Film & Religion

I only got interested in this as a subject in the last two  decades, although it appears to have been simmering away since I first encountered the films of Robert Bresson. It was given a strong spur by the showing of all Tarkovsky's films on UK Channel 4 in the 1980s. In a way Tarkovsky's style is the antithesis of the Bressonian one, and both came in my mind to represent two poles of a religious cinema, one ascetic the other abundant. Rossellini and Dreyer are also key.  As a result of this fermentation of ideas, I published 'The Filmgoer's Guide to God' in 2004.

But the story begins a little before with the publication in the British journal 'Theology'  [see www.spck.org.uk/cat/theology.php]  of two essays: 'The raising of Inger' on Dreyer's Ordet in vol. CIV no. 817, and 'Salvation by Grace' on Bresson's A Man Escaped in vol. CV no. 824. For the article on Ordet in pdf format (8 pages), click here. For the article on A Man Escaped in pdf format (12 pages), click here.

And the story goes on. 2007 saw a prime candidate for a book on cinema and religion, Philip Groning's Die Grosse Stille/Into Great Silence - for more go to this page. And then another candidate came along, Zvyagintsev's The Banishment - for more go to this page. And now there is another monastery film, No Greater Love: go to 'The Power of Silence' for an examination of this mini-wave of monastery films. And Terrence Malick is a religious film-maker - see The Tree of Life.

with thanks to Alan Berry and apologies to Rembrandt