Religion in Films

I think the best way to increase a film's box-office pull, especially in the first few weeks, is to get the Catholic church or Protestant fundamentalists to ban it. Then it gets discussed in all the TV and radio talk shows, it becomes controversial, which then makes it more interesting, high school and colege students will go see it because of the buzz or just to thumb their noses at authority. If I were a producer, I'd love for someone to throw me into that briar patch! It doesn't last, especially after a few screenings prove it really wasn't as "bad" as opponents had painted it. The picketings fall off, the buzz goes down, people lose interest. Look how religious authorities bad-mouthed Jesus Christ, Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ. Now both play on cable TV.

how about demons in films? i think religion plays a role there too

I love the classic Night of the Demon but despite of the use of runes to magically summon the demon, there is no connection with any religion in that film--I don't think that subject is even mentioned. There's little or no mention of religion in any of the many versions I've seen of Dr. Jeckal and Mr. Hyde, but the story is a great comment on the duality of the human soul and the need to choose good over evil.

Or even better, an entire country...like Monty Python's Life of Brian, famously marketed in Sweden as 'The Film so funny they banned it in Norway'.

Wow! And I always think of the Scandinavian countries in terms of their pagan Viking ancestors, although of course Christianity did spread quickly through that region.

I thought they banned The Life of Brian in Norway because of the opening credits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail bastardizing Swedish and using it to insult Norwegians.

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I think it's a bad idea when religious groups try to ban movies because of whatever religious aspects they have running through them. If you don't like it - don't watch it.
Protesting it will always make it more popular.

It was rediculous when people claimed the Harry Potter movies were condoning witchcraft and satanism. Yes, I'm sure witchcraft was an evil thing caused by the devil way back in the dark ages but today it's really just a kid with magical super-powers, at least to me and I was raised Catholic as an altar boy when I was a kid.

Now, I don't go to church as often as my family would like and I've never seen Passion of the Christ but I do feel uncomfortable when I see Christianity portrayed in a negative light as some movies tend to do. It does seem sometimes (and this is just a personal observation, maybe I'm wrong) that only Christianity can be touched if someone wants to tear down a religion just to make an entertaining story. People don't dare trash Jewish faith (unless it's about Nazis) or even Muslum faith. They won't even show a picture of Muhammad. Yet The DaVinci Code (loved the movie, by the way) will turn Catholicism on its head.
I recently saw The Man From Earth and loved the movie but I was extremely uncomfortable with a certain religious revelation that was brought up in the movie (if any of you have seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about). I still thought it was a great movie and am glad that I saw it. Everything up to that point I was all for when the ancient man told his tale but after that part was told I felt alot like one of the characters he told it to who refused to accept it. This actually made it a better movie to me because it stirred up emotions from me as a viewer as if I actually believed his story too.

Basicly, with the whole 'religion in movies' idea, as long as all religions are treated fairly it doesn't bother me. When it's not, it makes me wonder if the writer himself has a problem with that particular religion.

Then again, it's only a movie.

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I'll go with the Davinci Code!!! It devastate all the Religions when it was release.........

Life of Brian was banned for years in Ireland. We're great at stuff like that.

The Passion of St Tibulus is still banned on most of the island.

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I liked Angels In America's portrayal of religion because not only did it deal with Christianity but the Mormon religion and Judaism. It was fantastic

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How about The Last Temptation of Christ? IMO, it is blasphemous. But of course, we have varied thinking.

Personally I'm in the camp that says religion in movies doesn't tend to quite follow the same ebb and flow you see with other genres, you just see it pop up in different ways. It can be discussed within the context of a horror movie, through outright religious films, to laugh out loud comedies. This creates a bubble around the subject, making it fair game at any time.. as an example of the range of genres think about these (some of which have already been mentioned):

The Omen
The Exorcist
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Stigmata
The Seventh Sign
The Passion of the Christ
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Ten Commandments
Jesus Christ Superstar
Dogma
Bruce Almighty
Monty Python and the Holy Grail


...the list can go on and on with most all the genres being covered, and across the history of film, but the point being that its not like the ups and downs you see in things like disaster movies...

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I had cause to watch Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (made by one of those Christian funded entertainment companies) in the company of someone who's a Michael Biehn completist . One of those so bad they're funny films.

I just happened to be at someone's house when it was on....we wound up Mystery Science Theater-ing it, which made it palatable.

BTW...is that your pooch you sport for your avatar?

Try to watch ElizabethI. Its not all about her life but also the war against the Prostestants and the Roman Catholics. I also do like the Passion of Christ and everytime i watched it makes me realize how my life would be without Jesus dying for us.

Very interesting comment Elizabeth I. Passion of Christ is a film that after watching you will remember. But i wonder if you feel that after hearing about what Mel Gibson said when he was drunk to the cops has changed your interpretation of it??

I know you didn't ask that question of me, but I'd like to answer anyway, as it feels like a good question to ask in general...

I did see the movie in the theater when it came out, and for a little more background, I grew up Roman Catholic, so it does have some meaning to me in that way, not just as being a movie. I remember the uproar by some about the Jews in the film being portrayed badly, that there is some antisemitism in that part of it. After seeing it, I saw nothing more than what I read within the Bible while growing up... basically that the Jewish elders were threatened by Jesus and wanted him gone for good, and they thought the best way was to have the Romans take care of it. The movie seemed to pretty much portray what I remember from the Bible. So, whatever Gibson's personal motivations may or may not have been, I still, to this day, don't see the movie in any different light. If you want to call the portrayal of the actions of the Jews in the film as antisemitic, then, in my mind, that is saying that the Bible is being that way, not Gibson.

edit: just to be clear though... I'm not saying that anyone here is specifically calling the Bible antisemitic, just that, as I see it, the film was following the Bible in this part, pretty close...

yep it's the younger one of my two

On the subject of Passion of the Christ, I did go to see it and thought it was purely a film for the passionate Christian and not anyone else. It was Mel Gibson's personal film preaching to the converted, it wasn't for secular film goers. Here's why - in the UK at least there are no religious education classes in the sense that there were when I was a kid - ie teaching Christianity. If RE is taught it's on a world faith basis that is you learn a little about all faiths and not much in depth stuff. So now you have a whole couple of generations of people growing up who know no bible stories and aren't familiar with the characters involved or the significance of them. In the Passion of the Christ there was no background or attempt to explain any of the characters, you were just meant to know who they were, so any depth to the story was lost to a lot of people, which even as a non-believer I thought was a shame, and for a lot of those people it just turned into a film that dwelt on pain.

Dang! I thought Paparazzi was his personal film!

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Sweet. Beautiful dog. We have an 11.5 year-old sable GSD. She's battling severe hip dysplasia though.

Here's a pic of the two of us kickin' back....