Tag: Film
As the movie opens today (January 9) in theaters around the country amidst controversy over its portrayal of former president Lyndon Johnson, we speak with director Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo, the actor who portrays Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., about what it means to them to tell the story of the historic 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. More
“A Franciscan told me once, ‘Don’t keep track of the score. The score will take care of itself.’” Writer James Lee Burke’s best-selling crime novels are full of biblical imagery, messianic language, the influences of his Roman Catholic boyhood, and a longing for redemption. Originally broadcast October 11, 2013 More
A new National Geographic film about Jerusalem attempts to transcend the city’s reputation for conflict with sweeping imagery and personal stories of why the city is so loved. “Jerusalem to me is more than a city.” says Farah Ammouri, a young Muslim woman featured in the film. “Its beauty, its spirit, also my religion–but most importantly, it’s my family.” More
Hollywood is releasing several stories from the Bible this year, to varying reactions. “We’re talking about sacred characters and sacred stories,” says San Diego State University history professor Edward Blum, “and so it’s not just Noah on screen talking to some powerful force. It’s Noah talking to God.” More
“To treat [Noah’s Ark] as something that’s not poetic and mythical is a mistake….we have goodness and wickedness inside of us, and we have a second chance now to take care of creation and each other. That’s a beautiful, poetic, inspiring idea to learn from and to inspire us to do better.” More
“We made [Son of God] for this generation [so] that the teenagers would watch it. It’s a story of our time. It’s the story of our God, and we wanted to make it as well as we could.” More
“Hollywood, I think, approaches the Bible as public domain, as something that is owned by the culture at large, and they have discovered that some segments of the Christian community look at it as private property.” More
A movie based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery, portrays the complex relationships between slaves, slaveowners, abolitionists, and religion. More
“It’s about remembering and never forgetting and understanding from the past and embracing your past in order to go forward into the future.” More
Watch excerpts from our interview with Yolanda Pierce, associate professor of African-American religion and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, as she talks about the new movie “12 Years a Slave” and about Christianity and slavery in America. More