Subtle Varieties of Love within Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949)

EXPLORING THE SUBTLE VARIETIES OF LOVE WITHIN CECIL B. DeMILLE'S SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949) Introduction: Cecil's Samson SagaProducer-director(1) Cecil B. DeMille(2) (1881-1959), affectionately known as CB, was a co-founder of Hollywood, a progenitor of Paramount studio and an unsung auteur who helped turn an obscure Californian orange grove into a major movie centre that became the synonym for commercial filmmaking worldwide.(3) Not only did DeMille help institute "the Age of Hollywood" (Paglia 1994, 12), but this pioneering "auteur of auteurs" (Vidal 1995, 303) became the master of the American biblical epic with such indelible classics as The Ten Commandments (silent), The King of Kings, Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments (sound). Not surprisingly, he was subsequently tagged "King of the epic Biblical spectacular" (Finler 1985, 32), the "high priest of the religious genre" (Holloway 1977, 26) and the "arch apostle of spectacle" (Clapham 1974,..

Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still Part I: A Religious Film?

ROBERT WISE'S THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Part I: A RELIGIOUS FILM? AbstractScience fiction (SF) films have frequently been the home for subtextual biblical characters, particularly Christ-figures. Crafting these sacred subtexts can make the difference between an ordinary film and an exceptional one. This investigation intends to explore the religious and other dimensions of the 1951 SF cult classic The Day the Earth Stood Still directed by Robert Wise. In Part 1 of this analytical triptych, the film's reception as a UFO film with political, artificial intelligence (AI), police and philosophical dimensions was canvassed. It was argued that Wise's film contains all of the above genre dimensions; however, it can be more fully appreciated as a profoundly religious film wrapped in contemporary scientific garb. The forthcoming parts will explore the factual elements of this proposition in far greater analytical detail. Introduction: SF and Sacred StorytellingHistorically speaking,..

The Christ-figure in Popular Films

JESUS COVERED IN A SECULAR WRAPPER: THE CHRIST-FIGURE IN POPULAR FILMSPOPULAR feature films(1) should be put to work in the classroom, home or pulpit as a scholarly extra-ecclesiastical resource, and not relegated in a knee-jerk fashion to the status of visual aide, diversionary entertainment or student pacifier. In addition, religion, literature and film studies students should be sensitised to the numerous religious figurations hidden within their everyday video fare. After all, as Linda A. Mercadante (God 3) noted: "more than just media inundation, we have come to live in a media-mediated culture, where our understanding of life, reality and our own experience is filtered through video frames," unsettling as that may be to older generations. Mercadante's claim is of course understandable given that commercial feature films were the most persuasive art form of the 20th century, and they will continue to be so well into the..

Anatomy of Film (3rd ed)

THE POPULAR Hollywood cinema has grown from toy to tool to become a mainstay of contemporary culture, which in turn has generated its own need for increasingly complex introductory guides. Bernard F. Dick's Anatomy of Film is one such offering. It sits well alongside other honourable exemplars in the field such as An Introduction to Film (Thomas & Vivian Sobchack), An Introduction to Film Studies (Jill Nelmes), The Art of Watching Film with CD-ROM (Joe Boggs an& Dennis W. Petrie), The Cinema Book (Pam Cook & Mieke Bernink), Film: An Introduction (William H. Phillips), Film Art: An Introduction with Tutorial CD-ROM (David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson), How to Read a Film (James Monaco), Movies and Meaning: An Introduction to Film (Stephen R. Prince), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson) and Understanding Movies (Louis Giannetti)...

The Art of Creative Scriptural Extrapolation

THE ART OF CREATIVE SCRIPTURAL EXTRAPOLATION: BITHIAH, MERED AND I CHRONICLES 4:18 WITHIN CECIL B. DE MILLE'S THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) DeMille: Master of the American Biblical Epic THE LEGENDARY Cecil B. DeMille(1) (1881-1959), affectionately know as "CB," was a seminal cofounder of Hollywood and a progenitor of Paramount studio who helped turn an obscure Californian orange grove into a major US movie production centre that became the synonym for filmmaking worldwide.(2) Not only did this pioneering "auteur of auteurs"(3) help institute "the Age of Hollywood,"(4) and is today considered "one of the comparatively few filmmakers who might justifiably be described as a 'household name'"(5), but he also earned an international reputation as the master of the American biblical epic and awarded such honorific tags as: "King of the epic Biblical spectacular,"(6) the "arch apostle of spectacle,"(7) the "high priest..

Who Should Be Allowed to Participate in Official Interreligious Dialogues? A Review of Issues

Interreligious dialogue is an important communications activity that has many of the characteristics and problems of new religious movements. Failure can be devastating, and yet scant critical attention has been devoted to assessing the legitimate qualifications of event participants. Seven dialogic parameters were identified and explicated pertaining to: (a) sanctioning, (b) representation, (c) relevancy, (d) knowledge, (e) technical competence, (f) articulation, and (g) appropriateness. Professional awareness of their range, depth and contours has important ramifications for participant selection, preparation and event organisation

Cecil B. DeMille and the Art ofApplied Suggestibility

CECIL B. DE MILLE AND THE ART OF APPLIED SUGGESTIBILITY: VIOLENCE, SEX AND FALSE MEMORIES WITHIN HIS BIBLICAL (AND OTHER) CINEMA AbstractLegendary producer-director Cecil B. DeMille is an unsung auteur who helped co-found both Hollywood and Paramount studios and became America's pre-eminent biblical filmmaker. He employed many artistic strategies, but none as politically astute as the deliberate engineering of false memories in a deliberate act of applied suggestibility. This trademark effort allowed DeMille to achieve desired audience reactions whilst simultaneously avoiding censorship problems and moral vigilantes who thought they saw objectionable things in his movies but which were not actually there. Consequently, selected DeMille films and the associated critical literature were inspected, reviewed and integrated into the text to enhance narrative coherence utilizing humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens. It was concluded that DeMille was a master filmmaker and that his cinematic oeuvre warrants a more..

Scripture Filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille

SCRIPTURE FILMMAKER CECIL B. DeMILLE: BIBLICAL, RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL? AbstractThe legendary producer-director Cecil B. DeMille was a master of the American biblical epic who shaped the public's perceptions of Judeo-Christianity in his role as Hollywood's Sunday school teacher. Despite his exceptional narrative talents as a sacred storyteller, critics praised or condemned his Bible films according to whether they deemed him a biblical, religious or spiritual filmmaker. But what sort of Scripture filmmaker was DeMille exactly, were the critics' condemnations fair and valid, and what of the DeMille style today? Utilizing humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, a selective review of the critical literature and a reading of CB's biblical oeuvre were performed to address this issue of category confusion. It was concluded that DeMille was primarily a biblical filmmaker, not a religious or spiritual filmmaker, whose scriptural oeuvre was frequently mislabeled and unjustly assessed as a consequence...

Cecil B. DeMille's Greatest Authenticity Lapse?

THE PLAINSMAN (1937): CECIL B. DeMILLE'S GREATEST AUTHENTICITY LAPSE? Cecil B. Demille was a seminal founder of Hollywood whose films were frequently denigrated by critics for lacking historical verisimilitude. For example, Pauline Kael claimed that DeMille had "falsified history more than anybody else" (Reed 1971: 367). Others argued that he never let "historical fact stand in the way of a good yarn" (Hogg 1998: 39) and that "historical authenticity usually took second place to delirious spectacle" (Andrew 1989: 74). Indeed, most "film historians regard De Mille with disdain" (Bowers 1982: 689) and tended to turn away in embarrassment because "De Mille had pretensions of being a historian" (Thomas 1975: 266). Even Cecil's niece Agnes de Mille (1990: 185) diplomatically referred to his approach as "liberal." Dates, sequences, geography, and character bent to his needs." Likewise, James Card (1994: 215) claimed that: "DeMille was famous for using historical fact only..

Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (Part II)

ROBERT WISE'S THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL PART II: KLAATU AS ALIEN MESSIAH AbstractIn Part I, the author had documented how the SF cult classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) was traditionally perceived as a UFO film with Artificial Intelligence (AI), political, police and philosophical dimensions, and arguing that it is best understood as a profoundly religious film. In Part II, the critical literature was revisited and textually-based, humanist film criticism was again utilized as the guiding analytical lens to explicate the subtextual construction of Klaatu as an alien Messiah within an SF Passion picture. It is argued that Klaatu is the Christ-figure of 1950s science fiction cinema. IntroductionIn the Fall 2013 issue of Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media, the author closely examined the classic black-and-white UFO film The Day the Earth Stood Still. He highlighted the film's anti-nuclear political theme, its..