Jesus, the Gospels, and Cinematic Imagination: A Handbook to Jesus on DVD - Softcover

Staley, Jeffrey L.; Walsh, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0664230318 ISBN 13: 9780664230319

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007

Synopsis

Movies about the life of Jesus continue to be a fascinating way to consider how the Gospels present an image and a narrative of Jesus. In Jesus, the Gospels, and Cinematic Imagination, Jeffrey Staley and Richard Walsh use their biblical knowledge and admiration for films to summarize eighteen popular Jesus movies and to show exactly where each movie parallels the Gospel accounts of Jesus's life. The authors provide teachers and students easy access to both Gospel and film parallels, enhancing the value of these select films as teaching tools and useful resources for pastors, those leading discussions of films, and libraries.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeffrey L. Staley has published widely in New Testament studies and film. His additional essays on film and Bible can be found at: independent.academia.edu/JeffreyStaley

Review:

Phil Groom. Christian Book Reviews (May 2008)

Whether you're a film buff, a Jesus Scholar or simply curious about the ways in which film-makers -- and Hollywood in particular -- have interpreted and reinterpreted the Jesus story, you have to love this book! Don't be misled by the cover or the subtitle, however: this is a book, not a DVD, and there is no accompanying DVD or CD-ROM. This absence is the book's one weakness: it is virtually crying out for a cover disc featuring at least some key movie clips.Staley and Walsh teach New Testament studies and, as they explain in their preface, this book has grown out of their experience of using Jesus films in both their teaching and their research. The book's main purpose is to provide a resource for other New Testament tutors, to save them having to go to the lengths Staley and Walsh have had to in preparing their own classes. For each of the eighteen films they examine there's a plot summary; lists of memorable characters and visuals; notes of key scriptures; comments on the cultural location and genre; information about the director; details of DVD extras and technical features; and an itemised DVD contents list of chapters with timeline and scripture references where relevant.The film chapters are sandwiched between two complementary chapters,'Watching Jesus Films' and 'Teaching Jesus Films' which offer suggestions on how to make the most of the experience, asking dozens of critical questions to help explore the themes the films uncover and the challenges they can raise.A final appendix -- which the authors describe as "the generative heart of our work" -- provides 'A Gospels Harmony of Jesus Films on DVD' which follows the basic chronology of the Gospels, indicates which films include each Gospel scene and gives the exact point in hours/minutes/seconds at which the scene occurs on each DVD.
To summarise: an excellent resource for anyone keen to explore the life of Jesus as presented in film and the ways in which our culture has chosen to reinterpret the Gospel stories for our times -- ways that all too often, as the authors observe, 'tell us much more about ourselve sand American culture than anything about "the real" Jesus' (Preface,p.viii).

Matt Page, "Bible Films Blog" (December 14, 2007). . .  The book offers far more than simply a collection of data. . . . In addition to the DVD chapter listings, each of the 18 main chapters also contains a good deal of analysis. There's an opening plot summary,discussion about the film's memorable characters and visuals, and a handful of pertinent scriptures, all before brief discussions of the film's cultural location (or genre) and the film's director.

Of course, many of these areas have already been discussed in the various other volumes on Jesus in film, which makes it all the more impressive that Staley and Walsh are able to bring to the table so many fresh, and at times fascinating, insights. The authors are particularly adept at reading film visually, which is something that has been somewhat lacking in the library of Jesus film books to date.

The book is also eminently readable, and accessible to a far wider audience than Walsh's last book. "Reading the Gospels in the Dark", was most certainly interesting, but nevertheless quite difficult reading and not always entirely convincing. Here, non-specialists will feel at home, whilst those of us who are more experienced in this area will find plenty to chew on.

Leonard Greenspoon, "Biblical Archaeology Society," (12/30/2011)Rarely have I perused a book that adheres so closely to its stated goals, in this instance, as formulated in its subtitle. The heart of this volume indeed consists of 18 chapters, each allotted to a different Jesus film (to use the authors' term) that is available on DVD. The films range from the well-known to the obscure (at least for me), and cover almost a century of cinematic history from 1905, beginning with the silent film The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in 2004. In between are works by well-known directors, features specifically made for conservative Christian audiences, updatings, spoofs, musicals, made-for-television miniseries, and even a film populated entirely by puppets.

These chapters are sandwiched between an introductory "Watching Jesus Films" and a concluding "Teaching Jesus Films," both filled with questions to prime further discussion. These contents are topped off with a minute-by-minute (often second-by-second) listing of key gospel scenes in each DVD, organized within "A Gospel Harmony" that allows professors, ministers or film buffs to go to exactly the desired point without having to search or, as we used to say, "wind and rewind."

Each film chapter is organized in the same pattern: Plot Summary(seems flawlessly presented), Memorable Characters (not surprisingly Jesus is a staple of such lists, with others varying widely from film to film), Memorable Visuals, Key Scriptures, Cultural Location/Genre,Director, DVD Extras and Technical Features, and DVD Segments (where they exist). Users of this volume can thus locate similar material in the same spot for each film. No film is included in this book unless it is available on DVD. "Sunday-school Gospel-story films" and word-for-word visual reproductions of a Gospel are omitted. There is no listing of parallels to passages in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The authors declare, "We will be kind and generous and leave that undertaking for another scholar or two."

However, such generosity does not absolve them from taking more seriously charges of anti-Semitism that have frequently been leveled against some of these films. It is amazing to find only the briefest references to this in connection with Gibson's film. The authors write:"Not surprisingly, critics complained about the film's mind-dulling violence and anti-Semitism." That's all. And the authors place this statement under "Plot Summary" and not under "Cultural Location."

This example is symptomatic of the single weakness of this volume:insufficient attention to the audiences' reception of these films. The book contains not a single reference to the many books and articles written about Gibson's movie.

I still remember vividly the pickets, protests and sharply worded editorials that "greeted" Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in the late 1980s--and the mixture of feelings I experienced as I crossed the picket line to see the film. While such details and their larger cultural and social reverberations may not be of interest toeveryone who shows Jesus films, they should have been covered in this book.

Aside from these few qualifications, I have no hesitation in recommending Jesus, the Gospels, and Cinematic Imagination as a trustworthy handbook to Jesus on DVD.

About this edition

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0664230318
• ISBN 13: 9780664230319
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216