Scripture on the Silver Screen

My course on the Bible and film, and my own fledgling research in the area, are based on two related assumptions. The first is that movies both reflect and also shape our views, norms, and attitudes. The second is that the majority of the movie-going audience has little direct knowledge of, or contact with, the Bible, and thus has no prior experiences against which to test its cinematic utilization. The testing of these assumptions I leave to social scientists, who are better equipped than biblical exegetes to measure and analyse the impact of the movies on their viewers. My aim today is simply to illustrate and reflect on some of the roles that the Bible, biblical passages, and biblical paradigms play in a selection of recent Hollywood films

The Seal of the Confessional: Robert Lepage’s Le Confessionnal in Social and Cultural Context

The Quiet Revolution brought an end to Catholic hegemony in Québec culture and society. Despite the Church’s fall from power, Catholicism did not disappear from Québec society after the Quiet Revolution. The continued importance of Catholicism in conjunction with the dramatic shift to secular institutions and values creates a palpable tension in Québec public and private life. One film that explores this tension explicitly is the 1995 drama, Le Confessionnal. The film was written and directed by Robert Lepage, one of Québec’s, and Canada’s, most versatile artists. This article explores the primary existential theme -- the relationship between the Catholic past (1952) and the secular present (1989) – by examining plot, character, and symbolism, particularly the use of color. Just as the main characters cannot escape their family history, so too, the film implies, must Québec come to terms with its past, within which the Catholic Church played such an important role

Passion-ate Moments in the Jesus Film Genre

The Passion has all the elements of classical tragedy: powerful characters, and a powerful plot filled with suspense and tension. But the centrality of the Passion to the Jesus film genre reflects not only the dramatic power of Jesus\u27 Passion but also its importance within the first-century Gospel traditions themselves. It is sometimes said that the Gospels are Passion stories with extended introductions (Kähler). The Passion is anticipated from the very first chapter of each of the Gospels, and the detailed description of its events constitute the climax of each of the four canonical narratives. It is Jesus\u27 death, and the resurrection that Christianity believes followed upon it, that give meaning to his life and to his messianic identity as the Christ and Son of God, and hence to his role in the Western history and culture that has been dominated by Christianity. No wonder, then, that artists, composers, playwrights and filmmakers continue to take up the challenge of putting image and sound to this powerful story

A Long, Long Way: Hollywood\u27s Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation

This is a book review of Greg Garrett, A Long, Long Way: Hollywood\u27s Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation (Oxford University Press, 2020)

Jesus in Film: Hollywood Perspectives on the Jewishness of Jesus

The purpose of this article is to survey a number of Jesus movies with respect to the portrayal of Jesus\u27 Jewishness. As a New Testament scholar, I am curious to see how these celluloid representations of Jesus compare to academic depictions. For this reason, I begin by presenting briefly three trends in current historical Jesus research that construct Jesus\u27 Jewishness in different ways. As a Jewish New Testament scholar, however, my interest in this question is fuelled by a conviction that the cinematic representations of Jesus both reflect and also affect cultural perceptions of both Jesus and Judaism. My survey of the films will therefore also consider issues of reception, and specifically, the image of Jesus and Judaism that emerges from each

Whose Heroes? Hollywood Portrayals of the Bible

Dr. Adele Reinhartz, Professor of Religious Studies and Classics, University of Ottowa, Canada.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/bennettcenter-posters/1320/thumbnail.jp

"Why Ask My Name?" : Anonymity and Identity in Biblical Narrative

New Yorkxii, 226 p.; 23 c