Close Encounters between Bible and Film: An Interdisciplinary Engagement eds. by Laura Copier and Caroline Vander Stichele

Abstract

Reviewed by: Close Encounters between Bible and Film: An Interdisciplinary Engagement eds. by Laura Copier and Caroline Vander Stichele Philippa Carter laura copier and caroline vander stichele (eds.), Close Encounters between Bible and Film: An Interdisciplinary Engagement (SBLSS 87; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016). Pp. viii + 333. Paper $48.95. This collection of essays offers an excellent survey of interdisciplinary approaches to the Bible and film, illustrating how the field has moved beyond "the study of the narrative and themes of a film" (p. 1) into a field "where rich and diverse methodological approaches have deepened the reading, analysis, and understanding of the multiple encounters between Bible and film" (p. 2). The volume provides concrete examples of analysis that are genuinely interdisciplinary and outlines techniques to achieve such an approach. Following an introduction by the two editors and George Aichele's piece, "Film Theory and Biblical Studies," the contributions are divided into three sections. Part 1, "Film Technique as Interpretive Lens," includes Larry J. Kreitzer, "The Obtrusive Glimpse: Alfred Hitchcock and the Naked Young Man (Mark 14:51-52)"; Richard Walsh, "On the Harmony of the (Asocial) Gospel: Intolerance's Crosscut Stories"; and Reinhold Zwick, "Reading Biblical Stories with Cinematic Eyes: A Methodological Approach from the Perspective of Transmedial Narratology." Part 2, "Close Encounters between Texts and Films," comprises Michelle Fletcher, "'Behold, I'll Be Back': Terminator, the Book of Revelation and the Power of the Past"; David Shepherd, "'David's Anger Was Greatly Kindled': Melodrama, the Silent Cinema, and the Books of Samuel"; Laura Copier and Caroline Vander Stichele, "Death and Disaster: 2012 Meets Noah"; Tarja Laine's "Religion as Environmental Ethics: Darren Aronofsky's Noah." The volume concludes with part 3, "Interdisciplinary Conversations," containing Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, "Controversial Mary: Religious Motifs and Conflicting Receptions of Godard's Je vous salue, Marie"; Robert Paul Seesengood, "A World of Feeling: The Affect of Lars von Trier and/as Biblical Apocalyptic"; Jeffrey L. Staley's "Martin Scorsese's Aviator as Theological Complement to His Last Temptation of Christ"; Matthew S. Rindge, "Lusting after Lester's Lolita: Perpetuating and Resisting the Male Gaze in American Beauty"; Abigail Pelham, "Objects and the 'Extended Self': The Construction of Identity in Moonrise Kingdom and the Tabernacle Narratives"; and Jeremy Punt, "The Odds Are Ever in the Empire's Favor: Postcolonial Subject Positioning in The Hunger Games." Anyone interested in the encounter between Bible and film could pick a contribution at random and find enlightening treatments of the topic, but the opening essay by Aichele is especially useful in outlining how such an encounter should be understood. Aichele insists on the importance of semiotics when studying the Bible and film together. His other points—"film is not Bible and Bible is not film" (p. 14); "there is no privileged member in the [End Page 180] film–Bible relationship" (p. 17); "film is not film any more, or at least it is not only film" (p. 19; emphasis his); and today not only film but the Bible is commodified for mass production and consumption—address critical issues in the field. Aichele is characteristically candid regarding the weaknesses of much of the joint study of film and Bible in the past. His point that the privileging of the biblical text—primarily due to the historical concerns of biblical studies as a field—must end if such joint study is to advance resonates. Scholars "must stop privileging history, which serves as a screen—a smoke screen, not a movie screen—behind which the older text that is the Bible is regarded as an original in relation to which the film must be secondary and derivative" (p. 18). Beyond Aichele's contribution, each section rewards the reader with a variety of approaches. Kreitzer's piece in the first section explores how consideration of Hitchcock's famous anonymous cameos in most of his films can inform our understanding of Mark 14:51-52. Both the cameos and the enigmatic verses may well share four features: identification with the intended audience, retention of authorial anonymity, the establishment of a point of narrative transition, and a comic element. Zwick advocates reading biblical narrative with "cinematic eyes." In his treatment of the transfiguration episode in...