The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897-1927) (Routledge Studies in Religion and Film)

While Jesus has attracted the sporadic interest of film-makers since the epics of the Sixties, it is often forgotten that between the advent of motion pictures in the 1890s and the close of the "silent" era at the end of the 1920s, some of the longest, most expensive and most watched films on both sides of the Atlantic were focused on the Life and Passion of the Christ. Drawing upon rarely seen archival footage and the work of both the era’s most important directors (e.g. Alice Guy, Ferdinand Zecca, Sidney Olcott, D.W. Griffith, Carl Dreyer, and C.B. DeMille) and others who have been all but forgotten, this collection of essays offers a representative survey of the Silents of Jesus, illustrating the ways in which the earliest films and those which followed were influenced by a multiplicity of factors. Written by leading scholars in biblical and early film studies this collection explores the ways in which the Silents of Jesus were shaped not only by the performing and visual arts of the nineteenth century and the technological challenges and opportunities of a new medium and industry, but also by the artistic, theological and ideological predilections of studios and directors, and the expectations of audiences as the genre evolved. Taken together, the essays collected here offer a seminal treatment of the genesis and early evolution of the cinematic Jesus. Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Figures 8 Acknowledgements 12 Introduction: The Silence/Silents of Jesus 14 1 The Passion of Christ: A Form, a Genre, a Discourse 28 2 La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Pathé-Frères, 1902–05): Tableau Variation in the Early Cinema 37 3 La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (Gaumont, 1906): The Gospel According to Alice Guy 73 4 La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Pathé-Frères, 1907): The Preservation and Transformation of Zecca’s Passion 91 5 Sidney Olcott’s From the Manger to the Cross (Kalem, 1912): Out of Egypt and Palestine 111 6 The Star of Bethlehem (Thanhouser, 1912): The Sacred Story from King Herod to the Crib 124 7 The Shadow of Nazareth (Venus Features/Warner Features, 1913): The Hermeneutics of an Unauthorized Adaptation 145 8 La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Pathé-Frères, 1913/14): Pathé’s Inclination to Tell and Maître’s Instinct to Show 171 9 The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) and Intolerance (Triangle/Wark, 1916): Griffith’s Talismanic Jesus 192 10 Christus (Cines, 1916): Italy’s First Religious “Kolossal” by Antamoro and Salvatori 213 11 Der Galiläer (Express-Film, 1921) and I.N.R.I. (Neumann- Film, 1923): The Silence of Jesus in the German Cinema 224 12 Leaves from Satan’s Book (Nordisk, 1921) and Dreyer’s Script Jesus of Nazareth (1950): The Jewishness of Jesus 249 13 The King of Kings (DeMille Pictures, 1927): The Body and the Word on Film 269 Final Reflections: Silence and Spectacle: the Cinematic Jesus from Kirchner to Duvivier 284 Contributors 294 Index 298 "While Jesus has attracted the sporadic interest of film-makers since the epics of the sixties, it is often forgotten that between the advent of motion pictures in the 1890s and the close of the "silent" era at the end of the 1920s, some of the longest, most expensive and most watched films on both sides of the Atlantic were focused on the life and passion of the Christ. Drawing upon rarely seen archival footage and the work of both the era's most important directors (e.g. Alice Guy, Ferdinand Zecca, Sidney Olcott, D.W. Griffith, Carl Dreyer, and C.B. DeMille) and others who have been all but forgotten, this collection of essays offers a representative survey of thesilents of Jesus, illustrating the ways in which the earliest films and those which followed were influenced by a multiplicity of factors. Written by leading scholars in biblical and early film studies this collection explores the ways in which the silents of Jesus were shaped not only by the performing and visual arts of the nineteenth century and the technological challenges and opportunities of a new medium and industry, but also by the artistic, theological and ideological predilections of studios and directors, and the expectations of audiences as the genre evolved. Taken together, the essays collected here offer a seminal treatment of the genesis and early evolution of the cinematic Jesus"--publisher's website. While Jesus has been a star attraction at the cinema since the epics of the 1950s, it is often forgotten that between the advent of motion pictures in the 1890s and the close of the 'silent' era at the end of the 1920s, some of the longest, most expensive, and most popular films on both sides of the Atlantic were focused on the Life and Passion of the Christ. Drawing upon rarely seen archival footage and the work of the era's most important directors, such as Alice Guy, Ferdinand Zecca, Sidney Olcott, D.W. Griffith, and C.B. DeMille, this volume offers a representative survey of the Silents of Jesus, illustrating the ways in which a host of cinematic Saviors not only shaped the cinema, but were shaped by it. Featuring essays written by leading scholars in biblical and early film studies using a variety of approaches, this collection offers a seminal treatment of the genesis and evolution of the cinematic Jesus