CHRIST IN CINEMA

Relatively few filmmakers have felt the urge to make a film on the life of Christ. Whenever they did, it was usually a matter of personal urgency, which involved personal sacrifices and spiritual struggles. In actuality, as the greatest filmmaker of them all, Andrei Tarkovsky, had already noted, this should be the approach a filmmaker takes to every single one of his films - because every film "is a deed that he has no power to annul." (Andrei Tarkovsky). If such a sense of personal responsibility were to become a living reality in the souls of filmmakers, one can safely say that 99.9% of today's cinema would cease to exist. The people working in the film industry would be struck with the sense of horror and dread, if they could but for a moment intuit the fact that they will most certainly be held responsible for every word, image and message that their films convey to the slothful, indiscriminating public. This phenomenal degree of responsibility that every human being bears unsuspectingly for even the most trivial acts increases a thousandfold, when it comes to depictions, discussions or interpretations of the life and death of the Son of God. We'll examine a few representative films on the life of Christ.


CINEMASEEKERS