The Center on Religion & the Professions at the University of Missouri has over 350 films to lend for free related to religion. Their full catalaog is updated and available here. Too give you a taste of what kind of films they carry, here are the movies starting with A:
- Abel’s Field
- The Abolitionists
- Abraham
- Access Denied: Navigating the Legal Challenges to Newsgathering
- Acting on Faith: Women’s New Religious Activism in America
- Agnes of God
- Amazing Grace
- Amazing Grace with Bill Moyers
- Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvanism
- America at a Crossroads
- American Muslim Teens Talk – Video &; Lessons
- America Revealed
- The Amish Revealed
- The Amish: A People of Preservation
- Anchoress
- Andrei Rublev
- Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century
- Antonia’s Line
- The Apostle
- Arab Labor
- The Asian and Abrahamic Religions: A Divine Encounter in America
The center’s mission statement partially is:
[The Center] works to improve religious literacy among professionals, to help them serve a diverse public. We believe that as America grows more religiously diverse, professionals need to better understand the religious traditions and beliefs of the public they serve.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/04/films-at-the-mu-center-on-religion-the-professions/
There was an interesting conference in March, organized by Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University:
Imaging the Ineffable: Representation and Reality in Religion and Film
The invitation reads:
The paradox of showing what cannot be shown is a perennial issue in the fields of both Religion and Film Studies. In one of the most celebrated passages of Buddhist scripture, for instance, the sage Vimalakirti is asked to expound on the ultimate meaning of the Buddha’s teachings. Famously, Vimalakirti responds with silence, for the Buddha’s teachings are beyond words. In the same vein, the celebrated film critic and theorist Stanley Cavell argued that the unique feature of the filmic medium lies in its ability to show us what isn’t there; that is, to make absence present. This conference focuses on the intersection of religion and film in their aspirations to challenge the limits of signification.
The program includes these viewings:
- The Illuminations of Nathaniel Dorsky:
- The Return (27 min)
- August and After (19 min)
- April (26 min)
- The Old Lady: A Human Document, dir. R. Gardner (3 min 42 s)
- Flight of the Red Balloon, dir. Hou Hsiao Hsien (115 min)
- The Devotional Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky
- Threnody (25 min)
- Alaya (28 min)
- Compline (19 min)
- Healing, dir. R. Gardner (8 min 57 s)
- The House is Black, dir. F. Farrokhzad (20 min)
- Waltz with Bashir, dir. A. Folman (90 min)
Get the full, PDF program from the conferencfe’s webpage.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/04/imaging-the-ineffable-representation-and-reality-in-religion-and-film/
The latest issue of the Journal of Religion & Film is now online: Volume 17, Issue 1 (2013) April 2013 . In addition to the Sundance and Slamdance 2013 reviews, it has additional film reviews, and eight new articles. The articles are:
The film reviews are:
- Shugendo Now by Jonathan Thumas
- Cloud Atlas by Gregory Chad Wilkes
- Beasts of the Southern Wild by Frederick Ruf
- The Dark Knight Rises by Michael McGowan and Riley Endicott
- Holy Motors by Jeremy Biles
- Life of Pi by Chad Bolton
For the Sundance and Slamdance reviews and for the whole journal, go to their page where every single article and review can be downloaded as a PDF.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/04/journal-of-religion-film-volume-17-issue-1-2013-april-2013/
Richard Lindsay ponders on the different theologies of atonement in his entry at Pop Theology on Les Mis and the Doctrine of Atonement. His conclusion:
…the theology of Resurrection fits Jean Valjean’s experience as well. After a few days in the rectory after the bishop’s merciful act, Valjean frees himself from his own guilt by ripping up the parole warrant that has kept him from living fully after his release from prison. He takes on a new identity, and begins a life that is full of (this-worldly) virtue and justice and (other-worldly) love and compassion.
Les Misérables
Set against the backdrop of 19th-century France, Les Misérables tells an enthralling story of broken dreams and unrequited love, passion, sacrifice and redemption—a timeless testament to the survival of the human spirit.
Directed by: Tom Hooper
Produced by: Nicholas Allott
Starring:
Hugh Jackman
Russell Crowe
Anne Hathaway
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/03/atonement-in-les-miserables/
The following six essays were added to the site the last month:
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/03/articles-added-to-the-site-in-february-2013/
Over at Kickstarter there are 10 more days to support a
“project to complete and publish a series of 19 short videos called‘Jesus Myths.’ These videos explore various modern myths about Jesus, and get at the facts behind the myths:
- The myth that Jesus never existed
- The myth that he could not have done miracles
- The myth that we don’t know what the writers of the Gospels originally wrote
- The myth that the stories in the Gospels were made up hundreds of years later by people who did not know anything about the real Jesus
- The myth that the Gospel accounts of Jesus are full of contradictions
- The myth that Jesus was just a prophet, whose followers turned him into the Son of God later”
View full details here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1155859149/jesus-myths-video-series
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/02/fundraising-campaign-for-producing-video-series-on-jesus-myths/
Richard Lindsay, whose Ph.D. dissertation was about “The Camp and the Kerygma: Queer Readings of Hollywood Biblical Epics” wrote an essay “to an event surrounding an exhibit of Father Michael Morris’ biblical film poster collection. The exhibit, called Epic! 100 Years of Film and the Bible, was showing at the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne.” The full essay, titled The Camp and Queer Bible Goes Down Under, is available at PopTheology.com, of which Lindsay is an editor.
A conclusion: “the subversive secret of the queer and camp elements of biblical epics is that they are what make a film seem biblical.”
Read the whole essay at: http://www.poptheology.com/2013/02/camp-and-queer-bible/
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/02/camp-and-queer-elements-of-hollywood-biblical-films/
These ten books were added to the site today:
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/01/books-added-to-the-site-january-28-2013/
These eight books were added to the site today:
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/01/books-added-to-the-site-january-20-2013/
Matt Page at Bible Films Blog made a point that “a great number of noirish elements are to be found in [The Last Temptation of Christ]“. He read several books about the genre and found that
The consensus seems to rest much more readily on aspects such as the use of a weak male anti-hero, who is known to us and through whose eyes we view the events unfold. Thus the audience associates with his viewpoint, in fact often he will be the narrator. Typically there is also a female character present, (femme fatale) but she is less known to the audience and the leading man. He cannot figure her out, yet nevertheless he is drawn to her. Thematically questions of guilt, paranoia and identity are paramount.
Based on this one could agree with him.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.filmandreligion.com/2013/01/does-the-movie-the-last-temptation-of-christ-fit-the-film-noir-genre/