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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Biblical Boogeymen, Holy Ghosts, And The New Demonology: A Review Of Three Recent Books On Religion And Horror, Brian Collins
Biblical Boogeymen, Holy Ghosts, And The New Demonology: A Review Of Three Recent Books On Religion And Horror, Brian Collins
Journal of Religion & Film
This is a book review essay on three books: Brandon R. Grafius, Reading the Bible with Horror (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); Brandon R. Grafius and John Morehead, eds., Theology and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination (Fortress Academic/Lexington, 2021); and Steve A. Wiggins, Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons (Fortress Academic/Lexington, 2020).
Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev And Philosophical Progression, Graham C. Goff
Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev And Philosophical Progression, Graham C. Goff
Journal of Religion & Film
The allegory of Leviathan, the biblical serpent of the seas, has undergone numerous distinct and even antithetical conceptions since its origin in the book of Job. Most prominently, Leviathan was the namesake of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 political treatise and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film of the same name, a damning indictment of Russian corruption. These three iterations underscore the societal transition from the recognition of power as being derived from God to the secularization of power in Hobbes’s philosophy, to the negation of the legitimacy of divine and secular institutional power, in Zvyagintsev’s controversial film. This examination of Leviathan’s three unique …
Gender, Race, And Religion In An African Enlightenment, Jonathan D. Lyonhart
Gender, Race, And Religion In An African Enlightenment, Jonathan D. Lyonhart
Journal of Religion & Film
Black Panther (2018) not only heralded a new future for representation in big-budget films but also gave an alternative vision of the past, one which recasts the Enlightenment within an African context. By going through its technological enlightenment in isolation from Western ideals and dominance, Wakanda opens a space for reflecting on alternate ways progress can—and still might—unfold. More specifically, this alternative history creates room for reimagining how modernity—with its myriad social, scientific, and religious paradigm shifts—could have negotiated questions of race, and, in turn, how race could have informed and redirected some of the lesser impulses of modernity. Similar …
Reframing The Sacred: Valkyrie And The Basis Of Resistance, William S. Skiles
Reframing The Sacred: Valkyrie And The Basis Of Resistance, William S. Skiles
Journal of Religion & Film
The film Valkyrie (2008) is a thriller that explores the religious basis of the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in the last year of the Second World War. While the political motivations are clearly stated in exposition and dialogue, the religious motivations are shown through a series of images, symbols, and dramatic uses of the word “sacred” (heilig and its derivatives). The filmmakers focus on Colonel von Stauffenberg’s struggle against the Nazi conception of the sacred, revealing his Christian sense of the sacred as a basis for his resistance. The religious elements in the film provide …
Frederick Wiseman's Essene (1972): The Duality Of Mary And Martha, Nilita Vachani
Frederick Wiseman's Essene (1972): The Duality Of Mary And Martha, Nilita Vachani
Journal of Religion & Film
America’s legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman shot Essene 50 years ago at the height of the commune movement in the United States. Unlike his previous institutional films which showcase an insane asylum, a public high school, an inner city police force, a hospital, and a military training school, Essene's canvas is the far less turbulent terrain of a serene and austere Benedictine monastery devoted to the love and service of God and the divine spirit. This paper undertakes a close textual and hermeneutic analysis of Essene alongside an appraisal of Wiseman’s working methodology, his cinematic portrayals of character and dramaturgy, …
Revising Mary Queen Of Scots: From Protestant Persecution To Patriarchal Struggle, Jennifer M. Desilva, Emily K. Mcguire
Revising Mary Queen Of Scots: From Protestant Persecution To Patriarchal Struggle, Jennifer M. Desilva, Emily K. Mcguire
Journal of Religion & Film
Since Mary Queen of Scots’ execution in 1587, she has become a symbol of Scottish identity, failed female leadership, and Catholic martyrdom. Throughout the twentieth century, Mary was regularly depicted on screen (Ford, 1936; Froelich, 1940; Jarrott, 1971) as a thrice-wed Catholic queen, unable to rule her country due to her feminine nature and Catholic roots. However, with the rise of third wave feminism and postfeminism in media, coupled with the increased influence of female directors and writers, Mary’s characterization has shifted from portraying female/emotional weakness and religious sacrifice to female/collaborative strength in hardship and a struggle against patriarchal prejudice. …
No Riddle But Time: Historical Consciousness In Two Islamicate Films, David Sander
No Riddle But Time: Historical Consciousness In Two Islamicate Films, David Sander
Journal of Religion & Film
This article explores ways in which film expresses “internal history” in the context of Muslim cultures. As such, it enquires how film can work as both Islamic art and historical contemplation. The films discussed here, Nacer Khemir’s Wanderers in the Desert and Muhammad Rasoulof’s Iron Island, inhabit and explore the borderline between imagination and reality. The films in question offer an imaginal interspace between “modern” and “traditional” worlds. As such they open up critical perspectives on the meaning of history. What follows is a discussion of how each film offers a window onto differing perceptions of time, and what …
Depictions Of Catholic And Protestant Bodies In Elizabeth (Dir. Kapur, 1998), Jennifer M. Desilva, Alison R. Orewiler
Depictions Of Catholic And Protestant Bodies In Elizabeth (Dir. Kapur, 1998), Jennifer M. Desilva, Alison R. Orewiler
Journal of Religion & Film
This article uses the film Elizabeth (dir. Kapur, 1998) as a portal for understanding the interstices between modern and early modern conceptions of religion as it is read on the body. Elizabeth examines the period of religious and political unrest immediately before and after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), compressing the late 1550s through the early 1570s into a comprehensive statement on the relationship between the body, heresy, and corruption. This article investigates how lower body activities and functions, like dancing, sex, and defecation, were linked in both the film and early modern minds to immorality, corruption, …
Verdens Undergang (1916) And The Birth Of Apocalyptic Film: Antecedents And Causative Forces, Wynn Gerald Hamonic
Verdens Undergang (1916) And The Birth Of Apocalyptic Film: Antecedents And Causative Forces, Wynn Gerald Hamonic
Journal of Religion & Film
This essay describes the antecedents and causative forces giving rise to the birth of apocalyptic cinema in the early 20th Century and the first apocalyptic feature, Verdens Undergang (1916). Apocalyptic cinema's roots can be traced back to apocalyptic literary tradition beginning 200 BCE, New Testament apocalyptic writings, the rise of premillenialism in the mid-19th Century, 19th century apocalyptic fiction, a growing distrust in human self-determination, escalating wars and tragedies from 1880 to 1912 reaching a larger audience through a burgeoning press, horrors and disillusionment caused by the First World War, a growing belief in a dystopian future, and changes in …
Dr. King And The Image Of God: A Theology Of Voting Rights In Ava Duvernay's Selma, Marcos Norris
Dr. King And The Image Of God: A Theology Of Voting Rights In Ava Duvernay's Selma, Marcos Norris
Journal of Religion & Film
This article argues that Ava DuVernay’s 2014 film Selma develops a theology of voting rights by staging a conflict between President Lyndon B. Johnson and political activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Though many reviewers fault the film for its besmirching portrayal of LBJ, DuVernay’s (mis)representations of Johnson establish a link between the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and King’s theological anthropology. In King’s view, mankind was created in the image of God, endowed with free will and the capacity to reason. The denial of Black voting rights, while literally depriving African Americans of their political agency, also represented the disavowal …
The Movie Mogul, Moses And Muslims: Islamic Elements In Cecil B. Demille’S The Ten Commandments (1956), Michael D. Calabria Ofm
The Movie Mogul, Moses And Muslims: Islamic Elements In Cecil B. Demille’S The Ten Commandments (1956), Michael D. Calabria Ofm
Journal of Religion & Film
Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, has come to define the genre of the biblical epic. It has earned a permanent place in American culture due to its annual airing on television during the Easter and Passover holidays. Most viewers are unaware, however, that DeMille had sought to make a film that would appeal to Jews, Christians and Muslims at a time when their common Abrahamic ancestry had yet to be articulated, and interreligious dialogue was all but unheard of. To this end, Henry Noerdlinger, DeMille’s researcher for the film, consulted the Qur’an, and screenwriters incorporated Islamic …
An Evil Threat To Marriage, Children And The Future: Queer Theory, "The Passion Of The Christ," And Evangelical Political Rhetoric, Richard Wolff
An Evil Threat To Marriage, Children And The Future: Queer Theory, "The Passion Of The Christ," And Evangelical Political Rhetoric, Richard Wolff
Journal of Religion & Film
This article employs queer theory to analyze Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ (2004) for its portrayal of queer characters (Satan and Herod) in contrast with non-queer (Pilate and Claudia, Seraphia, Simon the Cyrene, and Mary, Christ’s mother), and how it depicts the former as evil and the latter as good. In particular, these contrasts involve self-indulgent or predatory sexual expression versus a healthy marital relationship, and evil versus loving influences over children, who represent hope for the future. Finally, the article looks at the film’s heavy marketing to American evangelicals and how the symbolic representations in the …
With An Eye On A Set Of New Eyes: Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Kette Thomas
With An Eye On A Set Of New Eyes: Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Kette Thomas
Journal of Religion & Film
This article focuses on how, Beasts of the Southern Wild, represents both divergence and transgression from paradigmatic structures that determine how certain visual representations are to be used. Specifically, the cinematic detours taken by the filmmakers, Lucy Alibar and Behn Zeitlin, do not lead to alien places for most viewers; on the contrary, ancient myths, legends, heroes and prehistoric references are recalled in total isolation from current social and political discourse. In this way, Beasts of the Southern Wild, effectively, highlights mythological structures operating in contemporary American society. Mircea Eliade, Roger Caillois and G.S. Kirk define mythology as a …
The Transformation Of The Pope: The Agony And The Ecstasy (1965) And The Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Jennifer Mara Desilva
The Transformation Of The Pope: The Agony And The Ecstasy (1965) And The Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Jennifer Mara Desilva
Journal of Religion & Film
In 1965 the film The Agony and The Ecstasy (dir. Carol Reed) presented Renaissance artistic culture, Catholic iconography, and the papal court in Rome to a popular, broad, and non-denominational audience. Based on the novel by Irving Stone (1961), the narrative follows Michelangelo and Pope Julius II through the decoration of the Sistine chapel ceiling (1508-12), outlining a relationship between the two protagonists that suggests some spiritual equality. In the same way that the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) strove for spiritual renewal and an emphasis on the wonder of humankind’s relationship with God, The Agony and The Ecstasy portrays the …