The Religious Film

How plausible is it to examine the medium of film through a Christian lens? Are there any grounds for supposing that, in 'going to the movies', one is participating in a religious activity? Faith in Film identifies and explores these key questions. From the unprecedented and innovative perspective of Christian theology, this book investigates how cinema audiences wrestle with religious beliefs and values. Through a reading of films as diverse as Groundhog Day, Billy Liar, Fight Club, Nobody's Fool and The Passion of the Christ, Deacy reveals that the movies raise vital questions about the spiritual landscape and normative values of western society today.

Religion and cinema share a capacity for world making, ritualizing, mythologizing, and creating sacred time and space. Through cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing, and other production activities, film takes the world “out there” and refashions it. Religion achieves similar ends by setting apart particular objects and periods of time, telling stories, and gathering people together for communal actions and concentrated focus. The result of both cinema and religious practice is a re-created world: a world of fantasy, a world of ideology, a world we long to live in, or a world we wish to avoid at all costs. Religion and Film introduces readers to both religious studies and film studies by focusing on the formal similarities between cinema and religious practices and on the ways they each re-create the world. Explorations of film show how the cinematic experience relies on similar aesthetic devices on which religious rituals have long relied: sight, sound, the taste of food, the body, and communal experience. Meanwhile, a deeper understanding of the aesthetic nature of religious rituals can alter our understanding of film production. Utilizing terminology and theoretical insights from the study of religion as well as the study of film, Religion and Film shows that by paying attention to the ways films are constructed, we can shed new light on the ways religious myths and rituals are constructed and vice versa. This thoroughly revised and expanded new edition is designed to appeal to the needs of courses in religion as well as film departments. In addition to two new chapters, this edition has been restructured into three distinct sections that offer students and instructors theories and methods for thinking about cinema in ways that more fully connect film studies with religious studies.

The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film brings together a lively and experienced team of contributors to investigate the ways in which this exciting discipline is developing.

The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film brings together a lively and experienced team of contributors to investigate the ways in which this exciting discipline is developing.

From The Gospel According to Matthew to Jesus ChristSuperstar, from The Passion of Joan of Arc to TheLast Temptation of Christ and Jesus of Montreal, TheReligious Film captures the glory, gore, and centrality of thisimportant genre. A short, accessible introduction to religious film, exploringthe genre as spectacle, as musical, and as controversy Examines the historical, cultural and critical background forreligious films from the silent era through to the presentday Introduces the complexities and characteristics of this iconicgenre of film, including common sounds and images, and the valuesthat most traditional films of this kind uphold

"... offers a range of approaches to cinema's explorations of a hidden or absent God through a group of essays by thirty-five writers who discuss some fifty movies"--p. 11.

This multiauthor book concentrates on themes and images of religion in film. It features analysis of some of the most important directors in the twentieth century, includiing Coppola, Chaplin, Hitchcock, and Truffaut, among others.

Contributors from richly diverse backgrounds explore a wide range of current issues concerning the interrelationship of religion and film.