Film and Religion

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Introduction: Film and ReligionAuthor(s): Daniel J. LeabSource: Film History, Vol. 14, No. 2, Film and Religion (2002), pp. 119-120Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815614 .

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FilmHistory,Volume14, pp. 119-120, 2002. Copyright JohnISSN:0892-2160. PrintednM

Introduction:F i l m a n d religionDaniel . LeabW hat is religion? What is faith? These are

questionsthathave intrigued nd plaguedhumanbeings since the days of the Crea-tion.Thequest for an understandable ndcomprehensivespiritualbelief can be said to lie atthe core of theeffortsofmen andwomen o dealwiththecomplexityf life.Andunderstandablyuchques-tions have piquedthe interestsof filmmakersworldwide ever since the earliestdays of cinema.Duringhe past 125yearsor so all theworld'sreligionshave foundtheirwayon to cinema andTVscreens.Thehope thata moving magewouldswayits viewers has for decades been an inspirationorthose who wished to proselytise,and forthose whohopedto earn a profitromcatering o the beliefs ofothers. Such a dualityhas resulted n manyof theworld'sreligionsmakingtheirway on to the largescreen and thesmall,amongthemBuddhism, slam,Shintoism,ChristianityndJudaism.Therehave also been reverentialocumenta-ries such as Altars f the Worlda fascinating1976attemptat comparativereligionundertakenby thepacifistactorLewAyres), nd variousdenominationshave supportedindependentproductions uch asthe awardwinning ilmMartinLuther1953, under-takenbythe noteddocumentaryilmmaker ouisDeRochementat the behest of the Lutheranhurch).Thedomination f the Westernentertainmentmedia has meant hatChristianityn allits formshasprobablygottenthe largestplay.In1897, justaftercommercial film presentationbegan, the infantFrench inemapresenteda series ofmovingpicturesabout the lifeof Jesus, and such movies became astapleof the nascentfilm ndustry. henextyear,forexample,ThomasEdisoninthe UnitedStates pre-sented whatpurportedo be a versionof thePassionPlayat Obergammau.Otherearlyexamplesof theChrist tory ncludeItalian nd British ersions.Notwithstandinghe effortsof the European

cinemas (various talian roductions lso had enor-mous impact in the years beforethe outbreakofWorldWarI in 1914),Americanmoviesdominatedthepresentation freligionncinema ormuchofthe20thcentury.Often hese filmsserved as an excuseforthe depiction notonlyof faith but also ofsex,sin andviolence,as inthe case ofdirector-producerCecilB. De Mille.As withmanyof the otherbiblicalstorieshe andotherHollywoodmoviemakerswouldfilmKingofKings De Mille'spectacular1927filmon the lifeof Christ packaged(in he words of onecritic)pietywithvulgarity'. ollywoodminedboth heOld Testamentand the New in its search forstorymaterial.Andthe Good Book has a lot to offer(allofwhich is in the public domain),includingextremeviolence,rape, incest and murder.The resultof allthisfilming angesfrom he nearblasphemous o aponderous reverence,fromextremelyeconomicalGradeC productionswhichexcessivelyutilise tockfootage forcrowd scenes (e.g. the embarassinglyinferior 953 Sins of Jezebel) to big budgetsuper-spectacle productions,such as the variousfilmsinvolvinghe storyof Christ.These often had prob-lems: the inferior 961 remakeof Kingof Kingsbe-cause of its panderingto the youth marketwasdubbedbyone wag 'IWas a Teen-AgeJesus'.

DanielJ. Leab s Professor fHistoryt SetonHallUniversity,ndeditor fthejournal merican om-munistHistory.His most recent book is / WasaCommuistorthe F.B.I.: he UnhappyLifeand Timesof MattCvetic.Hisarticle ngoodandevil nIngmarBergman'sCold Warmoviesappearedinthe Sum-mer2002issueof theHistoricalounalof Film,Radio,andTV.Hewasajudgeatthe ourth2001)ReligionToday'[email protected]


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Daniel J. Thatother avenues existed for treatmentofJesus Christhas been demonstratedby the Italianfilm ndustry verthe decades. Itseffortsrange romthe biblical pectacular, uch as the 1912and 1914filmings ftheepicnovelQuoVadis,o the intelligentand moving1964 // VanageloSecondo Matteo re-

leased inthe US as TheGospel According o SaintMatthew).Andthen therearethe deliberatelymoreirreverantfforts uch as MontyPython'sLife f Brian(1979), about the youthbornin the stable nexttoJesus - this film has been aptlydescribed as 'anoutrageousparodyof Hollywood'seligious ilms'.Subsequent films have in theirtreatmentofreligion,aithand beliefattempteda levelof sophis-tication hat(whateverhe national inemainvolved)has notprovedveryviablecommercially,egardlessof the critical reaction. The biblicalspectacularseems to have run ts course and an adequate re-placementhas not been found,albeit hereare fromtime otimeefforts ike he 1987GermanilmHimmelUeberBerlin(Wingsof Desire),an intriguingtoryabouta pairofangels wandering round ontempo-raryBerlin.And in the 1970s pop operas such asGodspell and Jesus ChristSuperstardid have amomentarympact.Overall, he the multi-part Vseries treatingreligionpast or presentand geared to an interna-tionalaudience (e.g. the 1975 attemptat depictingthe lifeof Moses and starringBurtLancaster)havealso provedcriticallynd commercially nsuccess-ful. A pleasing exceptionis the fine 1990s US TVseries Touchedby an Angel.Whatever he aim inrecentyearsof those who dealwithreligion nd themoving mage, theydo not seem able to reach themorejadedcontemporaryudience.Thisissue deals with he treatment f religionby various filmmakersand societies at differentpointsin time.Theapproach s not uniform nd thearticles epresentdiverseviewson avariety f issues.MariaElenade las Carreras-Kuntzeals in somedetailwitha particularlyatholicvisionof fourwell-knownHollywood irectors,discussing how thatvi-sion can be found in certain of their films.GretaAustin s concernedwithmoderndaymovieviews ofthe MiddleAges and raises a numberof questionsabout how that view is formed.SallyShafto dealsmore specificallywithcertainkindsof religious m-

agery n heworksof twogiftedcontemporaryfilmartists,and queries how the resulting mframethe concept of theirwork.WilliamLaFturndealswithequallygiftedartists though heless well known n the West),and discussesworkin termsof religiousviews. ChristineMcomments on ProfessorLaFleur's onclusionprovidesherowninsights.SheldonHalldescridetailhow hesales pitch ora biblicalpectacuframed,a difficultask inanyevent,butas he poutmade even moreso bytheattempt o seemcommercial.DavidR.Williams escribesrespoto maintainSunday closings in England n ligcommercial and other pressures. Stephen Bmore races thecareerofone ofthe firstminismake use of the new medium,while KevinLprovidesbackground nd context o a rareanportant1910 'disquisition' n religionand thema, also reprintednthisissue.Do these articles answer the questiwhetherthe moving image does have a spdimension?Youwillbe thejudgeof that.Indeethe moving mage have such a vision?Youtohaveto be the judgeof that.Admittedly,tis dito come to a conclusion nthispost-modern,mconscious world, n whichtechnologyseemsdeveloping aster han he speed of light.Wharemain eryclear, however, s that he impactmbyPope LeoXIIIn1897 as a resultof the worlddistributionf movingpicturesof him(andinwhe consciouslywaved at a film amera) s inimReligion, aith,belief and spirituality adifficult ime in our world,East or West, NoSouth.Theyshouldnot,since mostpeople, itseto me, reallydo wantto believe insomethingissue deals withaspects of the response of twho have dealtwithreligionntermsof the mimage in variousways. Whateverhe futureomedia's treatmentof religion, his issue dealssome particular isions of the historyof thebetweenreligion ndfilm.This ntroductionraws nmyessayaboutReligitheCinema'whichwaswrittenor heyear2000loguefor the thirdReligion oday', n Italianifestival ealingwith inematic iewsoffaith.Daniel J. Leab

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Film and Religion