Films of Faith List Discussion + Suggestions (Genre Project)

[domino harvey]

I think it's fine here. As list captain, I'm not sure where the line should be drawn and am not familiar with the animes under discussion. People should (continue to) make compelling arguments one way or the other and I will make a decision re: eligibility

[Michael Kerpan]

shrew -- you have yet to address the issue of the significant degree of cohesiveness and structure apparent (to me, and many others not present here) in Haibane Renmei.

[domino harvey]

I've looked into this and my ruling is: Haibane Renmei counts as a miniseries and is eligible for this list. The original 26 episode run of Evangelion is a trickier ruling. While the serialization argument is flawed (what's to stop me from voting for the 100-episode Fringe using the same logic?), there appears to be evidence that the series was intended to be single-run and self-contained within a single season of programming which aired within the normal perimeters for a single season of TV (October through March of concurrent years) and was not canceled or had its run shortened prematurely by external/studio forces and therefore I will side with it being eligible for this list as a miniseries and it can receive a total of one vote for the entirety of the 26-episode miniseries. The subsequent films will each need to be voted for separately if you should desire they be represented on your list. I will judge future potential inclusions of contestable nature on a case by case basis, so ask before assuming if you want to be clear on a limited run series' eligibility as a "miniseries"

[zedz]

Now probably isn't the time to say that I watched Haibane Renmei after it got a number of recommendations on this forum and I found it pretty mediocre. The basic premise is by far the most interesting thing about it, but I found the execution (cliched characterizations, crappy animation quality) drab.

[YnEoS]

I don't know what a solid dividing line between miniseries and a single season TV shows would be, but Evangelion feels undeniably like a TV show rather than a mini-series to me. Even if it has features of a good TV series like character development and a larger story arc that develops each episode, the whole "monster of the week" structure reminds me of hundreds of different longer running TV shows but very few long films or mini-series I've seen.


(That said as a separate issue, I'd generally be in favor of completed TV shows being eligible for a vote in film lists if the only option was to vote for the whole entire series for its value as a continuous piece of storytelling, or some separate list project specifically for completed TV shows. Especially now that we're seeing the emergence elaborately plotted long running series like Game of Thrones that feel way more like cohesive storylines to me than some of the self contained single season anime series.)

[Michael Kerpan]

Now probably isn't the time to say that I watched Haibane Renmei after it got a number of recommendations on this forum and I found it pretty mediocre. The basic premise is by far the most interesting thing about it, but I found the execution (cliched characterizations, crappy animation quality) drab.

Sorry to hear this. ;~{

There were a few lapses in animation -- clearly some bits and pieces were farmed out to operations that didn't do quite as well as the average.

[bamwc2]

Here's a hastily thrown together list of films that I's give various levels of endorsements. I broke them down by faith, but not everything clearly fits in one category. Some have still been uncomfortably jammed in anyway. In many cases the religion is not central to the film. Also, no offense is meant by "other"; I'm just too lazy to break everything down.

The Afterlife
Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus, 1959)
Cabin in the Sky (Vincente Minnelli, 1943)
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé, 2010)
Heaven Can Wait (Ernst Lubitsch, 1943)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Alexander Hall, 1941)
Hereafter (Clint Eastwood, 2010)
Liliom (Frank Brozage, 1930)
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

Ancient World
Cabiria(Giovanni Pastrone, 1914)
Clash of the Titans (Desmond Davis, 1981)
Electra, My Love (Miklós Jancsó, 1974)
The Eyes of the Mummy (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918)
Fellini-Satyricon (Federico Fellini, 1969)
Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
Land of the Pharaohs (Howard Hawks, 1956)
The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932)

Buddhism
The Book of the Dead (Kihachiro Kawamoto, 2005)
The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa, 1956)
A Chinese Ghost Story (Siu-Tung Ching, 1987)
Heaven and Earth (Oliver Stone, 1993)
Jigoku (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1960)
Kundun (Martin Scorsese, 1997)
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
Onibaba (Kaneto Shindô, 1964)
Sex and Zen (Michael Mak, 1991)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…Spring (Kim Ki-Duk, 2003)
Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
Warriors of the Magic Mountain (Tsui Hark, 1983)
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (Yong-Kyun Bae, 1989)

Christianity
The Advocate (Leslie Megahy, 1993)
Age of the Earth (Glauber Rocha, 1980)
Agony (Elem Klimov, 1975)
Anchoress (Chris Newby, 1993)
Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947)
Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938)
The Agony and the Ecstasy (Carol Reed, 1965)
Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
The Apostle (Robert Duvall, 1997)
au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Au Revoir Les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987)
Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
Behind Convent Walls (Walerian Borowczyk, 1975)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925)
Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959)
The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915)
The Bishop's Wife (Henry Koster, 1947)
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra, 1933)
Black Narcissus (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
Blaise Pascal (Robert Rossellini, 1972)
Breaking the Waves (Lars Von Trier, 1996)
Brother Orchid (Lloyd Bacon, 1940)
A Brutal Game (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1983)
The Canterbury Tales (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1972)
The Cardinal (Otto Preminger, 1964)
Citizen Ruth (Alexander Payne, 1996)
Civilization (Reginald Barker, et al., 1916)
The Crusades (Cecil B. DeMille, 1935)
Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943)
Dead Man Walking (Tim Robbins, 1995)
The Decalogue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1989)
The Decameron (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1970)
The Devils (Ken Russell, 1970)
The Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)
Essene (Frederick Wiseman, 1972)
Frailty (Bill Paxton, 2001)
Friendly Persuasion (William Wyler, 1956)
The Garden of Allah (Richard Boleslawski, 1936)
God's Angry Man (Werner Herzog, 1980)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
Hail Mary (Jean-Luc Godard, 1985)
Hallelujah (King Vidor, 1929)
The Hawks and the Sparrows (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1966)
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (John Huston, 1957)
Hell House (George Ratliff, 2001)
Hypocrites(Lois Weber, 1915)
I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953)
In the Name of the Pope King (Luigi Magni, 1977)
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (Mark Robson, 1958)
The Island (Pavel Lungin, 2006)
Jesus Camp (Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, 2006)
Jesus Christ Superstar (Norman Jewison, 1973)
Joan the Woman (Cecil B. DeMille, 1917)
Judge Priest (John Ford, 1934)
The King of Kings (Cecil B. DeMille, 1927)
King of Kings (Nicholas Ray, 1961)
Lake of Fire (Tony Kaye, 2005)
The Last Supper (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1976)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)
Léon Morin, Priest (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961)
Lourdes (Jessica Hausner, 2009)
Lucrezia Borgia (Abel Gance, 1935)
Marcelino Pan y Vino (Ladislao Vajda, 1955)
Marketa Lazarová (Frantisek Vlácil,1967)
Les Miserables (Raymond Bernard, 1934)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1975)
My Night of Maud's (Eric Rohmer, 1969)
Nazarin (Luis Buñuel, 1959)
Noah's Ark (Michael Curtiz, 1928)
Only the Young (Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet, 2012)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985)
The Parson's Widow (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1920)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
Perceval (Eric Rohmer, 1978)
Rain (Lewis Milestone, 1932)
Rome: Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1959)
The Ruling Class (Peter Medak, 1972)
The Saga of Gosta Berling (Mauritz Stiller, 1924)
Salesman (Albert Maysles, et al.)
Salome(Charles Bryant, 1922)
Salomè (Carmelo Bene, 1972)
The Saragossa Manuscript (Wojciech Has, 1965)
The Scarlet Letter (Victor Sjöström, 1926)
Scarlet Letter (Wim Wenders, 1973)
Sebastiane (Derek Jarman, 1976)
Secret Sunshine (Chang-dong Lee, 2010)
Seven (David Fincher, 1995)
Shadows (Tom Forman, 1922)
Sign of the Cross (Cecil B. DeMille, 1932)
Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel, 1965)
Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine (Sergio Grieco, 1974)
Song of Bernadette (Henry King, 1944)
Stars in My Crown (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1923)
The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956)
Teorema (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968)
Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)
Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson, 1962)
Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman,1960)
We're No Angels (Michael Curtiz, 1955)
What's the Matter with Kansas? (Joe Winston, 2009)
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
Wings of Honneamise (Hiroyuki Yamaga, 1987)
Wise Blood (John Huston, 1979)
Witness (Peter Weir, 1985)
A Year of the Quiet Sun (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1984)

The Devil Made Me Do It!
The Blood on Satan’s Claw (Piers Haggard, 1970)
Carnival of Sinners (Maurice Tourneur, 1943)
Curse of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957)
The Devil and Daniel Webster (William Dieterle, 1941)
The Devil's Envoys (Marcel Carne, 1942)
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926)
Haxan (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)
Leaves from Satan's Book (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1920)
Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
The Sentinel (Michael Winner, 1977)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943)
The Student of Prague (Stellan Rye and Paul Wegener, 1913)
Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (Liam Lynch, 2006)
To the Devil a Daughter (Peter Sykes, 1976)
Under Satan's Sun (Maurice Pialat, 1987)

Hinduism
Calcutta (Louis Malle, 1969)
Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982)
The Indian Tomb I & II (Joe May, 1921)
The River (Jean Renoir, 1951)

Islam
The Arabian Nights (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974)
El Cid(Anthony Mann, 1961)
The Day I Became a Woman (Marzieh Makhmalbaf, 2012)
Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (Omar Amiralay, 1976)
Field Diary (Amos Gitai, 1982)
Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992)
Marriage of the Blessed (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1989)
The Message (Moustapha Akkad, 1976)
Moolaade (Ousmane Sembene, 2004)
Passage to India (David Lean, 1984)
Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, 2007)
Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Gini Reticker, 2008)
West Beirut (Ziad Doueiri, 1998)

Judaism
Der Golem (Carl Boese and Paul Wegener, 1920)
Europa, Europa (Agnieszka Holland, 1990)
Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947)
Kapo (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1960)
The Passenger (Andrezj Munk and Witold Lesiewicz, 1963)
The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1964)
Pi (Darren Aronofsky,1998)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
Romeo, Juliet, and Darkness (Jirí Weiss, 1960)
Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
The Sessions (Ben Lewin, 2012)
Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)
The Shop on Main Street (Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, 1965)
Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008)

Nonbelief
Constantine’s Sword (Oren Jacoby, 2007)
The Devil, Probably (Robert Bresson, 1977)
Inherit the Wind (Stanley Kramer, 1960)
The Milky Way (Luis Bunuel, 1969)
Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979)
Religulous (Larry Charles, 2008)
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

Other
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk, 2001)
Ballad of Narayama (Shohei Imamura, 1983)
God Told Me To (Larry Cohen, 1976)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (Jamie Uys, 1980)
The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973)
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1973)
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2012)
Kirikou and the Sorceress (Michel Ocelot, 1998)
The Lair of the White Worm (Ken Russell, 1988)
The Last Wave (Peter Weir, 1977)
Magnificent Obsession (John M. Stahl, 1935)
Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk, 1954)
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin, 2011)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
Night of the Eagle (Sidney Hayers, 1962)
Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012)
Q: The Winged Serpent (Larry Cohen, 1982)
Santa Sangre (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)
Season of the Witch (George A. Romero, 1973)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov, 1965)
Space is the Place (John Coney, 1974)
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, 2011)
A Taxing Woman’s Return (Juzo Itami, 1988)
Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002)
The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)
Yeelen (Souleymane Cisse, 1987)

Shinto
God of Cookery (Stephen Chow and Lik-Chi Lee, 1996)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1985)
Pom Poko (Isao Takahata, 1994)
Profound Desire of the Gods (Shohei Imamura, 1968)
Silence (Masahiro Shinoda, 1970)
The Sun (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2005)

[Ashirg]

Another title to add for consideration - Aleksei Fedorchenko's Silent Souls (Ovsyanki) (2010)

[Numero Trois]

I realize the film is more than a little problematic, but Marc Connelly & William Keighley's The Green Pastures (1936) should be added to the Christianity list.

Ismaël Ferroukhi's Le Grand Voyage (2004) would be a solid addition to the Islam list. A road trip to Mecca with a pious father and a secular son who gradually reach some sort of understanding. One of the better films from the Film Movement series.

And of course sooner or later someone's going to mention Herzog's outstanding Wheel of Time. Or how about Michael Tolkin's The Rapture, which I never did get around to seeing.

[domino harvey]

Bamwc2's list is of his own personal recommendations, which he split into denominations for ease of browsing. It is not meant to be definitive. There's no separate masterlist of eligible or recommended films, though I encourage you and anyone else to throw out as many recs as you can defend so we all get a rounded perspective of the genre

[bamwc2]

Tois, Domino's right about my list. Unfortunately, I haven' seen the first three films that you mention, but I did forget to include Michael Tolkin's wonderful The Rapture.

Fans of The Dead Kennedys might also be interested in the recently rediscovered (after being stolen more than twenty years ago!) film by lead singer Jello Biafra profiles a California UFO cult.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/jell ... age_found1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[domino harvey]

All Mine to Give (Allen Reisner 1957) For eighty minutes or so this is an interminable melodrama concerning pioneer immigrants in 19th midcentury Wisconsin who face next to no dramatic elements as they face the rather feeble obstacles of the new land. Then the parents die and the film turns into a bizarrely dispiriting endeavor wherein the six orphaned children left behind in the wake are found new homes by the oldest son, who is all of twelve years old. This is considered a Christmas movie because the boy rightly figures that families would be more sympathetic to doing a good deed on Christmas day. So now that holiday's ruined.

Barabbas (Richard Fleischer 1961) Peculiar epic concerning a fictional offshoot of a throwaway line in the Bible, wherein a no-account thief named Barabbas is freed over Jesus Christ by vote of the people. Anthony Quinn plays the titular character, and his lout makes the lifelong journey to accepting Christ via an intriguingly serpentine path. This is a strange film and one I liked more and more as it proceeded through the yellow hell of a sulfur mine (where an unbelievable twenty years of the film's narrative is spent) and finally arriving in one of the better filmic gladiator set-ups. This act of the film is helped immensely by Jack Palance's maniacal performance as the reigning victor of the battles who has already been granted freedom three times from the emperor yet keeps coming back for more kills. Palance doesn't do much more than run around with wild eyes and his mouth gaping open, but it's enough! Quinn and Palance are both actors who mostly bring a lumbering presence to a film rather than actorly acumen and both are well-used by the film. This is a better movie than I expected (especially in the wake of other fictional Bible offshoots like the Robe) and gets a solid recommendation.

the Horn Blows at Midnight (Raoul Walsh 1945) Lackluster and mostly laugh-free fantasy outing featuring Jack Benny as a radio musician who dreams an elaborate fantasy wherein he is an angel sent down to Heaven to blow the trumpet that will end life on Earth as we know it. It's a strained premise and the film complicates it needlessly to no great help. In the film's corner, however, are two outrageous set pieces involving the dangling of multiple people over the edge of a skyscraper-- the first such sequence wrings every possible manner of humor out of the situation imaginable and then proceeds to completely top itself in the finale. It's not enough to recommend sitting through the other seventy minutes, but I was duly impressed all the same.

Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski 2014) As ever, I'm fashionably late to the love fest but this is a strong film with solid performances and some smart use of dead-space and static shots. In the spirit of the film, I'll leave it at that.

Ten Thousand Points of Light (George King 1991) Short documentary from British filmmaker King covering the last year of a Georgia family's infamous Christmas House, an open display housing thousands of lights and tacky Christmas decorations inside and out, along with a fair share of Elvis memorabilia (as in the words of the matriarch, "I'm not comparing Elvis to Jesus, but he was a good man"). The real appeal of this shot-on-VHS doc is the colorful family members, who are eccentric and verbose in a fashion all too familiar to those from the South, and there are many nice chuckles to be had in response to some of their off the cuff remarks. My favorite family member is definitely the Captain D's-working granddaughter who volunteers copious personal details with little apparent prompting and who has the funniest line in the film in response to why one Elvis-adorned bedroom is dubbed "the Fantasy Room": "Elvis was a sexy man-- at least, that's the personal opinion of the family." This is a cute film, one that doesn't mock its subjects but presents them as-is.

[bamwc2]

I've agonized over what to spotlight in this genre for a few weeks now. Since most of the films that I suspect I'll include in my top ten are relatively well known, I think that I'll pick Maurice Tourneur's La main du diable, a visually gorgeous story of a failed artist who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for success. This retelling of Faust doesn't add much new to the story, but does get everything right, with a strong central performance from Pierre Fresnay and the sort of immaculately composed compositions that Tourneur was so skilled at crafting. This one is available on Hulu, so no excuses on passing it up, guys.

[Mr Sausage]

I've agonized over what to spotlight in this genre for a few weeks now. Since most of the films that I suspect I'll include in my top ten are relatively well known, I think that I'll pick Maurice Tourneur's La main du diable, a visually gorgeous story of a failed artist who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for success. This retelling of Faust doesn't add much new to the story, but does get everything right, with a strong central performance from Pierre Fresnay and the sort of immaculately composed compositions that Tourneur was so skilled at crafting. This one is available on Hulu, so no excuses on passing it up, guys.

Seconded. A really good variation on this kind of story with an off-kilter visual style. It makes a great companion film with The Queen of Spades and Der Student von Prag, two films that share a lot of superficial similarities and are, in their own ways, just as excellent.

[bamwc2]

Sausage, thanks for the recommendations. I've only seen the 1913 version of The Student of Prague and am not familiar with The Queen of Spades. I'll be sure to check it out along with the The Student of Prague remakes.

[swo17]

Yeah, Sausage's recs are great (as is the Tourneur film). The Robison was actually one of my spotlights during the horror project.

[sinemadelisikiz]

Where was all this love for La main du diable during the horror project?!

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Devil in Miss Jones (Gerard Damiano, 1973): Georgina Splevin stars as Justine Jones, an "immaculate soul" who inexplicably commits suicide one day. Upon arriving in Hell she's informed by Abaca, a member of middle management, that she's committed the one unforgivable sin, and thus can't ever enter Heaven. However, Abaca feels that she hasn't truly earned her place in perdition, and grants the virginal Jones one opportunity to sin with impunity. She chooses an education in lust that begins with instructions from a demonic Harry Reems and progresses to lesbianism and threesomes, before she's damned with a rather witty eternal punishment. Color me impressed by the film's first act. In my estimation Damiano showed almost no talent in his more famous Deep Throat, but actually manages to construct some very well put together scenes early on (especially with the suicide and subsequent discussion with Abaca). Damiano even does a good job acting in the film's final scene as Jone's low libido cell-mate. Speaking of good acting, Spelvin's performance transcends the usual limitations of porn acting, but the film does have some major problems. The sex scenes dag on waaaay too long, and (especially in the enema and near-bestiality scenes) contain some very unsexy moments. Still, for porn this is remarkably good.

The Devil's Playground (Fred Schepisi, 1976): I'm tempted to call this Aussie gem "Young Törless with lots of cocks", but that would be a disservice to this thoughtful look at the anxiety caused by doctrinaire commitment to Catholic purity. Simon Burke stars as the pubescent Tom Allen, a faithful member of the boarding school run by a group of brothers, some of whom are struggling with the same attractions as the boys. The fathers there stick to a strict Platonic conception of the superiority of the mind of the body, and unleash sermons on the children under their care that would make Jonathan Edwards blush. Of course this leads to all sorts of problems with the boys, from repressed sexuality to flagellation to suicide attempts. Part of what makes this film so wonderful is the fact that their is a diversity of the priests. They're treated as real people with real struggles. Some of them preach hellfire, while some of them practice agape. It's also a visually beautiful film, showcasing talent that we don't see often from Schepisi subsequent works. It's a strong candidate for my final list.

God's Comedy (João César Monteiro, 1995): Writer/director João César Monteiro stars as the lecherous religious fanatic João de Deus. Or at least João is a letch who uses the veneer of religion to lure young, faithful, beautiful women under his wing where he subjects them to bizarre sexual (and often nude) ritual to purify them and set them on the path toward heaven. Of course,it doesn't hurt that these activities also allow him to collect stray pubic hairs to add to his scrapbook...of pubic hair. One entry allegedly even belongs to Queen Victoria! Is João just an elderly pervert or does he really have high minded spiritual intentions? The film is ambiguous between the two possilities, but watching the depravity unfold onscreen can be fairly entertaining.

Gone to Earth (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1950): Although it may not be P & P's better known work, this entertaining tale of a Gypsy woman who follows God's signs to decide her love life. Jennifer Jones plays Hazel Woodus, a good natured, but superstitious woman who finds herself torn between the attractions of a boring parson who her father promised her to (played by Cyril Cusack) and a violent, but passionate nobleman played by Archer's regular David Farrar. The film leaves open the question of whether the signs that Hazel receives are really from God, but does go on to explore issues surrounding sacrifice and religious hypocrisy. It's not a great film, but even middling entries from P & P stand miles above most other films.

The White Sister (Henry King, 1923): D.W. Griffith's muse Lilian Gish co-stars with Ronald Colman as a pair of young lover's who secretly marry against their parent's wishes. Immediately after the ceremony he receives orders that place him in a remote Army outpost. After his contingent gets wiped out, the local paper falsely reports him as having died as well. Instead, he spends several years in captivity before escaping and returning home. There he finds that his bride has joined a convent after seeing a painting that her father made of her wearing a habit. Enraged that she won't return to him, he kidnaps her and holds her against her will. Then the movie gets even weirder, but I won't spoil it. The film doesn't work a convincing melodrama, but does contain some entertainingly surreal moments. It's enough for a very mild recommendation.

[knives]

Abraham
I haven't seen this series in nearly twenty years and felt it was basically the right time to revisit assuming the worst given the television status and McKee presence on this first entry. The film does manage to come out ahead though mostly thanks to a ridiculously overqualified cast particularly Gottfried John's Eliezer who gives a positively contemporaneous performance that bristles even in stillness.

Going back to the two worries they seem to come together rather smartly cancelling out much of the negative by themselves they suggest. Presumably on account of the television McKee focuses on Sara's story despite the name. This shifts the religious context of the story from the expected spectacle too (and certainly Abraham's story has a lot of spectacle to it) to an interior look at religion more based on why someone would change ideology and how developing it is shaped by events that go on in life, with again Sara being the main post of themes. McKee doesn't overcome some awkward translation problems (the big scene with Harris and Schell is garbled as hell) when building on this, but overall isn't too ridiculous. McKee's biggest failing is with the episodic plotting which probably played better in a television context, but in a single sit down feels overstuffed in a fashion reducing the narrative importance of events. The inclusion of the Talmudic stuff at the beginning is especially odd in this regard for it ruins a particularly great use of in media res. Still the episodes are tied together well by theme so it's not for not.

I also want to say a fair word to Sargent's direction which was what inspired this rewatching in the first place. Maybe it is because of the Italian locations, but Sargent plays with the realism of the setting in often fascinating ways. There's some embarrassment of the magical elements which I don't like, but the near erasing of it gives a sudden Pasolini push to those acts that remain. The final Sodom incident is the most clear act of this but all throughout Sargent's need for a rational presentation allows the film to feel connected to the everyday (or at least an ancient everyday). It's a smart tactic I hope the rest in the series hold onto.

Jacob
Poor Isaac, getting ignored totally with this. I'm sure somebody would have appreciated the stopping up of the wells. As to the film itself it's definitely downgraded from Sargent's Abraham. The film ratchets up the drama way too much making the events seem trite because they're consistently overreactions. One thing that's interesting, at least compared to the previous film, is the casual way they take Abraham's reality and meld it to the characters' lives. Then again it also seems more comfortable just letting the weird stuff take over with all the magical acts being straightforwardly presented like in a Discworld novel. Of course all of this is underminded by the pedestrian direction and sleepy performances. Really only Sean Bean makes an impression and he's hardly in the film and seems to only function as a serial killer when in it. There's a few points where the script tries to flesh them out into a more modern style of characterization, but it feels perfunctory leaving me the sense that these stories would be better adapted with a more impressionistic style.

Joseph
This early in the game and I've already exhausted myself with these bible adaptations. This was just an entirely miserable and overlong experience which teases to the idea it will have some unique ideas by leaving Potiphar as the main character before pulling a bait and switch to a more generic adaptation espousing in a stale fashion the supposed virtues of monotheism which are something? I'm not sure as the film is frustratingly broad. The one benefit the film has going for it is the pair of Landau and Kingsley who individually are featured in most of the scenes and are a joy to watch act even in something this middling. Really the approach to the Tamar story says everything. It's totally useless in terms of the story being told, but they keep it in because it was there in the book. Yet they chop it up until it makes no sense presumably for all the child death or the controversial reasoning. That just leaves the question of why keep it in at all.

The Song of Bernadette
This is a far more quiet film than I remembered even as I remain at a distance from it. Part of that, I feel, is the length which is damn exhaustive especially for a film so much based in sadness. Jones is a rather thankful performer for that. She may lay on the childish naivety a bit too thick for me, but it also relieves the abuse she experiences by the townsfolk before and after the miracle. I was also pleased at the surprise of Vincent Price who I forgot was here in a role so typical of him for the period. It's nothing significant, especially in light of Jones and her film family, but works, again, very well to lighten the load.

I also find it fairly interesting that while the text of the film buys into the miracle entirely King's direction seems to more strongly believe that it is all make believe enacted by a mad girl. Usually this sort of disagreement doesn't work, but I found it to add a good layer of complexity to the film. Price and the other men (which I suppose also brings forth some fascinating gender politics in the film) are given credence as rationalists leaving some validity to their points while the women don't need the rationality. It's perhaps not a unique take on the material (it's practically identical to The Devils in terms of the how of the exploration), but it is still pretty good.

Anna and Elisabeth
If I did not know any better I would assume this was by Dreyer. It even fits within his cinema like a logical pause between Vampyr and Day of Wrath, though the story itself works like a second act answer to Ordet's miracle which winds up being a loathsome burden. A bit like star crossed lovers the relationship that the title characters is obvious from the time that all of the pieces have been set going forward, but they're so at odds in their needs that this obviousness succeeds in giving the story a necessary gothic sadness. The film was also unexpectedly hilarious working in some Life of Brian gags years before with the exaggerations the community takes and everything with the priest.

[Michael Kerpan]

Anna and Elizabeth? Where did you run across this?

[swo17]

It's my spotlight title, and it's only available through backchannels.

[Numero Trois]

or right here:

https://archive.org/details/AnnaUndElis ... sterydrama" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Harakiri (Fritz Lang, 1919): Long thought to be lost, Lang's early adaptation of David Belasco's Madame Butterfly tells the story of O-Take-San (Lil Dagover) a daughter of a powerful 19th century feudal lord who bares the bastard child of a visiting Swedish merchant Niels Prien (Olaf J. Anderson). As we all know by now the film is a tragedy, with Prien's aloofness eventually driving O-Take-San to commit the titular act. The film fits in the category of 'religious' films since it features a vindictive monk vying for the lead's romantic interest, and explores the norms and mores of Buddhist culture. I was a bit worried about the 'yellow face' going in since the entire cast is composed of Germans, but bracketing this institutional limitation faced by Lang its a pretty darn good adaptation. The sets are all gorgeously put together, and Dagover does a terrific job expressing the pain and loss of her character.

Miracle in Milan (Vittorio De Sica, 1951): Nestled in-between 1948's Bicycle Thieves and 1952's Umberto D., I went into this viewing expecting another heart wrenching tragedy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every scene here is alive with a comedic love of life from writer Cesare Zavattini. Francesco Golisano stars as the infectiously optimistic Totò. As a boy Totò was abandoned in a cabbage patch, only to be found by the loving La vecchia Lolotta (Emma Gramatica) who raises him until the time of her death. We next see Totò as a young man leaving an orphanage, but no less cheery. His only possessions--carried in a tattered leather attache--are soon stolen by a hobo. Instead of reacting violently like most would, Totò treats the man with kindness and compassion, earning him a spot in his squatter's camp. Soon Totò has turned the camp into a vibrant community living in their tin shacks, when the sudden discovery of oil on the land leads to local capitalist Mobbi (Guglielmo Barnabò) using the police to try and forcefully evict the residents. What happens next is nothing short of a miracle, as Lolotta's spirit descends from Heaven to give Totò a dove that will make every one of his wishes come true. This movie is sooooooo good, and much of the credit falls squarely in the lap of Golisano who gives just about a perfect performance. Expect to see it rank high on my list.

The Scoundrel (Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, 1935): Playwright Noel Coward stars in his first talkie, playing Anthony Mallare, a cutthroat book publisher who never hesitates to stomp on the little guy to make a few extra dollars. Mallare spends his days lounging with London sophisticates, reveling in their ability to put others down with the wittiest insults while sipping their cocktails. Martha Sleeper plays Julia Vivian, the only kind character in the film. She's a poet who penetrates Mallare's armor, exposing brief moments of humanity in him, and yet he always retreats back to his old self. One day his plane crashes, killing Mallare. When he reaches heaven, St. Peter gives Coward's character a chance at redemption in the form of a month back on Earth to see if anyone there would cry for his death. But with a life spent hurting people, can he find anyone to mourn his passing? I have to say that I was quite pleasantly surprised by this film. It's not exactly a flashy film by the writer/directors, but Coward turns out to be a pretty great actor! Looking over his imdb page, it seems that he was in handful of films (mainly the ones that he wrote) where I didn't recognize him. It's a shame since his performance is pretty darn fantastic.

Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor, 2013): In the last genre project I watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier with the justification that it met the minimum requirements for a war film. I guess that I can claim the same here with the Thor sequel, but I really just want to get caught upon all of the Marvel films that I've missed. Well, the characters are Norse gods, which has oddly been changed to ultra-powerful mortal extraterrestrials (presumably not to offend middle-America). Here Thor (Chris Hemsworth) begins the film trying to clean up the mess left by his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) during the first film and The Avengers. After Loki's imprisonment...a lot of confusing stuff happens with a dark elf long thought dead. Oh, and Natalie Portman is in this as Thor's love interest. And Stellan Skarsgård is here too. He's naked, but I think that by this point it's just weird to see him with clothes on.

To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2012): So the critical consensus here and elsewhere seems to be that Malick's latest, while still being an acceptable film, is also his worst (which is strangely enough exactly how I'd describe Days of Heaven). Count me in the minority here, since I think that this is a great film. Since I'm probably the last member of the forum to see this, I won't bother with a recap, but will say that there were moments here of unparalleled beauty. I'm currently living away from my family for a job, and the early scenes where Neil, Marina, and Tatiana play together in their home captured my heart in a way that I can't even describe. Everything is gorgeous here. Every shot--even in mundane settings like Sonic or a grocery store--felt like masterpieces unto themselves.

[bamwc2]

Oh, and I forgot to ask. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to teach The Bhagavad Gita and other elements of Hinduism in my World Religions course. This left me wondering whether The Legend of Bagger Vance could actually be worth seeing. I wanted to check out some more explicitly Hindu themed films, and aside from Devi, I'm drawing a blank.

[Shrew]

The Legend of Bagger Vance is pretty awful, or at least it was when I was 14. I had never heard of it having anything to do with Hinduism (but I guess there's a book about it?). The plot sounds superficially similar (a powerful being takes a humble guise to help a man get over his war trauma), but really, no. Maybe there's something Hindu in there, but to me it was all mushy new age self-help stuff and awkward golf metaphors. If there is a religious underpinning, at 14 I felt it was clearly Christian, and the film strongly suggested that Bagger Vance was some kind of angel (he shows up to usher the Saving Private Ryan-framing device to the afterlife). I am sorry if I spoiled the end of Bagger Vance for anyone. WAIT NO I'M NOT.

Also, FYI to US people, it looks like Criterion is streaming some of their religious films on Hulu for free at the moment. Are they watching us?