice or spite’ (Palin 2006: 596; italics in the original). And making the connection between similar receptions from devout organisations to Life of Brian and The Last Temptation of Christ, Python member John Cleese recalled:

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Many years later I stood in a queue to see the Marty Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, and I was standing there with all these nice, thoughtful, quiet, well-​behaved students who were reading books or talking quietly to each other, and opposite were all the people protesting against the film who were as batty and unpleasant a bunch of ravers as I’ve ever seen! It was something terribly funny about these weirdos protesting at these very normal, quiet, well-​behaved people. (Quoted in Morgan 1999: 252)

These similarities only demonstrate the encounters between interpretations of the biblical stories and the tension between these approaches, particularly when they clash in a public manner. However, the result is a large amount of publicity for a film where the filmmaker is struggling with their faith in earnest in the case of The Last Temptation of Christ. There have been innumerable critical works on the relationship between Scorsese’s Italian Catholic heritage and his films, particularly where religious themes or iconography come into play. And this

Figure 0.2  Friday Night, Saturday Morning (BBC 2, 9 November 1979): ‘You’ll get your thirty pieces of silver …’. Left to right: Mervyn Stockwood (Bishop of Southwark), Malcolm Muggeridge and Monty Python members John Cleese and Michael Palin heatedly debate blasphemy in Life of Brian (1979).

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struggle, particularly through adaptations of works that attempt similar faith-​grappling, continues for Scorsese. Scorsese adapted The Last Temptation of Christ from the book by Nikos Kazantzakis (1955) and the reception led him to work on a film version of Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence (1966), which was eventually released in 2016. According to Ian Deweese-​Boyd, Scorsese’s Silence ‘can itself be a practical theodicy, providing the grounding experience necessary to live with the problem of divine absence’ (2017: 29). Deweese-​Boyd considers the film a way of offering practical solutions to dealing with divine absence, which is useful to those whose theological paradigms allow for this sort of doubt and questioning. The Last Temptation of Christ is a significant work in this low ebb of the biblical film. Therefore, this collection does refer back to it at several points as an important developmental touchstone. However, after this film, its controversy and the resulting low box office made biblical epics a risky investment in the cinema. Over the next fifteen years, only one biblical film produced within Hollywood met with any level of mainstream success. The animated feature The Prince of Egypt (1998) tells the story of Moses and the Exodus out of Egypt, up to the point where Moses receives the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Alicia Ostriker sees much in this film that likens it to DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) as a rather opulent and sincere effort to declare knowledge of God (2003). The Prince of Egypt, an animated musical production, features a cast of major stars such as Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum and Danny Glover. The movie is produced by DreamWorks Studios, at the time investing in its burgeoning animation wing. The Prince of Egypt was both critically and financially successful, though at the same time took few aesthetic risks. Emulating an animation style similar to Disney’s, particularly with the strides made in the 1990s towards fusing hand-​drawn and digital animation, the movie does attempt a retelling of the story very much in line with classic biblical epics, though Ostriker clearly identifies the way that the surrounding sociocultural landscape influenced The Prince of Egypt’s approach to representation. It can be argued this is the last significant marker before the release of The Passion of the Christ. This is not to say that these are the only examples of Hollywood biblical epics from the 1970s to the 1990s. Nor do I suggest that Hollywood is the only place where biblical adaptations are produced. One such example is 1987’s L’Inchiesta, which was made in Italy. This film is addressed in this book, and also engages not only in inquiries into faith, but also justice, both divine and human. The films released during this period

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Figure 0.3  The Prince of Egypt (1998): In a moment of spectacle, lightning backlights the sea life in the wall of miraculously parted water as the Hebrews cross to safety.

were, on the whole, inventive and challenging if not always successful. However, the locus of success in biblical adaptation shouldn’t be limited to film, but extended to television. One of the most extravagant and ambitious biblical adaptations in this period is the 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth, by lauded director of film and opera, Franco Zeffirelli. This series, originally aired in five parts in Italy, featured international star Max von Sydow as Jesus –​ certainly a nice choice considering his work with Bergman. Furthermore, von Sydow’s appearance in the American film The Exorcist (1973) demonstrates, on one hand, his continued association with films containing religious themes, controversial though they may be. On the other hand, it shows a level of mainstream exposure providing prestige to the lavish television production. Jesus of Nazareth was not only an unprecedented international television success, but remains the definitive depiction of Jesus’ life onscreen since the classical period. While further television productions have not met with the esteem accorded Jesus of Nazareth, from the late 1970s through the 1990s, televisual adaptations of biblical stories were steadily produced. In 1994, the US cable channel TNT created the first of a series of made-​for-​TV biblical adaptations with Abraham (1993), starring Richard Harris and Barbara Hershey. While this was initially intended as a one-​off, its ratings prompted the creation of more TV adaptations, telling stories of key

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figures such as David (1997), Esther (1999), Paul (2000), Jesus (1999), and even one on the Apocalypse (2000). This series was distributed internationally as well, and successfully carried the biblical adaptation torch until the new millennium.

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And they continue … Before providing an overview of the material present in this book, I’d like to make a brief statement about what isn’t here. As a testament to the continued interest in, and success of, these biblical adaptations, there are more being made as I write this, and some released since the finalising of this manuscript. This means that the work herein can’t be entirely comprehensive, in spite of occasional references to the most up-​to-​date texts. Firstly, Garth Davis’ 2018 Mary Magdalene demonstrates an important step in the telling of biblical stories, particularly in anglophone cinema. Fionnuala Halligan’s review of the film, not dissimilar to most others, identifies many problems with the film both politically and stylistically. Almost universally, reviews noted both the slow pace and the odd casting of Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus. However, Halligan’s review ends with a very fundamental point about the contribution of the film: ‘The real ending, though, is that Mary Magdalene spent the rest of her life in a cave while the Catholic church set about demonising her with considerable zeal throughout the millennia; thus any attempt to rehabilitate her should be acknowledged as a good thing, even if the film itself is problematic’ (2018). While the film does make efforts to reclaim a dismissed figure, it also aims to develop an overtly feminist telling of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection. This may sacrifice some finer theological points, and some finer feminist points, but it is a distinct, notable effort, laying on the surface what Catherine Hardwicke intrinsically wove into The Nativity Story. Another film released following the primary production of this book is Samson (2018). Boasting the talents of Billy Zane, Jackson Rathbone of Twilight fame, and abysmal reviews, Samson represents a clear effort by studio Pure Flix to replicate the big-​budget spectacular epics of yesteryear, combined with a muted form of the violence of The Passion of the Christ. Samson is itself of less import here than the fact that it draws attention to Pure Flix as a Christian production and distribution company. Under the ‘About Us’ tab on the Pure Flix website, the company sets out its aim:  ‘Our VISION is to influence the global culture for Christ through media. Our MISSION is to be the world leader in producing and distributing faith and family media. Since day one, we continue to strive to make a difference for His name’ (n.d.) This does not

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particularly stand out, apart from declaring its commitment to providing products that can be confidently consumed by those that share their attitude toward faith. What is more striking, on the same page, is its overt challenge to mainstream media: ‘Hollywood has played a major role in shaping ‘our’ current culture by controlling most of the media we experience today. We challenge you to stand up for Christ and share these heart-​felt movies with your families, friends, communities, and church to impact our world for Christ’ (Pure Flix n.d.). These are certainly strong words. And the movies Pure Flix releases more generally about devotion and faith bear out its firm stance. Probably the most widely disseminated product the studio has released is God’s Not Dead (2014). The film centres on a university student who refuses to sign a declaration that ‘God is Dead’ in order to pass his philosophy class. Since he refuses, his professor says he can pass the class, but he must debate with his professor and prove that God exists, with the result to be determined by the class after listening to both sides of the debate. Apart from the sheer illegality of the premise (no educator would ever be allowed to continue in their post after such a brazen display, particularly considering the fact that tenure is itself practically a fiction at this point) –​and the fact that philosophy tends to encourage the process of logic, with the conclusion being of less import –​the film’s most egregious problems are the depiction of a student who is disowned by her Muslim father after converting, and the act of conversion itself as the medium by which the protagonist both saves, and earns the prize of, a woman. The audacity of this particular film perhaps led to its tremendous financial success and its international distribution. However, another Pure Flix release, The Case for Christ (2017), managed to approach a similar topic somewhat more gently. This film, based on a true story, is about an atheist journalist who, in doing research to convince his newly converted wife that God does not exist, ultimately converts to Christianity through this research. This film achieved a stronger, though not blinding, critical success than God’s Not Dead, and still managed to achieve financial success. These films are more representative of Pure Flix’s output, but this studio also aims to appeal to the Christian cinephile. In an effort to bring the audience closer to the production, and the studio itself, its website states, ‘We hope you enjoy our morning devotionals as well as our behind the scenes videos and blogs live from the set of our new movies’ (Pure Flix n.d.). And this is perhaps the most distinctive part of this organisation. It reinforces the idea that Christians, particularly the evangelical Christians that their studio targets, are not simply passively

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taking in cinema as part of the background tapestry. There is, in fact, a cinema market for the evangelical. And tapping into these cinephilic tendencies can be, and has been, profitable and desired. The market for biblical adaptations and devotional stories is being explored, and the reception landscape is different than it was during classical Hollywood, when biblical epics were elaborate mainstream spectacles. In much the same way, the primary research on biblical movies used in this book is still relevant, but needs development and expansion, I argue and this collection broadly posits, because of these new paradigms of production, marketing, reception and interpretation. Foundations for the conversations Writing about biblical epics presents more challenges for film and media scholars. While these texts can be observed from generic and aesthetic perspectives, the surrounding cultural significance and secondary meanings are bound up with deeply held beliefs. When a film is believed to be based on a true story by a segment of the population (even with acknowledgement that interpretations may be fallible), and the rest of the audience acknowledge this fact about the believers, an uncomfortable tension arises in consuming these stories. As a result, biblical epics are subject to their own body of literature (with exceptions made) in order to understand these texts from different perspectives. It is significant that there is a separate body of literature, as research and methodologies that apply to the bulk of narrative film, whether fiction or fictionalised, do not always make the presumption that these depictions are representative of the Truth. Nor that the belief that these are depictions of Truth are rigidly divided amongst specific demographics of viewers. Hence, much work herein builds upon this previous work on biblical adaptation. The fundamental theoretical work for this collection, which you will see reappearing through most chapters, comes from Babington and Evans as well as Reinhartz. Babington and Evans are here not only useful but, to date, inextricable from most theoretical approaches to reading the biblical epic. Firstly, their book Biblical Epics: Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema identifies the biblical epic as a genre, providing precedent for such claims contained herein. However, within this genre, Babington and Evans subdivide into story types, which provide useful parameters for analysis and discussion: the Old Testament epic, the Christ film and the Roman/​Christian epic. You will see through the discussions here some efforts to identify further subcategories, and also ways of reframing some of the categories that Babington and Evans have

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identified. Finally, Babington and Evans apply and discuss many different theoretical approaches, which they argue are key to understanding the complexity of this particular genre. While they adhere to a methodology rooted in textual analysis, the need for a multifaceted theoretical reading avoids making assumptions about ideological positions, especially with regard to filmmakers so seemingly one-​dimensional as Cecil B. DeMille. You will see writers here continuing this work in application to this wave of millennial biblical adaptations, and, occasionally, pushing against the way Babington and Evans’ work has perhaps created its own strictures. Reinhartz has a closer connection to this book, having provided the Preface, which I can only assume you’ve already read. While Reinhartz’s work is represented by a range of books, articles and book chapters which she has published on the subject of both the Bible and biblical cinema, much of her thinking can be linked back to her book Bible and Cinema: An Introduction. While the title itself seems simple and broad, it is, in fact, a very succinct summary of what Reinhartz accomplishes with that book: it is an overview of thinking about the way that the Bible and cinema have interacted historically. Reinhartz demonstrates the harmonies and tensions that arise between the way the Bible is depicted on screen, and the way the Bible and its stories have nested within this storytelling medium. Reinhartz does build upon Babington and Evans, but there is a distinct attention to the Bible as text. Furthermore, Bible and Cinema includes discussions on some of these post-​2000 texts which are the central focus of this book. Other chapters here forge new research into reception and production. With these biblical adaptations coming immediately after the culturally significant mainstreaming of information technologies and the internet, we can see the way, in some cases in real time, audiences interact with and discuss these texts. From message boards to podcasts, Twitter hashtags to subreddits, consumers and viewers engage with each other, allowing opportunities to view collective discussions and evaluations. It also becomes clear how shifts and changes in culture affect discourse, and resultantly not only the way we talk about these texts but also the way these texts are produced and marketed. Altogether, this volume aims to show new considerations and perspectives on a body of films which currently sit uncomfortably in relation to the scholarship that engages with their ancestors. It is not only uncomfortable because of the widespread cultural changes in production practices and reception practices, but these new texts respond to different cultural moments and crises, and (in line with my own academic interests) break heavily from these aesthetic traditions. To return

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briefly to Scorsese’s discussion of The Last Temptation of Christ, he identifies the classical biblical epics as being ‘pageants’. His film was a direct response to this tendency, and I  would argue these new films do the same. Even the pageantry of The Passion of the Christ stands in contrast to the brutal, gritty and explicit violence and gore in the film. The Nativity Story shows a Mary and Joseph who are young adults and struggling in a harsh terrain with relatable issues. Keisha Castle-​Hughes, who played Mary, was in fact pregnant at the time. The love, concern and fear that are part of impending motherhood all come through in Castle-​Hughes’ performance. Exodus:  Gods and Kings’ almost agnostic take on possible miracles and Moses’ visions, Noah’s concerns with environmentalism and Risen’s visual echoes of the post-​9/​11 climate of terrorism (all addressed in the chapters herein) collapse the removal that pageantry creates between the text and the viewer. Almost consistently, as in The Last Temptation of Christ, gone are the bright colours and theatrical blocking of the classical epics. We see dirt, grime, sand, rubble, whites, beiges and browns (except for some key set pieces). Instead of pageantry, we see ourselves and our world mirrored in these stories of God and faith. There is, however, disagreement amongst contributors. Some of the writers in this volume feel that the differences of the Bible film from 2004 onward are just as significant as their similarities to the classical epics. It is therefore important that this earlier work should not be jettisoned as insight and historical poignancy oozes from it. Rather, this volume aims to modify and build upon this pre-​existing work to reach the new heart and the new spirit of these texts. To understand how and why the Bible is depicted the way it is onscreen in the new millennium. The perspectives This volume collects fourteen essays which observe and analyse films rooted in biblical events and stories from 2004 onwards, in an aim to articulate the specific uniqueness of these films using a discourse that not only highlights the multifaceted ways in which these are distinct from the classical Hollywood biblical epic, but also considers this tendency as a unique phenomenon in its own right. In order to do this, the collection is divided into four parts which broadly consider these films under different, but interlinked and progressively structured themes: production, text/​context, reception and culture/​representation. This structure not only allows for a range of specific foci from different voices, but also develops a clear way of thinking about how these films come into being,

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what the films are and where they come from, how they are received and how the representations depicted can be read and understood. Part I, ‘Producing biblical film and television’, contains chapters observing the means and considerations taken into account during the processes of development and production. The collection begins with political historian Karen Patricia Heath’s chapter, ‘Battles over the biblical epic: Hollywood, Christians and the American Culture Wars’. Heath begins by expanding on the material in this Introduction –​first looking closely at the culture within which Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ arose, and where this fits into the waxing and waning Culture Wars in America. This chapter positions production processes of the modern biblical epic against older models to show what is unique about the way these films are developed, financed and marketed, and suggests the Hollywood model isn’t as left-​wing as partisan ideological discourse indicates. The next chapter, ‘Depicting “biblical” narratives: a test case on Noah’ by Peter Phillips, covers the range of resources outside the Bible that are used to develop and adapt such texts, specifically looking at productions about Noah and the flood, and further incorporates interviews with the creative personnel behind these productions. Phillips’ chapter is built upon a conference paper, and the exuberance of the language and writing which echoes the effort to connect with listeners is palpable here. This is important, and demonstrates both the stylistic range within the chapters in this book and the excitement which can be inherent in the subject. Following this, Andrew B. R. Elliott considers the way that special effects are both deployed and read within biblical adaptations, and their function as a part of the production process in his chapter ‘Special effects and CGI in the biblical epic film’. The fourth chapter, ‘The phenomenon of biblical telenovelas in Brazil and Latin America’ by Clarice Greco, Mariana Marques de Lima and Tissiana Nogueira Pereira steps away from Hollywood, and details the little-​researched phenomenon of recent South and Central/​Meso American biblical telenovelas, primarily those produced by Record TV to compete with Globo Corporation’s telenovelas and which are widely viewed in prime-​time slots. This is especially timely as this phenomenon has clear echoes of the rise of the political right in the USA occurring alongside the increased popularity of biblical adaptations. The authors show the political context within which these productions flourish, and it is easy to see how their historical account of the production and reception practices of these telenovelas, and the recent rise of the radical right in Brazil, offers parallels to the USA of several years earlier. Following Part I, we move from looking at how these projects are conceived and disseminated to the texts themselves and their contexts,

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and how these stories are told. This includes the discussions of specific types of narrative forms as well as the consideration of these stories as adaptation. Part II, ‘Modern narratives and contexts in adapting the Bible’, begins with ‘Mythic cinema and the contemporary biblical epic’ by Mikel J.  Koven, which considers the mythical nature of the original textual resource (the Bible), and how these modern epics adapt and often complicate these ‘mythical visions’, primarily through an analysis of Aronofsky’s Noah and Scott’s Exodus:  Gods and Kings. The next chapter by Matthew Page, entitled ‘The Nativity reborn:  genre and the birth and childhood of Jesus’, is an analysis of Nativity and childhood stories as a subgenre of the biblical epic. Here, Page considers the range of approaches to date used in depicting the birth and childhood of Jesus in cinema. The seventh chapter by Chris Davies, ‘Convince me: conversion narratives in the modern biblical epic’, researches stories about characters, often not discussed in the Bible, contemporary to Jesus and how they come to faith. Furthermore, Davies addresses the popularity of these stories in relation to ongoing international conflicts and how more recent films like Risen have close resonances with more classical conversion narratives both in the USA and in Europe. Following this textual and narrative analysis, the collection then moves on to look at various approaches to reception in Part III, ‘Critical readings and receptions’. Becky Bartlett, in ‘Controversy and the “Culture War”: exploring tensions between the secular and the sacred in Noah, the “least biblical biblical movie ever” ’, first addresses the tension between different critical reviews of Noah. This particular film, which was denounced as deviating from the Bible by Christian reviewers, also had a mixed reception from mainstream ‘secular’ critics, and Bartlett discusses this reception before considering the role of scholars in analysing these films. In the next chapter, ‘Can anything good come out of Southern California?’* (*hyperlink to John 1:46): the Christian critical reception of elliptical Jesus narratives’, I  look at Christian reviews of ‘elliptical’ Jesus narratives, or non-biblical fiction stories about periods in Jesus’ life that broadly position him within a place but no events are specified. These films and Christian reviews are seen through the lens of scholarship on biblical adaptation reception to understand what is desired in ‘faith-friendly’ productions, and what these reviewers deem to be ‘in the spirit’ of their faith. Gregory P.  Perreault and Thomas S. Mueller then move to social media in ‘Examining the digital religion paradigm: a mixed-method analysis of online community perception of epic biblical movies’. Using surveys of active participants in religiously focused Reddit threads, Perreault and Mueller use statistical analysis

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in an effort to discover what prompts these users to see the religiously themed films they attend. The final part, then, is distinct from the rest of the book, but also relates to the earlier parts in various ways. Part IV, ‘Culture and representation’, ties into the ideas of how and why the films are made the way they are, as seen in Part I, what the films are and where they come from, Part II, and how viewers understand and read the films, Part III. However, Part IV incorporates more cultural and interpretative analysis in exploring these texts’ significance. We return to a discussion of the Culture Wars in the first chapter in this part, ‘The devil and the Culture Wars:  demonising controversy in The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ’ by Karra Shimabukuro. This chapter considers depictions of the devil in The Passion of the Christ, as compared to Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ. This comparison is made in order to understand how the devil is used as an avatar for what is demonised culturally in contemporary formulations of the Culture Wars. Next, Thomas J.  West III in ‘Ben-Her(?):  soft stardom, melodrama and the critique of epic masculinity in Ben-Hur (2016)’ considers Timur Bekmambetov’s adaptation in relation to presentations of gentler masculinity, and how this can be viewed as a critique of both traditional and more recent representations of brutal masculinity. Following this, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Emiliano Aguilar’s chapter ‘The biblical-trial film: social contexts in L’Inchiesta and Risen’ analyses representations of justice in the Italian film L’Inchiesta (1987) as a counterpoint to such representations in the similar, recent film Risen. In this chapter, the authors demonstrate tensions between what they term ‘divine justice’ and human justice. Finally, in ‘ “Squint against the grandeur”: iconoclasm and film genre in The Passion of the Christ and Hail, Caesar!’ Martin Stollery considers representations of the torture and crucifixion of Jesus through the visual representation of ‘the godhead’ in The Passion of the Christ, as well as in the self-reflexive story of biblical epic production in the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016). Furthermore, this observation links the way Christ’s suffering body was seen and constructed in classical biblical epics and the way that Gibson’s portrayal is distinct. These chapters, while far from a comprehensive overview of the modern biblical epic, are intended to initiate discourse about these films, which continue to be produced. We hope that this work will act as a kind of truck hitch (to use an analogy comfortable to my southernness). This is research that will hopefully link traditional, definitive work on the classical biblical epic to new work to come on this thematic, stylistic and interactive evolution (less comfortable in my evangelical

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background) in productions which draw inspiration from the Bible. These chapters, and this volume, are designed to allow for further consideration and inquiry into what makes them exceptional within the industry. To question how they stylistically and narratively stand out amongst similar stories from the past and their cinematic and televisual contemporaries. To consider how the audiences for them constitute a significant element of the cinemagoing public, including their reception practices. To suggest the way in which they fit into larger socio-​political and cultural discourses. We are far from the heyday of the biblical epic, but it is clear that biblical adaptations never died. They lay dormant (with a few stirrings), waiting for their cultural moment. And while this new moment does not fully reach the economically lucrative heights of biblical films in the 1920s until the 1960s, it is a keen case study in targeted production, marketing and reception practices. From fictionalised biblical stories to biblical adaptations made by those outside of Abrahamic religious worldviews, these films uniquely appeal to different audiences, and are heavily criticised as well. It’s a polarising genre, but it is also a useful and informative frame which we here use to observe and consider millennial culture and its texts. We hope this work will begin to provide a useful and timely vocabulary for future analysis, discussion and research into the modern biblical epic. Notes 1 See Mitchell and Plate 2007: 343. 2 At the time of writing (autumn 2018), this announcement has appeared within the last year. See Shepherd 2018. 3 Berliner defines incoherence ‘not in its common metaphoric sense of irrationality or meaninglessness but rather in the literal sense to mean lack of connectedness or integration among different elements’ (2010: 25). For Berliner, a successful and unique creation of tension between incoherence and coherence is a mark of high value.

References Babington, Bruce, and Evans, Peter William (1993) Biblical Epics:  Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University  Press. Berliner, Todd (2010) Hollywood Incoherent:  Narration in Seventies Cinema, Austin: University of Texas Press. Burnette-​Bletsch, Rhonda, and Morgan, Jon (eds) (2017) Noah as Antihero: Darren Aronofsky’s Cinematic Deluge, Abingdon: Routledge.

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Deweese-​Boyd, Ian (2017) ‘Scorsese’s Silence:  Film as Practical Theodicy’, Journal of Religion and Film 21 (2), Article 18, pp. 1–​34. Online at: http:// digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/​jrf/​vol21/​iss2/​18 (accessed 25 November 2018). Endo, Shusaku (1966) Silence, trans. Johnston, William (2015), London: Picador. Fox News (2004) ‘Transcript:  Gibson on “The Passion” ’, Foxnews.com, 25 February. Online at: www.foxnews.com/​story/​2004/​02/​25/​transcript-​gibson-​ on-​passion.html (accessed 19 February 2018). Halligan, Fionnuala (2018) ‘Mary Magdalene:  Review’, ScreenDaily, 27 February. Online at:  www.screendaily.com/​reviews/​mary-​magdalene-​review/​ 5127048.article (accessed 25 November 2018). Kazantzakis, Nikos (1955) The Last Temptation of Christ, trans. Bien, P.  A. (1998), New York: Simon & Schuster. McEvers, Kelly (2017) ‘Trump Stories:  Bannon’, NPR:  Embedded [Podcast], 19 October. Online at:  www.npr.org/​2017/​10/​20/​558906151/​how-​steve-​ bannon-​s-​time-​in-​hollywood-​changed-​him (accessed 27 October 2018). Mitchell, Jolyon, and Plate, S. Brent (2007) ‘Viewing and Writing on The Passion of the Christ’ in Mitchell, Jolyon, and Plate, S. Brent (eds) The Religion and Film Reader, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 343–​7. Morgan, David (1999) Monty Python Speaks!, New York: Avon Books, Inc. Ostriker, Alicia (2003) ‘Whither Exodus? Movies as Midrash’, Michigan Quarterly Review 42 (1), pp. 138–​50. Page, Matthew (2016) ‘There Might be Giants:  King David on the Big (and Small) Screen’ in Burnette-​Bletsch, Rhonda (ed.) The Bible in Motion:  A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film, vol. 1, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 101–​18. Palin, Michael (2006) Diaries 1969–​1979: The Python Years, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Pure Flix (n.d.) ‘About Us’, Pure Flix. Online at:  http://​pureflixstudio.com/​ about-​us/​ (accessed 25 November 2018). Reinhartz, Adele (2013) Bible and Cinema:  An Introduction, Abingdon: Routledge. Schickel, Richard (2013) Conversations with Martin Scorsese, Updated and Expanded, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Shepherd, Jack (2018) ‘ “The Passion of the Christ 2”:  Mel Gibson’s Sequel Will Bring Back Original Jesus Actor Jim Caviezel for the Resurrection’, The Independent, 31 January. Online at:  www.independent.co.uk/​arts-​ entertainment/​films/​news/​passion-​of-​the-​christ-​2-​mel-​gibson-​jim-​caviezel-​ jesus-​resurrection-​a8187051.html (accessed 3 November 2018). Vander Stichele, Caroline, and Penner, Todd (2006) ‘Passion for (the) Real? The Passion of the Christ and its Critics’ in Exum, J. Cheryl (ed.) The Bible in Film –​The Bible and Film, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 18–​36. Walter, Brian (2012) ‘Love in the Time of Calvary: Romance and Family Values in Crucifixion Films’, Cineaction 88, pp. 4–​11. Wright, Melanie J. (2008) Religion and Film:  An Introduction, London:  I. B. Tauris.

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Part I

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Battles over the biblical epic: Hollywood, Christians and the American Culture Wars Karen Patricia Heath The acts against this film started early. As soon as I announced I was doing it, it was ‘This is a dangerous thing.’ There is vehement anti-​Christian sentiment out there, and they don’t want it. It’s vicious. I mean, I think we’re just a little part of it, we’re just the meat in the sandwich here. There’s huge things out there, and they’re belting it out –​we don’t see this stuff. Imagine: There’s a huge war raging, and it’s over us! This is the weird thing. For some reason, we’re important in this thing. I don’t understand it. We’re a bunch of dickheads and idiots and failures and creeps. But we’re called to the divine, we’re called to be better than our nature would have us be. And those big realms that are warring and battling are going to manifest themselves very clearly, seemingly without reason, here –​a realm that we can see. And you stick your head up and you get knocked. (Gibson quoted in Boyer 2003)

Mel Gibson’s emotional commentary on the significance of his biblical epic, the self-​financed The Passion of the Christ (2004), followed on the heels of a major public controversy that saw numerous media attacks on his film as anti-​Semitic, excessively violent, and historically and biblically inaccurate. Gibson’s thoughts were published on 15 September 2003 in a long and not entirely unfriendly article entitled ‘The Jesus War’, penned by Peter J. Boyer, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. Through the machinations of a friend in the industry, Boyer had been invited to attend a private screening of Gibson’s unfinished work, followed by several other opportunities to watch Gibson in action (2003). In theological terms, Gibson self-​ identifies as a traditionalist who seeks to restore the older customs and rites of the Catholic Church, prior to the landmark reforms of Vatican II (for instance, Gibson holds to the Latin Mass, rather than the use of vernacular languages). In a political sense, Gibson might best be defined as a staunch conservative who believes that debates over Passion represent only one front in a broader

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Culture War, i.e. an ideological battle between, in his view, a (fundamentally wrong) secular left, and a morally correct right. Gibson sought to conceptualise the American cultural landscape in the early 2000s when he offered a heartfelt description of the ‘huge war raging’ over his film. Although in this interview, Gibson did not specifically use the phrase ‘Culture War’ or ‘Culture Wars’, clearly, the war he referenced was a cultural one of ‘big realms that are … battling’ (quoted in Boyer 2003). Gibson’s comments were very similar to those of a once-​insurgent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Patrick J.  Buchanan, who on 17 August 1992 spoke to the Republican National Convention of ‘a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America … a cultural war’ (Buchanan 1992). De facto, Gibson echoed Buchanan’s rhetoric, as he offered textbook Culture Wars commentary on the alleged ‘anti-​Christian sentiment out there’ that he believed sought to bring his project to a grinding halt. Gibson did not define the villain of the piece, but the antagonistic ‘they’, the opposing forces he thought he saw, conceivably included the Hollywood film industry itself (who had failed to provide financial backing for the film in the first place), the mainstream media (who, to his mind, were now taking unwarranted shots at the piece) and, potentially, anyone else who found the project in some way problematic. Gibson’s analysis of the rationale behind various ‘acts against this film’ thus sits well with that of other conservative cultural critics, such as Michael Medved, who has consistently argued that Hollywood (and, to a degree, the mainstream media itself) represents a liberal aesthetic elite, and that something must be done about this situation (1992). Since the 1990s, Hollywood’s biblical epics, both classic and modern, have proved a topic of considerable debate for film scholars:  indeed, much has been written on the subject of how best to define and methodologically approach this particular type of film. On one matter though, there appears to be an implicit scholarly consensus, namely that the biblical epic is somehow inextricably wrapped up with the functioning of the Culture Wars, and that Hollywood and religion are on opposite sides of an ideological fence. Meanwhile, scholars of the broader Culture Wars have tended to overlook film (Hunter 1991) with the exception of occasional discussion of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) (Hartman 2015: 183–​9). This chapter, written in late 2018, represents an initial attempt to question the Culture Wars assumptions of scholars of American religion

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and film, and to redirect the work of Culture Wars scholars into filmic directions. It was motivated initially by my desire to make sense of the seeming resurgence of the biblical epic post-​Passion, and by my interest in what I perceive to be a critically important genre in the recent film history of the United States. The resultant piece is not comprehensive, for my research is still in the early stages, but even so, it seems sensible to present my ideas now in order to encourage further debate and analysis. The chapter begins by sketching out the history of the biblical epic and its relationship to moral and cultural debates in the twentieth century United States. It then moves on to examine whether the key target audience for the modern biblical epic in the twenty-​first century (i.e. committed Christian viewers) conceive of themselves as ideologically opposed to Hollywood or not. In so doing, the chapter shows that controversies over the biblical epic were strangely absent during the height of Culture Wars debates, notably in the 1920s, the mid-​to-​ late 1960s and the late 1980s and into the 1990s. It also suggests that for many American Christians in the mid-​2000s and into the 2010s, Culture Wars battles are not central to their enjoyment or otherwise of specific films. The chapter concludes that in the case of the modern biblical epic at least, a Culture Wars lens may actually obscure more than it reveals. Pre-​Passion Culture Wars: Hollywood and the biblical epic in the twentieth century In order to test the usefulness of Gibson’s conception of Passion as a cultural battleground, and of Hollywood as a leftward-​leaning Culture Wars actor, it is important to place this film in historical context, and to explore the status, success and popularity of the biblical epic in the twentieth century. If Gibson and Medved are correct, we might expect to see clear-​cut evidence of a liberal Hollywood elite producing films that were antagonistic to American viewers, particularly those of a conservative, traditionalist or rightward-​leaning religious bent. So too, if Culture Wars theories are correct, we should see obvious flash points over the biblical epic during those years when the United States experienced quite virulent cultural battles –​namely the 1920s, the mid-​to-​late 1960s and the period from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. But what we actually see is more complex, and considerably more interesting. From the very earliest days of the American cinema, films with expressly Christian content appealed to moviegoers. Although the first

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landmark silent classic was arguably Birth of a Nation (1915), D.  W. Griffith had turned his hand to the Bible the year before, with Judith of Bethulia (1914). It was not until the 1920s, though, that the production of biblical epics really took off. This decade saw the origins of a nascent modern American conservatism, yet it also witnessed the liberalisation of American popular culture and progressive change for many women. Notable morality battles included those over domestic issues such as education, and also immigration. Film was affected by these morality debates too, as a series of Hollywood scandals led many Christians and other religious groups to view the nation’s foremost producer of films as a purveyor of immorality, indecency and sexual perversion, to the extent that by 1930, the major studios banded together to self-​regulate the industry, with the creation of William Hays’ Production Code Office that applied moral guidelines to film. At first glance, this self-​censorship would seem to indicate the veracity of claims such as those by Medved that the Hollywood ‘dream factory’ might be better termed a ‘poison factory’ (1992: 3). And yet the 1920s saw the production of several now-​classic Hollywood biblical epics  –​ such as Cecil B. DeMille’s first The Ten Commandments (1923) and also The King of Kings (1927). These films were hugely popular with domestic audiences, did very well at the box office and, in some cases, reportedly prompted religious conversions. Although Hollywood was afflicted by early Culture Wars in the 1920s, then, it was far from obvious that the film industry itself acted as a distinctive liberal elite, nor that there existed a clear-​cut ideological divide between those groups on the right, and those on the left, who worried about the content and moral impact of Hollywood films. The Great Depression and Second World War were undoubtedly challenging fiscal times for expensive productions, but the biblical epic persisted throughout the 1930s, for instance with DeMille’s Sign of the Cross (1932). The height of the classic biblical epic was the late 1940s and 1950s, however, with DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949), followed by, amongst others, Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951), DeMille’s second and more famous The Ten Commandments (1956) and William Wyler’s Ben-​Hur (1959). If we fast-​forward to the mid-​1960s, the second key decade of Culture Wars upheavals, these were turbulent years that saw a radical, youthful generation challenge the traditional values of an older one. Hollywood was not inoculated against these cultural maelstroms, yet it is still far from obvious that debates over the 1960s biblical epic fit easily within a conservative framework of Hollywood as a bastion of the left, or indeed of

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significant Culture Wars-​inspired attacks on the genre at the grassroots. Hollywood still produced big-​budget biblical films in this decade, such as Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (1961) and George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), but now these movies were flops at the box office. As the scholars of Hollywood film, Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans, have noted in their seminal Biblical Epics, the notion of an ‘epic’ itself pertains to the rare, expensive and well publicised. More than other genres, the epic is ‘highly vulnerable to major shifts of the determinants of production’, including financial pressures (1993:  6). The box office failures of the 1960s biblical epic thus merely foreshadowed the decline of big-​budget filmmaking per se, for other kinds of epics, notably historical ones, were also in trouble, such as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra (1963) (Hall and Neale 2010: 177–​95). The problem for the biblical epic in the 1960s was economic in nature, not moral: Hollywood interest in the genre declined not due to value-​driven debates, but because profits evaporated. That said, the biblical epic was not entirely immune to changing ideas about censorship in the 1960s. The introduction of a new voluntary ratings system for the industry in 1968, under the auspices of the Motion Picture Association of America, is a case in point here. Sometimes lusty biblical tales, particularly from the Old Testament, had long been one of the key ways for audiences, both mainstream and religious alike, to enjoy films with sometimes quite graphic scenes of sex and violence (Babington and Evans 1993: 8). But once these restrictions were removed, the stage was set for a New Hollywood, one that produced films that appealed to a younger, counter-​cultural generation with little interest in the Bible. Now the film industry turned to movies that, in the views of some Christians, undermined traditional family values, such as Dennis Hopper’s focus on drug-​taking and the communal hippie lifestyle in Easy Rider (1969). Yet this did not mean that faith-​based audiences simply dried up, nor that there was a clear-​cut Culture War between conservatives and traditionalists on the one hand, and liberals or progressives on the other. The 1960s were a period of high Culture Wars over other issues, but at no point did moral battles engulf the biblical epic, nor did the Hollywood film industry as a whole conceive of itself as a censoring, liberal elite. In short, there was no war for the soul of Hollywood. Although the world of Christian filmmaking experienced significant growth in the 1970s, this was more to do with the declining economic viability of big-​ budget filmmaking in general, than Hollywood specifically ignoring Christian audiences or deliberately making films that somehow sought to persecute those of faith. In the realm of Christian

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filmmaking, psychologist James Dobson’s series Focus on the Family (1978) helped to popularise his biblically inspired views on childrearing and familial and marital relations, whilst Franky Schaeffer, alongside his father, the fundamentalist Francis Schaeffer, released the successful series How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1977), followed by Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979) (Lindvall and Quicke 2016:  128–​33). Terry Lindvall, a scholar of communication and Christian thought, has argued that these films ‘engaged the cultural wars before it had become a bandwagon’ by dealing frankly with topics such as abortion, but the Christian film industry was not clearly conceived as a response to Hollywood taking a leftward-​leaning position within a Culture Wars paradigm in the aftermath of the 1960s (2009: 130). The explosion of Christian interest in the power of film in the 1970s did not demonstrate that Hollywood had alienated its audience of traditionalists, conservatives or religious or morally inclined folk –​or at least, not yet. The release of the auteurist director Scorsese’s Temptation brings this analysis up to the 1980s. In a sense, Universal Studios’ attempts to court religious audiences and to utilise controversy for publicity worked, as many Christians considered the film’s depictions of Christ tempted by lust (amongst other sins) as blasphemous and outrageous. Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, the chairman of MCA, was subjected to anti-​ Semitic chants outside his house and mass gatherings took place on the Universal Studios lot (Masters 1988). Yet in this case, the old adage that controversy sells did not hold true, for Scorsese’s biblical epic brought in only just over $8 million domestic gross. If Hollywood were a major leftward-​leaning player in the Culture Wars, to the extent that critics such as Medved have claimed, we might have expected significant investment in the genre during broader cultural debates. Despite poor box office showings, Hollywood should have sought to defend its supposedly liberal credentials against a rambunctious right. Instead, most debates focused not on Hollywood, but instead on non-​commercial agents of cultural production, such as the debates over allegedly blasphemous and indecent imagery funded and exhibited via grants made by the National Endowment for the Arts. Besides, in the years immediately prior to, and in the aftermath of, Temptation, Hollywood actually produced very few new biblical epics. The 1980s and 1990s saw the nation’s leading film industry avoid making these potentially controversial genre films altogether, meaning that Scorsese’s effort was an outlier. To put it another way, profits consistently took central stage for the Hollywood film industry, above and beyond engaging in broader values-​led debates, and the one major effort to make an

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epic biblical film, Scorsese’s Temptation, failed to deliver the hoped-​for box office receipts. With Hollywood’s attention turned towards other genres, the end of the twentieth century again saw the growth of an assortment of new Christian film companies and independent filmmakers who made good use of cutting-​edge technological opportunities, such as the direct-​to-​ video model that offered significant cost reductions in distributing films to niche audiences. Evangelical movies including Vic Sarin’s original Left Behind (2000), based on the apocalyptic novel series of the same name by the evangelical minister and conservative activist Tim LaHaye and the novelist Jerry B. Jenkins, for instance, spawned Bill Corcoran’s sequel Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002) and Craig R. Baxley’s Left Behind III: World at War (2005). Still, Hollywood was never wholly insensitive to religion even when big-​budget biblical epics were financially unviable, nor were Christians consistently portrayed in a negative light or without nuance in mainstream films. As Adele Reinhartz has noted, ‘whether we are aware of it or not, we encounter scripture in almost every film we view’ (2013: 2). Even summer blockbusters such as Simon West’s Con Air (1997) appealed to some viewers of faith, as audience comments such as ‘Nicolas Cage plays a wonderfully moral character’ and ‘there were wonderful flashes of light and truth’ on the online portal ChristianAnswers.net indicate (n.d.). If Culture Wars rocked American society at century’s end, it was

Figure 1.1  Con Air (1997): Director Simon West’s use of a ray of light to illuminate Cameron Poe’s face (played by Nicolas Cage) directly references Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ (1940).

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never clear that Hollywood sat on the left continuum, with the forces of a moralistic and traditional right somehow arrayed diametrically on the other side.

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Passion and post-​Passion Culture Wars: Hollywood and the biblical epic in the early twenty-​first century To return to Gibson’s controversial Passion (2004), if a Culture War truly raged over the film, this should be reflected at the grassroots level amongst key audience groupings. More specifically, we might expect to see rigorous morality and faith-​based debates, for instance on Christian movie review websites (especially given the populist, user-​ generated nature of much content). However, when we look closely at two of the leading spaces for Christian movie engagement, namely the Dove Foundation (www.dove.org), a non-​aligned Christian website that offers reviews through a biblical lens, and Plugged In (www.pluggedin.com), a conservative website that is part of Dobson’s Focus on the Family group, what we actually see is a remarkable Christian consensus on the significance and meaning of the film. Instead of focusing on Culture Wars controversies that swirled around Passion, Christian reviewers chose to discuss Gibson’s use of graphic, bloody, unrelenting violence as a mark in favour of Christians viewing the film, in order to experience on a personal, visceral level the abject suffering of Christ on the cross. Dick Rolfe, for example, one of the Dove Foundation’s co-​founders and Chief Executive Officer, has argued that James Caviezel’s ‘agonizing’ performance as Jesus Christ made Passion an epic spectacle, ‘a movie that every Christian adult must see’ (2004). Meanwhile, Bob Smithouser, Steven Isaac and Tom Neven, the three Plugged In reviewers, agreed, when they argued that Passion is excruciating to watch, in part because Gibson isn’t shy about showing the physical abuse much the way it is described in Scripture, but also because it happened not to a man, not to a revered historical figure, but to our Lord and Savior. For Christians, it’s personal. Those who have chosen to follow Christ will experience a bizarre emotional paradox while viewing the brutality. Each blow to the face, lash with the whip and nail through his flesh is simultaneously repellent and indisputable testimony of divine love. (2004)

The film was troublingly violent, and yet most decisively powerful for that very reason, for it might be used as a tool for evangelising and bringing the word of God to those who truly needed to wake up out of their lethargy and see the truth, i.e. that Jesus suffered and died on the

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cross for the sins of humanity. For two of the most popular Christian movie websites, Gibson’s Passion was remarkable not for its success in the face of Culture Wars controversies, but rather for its Christian message. There was little sense here that either Gibson or Passion had somehow been the victims of anti-​ Christian persecution, nor that Hollywood’s refusal to fund the film signified a broader Culture War whereby Christians were not permitted entry to an exclusive or elite liberal Hollywood club. Much has been made of the notion that post-​Passion, studios such as Twentieth Century Fox suddenly began to take Christian audiences seriously, for instance with the creation of new film labels such as Fox Faith. But such developments did not represent a radical shift towards a newly conservative pro-​Christian Hollywood strategy, and away from a previously liberal secular or anti-​Christian one. Fox Faith films, for example, enjoyed only small budgets of less than $5 million per picture in 2006, plus another $5 million for marketing: these were rather insignificant investments (Munoz 2006). In addition, much Fox Faith programming might be considered mainstream family viewing, rather than overtly conservative or Christian. Offerings such as Michael Mayer’s Flicka (2006), a horse-​centric melodrama based on the Mary O’Hara novel My Friend Flicka (1941), for instance, spoke subtly to committed believers and those with little interest in religious themes or cultural warfare. This evidence would indicate that even elements of the Hollywood film industry that are more obviously directed towards the right of the political spectrum need to consider economic factors above ideological ones. Fox Faith certainly sought to produce films that appealed to broad swathes of the American populace, rather than simply to niche conservative audiences. Subsequent post-​Passion auteurist biblical offerings, such as Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014) and Ridley Scott’s Exodus:  Gods and Kings (2014), have both received considerable attention from online Christian movie reviewers. But again, these comments and responses have taken the form of a Culture Wars debate. For the Dove Foundation reviewer Edwin L. Carpenter, Noah took too much artistic licence in veering away from the biblical account as detailed in Genesis. Whilst Carpenter did not elaborate in a theological sense on the problematic nature of attempting to define exactly what biblical accuracy might look like in a Hollywood movie (in the sense that multiple readings of the Bible have long existed), it was the spectacle of ‘men’s magic in the place of God’s power’ that concerned him the most about this film (2014). Over at Focus on the Family, reviewers were similarly worried by directors introducing what might be termed inaccuracies and divergences

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from the Bible. Paul Asay, reviewing Exodus on Plugged In, found Christian Bale’s Moses to be an unbiblical figure of a ‘tortured terrorist’ (2014). What he was most unhappy about was not the fact that Hollywood was supposedly promoting anti-​ Christian sentiment, but instead the problem of biblical accuracy, and in particular, the idea that through his directorial choices, Scott was indicating that God might be a figment of Moses’ imagination, brought on by a blow to the head. The problem with both of these films, not just for the reviewers, but also for many of the armchair critics active on these websites, was that they took too many liberties with the original source material, and hence were not truly modern (modern perhaps, and epic to a degree, but biblical, no). Subsequent offerings, most notably Kevin Reynolds’ Risen (2016), Timur Bekmambetov’s Ben-​Hur (2016) and Garth Davis’ Mary  Magdalene (2018), provoked remarkably similar discussion (i.e. debate devoid of Culture Wars rhetoric) on Christian movie review websites. Conclusion Be it outlined by film star Mel Gibson or conservative cultural critic Michael Medved, the Culture Wars rhetoric of a liberal Hollywood elite lacks sufficient nuance when subjected to historical analysis, for the basic function of Hollywood is to sell films that are popular with American audiences and to make significant profits on investments. So too, the notion of a fraught Culture Wars relationship between Christians who view themselves in staunch opposition to Hollywood also appears a misnomer. If the generally good-​humoured debate on the two leading Christian movie review websites are indicative of grassroots understandings of the significance of these films, this audience segment worries less about Culture Wars debates than we might at first assume, and actually cares more about biblical accuracy. Although historians such as Donald Critchlow have suggested that Hollywood was once conservative, and subsequently turned to the left (2013), this study of the Culture Wars and the modern biblical epic seems to indicate instead that Steven J.  Ross in Hollywood Left and Right is on much stronger ground, for the situation is far more complicated than a singular Hollywood that leans consistently in one political direction or another (2011). In terms of the future of the genre, there remains considerable life in  the modern biblical epic yet. Gibson is certainly of that opinion himself; as of this writing, a sequel to Passion is in the works, with Caviezel reprising his role as Jesus (Bond 2018). That said, the modern biblical epic does not automatically enjoy a built-​in Christian fan-​base.

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For works in this genre to enjoy success with their prime target audience, a film must pass two specific tests. First, if it is violent, this violence must act as an evangelising tool to bring the viewer to Christ, or to cement the faith of the wavering. Second, it must be true to the spirit and morality of the Bible, i.e. it must not be obviously inaccurate, too ahistorical or diverge significantly (in the minds of many viewers) from the core biblical text. Logically then, we ought to be able to predict the outcome of any newly released biblical epic –​certainly in terms of Christian reception –​ with some degree of accuracy. In an age of rampant neoliberalism, where budgets are tight and financial investments such as film development are even riskier than usual, the trend for modern biblical epics looks set to continue. This sketch of the relationship between the biblical epic and the broader Culture Wars offers a coherent trajectory across the longue durée and discerns patterns from what often seems confusing data. Certain topics have not yet received the attention that they deserve, such as the complex relationship between the modern biblical epic and censorship, nor between this genre and debates over changing constructions of race, gender, class and sexuality. I have chosen not to explore the global audiences for these films  –​for instance the many Christian viewers in the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa, amongst other countries –​ and I am aware, too, that experiences in certain local communities in the United States, at least superficially, may offer an alternative viewpoint to that which I propose. Still, it is clear that certain key methodological lessons may be drawn from this analysis. Scholars of the broader Culture Wars should include the history of the modern biblical epic in their analyses, whilst scholars of religion and film ought to investigate the growing literature on the American Culture Wars. Only then will we be a step closer to offering a truly rich and textured account of the significance of the modern biblical epic and its relationship to the Culture Wars that are still rocking the United States under President Donald Trump. Acknowledgements I would like to express my appreciation to the staff at the Vere Harmsworth Library of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, where much of the research for this chapter was undertaken. My sincere thanks also to Wickham Clayton and Ed Gibbons for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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References Asay, Paul (2014) ‘Exodus:  Gods and Kings’, Focus on the Family’s Plugged In. Online at:  www.pluggedin.com/​movie-​reviews/​exodus-​gods-​and-​kings (accessed 21 November 2018). Babington, Bruce, and Evans, Peter Williams (1993) Biblical Epics:  Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University  Press. Bond, Paul (2018) ‘Jim Caviezel in Talks to Play Jesus in Mel Gibson’s “Passion” Sequel’, Hollywood Reporter, 3 January. Online at: www.hollywoodreporter. com/​news/​jim-​caviezel-​talks-​play-​jesus-​mel-​gibsons-​passion-​sequel-​1080299 (accessed 21 November 2018). Boyer, Peter J. (2003) ‘The Jesus War’, New  Yorker, 15 September. Online at:  www.newyorker.com/​magazine/​2003/​09/​15/​the-​jesus-​war (accessed 21 November 2018). Buchanan, Patrick J. (1992) ‘1992 Republican National Convention Speech, Monday –​August 17, 1992 at 12:00 am’, Patrick J. Buchanan Official Website. Online at:  http://​buchanan.org/​blog/​1992-​republican-​national-​convention-​ speech-​148 (accessed 21 November 2018). Carpenter, Edwin L. (2014) ‘Noah (2014)’, dove.org:  The Dove Foundation. Online at:  www.dove.org/​review/​10305-​noah/​dove.org (accessed 21 November 2018). Christian Spotlight on Entertainment:  ChristianAnswers.net (n.d.) ‘Con Air’. Online at:  https://​christiananswers.net/​spotlight/​movies/​pre2000/​i-​conair. html (accessed 21 November 2018). Critchlow, Donald T. (2013) When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Stars, Studio Moguls, and Big Business Remade American Politics, New  York: Cambridge University Press. Hall, Sheldon, and Neale, Stephen (2010) Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Hartman, Andrew (2015) A War for the Soul of America:  A History of the Culture Wars, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Hunter, James Davison (1991) Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America: Making Sense of the Battles Over the Family, Art, Education, Law, and Politics, New York: Basic Books. Lindvall, Terry (2009) ‘Christian Movies’ in Blizek, William L. (ed.) The Continuum Companion to Religion and Film, London:  Continuum, pp. 125–​36. Lindvall, Terry, and Quicke, Andrew (2016) Celluloid Sermons: The Emergence of the Christian Film Industry, 1930–​1986, New York: New York University Press. Masters, Kim (1988) ‘The Careful Strategy of “Temptation” ’, Washington Post, 10 August. Online at:  www.washingtonpost.com/​archive/​lifestyle/​ 1988/​08/​10/​the-​careful-​strategy-​of-​temptation/​50516121-​c7d6–​45da-​b23d-​ 811b14f04bf0/​?noredirect=on&utm_​term=.0bf5e9de82f6 (accessed 21 November 2018).

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Medved, Michael (1992) Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values, New York: HarperCollins. Munoz, Lorenza (2006) ‘Fox Puts Faith in Christian Films’, Los Angeles Times, 19 September. Online at:  http://​articles.latimes.com/​2006/​sep/​19/​business/​ fi-​faith19 (accessed 21 November 2018). Reinhartz, Adele (2013) Bible and Cinema: An Introduction, London: Routledge. Rolfe, Dick (2004) ‘The Passion of the Christ (2004)’, dove.org:  The Dove Foundation. Online at: www.dove.org/​review/​4353-​the-​passion-​of-​the-​christ/​ (accessed 21 November 2018). Ross, Steven J. (2011) Hollywood Left and Right:  How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics, New York: Oxford University Press. Smithouser, Bob, Isaac, Steven, and Neven, Tom (2004) ‘The Passion of the Christ’, Focus on the Family’s Plugged In. Online at:  www.pluggedin.com/​ movie-​reviews/​passionofthechrist (accessed 21 November 2018).

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Depicting ‘biblical’ narratives: a test case on Noah1 Peter Phillips Once upon a time, in the guild of postmodern biblical scholarship, we would all have known what to do with the story of Noah. As if we had unearthed it in a treasure chest, or amidst Aesop’s fables or Grimm’s fairy tales, in good post-​ formalist Proppian style, we would simply employ something like actantial analysis to the plot. Of course, biblical texts are a little less easy to fit into the same structure as fairy-​tales. And the few Bible scholars who have run in this direction for some new purchase on the text have tended to want to recreate the analysis in a biblical direction. Mark Stibbe’s book, John as Storyteller, was one of the first places I  discovered an attempt to match the two. I  thought it was a strange affair born out of a desire to rethink structural genre criticism for contemporary biblical studies. Propp had developed a model for interpreting Russian folk-​tales. But Algirdas J. Greimas then sought to develop this model ‘as the permanent structure behind all narratives’2 (Stibbe 1992:  35; Greimas 1966). In Greimas’ theory, actions can be broken down into six actants. These actants are then assigned to different elements of the action along three different oppositional axes –​the axis of desire (the volitional axis) links the actants of subject and object, the axis of power links the actants of helper and opponent and the axis of transmission (Hébert 2007:  1)3 links the primary sender and ultimate receiver, as in the diagram shown as Figure 2.1. Stibbe (36) outlines the process through a paradigmatic narrative: A story is usually begun when a sender tells a receiver to undertake some task. The volitional axis represents his quest; the power axis, the struggle involved in its execution. Thus, a story in which a king sends a prince to find his daughter, and in which the prince is waylaid by bandits before being helped by a magic horse to his prize would be schematized by Greimas as follows:

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Axis of transmission

Sender

Axis of desire object

Axis of power

Helper

Subject

Receiver

Opponent

Figure 2.1  Greimas’ structure based around actants.

Axis of transmission

King

Axis of power

Magic horse

Axis of desire daughter

Prince

Prince

Bandits

Figure 2.2  Greimas’ theory applied to a story of a prince helped by a magic horse to save a princess.

Roland Barthes had explored applying actantial analysis to the biblical narrative, specifically to Genesis 32, the story of Jacob’s struggle at Peniel –​interpreting Jacob as a hero on a quest (ordeal) and the angel/​ God as both sender (the originator of the quest) and the hero’s opponent (Barthes 1977). The biblical narrative, in a way, subverts the quest genre. As Stibbe puts it: ‘At the moment of discovery, Jacob recognizes that his Opponent is none other than God himself! In narratological terms, the Receiver realizes the Sender and the Opponent and Helper are all one and the same! It is God who sends Jacob down the axis of volition, and it is God who meets Jacob on the axis of power’ (37). Barthes finds the outworking of the narrative to be deeply disturbing, a scandal, and comments: ‘there is only one type of narrative that can present this paradoxical form –​narratives relating to an act of blackmail’ (138). But in this narrative, this ordeal by combat, there is an impasse which God seeks to break by touching Jacob’s hip. However, Jacob is not defeated but instead draws a blessing from God: The sequence itself, however, actional, however anecdotal it may be, functions to unbalance the opponents in combat, not only by the unforeseen

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victory of the one over the other, but above all (let us be fully aware of the formal subtlety of the surprise) by the illogical, inverted, nature of the victory. In other words … the combat, as it is reversed in its unexpected development, marks one of the combatants: the weakest defeats the strongest, in exchange for which he is marked (on the thigh). (133–​4; italics in the original)

Barthes’ interpretation concludes by referring to the passage as a metonymic montage in which the various themes associated with Jacob and Esau’s relationship, their experience of God, their economic and material differentiation, their rites of naming and meals are not developed but rather combined. Barthes argues that this montage is the stuff of dreams, or of the unconscious. The reader is presented with an explosive narrative which should not be argued away but instead allowed to destabilise, ‘to hold its significance fully open’ (141). How might we apply such analysis to the basic story of Noah? We could argue that the subject of the narrative is Noah and that he is seeking salvation/​safety/​rescue –​this is his object. It is a worthwhile quest, although one sometimes wonders whether Old Testament characters, sometimes called Patriarchs, really are seeking salvation or redemption, which are perhaps too easily post-​reformation Protestant words. The characters themselves seem to spend most of their time living out their lives, often being quite successful at that, before in some way or another they become aware of God calling them to something more … or less … Almost as though God surprises them by his presence, by his call to action and drags them sometimes kicking and screaming into his narrative. Does the Noah story offer a similar conundrum or is it a much more straightforward quest? Noah is God’s subject/​God’s actor, playing out God’s Heilsgeschichte –​salvation for the remnant. God gives Noah a quest which is itself multilayered –​to build a boat, to save his family, to provide a remnant. The context of this quest is

Axis of transmission

God

Axis of desire salvation

Axis of power

God

Noah

Remnant

God, family, others

Figure 2.3  Griemas’ theory applied to the story of Noah.

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God’s anger at the world’s violence caused by the very people he has caused to fill the earth (Gen. 6:13). The details of the Ark’s construction are given in detail and as such the building of the boat becomes the pragmatic focus on the narrative. But the boat is a means to an end. The actual quest (to save a remnant) is revealed as Noah is told that not only will the Ark be home to his family but also to a massive collection of animals and all that is needed to look after them. The Ark is to be a kind of capsule to save something of creation itself. But, as we shall see in the depictions of Noah later in the text, this is also a personal quest for Noah. We are told from the outset that Noah is a righteous man (Gen. 6:9) and that he did everything just as God commanded him (Gen. 6:22). The various contemporary depictions see this quest as a personal quest for Noah himself –​a teasing out of his character before God. But such a process is not known to the biblical text itself, which does not have anything to say about Noah’s darker side until he is caught drunk and naked after sampling the first post-​fluvial vintage (Gen. 9:20). Other traditions bring such reflection in earlier –​noticeably in the Islamic versions, the York mystery plays and even in the New Testament’s reflection on Noah’s story and his faith. As with Barthes, we are both ready and eager to investigate the internal quest that lies behind the apparent simplicity of this text. The quest is not just to build a boat, just as God’s command to Abraham to take Isaac into the desert is not about child sacrifice (Gen. 22). Both narratives are about the inner life of the patriarch, their willingness to follow God, to trust God, to rely upon his guidance. As shown in the actantial analysis of the story –​God is pre-​eminent in both the narrative and in power. God initiates the quest and provides for the resolution of the quest. God questions the patriarch and gives the resources and knowledge and even the space for the patriarch to resolve the question that has been asked. Actantial analysis gives us insight into the power behind the narrative, the initiation behind the narrative and, in a way, the subordinate role of all the patriarchs –​they are there to do the bidding of Yahweh and their obedience seems to be determinative of their blessing, even if they can at times seem to best Yahweh in their diplomatic skills! Despite us perhaps wanting to see them as heroes of quests, the patriarchs are depicted as the receivers of God’s commands, secondary to him, subordinate to his will. Perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves. Isn’t this just a mythical story after all –​a folk-​tale which has its counterparts in so many cultures? Noah (or whatever he is called in one of the many alternative traditions) is sent by Yahweh (substitute just about any creator God ­figures –​indeed we could build a grid of Noah’s names against creator

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Gods) to save the earth, or rather some small remnant of human kind and the animal kingdom, from a purification flood which the divine him/​ her/​itself is about to send as a kind of rethink over how things have gone in the last couple of chapters of Genesis. Or we could do something much more complex like James Tehrani did for Red Riding Hood –​look at all the various versions of the folk story around Europe and create a phylogenetic network analysis of all the different types and variations  –​a genetic tree of alterity (Tehrani, Nguyen and Roos 2015). But for a story which has biblical and Qur’anic traditions, which may link back to the earlier traditions of Enuma Elish and which seems to have a whole host of cross-​references in other literate and pre-​literate cultures across different continents, such a phylogenesis would be a massively complex endeavour to even begin. Why are we so keen, though, to go for the inner experience of Noah? Do we find in these folk stories something of the realm of the unconscious, as Barthes puts it? Do we see the need to resolve something of the human condition itself in these stories? Perhaps because folk-​tales do not exist for their own benefit –​they do not recount a singular narrative event, but rather point to something more metonymic, something more basic at the heart of what it means to be human. Perhaps this is why I have jumped into the whole folklore genre. Fairy-​tales and folk stories point to deeper truths and rather than seek to interpret them through the usual paraphernalia of historical-​critical biblical studies, we should allow them to play around in our own psyches and create new connections, as noted in Jack Zipes’ exploration of the origin of the ‘irresistible’ fairy-​tale (2012). Early on, Zipes refers to Arthur Frank’s insistence that fairy-​tales are not to be interpreted, but rather readers should allow the tales to feed into our own imaginations (something we will see happening in both our Noah examples), and allow them to ‘breathe life into our daily undertakings’ (3; citing Frank 2010). Frank argues that his role is to ‘uncover the claims and operating premises of socio-​narratology’ –​to disclose what the fairy-​tales are saying about social conventions and patterns rather than to demythologise or unpick them from historical settings. So, the reason for starting off with a discussion of actantial analysis, usually reserved for the study of fairy-​tales, is not to deprecate the Noah narratives as history but rather to see this passage as a piece of socio-​ narratology, a social narrative which speaks into the bigger picture of our engagement with an irresistible God. Moreover, our study of two modern retellings of the story shows how the tale morphs into contemporary neuroses or preferred narratives. The ancient text is not really concerned with the inner psychology of Noah (although again compare

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the Jacob narrative at Peniel (Gen. 22) which is precisely concerned with Jacob’s inner conversations). But modern narratology is massively interested in the internal workings of the subject’s brain. Although perhaps ‘modern’ here is a mistake. There are plenty of examples in the Bible and in Greco-​Roman literature, for example, of self-​reflection and of commentary on what is going on in someone else’s mind. It is wrong to assume, as some do in contemporary cultural studies, that such reflection was invented by Shakespeare. Wherever it came from, contemporary reinterpretations, retellings of the Noah narratives will be geared towards contemporary social norms and thus towards Noah’s internal conversations either with his own doubts or fears, or with his assumptions about religion, family and society. It is precisely this route which both Jordan and Aronofsky take. The raw material of the narrative, of course, is relatively sparse and the key problem (or the key spark to the imagination) with any interpretation of the Noah story might not be how much material there is (Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011–​2019) in either of its dual traditions (novelistic or filmic) springs to mind) but rather how little. Eight verses of historical background (Gen. 6:1–​7,11–​13), a few verses saying that Noah was a good man (Gen. 5:30–​32, 6:8,9,22, 7:1), a few to describe Noah’s boat-​building task (Gen. 6:14–​16) and the coming deluge (Gen. 6:17, 7:4,11–​12,17–​20), interspersed with snippets of those to be saved –​both Noah’s family (Gen. 6:10,18, 7:1,13,23) and the chosen fauna (Gen. 6:19–​20, 7:2–​3,8–​9,14–​16). Each micro-​theme remains largely undeveloped. Instead, the three main strings of the narrative (warnings of impurity, a family to be saved and the animals) are wrapped around the Ark and the impending doom, intercollated, intersected, enmeshed with one another. The same point reinforced by slight alteration and recoupling. A Bible story contorted within itself. For the modern reader, so used to inner conversations, motives and doubts, there is so much that is simply not here –​just scant measurements, numbers of animals, a family. There is no explanation of the process of building such a massive boat; no discussion of mercy (unlike Abraham’s bartering when confronted with God’s wrath over Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen. 18:22–​33); no details to help make anything really understandable. Although Noah’s story is told in different places in the Qur’an (Suras 57, 11 and 23), there is still little solid context to draw on. Some details are given in the text –​for example, speculation about Noah’s lost son (Sura 11:42–​46). But most of the rest depends on later speculation. For a contemporary retelling, so much has to be added for the modern reader/​viewer. How much more also for a movie blockbuster to fit our

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contemporary need for characterisation, empathy, family values, blood and gore. So when Tony Jordan, famed EastEnders screenwriter, adapts the story for the BBC, we are taken geographically to the desert, but a desert populated by Mancunians (although the youngest son strangely seems to have spent too much time down the road in Liverpool), sitting at an elevated table to eat their food and engaging in so many anachronistic pastimes that well-​known Exeter Hebrew Bible professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s Twitter feed almost went into meltdown during the show’s airing (BBC.co.uk 2015). Jordan’s Noah is full of teenage angst, family arguments, lectures on austerity and poverty, tirades against Dawkins-​type atheism, hints of the Noah traditions found in the Qur’an, but even more content found in Jordan’s own imagination and artistic licence. Of course, as Frank argues, we need to let the story breathe and Jordan certainly allows the story to breathe in the air of the contemporary soap opera. There is little attempt here to create any kind of historically true narrative. But the BBC are famous for faithful period dramas. If they can get Poldark right, then, surely, they can get the Bible right? But that’s a misreading of this piece of media. This isn’t a period drama –​the period isn’t really specified and the plot is a little scant for even the briefest dramatic account. So those who expect to see a period drama, a faithful re-​enactment of the biblical account, are bound to be frustrated. There is not enough here to create a period drama. The core material is a snapshot rather than a blueprint. The details cannot be reconstructed from what the narrative or its context tells us. Instead, the adaptor creates a series of anachronisms:  use of horses, iron nails, IKEA-​type furniture, sex acts in the house, a detached stone dwelling with enclosed rooms –​ and we could go on all night. What Jordan’s Noah is trying to do is to furnish the story with enough props which the contemporary will recognise, so that he can, somewhat ironically, strip back the story to tell the core message  –​the interplay between the three central characters –​Noah, his family and their God. In other words, the scant narrative is expanded with contemporary props, allusions, concerns, narratives and events. The Noah narrative becomes a kind of modern mystery play where the biblical narrative is used to tell a secondary narrative about the guild’s role in a medieval British city, or to poke fun at key members of the local community, much like a pantomime. Dawkins’ tirades against religion are spoken into what is supposed to be a Stone Age city (!) as an allusion to the viewer’s contemporary context –​see, nothing changes! By doing this the viewer is left comfortable enough to accept the underlying narrative of a prophetic outcast being told by an angelic messenger

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to build an alarmingly big boat in the middle of a desert –​a decidedly non-​contemporary narrative. Overall, the piece does its job remarkably well. Jordan’s liberal attitude to the historical narrative is quite deliberate. In a preview meeting in London, Jordan explored the ins and outs of writing a Bible epic. In the end, the narrative of the adaptation becomes a reflection of Jordan’s own theological convictions about the world in which he himself lives and the need for the narrative to demonstrate God’s mercy rather than his wrath. He lets the story breathe –​he allows the fairy-​tale to become a social narrative for the modern day.4 Of course, Jordan’s Noah was much less expensive to make than Darren Aronofsky’s ‘bloated, bombastic CGI-​fest’ (O’Donovan 2015). Aronofsky’s Noah is a proper multimillion-​dollar Hollywood blockbuster complete with special effects, blood and gore, even robot-​like angels and a gross income of $362m dollars.5 To some extent the film seems to have more connection with post-​apocalyptic thrillers than with Bible epics. Noah is a mean street fighter in a toxic, dying world, protecting his family and striving for what is right –​the opening scenes seem to come from something like the Book of Eli or Mad Max. Perhaps to push us into a reflection of our own contemporary condition (echoes here of Frank’s theorising and Jordan’s updating of the underlying ‘fairy-​ tale’) we are presented with a post-​industrial world that faces imminent destruction because of the cost of unchecked technological development. Interpreting the ‘Nephilim’ of Gen. 6:4 in terms of the Watchers from the Enoch traditions, Aronofsky portrays these guides of early humanity as fallen angels encrusted, imprisoned, by the very rocks of the earth, as pseudo-​robotic allies and enemies at the same time –​sometimes pet-​like in their support, at others, such as in the flood sequence itself, formidable fighting machines. In Aronofsky, Noah’s world is a strange mix of technological urban culture versus environmental rural isolation –​one of the stars (Emma Watson) said in an interview: ‘I think what Darren’s going for is a sense that it could be set in any time. It could be set sort of like a thousand years in the future or a thousand years in the past …. You shouldn’t be able to place it too much’.6 I’m not sure of the details but the sense of timelessness is clear. This is a modern morality play about contemporary society’s dystopian love affair with technology. Noah and his family represent the rural fightback, the nature warriors who seek to contain technology and to allow the earth to flourish. This is a trope familiar in many contemporary SF narratives (whether science fiction or speculative fiction). In that same theme, Aronofsky, in writing what he called the least biblical film ever, provides a foil for Noah in the character of Lamech’s son,

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the maker of tools in bronze and iron, Tubal-​Cain (Gen. 4.22). Tubal-​ Cain represents the chaotic, industrial, brutish, worldly antithesis to Noah’s ascetic, environmental, family-​orientated goodness. Cain fights, builds, rules, slaughters. He embodies the very horror of the world, which Yahweh has determined must end. But gradually through the film, Aronofsky forces the viewer to ask whether this antithesis is real. Both men are seeking to save their own people. Both men are horrified by God’s silence. Both men are seeking both justice and mercy. Indeed, Noah’s insistence that all of humanity must die, including his own family, becomes an increasingly malevolent theme. Apparently denying Ham a wife, threatening to kill Shem and Ila’s unborn child(ren), isolated at his own forge in the heart of the Ark, Noah seems to become more and more like his mortal enemy, the exact opposite of a ‘good man’. The biblical story about a good man living in obedience and saving the remnant of creation seems to be turned on its head as we watch Noah about to plunge a dagger into his granddaughter’s heart. In Aronofsky, the fairy tale is not just allowed to breathe but also to mutate into a monster. Much like Jordan, Aronofsky is keen to make this story his own –​to show how evil lies not in the social structures, whether industrial or environmental, but actually within the heart of man himself. Noah has to face his own demons and come to terms with his own monstrosity. This is the completely un-​biblically biblical truth which Aronofsky has decided to share through this movie. And when interviewers question why, Aronofsky is quite clear –​he wants to get to the heart of the Noah story and for Aronofsky the question is all about justice and mercy. Aronofsky, or his research team, have done some hard work piecing together the various developments of the Noah story. After exploring Genesis, Jubilees, Enoch and the Zohar, after a creative process of moulding the traditions together and finding a synthesis between text and imagination, Aronofsky declares his Noah to be an exercise in midrash: ‘the text exists and is truth and the word and the final authority. But how you decide to interpret it, you can open up your imagination to be inspired by it’ (Aronofsky quoted in Chattaway 2014: 48). What lies at the heart of Aronofsky’s midrash, Aronofsky’s Noah, is the exploration of khamas  –​ the khamas of Tubal-​Cain’s industrial brutality, the khamas of Noah the radicalised loner, the khamas which the Creator inflicts upon his own creation in response. If the retellings of the Noah narratives stray from the biblical account and introduce concepts drawn from other sources or from the writers’ own creativity and imagination, constantly pulling in more detail to help the reader connect, then perhaps the issue is not with the filmmakers faithfully reproducing the Bible or playing fast and loose with the

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text, but with the kind of text that Noah’s story is. Perhaps it’s better to understand Noah as something other than history, something closer to a kind of narrative kernel within the Old Testament –​a story which shows something of the prehistory of Yahweh’s relationship with the world but not really in the same relational terms that we will find in the later patriarchs. A  kind of ur-​covenant-​cycle-​cum-​nature-​explanation-​story-​ cum-​heroic-​patriarch-​cum-​bogeyman-​God-​story? Perhaps as a fairy tale, a myth, a metonymic narrative pointing to the relationship between a patriarch and his God? So, Fred Blumenthal starts his Jewish Bible Quarterly essay:  ‘The story of Noah’s ark, understood as a metaphor, conveys a significant religious tenet, whereas as a factual occurrence is poses numerous problems’ (2012:  89). A  ship this large a thousand years before Iron Age tools were available  –​just fanciful. Placid animals from all over the world fed on what? Their excrement disposed of how? The text doesn’t work. It’s crap. Precisely the way in which Eddie Izzard deals with the Noah story, as explored by Chris Meredith in an essay entitled ‘A Big Room for Poo: Eddie Izzard’s Bible and the Literacy of Laughter’ (2015). Meredith and Izzard have much fun taking the Bible story at face value and attempting to prove the failure of the text. Meredith explores the Ark’s deficit  –​no way to get rid of the animals’ excrement. Jordan’s Noah omits this period of the story, whereas Aronofsky’s animals are (somewhat eerily) anaesthetised. But there is nowhere to put the poo. No door to expel it. The Ark is constipated. Meredith concludes: ‘What is also at stake here, though, is the unworkable nature of the story, the fact that the myth implies, or really demands, a series of everyday details that it cannot sustain. The failure of the text is comic’ (200). And Izzard exploits the gaps in the text, the paucity of the text, to satirise it and to make a mockery of all that the story stands for. There is nothing in Izzard’s or Meredith’s reading that we might see as a midrashic reading, nothing which seeks to find a mythic kernel. No attempt to grasp what the Bible is saying to us. We are just encouraged to laugh even more as the text falls apart. I suppose you can do the same to any other fairy tale or myth with such a brief narrative kernel. But it wouldn’t be so funny to rail against Red Riding Hood! Blumenthal’s response to the absurdity of the narrative as a factual occurrence is to mythologise it –​to see the Noah story as a re-​enactment of creation, an unravelling of creation –​going back to Genesis 1.1 and then tracking through repeating the same steps, repeating the act of creation which seems to have gone so wrong. Genesis 6–​9 for Blumenthal is a retake of creation, although with some omissions since this time sun, moon, fish of the sea hardly needed recreation because of a flood (90).

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Izzard, of course, has much fun with ducks –​why did they need to be on the Ark, they would have survived anyway, there are going to be too many ducks in the new creation, so much trouble ahead: ‘God: Sorry, I was … it’s my week off. Oh, I forgot about the ducks. Oh shit! There’s going to be a lot of evil’ (Izzard quoted in Meredith, 201). Theologians, of course, tend to steer away from the failure of the text. Instead, they want to establish the theological structure of that text, the conceptual structure the narrative kernels. Perhaps to draw attention away from the text’s realistic naïveté, they layer this structure with theological terms laden with eschatological promise to determine a theological reading of the text. So, while Blumenthal takes us back to creation, Daniel Streett (2007: 37–​8) imposes a covenant structure:

1 universality of the impending flood 2 the promise of a remnant 3 the reversal of creation 4 the cause of the Flood –​humanity’s violence (hamas) met by divine destruction (hamas) 5 New Creation 6 New Covenant.7

Others have shown that this conceptual battle over the meaning of the Noanic narrative is nothing new … the Bible itself seems to have pushed for a less than literal reading of the text. So in 1 Corinthians 10:11 –​ ‘these things happened as an example … for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come’ (33).8 Streett maps this form of interpretation across Second Temple Judaism traditions –​from the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–​36), heavily used in Aronofsky’s Noah, but originally pointing to eschatological imagery drawn from Deuteronomy 28:12, Psalm 85:11, Isaiah 65:20–​23 and 66:18–​23 –​to Josephus’ story of Seth’s two stelae  –​both inscribed with wisdom  –​one in brick, the other in stone to survive fire and flood. Within the biblical traditions themselves, Streett points (at some considerable length) to Isaiah 24–​27 and the cosmic upheaval brought by God, who opens up the windows of the heavens (Is. 24:18, Gen. 7:11, 8:2) (39–​46); to Isaiah 54:8–​10 with its direct reference to the Flood narrative; briefly to Zephaniah 1:2–​18; and less convincingly in Daniel 9 and Amos 5:8. The imagery seems relatively frequent –​indeed Streett refers to ‘God’s Chaoskampf in which he conquers the forces of disorder to bring about a new creation … This reveals an underlying flood-​exile typology in Isaiah’s thought. The flood is the exile writ large: Israel’s exile is like the flood on a national scale’ (49).

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But Blumenthal’s whole point is not to laugh at the lack of realism but to suggest that this lack, this abhorrent vacuum, this counter-​ realism (tools, reversed rain season, allegorical geography) should point the reader to the metaphorical, allegorical aspects of the story. In other words, would you take Red Riding Hood seriously? But you would take the underlying message of Red Riding Hood seriously. You may not accept the myth, but you accept the truth behind the myth. Watch out for dangers in the forest! Perhaps the problem with Noah is, as Meredith suggests, that the Genesis account doesn’t sound enough like a fairy-​tale, it’s just not good enough at giving us clues to read it as myth –​we need it to start with ‘once upon a time’. The genealogies of Genesis 5, the contextual background of Genesis 6, the incidental repetition (and relatively extensive detail) about the boat in Genesis 6 and the animals in Genesis 7, push us to expect more of the story, to fail in our suspension of disbelief. These very elements of the story push the reader towards a realism which plays against the metaphorical, the mythic, and sets up a kind of internal narrative war: ‘Is this a historical narrative or a fairy tale –​I know how to deal with one or the other but not both at the same time!’ Although even that seems to be pushing the argument too far –​Shakespeare manages to weave fairy-​tale and history and internal narrative exceptionally well. In retelling the Noah narrative, Jordan and Aronofsky are seeking in their own ways to explore the tensions between myth/​fairy-​tale and historical theophany, and to provide some form of resolution of it –​of allowing the contemporary reader an entrance into the text, to begin to understand the encounter between the prophetic patriarch and his apparently violent God. Both subsequent narratives are radically different but are either all that unbiblical? Aren’t both within the tradition of interpretation which the Bible itself affords to this rather sketchy attempt at an historic narrative. Biblical literacy isn’t necessarily about keeping to the facts of the text. It is about taking the Bible seriously: seriously enough to wrestle with it, to embrace it with your own imagination and to create a new text from the old. The two depictions of the Noah story rest on some sophisticated exploration of the original text and multilayered infusing of contemporary psychological and social narratives into the original bare schema. But the narrative kernel remains in both. Both of the new narratives would have actantial analysis grids the same as the Bible story. Both offer a (massively extended) retelling of the same quest  –​God telling Noah to build an ark to save a remnant. Both retellings add helpers and opponents. Both retellings add subplots. But the core narrative kernel remains the same.

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Indeed, the additions allow the viewer to reflect deeper on that same narrative kernel in what they now regard as a safe space. If they were presented with the bald facts of the story –​that God himself addresses an old man in the desert and tells him to build a boat to be filled with the his family and representatives of all the fauna in the world, it is unlikely that they would be willing to give the story credence. However, wrapped up in contemporary imagery, contemporary props and storylines, the original quest becomes another part of the story on which to reflect. The midrash, allowing the story to breathe, allows the story to have more socio-​narrative impact today. And surely that’s an aid to biblical literacy rather than an opposition? Notes 1 This chapter is modified from a talk given at the Fandom and Religion Conference 2015, University of Leicester, College Court, Leicester, 28–​30 July (presented on the 29th). 2 For a contemporary representation and further developments, including an attempt to work out a New Testament theme of salvation like John 3:16, see Hébert (2007). Extended version in French available online: www.signosemio.com/​greimas/​actantial-​model.asp (accessed 24 April 2018). 3 ‘The axis of knowledge, according to Greimas.’ 4 Sadly the preview meeting was not recorded but Jordan repeated many of the comments in an article for Radio Times (Bolton 2015). 5 For details of the film including plot synopsis, see IMDb.com (2014). 6 The quotation is available in several press reports but also available online at Emma Watson Wiki (2014). 7 With a good footnote outlining sources. 8 Comparing to Matthew 24, 2 Peter 2:1–​9 and 2 Peter 3:3–​10.

References Barthes, Roland (1977) ‘The Struggle with the Angel: A Structural Analysis of Genesis 32:22–​32’ in Barthes, Roland (ed.) Image, Music, Text, trans. Heath, Stephen, London: Fontana, pp. 125–​42. BBC.co.uk (2015) ‘BBC One –​The Ark’, BBC.co.uk. Online at: www.bbc.co.uk/​ programmes/​b05psczv (accessed 4 October 2018). Blumenthal, Fred (2012) ‘Noah’s Ark as Metaphor’, Jewish Bible Quarterly 40 (2), pp. 89–​92. Bolton, Roger (2015) ‘The Ark: Writer Tony Jordan on His Biblical Drama and Putting Religion on Primetime’, RadioTimes.com, 30 March. Online at: www. radiotimes.com/​news/​2015-​03-​30/​the-​ark-​writer-​tony-​jordan-​on-​his-​biblical-​ drama-​and-​putting-​religion-​on-​primetime/​ (accessed 4 October 2018).

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Chattaway, Peter T. (2014) ‘The Noah Effect’, Christianity Today 58 (4), p. 48. Emma Watson Wiki (2014) ‘Noah’, Emma Watson Wiki. Online at: emmapedia. wikia.com/​wiki/​Noah (accessed 4 October 2018). Frank, Arthur (2010) Letting Stories Breathe:  A Socio-​Narratology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Greimas, Algirdas J. (1966) Sémantique structurale: recherche de méthode, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Hébert, Louis (2007) Dispositifs pour l’analyse des textes et des images, Limoges: Presses de l’Université de Limoges. Internet Movie Database (2014) ‘Noah (2014):  Plot’, IMDb.com. Online at: www.imdb.com/​ t itle/​ t t1959490/​ p lotsummary?ref_ ​ = tt_ ​ s try_ ​ p l#synopsis (accessed 4 October 2018). Meredith, Christopher (2015) ‘A Big Room for Poo: Eddie Izzard’s Bible and the Literacy of Laughter’ in Edwards, Katie (ed.) Rethinking Biblical Literacy, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 187–​212. O’Donovan, Gerard (2015) ‘The Ark Review, BBC One:  “Engaging” ’, The Telegraph, 30 March. Online at:  www.telegraph.co.uk/​culture/​tvandradio/​ tv-​and-​radio-​reviews/​11505027/​The-​Ark-​review-​BBC-​One-​engaging.html (accessed 4 October 2018). Stibbe, Mark (1992) John as Storyteller:  Narrative Criticism and the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Streett, Daniel (2007) ‘As It Was in the Days of Noah: The Prophets’ Typological Interpretation of Noah’s Flood’, Criswell Theological Review 5 (1), pp. 33–​51. Tehrani, Jamshid, Nguyen, Quan, and Roos, Teemu (2015) ‘Oral Fairy Tale or Literary Fake? Investigating the Origins of Little Red Riding Hood Using Phylogenetic Network Analysis’, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 31 (3), pp. 611–​36. Zipes, Jack (2012) The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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3 Special effects and CGI in the biblical epic film Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Andrew B. R. Elliott

Within the epic film broadly understood, special effects often fulfil a curious double function. First, they are the means by which impossible, spectacular past worlds can be represented; yet, in their second capacity, those same effects can be designed to convince viewers of the reality of that spectacle. They are consequently vehicles to render past worlds both incredible and credible. Accordingly, underpinning the use of special effects in the creation of epic films are two seemingly contradictory impulses. The first is what Shilo McClean terms ‘fantastical’ effects, which foreground spectacular and impossible scenes. The second is its inverse  –​to render impossible worlds as real simulacra of an impossible fantasy.1 As such, special effects are often both the tools used to represent imagined past worlds as well as the tools designed to persuade audiences of their credibility, which in the case of the historical epic can often translate very crudely into a marker of quality and veracity. The argument of this chapter is that biblical epics, as films which fall broadly into similar terrain as the historical epic, also fulfil their dual function in terms of special effects. However, the incredible functions of special effects, and particularly CGI, are often geared towards another kind of quality in terms of production values, in that they mark themselves out as the kind of film that only a high-​concept, well-​funded studio production could achieve. This chapter will discuss such a dual role by examining two tropes relating to the biblical epic in its twentieth-​century form, ultimately to argue that the use of special effects –​especially CGI –​ in the biblical epic is designed to serve those two functions. First, they act as a guarantee of epic, monumental and superlative filmmaking, which creates a credible onscreen space for the depiction of miraculous or supernatural acts. Second, on the industrial level, they operate as a guarantee of Hollywood respectability (which thus grants them the authority to represent sensitive religious topics in the fiction film). As I  will suggest below, the recreation of classical Greece and Rome in (particularly

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Hollywood) film has in some sense always been rooted in a broader issue of spectacle, surge and splendour, to the extent that the film itself is often a celebration not of the past but of the present, as ‘part of an overall process in which cinema displays itself and its powers’ (Neale 1980: 35). For the biblical film, I will argue, such a surge and splendour functions as a guarantor of quality and professionalism. Historical accuracy Despite the frequent lamentations of some critics about the epic’s apparently inevitable historical inaccuracy, the main issue here has to do only partly with the issue of historicity. As many contemporary commentators mentioned on the release of Gladiator in 2000, for instance, the whole point of the special effects-​driven epic film is that there is a sense of wonder and awe, and it is an awe-​some spectacle which often has very little to do with a historical past. Claims such as that of Eleonora Cavallini, for instance, are far from unusual, that ‘Gladiator puts much greater emphasis on the dramatic implications of its story than on historical authenticity or probability’ (2009: 102). Jerome de Groot similarly argues that the dramatic will always win out within the genre more broadly understood, since ‘the retelling of ancient stories is associated with the fantastical and mistily pseudo-​real’ (2009: 226). It is, then, only as a consequence of the absence of historicity that the epic –​and the biblical epic, as I will argue –​places so much emphasis on the internal credibility. Jeffrey Richards describes such a paradox with typical clarity in his observation that epics and historical films are always inaccurate, perhaps this is why there is such emphasis on ‘visual authenticity’: ‘the visual authenticity is seen to make up for the factual inaccuracies’ (2008:  1). To describe it another way, although viewers seem likely for the most part to accept the presence of an entirely mythical Kraken in their classical Greece, such an acceptance is contingent on that Kraken being realistically animated. It is not historical artifice which disrupts the film, but the revelation of the artifice of the special effects team. If the concept of using credibility as a marker of quality is true for the depiction of the past wherein even the slightest incongruity can be fatal (Page and Warner 1999: 32; Miller 2006: 17 and ff.) it is especially true for the biblical film. As Lloyd Baugh observes, given that biblical films attempt precisely to film the ineffable, the divine, or the miraculous, ‘the question of the high-​technological dimension of cinema is critical to the Jesus-​film’ (1997:  4). From The Ten Commandments (1923) to Risen (2013), credibility and faith are primordial to the film; from the absence

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of Christ in Ben-​Hur (1959) to his gruelling close-​ups in The Passion of the Christ (2004), the biblical film relies on creating a space for onscreen belief as well as a space for off-​screen faith.

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SFX as spectacle The argument that special effects act as a function of spectacle, becoming part of an industrial selling point driving audiences to the cinema, is of course nothing new in itself. Many of the scholars and critics who have addressed the question of epics –​Steve Neale, Sheldon Hall, Robert Burgoyne, Joanna Paul, Bruce Babington, Vivian Sobchack and others –​ usually include within their definitions of ‘epic’ questions of genre, or else include cost, spectacle, setting, length and so on. As such, it seems to be impossible to define epics without taking into account the notion of spectacle, and the ways in which this kind of spectacle can be used as a vehicle to smuggle in other concepts like national identity, history, contemporary ideology-​politics, and so on. In fact, even in the dissensus over definitions, proof of spectacle as a fundamental aspect of Hollywood expression is still a cornerstone of the argument. For instance, while all of the above critics broadly agree that the epic is something to do with history, and ancient or classical history in particular, James Russell is one of the few critics to adopt a broader definition of epics which stretches to include Dances with Wolves, Titanic and others. Yet even so, Russell asserts that ‘stylistically, epic films were defined by a sense of scale that exceeded the Hollywood norm. The wide screen allowed for expansive long shots of landscapes, lavishly constructed sets and the thousands of extras facilitated by the vastly increased production budgets’ (2007: 11). So even while objecting to one of the core qualifying characteristics of the epic, the historical or ancient-​world setting, Russell invokes the kinds of spectacle and high budgets most closely associated with those kinds of films in order to do so. At the other end of the spectrum, Kirsten Moana Thompson treads more traditional ground in her definitions, but is nevertheless explicit about the industrial role of the epic as a means of creating spectacle. In her essay on Oliver Stone’s 2004 Alexander, she credits digital special effects as a key mode for enhancing ‘spectatorial immersion’. She argues that ‘digital innovations in special effects have enabled the intensification of the historical epic’s distinctive generic attributes of spectacularity, monumentality, and immersiveness’ (2011: 42). Finally, Shilo McClean, writing about special effects themselves, recognises the potential of CGI and digital effects to create spectacle (2007: 116), an issue which creates

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a rather asymmetrical marketplace which overwhelmingly privileges Hollywood as a producer of the past.

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A double audience If spectacle involves a degree of affect –​like horror, melodrama or pornography, genres which Linda Williams argues are more traditionally associated with bodily affect (1991:  4)  –​then it logically follows that the feeling of being overwhelmed by spectacular effects serves to evoke a bodily reaction of appreciation. Yet, contrarily, the seamlessness and verisimilitude is designed to encourage immersion and resignation to allow the underpinning historical/​mythical message to emerge. So if this first point is correct, that effects in the epic film serve two competing but complementary functions, then logic dictates that they might also provoke two different reactions among the viewers. Sean Cubitt talks of this phenomenon as appealing to ‘a double audience, one that succumbs to the spectacle and one that appreciates it. The bulk of any given audience will enter the film with this double vision in place, pleased to be connoisseurs of effects and their generation, but equally delighted to be suckers for the duration, enjoying both spectacular technique and the spectacle itself, illusion and the machinery of illusion’ (2005: 277). My point, then, is to build on this idea of a double audience to advance a third thesis, that the spectacle which is made possible by CGI, and which is thereby rendered credible through its seamlessness, is a means not to signal epic subjects, but to signal Hollywood itself. By using a range of effects and technologies which are almost uniquely available to big-​budget Hollywood films, CGI becomes a guarantor of Hollywood’s capacity, authority and legitimacy to represent those subjects in the first place. I do not, of course, pretend that such a thesis is entirely new territory. In defining the epic in the first place, Steve Neale points to its industrial function as a means of showcasing the dominant  –​even hegemonic  –​ power of Hollywood in producing a kind of film which is beyond the reach of almost any other national cinema. As Neale describes it: Epic is essentially [a term] used to identify, and to sell two overlapping contemporary trends: Films with historical, especially ancient world settings; and large scale films of all kinds which used new technologies, high production values and special modes of distribution and exhibition. (2000: 85)

This is the case partly because, as he claims, they need to appeal to international audiences in order to recoup the massive costs in the first place, but also because it provides a mechanism to ‘differentiate themselves

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from both routine productions and from alternative forms of contemporary entertainment, especially television’ (85). As such, it suddenly becomes possible to reconcile the new epic film (let’s say post-​Gladiator) with earlier cycles, since the CGI of the later cycles clearly offers a means not only of conveying ever-​greater spectacle, but also to signal their heritage as the legitimate descendants of earlier cycles of epics. Such a return to its roots has often been described, by Jeffrey Richards or Joanna Paul, for instance, in narrative and thematic terms, though there is an increasing number of scholars for whom the aesthetic markers of epics –​most especially CGI and effects –​are just as important, if not more so. Birds and the epic zoom One example which illustrates the ways in which CGI can function in its capacity as epic spectacle can be seen in two tropes: the appearance of narratively superfluous flocks of birds, and what I’ve called the epic zoom. These two are tropes which often appear in the new epics, and which are almost entirely created from CGI (rather than optical or other effects). They are otherwise unremarkable tropes –​and this is entirely my point here  –​but whose lack of narrative consequence reveal their function as spectacular CGI (what we might otherwise call, colloquially, showing-​off). Perhaps the most obvious instance of the birds trope comes in Gladiator. In the scene immediately following Proximus’ entry into Rome, the spectator is forced to watch as the newly recruited gladiators encounter Rome for the first time. It is thus a double audience, in which the film’s audience is also watching the gladiators as a secondary, proxy audience. This device serves as a framing mechanism through which the partially CGI-​rendered Coliseum announces itself as epic. Beginning with a level tracking shot between the characters, the camera cuts to match their point of view filmed from their eye level to take in the Coliseum from ground level. The shot is followed by a slow tilt upwards, scaling the heights of the buildings to reveal a massive, imposing structure viewed from the perspective of the slaves encountering it for the first time, with the same sense of awe as the twenty-​first-​century audience viewing a CGI-​rendered ancient Rome for the first time in almost four decades. Its monumentality, to use Sobchack’s term, is both narrative and spectacular. Its narrative function recalls the earlier dialogue in which Marcus Aurelius points out Maximus’ hypocrisy in serving an idea of Rome when, as the emperor says, ‘but yet you have never seen it’. The choice of the words ‘seen it’, rather than ‘visited’, ‘been there’ or the

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ideological ‘you are not a Roman’ serves to make the Coliseum into a form of visual metonymy in which the grandeur of the Roman Empire is served by the focal point of its flippant disregard for human life, a brutal space in which the cruelty and pitilessness of Rome is on full display. As Djoba the gladiator-​slave announces, ‘I did not know men could build such things’, a line which is a very clear indication for the audience to join in with the characters’ awe: after all, until Gladiator’s use of CGI, we did not know humans could build such things either. However, as the tilt gets halfway up the building, a flock of birds appears. They are, and this is the point, aesthetically impressive but completely unnecessary and extraneous to the narrative. Their function is not motivated, but designed only to render a lifeless CGI-​shot a little more natural and animated. Almost identical CGI-​rendered shots of flocks of birds flying over a monumental space also feature in a range of other recent epics like Noah (2014), Pompeii (2014) and Scott’s recent Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014). Of course, four examples from dozens of films might not necessarily be considered as overwhelming proof, but it does suggest that they have become a frequent enough trope to be worthy of exploration. Their reuse, however, poses an important question: Why? One answer can be found in another clip from Gladiator, this time an earlier scene which signals Commodus’ entry into Rome as the newly crowned emperor after the death of Marcus Aurelius and the attempted execution of Maximus. The scene begins with an impossible vantage point  –​ a bird’s-​eye view  –​looking down on the city of Rome, as the clouds part and we begin a slow, almost imperceptible zoom and pan across the city, before the clouds are used as a kind of dissolve to a shot looking upwards at one of the city gates. Scott likes this kind of shot, and he has reused it in, among other films, Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Robin Hood (2010) and a handful of other historical films, not to mention the classic opening shot of Blade Runner. It is not only a favoured trick of Ridley Scott’s, however, but crops up elsewhere in a range of epic films. The same vantage point occurs in Agora (2009), for instance, where it is used both as a narrative link to Hypatia’s study of the orbit of planets, but also as an indexical way of showing that the petty troubles of mortals are inconsequential when viewed from a celestial sphere. In Amenábar’s version, the zoom begins in exactly the same way as an impossible view of the ancient city before panning and zooming delicately towards the earth, even incorporating some conveniently placed clouds to obscure the cut to ground level. Within Agora the same epic zoom can be seen in reverse, too, though here Amenábar favours a series of cuts to increase the scale, making

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the effects not quite seamless. Watching one scene in which a musician plays to an audience in the city’s amphitheatre, for instance, the camera slowly rises to switch the diegetic music to a non-​diegetic soundtrack echoing throughout the atmosphere. A  close analysis of the sequence also reveals that it is not quite a complete zoom: though the first zoom rises up and out of the auditorium on a drone shot, by the second cut the film’s cityscape is rendered entirely within the realm of the digital. A similar reverse-​zoom occurs in Troy (2004), too, albeit in an entirely CGI-​rendered scene without the cut between the physical and the digital. What links all of these examples together is not only, however, their similarity which demonstrates the extent to which these tropes have become commonplace within the epic. A secondary, but nevertheless important, point is that in all of these shots –​with the possible exception of Agora –​ the CGI elements are narratively unnecessary. My point here, then, is that when it is not serving the narrative, the CGI can function as a marker of spectacle, showcasing the new epic’s craft in the creation of verisimilar buildings, of the entire Roman forum, or the city gates. But the inclusion of the epic zooms, the bird’s-​eye view of the city and the flocks of birds serve equally to showcase techniques of epic filmmaking pertaining to Hollywood’s high budgets. The birds must be individually animated to be plausible, and Peter Miller in his book Smart Swarm talks about how innovative developments in AI can create that effect but currently at an eye-​watering expense. Thus, the birds in Gladiator use the same technology as the individually AI-​animated orcs in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, to organise a spectacular vision, but also to showcase the very technologies themselves. Special effects and the biblical epic Turning specifically to the biblical epic, then, the above suggests that films depicting religious or Christian themes ought logically to follow the codes and conventions established across the evolution of the historical epic. Indeed, as I will show below, in part such a claim is true. It is fair to suggest that many of the same tropes and uses of SFX can be identified as operating under the same set of assumptions, and work hard to promote the dual sense of credibility familiar to many modern epic films. However, before arguing for a set of genre conventions belonging to the historical epic, it is first necessary briefly to address the question of whether the biblical epic can even be considered as a part of the epic genre  –​especially given the scholarly disagreement over whether epic itself can be seen as a genre in its own right (Elliott 2014: 2–​8).

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Certainly, among the critics of biblical films, there seems to be broad disagreement. Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans, in their canonical work on biblical epics, not only assert the existence of a biblical film genre, but they even offer three typologies of that genre (the Old Testament epic, the Christ film and the Roman/​Christian epic) (1993: 4). They do, however, recognise inherent limitations in such generic categories:  ‘Our plea is that our definitions are serviceable, and that generic theorists’ possible improvements on them will not alter their general shape’ (4). Their definition is consequently tempered by the acknowledgement that it relies on generic markers which can exclude canonical films or include unexpected films. After all, their second category, the Christ film, would align such otherwise dissimilar films as King of Kings (1961), The Robe (1953) and The Passion of the Christ (2004) with The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) and Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (1964). Indeed, the tendency to look for similarities between such disparate films risks undermining the very aspects which make these films so very interesting, a point which Babington and Evans do later concede, accepting that ‘while in some contexts it is productive to talk of the Biblical Epic as a genre, more often the distinctiveness of the separate sub-​genres demands consideration’ (33). Another expert on spectacle and genre, Sheldon Hall, acknowledges the same problems. Discussing the marketing of George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Hall readily agrees that the film attempted to align with the broad generic conventions established by other biblical epics, all the while recognising that ‘the Biblical epic is, as a genre, somewhat problematic in its relationship to standard categories of commercial exploitation’ (2002: 170). Other critics have been more explicit in their rejections of generic identities. Pamela Grace, in her book about Jesus films, identifies a series of generic markers which unite those films but steadfastly refuses to ascribe to them a single, unifying genre: Conventional films about religious heroes are instantly recognizable. Average film-​goers can easily identify the most common sounds and images, and, more importantly, they can name the particular values that the most traditional films of this kind uphold: blind faith, chastity, extreme forms of virtuous suffering, and the superiority of one religion over all others. What viewers –​and film scholars –​cannot name is the genre itself. (2009: 1)

Here, perhaps, it is worth reprising James Russell’s observation that even if these films might recycle familiar genre tropes and conventions, the aesthetic and industrial necessity for film to evolve and mutate is what

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demands of them a conception as ‘the history of many related cycles [which] are often only visible retrospectively’ (8).2 As Graeme Turner similarly describes it, genre itself is always the reconciliation of two opposing tendencies, so that ‘each genre film has to do two apparently conflicting things: to confirm the existing expectations of the genre, and to alter them slightly. It is the variation from the expectation, the innovation in how a familiar scenario is played, that offers the audience the pleasure of the recognition of the familiar’ (1988: 86–​8). Given such a problematic starting position, the suggestion that the biblical epic can somehow be seen as a continuing, immutable object built around strict conventions is obviously problematic. Certainly, even a cursory overview of the films under discussion in this book demonstrates a wide variety of styles and approaches. However, for the purposes of my discussion of CGI and special effects, budget and cost do seem to underpin many of the agreements reached by the scholars discussed above, who almost unanimously see epic as ‘infallibly identified with a vision of the epic involving the hugest costs and display’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 8) The association of epic with spectacle and spectacle with cost seems, to follow Babington and Evans, to have emerged hand-​ in-​hand with the earliest cycle of epic films, offering ‘cinematic standards [which] were set first by the epics of the early Italian cinema, and then by Griffiths’ great reconstruction of Babylon for Intolerance [… offering] precedents of vast ancient-​world reconstruction and matching expenditure’ (5). Accordingly, it seems plausible to offer a definition of the biblical epic not by its strict adherence to a given genre, but rather by its inclusion of a set of recognisable qualities and epic conventions, or else permutations of that set. Certainly, for the purposes of this chapter, such a definition allows for a discussion of the use of special effects to communicate divine, supernatural or outright miraculous sequences as part of a credible storyline. One such convention, for instance, is the inclusion of a sense of spectacle, cinematic grandiloquence, or what Vivian Sobchack calls ‘monumentalism’ (1990) which often demands the inclusion of elements of special effects, either in their digital or analogue form. Again Babington and Evans classify such spectacle as a sine qua non of the biblical epic in their proposal of a taxonomy spanning eleven kinds of spectacle (64–​5). In their taxonomy, they include the spectacle of architecture (I), of ancient warfare (VIII) or of the act of God (XI). Citing them as ‘persistent themes’ in the adaptation of the Bible into film, the spectacle serves broadly the same function as monumentalism, or of the CGI effects discussed above: nominally, these varieties of spectacle open up a space for belief. It will be noted that my description of this

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space for belief chimes neatly with the sense of ‘seamless’ special effects described above. As it happens, there are instances in the biblical film which demonstrate precisely the persistence of the same tropes identified above as belonging to the epic film. The 2014 film, Risen, for instance, deals with a sceptical Roman centurion, Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), charged with recovering Jesus’ crucified body to quell a nascent uprising among his followers. Adopting the perspective of a non-​believer who gradually comes to accept the divinity of Jesus, Clavius thus embodies the perspective of a group of characters which Grace qualifies as: the skeptics, doubters, or cynical characters, who make snide comments about religious belief near the beginning of the film, only to be proved wrong at the end. These characters, who are often witty, attractive, and worldly, are stand-​ins for the modern viewer; they make it easier to accept ideas such as miracles and heaven at the conclusion of the film. (13)

In this dual capacity as active agent and stand-​in for the doubting spectator, the special effects rendered by CGI make a miraculous and literally incredible plot seem credible. Precisely at the moment in the film where Clavius begins to doubt his earlier cynicism, and as the first seed of faith is being sown, Reynolds’ film depicts a scene of the disciples trekking across the mountain tops in a New Testament exodus. Filmed from a helicopter shot passing overhead –​a staple feature of the ‘spectacle of ancient warfare’ mentioned earlier –​the procession is visited by a fleeting sense of the divine as a flock of CGI-​rendered birds is seen to swoop and circle over their heads. Though seamless, the birds are narratively useful and evocative, functioning in the same capacity as the CGI birds of Gladiator’s Coliseum. Their inclusion raises the scene from the quotidian and pedestrian to an epic sense of grandeur and divinity, transforming their quest from a flight from persecution into a voluntary quest for self-​identity and Truth. The divine in this scene is thus injected into an otherwise mundane moment by being shackled to a kind of CGI which is designed simultaneously to pass unnoticed as well as to flag up the majesty of the film’s spectacle and the universal truth which a faith in Jesus is supposed to invoke. The special effects transform the everyday into ‘a place found in no other genre of films, a place where miracles occur, celestial beings speak to humans, and events are controlled by a benevolent God, who lives somewhere beyond the clouds’ (Grace 2009: 2). By this device of the CGI birds, the biblical film is allowed to navigate a delicate position whereby it addresses itself to (at least) a dual audience of believers and non-​believers.

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The latter group can be drawn in by the inoffensive and non-​religious spectacle of the seamless CGI, which connects to other exemplars of the new epic film and which thus satisfy genre conventions as much as they contribute anything to the narrative of the film. The former group has historically proved to be more easily offended. As witnessed by the periodic backlash against a given, allegedly sacrilegious, Jesus film, biblical epics can often draw audiences who are sensitive to one specific, sometimes dogmatic, interpretation of a particular kind of faith. Through a careful use of selected tropes used as visual shorthand for the presence of the divine, therefore, filmmakers can reuse established tropes in an attempt, ‘implicit in any Hollywood product …, to please all of the people all of the time’ (Maltby 1990: 188). Like Renaissance painting before them, biblical epics have seemingly over time elaborated a rich a ‘visual vocabulary to teach the faith and to examine the issues of doubt, despair and hope in a mode accessible to “everyman/​woman” ’ (Apostolos-​Cappadona 2004: 99). Another example of special effects which elaborate such a vocabulary can be found in what is perhaps the most famous passage of the Old Testament, certainly in terms of its depiction in film, familiar even to non-​Christian audiences: namely, the parting of the Red Sea. The evolution of special effects alongside the development of more sophisticated visual and digital effects offers a concrete demonstration of the ways in which, increasingly, seamless special effects open up a space for belief in the ‘spectacle of the act of God’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 65). DeMille’s first version of The Ten Commandments, made in 1923, offers precisely the kinds of spectacle discussed above in its retelling of the life of Moses, and particularly in its narration of the exodus from Egypt. The sequence begins with a wide-​ angle shot of the escaping Hebrews arriving at the shores of the Red Sea, followed by a match-​cut to the lines of pursuing Egyptians appearing on the skyline. The parallel editing and the wide-​angled framing of the Egyptians on the ridge are both used as visually powerful tropes borrowed from the Western genre (a genre in which DeMille had first made his name in Hollywood) (Hoffmann 2009: 4), here used to emphasise the hopeless plight of the escaping slaves. A  series of intercuts between the unarmed Hebrews pressed hopelessly along the shoreline and the mounted chariots of the Egyptians visualises the Bible’s account of the impasse, which can only be resolved by a literal deus ex machina. In place of dialogue, with the film having been made in the silent era, the intertitles use quotations directly from Exodus to narrate first the magical appearance of a pillar of fire (though here interpreted as a line of fire  –​again a staple trope of the Western film), before Moses raises

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his staff to part the waters of the sea to his right. The effect itself is, with hindsight, rather simplistic, in that it is clearly a gelatinous model of two waves of water coming together, which is then replayed in reverse. However, for 1923, it is clear that for those unfamiliar with the processes of special effects the sequence might well have seemed magical and confounding (Yablonsky 1974: 31). On the parting of the waters, the camera then cuts to a high-​angle overhead shot (an embryonic epic zoom) of the Hebrews as they pass through the water, using a double exposure to simulate their passing through the looped footage of the water dividing. For his second version of the film in 1956, DeMille ‘decided to rework the subject to take advantage of the vogue for epics brought on by the advent of the wide screen. And advantage was certainly taken. The result was a full-​scale biography of Moses, all wool and hundreds of yards wide, the epitome of the gaudy, pious, lowbrow spectacle’ (Searles 1990: 18). His second version of the Red Sea sequence not only comes later in a much longer film (thus creating a greater sense of suspense for those –​ perhaps we can assume that this is the majority  –​who know what is coming), but also demonstrates a greater technical mastery of cinematic special effects in a pre-​digital environment. Despite following a similar process (the reversed sequence of water flowing into a purpose-​built tank), the combination of three doubly exposed shots creates a visually satisfying and spectacular effect. The first matte, with Moses (Charlton Heston) placed in the bottom centre of the frame, took advantage of the huge breadth of the then new capacities of CinemaScope to show the massive expanse of water before them. A  second exposure shows gathering dark clouds on the horizon, which are seemingly sucked into the water, visually communicating the awesome might of God which had only been suggested by the intertitles in DeMille’s earlier version. The superimposition of a third matte, which ingeniously filmed falling water from a side angle, was exposed alongside the other two to create the convincing illusion of a wall of falling water separating the passage laid open for the escaping horde. The cumulative effect, even seventy years later, results in an impressive special effects sequence which combines spectacle with virtually seamless plausibility. Finally, a 2006 miniseries of The Ten Commandments (directed by Robert Dornhelm and broadcast on Hallmark and the History Channel) offers an example of the same sequence rendered digitally, albeit at a comparatively much lower budget. The debt to earlier versions of the sequence is, from the outset, made obvious. The similarity of the framing offers visual confirmation of James Russell’s assertion of the long shadow cast by DeMille on the Hollywood industry, ‘establishing the conventions of the Hollywood historical epic and for forging continuities

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across thirty years of Hollywood history’ (4). Just like the 1923 and 1956 versions, the low-​angle shot of the crowds of Hebrews gathered on the shores of the Red Sea is matched by a cut to the pursuing Egyptians confounded by a pillar of fire (though here rendered as a narratively more plausible sandstorm), before cutting back to a high-​angle shot of Moses raising his staff as he looks out to the sea in front of him. Dornhelm’s addition to the Red Sea trope is to offer a meteorologically inflected version of the miracle, using library footage of swimming shoals of fish darting to and fro, then a shot of tectonic plates slipping under the earth’s crust, lava spilling out from an underwater volcano and a rather jarring and incongruous shot of a mushroom cloud, immediately preceding the parting of the water. A rapid epic zoom rises seemingly from the centre of the earth to the surface of the water, before a CGI sequence shows the waters parting before the fleeing slaves. Most of the spectacle  –​given the fairly unimpressive tone of Dornhelm’s version  –​comes from the rather melodramatic reaction shots of the Hebrews on the shore as they obediently file into the channel divinely created for them. Dornhelm’s digital version of the Ten Commandments, when compared with DeMille’s versions of the same sequence of the Red Sea parting, thus serves to demonstrate my argument above about the dual function of special effects in biblical epics. In the later (digital) version, the spectacle comes not from the event itself, but is rooted in the extent to which the handling of the miraculous is depicted as seamless and visually convincing. In order to fulfil the latter criterion, the sequences reuse epic tropes such as the epic zoom and CGI birds to offer a narratively compelling, but also visually spectacular depiction of the miracles. Where the Exodus itself might be classified as epic realism, on the grounds that the camera often stays with the crowds rather than using CGI-​generated aerial shots, ‘the Red Sea sequence belongs predominantly to the mode of epic expressionism’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 63). As much as it might belong to the realm of the spectacular, however, the jarring inconsistency of Dornhelm’s version of the sequence also demonstrates the latter point, that the seamlessness of the special effects also plays an important role. It is not only about spectacle in this case, but the fact that the only unconvincing version of the sequence comes from a lower-​budget TV version of the tale demonstrates that part of the gargantuan scale of special effects is in part to show off the technical capacities of Hollywood filmmaking in its epic mode. As Michael Wood puts it:

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The ancient world of the epics was a huge, many-​faceted metaphor for Hollywood itself … [T]‌hese movies are always about the creation of such a world in a movie. The hero of The Ten Commandments is not Moses, but De Mille himself, who set up the whole show, the voice of God and the burning bush and the miracles of Egypt included. And the hero of Ben-​ Hur is not Ben-​Hur, who only won the chariot race, but William Wyler, the director, the man responsible for providing the chariot race for us. (1989: 173, cited in Russell 2007: 144)

So, the use of awesome and spectacular special effects is not only about realism as linked to certain conventions, but continues a tradition to some extent inaugurated with The Robe, which oversaw the emergence of a ‘cycle of Biblical epics [that] collided with technological innovations that broadened the cinematic frame, thus adding potential for larger scale spectacles … In the process the historical epic became indelibly linked to widescreen spectacle’ (Russell 2007:  27). As a consequence, CGI in the biblical epic is inextricably tied not only with a sense of spectacle, but functions as a form of industrial guarantor of credibility which becomes over time synonymous with the Hollywood epic. CGI as industrial guarantor So, to put all of these ideas together, my proposition is that the double audiences of CGI operate together as a kind of symbiosis between push and pull: the effects used in these films pull the viewer into the diegesis in order to convince them of the verisimilitude of these historical representations. But at the same time, the very spectacle created by those effects can also be embraced for repulsion: they are used by Hollywood in particular to push the viewer away into a position of spectacle and into a world where the impossible is digitally rendered as plausible. Perhaps, then, the frequent claims that epics encourage total spectatorial immersion should be viewed with a measure of scepticism. As the examples above suggest, the CGI birds and the epic zooms of both historical and biblical epics is not the same kind of immersion as 3D, but it is instead closer to what Sobchack and others call monumentality, which requires the viewer to step back and admire the whole as part of a plausible package of Hollywood mastery. The camera work in all of the sequences discussed is permanently and perpetually in motion, using tracks, pans and tilts to embrace the massive spectacle on offer, and disorientating the viewer by the vertiginous scale of these productions. It is not only designed to pull the viewer in, but as a largely North American phenomenon it is a cinematic form of Shock and Awe –​a not inconsequential

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term given the parallels between US-​made epics and the contemporary political landscapes in which those films were released. As Monica Cyrino observes, the epic has often functioned as a showcase, but it is the new power of CGI which really allows those effects to increase the visual pleasure of the spectator: [T]‌he film industry has always used the epic film as a showcase for the display of new cinematic techniques … With the recent advent of computer-​ generated imagery (CGI), blue-​ screen and other modern technological advances, extravagant digital special effects have become, and continue to be, an intrinsic part of the production of contemporary epic cinema. (2010: 34)

Thus, in the twenty-​first century, the epic film’s dependence on CGI and special effects makes them operate on (at least) two different levels. The first is in the creation of a believable narrative world, in which the CGI fulfils a double role as a guarantor of credibility while systematically creating incredible images. At the same time, however, in terms of their aesthetic and industrial function, those same effects signal both a return to a certain type of filmmaking uniquely associated with Hollywood, as well as a means to promote Hollywood itself as the producer of that spectacle. If both of these functions operate in tandem, then it means that the new special effects continue an earlier tradition of mattes, thousands of extras, massive physical sets and huge financial backing, a tradition whose original purpose was to legitimise Hollywood’s capacity and authority to reproduce the past in the first place. Issues like the CGI birds or the epic zooms to contain entire cities which have been crafted through CGI all take their part as a series of industrial, commercial, generic and aesthetic nods self-​consciously to legitimise the capacity of the epic film to resurrect the past. And it is here, having first legitimised their role as myth-​maker, that the other kinds of ideological work can start. Conclusion The objectives of special effects in the biblical epic can be seen to be broadly aligned with those of the classical Hollywood epic in its broader iterations. Writing in 1992, Gerald Forshey proposed that one reason for the demise of the Jesus film was because of its inherent lack of spectacle, suggesting that ‘Religion is not spectacular in films any longer, but neither is it insignificant’ (180). Following a slew of alternative hagiopics which collapsed the distance from Jesus, Forshey’s

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comments describe the problem of the religious epic in terms of how the portrayal of the divine ‘illuminates the ways that people struggle for values in a pluralistic society’ (180). While the recent resurgence of the epic has proved Forshey’s prediction wrong (religion has often proved to be entirely spectacular in the recent revival of the biblical epic), his comments about the divisiveness of the religious and biblical film proved to be prescient. In this chapter, I have argued that one way of navigating such divisiveness has been through the use of CGI to create ancient and biblical worlds, to render credible some staple tropes of the genre and to underpin a renaissance in epic filmmaking which has harnessed the power of spectacle in the reiteration of a specifically Hollywood vision of the past. Such credibility, I argue, is intrinsic to the epic film, but it is primordial for the biblical epic since that is a kind of film which relies on an a priori dual audience and the creation of a credible and respectful divine space within which those divine events can realistically unfold. As Grace suggests, ‘a director’s handling of the miraculous says a great deal about the overall intention of a film’ (2009:  108). Certainly, the first commandment in the biblical epic seems to be not to offend the sensibilities of the audience, whether they are believers or not (Forshey 1992: 2). CGI’s capacity to use epic tropes, then, offers a way around the thorny issue of viewer sensibilities. My arguments above show that where, on the one hand, CGI can be harnessed to offer a seamless space for the credible intervention of the divine into mundane affairs, on the other, the sophistication of those effects acts as an industrial guarantor of the capacity and authority of Hollywood to take on those miraculous subjects in the first place. Notes 1 See also Elliott (2014: 137). 2 See also Forshey (1992: 69–​70).

References Apostolos-​ Cappadona, Diane (2004) ‘On Seeing The Passion:  Is There a Painting in This Film? Or Is This Film a Painting?’ in Plate, S. Brent (ed.) Re-​ Viewing the Passion: Mel Gibson’s Film and Its Critics, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 97–​108. Babington, Bruce, and Evans, Peter William (1993) Biblical Epics:  Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University  Press.

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Baugh, Lloyd (1997) Imaging the Divine:  Jesus and Christ-​Figures in Film, Kansas City: Sheed & Ward. Cavallini, Eleonora (2009) ‘Was Commodus Really That Bad?’ in Winkler, Martin M. (ed.) The Fall of the Roman Empire: Film and History, Oxford: Wiley-​ Blackwell, pp. 102–​16. Cubitt, Sean (2005) The Cinema Effect, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cyrino, Monica Silveira (2010) ‘This Is Sparta! The Reinvention of Epic in Zack Snyder’s 300’ in Burgoyne, Robert (ed.) The Epic Film in World Culture, London: Routledge, pp. 19–​38. De Groot, Jerome (2009) Consuming History:  Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture, London: Routledge. Elliott, Andrew B. R. (ed.) (2014) The Return of the Epic Film: Genre, Aesthetics and History in the 21st Century, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Forshey, Gerald E. (1992) American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars, Westport, CT: Praeger. Grace, Pamela (2009) The Religious Film:  Christianity and the Hagiopic, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Hall, Sheldon (2002) ‘Selling Religion:  How to Market a Biblical Epic’, Film History 14 (2), pp. 170–​85. Hoffmann, Henryk (2009) Western Film Highlights:  The Best of the West, 1914–​2001, Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co. McClean, Shilo T. (2007) Digital Storytelling:  The Narrative Power of Visual Effects in Film, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Maltby, Richard (1990) ‘The King of Kings and the Czar of All the Rushes: The Propriety of the Christ Story’, Screen 31 (2), pp. 188–​213. Miller, Ron (2006) Special Effects:  An Introduction to Movie Magic, Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-​First Century Books. Neale, Stephen (1980) Genre, London: British Film Institute. Neale, Stephen (2000) Genre and Hollywood, London: Routledge. Page, Simon, and Warner, Mark (1999) Special Effects in Film, Oxford: Ginn and Company. Richards, Jeffrey (2008) Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds, London: Continuum. Russell, James (2007) The Historical Epic and Contemporary Hollywood: From Dances with Wolves to Gladiator, New York: Continuum. Searles, Baird (1990) EPIC! History on the Big Screen, New York: Abrams. Sobchack, Vivian (1990) ‘ “Surge and Splendor”:  A Phenomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic’, Representations 29, pp. 24–​49. Thompson, Kirsten Moana (2011) ‘360° Vision and the Historical Epic in the Digital Era’ in Burgoyne, Robert (ed.) The Epic Film in World Culture, London: Routledge, pp. 39–​62. Turner, Graeme (1988) Film as Social Practice, 2nd edn, London & New York: Routledge.

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Williams, Linda (1991) ‘Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess’, Film Quarterly 44 (4), pp. 2–​13. Wood, Michael (1989) America in the Movies, Or, ‘Santa Maria, It Had Slipped My Mind’, New York: Columbia University Press. Yablonsky, Lewis (1974) George Raft, New York: McGraw-​Hill.

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The phenomenon of biblical telenovelas in Brazil and Latin America Clarice Greco, Mariana Marques de Lima and Tissiana Nogueira Pereira

Introduction Upon the consolidation of television in 1960s, telenovelas1 became the main cultural product in Brazil and all over Latin America –​especially those produced by Globo –​and achieved high ratings in prime-​time slots. However, in recent years, another TV channel, Record TV, has been trying a different strategy, that of biblical telenovelas. Since 2010, Record TV has produced telenovelas and TV series alike which focus on biblical stories to attract new audiences. Up to 2017, biblical telenovelas Record TV broadcast included: A História de Ester [The Story of Esther] (2010), Sansão e Dalila [Samson and Delilah] (2011), Rei Davi [King David] (2012), José do Egito [Joseph from Egypt] (2013), Os Milagres de Jesus [The Miracles of Jesus] (2014–​15), Os Dez Mandamentos [The Ten Commandments] (2015–​16) and A Terra Prometida [The Promised Land] (2016–​17). The most successful so far has been The Ten Commandments, which achieved good ratings in Brazil, being later sold to more than twenty countries and made into a film as well. In this context, two different aspects of these narratives are analysed, which will be parsed out in topics. The first topic has to do with Record TV’s initiative to focus on a niche audience as a strategy to compete with the hegemony of Globo’s telenovelas. The second topic expatiates on the connection between the network owners and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), one of the branches of the Evangelical faith that has attracted many followers in Brazil in recent years. The third and final topic relates those two previous points to the emergence of a conservative audience who consume religious products, in turn related to the current right-​wing trend all around the world in society and the media, as well as in politics.

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This analysis combines an appreciation of this strategy, reflecting on these productions and their consumption in the current media landscape by drawing on Cultural Studies and Mediation Theory. As a result, it proposes a cultural diagnosis of Brazilian media, showing that the modern biblical epic is itself a reflection of society not only in regard to media products but to the demands of audiences as well. Brazil’s TV landscape and its mediations In considering the centrality of communications, Verón (2001) points out that mass society cannot be defined outside a process of mediatisation. What is most interesting in this idea is that media discourse is a device inserted in all spheres of social life which generates meanings as a result of subjects appropriating such discourse that establishes itself according to this specificity and this power to penetrate the symbolic into the everyday. The medium responsible for constructing the discourse herein investigated is television, due to its ability to gather multiple audiences and to create a collective imaginary that, in Brazil, acquires a special status if we think of telenovelas, a hugely important cultural product in the country. Our analysis of fictional biblical narratives in Brazil draws on Cultural Studies and, especially, on Mediation Theory (Martín-​Barbero 1987) as we believe cultural expressions, as in the case of telenovelas and TV series, must be scrutinised in terms of their insertion in everyday life within a historical and political context. It is thus possible to see and reflect upon the relation between the cultural and the economic spheres, along with those of politics and ideological stances (Escosteguy 2010: 63). Communication is seen through its reciprocal and dialectical relation to culture as it is a complex and intermittent process involving production, message, reception and consumption. The paradigm of Cultural Studies de-​essentialised culture as it focuses on social action as the backbone of an investigation on the overlaps between social structures and cultural practices and forms. Thus, it complicates power and hegemony as well as their relation to culture and political processes. Ultimately, it recognises popular cultures but does not understand ‘the popular as something that is produced by or for the people but, rather, as what is adopted by the lower classes, appropriated by them to the extent that they fit their worldviews’2 (Borelli and Pereira 2014: 109). One of the most expressive cultural products in Latin America, and especially in Brazil, is thus the telenovela, one of the biggest symbols of national popular culture. Television is still the medium that most Brazilians consume, as stated by the 2016 Brazilian Media Survey.3 Most Brazilians watch television

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for at least three hours every day. According to the same survey, open TV channels are the most watched. Therefore, in Brazil, television has a special place ‘in the everyday cultural dynamics of most, in the transformation of sensibilities, in the ways of building imaginaries and identities’ (Martín-​Barbero and Rey 2004: 26). What is more, Brazilian TV fiction melodrama has specific characteristics, turning it into a ‘communicative resource’ (Lopes 2009) that is able to problematise broad issues as punctual plots, thus pointing to the fusion between the public and the private. This media cultural product has firmly established itself in Brazilian society, generating practices and becoming an everyday part of life for TV viewers from all classes. In Brazil and all over Latin America, telenovelas have the advantage of a long process of widespread popular identification which was initiated before the very birth of television, resulting in what could be called a process of sentimental integration of Latin American countries –​a sort of standardisation in the ways of feeling and expressing, gestures and sounds, dance and narrative rhythms, all made possible by the cultural industries of radio and cinema (Martín-​Barbero and Rey 2004). Martín-​Barbero investigates the centrality of the complex chain made of communication and its cultural products in contemporary society, which cannot be seen as separate from culture and politics. He states that ‘communication has become a matter of mediations more than media, a matter of culture and, therefore, not only of knowledge but of re-​cognition as well’ (Martín-​Barbero 2009: 28). Mediations are, thus, implicated in everyday social practices and constitute places that are located between production and reception. He writes that: Mediations are this place whence it is possible to understand that what is made for TV does not solely respond to demands of the industrial system and to commercial stratagems but also to demands coming from the cultural fabric and the ways of seeing. (1992: 20)4

From the perspective of mediations, communication is seen as a space between production and reception where everyday culture becomes real. And, according to Martín-​Barbero (1987), there are three sites of mediation that interfere and alter the reception of media content: social life of the family (space where social actors are confronted by social relations and their interaction with institutions); social temporality (as opposed to everyday temporality, this is productive time that is valued by capital and can be measured); and cultural competence (all cultural experience acquired by the individual throughout their life, not only by means of formal education but also in everyday life).

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As his work developed, however, Martín-​Barbero (1990) suggested that those three sites of mediation should be replaced with three dimensions: sociability, rituality and technicity. Sociability is the space where actors’ social relations and subjectivities are established in contact with the social world and with the media. Rituality ‘refers to the different social uses of the media and to the different reading routes’ (Ronsini 2010: 9) elaborated by receptors/​consumers and their ways of seeing and reading media products. Finally, technicity ‘points to the ways in which technology shapes culture and social practices’ (Ronsini 2011: 88). Telenovelas, just like any other popular cultural product, are inserted into a complex chain of interference, contamination and mixture characterised by utter miscegenation (Martín-​Barbero 2009), which also causes friction between the modern and the archaic in a narrative web that is full of complexities and ‘genre composite’ (Lopes and Greco 2016: 169). Beyond telenovelas, the cultural competences, the familiar everydayness and the ritualities share their origins and their characteristics with values emerging from religiousness. The media’s rituality resembles religious rituals in many aspects (Greco 2016) and Christian morality, dominant in Brazil, determines much of the family’s everyday life. In the intersection of such mediations lie the roots of a national cultural competence, which sustains the success and the power of biblical telenovelas as a cultural product of the media industry. Biblical narratives as a strategy in the fight for viewers Before moving on to Record TV’s strategy to beat Globo’s hegemony by investing in a product that might deflect the competition for prime-​time audiences, it is important to understand the context of the fight for viewership, especially during prime time, in Brazil. The main producers of TV fiction on Brazil’s open TV channels are Globo, Record and SBT. For many years now, Globo has been the leader in ratings by a landslide, whilst the two other channels fight for second place, especially during prime time. Obitel’s monitoring5 shows that, for the past ten years, only Globo’s programmes have reached the top ten in ratings each year. Globo’s hegemony dates to the 1960s, when the so-​called ‘Globo Standard of Quality’ was implemented, during the time of military government in Brazil. In this period, the TV landscape in Brazil was defined, above all else, by the processes of implementation and regulation of TV networks, shaped by either public or private investment in the new medium.

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When we talk about TV in Brazil, we are talking about private TV even though they all operate under state concessions. TV was introduced into the country in the 1950s and, during its sixty-​plus years so far, the state has influenced the industry in different ways. Its policy was always to stimulate the commercial TV model, which explains why there is only one national public TV channel, TV Brasil, which began operating in 2007 to insignificant ratings. That means that advertisers bear the expenses –​or, rather, going back one stage of the cycle, viewers are the ones who pay the bill. Thus, a basic premise of television would be that ‘means of mass communication should be used for the public interest’ (Hoineff 1991: 25). However, the power structure of Brazilian TV channels prevents that from happening. In addition to being a major advertiser in mass media, the state, especially after 1964, during the military dictatorship, turned telecommunication into a strategic element in the regime’s policy of development and integration as well as of national security. Besides increasing its power to interfere in the array of programmes by means of new regulations, heavy censorship and normative policies, the military government invested heftily in infrastructure, which made it possible for national networks to emerge. These networks later turned into the country’s dominant media companies. Created in 1965, Rede Globo was the biggest beneficiary of these policies. According to Lopes (2003), the network grew rapidly, thanks to a combination of several factors, such as close ties to the government, alignment with the development of the consumer market, production and management focused on optimising marketing and propaganda and a group of left-​wing content makers brought from the cinema and the theatre. During the 1970s, Globo perfectly paired distinct criteria for excellence, both from the aspect of corporate discourse (commercial success; infrastructure; jobs; ratings; programme exports) and that of artistic and cultural dimensions and technical mastery. In this context, Globo consolidated itself as a media empire and shaped Brazilian TV into what we now know. Modern narratives, more realism and genre mixing (thriller, comedy, drama) fill the prime-​time slots of national TV. Globo has kept its hegemony for years in the fight for prime-​time viewership amongst open TV channels. For a long time, Record TV made telenovelas with similar narratives contemporary, whilst SBT followed a random pattern, alternating between contemporary and period Mexican telenovela imports. These networks thus competed directly with Globo’s telenovelas, constantly losing in ratings to the Rio-​based network. In recent years, however, competition in the TV landscape has gone through a significant transformation. Record TV gave up on attempts

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to produce programmes similar to those of Globo in order to invest in biblical miniseries, whereas SBT put effort into remakes of juvenile telenovelas. As of 2014, these options had consolidated themselves and proved fruitful in terms of the distribution of TV fiction models amongst the channels. Up to the present, none of these productions have beaten Globo’s telenovelas in annual average ratings but have reached peaks on specific days, offering a frightening challenge to Globo’s so-​far unmatchable ratings. For Record TV, this process begins in 2010 with The Story of Esther, a miniseries based on biblical stories. In the following years, the channel broadcast Samson and Delilah (2011), King David (2012), Joseph from Egypt (2013) and, in 2014, The Miracles of Jesus. King David and The Miracles of Jesus received recognition at the FYMTI –​Festival y Mercado de TV –​Ficción Internacional in the category of Best Production in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Due to their good results, the strategy was confirmed and the channel broadcast, in 2015, its first biblical telenovela, The Ten Commandments. This production was their greatest success and thus served as an impetus for the channel to invest in other telenovelas, The Promised Land (2016–​17), O Rico e Lázaro [The Rich Man and Lazarus] (2017), Apocalypse (2017–​18), with the next one, Jesus (2018), already confirmed. Despite Record TV calling The Ten Commandments a telenovela, it had two seasons, which is characteristic of TV series. The first season was produced by Record TV itself and the second by Casablanca,6 the production company that also produced The Promised Land, The Rich Man and Lazarus and Apocalypse. Even though it is possible to see The Ten Commandments as a series, here we will call it a telenovela as it has been thus named by its producers. The narrative is an adaptation of four books of the Bible, namely, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, narrating the story of Moses from birth to death. The writer, Vivian de Oliveira, followed the biblical text almost to the letter in writing the telenovela. The production was successful with the audience, breaking ratings records that the network had not seen in four years, when it had broadcast its last successful telenovela, Vidas em Jogo [Lives at Stake]. With its biblical telenovela, Record TV also beat its main competitor, Globo, for the first time –​both its main news programme (an absolute leader in ratings since its creation in 1969) and its most important telenovela slot, 9 p.m. (which, at the time, was Babilônia). This historic record reached an average of 28 points with peaks of 31 and 39 per cent in Greater São Paulo and 32 points with peaks of 36 and 47 per cent of the audience share in Greater Rio.7 The episode that attracted the best ratings was the one showing the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses, a scene which, according to the network,

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required the use of 120 animals, more than 400 extras, 20,000 litres of water and involved 240 professionals in thirty-​one days of shooting. With countless graphic and special effects, the scene’s post-​production was done by Hollywood’s Stargate Studios and cost Record TV about R$1  million (around £225,000 or US$300,000). Besides high ratings, the episode was also a hit on social media and, according to Obitel, the hashtag #MarVermelho (#RedSea) became a global trending topic on Twitter (Lopes and Greco 2016). The programme had good ratings during all its broadcasts, at times even reaching those of Globo or even outdoing them. For Obitel, besides the merits of Record TV’s biblical production, such an audience phenomenon was also due to a conservative reaction on the part of the audience, who responded badly to a kiss between two elderly women on Babilônia (Lopes and Greco 2016). Moreover, The Ten Commandments is considered one of the most expensive productions in Record TV’s history as each episode was estimated to cost R$700,000 (£160,000 or US$214,000). The telenovela was sold to twenty-​three countries and was a hit in many of them, such as in Chile and Argentina. The biblical plot was also nominated for many national and international awards, three of which were at the Seoul International Drama Awards in the categories of best telenovela, best director and best screenwriter, as well as at the Shorty Awards in the category ‘television’. Following its great success, the network continued profiting with the production as it struck a deal with Paris Filmes8 and released The Ten Commandments –​ The Movie. The cinema production had new scenes and a new ending as well as marketing actions that mobilised social networks not only due to the co-​production efforts of Record TV and Paris Filmes but also due to the fans’ involvement. Once again, this biblical production was a hit, with 11.2 million tickets sold all over the country, thus becoming one of Brazil’s biggest box office successes, passing the previous record holder Elite Squad 2 (2010). There were rumours that the leaders of the UCKG bought millions of tickets and distributed them to their congregations, but nothing was ever proved. Since last year, when the series stopped being broadcast on TV, both seasons of the telenovela have been available on Netflix along with all of the other biblical productions that the network has already broadcast. The strategy to offer its productions on Netflix is not only an attempt to reach more audiences but also a way to show that these audiences currently are a consolidated niche that follows several consumption tendencies. This ultimately points, therefore, to the dimension of technicity

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(Martín-​Barbero 1990), which modifies ritualities in relation to new industrial formats as well. After the success of The Ten Commandments, Record TV continued betting on the biblical telenovela and broadcast, from mid-​2016 to early 2017, The Promised Land, produced by Casablanca and written by Renato Modesto, directed by Alexandre Avancini. This telenovela is, to a certain extent, a sequel to The Ten Commandments, which ended after the arrival of the Hebrew people in Canaan after forty years in the desert. It tells the story of the Hebrew people under the command of Joseph from the Twelve Tribes of Israel during the conquest of Canaan, the Promised Land. Even though the technical quality of these productions is debatable, as scenario, acting and directing are frequently questioned by critics, ratings have been impressive. The telenovela stayed in second place all over Brazil according to Kantar Ibope. The highest peak was registered during the episode showing the fall of the walls of Jericho, which, once again, hit record numbers of mentions on Twitter, putting the telenovela in the trending topics with the hashtag #QuedaDasMuralhas (#FallOfTheWalls). The telenovela was shown in nine countries and, at least until the end of 2017, was made available on Netflix just like the network’s other biblical productions. The following productions did not maintain the success of previous telenovelas. The Rich Man and Lazarus, written by Paula Richard, is set 600  years after the conquest of the Promised Land. Although it debuted successfully, evidencing the tendencies of the audiences of this time slot, the narrative lost viewers and was criticised for problems with the script and production, both technical, and denunciations of the poor conditions to which the actors and staff were subjected. In comparison, Apocalypse, written by Vivian de Oliveira, received significant investment from the station and managed to debut well. With an estimated cost of R$800,000 (around £190,000 or US$280,000) per episode, the telenovela was one of the most commented-​upon topics on Twitter during the first week of transmission. However, the plot failed to hold viewers and audience numbers continued to decline. In addition, the production proved controversial when it received complaints from the Catholic Church for presenting a character very similar to the Pope. The role of the high priest Stefano Nicolazzi (played by Flávio Galvão) was characterised as a villain, which offended the Catholic audience. Despite not being able to repeat the success of The Ten Commandments, Record TV continues to invest in biblical telenovelas on prime time, and has announced the next one, Jesus, which debuted in July of 2018.

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Biblical telenovelas have thus consolidated the religious genre on Brazil’s open prime-​time TV. However, Record TV’s choice to invest in this niche is more than just a marketing strategy. It means that the channel, run by members of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, is betting on the recognition of a specific group of receptors/​consumers that has gained power in the last years in public spaces, including the country’s media and politics. Record TV and its ties to the UCKG Record TV, the subject of our analysis, is run by members of this religious body. Therefore, even though Catholics might also be fond of such narratives, the biblical productions on which we have been expatiating are embedded in the context of the growth of Evangelical churches in Brazil.9 Record TV is an open TV channel created in the 1950s. It was known for its musical programmes, especially for its MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) festivals, and met with great popular success during its first twenty years on the air. Nevertheless, due to countless debts and the risk of going bankrupt, the network was sold to its current owner, Bishop Edir Macedo, founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG).10 Despite the clear connection between the religious leader and Record TV, its managers ensure that the channel is not a religious one. The issue is frequently brought up since many of its programmes have a religious tone, such as A Escola do Amor [The School of Love] (2011–​present) and Fala que eu te escuto [something to the effect of Speak freely, I’m here for you] (1998–​present). In that sense, it is common to see pieces of news showing an ambiguous relationship between the two institutions as, between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., the very religious programmes of the UCKG are broadcast. This time slot, according to the channel, was obtained legally, having cost the church R$500 million (£113 million or US$150 million), representing 28.7 per cent of the network’s revenue. In recent years, with massive investments made to bring the channel to the top of audience share, Record TV improved its drama, journalism and entertainment departments, hiring many big names for these segments. Besides the revamp, a new visual identity was created and a lot was invested in fictional biblical productions made exclusively for prime-​time  TV. The channel became known for its intensive broadcast of biblical narratives. According to Lopes and Greco (2016), phenomena like The Ten Commandments (2016) follow a growing trend in Brazil’s open

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television, that of investing in niche creation, the religious one in this case, which led Record TV to make a second series, about the events taking place after the crossing of the Red Sea. To a certain extent, given Brazil’s tradition with telenovelas and the country’s large Christian population (whether Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, etc.), it is curious how long it took for a TV channel with such close ties to a church to find this niche. That is why, perhaps, it is important to reflect on this recent biblical TV fiction genre in light of the historical and political context where this Evangelical panorama has been forming in recent years in the country. The Evangelical audience: rise and consolidation Despite the fact that 64 per cent of Brazilians are Catholics, in the past ten years, there has been a heightened increase in the number of Evangelicals. According to data from the 2010 IGBE census, the number of Evangelical followers went from 15.4 per cent to 22.2 per cent of the population.11 Even though the number of Evangelicals is nowhere near that of Catholics, the power of the Evangelical Church has been reflected in government and in the media. The Evangelical movement began in Brazil in 1911 as a branch of Protestant Christianity with the arrival of two Baptist missionaries in the north of the country. However, it is estimated that it was not until the 1960s that it gained strength. After the sixteenth-​century Reformation, there were many dissenters from Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Calvinism, among them the churches that we now call Evangelical, especially Baptist churches. Brazil’s Evangelicals are divided into Pentecostals and non-​Pentecostals, with the UCKG being part of the former. Pentecostal churches grew significantly in Brazil between the 1980s and the 1990s. Their members, Pentecostals and Neo-​Pentecostals, the subject of this section of our chapter, form a branch of Protestantism that believes in miraculous interventions to a supernatural degree.12 In the case of the UCKG, its assimilation into a mostly Catholic country happened by appropriating symbolic elements from Afro-​Brazilian religions as well as by emphasising the antagonistic figure of the devil (Almeida 2003). In the struggle of good versus evil, the latter is operationalised in the figure of the devil and religion fights everything that does not fit its norms whilst it assimilates and inverts its symbolic elements. This search for the symbolic in God’s words brings the audience closer to fictional narratives such as those of biblical telenovelas. The

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strategy to gain this audience passes not only through the leaders of the Church but also those in the media and in parliament. After all, media networks work under public concessions despite being private companies. The Pentecostal movement has recently branched into the Neo-​ Pentecostal strand. Neo-​Pentecostal churches, as Mariano (2004) sees it, encompass more in terms of behaviour. One of this branch’s most prominent properties is mediatised evangelisation, that is, investment in print media, radio, television and the internet.13 In order to adapt to changes in society, the UCKG tried to break with some of the stereotypes with which it was stigmatised, such as a specific attire for the followers, no make-​up or accessories; social practices such as going to the cinema or to football matches as well as watching certain TV programmes. With such ‘permissions’, a new consumership of Evangelical products, such as books and albums, was created. Another important aspect is the political presence of Evangelicals in parliament, commonly referred to as Frente Parlamentar Evagélica [Evangelical Parliamentary Front], which, to date, numbers 198 members of congress and four senators. However, Brazil is theoretically a secular country, where formal relations between church and state are forbidden according to Brazil’s 1988 Constitution (art. 19). That is all the more ironic since that very same Constitution states, in its preamble, ‘We, representatives of the Brazilian people, gathered at the National Constitutional Assembly to institute a Democratic State, destined to ensure the exercise of social and individual rights … proclaim, under God’s protection, the following Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil’ (emphasis added). In this political scenario, conservative ideals align Evangelical politicians with the belief that working individuals, a group traditionally idealised in the Christian ethos, be supplanted by the entrepreneur, an important element in Evangelical discourse. That is strengthened by the so-​called conservative wave, a right-​wing political movement that was organised as a response to the rise of left-​wing parties in the previous decade. The emergence of liberal14 youth with MBL (Free Brazil Movement), the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the election of Donald Trump in the USA are all seen as reflections of this wave alongside the increase in the number of members of parliament who are connected to more conservative segments, such as agribusiness, the military and the Church. This religious group entered politics and created the Evangelical Parliamentary Front in 2003, according to Trevisan, in order to inflict

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change based on their own agenda by extrapolating their support and action in church. The author states that ‘Evangelical MPs try to dress their religious argument justifying many of their positions with more “technical” or “juridical” arguments’ (2013:  36). Amongst the main conservative views defended by these MPs is the defence of what they call ‘family values’ or ‘the traditional Brazilian family’,15 finding loopholes in the law to support their arguments. Oro (2003) suggests two main reasons for the insertion of the UCKG in national politics. They are:  institutional charisma, grounded in the intense use of the media, which brings to the political field elements that are inherent to the religious symbolic field; and the spread of the religious field into politics, where its institutional power is exercised by means of alliances with other political parties and the mobilisation of other churches’ participation. It is important to highlight, again, that Brazil’s Constitution presupposes a secular state. Discussions inherent to the consequences of admitting Neo-​Pentecostalism in politics (Oro 2003; Dodson 1996; Gabatz 2017), especially in relation to modernisation, highlight the intricate relation of both instances as fundamental parts of Brazilian culture. In sum, Neo-​Pentecostal churches, specifically the case of the UCKG, operate on three axes: a spiritual war against all that is contrary to their values (sin, the devil, etc.); over-​the-​top preaching of prosperity theology under promises of material realisation via the divine; and consumption of so-​called Christian products, creating Evangelical consumer goods by breaking some behavioural and social paradigms. This latter axis aligns with the formation of a consumership of such products, opening the market for investment in cultural products of a religious tone, such as TV series and biblical telenovelas. In this context, these productions cater to this new consumer, who sees this kind of fiction not only as entertainment but also as an evangelising product, carrying the word of God, all of which is ultimately extremely successful in Brazil and in other countries in Latin America. Therefore, recent biblical fiction must be considered in light of the historical and political context wherein this Evangelical panorama has been forming in recent years in the country. Final remarks The consolidation of biblical narratives clearly shows the successful deflection of competition in TV fiction. Ultimately, those networks that always fought for second place in audience share seem to have found their own genre, leaving Globo as the leader with its

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traditional, genuinely Brazilian telenovelas, and investing in other niches. Undoubtedly, that is so because private TV channels in Brazil are financed by the viewers, making niches in the audience highly relevant for the channels’ survival. Yet, investment in biblical narrative productions cannot be only associated with a marketing strategy to increase viewership. This phenomenon also relates to the religious affinity of the network’s owners as well as to the growing conservative trend. Biblical narratives are, therefore, responses to the conservative context that has established itself all over the world, with right-​wing movements and the creation of a consumer culture related to the habits of such audiences. The consolidation of the biblical epic genre must be carefully considered to avoid the reductionist view that this is a mere economic strategy. The current political and social context brings doctrines that have pervaded –​often dangerously –​several social groups, the media and the public space. In other words, in light of Martín-​Barbero (2009), these doctrines have influenced both the media as well as mediations. Finally, we highlight the need to continue to consider television and its programming tendencies critically so as to understand and be aware of the diverse values it absorbs and disseminates. Notes 1 Telenovelas are the most important TV fiction format in Latina America. They are different from soap operas, although the confusion between the two formats is frequent. Like soap operas, telenovelas present fictional narratives originated from melodrama and are broadcast daily. However, they have around 180 or 200 episodes, lasting for seven or eight months, when soap operas usually last for years or even decades. Since the 1990s, Brazilian telenovelas have also presented more complex characters and a mix of genres, such as thriller, police procedural and fantasy. 2 All translations are ours. 3 The 2016 Brazilian Media Survey was commissioned by the Press Secretary of the Presidency of Brazil and developed by Ibope Inteligência. Available at: www.secom.gov.br/​atuacao/​pesquisa/​lista-​de-​pesquisas-​quantitativas-​ e-​qualitativas-​de-​contratos-​atuais/​pesquisa-​brasileira-​de-​midia-​pbm-​2016. pdf/​view (accessed November 2017). 4 Free translation of original text: Las mediaciones son ese lugar desde donde es posible compree: ló que se produce en la televisión no responde unicamente a requerimientos del sistema industrial y a estratagemas comerciales sino tambíén a exigencias que vienen de la trama cultural y los modos de ver (Martín-​Barbero 1992: 20).

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5 The Ibero-​American Observatory of TV Fiction (OBITEL) is an international research network that has been publishing, since 2007, the Obitel Yearbook (Anuário Obitel) containing data on ratings and monitoring TV fiction from twelve countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Spanish-​speaking USA, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Uruguay and Venezuela). Books can be accessed in English, Portuguese and Spanish at www.obitel. net. The authors of this chapter are all researchers of the Obitel network in Brazil. 6 Casablanca Filmes Ltda. is an independent audiovisual production company making telenovelas, series and content for several Brazilian media channels, such as Globosat, FOX and Record TV. 7 Source:  Kantar Ibope Media. Available at:  www.kantaribopemedia.com/​ ranking-​semanal-​15-​mercados-​09112015-​a-​15112015/​ (accessed October 2017). 8 Paris Filmes is a Brazilian company that produces and distributes films domestically. It is also a cinema studio. It distributes films to cinemas, on DVD and on Blu-​ray. 9 The expansion of Pentecostal churches in Brazil took place, for the most part, in big urban centres and among the lower classes. Pentecostalism is often associated with industrialisation between the 1960s and 1970s as it is a doctrine that also focuses on individual mobility (entrepreneurship). The entrepreneurial discourse is widely propagated and is founded in the idea that he or she who believes can alter their financial situation by means of miracles, acquired by offerings to God. In that sense, in paying the tithe, one contributes to the ‘Lord’s Work’ in a mechanism of retribution that will grant one material wealth (Gabatz 2017). 10 The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God was created in 1977 in Rio by Edir Macedo and Romildo Ribeiro Soares. According to IBGE, the church has 6,000 temples all over Brazil, 12,000 pastors and 1.8 million followers. 11 Source:  Agência IBGE de Notícias. Censo 2010:  número de católicos cai e aumenta o de evangélicos, espíritas e sem religião. Available at:  https://​ agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/​ a gencia-​ s ala- ​ d e- ​ i mprensa/ ​ 2 013- ​ a gencia-​ de- ​ n oticias/ ​ r eleases/​ 1 4244-​ a si-​ c enso-​ 2 010- ​ n umero- ​ d e- ​ c atolicos- ​ c ai- ​ e -​ aumenta-​o-​de-​evangelicos-​espiritas-​e-​sem-​religiao (accessed June 2012). 12 One of the main examples of such miraculous interventions is the act of ‘speaking in tongues’. In the early twentieth century, instances where worshippers would speak a foreign language started to be registered. Many pastors believed that this act was reached at a certain level of faith. The practice was thus introduced in services and is still one of the main characteristics of this church. 13 The newspaper Folha Universal, radio network Rede Aleluia with its 76 AM and FM radio stations, website universal.org and magazines Plenitude, Obreiro de Fé and A Mão Amiga.

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14 As opposed to most of the anglophone world, in Brazil, ‘liberal’ refers to classical liberalism and indicates conservative views. 15 For these religious MPs, the main values of the traditional Brazilian family are monogamy and heterosexuality.

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References Almeida, Ronaldo de (2003) ‘Guerra de possessões’ in Oro, Ari P., Corten, André, and Dozon, Jean-​Pierre (eds) Igreja Universal do reino de Deus:  os novos conquistadores da fé, São Paulo: Paulinas, pp. 321–​42. Borelli, S., Pereira, S. (2014) ‘Cultura de massa’ in Citelli, Adilson, Berger, Christa, Baccega, Maria Aparecida, Lopes, Maria Immacolata Vassalo de, and França, Vera Veiga (eds) Dicionário de Comunicação: escolas, teorias e autores, São Paulo: Editora Contexto. Dodson, Michael (1996) ‘Pentecostals, Politics, and Public Space in Latin America’ in Cleary, Edward L., and Stewart-​ Gambino, Hannah W. (eds) Power, Politics and Pentecostals in Latin America, Boulder, CO:  Westview Press, pp. 25–​40. Escosteguy, Ana Carolina D. (2010) Cartografias dos estudos culturais:  Uma versão latino-​americana, Belo Horizonte: Autêntica. Online at: http://​pt.scribd. com/​doc/​35295718/​Cartografias-​dos-​estudos-​culturais-​Uma-​versao-​latino-​ americana (accessed 8 October 2018). Gabatz, Celso (2017) ‘O neopentecostalismo e a teologia da prosperidade no Brasil: Aspectos de uma identidade religiosa e social na contemporaneidade’, doctoral thesis, Postgraduate Programme in Social Sciences, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Greco, Clarice (2016) ‘TV Cult no Brasil: memória e culto à ficções televisivas em tempos de mídias digitais’, doctoral thesis, Postgraduate Programme in Communications, the School of Communications and Arts, the University of São Paulo. Hoineff, Nelson (1991) TV em expansão, Rio de Janeiro: Record. Lopes, Maria Immacolata Vassalo de (2003) ‘A telenovela brasileira: uma narrativa sobre a nação’, Comunicação & Educação 26, pp. 17–​24. Lopes, Maria Immacolata Vassalo de (2009) ‘Telenovela como recurso comunicativo’, Matrizes 3 (1), pp. 21–​47. Lopes, Maria Immacolata Vassalo de, and Greco, Clarice (2016) ‘Brasil: a “TV transformada” na ficção televisiva brasileira’ in Lopes, Maria Immacolata Vassallo de, and Orozco Gómez, Guilhermo (eds) Anuário Obitel 2016: (Re) Invenção de Gêneros e Formatos da Ficção Televisiva, Porto Alegre: Sulina, pp. 135–​75. Mariano, Ricardo (2004) ‘Expansão pentecostal no Brasil:  o caso da Igreja Universal’, Estudos Avançados 18 (52), pp. 121–​38. Martín-​ Barbero, Jesús (1987) De los medios a las mediaciones, Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.

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Martín-​Barbero, Jesús (1990) ‘De los medios a las prácticas’ in Orozco Gómez, Guillermo (ed.) Cuadernos de Comunicación y Prácticas Sociales 1, Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, pp. 9–​18. Martín-​Barbero, Jesús (1992) Televisión y melodrama, Bogotá: Tercer Mundo. Martín-​ Barbero, Jesús (2009) De los medios a las mediaciones, Barcelona: Gustavo Gili. Martín-​Barbero, Jesús, and Rey, Germán (2004) Os exercícios do ver: hegemonia audiovisual e ficção televisiva, São Paulo: Editora SENAC. Oro, Ari Pedro (2003) ‘A política da igreja universal e seus reflexos nos campos religioso e político brasileiros’, Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais 18 (53), pp.  53–​69. Ronsini, Veneza V.  Mayora (2010) ‘A perspectiva das mediações de Jesús Martín-​Barbero (ou como sujar as mãos na cozinha da pesquisa empírica de recepção)’ in Proceedings of the XIX Compós Meeting (XIX Encontro da Compós), Rio de Janeiro: PUC-​RJ, June 2010. Ronsini, Veneza V. Mayora (2011) ‘A perspectiva das mediações de Jesús Martín-​ Barbero (ou como sujar as mãos na cozinha da pesquisa empírica de recepção)’ in Janotti, Jr, Jeder, and Gomes, Itania Maria Mota (eds) Comunicação e estudos culturais, Salvador: EDUFBA, pp. 75–​98. Trevisan, Janine (2013) ‘A Frente Parlamentar Evangélica:  Força política no estado laico brasileiro’, Numen: revista de estudos e pesquisa da religião 16 (1), pp. 581–​609. Verón, Eliseo (2001) El cuerpo de las imágenes, Bogotá: Grupo Editorial Norma.

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Modern narratives and contexts in adapting the Bible

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Mythic cinema and the contemporary biblical epic Mikel J. Koven The scholarly literature on myth and film can be deeply problematic; the discussion becomes more so if one tries to fold religion into that mix. To refer to anyone’s religion, belief system or faith as mythological suggests that it is a ‘false belief’: I have religion (or faith) you have a mythology of wrong (or worse ‘primitive’) beliefs. In what follows, I do not use ‘myth’ as biased or pejorative: I use it to refer to sacred narratives of a culture, an embodiment of the values a culture holds most dearly. In Screening the Sacred:  Religion, Myth and Ideology in Popular American Film, co-​editor Joel Martin in his introduction defines myth as ‘stories that provide human communities with grounding prototypes, models for life, reports of foundational realities, and dramatic presentation of fundamental values. Myth reveals a culture’s bedrock assumptions and aspiration’ (1995: 6). Martin continues, adding to his list of attributes for a myth as also including ‘the quest of humanity for contact with the sacred’ and ‘stories that reveal the foundational values of a culture’ (9). Such an understanding of myth is not out of keeping with a folkloristic or anthropological understanding of myth, as prose narratives which, in the society in which they are told, are considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past. They are accepted on faith; they are taught to be believed; and they can be cited as authority in answer to ignorance, doubt, or disbelief. Myths are the embodiment of dogma; they are usually sacred; and they are often associated with theology and ritual. Their main characters are not usually human beings, but they often have human attributes; they are animals, deities, or culture heroes, whose actions are set in an earlier world, when the earth was different from what it is today. (Bascom 1965: 4)

While William Bascom’s definition of myth is overly generalised, it also functions as a useful model to work with in a discussion of mythology and popular cinema. We just need to recognise that definitional positions like Bascom’s, or indeed like Martin’s, are beginning points for

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the discussion and not the end point of a conclusion. In this regard, my approach to myth is in keeping with Clifford Geertz’s (1973), seeing myths ‘as narratives that present the ideas and values of a community’ (Magerstädt 2015: 23; also Lyden 2003: 43). And, by extension, when looking at religious films as mythic, as John Lyden notes, ‘understanding film as performing a religious function’ (3) through the articulation of a culture’s mythic ideas. The problem with definitions like Martin’s, particularly when he segues into a discussion of myth and film, is that he, and many of the writers who work in this area of scholarship, are drawn to ‘the dark side’ of a mythic force through Jungian archetypes and Joseph Campbell’s ‘monomyth’. In that same introduction quoted previously, Martin also sees ‘universal myth archetypes’ (7) and sees myth, overall, as ‘historical archetypes [of] the human unconscious’ (10). However, as Lyden notes, ‘There is no such thing as a universal understanding of reason, or morality, unconditioned by a cultural perspective’ (24); in other words, the problem inherent in Jungian and Campbellian approaches to myth (and myth and cinema, specifically) is that they ignore the cultural specificity of diverse vernacular interpretations of those myths. The idea of ‘universal’ archetypes (as opposed to hypothetical culturally specific archetypes) is deeply reductive, and such reductions tend to be ethnocentrically biased. Lyden continues, ‘mythological approaches tend to ignore historical context and differing specifics of religions, proposing that religious ideas are ahistoric archetypes universally present in the human unconscious’ (33). Just because a pattern may reoccur in two different cultural mythologies that have no contact with one another does not mean their interpretation or understanding of those images will be the same. This reductionism can be seen in many of the discussions of myth and film in Martin and Ostwalt’s edited collection, as well in monographs such as Geoffrey Hill’s Illuminating Shadows: The Mythic Power of Film (1992) and Terrie Waddell’s Mis/​takes: Archetype, Myth, and Identity in Screen Fiction (2006). Another trap that lies in wait for explorers into the realm of myth and cinema is to confuse those genres of ‘oral folk narrative’ which Bascom takes great care to separate. Again, I’m not using Bascom as any kind of ‘final word’ in the definition of these genres, but his is a useful place to start. Bascom differentiates between folktales (fairy-​ tales, to most of us), legends and myths. Regardless of any disagreement on the nature of Bascom’s definitions, what is important here is simply that these are three different genres of oral narrative folklore, which have different meanings and fulfil different functions. As frustrating as it is to see scholars of mythology (in general) and myth

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and film (in particular) reducing mythic narratives to ‘universal archetypes’, it equally rankles when due care is not taken in keeping these genres distinct. Sylvie Magerstädt, in addition to reducing myths to their archetypes, also confuses the genres when she refers to ‘the narrative elements that unite most myths, epics, fairy-​tales and the like’ (2015: 90). The same holds true for Melanie Wright, whose analysis of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–​3) sees such works of high fantasy as mythological, rather than as fairy-tale (2007: 5); the difference between the two being primarily the commentary on the sacredness of work in question. Wright, however, also (and more importantly) recognises the relationship between myth, religion and the biblical film: she notes ‘religion is (among other things) a narrative-​producing mechanism, and in this respect can be linked to both literature and cinema. Reading the discourses of religion and film against each other can, therefore, be fruitful, given that both seek in different ways to make manifest the unrepresentable’ (4). In the discussion that follows, I want to discuss two biblical epics, both of which were released in 2014: Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings. The former I want to discuss as mythic, but the latter to use as a counterargument, a kind of anti-​mythic  film. Mythic mise-​en-​scène ‘Symbols’ is a clunky word, too quickly given over to generalised universals and reductive reasoning; it is the foundation for both Jung’s and Campbell’s theories on myth. But it is the filmmaker’s imbuing of his/​her imagery with meaning that creates symbols. Recognition, and then analysis thereafter, of the symbols in a film is the first step in understanding its potential mythic discourse. As John Lyden notes, in reference to the work of early twentieth-​century theologian Paul Tillich, ‘we can never apprehend the ultimate in itself but only through its symbols. The trick of avoiding idolatry is then to look beyond the symbol and see it as a medium for the ultimate rather than the ultimate itself’ (2003:  38). ‘Idolatry’ is perhaps too strong word to use here; when the image is worshipped over what the image refers to, when the signifier is privileged over the signified, I prefer to refer to this as a ‘fetish’ rather than idol. But, in the sense Tillich means, idol and fetish can be seen as, more or less, synonymous. The point Lyden is making, however, in citing Tillich, is that in the symbol, ‘something greater than the ordinary is referenced’ (43). As I discuss in reference to Exodus: Gods and Kings below, Ridley Scott avoids the symbolic in order to make a more contemporary or

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relatable film, and in so doing, denies the narrative its potentially mythic resonance. Films which aspire to the mythic draw attention to these symbols within the mise-​en-​scène, either digitally or more traditionally with lighting and colour. John Boorman, for example, in his 1981 film Excalibur, shines a bright green light on the mythical sword so the reflection of that light off of the polished blade suggests the sword itself glows with a supernatural presence. Within the same film, Boorman uses high-​key lighting and polished metallic surfaces throughout the sequences in Camelot, so that the purity of Arthur’s vision likewise glows. Significantly, this visual scheme is more pronounced before Guinevere and Lancelot begin their affair, after which more earthy tones creep into the colour scheme, suggesting the movement from a mythical space in the film, to a more historical (legendary) world we recognise as our own. Lancelot and Guinevere are even shown making love amidst the lush foliage of the forest, suggesting a prelapsarian Eden; and, as the lovers are discovered by Arthur, and he leaves his sword stuck in the ground between them, in a direct visual allusion to Tristan and Isolde, the image also suggests their imminent expulsion from Paradise. To use another example, and another Arthurian film, in Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur (2004), despite the film’s conceit of telling the ‘true story’ of King Arthur and using a visual rhetoric more akin to legend than myth telling insofar as the film narrative is grounded in a more historical and location-​ specific context, there are moments in which Fuqua disrupts his historical aesthetic and allows the mythic to creep in. In one sequence, Arthur recalls how as child he barely escaped from the Celtic massacre of his Roman village which saw his parents butchered. In the aftermath of the slaughter, young Arthur removes his father’s sword stuck in the grave as a kind of marker, in what is clearly a ‘de-​mythified’ (that is, historically recontextualised) evocation of the sword in the stone myth. Despite this sequence occurring at night, and diegetically lit by funeral pyres, the light reflects off of the sword, giving the weapon a kind of supernatural glow. Immediately behind young Arthur, a strange glowing green mist also seems to be creeping in. Fuqua has taken a relatively straightforward narrative moment but through his mise-​en-​scène, lights the sequence with suggestions of a larger mythic resonance through his creation of identifiable symbols. Turning to Noah, there are several moments when Aronofsky draws attention to specific elements within his mise-​en-​scène, and it is these elements, I  suggest, Aronofsky highlights as moments for, if not contemplation, then at least as provocations for discussion. The Watchers, for example, both when they first travel to earth and when they are released from their ‘stone suits’, glow with the radiance of their true, angelic nature. Even as earth-​bound giants, this radiance glows from

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their eyes and mouth, suggesting their true nature is merely trapped inside these suits. Despite the Noah story from Genesis (6–​9) being fairly well known in the Judaeo-​Christian tradition, even to those who profess to agnosticism, or even atheism, one is pushed to recall any reference to the Watchers. Depending on the translation one uses, the Watchers may also be referred to as Nephilim (HB, NIV) or giants (KJV),1 and, despite only appearing in a few, highly obscure verses at the beginning of Genesis 6, their history and nature are expanded in the apocryphal books of Enoch (said to be the great-​grandfather of Noah –​Enoch to Methuselah, to Lamech, to Noah). Genesis 6 states that ‘the sons of God’ (Gen. 6:2) descended to earth to mate with the daughters of men, and bore them giant sons  –​the Nephilim. These giant Nephilim are often translated as Watchers, those who watch over humanity. This aspect of the myth is elaborated on in the books of Enoch, where the ‘sons of God’ are understood to have been angels, and whose descent to earth and mating with human women was a violation of the Creator’s order –​ the fallen angels of later traditions. ‘Watchers’, as a term, is applied to both the angels who watched over earth, and their offspring with earth women. 1 Enoch 8:1 notes that the Watchers, in addition to mating with earth women, also taught men metallurgy and technology; giving these secrets to humans, against the wishes of the Creator, has strong echoes with the Greek myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods to give to human beings. In this comparison between the Hebrew myth of the Watchers and the Greek myth of Prometheus, I am drawing a parallel, and not saying they are part of the same archetype; the Watchers and Prometheus share surface similarity of meaning, but any further discussion of their commonality would be a different discussion altogether. Aronofsky’s version of the story is much more simplified: the Watchers are the angels who descended to earth to watch over humanity, but were punished by ‘the Creator’ for trying to help humanity. Later in the film, as the rains begin to fall and an epic battle ensues wherein the Watchers are defending Noah and his family against the vast army of Tubal-​Cain (the film’s chief villain), their defeat releases the golden spirit from within their stone bodies and they are ‘called home’ to heaven. So, while anachronistic though the Watchers may appear in Noah, they are textually supported by the Genesis account (albeit quite briefly and obscurely). More significantly, Aronofsky’s inclusion of these obscure creatures is a discursive provocation to explore the Apocryphal books, specifically Enoch, in order to facilitate further discussion about the Watchers, the Nephilim or even the fallen angels. Aronofsky is a sufficiently provocative director to give no quarter to an audience not prepared to engage with his work discursively.

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Another example from the film occurs towards the beginning:  we see Lamech, Noah’s father, teaching the young Noah about the Creator and creation. Lamech wraps a preserved snake-​skin around his forearm which begins to glow. While never stated explicitly, this sequence’s close proximity to the animated sequence of creation which opens the film, and in which we see the serpent of Eden shed its skin, suggests that this snake-​skin is the very one from the Adam and Eve myth. The sequence is clearly ritualistic: Lamech charts the descent from Adam to himself and then to Noah, much as Genesis 5 outlines the family tree from Eden to the Ark narratives. It is strongly suggested in this sequence that Lamech is, in many respects, passing the tradition on to his son, as a genealogical inheritance (young Noah may even be about thirteen years old in this sequence, thereby further suggesting we should read this ritual action as a prototypical Bar Mitzvah). As such an inheritance, it is highly likely, therefore, that the skin is the very one from Eden. While the skin itself glows, thereby signalling that the object is worthy of mythic attention as a symbol, it is the action of wrapping it around his arm which warrants further attention. The action strongly suggests a connection with the tefillin some Orthodox Jewish men wrap around their arm and around their head in compliance with the directive in Exodus 13:9: ‘And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thy hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in thy mouth; for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt’ (HB). While Lamech’s action with the snake-​skin cannot be based on the same biblical commandment, as the Exodus from Egypt is still several centuries away, Aronofsky’s inclusion of this action is certainly intended to evoke this connection. The action is unapologetically Jewish; and in this way, a provocation to disrupt some of the assumptions about the biblical film as genre. Adele Reinhartz (2013: 230) noted that, even when based on stories from the Hebrew Bible, when Hollywood produces a Bible film, the narrative is always cast as deriving from the Christian Bible: she distinguishes here between a film whose story is from the ‘Old Testament’ (that is, part of the continuity with the Christian ‘New Testament’) and those from the ‘Hebrew Bible’ (which recognises these stories as contextually Jewish). ‘Old Testament’ narratives might not exclude Jewish identity, but neither do they interpellate a Jewish audience. With the snake-​skin tefillin, Aronofsky, from the film’s very beginning, is provoking the audience to read the film as a Jewish narrative, rather than proto-​Christian.2 Later in the same pre-​credit sequence, as Tubal-​Cain murders Lamech before Noah’s eyes to claim the mineral rich lands Noah’s family occupy in order to mine the Tzohar in the ground, we see Tubal-​Cain easily dig up three small nuggets of glowing golden metal, which we are to

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understand as the Tzohar mentioned. According to midrash, rabbinic commentaries on the Torah, Tzohar was a precious metal or gemstone which contained the light of creation itself. Those who possessed Tzohar had insight into the ancient mysteries of the Torah. The same word, with a slight modification of the transliteration, Zohar, refers to radiance or splendour that comes from studying these mysteries, and is the foundation for Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. So if studying Torah, the first five holy books of the Hebrew Bible, bestows wisdom on the scholar, thereby giving radiance and splendour to the student in the form of divine knowledge and understanding (Zohar), then the Tzohar which Tubal-​Cain tries to mine, those little glowing golden nuggets containing the light of creation, are symbolic of mining the Torah for knowledge. It is perhaps not too much of a stretch to see a connection Aronofsky is suggesting between seeking wisdom in the Torah, with mining these nuggets of Jewish meaningfulness in his film. This arcane knowledge and reading practice, suggestive of Kabbalistic interpretative traditions themselves, echoes Aronofsky’s first film, Pi (1998), which was likewise steeped in Kabbalistic thought. Special effects In Philosophy, Myth, and Epic Cinema (2015), Sylvie Magerstädt discusses how contemporary special effects technology, specifically computer-​ generated imagery (CGI), gives greater realism in creating imagined worlds: ‘digital technologies played an important role in the impact of these epics, especially with regards to cinematic realism’ (151). I  disagree:  computer-​generated special effects technology, rather than creating greater ‘realism’ in its imagined worlds, creates a greater sense of ‘unreality’. While contemporary CGI may give the illusion to a unified world within the film, we, in the audience, are not invited to believe this constructed world to be ‘real’. We read the computer-​generated special effects as effects. Sean Cubitt (1999), although writing well before computer-​generated effects teams could produce the kind of imagined worlds we see today in fantasy cinema, distinguished between illusionistic and representational imagery (in Magerstädt: 76); those moments when the film narrative’s mimesis is ruptured by the effects (Cubitt: 129). We no longer view the film as representational to our experience, the demands of cinematic mimesis, but are aware of the illusion as illusion, even if we are left in awe as to how that illusion was pulled off. Although she and I interpret the comment differently, Magerstädt, citing Richard Allen’s work on cinematic illusion, notes his ‘acknowledgement of the spectator’s conscious participation in the process of creating cinematic

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illusion’ (25; emphasis added). By this I mean that audiences are aware of cinematic illusion and do not mistake these kinds of special effects sequences as referential to their experience of the world. Consider the work of special effects ‘wizard’ Ray Harryhausen, whose stop-​motion animation sequences, integrated with live action, enabled Jason and the Argonauts to find the Golden Fleece and Sinbad to fight a huge array of imagined monsters. At no point in these films are we invited to read Harryhausen’s creations as mimetic, as true to life. Instead, we gaze in wonder and excitement at how he was able to combine live action with his stop-​motion monsters. In fact, Harryhausen’s impact on fantasy cinema is so great that his ‘authorship’ supersedes that of many of these films’ directors: Clash of the Titans (1981) is known for Harryhausen’s creatures, not Desmond Davis’ direction. Harryhausen’s effects work becomes the 1981 Clash’s discourse:  in the wake of the ground-​breaking chroma-​key effects work on films such as Star Wars (1977) and Superman (1978), Harryhausen’s stop-​ motion sequences seem anachronistic in comparison, an old-​ fashioned way of doing things. Clash is, in many respects, Harryhausen’s farewell and a passing of the baton to younger, more computer-​savvy effects ‘wizards’. The 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans is entirely CGI effects-​driven. There is even a visual joke in the remake at Harryhausen’s expense: in preparing for the journey to find Medusa, Perseus pulls from a box of weapons the mechanical owl Bubo (who played a central role in the 1981 film). Perseus is told, in no uncertain terms, that he won’t be needing that on this journey; the implication being that this new Clash won’t be needing any of the old junk from the earlier film. The gag, while played as a nod to the earlier film, also suggests a twinge of critique to the effects master on whose shoulders all of today’s effects teams sit. But the point I want to make here is that, whether we are discussing Harryhausen’s 1981 Clash of the Titans or the 2010 remake, we are not invited to see the special effects sequences as mimetic, but as illusions. Turning to Noah again, we could say that that awkwardly animated Watchers draw attention to their own status as illusions. This, in turn, sparks a disbelief in the illusion, but, as noted previously, that disbelief in the illusion should provoke the discourse on the nature of the Watchers within a theological context. Joel W.  Martin and Conrad E.  Ostwald note, in the context of what they call ‘Mythological Criticism’, ‘Like myths, mythological films take people to places beyond the boundaries of the known world and require viewers to negotiate an encounter with “a world elsewhere”, with a world that is “wholly other” and, therefore, sacred or religiously significant’ (1995: 69). Much like the symbols mythic films suggest through their mise-​en-​scène, wherein we identify

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key motifs for further contemplation or as provocations to discourse, we cannot read the world of these films as mimetic. Despite principle photography for Noah in Iceland, when we see, from the Creator’s view, the entire planet, what we see is Pangaia, how our terrestrial continents were joined as one supercontinent 335 million years ago. Aronofsky is not saying that the Noah story took place 335  million years ago, but merely that the world in which the narrative occurs is not the world we inhabit today. After the flood, when Noah and family find dry land once the waters have receded, the world looks much more like the world we recognise as ours (despite still being filmed in Iceland). Furthermore, Aronofsky’s use of CGI is able to evoke imagery of the flood in the form of non-​mimetic dream imagery (of Noah’s nightmares concerning the Deluge). We are not invited to read these images as representational to anything actual or mimetic, but, like a religious painting, to experience the ideas behind the image. The discursive properties of the mythic film Throughout this discussion so far my focus has been on the formal aspects of the film –​understanding the filmmaker’s art in their construction of the film. In several places, I  have mentioned Noah’s discursive properties, or how Aronofsky attempts to provoke a Jewish discourse from the narrative. I now want to turn to a more concrete discussion of how those discursive properties operate within the film. Aronofsky makes his Noah an explicitly environmentalist discourse. As Noah tells his youngest son, Japheth, they are charged, by the Creator, to be responsible for the animals’ welfare and their continued survival once the waters recede. ‘They need to be protected’, Noah says explicitly. ‘If something were to happen to them, there would be a small piece of creation lost forever.’ Noah’s interpretation is that human beings are expendable; we only exist to ensure nature’s continued survival. And once that job is finished, humanity has no further role to play. Noah and his family’s vegetarianism, possibly even veganism, is juxtaposed to the flesh-​markets of Tubal-​Cain’s city, a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah of human and animal flesh sold and consumed. Aronofsky’s Deluge is as much a commentary on the inevitability of contemporary environmental apocalypse, as it is biblical exegesis. Noah and his family are culpable as agents in the destruction of humanity, and the Patriarch sees only a difference in degree, not kind, between him and his nemesis, Tubal-​Cain. The animals are innocent, we are not. Aronofsky’s apocalyptic discourse further appears in the computer animation sequence accompanying Noah’s own retelling of the Creation

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story. In Noah’s retelling, Cain’s murder of Abel is seen repeated forward throughout history through the animation by changing the silhouettes of Cain and Abel into different period costumes (or rather the silhouettes suggesting different historical time periods, from the biblical period to our present day). These images, which quickly flash by as silhouettes, take the film’s discourse out of the diegetic context of the flood and the ten generations which came before it, and project it forward into history, almost up to the present. In so doing, Aronofsky establishes a kind of mythic time, wherein history is not seen as a linear progression, but as a continuous cycle of repeated murder. Aronofsky’s message is far from subtle: that humanity has learned nothing from its history or its mythologies. Humanity will continue to murder one another, and that humanity will continue to desecrate the Garden. For Noah, humanity does not deserve to live once the animals’ safeguarding has been assured. Aronofsky all but name-​checks climate change and global warming as a not-​dissimilar apocalyptic deluge facing us in the early twenty-​first century. Never mind about Noah, do we deserve to survive the rising of tides and wouldn’t the planet be better off with us gone to give it the chance to heal? While the discourse is far from subtle, it is a challenge to what Adele Reinhartz sees as typical of the biblical epic, ‘that despite their spectacular, epic nature, such scenes treat the audience purely as spectators’ (235). To experience Noah as a spectator, in Reinhartz’s use of the word, is to accept or reject the film’s surface meanings. A similar paucity in active engagement with biblical epics was noted by Mircea Eliade, too, as Lyden summarises: ‘here we see the criticisms of popular culture for its supposed lack of a transcendent referent that has also characterised some of the other religious analyses of culture and film’ (66). Aronofsky is a more demanding filmmaker, and pushes his audience to see the ‘transcendent referent’. This push requires his audience to take the proto-​vegetarian, proto-​environmentalist ideas his film espouses away with them from the cinema for later discussion and not simply accept their truth or surface value. We know how the Noah story ends, the Ark finds dry land, the animals are let out to repopulate the world, humanity flourishes, and the rainbow is the Creator’s covenant with humanity to never destroy the world again. And yes, these discussion points are important to have in the coffee shops and pubs afterwards. But these explicit layers of discourse are rather obvious and simplistic; and are not what I believe Noah is ultimately about. While the environmental messages of Noah are valid, the film’s discursive value lies more in its rewriting the biblical genre away from the proto-​Christian mythology, to a recentred Jewish one. Such a Judaeo-​ centric narrative puts an emphasis on scriptural investigation, on

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symbolic interpretation, on Jewish learning, while at the same time challenging the hegemonic genre paradigms of the American Bible film. And in this respect, Noah engages more in the discursive practices of mythological storytelling than more straightforward biblical narratives.

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Exodus: Gods and Kings as counter-​narrative The same year that Aronofsky’s Noah hit cinema screens, Ridley Scott brought out his version of the Moses story, Exodus: Gods and Kings. While both films are based on Hebrew Bible/​Old Testament narratives, the two films are exceptionally different. While Noah works primarily as a mythological film, Exodus tries to demythologise the narrative, discovering a hypothesised historical reality behind the Bible story. To begin with, both Scott and one of four screenwriters, Jeffrey Caine, set out to make a film which would appeal to a cross-​section of the film-​going public. As Scott noted in the audio commentary on Blu-​ray, his ‘desire [was] to be respectful to “the faiths” ’, referring to Judaism, Christianity and Islam; faiths which recognise Moses as a prophet within their mythology. In a similar vein, Caine noted that ‘nobody who believes in the Bible should have a problem with this’ treatment of the Moses story. But it is Ridley Scott’s desire to explore a more ‘human character’, the ‘real person’ in Moses which moves Gods and Kings away from mythology towards a more legendary status: that is negotiating the narrative as a hypothetically ‘true story’, or at least one which is more plausible than the more mythologically orientated Hollywood version of The Ten Commandments (1956). Such a shift reflects Scott’s own interest in more historically plausible filmmaking –​Robin Hood (2010), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Black Hawk Down (2001) and Gladiator (2000) –​ than in contributing to a mythological discourse. And yet, to completely demythologise Moses could run afoul of the Christian Right in the United States and thereby alienate a potentially major market for the film. In this respect, trying to balance both Scott’s desire for a demythologised Moses and not losing the Christian Right ticket-​buying audience, meant Gods and Kings had to try and please everyone. There are four key sequences in Gods and Kings to be discussed, four places in this film where the mythology is mostly known, where we need to look at how Scott treats these sequences in order to try and demythologise them. The miracle of the burning bush, wherein the angel of God first spoke to Moses, is the first such moment. Exodus 3:2 notes, ‘And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed’ (HB). A comparison of Christian

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and Jewish translations of this sequence all identify that it is an angel of the Lord, and not the Creator itself, who speaks to Moses through the burning bush. However, in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, the voice from the bush is God’s own (rumoured to be actor Donald Hayne, but uncredited). Eschewing such theatrical expressions of religious mythology, Scott’s Moses (Christian Bale) slips on the mountainside while tending to his flock, and is badly concussed when he has his vision, thereby suggesting it may have been a figment of Moses’ imagination. Rather than having the voice of the angel emanate from the bush, a young boy (Isaac Andrews) has the conversation with Moses. The boy is referred to in the film’s credits as Malak, and Malach is Hebrew for angel. In fact, the Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) transliterates but doesn’t translate, the voice in the bush as ‘Malach Hashem’, or the ‘Angel of the Lord’. And yet, perhaps in a nod to DeMille’s film, Malak, when asked for his name by Moses, simply says ‘I am’  –​which is how God refers to himself throughout the Hebrew Bible.3 Malak is constructed to be the conduit through which God communicates with Moses, in the form of an Angel, but he speaks as God –​‘I am’. While the bush burning in the background of the sequence has a degree of the symbolic qualities noted at key moments in Noah, Malak is not filmed differently to any of the other characters; that is, despite being a potentially supernatural figure and symbol of God’s power, if not God himself, unlike the bush, he is not photographed as symbolically significant; he is demythologised. Malak appears again at the end of the film, with Moses on Mount Sinai, dictating to him the Ten Commandments, which Moses is chiselling into the stone tablets. Comparing Scott’s film once more to the DeMille version, in the DeMille film, an animated pillar of fire recites each of the commandments while a fiery arm zaps the words into the tablets line by line. While the 1956 version features God literally writing the Ten Commandments with his own finger, Scott’s Moses does the carving himself, inspired by God and/​or his messenger, Malak. A 2013 National Geographic documentary, Secrets of the 10 Plagues, explored a series of possible natural explanations for the ten plagues which the myth says God sent to Egypt in order to facilitate the release of the Hebrews from slavery; and, while not duplicated slavishly (you’ll pardon the pun), Gods and Kings treats the plagues in a similar fashion, attempting to find naturalistic and quasi-​scientific explanations for each of the ten plagues. But it is the final plague, wherein the Angel of Death passes over Egypt and kills the first born in every household other than those of the Hebrews who dabbed sheep’s blood on their doorframes, which is the most supernatural. As Scott noted in his Blu-​ray commentary, they went with the biblical account in lieu of any other ideas of how

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to demythologise the sequence; however, even then the filmmakers try to find a quasi-​scientific explanation. In Exodus, Scott shows us candles and braziers snuffing out, as if the oxygen was suddenly sucked out of the room, and it is this sucking out of the oxygen which killed the first born in each of the households. The final sequence in Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings I want to discuss is the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. While DeMille’s film avails itself of the grand spectacle of special effects which were possible in the mid-​1950s, in Scott’s film, much like he does with the plagues, he rationalises a quasi-​scientific (or at least more plausible) explanation. While Scott includes as many (maybe even more) CGI sequences as in Noah, the intention behind their use is not to make the imagery strange (as Aronofsky does), but to blend it invisibly into the fabric of the film overall. In this regard, Scott’s film works better with Magerstädt’s proposal that ‘a certain degree of realism in representation, particularly in Hollywood cinema, is crucial in supporting the story and thus believability of the illusion’ (31). That such a degree of realism works in reference to Gods and Kings underlines my points that (a) Scott’s film is anti-​mythic (and therefore can aim for realism) and (b) mythic cinema consciously problematises those assumptions of realism in creating an anti-​mimetic discourse. In Gods and Kings, the parting of the Red Sea is modelled on the impact of a tsunami, not unknown in the region; just before a tsunami hits, the waters are drawn back, before crashing forward in the destructive wave. In this way, Scott attempts to rationalise the Hebrews’ escape from Pharaoh’s army with a contemporary understanding of fluid dynamics. In order to tell the story of the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt, certain key mythological moments are essential parts of that narrative: the burning bush which commands Moses to return to Egypt to lead his people out of bondage, the writing of the Ten Commandments, the ten plagues (with particular attention to the slaying of the first-​born male child) and the parting of the Red Sea. Exodus: Gods and Kings presents a more ambivalent variation on these motifs, attempting to render them, if not more believable to an increasingly incredulous mainstream audience (with decreasing biblical literacy as Reinhartz (21) notes), then at least to try and demystify them away from the biblical bombast of Cecil B.  DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. While Scott’s own perspective may be in line with a cynical and increasingly agnostic contemporary view regarding the Exodus myth, he cannot avoid these essential markers of the mythic narrative altogether. Instead, he tries his best to rationalise the myth, to rationalise the representation into one more aligned with what he anticipates are contemporary tastes.

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Conclusion Mythic cinema is not simply a rebranding exercise on a pre-​existing genre  –​films based on mythological narratives, whether Greek myths or religious stories. Nor is it like Martin and Ostwalt’s ‘Mythological Criticism’, which seeks to identify universal archetypes ‘and communicate them to modern audiences in a meaningful way’ (68). Mythic cinema recognises how certain filmmakers imbue their films (on mythological subjects) with a series of symbols and symbolic interactions intended to open up the discourse on the larger issues about the sacred beyond the film text itself. Mythic cinema is an invitation to interpretation; Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is simply a recent film which does this. And the difference of Aronofsky’s mythic project is made more clearly when juxtaposed with a film like Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings –​ a film which tries to demythologise the narrative, while also attempting to appeal to traditional religious audiences. Notes 1 Different translations are used as appropriate. The abbreviations are considered standard in academic theological discourse: HB –​Hebrew Bible; NIV –​ New International Version; KJV –​King James Version; and OJB –​Orthodox Jewish Bible. These versions are available via www.biblegateway.com. 2 Whether or not Aronofsky is a practising Jew is a moot point. He is, at least, Jewish. 3 The tradition within the Judaeo-​Christian tradition is to see the deity as male. My phallocentric reference is reflective of this tradition, and not a suggestion that God is, in fact, male.

References Bascom, William (1965) ‘The Forms of Folklore:  Prose Narrative’, Journal of American Folklore 78 (307), pp. 3–​20. Cubitt, Sean (1999) ‘Le réel, c’est l’impossible:  The Sublime Time of Special Effects’, Screen 40 (2), pp. 123–​30. Geertz, Clifford (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books. Hill, Geoffrey (1992) Illuminating Shadows: The Mythic Power of Film, Boulder, CO: Shambhala Press. Lyden, John C. (2003) Film as Religion:  Myth, Morals, and Rituals, New York: New York University Press. Magerstädt, Sylvie (2015) Philosophy, Myth and Epic Cinema:  Beyond Mere Illusions, London: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Martin, Joel W. (1995) ‘Introduction: Seeing the Sacred on the Screen’ in Martin, Joel W., and Ostwalt, Jr, Conrad E. (eds) Screening the Sacred:  Religion, Myth and Ideology in Popular American Film, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp.  1–​11. Martin, Joel W., and Ostwalt, Jr, Conrad E. (1995) ‘Mythological Criticism’ in Martin, Joel W., and Ostwalt, Jr, Conrad E. (eds) Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth and Ideology in Popular American Film, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp.  65–​72. Reinhartz, Adele (2013) Bible and Cinema: An Introduction, London: Routledge. Waddell, Terrie (2006) Mis/​ takes:  Archetype, Myth, and Identity in Screen Fiction, London: Routledge. Wright, Melanie (2007) Religion and Film:  An Introduction, London:  I. B. Tauris.

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The Nativity reborn: genre and the birth and childhood of Jesus Matthew Page It’s a swell story. A story told before, yes, but we like to flatter ourselves that it’s never been told with this kind of distinction and panache. (Eddie Mannix, Hail, Caesar! (2016))

At the heart of the concept of genre is a tension between the need to match a set of conventions and the need to deviate from them. Successful genres, then, continually evolve as minor innovations accrue over time. Whilst films such as The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Noah (2014) have recently sought to revive the biblical epic genre in similar fashion to its 1950s heyday, other filmmakers have sought to develop the genre by changing some of the its characteristic elements and themes. Of course, the concept of ‘genre’ has been constantly evolving. Plato is usually credited with being the first to use the term in relation to literature, and it is striking that one of his three initial genres is the epic. Within years Aristotle was revising his teacher’s work and the term has been in flux ever since, moving into cinema and continuing to evolve. Currently, marketing departments and audiences tend to use ‘epic’ to describe some combination of history and spectacle, incorporating both lavish films in relative recent history (e.g. 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia), and lower-​budget films covering a far earlier era (e.g. 1974’s Moses the Lawgiver).1 Therefore, the 2,500-​ year period extending from Plato’s observations in the fourth century before Christ to debates about the biblical epic film genre today presents an ongoing discussion about the epic genre which itself demonstrates the term’s evolution. In light of that, this chapter examines a selection of the most recent biblical films and how they have innovated within or deviated from the conventions of the biblical epic as traditionally understood.2 First I will explore the various elements of which the biblical epic genre is composed and then look at eight recent films to see how they compare. Given that almost 200 biblical films have been produced this century alone,3 the focus here will be on a subsection of these films: those relating to

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the birth and childhood of Jesus. This will enable me to focus on ideas of genre and convention in order to examine how different filmmakers use these ideas within their work, even where their films do not correspond to the typical understanding of the term biblical epic. As Altman observes ‘not all genre films relate to their genre in the same way or to the same extent’ (1995: 32–​3). At the heart of any genre exists a dense core of films (e.g. The Ten Commandments) which are surrounded by a nebula of other films. These relate to the genre to a certain extent and interact with it, both by using its conventions and by offering some of their own characteristics in return. Ultimately, I aim to demonstrate that whilst all of the major traits of the biblical epic are still to be found in today’s biblical films, the manner in which filmmakers select and adapt these elements enriches their work’s meaning. The biblical epic Biblical epics ‘emerged from a long history of Christian visual representation of divine figures’ (Shohat 2004: 36) but are also a subset of various other groups of films, such as the religious/​biblical film, the historic epic, the biographical film and the ‘hagiopic’ (Grace 2009: 13). Residing in the overlap between these distinct, but related, spheres is the biblical epic. Beyond basic, audience-​centred definitions (which are often little more than a restatement of the genre’s name), scholars and critics often use one of two further approaches to define genres. The key formal/​ semantic elements, or building blocks, that a group of films have in common, and the thematic/​syntactic approach which privileges meaning and ‘explanatory power’ (Altman 1995: 31).4 Whilst historically most critical discussion prioritised one of these approaches over the other, I agree with Altman that both of these approaches should be held together as ‘some of the most important questions of genre study can be asked only when they are combined’ (Altman 1995: 32). Formal/​semantic elements The formal characteristics of the biblical epic are perhaps the most obvious. Biblical epics are set in the ancient Near East or southern Europe in the period from the creation of the world to the end of the first century CE. The script has at least some link to a biblical narrative. Costumes and sets are intended to be typical of this era, even if there is a certain amount of exaggeration and stylisation. There is a ‘cast of thousands’. Music has to match the size of the spectacle on screen and so is usually performed by a full orchestra and/​or choir supplemented with typical

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instruments from the period. Acting is almost always performed with a deadly seriousness, even if that is one of the various characteristics which gives these films a sense of ‘camp’. Two of the most vital, visual aspects of the epic are excess and spectacle (‘the genre’s most characteristic trademark’ (Elley 1984: 1)), with some critics using the words ‘epics’ and ‘spectaculars’ interchangeably.5 For Babington and Evans, ‘every production is a ‘unique’, costly, much-​advertised affair … the genre only exists in the superlative mode’ (1993: 6), and they outline eleven types of spectacle that typify the genre (64–​5). As Wood puts it, ‘[e]very gesture, every set piece bespeaks fantastic excess’ ([1975] 1989: 169). Not unrelated to this is the way biblical epics portray human flesh, augmenting the typical Hollywood objectification of the female body with ‘displays of the muscled white male body’ (Neale 2000: 91), leading to two further elements. Firstly, the presence of camp, such that ‘biblical films are one of the major sources of high camp tradition’ (Lindsay 2015: xxviii–​xix). Secondly, a fundamental tension between the promise of cinematic sex –​often promoted by a film’s marketing team –​and the amount that ultimately occurs, for Babington and Evans, a ‘complex oxymoron of sexuality and purity’ (188). Finally, these films lay down ‘markers’ of biblical or historical ‘authenticity’ (Reinhartz 2016: 181), including citation of dates, opening narration, historical artefacts and biblical quotations. The purported authenticity is also reinforced by trailers, posters, promotional literature, interviews emphasising research or ‘inspiration’ and the ‘endorsement of religious leaders’ (Lindsay 2015: 15). Thematic/​syntactic elements The recurrence of these formal elements is related to the epic’s themes and meanings. For example, the formal element of camp establishes a ‘contrast between the sensual excess of modern life … and the sensible instruction and example of Christ’ which relates it to the thematic (Lindsay: 36). Spectacle (the size of the sets, cast, etc.) is often used to underscore the momentousness of the events being depicted. For Wood, this is not just a visual identifier, but a contribution to these films’ ‘myth of excess’, which peaks in ‘the great crash’, where the awe-​inspiring spectacle is destroyed (174, 178). In biblical epics this destruction always carries the connotation of divine judgement. That said, the divine activity/​presence can also occur in other forms: the voice of God; the presence of Jesus; miracles; or even the force behind conviction or renewed steadfastness.

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Reinhartz considers ‘Romance’ to be a key theme of biblical epics, though this varies in each of the major sub-​genres (181). In the Old Testament epics, the female character is typically portrayed as a dangerous distraction from the male’s preordained purpose,6 whereas in the Roman-​Christian epics ‘opposites meet and resolve’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 190) resulting in ‘the triumph of a Christianised sexual love over baser forms’ (197). Whilst the vast majority of Jesus movies have almost no romantic element, films about the Nativity often offer a fourth variation depicting a romantic, though often celibate, love between Mary and Joseph, where the only conflict surrounds Joseph’s initial perception of Mary’s unfaithfulness. Arguably the most significant theme of the epic film is the attempt to draw analogies with the modern day. Indeed, the ‘significance and discursive power of the Hollywood historical epic is not to be found in the specificity and accuracy of its historical detail’ (Sobchack 1995:  286). Instead their significance is that they create the ‘possibility for re-​ cognizing oneself as a historical subject’ (286). ‘Epics may not be concerned with an accurate or authentic representation of that past, but they are concerned to show something of history and … how that history connects with the epic’s contemporary world’ (Paul 2013: 13). If this is true for the historical epic in general, then the biblical epic brings a more specific focus. The biblical epic’s ‘use of the past to reflect on the present’ is given a moral angle (Reinhartz 2016: 184). For instance, in addition to the Cold War themes, The Ten Commandments (1956) also draws a parallel between the roots of Israel and the birth of America. Many similar films show Israel at a time when it has lost its way and suggests the same was true for 1950s America. Just as Israel sees the benefit of spiritual renewal, it is implied that if modern day Americans will return to the (Christian) values of the nation’s supposed Golden Age then they too will be on the right side of history.7 As the idea of a ‘separate sacred realm became less believable, the notion that one particular ideology is identified with the will of God is challenged’ (Forshey 1992: 2) and the moral exhortation of these films became less specific. The birth and childhood of Jesus on film The very earliest biblical movies were simply filmed Easter Passion Plays,8 but as the twentieth century began these started expanding to include stories from the Hebrew Bible and other episodes from the life of Jesus, such as the Nativity story. Whilst ‘it would be anomalous to describe any of the films made in the 1890s as epics or spectacles’ (Hall and Neale 2010: 11), the genre ‘was born in 1908 when The Last Days

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of Pompeii was produced in Italy’ (Richards 2008: 25). Babington and Evans divide the traditional biblical epics into three sub-​genres, ‘the Old Testament Epic; the Christ film; and the Roman/​Christian Epic’9 (4); however, I would argue for the existence of a fourth sub-​genre: the Nativity film. Whilst these films display many of the characteristics of the broader biblical epic genre, they are not related to the Old Testament, they feature Jesus only as a child and their main characters are neither fully ‘Roman’ nor (yet) ‘Christian’. The first such Nativity epic was probably Thanhouser’s 1912 three-​ reeler The Star of Bethlehem. The surviving reel’s-​worth of material already indicates rudimentary elements of the biblical epic, such as Herod’s lavish palace, packed with beautiful, exotically dressed courtiers; impressive architecture; outfits revealing muscular limbs; a 200-​ strong cast; and a reputed cost of $8,000 (Thanhouser 2011). The film’s special effects include a bright star and a choir of angels appearing in the stable to celebrate the Saviour’s birth, conspicuous indicators of divine activity. Whilst there were a number of other silent films based on the Nativity,10 it would not be until 1948 that a more expansive film was released. At eighty-​five minutes, the Mexican Reina de reinas: La Virgen María [Queen of Queens:  The Virgin Mary] (1948) was the longest film yet to focus primarily on Mary. Two years later, the Italian film Mater Dei [Mother of God] (1950), ‘a visual hymn to Mary’, covered the period from Mary’s own childhood to Jesus’ ministry (O’Brien 2011: 110). The decade marked ‘a growing interchange between Hollywood and Italy’ (Neale 2000: 91), in particular the vast swathes of ‘pepla’ such as Erode il grande [Herod the Great] (1959), which ‘ends with Herod, now insane, receiving news from a shepherd of the birth of the King of the Jews in Bethlehem’ (Hughes 2011: 72). The 1950s also saw the first television adaptations of the Nativity story with four productions in the decade’s first six years. A  similar trend occurred in the latter part of the 1970s when both The Nativity (1978) and Mary and Joseph: A Story of Faith (1979) were broadcast. Only one feature-​length film was produced in this period, a low-​budget Mexican film Jesus, Maria y José [Jesus, Mary and Joseph] (1972). Whilst the 1980s were a quiet period for biblical films in general, there were a number of significant, feature-​length Nativity films released in the 1980s, from traditional-​style Bible films such as Un bambino di nome Gesù (A Child Called Jesus, 1987) to more unconventional approaches such as Jean-​ Luc Godard’s controversial Je vous salue Marie [Hail Mary] (1985), the comedy Deux heures moins le quart avant Jésus-​ Christ [Quarter to two before Jesus Christ] (1982) and the three-​hour

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Italian film Cammina, Cammina [Keep on Walking] (1982). More recent releases include Penélope Cruz in Per amore solo per amore [For Love, Only for Love] (1993) and Christian Bale in Mary, the Mother of Jesus (1999). The emerging sub-​genre was about to be given fresh impetus, however, by the unexpected success of another independently made biblical film which gave significant focus to the relationship between Jesus and his mother: Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). The Nativity Story (2006) The first biblical film to be released by a major studio following The Passion of the Christ was New Line’s The Nativity Story and of all the films about Jesus’ birth and childhood, it is the one most likely to be thought of as a biblical epic. Most of the formal/​visual traits are in place; the locations feel like first-​century Judea and Galilee, and the scenes where an army of builders slave away to create Herod’s temple and palace provide a sense of spectacle. Whilst the budget of $35 million might not be as excessive as the greatest of 1950s epics, it was certainly substantial. The film begins with text locating the story ‘two millennia’ ago and citing words from the seventh-​century BC prophet Jeremiah, and the dialogue follows in a similar weighty, occasionally clunky, fashion. The Magi provide an element of camp. However, another clear indication of the filmmakers’ imitation of the biblical epic was their attempts to court church leaders to gain their endorsement, just as Gibson did, and as DeMille had done before him while promoting The King of Kings (1927). Several books for The Nativity Story were produced, including a study guide, and there were numerous special screenings for church representatives, including its premiere at the Vatican (Moore 2006). Explicit links to The Passion of the Christ were also made. Prior to the movie’s release, writer Mike Rich spoke of how he ‘was really inspired by the scene where Jesus falls while carrying the cross and Mary has a flashback to Jesus as a small child in danger’ (Pacatte 2006b:  5–​6). Rich even stressed connections with Gibson’s epic, such as the fact that parts of both films were shot in Matera, Italy, as well as the fact that they were loaned ‘the big olive tree … from the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane’ (Pacatte 2006a:  6). Similarly the film’s historical adviser, William Fulco, pointed out how ‘this film could not have been possible without The Passion’ (Patterson 2006). Such ‘scripturalisation’ is typical of many biblical epics, with its four stages of ‘directorial inspiration, ecclesiastical endorsement, experiences of spiritual transcendence, traditions of viewing and devotion’ (Lindsay 2015: 8).

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Yet in spite of the numerous ways the film meets many of the genre’s characteristics, it also deviates in places, suggesting a potential evolution from the norm. Firstly, instead of the ‘martial, pompous … mixture of Elgar, Episcopalian hymns, and Handel’ (Wood [1975] 1989: 175), Mychael Danna’s score uses traditional Christmas carols played with medieval-​sounding instruments. One of the film’s most significant developments of the genre, however, is its incorporation of elements from other, unrelated, genres such as:  the road movie (Mary and Joseph’s growing mutual appreciation); the schmaltzy, ‘Christmas-​ magic’, climax; and the final scene of the family fleeing as if closing the first part of an action trilogy. This blurs the lines between the biblical epic and these other genres. Whilst the formal/​semantic variations, then, are relatively minor, it is noticeable how from a thematic/​syntactic angle the difference is much larger. Rather than dealing with major themes such as Cold War era political turmoil, the themes the film addresses, such as growing up and ‘intergenerational friction’, are somewhat slighter (Chattaway 2006b). La sacra famiglia (The Holy Family: Jesus, Mary and Joseph, 2006) La sacra famiglia is Raffaele Mertes’ second film about the birth/​childhood of Jesus and his seventh biblical film in total.11 The film begins in the period immediately before Mary and Joseph’s betrothal and continues beyond Jesus’ presentation in the temple aged twelve. Whilst this makes it one of only a handful of films to ‘venture into the life of Mary during “the hidden years” in any detail’ (O’Brien 2016: 456) it is typical of Mertes’ approach to use a significant amount of invented material and, as a result, his adaptations of biblical material have tended to produce more personal, intimate films than full-​blown-​spectacular epics. La sacra famiglia is no exception. Whilst the costumes and locations are typical of the genre, other elements are not. In particular the portrayal of Mary and Joseph is far less reverent. Mary is adventurous and fun-​loving, but is also capable of being serious and strong-​willed (‘I am the one who decides who I will marry’). Not dissimilarly Joseph is also something of a rebellious character and occasionally a source of comic relief, notably when his donkey refuses to behave as Joseph wishes.12 This lack of self-​seriousness is at odds with the over-​earnestness which traditional epics employ ‘to stress the cultural importance of the events being depicted’ (Russell 2007: 11). The film also adopts a very low-​key approach to divine activity, which, as in later epics, is presented ambiguously (‘affirmation and disavowal in the same movement’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 104)). A supposedly

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miraculous blooming of an almond tree causes the crowd to declare Joseph’s fate as Mary’s husband, yet he himself takes some convincing that anything out of the ordinary has occurred. Furthermore, whereas the annunciation scene might traditionally have employed the genre’s characteristic ‘voice of God’, here it is replaced by modern techniques such as slow motion and hand-​held camerawork. Such disavowal of supernatural activity was notably absent in Gibson’s ultra-​self-​serious The Passion of the Christ, which showed Satan taunting Jesus and a heavenly tear-​drop causing an earthquake. Whereas that film relied on reaffirming the strongly held beliefs of its niche audience, La sacra famiglia offered a wider, more inclusive variation on a biblical narrative by deviating from the genre’s typical self-​seriousness. El cant dels ocells (Birdsong, 2008) Two years after The Nativity Story the Spanish/​Catalan director Albert Serra produced El cant dels ocells (Birdsong). In contrast to The Nativity Story, which sought to position itself as a new, family-​friendly take on the epic in the hope of reproducing the success of The Passion of the Christ, Birdsong deliberately took an opposite approach. Just as Pasolini’s Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964) opposed 1950s/​1960s epics such as King of Kings (1961), so Birdsong can be seen as an antidote to the excesses of The Passion. Rather than the cast of thousands, Birdsong’s cast was just six. Instead of excessive, lavish sets, nearly all of the film is filmed outside on deserted landscapes. There are no moral victories, promises of sex or analogies between the past and the present –​indeed the line between the two is somewhat blurred. Birdsong is essentially an anti-​epic. This ‘anti-​epic’ style is typical of Serra’s broader body of work  –​‘a cinema of gentle observation and slow demeanour, in which eccentric characters incarnated by non-​professional actors bring new dimensions to well-​known fictional and religious archetypes’ (Delgado 2013:  12). Two years earlier he had produced a similarly sparse version of the Don Quixote story, Honor de Cavelleria (2006), and his 2013 film Història de la meva mort [Story of my Death], similarly drained the stories of Casanova and Dracula of their melodramatic excesses. In contrast to the excesses of the biblical epic, such films ‘seem to resist … the “excess image” dominating screens in the contemporary world’, producing cinema that ‘opts wholeheartedly for simplicity and restraint’ (Moral 2014: 96). Instead of putting the film in context, or even just covering the complete story of the Magi’s journey, Serra ‘reduces the symbolic journey of the Three Wise Men to the characters’ simple wanderings through

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stark mountainous areas or across wide open plains where they are mere blots on the landscape and, on many occasions, actually disappear from view’ (Moral 2014:  97). These ‘solitary wanderings undermine narrative momentum, inviting the viewer to contemplate, in silent long takes, images of the empty landscape’ (De Luca 2012: 194). Indeed, so muted is the film’s aesthetic that the story’s most iconic moment is easily missed. When the kings finally find the Christ-​child, there is no crowd of curious onlookers. The Holy Family are on their own; their visitors lacking an entourage. This is a genuine moment of earthly royalty encountering divine royalty without the spectacle that usually accompanies such encounters. Serra produces ‘a moment of pure reverence, highlighted by the film’s only instance of non-​diegetic music, when the three men finally prostrate themselves before the mother and child, and the family’s private life takes on monumental significance’ (O’Brien 2011:  109–​ 10). It is this moment that most captures ‘the tradition of Dreyer, Rossellini [and] Pasolini’ as the director intended (Hughes 2009). It is an understated moment that, rather than relying on pomp, ceremony, a powerful soundtrack and over​wrought acting performances, is built on the slow realism of all that has gone before it. This realism also humanises the Magi. They hide from the rain, bicker over which way to go, get lost and even pause to go for a swim. Serra imagines they ‘probably feel stupid’ (Hughes 2009). Yet Birdsong reveals little about who these men are. Such a depiction of the story not only offers an alternative vision of this particular story, but also exposes the limitations and preconceptions surrounding the genre itself and the manner in which its depictions have been confused with historical fact. Little Baby Jesus of Flandr (2010) Little Baby Jesus of Flandr (dir: Gust Van den Berghe) was released just two years after Birdsong, and its West European origin, stark black and white photography, long takes and, of course, subject matter make for an easy comparison. Neither film states its spatiotemporal location, but whilst Birdsong appears to be set in the past, Little Baby Jesus is set in the modern day. Initially, then, it is unclear whether this is a modernised retelling of the Nativity story, or simply three deluded ‘wise men’ mistaking their experience for something it isn’t. This initial ambiguity is increased by the filmmaker’s use of actors with Down’s syndrome to play the majority of parts in the film, including the leading roles of the ‘Magi’, ‘Mary’ and ‘Joseph’, drawing on the audience’s preconceptions about the condition.13

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The plot revolves around three separate Christmases. In the first, three ‘beggars’ (Caruso 2010), Suskewiet, Pitje Vogel and Schrobberbeeck, encounter a couple and their newborn son. When Pitje Vogel and Schrobberbeeck question whether Suskewiet has really met the Holy Family, the three quarrel to the extent that by the time the second Christmas comes around, Suskewiet has not seen his friends for some time. Whilst the film could be thought of as a very loose adaptation of Matthew’s Gospel, it is very much outside the parameters of the biblical epic. The plot adheres far more closely to Felix Timmermans’ 1924 play En waar de sterre bleef stille staan (And Where the Stars Remained Silent), whilst Va Fan Fahre’s soundtrack also eschews the epic style, being a combination of Flemish folk songs, circus tunes, an Arabic mourning song, classical religious music, accordion pieces and ‘operatic electronica’ (Senjanovic 2010). Nevertheless the film consciously adopts and adapts major elements from the genre to enrich its texture of meaning. Costumes (such as the three men’s paper crowns) and props, such as crucifixes and the giant, cut-​out stars that various characters carry around, rework some of the epic’s visual characteristics, whilst the slow, three-​minute pan across a ‘Brueghel-​esque winter landscape’ with which the film opens gives a sense of location not incompatible with the genre (Van Hoeij 2010). Yet in many ways the film is much closer to traditional epics than it might appear. Comparing the film to Babington and Evans’ list of types of spectacle found in most biblical epics (64–​5), whilst those of ‘architecture’, ‘ceremonies’, ‘ancient warfare’ and ‘slavery’ are absent, there are clear examples of the spectacles of ‘the body’, ‘geography’, ‘costumes’, ‘forbidden gods’, ‘sadism’ and ‘the act of God’. Furthermore the film mimics the biblical epic’s camp/​queer14 aesthetic (albeit in a markedly different fashion from traditional epics) with kitschy costumes, a cross-​ dressing night-​club singer and the cackling, make-​up-​wearing, fallen angel. In many ways, then, whilst Little Baby Jesus of Flandr is situated outside the typical biblical epic, it is often the more exaggerated elements that bring it full circle towards some of the genre’s traditional characteristics. In so doing, it extensively adapts and adopts many of the genre’s key aspects as a key source from which to derive meaning. Io sono con te (2010) Another radical retelling of the Nativity story is Io sono con te. Whilst it confines itself to the canonical range of stories (from the annunciation to Jesus getting lost in the temple) it does so from a ‘Girardian’ perspective

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(Haven 2011), which casts Mary as a proto-​feminist who opposes the sacrificial and purity laws that dominate the patriarchal society around her. In order to achieve this, the film spurns a number of the key elements of the biblical epic. For instance, nearly all the cast are from Tunisia, a departure from 1950s conventions when principal characters in biblical epics were all played by white actors. As Chattaway explains, ‘Audiences expect more ‘authenticity’ these days, and filmmakers eager to promote their films as something new and different are more than willing to provide it’ (2006a). Furthermore, whilst the locations are indistinguishable from other epics (even using the same locations as Roberto Rossellini did in Il Messia (The Messiah, 1975)), the costumes, props, characters’ ages and the size of the cast are all radically different from the traditional biblical epic. Joseph (Mustapha Benstiti) is seemingly in his thirties and wears a tallit for a great deal of the film (as do most of the male characters). In contrast, Mary is played by a fifteen-​year-​old Tunisian actress, Nadia Khlifi (who wears various long, brightly coloured, striped woollen kaftan-​type garments). As Haven observes, in contrast to typical portrayals of Mary, Khlifi has ‘nothing ethereal or other worldly … about her’ (Haven 2011). Their village is typified by mezuzah on most of the characters’ doorposts, attendance at the synagogue and religious discussion about the law. Yet, as Sobchack argues, the ‘significance and discursive power of the Hollywood historical epic is not to be found in the specificity and accuracy of its historical detail’ which ‘bogs it down in the concrete’ (Sobchack 1995: 286). What matters is the way epics enable us to feel, or experience ourselves as ‘historical subjects’ (286), the ‘projection of ourselves-​now as we-​then’ (284). Interestingly, here it is not that the film is too accurate to be a biblical epic, but that the filmmakers are deliberately highlighting the differences between past and present. In so doing, they are using this ancient story to provide an emotive invective against practices that continue in the present that they believe belong to the past (most notably circumcision).15 Deviating from these generic norms in this way is one of the ways in which the film signifies meaning. The Nativity (2010) Having initially examined biblical films, Sobchack moves on to look at the way in which ‘the Hollywood historical epic’s formal construction of historical consciousness’ became ‘radically transformed by television and the miniseries’ (1995:  299). Coincidentally, the same year that Io sono con te was showing on the art-​house circuit, the BBC was

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producing a mini-​series called The Nativity written by Tony Jordan, one of the writers of the British soap opera EastEnders. Jordan’s initial concept was to ‘do it all in the inn’ whilst the real Nativity was happening off-​screen ‘in the barn’ (Wakelin 2010). Yet whilst he ultimately rejected that approach, the series retains that everyday feel because ‘the story is told using modern language and the characters have modern attitudes’ (Stephenson 2010). On a thematic/​syntactic level, the film not only embodies Sobchack’s ‘ourselves-​ now’/​ ‘we-​ then’ approach (284), but goes further, dealing with modern themes in a historical context, as well as using modern, everyday language. At its heart, The Nativity is a very human/​non-​spectacular take on the story. Gabriel’s appearance to Mary is casual and undramatic. There is no dazzling light, leaving open the possibility that she may only be dreaming. Gabriel remains off-​screen entirely for Joseph’s encounter. We only hear about it because Joseph tells us next morning. Of all the films about Mary and Joseph, this is perhaps the one that makes the most interesting use of their relationship, which forms the film’s most significant narrative arc. When Mary becomes pregnant Joseph is angry and hurt. Joseph undergoes an emotional journey which mirrors his physical journey, gradually drawn towards his destiny, one small act of goodness at a time. The pair only become fully reconciled in the film’s final moments as the three main threads of the story (Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the Magi) come together. As with Sacra famiglia, these more natural touches modify or even replace many of the genre’s traditional hallmarks, thus increasing its appeal to a broader audience. Joseph and Mary (2016) In contrast to The Nativity, other miniseries have sought to maintain the essence of biblical epics. Just as actors such as Heston, Mature and Brynner appeared in multiple biblical epics, Joseph and Mary opted for a lead actor best known for his work in another epic production the TV series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995–​99), Kevin Sorbo. From the start, the programme makes clear its aspirations to fit the mould of the classic biblical epics of the 1950s and 1960s. John Rhys-​Davies’ rich, Welsh voice narrates exactly the same kind of prologue ‘in which the voice of history defines … the significance of the world-​historical contest to be enacted’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 181). Rhys-​Davies’ close association with epic films, including specifically biblical films, gives his introduction extra significance, a trusted and authoritative voice of experience, suggesting ‘old-​world knowledge’ and ‘apostolic wisdom’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 182). As with the opening of King

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of Kings (1961), the voice-​over is accompanied by images of the temple set against the clear blue sky. The film also adopts one of the subplots from King of Kings (1961). Like Lucius in that film, here there is a fictional Roman soldier, Tiberius, who also keeps crossing paths with Jesus at crucial moments. The shortness of Tiberius’s tunic and sleeves, also evokes the camp feel of many traditional epics. Yet the film lacks the budget to give the visuals an epic feel and the soundtrack, largely consisting of synthesiser and string quartet, lacks ‘the marches and trumpet fanfares … and full orchestral timbres that typify so much of the Biblical epics’ (Meyer 2014:  14). Nevertheless, in many ways this is the film that has attempted to follow most faithfully in the footsteps of traditional epics. The bright colours, portentous prologue, its sense of its own importance, camp and reuse of actors already established in the genre, all capture something of a nostalgic return to the biblical epics in their heyday. This nostalgic recreation of the traditional epic can be read as a key part of the mini-​series’ message in particular, as an argument for a return to the values of the past. Rather than addressing a modern-​day issue through the lens of the past it seeks to persuade modern-​day viewers to return to traditional values. The Young Messiah (2016) Whilst biblical epics have always strived to present themselves as historically authentic, in reality they have usually relied on a high degree of fiction for their success. This is most apparent in Roman-​Christian epics, where biblical narratives comprise only a small proportion of the plot. It is this dynamic which is most apparent in The Young Messiah, which, in contrast to the other films being discussed, omits the birth of Jesus, starting in Egypt instead, some years after Jesus, Mary and Joseph have fled from Herod. Thus this is a story in which the filmmakers rely on the audience’s prior understanding of key characters to fully appreciate the film. Furthermore, just as the presence of the Crucifixion narrative was central to the Roman-​Christian epics, regardless of whether or not it was actually depicted, so here the unusual events of Jesus’ birth are very much woven throughout the fabric of the film, even though they are not depicted and do not form part of the plot. Like the Roman-​Christian epics, Young Messiah is also based on a fictional work, Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord:  Out of Egypt. It follows the Holy Family’s return to Galilee, just as Jesus is beginning to discover his powers and while Herod the Great’s paranoid son is determined to clear up his father’s unfinished business. The story takes place around the quiet byways of first-​century Galilee, Judea and beyond, rather than

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amongst cities and crowds, meaning that whilst the film retains many aspects of the biblical epic, its size and scope do not exhibit the genre’s ‘fantastic excess’ (Wood [1975] 1989: 169). However, the film preserves many of the other aesthetic characteristics of the genre such as ‘the typical locations, characters, and sounds’ (Grace 2009: 13). For example, it retains the genre’s sense of camp. This is most notable in the depictions of Herod and Satan, both of which recall The Passion of the Christ. Herod flounces barefoot round a softly furnished throne-​room packed with sycophantic misfits, treating women with disdain but staring longingly at leading centurion Severus. Similarly, Satan is depicted as an androgynous figure, though in contrast to Gibson’s use of an actress with angular features and a bald, ‘masculine’ hairstyle, here it is a male actor with long curly blond hair, large dark eyes and soft features. Most significantly of all, the film also contains a prominent member of the ‘earthly powers’, Severus, through whose eyes we witness events, and who eventually comes to faith. Yet Severus’ climactic epiphany results not in a conversion to Christianity, but in more of a moment of revelation and reflection on his past. Whilst this could clearly be counted as a moment of divine intervention, it also reflects the ways later epics from a more pluralistic age increasingly opt for ‘ambiguity and uncertainty’ over ‘one particular ideology’ (Forshey 1992: 2). Le Fils de Joseph (The Son of Joseph, 2016) Of all the films in this study, Eugène Green’s Le Fils de Joseph is the one furthest from being a biblical epic. Indeed, it is neither set in first-​century Judea/​Galilee, nor is it about the moment of Christ’s birth. Nevertheless the film’s themes of divinity and ‘misplaced paternity’ (Slater-​Williams 2016), its biblical allusions, the centrality of Christian art and, most significantly, its title suggest ways that the genre continues to have influence. Green’s ‘mirthful contemporary remix of the Nativity story’ explores the Nativity via a modernised story of Vincent, a teenage boy who begins the process of discovering who his father is (Lodge 2016). When Vincent discovers his father is still nearby he tracks him down only to discover that, far from being divine, his father is not even a particularly good human. Inspired by a copy of Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac (1603), Vincent seeks revenge, but seeing sense, he flees, only to cross paths with his father’s similarly estranged brother, Joseph, leading the two to strike up a close relationship. On a formal level, the film distances itself from the biblical epic, not just in its spatiotemporary location, its lack of biblical costumes or

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props, unusual soundtrack and lack of ‘markers of biblical authenticity’ (Reinhartz 2016: 182), but also its use of intertitles, ‘throwaway humor’ (Kenigsberg 2017) and long, static takes. Rather than DeMille or Curtiz, these elements reference the work of Godard, Arcand and particularly Robert Bresson, whom Green acknowledges as a major influence (Pinkerton 2015). Yet on a thematic level, there are indications that the links with the epic extend beyond merely its title and occasional allusions. Wood, for example, contends that the ‘ancient world of the epics was a huge, many-​faceted metaphor for Hollywood itself’ ([1975] 1989: 163). Green’s film, which frequently wanders into the worlds of publishers and performance artists, could be considered likewise. Similarly, Vincent’s true father, who leaves a man called Joseph to do his fathering for him, could be read as Green’s representation of God. This theme has increasingly emerged in biblical epics from earlier entries, whereby such an opinion was voiced by sceptics, but quickly disproved, to later films such as Moses the Lawgiver (1974) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which gave it significantly more credence. Yet, whilst the title and subject matter of the film, not to mention the names of Vincent’s mother and adoptive father, may prime the audience to expect Vincent to be a Christ figure, the film makes no explicit attempt to cast Vincent as the son of God. There are no Christ-​figure poses, halos, sacrificial acts or quasi-​miracles, just a ‘fanciful repackaging of the Nativity’ that incorporates elements of the biblical epics into the post-​modern collage of references which the film draws on to derive its meaning (Kenigsberg 2017).

Conclusion The success of The Passion of the Christ has clearly given the biblical epic a new lease of life, but, as my survey has shown, what has materialised is different from that which had gone before. Most strikingly, the films that have emerged cover a diverse mix of different styles, themes and theologies. Whilst they are all different from one another, it is noticeable that there is not a single aspect of the classic biblical epics which has not been carried forward into the biblical epics of today. Yet it is also clear that these new biblical epics continue to innovate and experiment with the genre’s key elements. This has led to the boundaries between genres becoming increasingly blurred, with filmmakers selecting elements from different genres to enhance the meanings behind their work.

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However, rather than following a single pattern, three different, broad approaches can be observed. Firstly, there are films such as La sacra famiglia (2010), The Nativity (2010), Young Messiah (2016) and the 2017 animated film The Star.16 These were made by those who were encouraged by the success of Gibson’s film but decided their production should downplay key facets of the biblical epic in order to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. The films extended characteristics of the biblical epic, such as simultaneous affirmation and disavowal of supernatural elements or the importance of love and relationships, while replacing grand spectacle with more intimate storytelling. The overall approach was less self-​serious than that of their predecessors and the characters were made to resemble the audience more closely. Whereas epics have traditionally placed their characters on a pedestal, this more recent group of films placed them on a similar level to their audience, mirroring the way in which society has become less deferential to religious leaders. The second approach that filmmakers have taken is to seek to appeal to a similar niche to that of The Passion of the Christ. Gibson’s film exposed an audience demographic which felt it had been overlooked. The makers of two of these films in particular (The Nativity Story and Joseph and Mary) sought to appeal to the now more confident Christian/​ Evangelical sub-​culture by evoking the major epics of the past. The makers of the former even specifically associated their film with Gibson’s. On a formal level, these films deviate the least from the traditional biblical epic, though in terms of the themes which they engage, they would appear to have blander, more modest ambitions. The third group of films are more subversive in their approach. Two such films (El cant dels ocells, 2008; Io sono con te, 2010)  sought to dismantle the traditional biblical epic’s façade, calling into question the much-​vaunted historical authenticity on which the genre has prided itself. Conversely, Little Baby Jesus of Flandr (2010) and Le Fils de Joseph (2016) went a stage further by rejecting any attempt at an historical portrayal. Instead they opted to impart meaning by incorporating and appropriating key visual motifs and symbols borrowed not only from the biblical epic genre, but from the broader interpretation of biblical narratives in the Christian artistic tradition. It remains to be seen for how long these three approaches will continue, or if others will emerge with time. Nevertheless, the biblical epic has evolved and re-​established itself, adopting and adapting the traditional characteristics of the biblical epic. Of course, having been reborn, this new movement may still be in its infancy. Perhaps, in time, it will truly become the saviour of the biblical epic.

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Notes 1 Indeed the film Epic (2013) used its title ironically, telling the story, as it does, of a major crisis threatening a community of miniatures. 2 As with any such selection it is difficult to draw the line. Some may question the omission of Children of Men (2006), which contains notable visual and thematic references to the Nativity. I felt, however, that these were not as significant to the film, or indeed my own discussion, as the films which I have chosen to include. 3 Based on my own extensive research up to the end of 2016 comprising 127 productions based on the Old Testament and 66 based on the New Testament, though depending on the definitions used these numbers can vary widely. 4 Some of the words used here may sound familiar to those conversant with Rick Altman’s influential essay ‘A Semantic/​ Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’. (1995). However, whilst Altman’s work has certainly shaped my thinking in this area, the way I am using some of these words is somewhat different from how Altman uses them. 5 See, for example, the titles of the works by Cary (1974), Forshey (1992), Hall and Neale (2010) and Meyer (2017). 6 This is even true of Judith of Bethulia (1914), where Holofernes’ task of conquering Bethulia suffers something of a setback when Judith cuts off his head. 7 Although finding an actual date/​period for this Golden Age seems to prove elusive. 8 It is a tradition in many places around the world that on Good Friday a group of actors re-​enacts the events of Jesus’ death. Early cinematic pioneers recorded these films ‘documentary-​style’ by capturing the action with a static camera. 9 The Roman-​Christian epics visually and thematically fit within the scope of the biblical epic, but their content is only tangentially biblical. The majority of these films, such as Ben-​Hur (1925, 1959, 2016), Quo Vadis? (1913, 1924, 1951, 2001) and The Robe (1953), were based not so much on the Bible itself, as on works of fiction in which either minor biblical characters were given a greatly expanded role, or a major biblical character appeared only fleetingly. They also tended to be set in the time around or after Jesus’ death. 10 Notably Lotte Reinger’s silhouetted Der Stern von Bethlehem (1921). 11 The others being Esther (1999), The Apocalypse (2000), Joseph of Nazareth (2000), Mary Magdalene (2000), Thomas (2001) and Judas (2001). 12 There are echoes of Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) here, with the donkey as a divine agent/​fool, acting for God yet nevertheless providing comic relief such as when he honks just as Joseph is about to kiss Mary and later on he kicks Joseph to prevent him from leaving Mary.

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13 Only the three friends identify the couple with the baby as Mary and Joseph, and even they only speculate as to whether or not that is who they are. 14 Whilst the word ‘queer’ is not without its problems, here it is not used pejoratively, but in reference to certain kinds of imagery that are frequently associated with ‘Queer Cinema’. 15 Mary prevents Jesus being circumcised after witnessing the procedure, a scene that is shot in a style strongly reminiscent of scenes in Psycho (1960) and Un Chien Andalou (1929). Chiesa’s website still features a link to an anti-​circumcision charity. 16 At the time of writing this film had not yet been released, precluding a fuller discussion, likewise Chasing the Star (2017).

References Altman, Rick (1995) ‘A Semantic/​Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’ in Grant, Barry Keith (ed.) Film Genre Reader II, Austin:  University of Texas Press, pp.  26–​40. Babington, Bruce, and Evans, Peter William (1993) Biblical Epics:  Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema, Manchester:  Manchester University Press. Caruso, Valerie (2010) ‘Gust Van den Berghe, Director of Little Baby Jesus of Flandr’, YouTube [Video Interview], 26 May. Online at: www.youtube.com/​ watch?v=1jCGT-​WYAaE (accessed 1 May 2017). Cary, John (1974) Spectacular! The Story of Epic Films, London: Castle Books. Chattaway, Peter T. (2006a) ‘Ethnicity in Jesus Films: Does it Matter?’, FilmChat, 24 November. Available online:  www.patheos.com/​blogs/​filmchat/​2006/​11/​ ethnicity-​in-​jesus-​films-​does-​it-​matter.html (accessed 3 July 2017). Chattaway, Peter T. (2006b) ‘The Nativity Story’, Christianity Today, 1 December. Online at:  www.christianitytoday.com/​ct/​2006/​decemberweb-​ only/​nativitystory.html (accessed 1 July 2017). Delgado, Maria. M. (2013) ‘Introduction’ in Delgado, Maria M., and Fiddian, Robin (eds) Spanish Cinema 1973–​2000: Auteurism, Politics, Landscape and Memory, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 1–​20. De Luca, Tiago (2012) ‘Realism of the Senses:  A Tendency in Contemporary World Cinema’ in Nagib, Lúcia, Perriam, Chris, and Dudrah, Rajinder (eds) Theorizing World Cinema, London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 183–​206. Elley, Derek (1984) The Epic Film:  Myth and History, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk: St Edmundsbury Press. Forshey, Gerald (1992) American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars. Westport, CT: Praeger. Grace, Pamela (2009) The Religious Film:  Christianity and the Hagiopic, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Hall, Sheldon, and Neale, Stephen (2010) Epics, Spectacles and Blockbuster, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

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Haven, Cynthia (2011) ‘Io Sono Con Te:  A Film with a René Girard p.o.v.’, Book Haven, 21 February. Online at:  http://​bookhaven.stanford.edu/​2011/​ 02/​io-​sono-​con-​te-​a-​film-​with-​a-​rene-​girard-​p-​o-​v/​ (accessed 2 July 2017). Heston, Charlton (1962) ‘Mammoth Movies I Have Known’, Films and Filming (April), p. 16. Hughes, Darren (2009) ‘Albert Serra Interviewed on El cant dels ocells (Birdsong)’, Senses of Cinema, April. Online at: http://​sensesofcinema.com/​ 2009/​conversations-​on-​film/​albert-​serra-​interview/​ (accessed 22 April 2017). Hughes, Howard (2011) Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult, London: I. B. Tauris. Kenigsberg, Ben (2017) ‘Review:  “The Son of Joseph” Fancifully Repackages the Nativity’, New  York Times, 12 January. Online at:  www.nytimes.com/​ 2017/​01/​12/​movies/​the-​son-​of-​joseph-​review.html (accessed 1 July 2017). Lindsay, Richard A. (2015) Hollywood Biblical Epics:  Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day, Santa Barbara, CA and Denver, CO: Praeger. Lodge, Guy (2016), ‘Berlin Film Review:  “Le Fils de Joseph” ’, Variety, 15 February. Online at:  http://​variety.com/​2016/​film/​reviews/​le-​fils-​de-​joseph-​ review-​1201705952/​ (accessed 1 July 2017). Meyer, Stephen C. (2014) Epic Sound:  Music in Postwar Hollywood Biblical Films, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Meyer, Stephen C. (ed.) (2017) Music in Epic Film:  Listening to Spectacle, Abingdon: Routledge. Moore, Carrie A. (2006) ‘The Nativity Story –​Vatican Premiere Spotlights a New Marketing Tool’, Desert News, 25 November. Online at: www.deseretnews. com/​article/​650209537/​The-​Nativity-​Story-​Vatican-​premiere-​spotlights-​a-​ new-​marketing-​tool.html?pg=all (accessed 9 July 2017). Moral, Javier (2014) ‘Behind the Enigma Construct:  A Certain Trend in Spanish Cinema’ in Wheeler, Duncan, and Canet, Fernando (eds) (Re)viewing Creative, Critical and Commercial Practices in Contemporary Spanish Cinema, Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 93–​104. Neale, Steve (2000) Genre and Hollywood, London and New York: Routledge. O’Brien, Catherine (2011) The Celluloid Madonna: From Scripture to Screen, New York: Columbia University Press. O’Brien, Catherine (2016) ‘Women in the Cinematic Gospels’ in Burnette-​ Bletsch, Rhonda (ed.) The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film, vol. 1, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 449–​62. Pacatte, Rose (ed.) (2006a) The Nativity Story: A Film Study Guide for Catholics, Boston: Pauline Books & Media. Pacatte, Rose (2006b) The Nativity Story:  Contemplating Mary’s Journey of Faith, Boston: Pauline Books & Media. Patterson, Hannah (2006) ‘The Greatest Teen Drama Ever Told’, The Guardian, 1 December. Online at:  www.theguardian.com/​film/​2006/​dec/​01/​2 (accessed 9 July 2017).

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Paul, Joanna (2013) Film and the Classical Epic Tradition, Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Pinkerton, Neil (2015) ‘Great Beauty: Eugène Green on La Sapienza’, Sight and Sound 8 (August), p. 16. Reinhartz, Adele (2016) ‘The Biblical Epic’ in Burnette-​Bletsch, Rhonda (ed.) The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film, vol. 1, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 175–​92. Richards, Jeffrey (2008) Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds. London: Continuum UK. Russell, James (2007) The Historical Epic and Contemporary Hollywood: From ‘Dances with Wolves’ to ‘Gladiator’, London: Continuum UK. Senjanovic, Natasha (2010) ‘ “Little Baby Jesus of Flandr”  –​Film Review’, Hollywood Reporter, 14 October. Online at:  www.hollywoodreporter.com/​ review/​little-​baby-​jesus-​flandr-​film-​29596 (accessed 29 April 2017). Shohat, Ella (2004) ‘Sacred Word, Profane Image: Theologies of Adaptation’ in Stam, Robert, and Raengo, Alessandra (eds) A Companion to Literature and Film, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 23–​45. Slater-​Williams, Josh (2016) ‘Interview: Eugène Green Talks The Son of Joseph, Compositions and the Dardenne Brothers’, Vodzilla.co, 14 December. Online at:  http://​vodzilla.co/​interviews/​interview-​eugene-​green-​talks-​the-​son-​of-​ joseph-​compositions-​and-​the-​dardenne-​brothers/​ (accessed 1 July 2017). Sobchack, Vivian (1995) ‘ “Surge and Splendour”:  A Phenomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic’ in Grant, Barry Keith (ed.) Film Genre Reader II, Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 280–​307. Stephenson, David (2010) ‘Fury Over BBC’s Nativity Insult’, Daily Express, December 10. Online at:  www.express.co.uk/​news/​uk/​218290/​Fury-​over-​ BBC-​s-​Nativity-​insult (accessed 24 June 2017). Thanhouser, Ned (2011) ‘The Star of Bethlehem (1912)’, Vimeo. Online at: https://​vimeo.com/​20025872 (accessed 8 June 2017). Van Aertryck, Maximilien (2010) ‘Interview with Gust van den Berghe about “Little Baby Jesus of Flandr” [Video Interview]’, Vimeo, 19 May. Online at: https://​vimeo.com/​11872589 (accessed 1 May 2017). Van Hoeij, Boyd (2010) ‘Review:  “Little Baby Jesus of Flandr”’, Variety, 14 May. Online at:  http://​variety.com/​2010/​film/​markets-​festivals/​little-​baby-​ jesus-​of-​flandr-​1117942737/​ (accessed 9 July 2017). Wakelin, Michael (2010) ‘An Interview with Tony Jordan at the Churches Media Conference’, Raspberry Rabbit [Podcast], 7 June. Online at: http://​raspberry_​ rabbit.blogspot.co.uk/​2010/​06/​nativity-​interview-​with-​tony-​jordan-​at.html (accessed 1 July 2017). Wood, Michael ([1975] 1989) America in the Movies, New  York:  Columbia University Press.

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Convince me: conversion narratives in the modern biblical epic Chris Davies Conversion narratives are a genre of religious storytelling popularised during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in which characters would recount their rebirth or newfound discovery of faith. While rarely identified as such, the conversion narrative is actually a trope of the ancient world epic in cinema, evidenced by such epics as Quo Vadis (1951), The Robe (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-​Hur (1959). Often originating in the films’ source materials, such as novels and plays, many ancient world epics depict a pagan protagonist abandoning his life of violence in favour of peace and faith. During the 1950s–​1960s the narrative’s allegorical significance confirmed its position as one of the defining syntactic features of the genre. In the wake of the Second World War, with the Cold War escalating, the promotion of peace, domesticity, Judaeo-​Christian religion and the rejection of tyranny and totalitarianism proved timely themes for American audiences. However, as production costs rose and audience tastes changed, the ancient world epic began a lengthy hiatus in the mid-​1960s that finally ended with Ridley Scott’s Gladiator in 2000. Scott’s film, an updated pastiche of previous epics, utilised the structural beats of the conversion narrative but largely excluded its religious core. Seemingly as a response to contemporary events including 9/​11 and the ensuing War on Terror, Gladiator’s successors further revised and secularised the narrative device, replacing discovery of faith with the horrors of imperialism as the catalyst for change. In the case of Roman epics, the principal sub-​genre in which conversion narratives occur, this change has been facilitated through displacement. The epics of the 1950s and 1960s were predominantly set in Rome or the Holy Land, while the majority of post-​Gladiator Roman epics have centred on other Roman-​occupied provinces such as Egypt and Britain. In so doing, religion has become a catalyst of violence or else is ignored, whereas sympathy for the oppressed peoples instigates the protagonists ‘conversion’ to peace and rejection of tyranny.

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Figure 7.1  King Arthur (2004): Bors (Ray Winstone) mocks Horton’s (Pat Kinevane) faith, as the corrupt Roman Christians occupy and later flee Britain.

This chapter explores the evolution of the conversion narrative from the 1950s–​1960s to its current form, specifically examining how the faith-​based conversion narrative has returned in recent years. This began with Noah (2014) and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), Old Testament epics which utilised the secular form of the conversion narrative from the genre’s immediate past to explore religious violence and extremism through the guise of the biblical epic. These were followed by two films featuring recreations of the Crucifixion, Risen (2016) and Ben-​Hur (2016), in which jaded protagonists find inspiration in their encounters with Christ to escape their violent lives and find peace through faith and mercy. Although these films restore the faith-​based conversion narrative of the 1950s–​1960s epics, they do so through incorporating religion into the occupation narratives of the secularised epics that followed Gladiator. In identifying the device’s structural motifs in ancient world epics, this study identifies the secularisation and restoration of the faith-​ based conversion narratives in modern epics. Epics as allegory To begin, it is worth establishing the principal components of the conversion narrative’s formula, which, although applicable to some Old Testament epics, is typically evidenced by Roman epics. The latter were generally favoured by Hollywood during the 1950s–​1960s as Greece presented a number of challenges for filmmakers. As Gideon Nisbet (2008:  7, 38–​9) argues, ancient Greece lacked recognisable visual signifiers, had a complex geographical and political history and carried

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the connotation of ‘Greek love’, which was especially problematic for audiences living under strict sodomy laws. By contrast, Rome promised the spectacle of the ancient city, simpler politics, orgies, blood sports and circuses. Furthermore, the Roman epic’s common conceit of a romance between a Christian girl and pagan soldier gave the setting a distinctly heterosexual overtone, culminating in a reaffirmation of faith (Nisbet 2008:  23). American Christians, so Fitzgerald (2001:  23) suggests, could therefore enjoy these epics as morality tales while revelling in Roman decadence. As Nisbet summarises: ‘Rome delivers the ultimate Hollywood combo: Sex and the City’ (38). The conversion narrative in these films follows the same basic structure. Protagonists are conventionally men of status serving in the Roman military (Marcus in Quo Vadis, Marcellus in The Robe), affiliated with Rome (Judah in Ben-​Hur), or else part of a similarly oppressive totalitarian power (Moses’ Egypt in The Ten Commandments). Often veterans of a recent conflict, the protagonists encounter a representative of an oppressed group (Christians, Hebrews, slaves) who is either a biblical figure (God, Jesus, a disciple) or one of their followers (a beautiful woman). This representative inspires the hero’s conversion, causing them to undergo a period of transition and reflection, sometimes involving miraculous events and instances of violence, in which they gain newfound sympathy for the oppressed. Realising the corruption and brutality associated with imperialism and totalitarian rule, the protagonist rejects their affiliation with Rome and the violent life it entails in favour of the freedom, peace and love promised by faith (usually Christianity). This redemptive conversion occasionally entails the hero’s death, as in The Robe, but in so doing they become a martyr for the Judaeo-​Christian  cause. When viewed as an allegorical device the conversion narrative is also symbolic of the American experience in the post-​war years. Emerging from a violent conflict against imperialist, fascist and totalitarian powers, Fitzgerald has identified:  ‘contemporary resonances in the theme of the rough-​edged soldier returning from the wars and encountering a self-​possessed woman who demands the domestication of his martial instincts’ (2001: 35). Furthermore, the escalation of the Cold War during the 1950s–​1960s is reflected in the protagonist’s rejection of totalitarianism in favour of faith. President Eisenhower’s political rhetoric asserted in 1953 that belief in God was an integral part of being an American (Wyke 1997:  143). In 1954 the phrase ‘One nation under God’ was added to the pledge of allegiance in American schools and by the end of the decade church membership had risen to 69 per cent of the US population (Richards 2008: 57). Maria Wyke has argued that these epics were

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‘of immense relevance to conservative America’s self-​portrayal during the Cold War era as the defender of the Faith against the godlessness of Communism’ (28). Similarly, Elena Theodorakopoulos has interpreted the motif of protagonists ‘turning their backs, physically or metaphorically, on Rome and its depravity’ (2010: 167) as a symbolic rejection of oppressive rule in favour of simple morality and American values: family, religion and individual freedom. However, Michael Wood believes these motifs are not specific to the 1950s–​1960s. He argues that the genre’s depiction of a disenfranchised group suffering persecution from an oppressive power is essentially an archetype of American storytelling. For Wood, it is: ‘the colonies against the mean mother country … it seems natural that American moviemakers should, no doubt unconsciously, fall back on a popular version of their country’s birth’ (1989: 184). As such, the conversion narrative is a malleable construct that can be adapted to suit the era in which an ancient world epic is produced. Gladiator, for instance, omits Christianity from Maximus’ journey but retains the conversion narrative’s basic themes and structure: he begins as a Roman general preparing to return home after a bloody campaign, is forced into slavery, befriends a figure within the oppressed group and rejects the Roman corruption embodied by Commodus. In death, Maximus returns home and is reunited with his family in the afterlife to spend eternity in peace. The Roman epics produced in the wake of Gladiator further secularised the conversion narrative while retaining the basic structure and themes. However, they also altered the location and context of most previous epics:  rather than utilising Rome as a principal setting, King Arthur (2004), Centurion (2010) and The Eagle (2011) all take place in Roman-​occupied Britain. Their protagonists, Arthur, Quintus and Marcus, respectively, are Roman soldiers struggling to survive against the cruel weather, inhospitable terrain and native resistance fighters. During the narrative each of the heroes encounters a Briton –​Guinevere, Etain/​Arianne and Esca, respectively –​from whom they learn of Rome’s brutality and oppression, including stories of rape, torture and the killing of families. By the narrative’s conclusion the heroes have abandoned their commitment to Rome in favour of freedom, companionship and the hope of peace. In effect, the films continue the structural components of the conversion narrative while the heroes become moral exemplars not through faith but by rejecting imperialist ideology. Significantly, these films retain the martial status of the protagonist. Previous ancient world epics typically begin with the end of a campaign, whereas in the Roman Britain epics the conflict is generally ongoing. In terms of genre evolution, Rick Altman states: ‘It is simply not possible

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to describe Hollywood cinema accurately without the ability to account for the numerous films that innovate by combining the syntax of one genre with the semantics of another’ (2010:  221). In the case of the Roman Britain epics, the ancient world epic is layered with allusions to combat films and Westerns. The films utilise the latter of these in their portrayal of the Roman frontier to appeal to America’s own frontier mythology, including the archetypal American hero who exists in the liminal space between civilisation and wilderness. Hadrian’s Wall, a feature across all three Roman Britain epics, acts as a boundary marker across which the heroes fight through the wilderness and against native ‘savages’. However, as they learn of Rome’s brutality towards the native Britons they come to sympathise with them and view them in a new light. As the protagonists reject Rome, so too does the archetypal America hero free himself, in Richard Slotkin’s analysis, from ‘the metropolitan regime of authoritarian politics and class privilege’ (1993:  11). John Lenihan has argued that: ‘The Western movie is one of the mechanisms a democratic society used to give form and meaning to its worries about its own destiny at a time when its position seemed more central and its values less secure than ever before’ (1980: 9). By incorporating elements of the Western into the Roman epic, the allusions to American history and mythology replaces the 1950s–​ 1960s epics’ equation of Rome with America’s enemies to suggest that Rome is now synonymous with America itself. This is reiterated in how the films hybridise the ancient world epic with the combat film, most notably those depicting the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In each case, the films depict technologically advanced armies invading and occupying foreign countries wherein they meet native resistance and contend with inhospitable terrain and weather. Scenes of prisoner abuse and torture are common, and although the depiction of soldiers is often sympathetic, the ideological position of the occupying forces is condemned. Indeed, the Roman Britain epics as well as numerous Iraq War dramas were produced after revelations of atrocities being perpetrated by American forces, including prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. David Ryan (2007: 127) has cited a series of Pew polls conducted in the USA which revealed that 93 per cent of respondents supported American actions in Iraq in 2003 but by early 2005 this had shrunk to 54 per cent. Cynthia Weber summarises that: When, in the spring of 2004, images of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners circulated in the global media, any credible claim the United States made to an enlightened, humanitarian we for its post-​Vietnam era band of brothers (and, in this case, sisters) was lost. … As far as the wider world was

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concerned, the United States, which always claims the moral high ground, had exposed its ‘true’ moral character to the world. (2006: 89)

In this respect, the ancient world epics’ association of America with peace, love and Judaeo-​Christian faith promulgated by the epics of the 1950s–​ 1960s would have seemed contradistinctive to the country’s global reputation at this time. Perhaps the most damning indication of this change occurs in King Arthur  –​a film initially inspired by the Vietnam War –​in which the eponymous hero begins as a Christian but undergoes a crisis of faith when, among other revelations, he witnesses Christians torturing and imprisoning British men, women and children. The Roman Britain epics’ allusions to US history and contemporaneous events can therefore be interpreted as allegorical condemnations of America’s imperialistic quagmires, both past and present. Furthermore, America’s divisive role in Iraq and Afghanistan arguably exacerbated the religious dichotomy between the United States and Middle East (Manners and McKean 2008: 11). One could hypothesise that this deterred some filmmakers from creating epics with pro-​Christian themes during these years, although Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) is a notable exception. Deborah Caldwell (2006: 212, 218, 220, 222) notes that the film was marketed directly to Christian audiences in America, some of whom regarded their faith as under attack by liberalism and other faiths during the ongoing War on Terror. The Rev. Jack Graham, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, even stated that Gibson’s film was: ‘providence from God … that in the middle of an international war on terrorism, in the midst of a cultural and domestic war for the family, God raises up a standard’ (quoted in Gates 2015). While observers of the Crucifixion are moved or inspired by Jesus’ suffering, Gibson’s film does not feature a typical conversion narrative but rather focuses on Christ’s endurance through faith: a message that appeared to resonate with conservative Christians. However, with the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and the war officially coming to an end in 2011 subsequent ancient world epics were produced in a comparatively different context. Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings, the first major ancient world epics to depict the Old Testament since the genre’s return in 2000, marked the beginning of this new wave. The films embellish and reimagine the biblical narratives in a manner Paul Brandeis Raushenbush (2014) has equated to midrash: shedding new light and perspectives on scriptural texts. Of particular significance to this chapter is that both films reinstate faith to the conversion narrative and apply aspects of the device to the biblical tales.

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Noah Noah is described in Genesis 6:9 as ‘a righteous man, blameless in his generation’, who ‘walked with God’. In the film he begins as a man of faith who has a vision of a world consumed by water. He believes it is from God, referred to in the film as ‘the Creator’, and interprets the image as a sign of an impending flood. At first, he adheres to Genesis 7:5’s phrase:  ‘And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him’ and constructs an Ark. While the film makes numerous changes and additions to the biblical narrative, it is as the flood nears that the film deviates most significantly by way of Noah’s characterisation. Noah’s writer-​director, Darren Aronofsky, and co-​writer, Ari Handel –​‘two not very religious Jewish guys’, according to Aronofsky –​intended the film to appeal to both believers and sceptics (Travers 2014). To do so, they develop Noah’s character to incorporate elements of doubt and confusion over his mission. Indeed, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has defined the heroic depiction of Noah as a Christian invention, arguing that: ‘Noah is not a hero in Jewish lore. … He executes God’s commandment to the letter. … He refuses to wrestle with God. Noah is a fundamentalist. He’s a religious extremist. …God does not want the obedient man of belief. He wants the defiant man of faith’ (Hoffman 2014). Aronofsky’s Noah has many of the characteristics Boteach lists as lacking in the biblical account, most notably an internal conflict in which he ‘wrestles with God’. The film creates this by omitting the moments in the biblical narrative in which God speaks to Noah in specific terms. Instead, Noah is here left to interpret his visions, which in turn leave his actions open to questioning which comes in the form of Noah’s rebellious son, Ham. This becomes most evident in the film’s finale, when Noah discovers Ila is pregnant. He has already informed his family that it is God’s intention that they be the last of human kind in order to remove humanity’s wickedness from the world. At this point in the drama Noah’s capacity for violence has been established, driving Ham to side with Tubal-​Cain. Conflicted, Noah asks God to give him a sign as to what he should do with Ila but, as with Tubal-​Cain earlier in the film, he is met with silence. Noah interprets this as confirmation of his plan, resolving to kill Ila’s children and complete his mission. Writing for Sight & Sound, Jonathan Romney has noted the similarities between this addition to the Noah narrative and the story of Abraham, adding: ‘this makes Noah a more complex, troubled and troubling figure than the simple agent of heroic deliverance we might expect him to be’ (2014). In so doing, the film encourages the viewer to question open acceptance of religious doctrine and consider myriad interpretations of scripture. In light of global

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acts of religiously motivated violence and prejudice under the banner of religious extremism, including among American Christians, this Judaeo-​ atheist interpretation of the Noah narrative is arguably more relevant and necessary today than the blind acceptance of God’s commandments seen in The Bible: In the Beginning … (1965), John Huston’s overly literal adaptation of the early chapters of the Bible. In this respect, Noah actually bears a greater likeness to Alejandro Amenábar’s Agora (2009), in which Alexandria descends into chaos as Christians wreak terrible acts of violence upon pagans and Jews. Amenábar has said that he intended the film to be a ‘condemnation of fundamentalism’ (quoted in Goldstein 2009). While semantically a more accurate term for religiously motivated violence would be ‘extremism’, the theme he is exploring carries contemporary relevance for the global climate in the wake of 9/​11 and instigation of the War on Terror. The film’s Christian characters were rendered analogously in that their robes, beards and the non-​Caucasian casting made them resemble the Taliban. While Noah is a subtler form of allegory, it nevertheless carries a similar warning of the violence and self-​destructive nature of religious extremism. Unlike Agora’s Christians, however, Noah comes to realise this and in so doing finds peace. Noah revolves around the central dichotomy of ‘justice’ and ‘mercy’. When Noah kills a group of hunters early in the film he defines his actions as ‘justice’ and before the flood hits he states that the ‘time for mercy is past; now punishment begins’. When he threatens to kill his grandchildren, however, his wife warns that if he does so he will die alone and hated for ‘that is just’. Unable to commit infanticide, Noah slips into a profound depression, consumed by shame and survivor’s guilt. He even turns to drink, as he does in Genesis 9:20–​21. Richard Brody (2014), writing for the New Yorker, has interpreted Noah’s arc as the ‘trials of a fierce, hardened, rigid man who has to wrestle with the vengeful and unyielding God within himself’. Eventually, Noah comes to realise the importance of free will in deciding one’s fate rather than blind faith: everyone –​God included –​has the capacity for both justice and mercy. In exercising mercy over his grandchildren there is hope that humanity can rebuild and start again. In this respect Noah bears the hallmarks of a conversion narrative, albeit one closer to King Arthur than The Robe. Noah begins as a man of faith but is presented with a mission that takes him deeper into a world of violence. He becomes a general and watches over innocents –​his family and the animals –​who are endangered by the corrupting, ‘civilising’ influence of mankind and their industrial expansion. Miraculous events and scenes of violence follow, but rather than Noah confirming his faith

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Figure 7.2  Noah (2014): Noah (Russell Crowe) wrestles with his faith and undertaking ‘the Creator’s’ will.

during the flood he instead comes to challenge it. His conversion is not from pagan to believer but ‘obedient man of belief’ to ‘defiant man of faith’. Noah promotes the importance of questioning one’s beliefs, as Brody states: ‘Aronofsky’s depiction of a righteous believer who takes the first step in setting aside judgment in favour of tolerance is a lesson pointedly aimed at the conservative faithful’ (2014). Compared to The Passion of the Christ’s reception among conservative Christians in America ten years prior, Noah is not a standard for Christian righteousness but rather a plea for people of all faiths to consider the senseless acts of violence that have been perpetrated in the name of religion. It suggests that ‘the Creator’ has given mankind free will and it is therefore within our power to pursue mercy over justice. Exodus: Gods and Kings The same is essentially true of Exodus: Gods and Kings. The film amalgamates the faith-​based and secularised forms of the conversion narrative to explore the 1950s–19​60s epics’ suggestion that violence and faith are antithetical. Similar to Aronofsky and Handel, this may in part be due to Exodus’ principal writer, Steven Zaillian, being an atheist; a qualification director Ridley Scott (‘The World Above All’: see Filmography, below, for details) believes made Zaillian the ‘perfect choice’ for the film. Furthermore, Scott’s recent work, including Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), suggest that he is both fascinated by and cynical

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about faith, stating in a 2012 Esquire interview with Eric Spitznagel that: ‘the biggest source of evil is of course religion’. With this in mind, one could interpret Exodus’ characterisation of Moses as an avatar for Scott or Zaillian’s ruminations on religion. Moses begins as a staunch atheist openly ridiculing Egyptian beliefs. He even attempts to scale a mountain which his wife and son’s faith decrees is forbidden in the hope of inspiring his son, Gershom, not to let religion circumscribe his life. However, Moses’ plan backfires when he is caught in a mudslide and takes a blow to the head. Seemingly as a result of his head trauma Moses henceforth sees a young boy, Malek, whom he believes is a messenger from God or even God himself. While he acknowledges to his wife that he sounds delusional, Moses nonetheless resolves to return to Egypt and enact the mission he has been entrusted with. Exodus exists in a liminal space in which its narrative can be interpreted in both secular and spiritual terms. Indeed, Carol Meyers (2010) has noted the distinct lack of historical or archaeological evidence to support the biblical account which allowed Scott a certain amount of creative freedom. However, something he did draw from the biblical narrative is how Moses ‘wrestles with God’. In the book of Exodus (3:11, 4:1, 4:10, 4:13, 5:22, 6:12) Moses repeatedly doubts and questions God’s actions, especially in choosing him as a leader. In Exodus, Moses suffers similar doubts but also challenges God’s cruelty. The film draws particular focus to the moments of the biblical account in which God behaves in a cruel, vengeful and needlessly barbaric manner. Ordered to be an observer of the plagues/​marvels, Exodus’ Moses complains that they are not restricted to Ramses but affecting ‘everyone’, adding that he is no longer ‘impressed’ by the spectacle. Prior to the Passover, he asks

Figure 7.3  Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014): God, or his messenger, represented as a petulant and vengeful child (Isaac Andrews).

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Malek to stop the plagues because ‘anything more is just revenge’. Malek in turn delivers an embittered tirade in which he bemoans Pharaoh’s self-​deification and concludes: ‘I want to see them on their knees, begging for it to stop!’ When Moses learns of God’s plan for the Passover he is horrified and walks away, shouting: ‘I want no part of this!’ In the aftermath of the event, Ramses appears carrying his dead son’s body and understandably asks Moses: ‘Is this your god? A killer of children? What kind of fanatics worship such a god?’ Similar to Boteach’s interpretation of Noah, the comparison of Moses to a religious fanatic who advocates the killing of children gives Exodus contemporary relevance for the ongoing issue of religious terrorism and conflict. Star Christian Bale (‘Holy Warriors’: see Filmography, below, for details) has even stated in an interview that by contemporary standards Moses would be a ‘fundamentalist’. Similar to Scott’s depiction of Christian and Muslim violence in his crusader epic Kingdom of Heaven (2005), in Exodus both Hebrews and Egyptians instigate violence. As Moses straddles both worlds he can therefore sympathise with the suffering of each. Indeed, Justin Chang (2014) notes in his review for Variety that the film ‘hinges on the gradual reshaping of [Moses’] beliefs and the healing of his fractured identity’. While fighting to free the Hebrews, he appreciates the plight of the Egyptians and challenges God when his actions appear to be driven by vengeance and a vainglorious display of power. In depicting God/​his messenger as a young boy, Chang believes the film portrays him as ‘callous and whimsical by turns, a jealous, vengeful deity with a literally childish streak’. Witnessing this behaviour, Moses is unwilling to commit to blind faith in God. However, in a moment of doubt, fear and depression, trapped between the sea and Ramses’ approaching army, Moses speaks to God with humility, stating: ‘I have misled all of them. I have abandoned my family. I have failed you. I’m not what I thought I was.’ Although he appears to receive no answer, it is in Moses’ direst need that God finally appears to show mercy (although the event is also given a secular causation). Moses wakes the following morning to find that the sea has receded and the Hebrews can now cross. After all God’s displays of ‘justice’, his violence and cruelty, it is this moment of mercy that leads Moses to believe, announcing to the Israelites:  ‘You have honoured me with your trust. Now I honour you with my faith. … God is with us!’ Moses’ conversion narrative follows the expected course but utilises its hero’s arc to explore the contradictions of religious belief. Moses begins the film as a man of military rank affiliated with a totalitarian and oppressive power. Following a series of encounters with Hebrews (Nun, Bithia, Miriam, Joshua) and finally with Malek/​God himself, his allegiance shifts to the oppressed group. In keeping with the martial

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language of the biblical narrative (Exod. 12:51, 13:18, 14:4, 17)  in which the Israelites are likened to an army, Moses’ initial conversion instigates greater violence, first through his guerrilla war against Ramses and later through God’s plagues. While Moses fights a moral war to free the Israelites he believes God’s pursuit of ‘justice’ is immoral and excessive. It is only after God’s act of mercy in pulling back the Red Sea that Moses is ready to accept him. Upon returning to his family he is grateful that they have not renounced their beliefs and they can now share their love and faith in relative peace. Risen The quest for peace is also central to Risen and Ben-​Hur. Bearing a strong resemblance to The Robe, Risen depicts a jaded Roman tribune, Clavius, who is charged with overseeing Jesus’ execution and the subsequent investigation into the disappearance of his body. This leads him to the disciples and ultimately the risen Christ, whose message and miraculous acts inspires awe and faith in Clavius. While an original screenplay, the film’s protagonist appears to be inspired by a centurion mentioned in Matthew 27:54 and Luke 15:49 who witnesses Jesus’ death and announces: ‘Truly this man was a son of God!’ According to an accompanying footnote in the New Oxford Annotated Bible (2010: 1789), this is the first acclamation of Jesus as God’s son by a gentile. As further evidence for the hybridisation of the ancient world epic with other genres, star Joseph Fiennes (‘The Mystery of the Resurrection’: see Filmography, below, for details) has described the film as ‘a murder mystery, a film noir, a detective story’ set in the ancient world. Although Clavius’ story establishes Risen within the 1950s–​60s tradition of conversion narratives, it also incorporates aspects of the Roman Britain epics in its historical and political context. Unlike The Passion of the Christ, which emphasises the internal conflict over Jesus within the Jewish community, Risen focuses on the Roman occupation of Judea through the experience of its protagonist. Early in the narrative Clavius defeats a small force of Zealots fighting for freedom from Roman rule. Weary from the battle, Clavius is called to meet Pontius Pilate and confesses that his ambition for wealth, status and power are a means to an end, specifically ‘an end to travail; a day without death. Peace.’ The Crucifixion of Christ and the threat to Clavius’ prospects should he fail to find the body suggest he is locked into a world of violence and death. Writer Paul Aiello (‘The Mystery of the Resurrection’: see Filmography, below, for details) states that Clavius’ journey was intended to be a transition from ‘darkness to light’. Similarly, producer Patrick Aiello (‘The

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Battle of the Zealots Deconstructed’: see Filmography, below, for details) notes that the opening battle is a representation of the world of violence Clavius ‘wanted to get away from’. When he speaks with Jesus in the film’s final act, Christ reiterates Clavius’ phrase ‘a day without death’ as enticement to find peace through faith. Clavius begins the film with belief in the Roman gods, principally Mars. He refers to the Jews and the followers of Jesus as ‘fanatics’, reiterating the analogous association between violence and religious extremism evidenced by Noah and Exodus. Dismissing the testimonies of Jesus’ followers as ‘fantasy’, it is not until he sees the risen Christ with his own eyes that his analytical mind is thrown into a state of confusion by ‘two things which I cannot reconcile: a man dead without question, and that same man alive again’. Despite his former prejudices, Clavius follows the disciples as they travel across the desert to meet Jesus before his ascension. Along the road, Clavius helps them evade capture and violence, witnesses Jesus’ healing of a leper and hears his words of peace. As with Noah and Exodus, acts of mercy are the most significant contribution to converting the protagonist into belief in God. Unlike the makers of Noah and Exodus, Paul and Patrick Aiello are men of faith. Perhaps owning to their beliefs, the film does comparatively little to question the correlation between religion and violence explored in the Old Testament epics. Nevertheless, while the epics of the 1950s–​ 60s incorporate romantic relationships and personal conflicts in the protagonist’s road to redemption and faith, Risen focuses almost entirely on Clavius’ scepticism. Indeed, he confesses to Jesus that ‘I cannot reconcile all this with the world I know’ and that his biggest fear in accepting faith in God is ‘being wrong –​wagering eternity on it’. In this respect Risen is mindful of a secularised audience’s perspective. Despite the setting of a more traditional conversion narrative than Noah and Exodus, Risen’s protagonist is also hesitant about accepting faith without challenging and considering all he sees and hears. As Jesus tells Clavius: ‘With your own eyes you’ve seen, yet still you doubt. Imagine the doubt of those who have never seen. That’s what they face.’ The film attempts to sympathise and convert the secularised viewer while reaffirming the beliefs of the faithful. Its message is one of hope: that peace can be found through faith and the teachings of Jesus. Ben-​Hur This is also true of the 2016 iteration of Ben-​Hur. Released a few months after Risen, Ben-​Hur could be a contextual and thematic prequel to the

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former film. Based on Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel, Ben-​Hur integrates aspects of traditional and secularised forms of the cinematic conversion narrative to the novel’s plot. Among the many changes it makes to Wallace’s novel the most significant is in developing the character of Messala, raising him from a friend of the Ben-​Hur family to Judah’s surrogate brother. In so doing it effectively creates dual protagonists. Messala begins the narrative a believer in the Roman gods, like Clavius, and leaves the Ben-​Hur home to serve in the Roman military. He fights in various campaigns across the empire and learns the brutality of imperialism in the process, stating: ‘we crushed the innocent civilisations simply because they were different’. Returning to Jerusalem he hopes to find a peaceful resolution to the Zealot uprising and implores Judah for help. When it appears Judah is in league with the Zealots, Messala reluctantly sends him to the galleys and imprisons his family. While stationed in the city, Messala witnesses Jesus defending a leper by preaching love and mercy; a lesson that lingers with him. Encountering Judah in the chariot race he is severely wounded but in the aftermath the two are reconciled. Messala abandons Rome and finds peace with the Ben-​Hur family as Ilderim’s voice-​over closes the film by assuring us that Judah and Messala will ‘keep the faith’. Judah, by contrast, begins the film as an agnostic or even atheist, teasing Messala for his ‘359 gods’ and questioning Esther’s faith, asking her: ‘If there is a God then why doesn’t He do right by the world?’ Encountering Jesus in the streets Judah sarcastically mocks his message of forgiveness as ‘very progressive’ and equates the concept of a pre-​ ordained path with slavery. A man of wealth affiliated to Rome, Judah eschews the Zealots’ fight for independence from Roman rule. He also refuses to aid Messala by naming names among the Jews in favour of remaining neutral. However, his act of mercy in helping an injured Zealot boy, Dismas, ultimately condemns him when the boy attempts to assassinate Pilate. Judah is blamed for Dismas’ action and enslaved. On his way to the galleys Jesus offers Judah water, a memory that returns to him years later when he requires the strength to save himself in the chariot race. Following his victory, Judah witnesses Christ’s crucifixion and is humbled by his message of forgiveness from the cross. Despite his initial insistence that it was his desire for revenge that sustained him over his years of slavery, Judah finds mercy and forgives Messala, beginning a new life of faith, family and peace. Like Risen, Ben-​Hur emphasises the martial aspects of its plot and characters, including the Zealots’ fight for freedom and Messala’s longing to escape the violent militarised world he inhabits. Despite Judah’s attempts to remain neutral his encounter with Dismas is an informative

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Figure 7.4  Ben-​Hur (2016): Christianity as a source of redemption and domesticity is restored in the ending as Judah (Jack Huston) and Messala (Toby Kebbell) embrace their family.

experience as he learns of the oppression poorer Judeans suffer under Roman rule. As with Esca and Etain in The Eagle and Centurion, respectively, we learn that the Romans murdered Dismas’ father and, it is implied, raped his mother. Like Exodus, Ben-​Hur exemplifies the cyclical nature of violence. Producer Joni Levin (‘A Tale for Our Times’: see Filmography, below, for details) believes the film was timely in its depiction of ‘nations that are not about forgiving’, adding ‘I think that that’s the problem with society today, it’s that everybody has so much history, and it becomes our future.’ As Noah is driven by the dichotomy of ‘justice’ and ‘mercy’, so Ben-​Hur’s opening narration describes the Roman world as leaving no room for ‘forgiveness’. Jesus’ sacrifice breaks that stalemate and in so doing inspires Judah and Messala to find forgiveness and escape the cycle of violence. Whereas Noah and Exodus utilise the Old Testament setting to explore the complexities and contradictions of faith as a generalisation, Risen and Ben-​Hur are specifically Christian in their promotion of Christ as a pathway to redemption. In their portrayal of Rome as the oppressive force, however, the films complicate the Roman Britain epics’ parallels between Rome and America. While Risen and Ben-​Hur are sympathetic to their Roman protagonists and many other Roman characters, they nevertheless include the cultural insensitivities and military occupation of another country that the Roman Britain epics equate with American imperialism. By contrast, the 1950s–​1960s epics traditionally equate the Christian characters with America. As such, one could interpret Risen and Ben-​Hur as suggesting an allegory for America regaining its faith and the tenets of Christianity following a period of digression. The

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message of peace, love and forgiveness that Jesus preaches across both films is a hopeful prayer for peace amidst troubled times. Carol Wallace (‘Ben-​Hur:  The Legacy’:  see Filmography, below, for details) has stated that the inspiration for her great-​great-​grandfather to write Ben-​Hur: A Tale of the Christ derived from a meeting he had while travelling to a reunion of American Civil War veterans. On the train he encountered a famous agnostic, Robert Ingersoll, who asked what Wallace believed in. Wallace was unable to answer and so began reading the Bible and researching the period to collect his thoughts, eventually turning them into Ben-​Hur. Like Wallace, Judah emerges from a period of violence and chaos to find faith and eventually peace: a conversion narrative. This was the message promulgated among many ancient world epics of the 1950s–​1960s as America emerged from the Second World War and reaffirmed its Judaeo-​Christian identity against the backdrop of the Cold War. Following 9/​11 and the escalation of the War on Terror, however, religion appeared to be contributing to acts of violence and chaos. The ancient world epics produced at this time were understandably sceptical about the connotations of peace and faith synonymous with the traditional conversion narrative and therefore secularised or subverted the trope. In so doing the films critique imperialism, even drawing parallels between the Roman occupation of its provinces and America’s expansionist history and contemporaneous foreign policy. The modern biblical epics discussed in this chapter are evidence of the gradual return of the traditional conversion narrative. Noah and Exodus utilise the Old Testament portrayal of God to explore contemporary fears of religious fanaticism and encourage viewers to challenge or question religious doctrine in the light of their own moral code. The films suggest that by doing so one can withdraw from a violent and unforgiving world into the peaceful arena of domesticity and faith. Risen and Ben-​Hur promote a similar message through a more traditional example of the conversion narrative which promotes Christianity as the path to redemption. The protagonists of Risen and Ben-​Hur are drawn into a cycle of violence stemming from imperialism, oppression and lack of understanding but, as with Noah and Exodus, acts of mercy enable them to break the cycle of violence and find peace. Following the secularisation of the conversion narrative in the wake of 9/​11 and American actions in the Middle East, the Old Testament epics reintroduced and interrogated the role of faith through the narrative’s structure and themes until the traditional form was reinstated in Risen and Ben-​ Hur. The latter films acknowledge America’s deviations from its moral path in the preceding years, but promote a message of forgiveness and hope through a conversion, or reaffirmation, of faith.

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References Altman, Rick (2010) Film/​Genre, London: BFI. Associated Press (2009) ‘Hypatia, History and a Never-​Ending Story’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May. Online at: www.smh.com.au/​news/​entertainment/​ film/​hypatiahistory-​and-​a-​neverending-​story/​2009/​05/​19/​1242498745843. html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 (accessed 23 April 2014). Brody, Richard (2014) ‘Darren Aronofsky’s Bible Studies’, New Yorker. Online at:  www.newyorker.com/​culture/​richard-​brody/​darren-​aronofskys-​bible-​ studies (accessed 12 May 2017). Caldwell, Deborah (2006) ‘Selling Passion’ in Fredriksen, Paula (ed.) On ‘The Passion of the Christ’:  Exploring the Issues Raised by the Controversial Movie, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 211–​24. Chang, Justin (2014) ‘Film Review:  Exodus:  Gods and Kings’, Variety, 29 November. Online at:  http://​variety.com/​2014/​film/​reviews/​film-​review-​ exodus-​gods-​and-​kings-​1201364857/​ (accessed 17 May 2017). Fitzgerald, William (2001) ‘Oppositions, Anxieties, and Ambiguities in the Toga Movie’ in Joshel, Sandra, Malamud, Margaret, and McGuire, Jr, Donald (eds) Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 23–​49. Gates, David (2004) ‘Jesus Christ Movie Star’, Newsweek, 7 March. Online at: www.newsweek.com/​jesus-​christ-​movie-​star-​123893 (accessed 22 November 2015). Goldstein, Patrick, and Rainey, James (2009) ‘The Big Picture  –​At Cannes: Alejandro Amenabar’s Provocative New Historical Thriller’, Los Angeles Times, 17 May. Online at:  http://​latimesblogs.latimes.com/​the_​big_​picture/​2009/​05/​from-​cannes-​agora-​alejandro-​amenabars-​provocative-​new-​ historical-​thriller.html (accessed 23 April 2014). Hoffman, Jordan (2014) ‘Hollywood “Noah” is Kosher, says Celebrity Rabbi’, Times of Israel, 27 March. Online at:  www.timesofisrael.com/​hollywood-​ noah-​is-​kosher-​says-​celebrity-​rabbi/​ (accessed 12 May 2017). Lenihan, John H. (1980) Showdown:  Confronting Modern America in the Western, Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Manners, Ian R., and McKean, Barbara (2008) ‘The Middle East: A Geographic Preface’ in Schwedler, Jillian, and Gerner, Deborah J. (eds) Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, 3rd edn, London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp.  9–​36. Meyers, Carol (2010) ‘Exodus [Introduction]’ in Coogan, Michael (ed.) The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4th edn, Oxford:  Oxford University Press, pp.  81–​3. New Oxford Annotated Bible (2010) The New Revised Standard Version with The Apocrypha, 5th edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nisbet, Gideon (2008) Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture, 2nd edn, Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press.

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Raushenbush, Paul Brandeis (2014) ‘Noah:  A Midrash by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel (Interview)’, Huffington Post, 24 May. Online at:  www. huffingtonpost.com/​paul-​raushenbush/​noah-​the-​movie_​b_​5022132.html (accessed 12 May 2017). Richards, Jeffrey (2008) Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds, London: Continuum. Romney, Jonathan (2014) ‘Film of the Week:  Noah’, BFI, 6 September. Online at:  www.bfi.org.uk/​news-​opinion/​sight-​sound-​magazine/​reviews-​ recommendations/​film-​week-​noah (accessed 12 May 2017). Ryan, David (2007) ‘ “Vietnam”, Victory Culture and Iraq:  Struggling with Lessons, Constraints and Credibility from Saigon to Falluja’ in Dumbrell, John, and Ryan, David (eds) Vietnam in Iraq: Tactics, Lessons, Legacies and Ghosts, London: Routledge, pp. 111–​38. Slotkin, Richard (1993) Gunfighter Nation:  The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-​Century America, New York: Harper Perennial. Spitznagel, Eric (2012) ‘Q+A:  Ridley Scott’s Star Wars’, Esquire, 4 June. Online at:  www.esquire.com/​entertainment/​interviews/​a14300/​ridley-​scott-​ prometheus-​interview-​9423167/​ (accessed 16 May 2017). Theodorakopoulos, Elena (2010) Ancient Rome at the Cinema:  Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome, Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press. Travers, Peter (2014) ‘Reviews: Noah’, Rolling Stone, 27 March. Online at: www. rollingstone.com/​movies/​reviews/​noah-​20140327 (accessed 12 May 2017). Weber, Cynthia (2006) Imagining America at War: Morality, Politics, and Film, London: Routledge. Wood, Michael (1989) America in the Movies, 2nd edn, New York: Columbia University Press. Wyke, Maria (1997) Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History, London: Routledge.

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Part III

Critical readings and receptions

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8 Controversy and the ‘Culture War’: exploring tensions between the secular and the sacred in Noah, the ‘least biblical biblical movie ever’ Becky Bartlett

Introduction Controversial films, according to Kendall Phillips, are important because they ‘serve as a kind of barometer for the deeper cultural pressures surrounding issues of, for instance, sex or race or violence’ (Phillips 2008: xv). Films, he suggests, become controversial when they appear to ‘present such a danger that there are those in society who feel the need, perhaps even the obligation, to voice their concerns, to sound the alarm to others’ (xiv). This is certainly the case in regard to Darren Aronofsky’s 2014 biblical spectacular, Noah. The controversy surrounding the film, which began almost eighteen months before its release, demonstrates the extent to which certain members of religious communities –​notably evangelical Christians in America –​felt the need to not only denounce Noah, but to warn others against it. Noah was considered controversial for a variety of reasons that can broadly be identified in three ways: representation of Noah, the character; representation of God, the creator; and the way(s) Aronofsky and co-​writer Handel interpreted the biblical flood story in Genesis, particularly regarding the perceived focus on and addition of ‘secular’ elements such as environmentalism, vegetarianism and ecological issues. It should be noted that the film was considered controversial for different reasons in different countries and among different religious communities. It was banned in several countries, including Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, for example, for contravening Muslim doctrine by visually depicting Noah, a Muslim prophet. The decision by certain Muslim-​majority countries to ban the film was widely reported in Western news media outlets, but was the result of religious, cultural and socially specific factors that are not directly relevant to discussion of the

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film’s reception elsewhere. In America, offence was caused not by the appearance of Noah, but the way the character was depicted, particularly in regard to his relationship with God and the moral ambiguity of his actions. The film’s censorship in other countries did, however, help to propagate a narrative of a film mired in religious controversy. Phillips makes a direct correlation between offence and controversy, but these are not synonymous. He suggests that ‘the central feature for the notion of controversy is both that people were offended and, more importantly, that they articulated this offense in front of others in such a way as to create a kind of political or cultural spectacle’ (2008: xvii). For Phillips, the actions taken by people in response to the offence they feel towards a film is a key aspect of understanding controversy as it indicates the depth to which they feel a sense of outrage and disorientation:  for these people, there is a ‘deeply held, if unvoiced, assumption that, in the world they live in, such a subject could not possibly be depicted in a film’ (xix). For Noah’s detractors, arguably the point of contention was not that the subject could not be depicted, but that it should not be depicted in a film in this way. As this chapter will demonstrate, Noah’s most vocal opponents are politically motivated. Their protestations represent opposition and reaction to the threat of increasing secularisation in Western society, and the diminishing power and authority of religion. The controversy surrounding Noah, therefore, is representative of deeper cultural tensions surrounding the position of religion in contemporary Western society. Phillips notes that ‘crafting a convincing film is hard enough, but when the basis of the narrative is a tale deemed sacred to a large community, that crafting must be done with particular caution’ (128). He suggests that many controversies relating to religion and film are the result of divisions between the sacred and the profane/​secular. Such tensions are evident throughout Noah, both in the text itself and in its reception. However, as this chapter demonstrates, the relationship between the sacred and the secular is more complex and complicated than a reduction to binary opposites would suggest. This is particularly relevant in regard to the interdisciplinary field of religion and film, where the noticeable lack of contribution from film studies scholars is attributed to their acceptance of secularisation, therefore reducing religion to a ‘peripheral phenomenon in contemporary social organisation, one which, in their studies, they rarely find need to consider’ (Wilson, quoted in Martin 1995: 2). As the controversy surrounding Noah indicates, however, the underlying assumption that ‘secular values, forces, and perspectives matter more than religious ones’ (Martin 1995:  2) fails to adequately address the complicated interrelations and tensions between the sacred

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and the secular in contemporary society. Noah’s critics consider the film’s secular elements to be evidence of Hollywood’s prioritisation of its own atheist agenda, and therefore inherently offensive to the religiously orientated viewer. Rather than position Hollywood and the faith-​driven viewer in direct opposition, however, I suggest that by acknowledging the intersections of the sacred and the secular, a film like Noah can open the possibility for further dialogue between religious and non-​religious communities, including those within the academy. God is dead/​Is God dead? Secularisation and counter-​secularisation The secularisation thesis might be ‘taken for granted’ by film studies scholars, but, as the growing criticism of the model in recent years indicates, our acceptance is not necessarily shared by scholars in other fields. The belief shared by key thinkers like Comte, Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Freud –​that religion would gradually but inevitably fade in importance and become insignificant with the advent of industrial society  –​ is now ‘experiencing the most sustained challenge in its long history’ (Norris and Inglehart 2011:  3). Early advocates of secularisation are now fierce opponents of it. Peter Berger, for example, argues that ‘the assumption that we live in a secularised world is false. The world today … is as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever. This means that … [secularisation theory] is essentially mistaken’ (1999: 2). Today, particularly within sociology, the debate continues. Most now accept that although religious institutions have less visible power and influence in society, religious values and traditions have not disappeared from the world and are not likely to do so. Mark Chaves, for instance, argues secularisation is ‘best understood not as the decline of religion, but as the declining scope of religious authority’ (1994: 750). Here, and elsewhere, a distinction is made between the power/​influence of religious institutions and individual faith or spirituality (Berger 1999; Casanova 1994; Noonan 2011). It should be noted that how this distinction is used in arguments for or against secularisation largely depends on how secularisation is understood by the author. However, just as definitions of secularisation are dependent on how the relationship between institutional religion and individual faith is understood, so too are claims regarding the tensions between the sacred and the secular in Noah, as discussed below. While some authors explicitly reject the core principles of secularisation, others advocate a variety of revisions. Norris and Inglehart suggest secularisation theory can be amended to emphasise ‘the extent to

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which people have a sense of existential security’ (2011: 4). They argue that religion and religiosity persists more among vulnerable populations, while secularisation has occurred most in affluent, secure, post-​ industrial nations. Acknowledging America’s apparently ‘exceptional’ status among rich nations, they point to the levels of social inequality and economic and personal insecurity as a possible explanation for continuing religiosity (108). Voas and Chaves, meanwhile, challenge the core assumption that the United States is a counterexample to secularisation, arguing instead that such critics ‘either deny religious decline [in the USA] or … discount its significance by emphasising the still high levels of American religiosity, the recent start of decline, or the slowness of decline’ (2016:  1519). Conversely, Berger suggests that, rather than America being the exception to secularisation, it is Western Europe that is the exception to desecularisation. He further acknowledges that, while the relationship between religion and modernity is ‘rather complicated’, advocates of secularisation fail to adequately consider the ‘counter-​secularisation’ movement, and points to a rise of conservative, orthodox, or traditional religions, including evangelical Christianity in America (1999: 4–​6). Berger’s assessment of religion and modernity’s relationship being ‘rather complicated’ captures the essence of the secularisation debate. As demonstrated below, this complicated relationship is reflected in the controversy surrounding Noah. Although an outright rejection of the secularisation thesis seems to ignore the evident and demonstrable decline of religious influence in society and the power of religious institutions along with a generational decline in religious belief (Voas and Chaves), it is nonetheless still true that, for many, religion continues to play a significant role in their everyday lives. Taking secularisation for granted, therefore, fails to acknowledge the complex interrelations and dynamics between religion, contemporary (Western) society and individuals within that society. Berger’s claim that the rise of conservative, traditional forms of religion is subsumed by both the media and the academy under the pejorative category of ‘fundamentalism’ (1999: 10), indicates a general distaste for, or dismissal of, religion within the two institutions. This is echoed by Steve Bruce, who argues that the unpopularity of religion, its increasingly peripheral/​minority position in society and religious indifference leading to religious ignorance has reduced religion to its simplest principle: to be nice. As a result, there has been a ‘general decline in understanding of, and sympathy for, religiously-​inspired social mores’ (emphasis added), which in turn leads to the perception of any conservative positions promoted by Christians seeming ‘narrow-​minded and mean’ (2016: 621–​4).

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Religion, and religious adherents, are increasingly Othered, with the more extreme or fundamentalist positions receiving more publicity, leading to a general sense that ‘religion-​taken-​too-​seriously is troublesome’ (623). This argument is inadvertently supported and reinforced by the protestations of conservative evangelical Christians  –​a vocal minority –​at texts such as Noah, and the news media’s tendency to disproportionately emphasise the negative and ‘extreme’ religiously motivated responses to the film. There is, however, one notable exception to Berger’s revised desecularisation theory: an ‘international subculture composed of people with Western-​type education … that is indeed secularised’ (1999:  10). This subculture, he posits, has a disproportionate influence over society because it controls the ‘institutions that provide the ‘official’ definitions of reality’ (10), notably education and mass media. Religious upsurges –​ counter-​secularisation and the rise of traditional, conservative forms of religion –​are, therefore, protest movements against the secular elite: a ‘purely secular view of reality has its principle social location in an elite culture that, not surprisingly, is resented by large numbers of people who are not part of it but who feel its influence’ (11). This social elite includes Hollywood as well as the academy, and the so-​called ‘Culture War’ in the USA is one way that this counter-​secularisation protest movement has revealed itself. Of course, accusations that Hollywood has ignored the religious beliefs of its consumers, promoting instead its own liberal, secular agenda, are not new. Michael Medved’s 1992 book, Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values, captures the sense of resentment among certain communities, and effectively establishes the two perceived factions  –​Hollywood and the faith-​ friendly viewer –​as binary opposites. Medved, a right-​wing, conservative commentator, accuses Hollywood of promoting its own secular, liberal agenda, contra the beliefs of most Americans. He argues that because so many of the people who have the power to shape popular culture have rejected the established institutions of organised faith, they are blind to the fact that many Americans (their customers) remain committed to their religious beliefs. The filmmakers present a world that corresponds to their own, rather than their viewers’, because they are themselves non-​religious. Those who speak up against ‘anti-​religious’ films, meanwhile, are dismissed as a ‘lunatic fringe of religious fanatics and right-​wing extremists’ (1992:  38). As well as supporting Bruce’s comments regarding the Othering of religious adherents, these claims are in line with Berger’s concept of a counter-​ secularisation movement: Medved believes he is speaking on behalf of a powerless majority,

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and acts as a representative of the populist protest movement against the secular elite. Medved is not without his critics (e.g. Graham 1997; Deacy 2008), but his claims are echoed by others even today. Much of the criticism of, and opposition to, Noah is underpinned by the same arguments indicating that, some twenty-​five years after Medved’s comments, the tensions between the secular cultural elite and the faith-​driven consumer can still be felt. As Margaret Miles notes, conservative Christians often consider secular culture to be the ‘enemy’ (1996: 15). At the same time, however, many Americans are ‘ambivalent about, not uninterested in, religion’ (15). We must be careful, therefore, to avoid assuming the outspoken opponents to Noah represent the sentiments of the Christian community at large; examination of the film’s critical reception from Christian commentators reveals a far more varied, ambivalent, if not necessarily positive, response. Noah’s pre-​and post-​release reception Noah is an adaptation of the flood narrative, one of the most widely known Bible stories. Aronofsky, who initially described himself as an atheist from a culturally Jewish background before indicating a more sympathetic approach to spirituality/​faith when he told a reporter for The Atlantic ‘I think I definitely believe’ (quoted in Falsani 2014), draws primarily on the relevant chapters in Genesis, but also consulted a variety of exegetical and extra-​biblical texts to develop the biblical story further. The backlash against Noah began when screenwriter Brian Godawa’s blog post, an analysis of a leaked draft script by Aronofsky and Handel, went viral. Godawa launched a scathing attack on the film, predicting it would be an ‘uninteresting and unbiblical waste of a hundred and fifty million dollars’ that, by subverting the sacred narrative, would be offensive to the faith of ‘millions of devoted Bible readers’ (Godawa 2012). Pre-​ release information about Noah suggests its production was fraught with conflict and tension. The film’s reception was likely influenced by its lack of clear identity. It is: a personal project by an established arthouse auteur and a $150 million biblical spectacular produced by a mainstream Hollywood studio; a religious film written by two self-​ confessed ‘not very religious guys’ (quoted in Friend 2014); and a biblical adaptation, based on one of the most familiar stories of the Old Testament that was also proudly described as the ‘least biblical biblical movie ever’ by its writer-​director (quoted in Friend 2014). Noah occupies an uncomfortable liminal position between the sacred and the secular, exposing the tensions between the two. It is not clear, for example,

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what the film’s central purpose is. Is it aiming for biblical accuracy and scriptural fidelity, as implied by Aronofsky’s later assertions regarding the quantity of research and religious consultation, or is it trying to subvert the biblical story and promote an alternative, atheist agenda, as claimed by Godawa? Steven D.  Greydanus captures some of the issues surrounding Noah when he asks, ‘Have Aronofsky … and co-​writer Handel made a film that’s too religious for secular viewers and too secular for religious ones? Who is the audience?’ (2014a). Other articles similarly question the film’s scope for appeal. James Rocchi, for example, asks whether one must be a ‘believer’ to ‘enjoy’ Noah (2014). However, his answer does a disservice to both religious and non-​religious viewers, implying the former are so easily gratified by any depiction of faith on screen that they are unconcerned with quality, while the latter will find no potential value in exploring theological issues. It is true, however, that by infusing the sacred biblical story with apparently secular elements, Noah’s purpose and target audience are not easily established; Greydanus’ question captures the film’s ambiguous position and its problematic nature because of that ambiguity. While Aronofsky appeared to be aligning himself –​initially, at least –​ with atheist viewers through his declarations about Noah being the ‘least biblical biblical movie ever’, the studio’s actions suggest they hoped the film would appeal to a religious audience. Phillips notes that, historically, Hollywood has tried to avoid ruffling religious feathers  –​if not for pious reasons, then for financial ones (2008: 129–​30). After Noah received poor responses from Christian audiences in test screenings, Paramount Studios responded by rejecting Aronofsky’s final edit and subjecting the film to at least another four further revisions without the director’s contribution. The studio’s final version –​an eighty-​six-​minute film beginning with a montage of religious images and concluding with a Christian rock song  –​was the most explicit attempt to appease the Christian audience by providing them with what the studio assumed they wanted, but the reception was less positive than that of Aronofsky’s original version. As Noah’s release drew closer, Aronofsky and Handel began emphasising the biblical content of their film, pointing to their extensive scriptural research and consultations with religious scholars as evidence of their efforts to create an adaptation that was sympathetic to the themes and values of the narrative. Paramount, having finally agreed to release Aronofsky’s version, attempted to temper any negative response from the Christian community by also emphasising the involvement and approval of National Religious Broadcasters. An ‘explanatory message’

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was included in Noah’s marketing materials, stressing the interpretative, rather than literal, approach to the biblical story and reassuring Christian viewers that it nonetheless remained respectful and true to the ‘essence, values, and integrity’ of the Genesis story. These efforts to avoid a religious backlash, however, were largely ineffectual. There may several reasons for this, but I suggest two possible explanations. First, the mixed messages sent by the filmmaker and the studio suggest both were hoping to appeal to as broad an audience as possible but, by trying to occupy a neutral middle ground, ultimately succeeded in alienating both camps. Second, the studio was anticipating a (negative) response from a majority of Christian viewers that was, in reality, actually held by a vocal minority for whom the film was ‘destined to fail’, irrespective of its religious credentials. Despite securing the support of influential members of the Christian community, Noah received further negative publicity when Variety reported on the results of a web survey conducted by online Christian pressure group Faith Driven Consumer (FDC), which concluded that 98 per cent of over 5,000 respondents were not ‘satisfied’ with Hollywood’s religious adaptations (Stedman 2014). However, although FDC’s survey was framed in the context of Noah, with explicit reference to it in the poll’s title (‘Noah Movie Controversy?’) and accompanying images, the question posed to supporters –​‘Are you satisfied with a biblically themed movie –​designed to appeal to you –​which replaces the Bible’s core message with one created by Hollywood?’ –​was less so. The leading nature of the question was criticised by both Paramount and other Christian commentators. Rebecca Cusey, for example, describes FDC’s question as a ‘push-​ poll’, a loaded question aiming to direct respondents to a specific answer, and accuses FDC of creating a ‘controversy that did not fully exist before’ (2014). The question’s wording is worth considering, however, because it highlights the fight for power and relevance that epitomises the ‘Culture War’. Here, the FDC assumes that: (a) the cultural elite (Hollywood) will prioritise and supplant its own secular worldview over a religious one, irrespective of the story being told onscreen; and (b), regardless of (a), the faith-​driven consumer is still the assumed target audience of these films. Prior to and just after Noah’s release, the news media continued to report on the controversy surrounding Aronofsky’s film. This appears to have been largely initiated by the two aforementioned sources  –​ Godawa’s initial and subsequent blog posts and FDC’s survey –​as well as condemnation by key conservative commentators like Glenn Beck. Many critics had not yet seen the film when they voiced their disapproval; subsequent reviews generally ranged from ambivalent to positive. Greydanus, for example, describes Noah as a ‘vital, surprising and

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confounding’ film that should be commended for taking Genesis ‘seriously as a landmark of world literature and ancient moral reflection’ (2014a). Having initially denounced Noah as ‘strongly anti-​ human’ with ‘no redeeming value’, Beck retracted some of his claims, admitting that although it was ‘awful’, it was not the anti-​religious, pro-​ environmentalist propaganda he had expected (quoted in Bond 2014). Godawa maintained his position, declaring Noah to be a ‘subversion of the Judeo-​Christian story of the Biblical Noah with an atheist humanistic environmentalism accented with Kabbalah-​light’ (2014). Ultimately, however, the news media’s reporting of the film’s pre-​release reception disproportionately emphasised the negative and ‘extreme’ responses by a minority of outspoken, conservative, evangelical Christians, without adequately acknowledging the many Christians who were encouraged by either or both the film’s handling of religious themes and the theological discussion it had the potential to generate. The news media thus helped to propagate a narrative of opposition and division between the (secular) film industry and (Christian) consumers, polarising the debate and Othering the religious community. There is far more evidence of Christian commentators, leaders and adherents praising the film than deriding it:  many find the complexity of the character of Noah to be emotionally appealing and provocative; the focus on family is seen to promote positive values; and others consider the film to demonstrate the Bible’s continuing relevance through its enduring relatability to contemporary issues of public concern, such as the environment. Undoubtedly, Noah inspired much debate among the religious community, with commentators representing a range of Judaeo-​Christian beliefs finding ways to engage with the film and its contents. Even the responses by critics like Godawa and Beck indicate the film’s ability to inspire dialogue and theological debate; its ambiguity allows for a variety of possible interpretations, which in turn encourages discussion. This is, according to Kosior, a feature of biblical narratives themselves, which are ‘inherently ambiguous to the point where it is less and less justified to speak about its hypothetical original meaning’ (2016: 18). The flood story in Genesis, for example, is short, repetitive, at times contradictory and often scant on detail, allowing for plenty of scope for interpretation and exegetical commentary. Considering the adaptation of biblical stories for cinema, Kosior suggests that every biblical film is ‘more of an individual creation … than a veracious recreation of the scriptural account’ (18), inviting the question of what the ‘correct’ version might be perceived as. This is particularly pertinent when considering the response and controversy surrounding Noah. For the film’s most vociferous detractors, this apparently atheist, environmentalist interpretation

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of the biblical story did not align with their own interpretation, was thus incorrect and therefore offensive to their faith. The aim of this chapter is not to argue for or against any specific theological response to the film; there are other authors who are more qualified and motivated to do so, and several interesting analyses of Noah have already been published (Kosior 2016; Pegg 2015; McAteer 2014; Greydanus 2014a, 2014b). These articles, however, suggest that the discourse surrounding Noah has been dominated by efforts to argue the theological value, or lack thereof, of the film. Both supporters and detractors tend to adopt similar approaches, drawing from their own interpretation of the biblical verse. This interpretation is itself influenced by the individual’s religious position  –​in particular their level of religious fundamentalism and the extent to which they believe the Bible should be taken literally –​and their knowledge and/​or acceptance of extra-​biblical sources, with the film then judged against this exegesis in order to ascertain its perceived ‘correctness’. Kosior suggests, for example, that the negative response to Noah is evidence of a ‘rather limited familiarity with the Biblical and extra-​Biblical narratives as well as the unwillingness to accept the interpretational openness inherent to the Bible’ (20). However, many of the critiques –​from both academic and non-​academic authors  –​are rather complex and nuanced. Most acknowledge the sparseness of the biblical verse and accept that some creative liberties will be taken. Most also accept the more inherently problematic or contentious aspects of the flood story, such as Noah getting drunk and cursing his son, Ham. Aronofsky’s interpretation offers a challenge to the sentimental, family-​friendly, simplified version of the flood story that many are familiar with –​irrespective of religious affiliation –​but this does not mean Noah’s critics are inevitably writing from a position of limited religious and/​or biblical knowledge. Rather, we need to look elsewhere for a possible explanation for such vocal, vociferous opposition to Aronofsky’s film. Indeed, given that many of the film’s detractors voiced their disapproval prior to the film’s release, perhaps their opposition is less concerned with how the biblical story has been adapted, than who has adapted it. Godawa’s objections to Aronofsky’s treatment of the biblical story, for example, are underpinned by the screenwriter’s wider concerns regarding Hollywood’s approach to (Christian) faith-​friendly viewers. He argues that, following the unexpected success of The Passion of the Christ (2004), films are ‘being developed for [a religious] audience by people who don’t understand it and are thus destined to fail’ (2012). He acknowledges that, in theory, ‘atheists, agnostics and other secularists can logically be consistent with a sacred story’s original intent and

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reproduce it accurately’, but believes that, in practice, they will ‘rewrite the story through their own non-​believing paradigm’ (2012). In relation to Noah, that non-​believing paradigm is identified as environmentalism, with a particularly pro-​vegetarian, pro-​animal, anti-​human, anti-​ God angle. Given Aronofsky’s (initial) claims of atheism, and following Godawa’s argument to its logical conclusion, the film could therefore only ever be a subversion of the biblical story that prioritises worldly elements over the divine. Somewhat ironically, Godawa’s argument that fidelity to the descriptive details is less important than fidelity to the ‘meaning of the story and its God’ (Godawa 2015) (emphasis in original) is echoed by Aronofsky himself (in Falsani 2014). Both argue that staying true to the essence and values of the biblical verse is more important than historical accuracy. However, Godawa’s criticism of Noah is underpinned by the belief that only an ‘insider’  –​a person writing from a position of religious commitment  –​has the experience, knowledge and, crucially, the authority to engage with and adapt religious content. He says, for example: ‘You wouldn’t want a homophobe telling the story of Harvey Milk, or a racist telling the story of Martin Luther King, would you? So why is it acceptable for an atheist to tell a sacred story about the God they hate or don’t believe exists?’ (2015). The antagonistic language positions atheists in direct opposition to religion, assuming individuals will either (and only) love God, or hate Him. However, just as not all heterosexuals are homophobes and not all white people are racists, we should not assume that everyone who describes themselves as non-​religious is anti-​religion. Textual tensions between the sacred and the secular in Noah Examining online reviews and literature surrounding Noah indicates the film was regularly described as atheist or secular; Aronofsky’s own comment regarding Noah being the ‘least biblical biblical movie ever’ is frequently cited. Even those reviews and critiques supporting the film’s theological value tend to frame their discussion within this broader context. Most often cited as evidence of secularisation of the sacred story are claims regarding the relationship between Noah and God, and the apparent absence of God generally; and the addition of an environmentalist, pro-​vegetarian context for the flood narrative. For its critics, Noah represents a subversion of Genesis; a sacred story exploited and warped to promote an atheist agenda. When God ‘speaks’ to Noah through visions and dreams, rather than appearing as a physical manifestation and/​or uttering actual lines of dialogue (as presented in the original literary source), for example, this is considered to be evidence

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of a secularist interpretation because ‘a non-​speaking God is … the same practical thing as a non-​existent God’ (Godawa 2014). Admittedly, this is a more nuanced argument than the initial semantic dispute regarding the alleged absence of the word ‘God’ in the film  –​a claim easily debunked, as not only do characters repeatedly refer to ‘the Creator’, Ham also states at one point, ‘My father [Noah] says there can be no king; the creator is God’  –​but arguably fails to adequately consider the medium specificity of film, and the opportunities the audio-​visual qualities of cinema offers to literary adaptation. It is also interesting that attempts to discuss the alleged secularisation of the sacred narrative are inevitably forced to confront theological issues. It is difficult to agree with Noah’s critics regarding the apparent absence of God, for example, when His presence is apparent throughout the film: when Noah struggles to accept his mission, Methusela tells him, ‘He [the Creator; God] speaks to you. You must trust that He speaks to you in a way that you can understand.’ Indeed, there is never any suggestion the characters –​ even adversary Tubal-​Cain –​doubt the divine source of Noah’s visions. Arguably, by depicting God as ‘speaking’ to Noah through visions and dreams, rather than presenting Him in a form perceived through the limits of human comprehension, Aronofsky maintains His divine inconceivability, rather than reproducing Him in man’s image. Noah receives the prophecy in more ambiguous ways than suggested in Genesis, and as a result the film raises complex theological questions about faith itself, which is by definition characterised by conviction, not proof. Ultimately, however, the film appears to confirm the existence and righteousness of God through the unfolding events: Noah’s faith is validated and, with that, so too is the non-​verbal ‘word of God’. The alleged inclusion of environmentalist and pro-​vegetarian themes is further cited as evidence of Aronofsky’s secularist agenda. Noah’s apparent prioritisation of nature over humanity –​as indicated by his willingness to kill people, and to accept that all of humanity will be wiped out, while admonishing his son for picking a flower, for instance –​is used as evidence of Aronofsky’s own rejection of the natural hierarchy established in the Bible, whereby God favours humanity over all His other creations. Conversely, however, Aronofsky is also accused of promoting humanism, of elevating humanity above God by depicting Noah as more loving, compassionate and forgiving than God (Godawa 2014). But it is possible to challenge such a claim. Somewhat facetiously, for example, we could point out that there is no indication that Noah attempts to save all animals  –​presumably the vast majority will die alongside humans in the flood waters –​so one might suggest that despite his vegetarianism, Noah is equally unconcerned with the survival of most humans and

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animals. However, it is worth considering the omissions from the flood story as well as the additions. Indeed, one moment stands out that could quite persuasively be used as evidence of the film’s pro-​environmentalism, anti-​meat agenda. In Genesis, Noah sacrifices a selection of clean and unclean animals to God after the flood waters recede. In response, God blesses Noah and his family, and declares their dominion over the rest of nature, including authorising meat-​eating for the first time. None of this features in Aronofsky’s adaptation. Surprisingly, however, the omission of this key moment in Genesis has remained largely unmentioned. This may be, as Kosior argues, one example of how Aronofsky’s film could have been ‘far more controversial and unsettling’ had it adhered more rigidly to the source material (2016: 3). Not only does this development in Genesis challenge people’s sentimental recollections of Noah (one objection Beck had to the film, for example, was that it contradicted his understanding of Noah as a ‘nice, gentle guy’ (quoted in Ritz 2014)), perhaps not even Noah’s most vociferous opponents want to argue in support of a scene of animal slaughter. Whereas critics and detractors consider Noah’s inherent ambiguity to be evidence of the director’s secular agenda, it is clear this is only one interpretation of the text. Claims of secularisation are often challenged through the various alternative, theological readings of the film. McAteer, for example, argues that Noah presents two contrasting possible worldviews  –​radical humanism and radical environmentalism –​but proposes that neither can adequately provide the answers that a Christian worldview offers (2014). Pegg offers a direct challenge to Godawa’s claims of the film’s prioritisation of humanity over divinity by arguing that Noah demonstrates how God ‘works through humans, in all their weaknesses, faults and sins’ (2015: 3, emphasis in original). It appears that, for every claim of secularisation, a counter-​claim exists that argues the film’s theological potential. Furthermore, we might even question whether the inclusion of environmentalist themes even constitutes a secular approach in the first place. Ortiz’s chapter on theological perspectives on the environment in film (Deacy and Ortiz 2008) indicates that even secular films  –​those with no explicit reference to religion –​can raise important theological questions. If secular films can be –​and often are –​subjected to theological readings, why is it so objectionable that an adaptation of a sacred narrative might also consider secular themes? Arguably, Aronofsky opens his film, as well as the biblical narrative it is based on, up to a wide range of possible interpretations through both its inherent ambiguity and its attempt to address themes relevant to a secular audience within a narrative held sacred by a religious audience.

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Pegg argues that tension is ‘palpable’ throughout Noah:  tension between Noah’s interpretation of God’s message and other characters’ interpretations of the same signs; tension in being told that humanity has sinned while being shown innocents in fallen cities; and tension in the way that God is portrayed (2015:  2). For Pegg, the last point is highly significant, because it ‘highlights the difficulties many now face in reconciling the seeming differences between the God in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament’ (2). The decision to not ‘Christian-​ise’ the flood narrative is a bold one that might, in part at least, explain some of the opposition towards the film:  for those who consider the Christian God to be the forgiving, loving, compassionate God of the New Testament, the vengeful, erratic, demanding God of the Old Testament can undoubtedly offer a challenge to their faith. There is, however, another tension evident throughout the film: a tension between the sacred and the secular. This tension reveals itself in every moment that has simultaneously been identified as evidence of an atheist interpretation, and an opportunity to engage in theological discussion. The duality of the sacred and the secular in Noah is the reason trying to isolate one or the other is so difficult; why it is a challenge to analyse the secular elements without resorting to a theological debate. Arguably, the claims made by Noah’s opponents regarding its alleged secularisation agenda have already been explored, and often refuted, by the theological discussion that already exists. More interesting, therefore, is the question of why such opposition exists in the first place. Here, Berger’s concept of the counter-​secularisation movement is particularly useful. Godawa, and other critics of Noah, present the sacred and the secular, religious and non-​religious, as binary opposites. His claims echo those made by Medved in the early 1990s, indicating the ‘Culture War’ between the secular elite and the faith-​driven consumer is still being fought, albeit by a group of people who increasingly constitute the traditional minority, rather than the religious majority. Arguably, as secularisation –​in terms of religious institutional influence rather than individual spirituality –​increases, those with a more explicitly oppositional, fundamentalist approach will continue to be marginalised, even within the wider religious community, as the more liberal, progressive adherents find a way to negotiate their belief within, rather than in conflict against, secular society. Indeed, Aronofsky’s adaptation of the flood story can be seen to be engaging with these issues itself, through its depiction of faith and its interpretation of the traditional biblical verse. Noah does not shy away from theological issues, but presents them in ambiguous ways that allow for more personal reflection. It depicts the sacred story in a way that challenges the family-​friendly, nostalgic recollections

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of the familiar tale, while simultaneously not requiring its audience to have any in-​depth knowledge of the various biblical and extra-​biblical sources and exegeses. Some, like McAteer, consider this to be the film’s strength: he argues that ‘Noah opens a space for public theological dialogue and invites unbelievers into a conversation that takes theology seriously’ (2015). In contrast, Godawa’s argument suggests that the fact that this film –​a sacred story told by an apparent atheist –​exists at all is evidence of secularisation threatening the increasingly marginalised (traditional) religious community. Conclusion The controversy surrounding Noah demonstrates the tensions between the secular and the sacred, and its pre-​and post-​release reception indicates the ongoing ‘Culture War’ as part of the counter-​secularisation movement against a secular, cultural elite. Increasing secularisation –​even in America –​has seen institutional religious influence decline, personal faith becoming more individualised and spiritually driven, and religious communities becoming increasingly marginalised, misunderstood and Othered. However, taking secularisation for granted fails to acknowledge the complex, and complicated, relationship between religion and contemporary society, and risks further marginalising and alienating those for whom religion continues to play a significant role in their everyday lives. Secularisation has not replaced religion, but displaced it, and the power struggle between the two continues. Nonetheless, the changing position of religion in society represents a real and direct threat to religious communities and faith-​driven individuals, who respond by adopting more polarised, oppositional, traditional roles. Examining Noah in light of these debates, I propose the film encapsulates the tensions between the secular and the sacred. Noah’s identity crisis –​its refusal (or inability) to be either an inoffensive biblical adaptation or a provocatively secular interpretation –​is perhaps a reason for its ambivalent, varied reception. By apparently hoping to attract both a religious and non-​religious audience, Noah ultimately fails to adequately appeal to either. As Greydanus notes, it is arguably too secular for religious audiences, and too religious for atheists. Rather than consider this to be inherently problematic, however, I suggest Aronofsky’s approach has the potential to open up the biblical text to both religious and non-​religious audiences. Whether the film is understood to confirm or reject faith will be largely a subjective response, but the theme running throughout Noah regarding faith and the struggles associated with it is one that has the potential to resonate with both religious and

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non-​ religious viewers. By incorporating contemporary, secular issues like environmentalism and the consequences of human action, Noah does not reject religion, but in fact demonstrates how the ‘ultimate questions’ raised in the Bible and other sacred texts continue to be relevant in contemporary, secular society. Noah reflects a wider tension between the secular and the sacred, one that is not reduced to binary opposition but instead attempts to negotiate a complex and complicated centre ground that reflects society’s relationship with religion more broadly. Noah problematises both the secular and the sacred –​it is a film full of tension and polarity  –​but through this problematisation provides an opportunity for both religious and non-​religious viewers to engaged in theological/​philosophical discussion that takes neither secularisation nor religion for granted. References Berger, Peter L. (ed.) (1999) The Desecularisation of the World:  Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. Bond, Paul (2014) ‘Glenn Beck Watches “Noah,” Continues to Bash the Movie: “It Is Awful” ’, Hollywood Reporter, 24 March. Online at: www.hollywoodreporter.com/​news/​video-​glenn-​beck-​watches-​noah-​690580 (accessed 9 May 2017). Bruce, Steve (2016) ‘The Sociology of Late Secularisation: Social Divisions and Religiosity’, British Journal of Sociology 67 (4), pp. 613–​31. Casanova, Jose (1994) Public Relations in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chaves, Mark (1994) ‘Secularisation as Declining Religious Authority’, Social Forces 72 (3), pp. 749–​74. Cusey, Rebecca (2014) ‘The Cynical Opportunism of Anti-​“Noah” Group Faith Driven Consumer’, Patheos. 19 February. Online at: www.patheos.com/​blogs/​ tinseltalk/​2014/​02/​the-​cynical-​opportunism-​of-​anti-​noah-​group-​faith-​driven-​ consumer/​(accessed 6 May 2017). Deacy, Christopher, and Ortiz, Gaye Williams (2008) Theology and Film: Challenging the Sacred/​Secular Divide, Oxford: Blackwell. Falsani, Cathleen (2014) ‘The “Terror” of Noah:  How Darren Aronofsky Interprets the Bible’, The Atlantic, 26 March. Online at:  www.theatlantic. com/​entertainment/​archive/​2014/​03/​the-​terror-​of-​em-​noah-​em-​how-​darren-​ aronofsky-​interprets-​the-​bible/​359587/​(accessed 4 May 2017). Friend, Tad (2014) ‘Heavy Weather’, New Yorker, 17 March. Online at: www. newyorker.com/​magazine/​2014/​03/​17/​heavy-​weather-​2 (accessed 12 May 2017).

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Godawa, Brian (2012) ‘Darren Aronofsky’s Noah:  Environmentalist Wacko’, Thus Spake Godawa, 29 October. Online at:  http://​godawa.com/​darren-​ aronofskys-​noah-​environmentalist-​wacko/​(accessed 5 May 2017). Godawa, Brian (2014) ‘The Subversion of God in Aronofsky’s Noah’, Thus Spake Godawa, 2 April. Online at: http://​godawa.com/​subversion-​god-​noah/​ (accessed 12 May 2017). Godawa, Brian (2015) ‘Can Atheists Make Good Bible Movies?’, Thus Spake Godawa, 2 January. Online at:  http://​godawa.com/​can-​atheists-​make-​good-​ bible-​movies/​(accessed 16 May 2017). Graham, David John (1997) ‘Redeeming Violence in the Films of Martin Scorsese’ in Marsh, Clive, and Ortiz, Gaye (eds) Explorations in Theology and Film, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 87–​95. Greydanus, Steven D. (2014a) ‘SDG Reviews “Noah” ’, National Catholic Registry, 21 March. Online at: www.ncregister.com/​daily-​news/​sdg-​reviews-​ noah (accessed 6 May 2017). Greydanus, Steven D. (2014b) ‘The “Noah” Movie Controversies:  Questions and Answers’, National Catholic Registry, 27 March. Online at: www.ncregister.com/​daily-​news/​noah-​controversy (accessed 6 May 2017). Kosior, Wojciech (2016) ‘The Crimes of Love. The (Un)censored Version of the Flood Story in Noah (2014)’, Journal of Religion and Film 20 (3), Article 27. Online at: https://​digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/​jrf/​vol20/​iss3/​27 (accessed 6 May 2017). McAteer, John (2014) ‘Film and Pre-​Apologetics: How Noah Raises Questions only Christianity Can Answer’, Christian Research Journal 37 (2). Online at: www.equip.org/​PDF/​JAF4372.pdf (accessed 5 May 2017). Martin, Joel W. (1995) ‘Introduction: Seeing the Sacred on Screen’ in Martin, Joel W., and Ostwalt, Jr, Conrad E. (eds) Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 1–​11. Medved, Michael (1992) Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values, London: HarperCollins. Miles, Margaret (1996) Seeing and Believing: Religion and Values in the Movies, Boston, MA: Beacon. Noonan, Catriona (2011) ‘”Big Stuff in a Beautiful Way with Interesting People”: Spiritual Discourse in UK Religious Television’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (6), pp. 727–​46. Norris, Pippa, and Inglehart, Ronald (2011) Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pegg, Danny (2015) ‘Noah Review’, Journal of Religion and Film 19 (1), Article 47. Online at: https://​digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/​jrf/​vol19/​iss1/​47 (accessed 10 May 2017). Phillips, Kendall R. (2008) Controversial Cinema, Westport, CT: Praeger. Ritz, Erica (2014) ‘Glenn Beck Saw “Noah” over the Weekend, and He’s Calling It the “Babylonian Chainsaw Massacre” ’, The Blaze, 24 March.

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Online at:  www.theblaze.com/​news/​2014/​03/​24/​beck-​saw-​noah-​over-​the-​ weekend-​and-​hes-​calling-​it-​the-​babylonian-​chainsaw-​massacre (accessed 12 May 2017). Rocchi, James (2014) ‘Can Atheist Audiences Enjoy Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah” ’?’, Indiewire, 2 April. Online at:  www.indiewire.com/​2014/​04/​ can-​atheist-​audiences-​enjoy-​darren-​aronofskys-​noah-​28244/​ (accessed 10 May 2017). Stedman, Alex (2014) ‘Survey:  Faith-​ Driven Consumers Dissatisfied with “Noah,” Hollywood Religious Pics’, Variety, 17 February. Online at: http://​ variety.com/​2014/​film/​news/​98-​of-​faith-​driven-​consumers-​dissatisfied-​with-​ noah-​survey-​shows-​1201109347/​(accessed 8 May 2017). Voas, David, and Chaves, Mark (2016) ‘Is the United States a Counterexample to the Secularisation Thesis?’, American Journal of Sociology 121 (5), pp. 1517–​56.

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9 ‘Can anything good come out of Southern California?’* (*hyperlink to John 1:46):1 the Christian critical reception of elliptical Jesus narratives Wickham Clayton

That is to say, the artist must serve God in the technique of his craft; for example, a good religious play must first and foremost be a good play before it can begin to be good religion. Similarly, actors for religious films and plays should be chosen for their good acting and not chosen for their Christian sentiment or moral worth regardless of whether they are good actors or not. (A notorious case to the contrary is the religious film society which chose its photographers for their piety, with the result that a great number of the films were quite blasphemously incompetent.) (Sayers 2018: 99)

On one of my annual trips to visit my family back in the US American south, I  went to browse DVDs, as part of professional responsibility, personal interest and youthful habit. Considering the density of practising (primarily Protestant evangelical) Christians in my hometown, I was not terribly surprised to see patches of films with Christian themes in the local Wal-​Mart and Target. However, amongst this browsing, a sticker on the paper sleeve of one movie jumped out at me. Framed in gold, the white silhouette of a bird stood out in the middle. Within the framing, the words ‘FAITH FRIENDLY’ surround the bird. The DVD was The Young Messiah (2016), a tale of Jesus as a youth, based on the Anne Rice novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (2005). The sticker was provided by The Dove Foundation, a Christian entertainment watchdog organisation. The Dove Foundation reviews films, and its website states, ‘The Dove reviews are based on Christian values and we want to serve all families and individuals who love great entertainment, but also want to spend their time and money on God-​glorifying storytelling’ (Dove Foundation n.d.). The sticker did not identify it as coming from The Dove Foundation  –​merely the ‘Faith Friendly’ seal

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appeared to be sufficient advertisement for this film released by the Focus Features subsidiary of Universal Pictures. The idea that this label came from an independent organisation, specifically designed to qualify adherence to (perceived, subjective) Christian values, became a point of curiosity. What makes a film friendly to faith? And more broadly, what do Christian critics and organisations desire out of a film for it to ring true with the values they hold? The Young Messiah proves a useful case study. The story is a fictionalised account of Jesus (Adam Greaves-​Neal) at a young age where both he and the people around him become keenly aware of his divinity, particularly through his ability to perform miracles. However, a Roman soldier named Severus (Sean Bean) is sent to try to find and kill Jesus as he still seems to pose a threat to rulers of the land. The story clearly posits a Jesus who, even at the age of seven, is aware of his relationship to God and able to summon the power to perform miracles. Nowhere in the Bible do any of the events from the narrative appear, which suggests strict fidelity to the scriptures is not necessary, if a potential concern. In adaptation studies, writers such as Linda Hutcheon (2006) and Thomas Leitch (2007) move away from fidelity as a way of determining the value of an adaptation. Hutcheon argues that ‘there are many and varied motives behind adaptation and few involve faithfulness’ (xiii). Leitch asserts that his methodology ‘treat(s) fidelity as a problem variously conceived and defined by the filmmakers at hand, not as an unquestioned desideratum of all adaptations’ (20). In other words, fidelity is not only a subjective conceit, but it is also one element of a number of significant artistic variables that occurs through adaptation. However, The Young Messiah already stands as an adaptation of a fictional novel which draws on biblical themes. In drawing on these biblical themes it could be argued that Rice’s book is itself adapting concepts from the Bible into a new literary text. Leitch addresses a tension around four types of fidelity regarding biblical films in an analysis of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). He highlights three such ‘ideals of fidelity’: (1) to the word of the scripture; (2) the historical truth of the events; (3) moral and spiritual adherence (2007: 56–​7). The argument is that, for a film to be ‘true’ to a conception of biblical belief, it must balance at least these three seemingly incompatible ideals. The Young Messiah exists within the ‘world’ of the gospels, but takes place around the events written about in the Bible –​what I am calling ‘elliptical Jesus narratives’, or, stories that occur within the (many) ellipses in the biblical account of Jesus. The movie is quite curious in its acceptance by the Christian critical community as it remains faithful neither to the word of scripture nor the historical truth

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Figure 9.1  The Young Messiah (2016): Jesus (Adam Greaves-​Neal) faces a Roman soldier.

of the events. However, the moral and spiritual adherence –​a fidelity to the ‘spirit’ of the gospels –​appears to be quite significant here. In the review for The Dove Foundation, which provided the film with the ‘Faith Friendly’ label, Edwin L. Carpenter’s warnings are minimal: The film has some scenes of violence, including instances of men on crosses, without being nailed, and the violence of the Roman soldiers, who wield their swords. Yet the scenes are not gratuitous. The film is imaginative and captures moments that could have happened in the life of young Jesus. Though obviously the missing years in the life of Jesus are imagined, the movie adheres to the Gospel story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph, their flight into Egypt, and his love for the Scriptures and his Father’s house. We are pleased to award the film our ‘Faith-​Friendly’ Seal for ages 12-​plus. ‘The Young Messiah’ vividly portrays the early life of Jesus as he surely was –​a special boy who was much more than a carpenter’s son. (Dove Foundation n.d.)

Carpenter, as a Christian reviewer, identifies the film as offering a fictional, yet plausible suggestion for what might have occurred during the gaps in the gospel narrative. We see other reviewers of faith concurring. Reviewer Steven D. Greydanus for the Decent Films website concludes that The Young Messiah is ‘an impressive achievement of Christian imagination, a work that does one of the noblest things a Bible movie, or any literary adaptation, can do: It brings persuasive emotional and psychological depth to characters and situations that were either hidden or else so familiar we

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may have trouble seeing them at all’ (n.d.). John Mulderig of the Catholic News Service writes, ‘The result is an intriguing, devotion-​friendly piece of entertainment suitable for viewers of most ages. Families will welcome it as especially appropriate fare for Lent as well as the Easter season’ (2016a). Both Greydanus and Mulderig foreground the importance of the fictionalised narrative to deepen empathy for figures who hold central significance in Christian theology. This empathy, in Mulderig’s review, makes it appropriate as part of a devotional regime, particularly around specifically Christian feasts, Lent and Easter, celebrating the build-​up to the Crucifixion, and ultimately raising from the dead, of Jesus Christ. A film suitable to these seasons, inherently both meditative and celebratory, demonstrates the amount of significance (reverence, even) the reviewers afford this particular fictional movie. Michael Foust, writing for the Christian Post, pinpoints elements of the movie that significantly retain fidelity to his interpretation of scripture. Foust says, ‘While the movie is almost entirely fiction, the writers and the director made every effort to keep it theologically sound  –​ensuring, for example, that the young Jesus did not do anything that could be construed as sin’ (2016). Though the narrative is imagined, it retains plausibility based on fidelity to an interpretation of the Bible from conservative Christian thought, specifically that Jesus never sinned. The invention is of less concern, as the story is perceived to adhere to theological intricacy. In other words, the movie appears to be valued by Christians as it exhibits tenets of faith, and hence there is a clear implication that the creative force holds the same beliefs as the reviewers, and this is the highest signal of value. However, building upon a range of academic work on the reception of and practice of biblical adaptation demonstrates precedent for this view, while simultaneously problematises this particular perspective. We can observe a range of theoretical approaches, which all push against each other, particularly where questions of value and quality arise. What is significant here, is that this has been addressed, and the intersection of discourses is both engaging and useful. *** William R.  Telford identifies four approaches to creating religious film: evangelistically, wherein movies attempt to communicate a religious belief in the hope of conversion; spiritually, which aims to encourage meditation and emotional engagement without being restrictively linked to an overtly Christian theme or creative force; sacramentally, where a story is modelled on the Passion narrative; and redemptively, where stories of redemption inherently link to Christian themes (2005: 32–​4). In this way, we bridge the gap between stories which directly aim to convincingly,

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aggressively argue for their ideology, moving through to films which use biblical stories and mythology as a template –​a casual link to the source of faith but not touching and integrating the ideology itself. A film like The Young Messiah stands within the evangelistic approach, with close attention to respecting a certain interpretation of the Christian faith, with the hopes of inspiring faith. However, it is apparent that simply depicting Jesus is not enough to win over Christian critics. In a recent essay, Allen H. Redmon considers biblical films using adaptation theory, noting the complex relationship a film has to adapting a source text which provides multiple accounts of its stories. Redmon writes: The Judeo-​Christian Bible presents a group of texts that are endlessly adaptable, in part, because the narrative developed across the biblical text refuses to exist in any one place. It emerges in the space between varied expressions. A ‘faithful’ adaptation of a biblical story, it would follow, must be as unfaithful to its source as it is loyal to it if the adaptation is to honor the spirit of ongoing adaption realized across the biblical narrative. (2018: 28)

So as a result, in the Judaeo-​Christian Bible ‘No one story delivers any definitive essence. Any sense of essence to emerge does so across a contest of stories, and again, it only holds for a moment’ (31). This observation of the unstable attempt at definitively understanding biblical stories and the problems this causes adaptation further reinforce the fact that Christian critics praise adaptations that adhere to a specific interpretation of the Bible. While some stories have multiple, sometimes conflicting tellings in the Bible, specific denominational, dogmatic and determined versions of these stories need to be communicated within adaptation for positive reviews. However, there does seem to be allowances for genuine engagements with the ideas and personal engagement with an artist’s own faith, as long as it is rooted in the Bible. But these allowances sit uncomfortably with Redmon’s statement that ‘faithful’-​ness to the Bible is necessarily engaging with a text that has contesting accounts. Telford reinforces this in a way, when he observes that ‘The screen image of Jesus has varied with the shifts and currents of society itself’ (1997:  138); more challenging depictions are often met with heavy resistance from Christian critics. According to Robert K. Johnston, early Christian film viewers remained suspicious, a trend which still clearly applies:  ‘A more common attitude among contemporary conservative Christians is that of caution, not avoidance. With the advent of television, few Christians continued to argue for abstinence as a viable strategy. But many remained worried over the entertainment industry’s influence’ (2007: 315). Christian critics manage to act as a desired

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threshold guardian. Christians may find it difficult to avoid visual culture, but Christian visual culture critics can guide Christians toward wholesome, relatable texts. Christians have help knowing which movies and TV shows are ‘FAITH FRIENDLY’. Filmmakers, however, have not been unaware of these reception practices. Maria Wyke’s discussion of The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) includes analysis of a letter from RKO president Ned E. Depinet. This letter praises the virtues of the film, including its omission of ‘sex angles’ that are usually exploited in such period epics. Wyke counter-​argues that ‘the moral and spiritual high ground claimed for the film by its omission of “sex angles” and its provision of Christian values (as well as a visitation from Christ) sinks under the extraordinary manipulation of the past which was undertaken by the film’s makers in pursuit of a crudely constructed moralism’ (1997: 177). Wyke here suggests that in spite of such awareness, the film qualitatively suffers in both historical accuracy and storytelling. However, Christian critics often overlook these quality deficits provided the film supports their precise worldview, and is true to the story they hold dear. This is apparently George Stevens’ thinking, which is evident in Sheldon Hall’s account of the marketing of The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Hall notes that Stevens publicly stressed ‘the importance of reverence and research to producing the “definitive” version’ (2002:  170) of Jesus’ life. Hall also states that ‘Among the most important sectors of the population the film had to reach were the broad Christian community’ (175). This, in fact, became the core audience for the film and the community that supported the movie’s promotion, in light of negative mainstream critical reception. For The Young Messiah, both National Catholic Register (Greydanus 2016a)2 and the Christian Post (Law 2016) ran interviews with director Cyrus Nowrasteh, wherein the primary highlight is that Nowrasteh is Christian. So whether a film is based on a story in the Bible, as in The Greatest Story Ever Told, or a story which fictionalises sacred figures, such as in The Last Days of Pompeii, the Christian critical community is significant to a movie’s success. However, movies with fictionalised accounts of sacred figures which also call into question traditional representations are met with, as identified by Johnston, caution. Therefore, even positive reception is frequently muted and qualified. *** One movie which acts as a useful comparative case study, and is fascinating in its own right, is Rodrigo García’s Last Days in the Desert (2015). In this film, Ewan McGregor performs the roles of both Jesus, or Yeshua as in the film, and a Demon, possibly Satan. Last Days in

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Figure 9.2  Last Days in the Desert (2015): Yeshua (Ewan McGregor) rests with the Father (Ciarán Hinds) and Son (Tye Sheridan) as they build a new house.

the Desert depicts Yeshua as he approaches the end of his forty days’ wandering in the desert, dogged by the temptations of the devil. Yeshua comes upon the humble desert dwelling of a family –​a Father (Ciarán Hinds) who is orchestrating the future of his son; a Son (Tye Sheridan) who wants to forge his own way through life; and an unwell, bedridden Mother (Ayelet Zurer) who is near death. The father recruits his son to build a house in the desert, a task towards which the son is resistant, and Yeshua offers his carpentry skills in the completion of the structure. As tensions become more apparent between the father and son, the movie suggests the strong parallels between this tense pair and Yeshua’s relationship with his silent heavenly father. As with The Young Messiah, we see the narrative playing out within the ellipses in the gospels. The brief account of the forty days’ wandering in the Bible is explored in more depth here, inventing a story that foregrounds the humanity of Christ. However, while The Young Messiah establishes a clear adherence to Christian tenets of faith, Last Days in the Desert remains more ambiguous, though significantly not dismissive. Using Telford’s vocabulary, it is clear that this particular film is less evangelistic, as it doesn’t adhere to a fixed interpretation of the Bible. However, it is spiritual, encouraging meditation on the nature of Christ and the nature of faith. It is no surprise, then, that we can see the lack of consensus, and frequently tempered admiration of elements of the film among Christian critics. Much like Redmon’s identification of conflicting accounts of stories within the Bible making an effort at being ‘faithful’ difficult, this film explores different ideas and conceptions of who Jesus is and his relationship with God, his father. This in itself is one of the reasons for Last Days in the Desert’s strongly mixed reception by Christian critics.

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One key way that this film stands out as distinct from other movies of the kind The Young Messiah represents is that of these films’ approach to miracles. According to Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans, ‘The miracles are crucial because whatever is done with them characterises attitudes to the divine in a world under pressure from the attritions of modern science. Significantly, in spite of aesthetic and other temptations to “specially effect” the miracles, the Christ films are remarkably sparing in their use of them’ (1993:  103). However, it is important that they are featured. Even when removed from the religious context and conceived as genre set pieces, these tend to be central to the broader appeal of biblical films. The Young Messiah uses miracles to drive the drama of the story –​the stakes are higher because the divinity of this child is not in doubt to the viewer as a result of his ability to perform miracles. Last Days in the Desert, on the other hand, tells its story without resorting to miracles. The genre structure of the biblical epic featuring its necessary set pieces is clearly removed. The supernatural is still evident through McGregor’s double performance as both Yeshua and the Demon. The nature of Yeshua’s divinity, however, is unclear. This ambiguity was identified by some Christian critics. Of this movie, Mulderig warns: Moviegoers well versed in the Scriptures will find Garcia’s bobbing and weaving, as he struggles to avoid taking a definitive stand on his lead’s true nature, both confusing and frustrating. Yeshua stoutly upholds his unique status as Son of God in the face of Satan’s challenge on that score. Yet, in glaring contrast with the Jesus of the Gospels, he fails to contradict the Father’s weary denial of an afterlife. Similarly, a moment of compelling, if unspoken, epiphany during which a character seems to perceive Yeshua’s divinity is followed by a crucifixion and burial sequence that remains mute on the pivotal subject of the Resurrection. (2016b)

Mulderig, having ‘warmly endorsed’ The Young Messiah ‘for a wide range of audiences’ (2016a), is heavily critical of the film’s aims: ‘While few of the usual red-​flag elements are present, this unsettled outlook on one of the most vital tenets of the Christian faith makes “Last Days in the Desert” inappropriate fare for all but well-​catechized grownups’ (2016b). Mulderig’s warning strongly suggests that those that are impressionable, susceptible to crises of faith, should avoid the movie. Only those stable and firm in faith should engage. In his more cautiously positive, though heavily qualified review of Last Days in the Desert, Greydanus highlights some of the functional

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ambiguities in the story. Writing of one encounter between the Demon and Yeshua, Greydanus writes:

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Adding to the sense of cultural ambiguity, the Demon floats notions of the world and existence at odds with traditional Judeo-​Christian cosmology: The history of the world, he suggests, has played out over and over, with often very slight variations which for baffling reasons are interesting to a remote deity more interested in the shape of a dewdrop than the well-​ being of this creatures. (2016b)

For Greydanus, though, Yeshua’s failure to challenge or contradict the Demon and the film’s refusal to comment are part of the film’s appeal and difficulty. He suggests that the story would have been improved by including a ‘redemptive breakthrough or catharsis’ but positively states that the movie represents ‘a style of filmmaking I’d like to see more of’ (2016b). Like articles on Cyrus Nowrasteh’s faith in promotion of The Young Messiah, there were similar critical pieces surrounding Rodrigo García and Ewan McGregor’s lack of faith or at least spiritual scepticism. However, these pieces, instead of damning the effort, focus more on the inspiration of the creative force. In an exclusive interview for Christianity Today with both director and star, Alissa Wilkinson highlights García’s background: ‘Garcia [sic] is not a devout Christian, but he grew up in Catholic Colombia, “so I am as well-​versed as the average Catholic person is on the circumstances of Jesus. Even as a child, I never felt a strong religious impulse, but I was always fascinated by him” ’ (2015). An article by Christine Thomasos of the Christian Post, heavily featured an interview with García in the Los Angeles Times. The key moment in the interview which featured in the headline for the Christian Post is specifically about García’s inspiration. García is quoted, saying, ‘I don’t know what organ of my body this film came from … I  kept asking myself, “What are you doing? A movie about Jesus?” But I couldn’t get it out of my head” (quoted in Ansen 2016). Furthermore, Thomasos highlights a quotation from a Yahoo! interview with Ewan McGregor. Here, the primary focus is McGregor’s statement that ‘I can’t imagine any issue with it, because there’s never a moment that he’s uncertain of his faith. I played him as the son of God and a man who is in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights to meditate on his path, the path ahead of him, which is to go out and preach and dedicate his life, ultimately and completely, to spreading the word of God, his father’ (quoted in Zakarin 2015). Several articles3 take a brief quotation from McGregor in the Christianity Today interview where he says, ‘It was done with nothing but respect and passion’ (quoted in Wilkinson

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2015). In speculating on the participation of the filmmakers, Christian blogger Fred Warren writes:

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This is an extremely talented and accomplished group of people who could have made a movie about anything, but they wanted to make one about Jesus, and they wanted to do it properly –​with quality, beauty, and respect. I have great difficulty believing that God would not honor that intent and their effort, even if they don’t know him perfectly. I think Christians should consider granting them respect in like fashion. (2015)

Ultimately, these articles find positive affirmation and even inspiration in García and McGregor’s seemingly sincere grappling with who Jesus is and the nature of divinity. As complicated as Last Days in the Desert seems to be for Christian reviewers, and as uncomplicated as The Young Messiah is for them, we can see that ultimately, fictionalising portions of the lives of sacred figures, specifically Jesus, is not automatic grounds for negative criticism. The positive reviews both films receive reflect Adele Reinhartz’s observation that ‘many Jesus-​movies implicitly affirm the belief that Jesus’ life and teachings have an ongoing prescriptive importance in the life of the Christian’ (2013: 64). Linked to this idea, the most glowing review for Last Days in the Desert, for me, is stronger than any recommendation given for The Young Messiah. Josh Larsen, writing for thinkChristian, concludes, ‘By untethering itself from the specifics of the Biblical account, Last Days in the Desert has, ironically, given us a much more personal Jesus. Indeed, this Yeshua counts as one of the most fully realized depictions of Christ –​of the Word made flesh –​I’ve seen onscreen’ (2016). While the film may fudge facts and faith, encouraging communication and contact with Christ is no small feat. Indeed, as classic Oxfordian crime writer Dorothy L.  Sayers noted in my epigraph, being a good artist is the most important part of making good Christian art. But clearly, not all Christian critics agree with this. One can be a brilliant screenwriter or director and still betray the (critic’s preferred) essence of the Bible. See the evangelical backlash to Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014) or Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) for strong recent examples. To some Christian critics, being a good artist equates to understanding this particular theological framework  –​having the sensitivity to understand the source material in this way. But as Laurence Raw argues, ‘Any critical judgement on an adaptation tells us more about the writer’s preoccupations (or prejudices) rather than the text ostensibly under analysis’ (2018: 2). Or, if we adhere to Sayers’ thesis, perhaps we could say that, in order to be a good Christian critic, one must first and foremost be a good critic.

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Notes 1 Warren 2015: n.p. 2 Also posted on Decent Films http://​decentfilms.com/​articles/​interview-​cyrus-​ nowrasteh. 3 See Goodwyn 2016; Evangelical Focus 2015 and 2016; and Ott 2016.

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References Ansen, David (2016) ‘Director Rodrigo García’s Live Echoes Across Biblical “Last Days in the Desert” ’, Los Angeles Times, 6 May. Online at:  www. latimes.com/​entertainment/​movies/​la-​ca-​mn-​rodrigo-​garcia-​20160508-​story. html (accessed 12 September 2018). Babington, Bruce, and Evans, Peter William (1993) Biblical Epics:  Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University  Press. Carpenter, Edwin L. (n.d.) ‘The Young Messiah (Review)’, The Dove Foundation. Online at:  https://​dove.org/​review/​11727-​the-​young-​messiah/​ (accessed 31 August 2018). Dove Foundation, The (n.d.) ‘About Dove’, The Dove Foundation. Online at: https://​dove.org/​the-​story-​of-​the-​dove-​foundation/​ (accessed 1 September 2018). Evangelical Focus (2015) ‘Ewan McGregor Plays Jesus and the Devil in “Last Days in the Desert” ’, Evangelical Focus, 25 January. Online at: http://​evangelicalfocus.com/​culture/​221/​Last_​days_​in_​the_​desert_​Ewan_​McGregor_​as_​ Jesus_​and_​Satan (accessed 12 September 2018). Evangelical Focus (2016) ‘First Trailer of “Last Days in the Desert” ’, Evangelical Focus, 1 April. Online at: http://​evangelicalfocus.com/​culture/​1497/​Last_​day_​ of_​the_​desert_​first_​trailer_​review (accessed 12 September 2018). Foust, Michael (2016) ‘Will Conservative Christians Accept the Biblical Fiction “The Young Messiah”? (Movie Review)’, Christian Post, 11 March. Online at:  www.christianpost.com/​news/​biblical-​fiction-​the-​young-​messiah-​movie-​ review-​159081/​(accessed 1 September 2018). Goodwyn, Hannah (2016) ‘See Ewan McGregor Play Jesus and the Devil in Last Days in the Desert’, CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network), 29 March. Online at:  www1.cbn.com/​hollywoodinsight/​ewan-​mcgregor-​jesus-​satan-​ last-​days-​in-​the-​desert (accessed 12 September 2018). Greydanus, Steven D. (2016a) ‘Interview:  “The Young Messiah” Filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh’, National Catholic Register, 26 February. Online at:  www.ncregister.com/​daily-​news/​interview-​cyrus-​nowrasteh (accessed 1 September 2018). Greydanus, Steven D. (2016b) ‘Latest Jesus Movie Has Promise, But Goes Unfulfilled’, Crux, 24 May. Online at:  https://​cruxnow.com/​church/​2016/​ 05/​24/​latest-​jesus-​movie-​has-​promise-​but-​it-​goes-​unfulfilled/​ (accessed 12 September 2018).

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Greydanus, Steven D. (n.d.) ‘The Young Messiah (Review)’, Decent Films. Online at: http://​decentfilms.com/​reviews/​youngmessiah (accessed 1 September 2018). Hall, Sheldon (2002) ‘Selling Religion:  How to Market a Biblical Epic’, Film History 14 (2), pp. 170–​85. Hutcheon, Linda (2006) A Theory of Adaptation, Abingdon: Routledge. Johnston, Robert K. (2007) ‘Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue’ in Mitchell, Jolyon, and Plate, S. Brent (eds) The Religion and Film Reader, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 312–​22. Larsen, Josh (2016) ‘ “Last Days in the Desert”:  Finding Christ in a Fictional Jesus’, thinkChristian, 12 May. Online at:  https://​thinkchristian.reframemedia.com/​last-​days-​in-​the-​desert-​finding-​christ-​in-​a-​fictional-​jesus (accessed 12 September 2018). Law, Jeannie (2016) ‘Director of “The Young Messiah” Shares Major Miracle behind Making of Film’, Christian Post, 28 February. Online at: www.christianpost.com/​news/​director-​of-​the-​young-​messiah-​shares-​major-​miracle-​ behind-​making-​of-​film-​158601/​ (accessed 1 September 2018). Leitch, Thomas (2007) Film Adaptation and its Discontents: From ‘Gone with the Wind’ to ‘The Passion of the Christ’, Baltimore, MD:  Johns Hopkins University Press. Mulderig, John (2016a) ‘The Young Messiah (Review)’, Catholic News Service, 8 March. Online at:  www.catholicnews.com/​services/​englishnews/​2016/​the-​ young-​messiah.cfm (accessed 1 September 2018). Mulderig, John (2016b) ‘Last Days in the Desert (Review)’, Catholic News Service, 11 May. Online at:  www.catholicnews.com/​services/​englishnews/​ 2016/​last-​days-​in-​the-​desert.cfm (accessed 11 September 2018). Ott, Kevin (2016) ‘ “Last Days in the Desert”  –​Christian Movie Review’, Rockin’ God’s House, 12 May. Online at:  http://​rockingodshouse.com/​last-​ days-​in-​the-​desert-​christian-​movie-​review/​(accessed 12 September 2018). Raw, Laurence (2018) ‘Introduction’ in Raw, Laurence (ed.) Adapted from the Original: Essays on the Value and Values of Works Remade for a New Medium, Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., pp. 1–​14. Redmon, Allen H. (2018) ‘ “I make all things new”:  Describing the Ongoing Adaptation in the Judaeo-​Christian Bible’ in Raw, Laurence (ed.) Adapted from the Original: Essays on the Value and Values of Works Remade for a New Medium, Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., pp. 21–​33. Reinhartz, Adele (2013) Bible and Cinema:  An Introduction, Abingdon: Routledge. Rice, Anne (2005) Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, New York: Alfred A Knopf. Sayers, Dorothy L. (2018) ‘The Nine Tailors: Creativity’ in Vanderhoof, Carole (ed.) The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers, Walden, NY: Plough Publishing House, pp. 94–​107. Telford, William R. (1997) ‘Jesus Christ Movie Star: The Depiction of Jesus in the Cinema’, in Marsh, Clive, and Ortiz, Gaye (eds) Explorations in Theology and Film, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 115–​39.

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Telford, William R. (2005) ‘Through a Lens Darkly:  Critical Approaches to Theology and Film’, in Christianson, Eric S., Francis, Peter, and Telford, William R. (eds) Cinéma Divinité: Religion, Theology and the Bible in Film. London: SCM Press, pp. 15–​43. Thomasos, Christine (2016) ‘ “Last Days in the Desert” Writer Not Religious, but “Couldn’t Get Jesus Movie Out of My Head” ’, Christian Post, 10 May. Online at: www.christianpost.com/​news/​last-​days-​in-​the-​desert-​writer-​not-​religious-​ couldnt-​get-​jesus-​movie-​out-​my-​head-​163645/​ (accessed 12 September  2018). Warren, Fred (2015) ‘A Few Objections to Last Days in the Desert’, Frederation, January 28. Online at: https://​frederation.wordpress.com/​2015/​01/​14/​a-​few-​ objections-​to-​last-​days-​in-​the-​desert/​(accessed 1 September 2018). Warren, Fred (n.d.) ‘About’, Frederation. Online at:  https://​frederation.wordpress.com/​about/​(accessed 1 September 2018). Wilkinson, Alissa (2015) ‘Ewan McGregor and Rodrigo Garcia on Jesus, Satan, and “Last Days in the Desert”’, Christianity Today, 13 January. Online at: www.christianitytoday.com/​ct/​2015/​january-​web-​only/​last-​days-​in-​desert-​ exclusive.html (accessed 12 September 2018). Wyke, Maria (1997) Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History, London: Routledge. Zakarin, Jordan (2015) ‘Ewan McGregor on Humanizing Jesus and the Devil in “Last Days in the Desert” ’, Yahoo!, 26 January. Online at:  www.yahoo. com/​entertainment/​ewan-​mcgregor-​on-​humanizing-​jesus-​and-​the-​devil-​in-​ 109235316912.html (accessed 12 September 2018).

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10 Examining the digital religion paradigm: a mixed-​method analysis of online community perception of epic biblical movies Gregory P. Perreault and Thomas S. Mueller

Introduction In a famous scene from Ben-​Hur (1959), Sextus is confronted with news that the Roman Emperor is displeased with the governorship of Israel and would like to restore order. Sextus responds sharply, ‘How? You can break a man’s skull, you can arrest him, you can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you control what’s up here?’ Sextus taps his head. ‘How do you fight an idea?’ The answer was simple: one fights an idea with another idea. Perhaps no scene better encapsulates the mistrust many American Christians hold in regard to the movie industry. What they already have is their faith and their idea of Christ and biblical events. Presented before them on the silver screen, many argue, is a different idea of those biblical events. In recent years, high-​profile biblically orientated movies have sought to find an audience in America. This approach is reasonable in that 70.6 per cent of Americans identify with some denomination of Christianity (Pew Research Center 2015). Yet, how Christianity motivates those Americans, and more specifically, whether it motivates them to watch a biblical epic movie, remains a question. This chapter explores the religiously active believers on social media to understand and predict how they think about their faith and biblical epics. Prior research has shown that participants in online communities tend to be more enthusiastic and more invested on a given topic than non-​ participants (Duggan and Smith 2013). Furthermore, this chapter aims to assess whether certain religious groups are motivated to attend biblical epics than others. The chapter builds on the Theory of Planned Behaviour to predict attendance at biblical epic movies. This research includes both quantitative and qualitative questions in order

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to get a thorough understanding of the topic as per Creswell’s (2013) triangulation model. Such research theoretically contributes to the understanding of the audience for biblical epics and more broadly contributes to our understanding of the religious motivations for media consumption. More practically, understanding the audience for biblical epics could help media producers understand the boundaries of their audience and the preferences of their audience. Literature review The biblical epic The biblical epic emerged as a twentieth-​century television/​film genre that covers three subtypes of movie: ‘the Old Testament Epic; the Christ Film; and the Roman/​ Christian Epic (the beginnings of post-​ Christ Christianity)’ (Babington and Evans 1993: 4). As a genre, its content is denoted by its subtype, but it’s also defined by an uneven history of success, a standard set of audiences and promotional practices. The arrival of the genre was hailed by Ben-​Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), and followed by a succession of movies attempting to ‘realistically’ depict events from the Bible with King of Kings (1927), The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-​Hur (1959), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and the made-​for-​television Jesus of Nazareth (1977). The genre was particularly popular in the mid-​twentieth century and was ‘usually accompanied by towering budgets and names such as Charlton Heston, Deborah Kerr, or Yul Brynner’ (McEver 2016: 2). Many of these movies were not only commercially successful, but also technologically impressive: The chariot races in Ben-​Hur (1959) and the parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments (1956) are still considered seminal moments in cinema. Yet that changed with King of Kings (1961), which critics suggested should be titled ‘I was a Teenage Jesus’ (McEver 2016: 3) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), which portrayed Jesus as ‘emotionally removed and humorless’ (McEver 2016: 3). It wasn’t until The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) that a major studio took a gamble on a biblical epic. The reason many biblical epics have been so critically unsuccessful has been because of (1) poor casting (Hall 2002) and (2) localisation –​‘the presentation of the Christ-​event with the assumption that Biblical stories were written exclusively for today’ (McEver 2016: 7). Movie studios have traditionally attempted to divide the audience of the biblical epic into three groups: non-​religiously motived moviegoers, schools and churchgoers. The non-​religiously motivated moviegoers are

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‘not enthusiastically interested in religious themes or educational value’ and need to be sold ‘spectacle, drama, the excitement and thrills’ (Hall 2002: 174) The school population was an important audience for The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and The Sign of the Cross (1932) –​ the Los Angeles Board of Education asked for a complete set of production stills for The Sign of the Cross. This group is interested in the educational value of the films and interested in being able to integrate historical lessons from the movies. Parochial schools were of particular value in the massive success of The Passion of the Christ (2004) (Maresco 2004). The last group is potentially the most important, in that outreach to churchgoers has to be kept largely under wraps (Hall 2002). This group was reached through ‘their respective clergy, their sermons, and, in 1933, for the first time, by direct mail campaigns’ (Maresco 2004:  2). The key to the success of The Passion of the Christ rested on this audience. According to Caldwell (2004), the studios conceptualised a ‘Christian audience comprised of Evangelicals, conservative Roman Catholics, and Charismatics’ (Maresco 2004: 5). By reaching out through pastors and churches, they were able to leverage Christians with their marketing machine. Nothing like The Passion of the Christ had been seen before or has been seen since. Even contemporary box-​office successes like The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter movies did not see the same level of early demand. It can be challenging to rally a Christian community around a movie, but once they do, the Christian community can be successful at word-​of-​mouth and grassroots marketing (Thompson 2004). The Christian community tends to be receptive to a standard set of practices used to promote the movie. Their success, however, depends entirely on that movie. The same practices used for The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), which lost $21 million (My Old School Books 2014), were employed for The Passion of the Christ (2004), which grossed $612  million internationally (Higgins 2016). Integral to promoting biblical epics is that ‘people must read and hear about it through the channel which do not normally cover motion pictures’ (Hall 2002: 175). This has been done through (1) inviting church groups and ministers to visit the set during production; (2) direct mailing religious associations; and (3) soliciting interest and support from church leaders that can be expressed both personally and publicly. However, these practices have to be done discretely so as not to appear ‘exploitive’ (176). Online religious community members The digitally active religious believer examined here tends to be a fairly savvy media consumer (Duggan and Smith 2013). The digitally active

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religious believer is conceptualised as a social media user on Facebook, LinkedIn and Reddit, who is invested in religious subgroups within the social networks. These religious communities are of considerable interest in academic scholarship in that they represent a shift from traditional religion to digital religion (Campbell 2004). These online religious communities ‘challenge traditional conceptions and understandings of community’ (Campbell 2004: 82) in that the individuals within the community represent the potential for a new paradigm of religious behaviour. Writing in the late nineteenth century, Tönnies (2002) describes a paradigmatic shift, which he argues resulted in part from the development of early mass media. This paradigmatic shift took society from being community-​orientated and family-​orientated to being more orientated towards the public sphere and nation-​states (Tönnies 2002). In traditional communities, meaning was constructed locally and greater authority was granted to heads of households and community leaders in the interpretation of this meaning (Tönnies 2002). Tönnies argues that religion primarily has occurred through Gemeinschaft, or community and family, throughout history. The transition from a dominantly Gemeinschaft culture to Gesellschaft, a more society-​based structure, created an orientation toward the nation-​state and thus created a degree of unity across a public society and de-​emphasised community (Tönnies 2002). This required a new, public shape for religion and new values emerged from this paradigmatic change: in particular, the emphasis on science, objectivity and powerful national authority structures (Tönnies 2002). Yet Tönnies forecasted an eventual dissolution of Gesellschaft, and a re-​empowering of Gemeinschaft –​and this may be descriptive of the paradigmatic change in American religion witnessed today. Online religious communities can often take the form of traditional communities, but jettison the face-​to-​face (Campbell 2004). Research has shown that online community relationships can influence members’ beliefs and local church involvement (Campbell 2004). In such communities, members find that ‘geography becomes irrelevant; commonality is highly specialized and changeable’ (93). Members of such communities tend to be younger, often between eighteen and twenty-​nine years of age (Duggan and Smith 2013), and as such they represent the face of the new demographic for biblical epics. Theory of Planned Behaviour The research reported in this chapter applied the theoretical framework of Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), which was developed through the Theory of Reasoned Action (Madden, Ellen and Ajzen

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1992). This theory provides a framework to predict intention to view biblical movies. The theory suggests individuals have various levels of self-​control, which are affected through intentions. These intentions are weighted by the related risk involved in engaging specific behaviours, prior to attaining an expected (desired) outcome. TPB theory presents the independent variables ‘subjective norm’, ‘perceived behavioral control’ and ‘attitude’ toward the behaviour as indicators of intention, which in turn predicts behaviour. Subjective norm refers to a subject’s peer pressure to be approved for an action or activity, whether those who are respected would approve of the action. Perceived behavioural control is an assessment by the subject related to the ease, or complexity, of performing the behaviour under consideration. The attitude measured created the shift from Theory of Reasoned Action, to TPB. Attitude toward the behaviour relates to a favourable or unfavourable perception of the intended action. This construct directs the subject’s anticipation of the consideration of outcomes prior to performing the behaviour (LaMorte 2016). This leads us to pose the following research questions: RQ 1a: What behaviours motivate digitally active religious believers to view biblical epics? RQ 1b: Is there a relationship between denominational affiliation and propensity to view biblical epics? RQ 2a: What do digitally active religious believers think about biblical epics? RQ 2b: How do digitally active religious believers learn about biblical epics? RQ 3a: What is the relationship between digitally active religious believers’ behaviours and their experience of the divine? RQ 3b: What is the relationship between digitally active religious believers’ church attendance and their experience of the divine?

Method This research emerges from the pragmatist philosophical tradition, which responds to ‘actions, situations, and consequences’ rather relying on antecedent conditions (Creswell 2008:  10). Pragmatism conceptualises the world as lacking an ‘absolute unity’ and truth is seen as that which ‘works at the time’ (11). Hence, such research places a primary emphasis on using all relevant methodological approaches to addressing the research problem. In this case, the research problem revolves around understanding and predicting what makes digitally active religious believers view and enjoy biblical epics. As such, this study employs mixed methods in order to address both the ‘how’ and ‘what’ nature of the questions presented by scholarly literature and the current state

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of digital religion and movie viewership. In particular, the researchers employ Creswell and Clark’s (2007) triangulation model, which aims to ‘obtain different but complementary data on the same topic’ (62). It brings together the strengths and non-​overlapping weaknesses of both methods and is used when the researcher wants to compare and contrast quantitative statistical results with qualitative findings (62). The structure of the research followed a partially mixed concurrent equal status design (Leech and Onwuegbuzie 2009) in that qualitative and quantitative research was employed at multiple stages of the research with both forms of research granted equal weight. The research questions included both qualitative and quantitative components, the survey included both questions for qualitative and quantitative analysis and the analysis was conducted by a research team that included one primarily qualitative scholar and one primarily quantitative scholar. While the data collection was concurrent, the RQ 1 analysis was conducted first via textual analysis and then RQ 2a & b were analysed via a co-​ occurrence network to help support the qualitative findings noted there. The authors conceptualised the digitally active religious believer as a religious person active in particular social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Reddit. The authors elicited responses via a survey which posted on numerous religious group pages from a broad set of denominations (e.g. r/​Catholic, r/​Jewish, r/​elca, r/​TrueChristian, r/​reformed, r/​latterdaysaints, r/​Baptist, r/​LCMS, Facebook groups for religious people interested in journalism and gaming, etc.). Inferential statistics were employed to identify psychological perception of epic biblical movies. Measurement The variables’ subjective norm and perceived control were measured through a five-​point ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (5) Likert scale. Perceived control was measured as related to intent to view new-​ release movies, empowerment to view additional movies, control over personal decisions on what movies to view and peer relationships in choice of movies. The four items produced an acceptable alpha of .73. Subjective norm was captured through effect of important people, social pressure to view specific movies, approval of others in viewing choices and the influence of the opinions of friends. The items indicated an alpha of .50, removing the ‘important people’ item increased alpha to .64. Three items were retained. Five items, set to a semantic differential scale, measured attitude. Measures suggested by Ajzen were the polarised adjectives good/​bad,

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pleasant/​unpleasant, favourable/​unfavourable, appealing/​unappealing and likable/​unlikable. Cronbach’s alpha indicated internal consistency of .77; removing the ‘appealing’ measure produced an alpha of .94, four items were retained.

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Descriptive statistics of respondents The survey questionnaire included informed consent language that met requirements for Institutional Review Board (IRB) accreditation. The survey was international, though largely US-​focused. A convenience and judgmental sampling was used which generated 152 responses. The sample lacked racial diversity, with 92 per cent reporting as Non-​Hispanic White or Euro-​American. Gender differentiation was 40 per cent female and 60 per cent male. No other gender identities were reported. The predominant age group was eighteen to thirty-​six, which captured 69 per cent of the respondent base. There was a wide distribution of household income among respondents, with 12 per cent reporting in the $20,000–​ $29,999 category and 13 per cent reporting in the $40,000–​$49,999 category. Most (62 per cent) held undergraduate, masters or doctorate degrees. Two distinct categories represented marital status, with 27 per cent single, never married and 64 per cent married. The occupation of the respondents were noted at 19 per cent student, 21 per cent employee and 12 per cent director or manager. Results Planned behaviour and the biblical epic In RQ 1a, multiple linear regression was utilised to predict behaviours that would prompt a greater desire for new feature movies with a biblical context. The outcome (dependent) variable in the test was ‘I wish Hollywood made more biblical movies’. The predictor (independent) variables were the grand mean variables representing ‘subjective norm,’ ‘perceived control’ and ‘attitude’ towards viewing biblical epic movies. The regression proved to be significant with P value of < .01. The Coefficient of Determination (R²) indicated that 14 per cent of the values fitted the model parameters. Behaviour associated with subjective norm is the greatest predictor of desire for new biblical movies; β= .435 and perceived control at β= −.262. This indicates that a social construct holds strong effect, for example the perception of others who may comment on the movie, or pressure from a group dynamic. Perceived control, that of empowerment and control over personal decisions, held a

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weak predictor effect, just over the .05 significance value cut-​off at .06. The negative value indicates that they do not wish Hollywood made more movies, if they value behaviours associated with control  –​this makes sense given the lack of connection many respondents feel with Hollywood. Attitude towards viewing biblical movies was not a significant predictor. There was also a strong relationship between the outcome variable ‘I intend to see biblical movies when they are released’ and the predictor variables that indicate behaviour. This regression also proved to be significant with P value of < .01, while the Coefficient of Determination (R²) indicated that 78 per cent of the values fitted the model parameters. The R value of this regression demonstrates a strong linear relationship among predictor and outcome variables, signifying a positive relationship of .86 (where 1 indicates a perfect positive relationship). Regarding intent to attend new biblical movies, all three behaviour variables serve as significant predictors. Attitudes related to viewing biblical movies, and perceived control over personal actions, were significantly unique (independent) predictors of intent to view. Behaviour associated with subjective norm was the weakest predictor, significant but near the cut-​off at .04. Perceived control tested at β = .335, attitude at β  =  .645, and subjective norm tested slightly negative at β  =  −.096. The slightly negative response indicates an intent to not view biblical epics as a result of peer pressure, but, again, it too was a weak predictor. Finally, responses to the statement ‘I have complete control over the biblical movies I choose to view’ were tested as an outcome variable. In this relationship, the respondent indicates they hold complete control, while one of the independent variables is also defined through the perceived element of control. The test once again proved significant with P value of < .01, while the Coefficient of Determination (R²) indicated that 37 per cent of the values fitted the model parameters. Perceived control tested with β= .775. As might be expected, the predictor variable perceived control was the most significant indicator of power to control biblical movie viewing choices. Both attitude and subjective norms were not significant. In RQ 1b, Pearson Correlation analysis was used to determine the strength of relationship between ‘If I wanted to I could view even more biblical movies’ and respondents’ affiliation with specific denominations in Christianity. There is a significant correlation at the .01 level, while the correlation coefficient between the variables is low at .29. The relationship is positive, but the strength of association is weak.

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The quality of the biblical epic To address RQ 2a, participants were asked what their favourite biblical epic was, why they enjoyed that particular movie and about their thoughts regarding biblical epics more broadly. In their responses, participants indicated that they largely consider the biblical epic a contested genre –​a genre in the midst of a tug of war between ‘Hollywood heresy’ (Participant W) and its religious source material –​and that biblical epics are at their best when true to the source material. In keeping with the anonymity guaranteed through the survey, all respondents were assigned a letter or letter/​number combination in discussing responses below. Participants considered the biblical epic to be a genre in the midst of a struggle. Participants saw Hollywood’s role in creating such movies as one with an ‘agenda’ to ‘force lies’ and ‘over-​exaggerations’ (Participant Q) on an audience unprepared to dissect the ‘creative license’ taken (Participant 1V). Many of the participants had a negative overall impression of the biblical epic in that ‘all of them rewrite the story’ and ‘violate the Second Commandment’ to avoid graven images (Participant E). And while participants valued biblical epics with ‘high-​production’ quality (Participant FFF) they simultaneously denounced the emphasis on ‘showy’ (Participant U) and ‘sensationalised’ storytelling (Participant WWW). Participants argued that the source material itself is both ‘riveting and exciting’ and ‘moving and subtle’ (Participant U). That said, many participants could also point to powerful spiritual experiences that came from viewing biblical epics. As one participant put it in discussing The Passion of the Christ (2004): ‘Even though it was a movie, it made me even more aware of the suffering Jesus endured for me –​for all of us. We always say Jesus died for me, but seeing the movie made me think about all that goes into that saying’ (Participant 1G). Another noted that a biblical epic helped him or her be ‘even more thankful for my salvation’ (Participant UU). The characters in such movies have ‘struggles’ relevant to the struggles ‘faced by today’s audiences –​problems with family, personal doubts, spiritual awakening, trusting God’ (Participant JJJ). Others pointed out that even when they didn’t come away with a deeper spiritual understanding, they found the movies to be emotionally moving. One participant noted that the 2016 Ben-​Hur ending ‘on the forgiveness between two rival siblings had me shedding some tears of joy’ (Participant CC). Participants largely attached value to biblical epics that accurately represented the legendary aspect of the event. They respected biblical epics that were ‘faithful to the event and did not add nonsense to appeal to movie goers’ (Participant N). Respondents largely wanted to see biblical epics remain ‘true to the Biblical account’ (Participant T), preserve ‘historical

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accuracy’ and retain ‘faithfulness to the truth of Christianity’ (Participant Z). Participants respect movies where it was perceived that movie studios made an ‘honest effort to be realistic and biblically correct’ (Participant YYY), even as they understand that studios will not be perfect in representing the Bible. That said, there was still an appreciation for director’s creative licence. In fact, many participants argued that they preferred main biblical characters to be ancillary to the story, in that this would allow them to remain true to the ‘fundamental concerns of the biblical story (i.e. the problem of sin, the problem of humanity, the need for salvation, the importance of grace)’ (Participant 1V), without being bogged down with attempting to depict all events in a ‘realistic’ manner (Participant YYY) and that managed to avoid being ‘excessively bland’ (Participant 1X). If the connection to the biblical story was ancillary then the biblical epic didn’t need to ‘expand or contradict the Bible’ (Participant M). These two key themes are supported via a co-​occurrence network from the open-​ended survey question ‘What did you like about (your favourite biblical movie)?’ (see Figure  10.1). This analysis was done by paragraph and one can see the terms ‘legend’ and ‘struggle’ remain central to a number of nodes presented. Other common threads from the responses such as the depiction of biblical accounts are evidenced through connected nodes such as ‘character’ and ‘portray’ and the desire to see honest effort in attempting to depict biblical events through the connection of ‘honest’. ‘effort’ and ‘realistic’. In RQ 2b, we were interested in understanding how digitally active religious believers learn about biblical epics. Respondents largely were drawn to see biblical epics as a result of family or their social circle, but among those who saw it alone were those who indicated they had a responsibility to view the films. Digitally active believers who viewed older biblical epics often said they watched the movie at church or watched at the behest of religious parents. As one participant put it ‘every biblical movie I’ve seen was probably forced on me by a parent’ (Participant ZZ) and as another put it ‘I grew up watching it with my father. He was a big fan’ (Participant III). Many noted that they viewed biblical epics largely out of availability –​if they were on TV and subjected to ‘peer pressure’ (Participant 1L). Some noted that they ‘do not attend theaters’ and would only watch them if ‘I find them free online’ (Participant QQQ), which holds true with what is known regarding the digitally active more broadly (Lenhart et al. 2010). In short, respondents, even if they ultimately enjoyed a biblical epic, were often urged to watch it by family or friends. Some respondents indicated that they felt they needed to see the movies out of a sense of a responsibility; they needed to accompany an ‘atheist friend’ (Participant D). Others felt they needed

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character closely portray

moment

Prince

let

actor

effect effect

Scriptures

help thing

Egypt

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force

faithful reasonably subtle

special honest

Charlton director creative

storyline

effort

Heston

compelling realistic

theme

audience

text

retell

form

film

music

appeal legend

try

family friendly endure

animation

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life expand doubt

Christian

spiritual

say screen

bring

Moses production

suffering

religious relevant ask

struggle development

problem score personal strong

incredibly

come bit fantastic

commandment

Figure 10.1  Co-​occurrence network depicting perceived attraction to biblical epic movies.

to see the movie in order to ‘refute the misconceptions it will cause’ (Participant E). Digitally active believers and the divine For RQ 3a, the variable ‘experience divine’ served as the target variable for a regression tree predictive model, using the open source Rattle package in R. Input variables were carrying religion into other areas of life, nothing more important than serving God, faith sometimes restricts actions, religion as lifestyle, God as part of important decisions, morality of life, the paramount mission to serve God. The predominant path to the divine captures 35 per cent of the sample group (see Figure  10.2). It indicates that the divine experience comes when respondents somewhat or strongly agree that they carry religion

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Carry religion to other dealings < 3.5

≥ 3.5

Religious whole approach life

Nothing as important as serving God

< 1.5

≥ 1.5

≥ 1.5

Carry religion to other dealings

Nothing as important as serving God

Refuse religious influence

< 1.5