This is a feature because you can whistle the title. If you’re Simon Le Bon. That's how it began. But it also began a year ago with 100 or so God-type movies to get through. I've seen little else. Everyone loves lists and so... Gods on Film. A list. There are many lists and many celluloid Gods because Gods, after all, even depicted allegorically or as an offscreen presence, often offer far too much temptation to our filmmakers armed with an E.D. Hirsch-like precept of Cultural Literacy - wafer thin but a mile wide. It can be fascinating to see how filmmakers have approached the depiction or allegorical representation of God throughout cinema history. Here are 12 movies that feature God to a greater or lesser extent, including some allegorical renderings to get you going down a path that has a promise righteousness.
- The Ten Commandments (Paramount Pictures, 1956)
The Biblical Epic of all times. Director Cecil B. DeMille’s divine interventions are as much a part of cultural history now as the literal biblical truth. Although he plays Moses, people quickly realised that the 1956 Charlton Heston was a God. Later the NRA loving Heston fell from the graces of some of the devoted. Oh, and the Ten Commandments, at a shade over 3 hours and 40 minutes, runs for an eternity. - Dogma (Lions Gate, 1999)
An outsiders tale of the dogma of Catholic faith, infallibility intertwined with the fates of two fallen saints. For safety’s sake, some broadly labelled the movie Kevin Smith’s satire, as if it owned its own category so as not to be confused with actual satire provided by the hegemoronic global film establishment. Spoiler! There’s no Morgan Freeman as God here. Here, God is portrayed by Alanis Morissette, who in 1999, to many was a deity. (Back in theatres June 25th) - The Brand New Testament (Terra Incognita Films, 2015)
Directed by Jaco Van Dormael and starring amongst others Catherine Deneuve. God is alive and well, although grumpy and sadistically abusive, which might be to some extent explained by his living in an apartment in Belgium. God has a wife, a daughter and son, Jesus - a statue in the apartment. Van Dormael is a Cannes award winning surrealist. Grumpy Gods do not do good. - The Robe (1953, Twentieth Century Fox)
Screen God Richard Burton as Centurion Marcellus Gallio in the worlds first ever widescreen Cinemascope release, ‘The Modern Miracle You Can See Without Glasses’ 20th C. Fox’s marketing folks emblazoned on the poster. Jesus is dead in the movie but Burton is haunted by his actions as part of the team assigned to kill Him. Historically accurate epic? Luckily Burton encounters the power of Christ’s scriptures and converts, ha! redemption. Unfortunately the redemptive power of His Word didn’t last and by 1963 Pope Pius XVIII’s Vatican mouthpiece, L'Osservatore Romano, condemned Burton, together with Elizabeth Taylor for their ‘erotic vagrancy’. These days I think we would all welcome a little erotic vagrancy ourselves. But such is the power of the papacy this possibly launched Burton into a dangerous downwards alcoholic spiral. Almost no part of this is apocryphal. - The Last Temptation of Christ (Universal Pictures, 1988)
Martin Scorsese, but you didn’t need me to tell you that. The Vatican weighed in, not fans. That there could be human emotions and inner conflict ascribed to Jesus led to an attempted massive boycott of Universal Pictures. Let's check how that’s that going, ah by 2024, Universal song and dance witch movie Wicked with perhaps the most openly gay cast of prominent actors, writers and everything else made nearly a billion dollars at the box office. - Jesus Christ Superstar (Universal Pictures, 1973)
The movie of the fabled rock opera is merely a footnote to the Jesus Christ Superstar saga and as such surely an updated, recast, reimagined, rebooted drill version would do well. Originally dismissed by would be financial backers as the ‘worst idea of all time’. I know those words too well, they hurt. The soundtrack LP to the stage musical was banned by the bastion of free speech, the BBC, as sacrilegious (probably just on grounds of good taste in all actuality) but redeemed itself as a best-selling US album of 1971. The movie was released in 1973 to mixed reviews and I suppose it could be noted that the authors of several of the less positive reviews are now most likely deceased. Goad's awesome power or what? - The Shack (Summit Entertainment, 2017)
Black Female Gods. Oh no. Or politely Octavia Spencer’s Papa isn’t sepulchural enough for the earthly appointed Lords. Too warm, touchy, feely. Octavia is no Jim Caviezel. The anthropomorphization of the mystical trinity. No way. Distraught and destroyed people turning to God in a Shack, in their need, an oversimplification. There is the thing with the Jesus character being depicted by an apparently middle eastern man. Bishop Robert Barron from The Word on Fire weighed in and worried that there was love, love, love and not so much of the hard yards required to get it from God. There’s always someone ready to option a best selling novel and take a decade to turn it into a mixed bag. - The Mission (Goldcrest, 1986)
The MIssion is number one in the Church Times list of religious movies, and also features in the non hierarchical Vatican Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Some Important Films list. It won an obscure Oscar (guess which, it is fun to try, I mean who knew?) and won the Palme d'Or on its debut at Cannes. Heroic flawed missionaries, what's not to love. Robert De Niro as a barely reconstructed, redeemed Jesuit ultimately punching above his weight. Jeremy Irons, sensitive missionary. Throw in Ennio Morricone’s score, which received wisdom declares the greatest and as you see, and hear, there’s a lot of God-like genius at work here. Wow! A worthy 125 minutes. - E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Universal Pictures,1982)
If you see Michelangelo in the poster and that gets you out to the movie theatre this Sunday I am all for it. Disciples, death, resurrection… You might know that narrative! - Life of Brian (Handmade, 1979)
I’ve limited this list to 12 entries (apostles, tribes of israel, god movies in outsideleft). There are many many thousands more notables of course, the list could conceivably go on for an eternity but this is merely your purgatory. Heaven waits and no list should be totally without a stab at humour in the top 10 and the British Monty Python lot take on religious fervor for messianic figures and well whisper it, there might be a mistaken identity of the divine. - Godspell (Columbia Pictures, 1973)
A musical based on the Gospel of Matthew, with Jesus as a contemporary charismatic in New York City. Alarming for the totemic omission of a resurrection. Maybe like they ran out of budget but since it is so difficult to sit through to the end, not many people will know that and so you're probably gonna to colour that part in for yourself on the bus home anyway. - The Gospel According to Matthew (Arco Films, 1964)
In choosing The Gospel According to Matthew, director Pier Paolo Pasolini reportedly said, "John was too mystical, Mark too vulgar, and Luke too sentimental." Radically depicting Jesus as a peasant, and hewing closer to the Gospel (of Matthew) than most of God's movies do, Marxist Pasolini took a cast of unknowns through the greatest story of all time. The incredible musical means you get to hear Billie Holliday and Bach in the same movie. Unlike so many others this can be filed under neorealism, humanity, revolutionary social messaging some other filmmakers may have omitted.
nb: I realise that the omission of Mickey Rourke's Saint Francis of Assisi (Francesco) and Rutger Hauer's portrayal of redemption-seeking Andreas Kartak in The Legend of the Holy Drinker, two absolute personal faves, may constitute an egregious, possibly cardinal sin. But...Oh well.
The morning we published this, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had died. Maybe the most progressive Pope, if that is not an oxymoron. We'll see in a while. It's relative. We don't know what's coming. Who the bookies favourite is. In the UK you can bet on anything. Papal watchers and conspiracy theorists may note that JD Vance was one of the last people to see Pope Francis alive. They have history. Is there a Vance/losing the will to live correlation?
Essential Information
If you’re a reader and not a watcher, begin here and work backwards, "Film and Faith: Modern Cinema and the Struggle to Believe" edited by R. Michael Allen, Christopher R. Brewer, and Micah J. Watson; and "Celluloid Saints: Images of Sanctity in Film" by Nancy C. Stokes. Two good places to start.
Next time: Satan on the Big Screen.
