RT Article
T1 The Roles Of Violence in Recent Biblical Cinema: The Passion, Noah, And Exodus: Gods And Kings
JF The journal of religion and film
VO 20
IS 2
SP 1
OP 53
A1 McGeough, Kevin M.
LA English
YR 2016
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1563519712
AB When The Passion was released, its extremely graphic violence horrified critics and scholars of religion although its success at the box office indicates that this, if anything, made the story of Jesus more appealing for viewers. Now that more time has passed and expectations surrounding levels of acceptable violence in cinema have changed, it is worth reconsidering how cinematic violence is used as reception strategy in Biblical cinema. Considering The Passion with more recent Biblical films, Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings, it becomes apparent that violence is not only used to expand laconic Biblical narratives but to invest them with a sense of verism, to situate the stories in either specifically historical or generally mythological time, to elicit audience sympathy, to remake Biblical characters into figures of heroic masculinity, and to harmonize Biblical story-telling with cinematic genre conventions. Viewing violence from a genre perspective, this article explores how considering instances of cinematic violence as light or heavy helps to better understand the complexities of the roles violence plays in adapting Biblical stories for the screen.
K1 film violence
K1 Biblical cinema
K1 The passion of the Christ
K1 Noah
K1 Exodus: Gods and Kings