Trinity Film Review

Trinity Film Review December 2010

The Jesus Issue

Trinity Film Review Issue 3. The Jesus Issue December 2010 6 Trinity College Dublin 2 www.trinityfilmreview.com editor@trinityfilmreview.com Trinity Film Feview is funded by a grant from the DU publications Committee. This publication claims no special rights or privileges.

Serious complaints should be addressed to: The Editor, Trinity Film Review, 6 Trinity College, Dubin 2. Appeals may be addressed to the Press Council of Ireland.

Trinity Film Review is a fully participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. This scheme, in addition to defending the freedom of the press, offeres readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go to www.pressombudsman.ie.

A note from the editor

Cast and Crew

Happy Holidays!

Editor: Ciara Barrett

…And welcome to the Jesus issue! Instead of doing the standard Christmas issue that would be expected from us at this time of year (not least because I’ve been telling everyone we’re doing a Christmas issue since Freshers Week), we’ve decided to up our game a bit for Issue 3 and tackle the holiday from a different perspective.

Christmas is, after all, supposedly about the celebration of Christ. Why not, in the spirit of the season, take a look at those films which are all about the celebration of Jesus’s life and death (mostly death, as I think you’ll find).

The purpose of this issue is neither to poke fun at nor promote Christian theology, Christian holidays, or even Christian-themed movies, but to explore all of the above, and, hopefully, spread a little food for thought and good cheer and humour at the same time. Whether that’s a Christmas sentiment or not, that’s up to you. …And we’ve thrown in a few things about Christmas anyway.

Deputy Editors: Cathal Wogan Ines Novacic Design and Layout Peter Barry Website: Conor O’Kelly Ciara Barrett Contributors: Oisín Murphy Laura McKenna Fionnuala Frain Emma Keaveney Peter Barry Aisling Deng

Lastly, I’m really really really happy to unveil TFR’s new design and layout. I think it looks amazing, if I do say so myself, and it’s all thanks to Peter Berry, veritable layout saviour and InDesign guru. Thanks, Peter!

And don’t forget to check out TRINITYFILMREVIEW.COM So without further ado, Happy Christmas, merry secular holiday, and enjoy whatever you fancy calling the next few weeks off college!

Ciara

Cover Image

From The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004)

News

Ines Novacic

...and Finally Holy Diver

Overrated/Underrated:

Ines Novacic and Ciara Barrett

It’s A Wonderful Life and the Christmas Spirit Oisín Murphy

The Production of Christ Ines Novacic

Ben Hur: A tale of the Christ Fionnuala Frain

There’s Something About Mary Ciara Barrett

The Top 10 Christmas Films

Cathal Wogan and Laura McKenna

Reviews Various

Five-Word Reviews Danny Dyer

Ines Novacic Enduring the Wrath of Fans During the Voyage of the Dawn Treader press tour, Irish actor Liam Neeson made the mistake of telling The Daily Mail that Aslan symbolises not only a Christ-like figure but also “Mohammed, Buddha, and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries”.

Walter Hooper, former secretary to Narnia mastermind C.S. Lewis and responded by explaining how Narnia is “nothing whatever to do with Islam. Lewis would have simply denied that. He wrote that the whole story is about Christ.” Hooper attributed Neeson’s remarks to political correctness and a desire to be ‘very multicultural’. He concluded “I don’t know Liam Neeson or what he is thinking about… but it was not Lewis’s intention.”

True Irishman that he is, Neeson is a practicing Roman Catholic. Outraged Christian fans should simmer down, especially considering the director of Voyage of the Dawn Treader is reportedly an atheist.

The much-loved children’s Narnia stories have an unapologetic Christian message. Aslan features in all seven Narnia books, steering the children away from evil and encouraging them to take the right path. C.S. Lewis, as devoted a Christian as Neeson, wrote the stories between 1949 and 1954.

Boost of Morale Yes it’s all awful in economics-land, but us Irish are still going strong in the film world. Two Irish films have been chosen for screening at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. The Guard, directed by John Michael McDonagh, and Ian Palmer’s documentary Knuckle, will both receive their world premieres at the festival, which runs from January 20th to 30th in Utah. They were chosen from more than 9,000 international submissions.

The Guard tells the tale of a small-town, confrontational Garda who comes into contact with a hard-ass FBI agent through a chain of events involving an international drugs ring. The film stars Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle. Knuckle relates a 12-year journey into the world of an Irish Traveller community and people’s brutal, bareknuckle fighting lives.

Minister for Culture Mary Hanafinn stated, “It is a marvellous achievement for film-makers, actors and all involved in the industry and once again shows the great track record that Irish film-makers have internationally.”

To add a cherry on top of the icing, two Irish-directed films, Shoe and The Crush, were short-listed among 10 live-action shorts that will be considered for nominations in the upcoming Oscars. The Crush, directed by Michael Creagh, tells the of an eight year old schoolboy who falls in love with his teacher. Shoe, directed by Nick Kelly, is a darkly comic film about a man named Vince. Vince is troubled by a crazy beggar preventing him from killing

himself. Irish short films have done well in the Oscars so far. Here’s hoping.

Visit www.oscars.org for more info.

Picturesque Dingle

As Gaelige, s’il vous plait The Dingle Film Festival and the Irish Film Board have launched competitions seeking proposals for Irish Language Short Films. The winning applicant of the Dingle Film Festival’s Físín competition will receive a cash prize fund of €5,000 and €1,000, and free equipment hire.

The Irish Film Board’s Gearrscannáin scheme promises funding for winning submissions.

Five filmmakers will be selected to travel to the next Dingle Film Festival, on St. Patrick’s Day 2011. Each of the five will be given the opportunity to pitch their proposal to a panel and a live audience in The Phoenix Cinema during the festival. The festival is keen to see proposals from all local dialects. The application form is available to download at www.dinglefilmfestival.com and the closing date for entries is 31 January 2011. The 5th Dingle Film Festival will take place from March 17th-20th 2011.

The Gearrscannáin scheme is interested in new compelling themes. Two shorts will be selected from those submitted with a maximum budget of €10,000 per film. Submissions should be approximately eight minutes in length and must be shot in a high quality digital format. Only original stories will be accepted.

This scheme will be primarily distributed on-line. The deadline for Gearrscannáin is Friday 17th December 2010 and applications should be sent to: Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board, Queensgate, 23 Dock Road, Galway.

Check out www.irishfilmboard.ie for more info.

Holy Diver Gibson to U-turn on The Passion It seems that Hollywood’s powerful Zionist Lobby has won yet again. Actor and director Mel Gibson, under extreme duress from “the guys with the power,” is to begin work on a response to what he calls his “magnum opal,” The Passion of the Christ. Specifically, he has spoken of how the new film will be a complete retraction of the aforementioned effort, as “those Jewish bastards have really done a number on the interpretation of the movie.”

“Those Jewish bastards,” said Gibson in a leaked phone conversation, “the guys with the power in Hollywood.

They’ve finally forced me into remaking The Passion.

They’ve really got my by the short and curlies this time, offering me ten million dollars to oversee the production.

Those evil pricks must have heard that I literally can’t refuse money.

“They want me to say that our Lord Jesus Christ was a great guy, a really good Jew, but not the Messiah. I mean, I know they’re wrong, you know they’re wrong, and even the Mohammedans know they’re wrong. Still though, ten million is a lot of cash. I’m going to buy another house.”

“Of course I’m serious! Does Cowboys & Aliens not sound awesome? A film where Daniel Craig wakes up with amnesia only to discover a magical bracelet on his wrist, fights with crazy aliens, and has to work out how his bizarre wrist adornment can save the wild wild west?

Exactly.”

Hobbit screen adaption encounters financial difficulties Favreau to combine cowboys and aliens in upcoming film In the summer of 2011, not that long from now, we’ll be treated to Cowboys & Aliens, the latest directorial venture of Jon Favreau. Favreau, who has most notably worn the directing jodphurs in the making of the Iron Man series, is said to be particularly excited about his next venture.

“I mean, Cowboys are awesome, everybody knows that.

And aliens, they’re pretty sick and crazy, everybody knows that too, right? So we thought, what if we put the two together, in a fight?

When asked by Trinity Film Review if he was taking the piss, making a stupid film about Aliens and Cowboys where the key to the film’s progression was a stupid bracelet on the wrist of rubbish Bond Daniel Craig, Favreau’s jaw hit the floor.

Due to a spectacular budget reduction for the upcoming screen adaption of JRR Tolkein’s The Hobbit, drastic measures have been announced that will no doubt leave fans of the original literary piece torn between curious skepticism and complete bemusement. Guillermo del Toro, formerly thought to be taking directorial control of the project, has revealed that he left the undertaking due to the artistic limits of the financial confinements.

While the ramifications of the changes enforced upon the production have not yet been made completely clear, an industry insider close to producer Harvey Weinstein has told Trinity Film Review that the entire visual production has been halted.

“Instead of actually filming,” whispered our anonymous source, “they’re just going to use Gremlins as a base.

They’ll redub all of the voices and make it into the story that we all know and love, the Tolkein classic, like Woody Allen’s What’s up, Tiger Lily? Better though.”

Ines Novacic

T

he Nightmare Before Christmas is typically advertised as Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. As if any confusion could arise nowadays about who’s behind the animation. Having said that - and this may be a pedantic and nerdy observation - Nightmare wasn’t directed by Burton. Either way, it stubbornly persists as one of the pioneering Burton films for his many, many fans. Unfortunately, since Nightmare’s 1993 release, Burton has made too many films that are far too similar. Corpse Bride, for example, is uncomfortably close to Nightmare in all too obvious a manner. Yet Tim Burton can do no wrong as far as mainstream popular opinion is concerned. People either ignore that the man has made a name for himself by repeating and recylcing a few ideas, or they like the predictability of watching his work.

By the time most of us started college, Burton mania had literally made Nightmare a nightmare to watch. It’s just one of many well-animated, sing-along flicks whose charm fades with each viewing. If you’ve only seen it once, the positive review in Rotten Tomatoes might be acceptable to you. Most likely because you were six the first time you watched it. And you liked the catchy songs.

Apparently, 97% of film critics enjoyed the film with the consensus of “a stunningly original and visually delightful work of stop-motion animation.” I would like to know what critical yard stick these ‘cineastes’ work by? Which people loved Nightmare so much, that Irish cinemas had to run it last year, and turn a profit? Most importantly, how was the film nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award? Well, I suppose eleven Oscars were handed to Titanic. I enjoy a good love story as much as the next person, but eleven seems mildly excessive.

Excessive seems to be the recipe for Academy success.

It explains the marketing strategy behind the Burton and Depp double act. Unlike his recent hit Alice in Wonderland, Nightmare is kind of alright, I suppose.

Alice may be the sixth-highest grossing film ever, but

Nightmare at least has good character design. The filmmakers constructed 2227 puppets to represent the characters in the film. Over 400 heads were used for Jack Skellington, our prtoagonist, in order to allow the expression of every emotion possible. Having seen it for the first time only a few years back, perhaps I’m too harsh in saying that the animation is the only impressive thing about Nightmare. The hype surrounding it definitely raised my expectations, but my reasoning is that hype doesn’t surface for no reason whatsoever.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is comparable to the newest of the Harry Potter series of films. While both boast a massive following with those of few years, one could argue that neither picture is particularly suitable for developing minds, often disturbing and bizarre in content and delivery. If you’re only as good as your last film, Burton’s definitely in trouble. The problem is, Burton’s first few films also wouldn’t do justice to the success his brand has brought him since the late 1980s.

If you haven’t seen it, you don’t really need to. If you have, think about it. Yeah, it’s not that great right?

“Burton mania has literally made Nightmare a nightmare to watch. It’s just one of many well-animated, sing-along flicks whose charm fades with each viewing. “

Ciara Barrett

I

t is a truth universally acknowledged, that an AstaireRogers musical, possessed as it may be of good numbers, must be in want of a plot.

Most film historians would agree that out of the nine RKO dance musicals Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made between 1933 and 1939, Swing Time is the best.

Perhaps it’s disingenuous of me to claim Swing Time as “underrated”, but if it’s to be lumped in as the best of a bad lot, I simply won’t stand for it. It has to be said that Astaire-Rogers specialists and aspiring PhDs such as myself (if they’re wise) would never actually refer so flippantly to their own object of study as a “bad bunch of films”. But there is the tendency to write, with an implied wink, that their plots are flimsy and the characterizations poor, but that the dance numbers are brilliant, so it’s all good really.

I’ll admit that it is a particular failing of these films, which I otherwise love and critically respect, that they indulge almost across-the-board in egregious ethnic stereotyping and other forms of lazy characterization. In Swing Time, Ginger Rogers’ big band-leader beau and rival to Astaire’s affections (George Metaxa) is played as a ridiculous Latin-lover type, much like the Italian gigolos/ closeted gay men played by Erik Rhodes in The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935), which preceded Swing Time. ...There’s also that number Astaire does in blackface.

No, no amount of brilliant dancing will ever make blackface ok. But what is independently good, what is genuinely praise-worthy, and what doesn’t have to do with the dancing, is that out of all nine films (actually ten, counting The Barkleys of Broadway from 1949 at MGM) that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared in together, Swing Time is the most socially relevant to its time and the most original in plot.

Instead of the upper-class lounge-lubbing characters that populate the plots of The Gay Divorcee and Top Hat – the latter of which, despite Swing Time being named the “best” of the cycle, still seems to be the most wellknown and talked about – Swing Time sees Fred Astaire, synonymous by this point in time with top hat and tails, as a petty gambler and Ginger Rogers as a poor dance instructor just trying to make a buck in New York. Swing Time is very much of its time and place – Depressionera New York, where everyone is down on their luck and looking for a pick-me-up (the first song-and-dance number is, appropriately, entitled “Pick Yourself Up”).

Despite all that dreary socio-economic context, Swing Time is full of joy and play. My favourite scenes have always been those in which Fred and Ginger express, then fight, their burning urges for each other (as much as Fred Astaire can convey a “burning urge”) through song whilst out in the freezing cold, snow-heavy countryside.

They sing the sarcastic “A Fine Romance” together, with Ginger complaining that Fred won’t “nestle” or “wrestle”, and that she’s never “mussed a crease in his blue serge pants”. Yowza.

Innovatively, Swing Time’s heroine is the romantic pursuant, the sexual aggressor in the film, whilst Astaire finds himself caught between two women (his cold fiancée and the vivacious Rogers). Future films Follow the Fleet (1936) and Carefree (1938) would feature Rogers similarly lusting after Astaire (as much as Astaire can be “lusted after”), but it is in Swing Time that the tables begin to turn.

Swing Time has, admittedly, little to do with Christmas. It has even less to do with Jesus. But by God, it has snow in it, and that’s enough to make it one of my all-time favourite Christmastime movies. Aside from that, I think it is a grossly underappreciated, if not exactly critically underrated, film. I just wish Fred had stayed away from the black greasepaint.

Oisín Murphy

A

fascinating negotiation of hegemonic space within cinema, never since its release has Frank Capra’s Christmas staple been more relevant to public discourse.

It’s A Wonderful Life is an exceptionally “well-made” film.

This much is evident from its remarkable, lasting success, on a commercial level. Sixty-four years after its release, it’s still one of, if not the, best known Christmas film(s) of all. Attached to the “well-made” tag employed three sentences ago, however, is a great deal of subjective importance as far as the film’s politics are concerned, for contained within its feel-good syllogism is a reaffirmation of exploitative, Capitalist ideology.

Everyone knows the story by now, presumably. Jimmy Stewart/George Bailey’s life has been a series of selfless acts, in which he has sacrificed ambition for the benefit of others (he runs a local mortgage society at the time the film is set, while his brother, who ought to have taken his place in said job, pursues “bigger and better things”). He is a “moral banker”, who loans money to people based on character rather than, necessarily, their ability to repay their debts. He is swindled out of a considerable sum of money by the ruthless local tycoon, Mr. Potter (the “bad banker” of the film), and considers suicide on Christmas Eve, before Clarence (“Angel: Second Class”) reminds him of the positive impact he has made on the lives of others, and his various friends pool their money together to save him from bankruptcy. George realises that, indeed, his is a wonderul life, and Clarence “earns his wings”, having accomplished a good deed in convincing him of as much. George is toasted by his brother as “The Richest Man In Town” and all is well.

It isn’t novel to suggest that the film postures as liberal and progressive while maintaining, at a fundamental level, a deeply conservative economic and political sentiment; the idea that It’s A Wonderful Life is Capitalist propaganda has been around since the film was made. The centrality of private property to the narrative (and the certification

of its legitimacy), the unchallenged primacy of Capital, the reassertion of hegemonic systems both on Earth and in “Heaven” (the invocation of which acting as a sort of meta-hegemony within the diegesis) - the latter evidenced neatly by the aforementioned angelic “class system”, the commodification of human relationships key to the heartwarming conclusion and the basic endorsement of the righteousness of Capitalism as opposed to the venality of certain, almost certainly non-American, individuals all contribute to a rich text, the more saccharine elements of which allow for the (textually) subversive implementation of conservative ideology. All canonic film analysis, then, elaborated upon (in non-academic discourse) best by David Mamet in Sight & Sound’s January 2002 issue. It would be indulgent and utterly unnecessary to reiterate convictions long established within film criticism, suffice to say these concerns are self-evident to even the casual spectator.

So, having devoted an entire paragraph to the (necessary) retreading of well-worn ground, we are now in a position to speculate about the relevance of such a text to our contemporary society, in which it has been established, by dubious means, that our economic misfortune (global and domestic) is the result of individual greed and (perhaps wilful) incompetence rather than an inevitablity of Capitalist hegemony. The spectre of Horatio Alger can be invoked “liberally”, provided it isn’t by name: in this sense, the individual may succeed within an innately fair system, and failure therein can be success of a different kind, necessarily apart from a competitive discourse. The exploiter-exploited relation of command and production in Capitalist reality is negated (or consciously ignored) as fundamental both by Capra and, it seems, a public wounded by our collective participation therein, in 2010.

Like George, we are resolved not to revolution, but to resigned perseverance married with a tenuous solidarity (to “change”) given voice by commodity.

In the most basic terms, Capra aids the reproduction of Capitalist conditions of production through the

“A fascinating negotiation of hegemonic space within cinema, never since its release has Frank Capra’s Christmas staple been more relevant to public discourse...“ trivialisation of socio-economic revolution, contributing to a conservative discourse which still dominates today: in which we are reminded that individuals failed us, rather than the Order which they represent. As such, the change to which we subscribe, ideologically, is purely cosmetic. As Mamet has it, Capra’s myth “feature[s] the pharmaceutical rather than the medical”. Its solution is ultimately analgesic rather than corrective. So too do

we face into 2011, in which a general election in Ireland will likely see the installation of Fine Gael, our other mainstream, conservative party, in government.

While the romantic tendency is to see It’s A Wonderful Life as a progressive, non-ideological film, such a viewpoint is not sustainable on a critical level. We must not underestimate the ability of the audience to actively process the contents of the narrative and their semiological function, but at the same time we must view said content as always critically significant within a mythological narrative. Human interaction must be first conceived of as commodity, as capital-function, before it can be eulogised at the film’s climax. Life-affirming though it may be, Capra’s film goes to lengths to affirm more insidious aspects of human existence, castrating the will to revolution through the lip-quiveringly sincere parody thereof. Having been brought to the brink of collapse, late-Capitalism survives in Ireland and beyond through similar means. And every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.

Ines Novacic

J

une 2006 was a testing time for Mel Gibson. The Passion of the Christ had been named the most controversial film of all time, and even Pope John Paul’s review, “it was as it is”, couldn’t cheer him up.

People (heathens!) were just hatin’ all over Mel (and by extension, Jesus?), saying he was a rabid anti-Semite, a torture pornographer, and generally annoying person, among other ungenerous (un-Christian!) things.

Personally, when I went to see it I wasn’t so outraged by its blatant bigotedness as I was pissed that it ran on for so long. And I felt Mel’s Jesus was just so overdone, so cliché, what with his long dark beard and crown of thorns, up on that cross.

If a thirteen-year old, non-religious girl finds the image of Jesus too “familiar” in her first “religious” experience, then how omnipresent must representations of the sacred have become in the 21st century?

I’d seen The Life of Brian (Monty Python’s 1979 spoof of the Messiah’s downfall) and thought it was funny.

Religious, not so much. Yet even the mocking of Christianity – and the extent to which that is acceptable or may have become acceptable after the precedent set by films gone before – shows the extent to which modern Western culture is influenced by the “sacred”.

Religion is a set of beliefs about the meaning of life that operates through sacred symbols. The word “sacred” suggests an admirable association with divinity. And representing the sacred has been a chief preoccupation of artists in Christian countries since the 2nd century AD (or CE) and the rise of religious sarcophagus sculptures.

But religion rolls with the times. Sacred imagery has been transplanted from marble entities to canvas to photography and ultimately onto film in modern culture.

Now, film and television, being mass art forms, are arguably the most accessible and desirable media for the transmission of religious ideas and ideology.

Art and religion have common roots. Like the case of the chicken and the egg, it’s difficult to discern which came first: did religion breed art or did art promote religious belief? In Christianity, unlike Islam, the visual

representation of the sacred is encouraged; indeed, the Catholic Church has a long history of commissioning religious artworks. Portraits of Jesus have been imprinted on shrouds, brushed onto paper and moulded out of clay.

With the rise of secular institutions such as universities and big businesses, the Church has long since since ceased to be the primary source for funding of audiovisual religious art and products. But the hiring of actors to play God in big-budget Hollywood movies follows this trend. (Indeed, is Hollywood, that bastion of American conservative ideology, even a Church for the new milennium?)

Religious films deal with the sacred in a similar way to earlier artforms. Religion informs the ideology of even many supposedly secular films and film industries, much like Christian ideology and mythology dominated Renaissance painting or medieval architecture.

One of the most religious films ever made comes from one of the most atheistic of countries. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublov from 1966 is about a celebrated medieval painter of icons. With utmost piety, Communist Partymember Tarkovsky offers a metaphorical depiction of the crucifixion, with Jesus as a Russian peasant in the middle ages.

Tarkovsky is perhaps Gibson’s binary opposite. Rather than laboriously study records of the Passion to create a “realistic” and thus “faithful” and most “sacred” record of Jesus’s final act of love for mankind, Tarkovsky erases the biblical context of the story and reverts back to its mythic elements and archetypal situations. He thus underlines the universality of religious (sacred) symbols, and thusly even the universality of certain Christian values.

The relationship between myth and religion is fundamental to interpreting their dominance of art in general, and film in particular. Myth precedes religious thought and art practices. Myth-making is psychologically common to all humanity. Alongside archetypal situations, myths represent the prime (or primeival) ways in which we make sense of the world. For example, consider the

“father and son” dynamic, or the “return of the prodigal son”. Much of what Christianity considers sacred stems from ancient myths, archetypal situations and parables.

Jesus is Son of God and prodigal son.

It makes sense, therefore, that many seemingly secular films like The Matrix or Children of Men should contain implicit (verging on explicit) references to elements of Christian doctrine – namely, the virgin (or otherwise exceptional in origin) birth of a messianic figure. Such archetypes carry meaning and significations already imbedded in their historical constructs and readily apparent to audiences, thus making clear(er) individual films’ intended “meaning”.

Similarly, Apocalyptic narratives and “saving the world” films are filtered through sacred symbols and parables.

(Parallels between The Book of Revelations and Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, or 2012, anyone?)

Ultimately, the utilization of Christian religious ideology/ symbology lends itself to the explicit signification of (not necessarily pro-Christian) meanings in even nonexplicitly religious films.

Some films, of course, are made to serve religion and a religious message. Take The Ten Commandments or The Passion of the Christ (note: title usually a dead giveaway).

But satirical films such as The Life of Brian equally gratify religion, albeit in a much subtler way. The “sacred” struggle between good and evil is agonizingly explored in this film in almost as polemical a manner as it is in The Exorcist, though as a comedy it is largely perceived as a less “serious”, and therefore less ideologically-bent, film.

“What’s more idolatrous than screaming fans trying to get up close to their favourite celebrities on the red carpet at the Academy Awards?” in America, a predominantly Christian nation. For us in the West, sacred simulacra is a given. We’ve become so accustomed to representations of the sacred that we’ve started creating new versions of it. Films cannot compete with religious portrayals in the likes of Renaissance art.

However, in terms of presenting rather than re-presenting the sacred, films have gone further than any cultural medium.

Like religion, films produce gods. If in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, then in the end, there is cinema.

What’s more idolatrous than screaming fans trying to get up close to their favourite celebrities on the red carpet at the Academy Awards?

And God said unto them: Thou shalt not worship false gods.

The film industry must have misheard.

Widely dispersed, “popular” films typically originate

Fionnuala Frain

I

t’s 11am on the 28th of December, in the past three days turkey, chocolate and mince pies have been your staple diet. Not being one to rock the boat, you reach into your fridge at home and take out the huge and as yet undefeated chocolate Yule log. You cut yourself a whopper of a slice for your breakfast, sit down and turn on the ultimate Christmas movie: Ben-Hur. Stop! Before your eyes glaze over, mesmerised by the histrionics of the opening sequence, remember the film’s subtitle: A tale of the Christ . There would be no Ben-Hur without Jesus Christ. The spiritual and symbolic significance of Jesus is vital to the film. Directed by William Wyler, the film is based on the 1880 novel of the same name by Lew Wallace, an American Civil War General. It is Hollywood’s ultimate Biblical tale, the most expensive movie ever made at its time with 365 actors playing speaking parts and 15,000 extras employed for the monumental chariot race sequence alone. At three and a half hours long, many feel that getting to the film’s finale is an achievement in itself. But Ben-Hur fills that quantity of time with large helpings of religious ideology. To quote Empire magazine, “It’s kneejerk stuff of course, but a tad more complex than your average muscle-bound, gun-toting thuggery.” Indeed, the more closely you watch Ben-Hur, the more discernible Jesus’ part in the film’s progression becomes, thus adding to the story’s complexity and fulfilling the title.

The film’s religious backbone is apparent from the beginning. In the original version, the overture is played against a backdrop of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (the one where God and Adam are pointing at each other). The prologue sets the scene: first century AD, the land of Judea, Joseph and Mary (on the donkey) on their way to Bethlehem for the census. Cut to the Nativity, and the film’s first encounter with Jesus. Next it’s AD XXVI and the Roman troops are marching on Nazareth. We learn from Joseph that Jesus has been up in the hills, “doing his Father’s work.” We then see Jesus walking through a

village, face unseen at all times. The depiction of Jesus Christ throughout the film is extremely understated, and he is listed as an uncredited cameo. At this stage, one begins to wonder where Ben-Hur is. In fact, it isn’t until 20 minutes in that Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) appears.

We first lay eyes on the eponymous Jewish prince when Messala, the Roman commander, comes to him, wanting him to disclose the names of the Jews rebelling against Roman rule. As this would entail betraying his people, Ben-Hur refuses, sticking to his moral guns, as it were.

And so, Ben-Hur is forced to be a galley slave, his mother and sister imprisoned. Clinging to life, Ben-Hur cries out, “God help me!” A shadow, a foot and inspiring music affirm Our Lord’s presence. He reaches out and quenches Ben-Hur’s thirst. Speechless, he gets up, without taking his eyes off Christ. Along with the water, Jesus has given Ben-Hur hope. It is clear here that Christ’s involvement in the film is central to the events that unfold. Significantly, at this point Ben-Hur doesn’t know who this strange man is. So remarkable is He, in this picture at least, that He doesn’t need celebrity to do His work.

During three years as a galley slave, Ben-Hur’s faith keeps him alive. However, his faith has been somewhat perverted - he comes to believe that his purpose is to carry out revenge on his persecutor by murdering him; not exactly Christ’s desired message, to be sure. The culmination of his moral slide comes at the famous chariot race. This is the moment that we see Ben-Hur at his lowest point, when his sole purpose is to destroy Messala. When Ben-Hur is crowned the winner he cries, but not with joy. His faith has been dealt another crushing blow. His mother and sister have been sent to the valley of the lepers. The only person left who has faith now is his love, Ester. Until now she has been a simple love interest rather than a central character to the story. Now, it is her faith in Jesus that inspires Ben-Hur to seek out the Messiah, albeit out of duty more than belief.

Jesus bookends the film; it is through him that Ben-Hur achieves full catharsis. Ben-Hur’s encounter with Jesus on his way to the cross marks the ending of an epic journey for both men. When Ben-Hur realises it was Christ who gave him water and quenched his thirst so long ago, he returns the gesture and his faith is restored (or, significantly, he achieves Christianity) while his mother and sister are healed. It is from the death of Christ that Ben-Hur’s new life begins, despite the troubles he has previously come through. It is illustrative of the entire Christian message, whether true or false.

While most of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is devoted to the personal struggles of Judah Ben-Hur, it also captures the two most important events in Jesus’ life. These events are strategically placed in the film, in order to allow, or even encourage the audience’s links between Jesus and the title character.

Overall, the character of Jesus is used to both strenghten the characterization of Ben-Hur, the film’s internal

protagonist, as well as to lend the film some external weight and circumstance. As a big-budget Hollywood epic, Ben-Hur represents industrial mass production.

Imbuing the film with apparent religious backbone and a supposedly substantive plot, the makers of the film have effectively undercut its secularity as a product created for mass production and maximum profit. Is Ben-Hur a Christmas miracle? Well it’s certainly good showbiz.

“There would be no Ben-Hur without Jesus Christ. The spiritual and symbolic significance of Jesus is vital to the film.”

Ciara Barrett

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think we can all agree that Christianity in its many forms – Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, what have you – retains a fundamentally patriarchal hierarchy, and has done so for nigh on two thousand years. Perhaps it has always been so, or perhaps it has not: the Gnostic Gospels, including the much-contested “Gospel of Mary” recovered in 1896, suggest that women may have played a more substantial role in the development of the early Christian Church than commonly thought. Scholars have speculated that Mary Magdalene, an obscure but consistently-mentioned presence throughout the Biblical Gospels, could in fact have been a fully-fledged disciple of Jesus. God knows (as well He might), she was there for enough of Jesus’s life-and-death events.

However, the Catholic Church has rejected the possibility of Mary’s apostlehood outright, and both literary and filmic representations of Mary Magdalene have over the years tended to focus instead on the titillating potential that Jesus and Mary could have had a sexual relationship.

Cases in point: The Da Vinci Code, in which the product of Jesus and Mary’s romantic union is discovered as the Holy Grail, and The Last Temptation of Christ, in which Jesus hallucinates (or does he?) an alternative end to his life spent with his friend and former prostitute, Mary Magdalene. (It should be noted that both historically and theologically, there is little evidence to suggest that Mary Magdalene was actually a prostitute.)

I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that this tendency to relegate the historical and theological importance of Mary Magdalene to the degree of sexual influence (or lack thereof) she may have had on Jesus or other men is indicative of a conservative/liberal/otherwise ideological conspiracy on behalf of the Church/Hollywood/other powerful institution to besmirch her name. However, I do think it is indicative of a general reluctance (or laziness) on behalf of filmmakers and audiences to conceive of a sexualized or sexualizable female character without some degree of objectification – that is, without making her sex life her whole life, full stop.

That’s not to say that Mary Magdalene’s or indeed any other historical/religious figure’s sexuality is irrelevant to her character. Indeed, the converse of Mary Magdalene, the archetypal Whore, is the Madonna, the thoroughly desexualized Virgin Mary. Her individual character has been obfuscated by history, literature, and film’s

tendency to sublimate her very human physicality into a divine state of asexuality.

Tellingly, in Mel Gibson’s most “faithful” representation of The Passion of the Christ, Mary, Jesus’s mother, and Mary, the Magdalene, flit in and out of Jesus’s death narrative with negligible consequence or narrative agency, despite their both having had a substantial influence on Jesus’s human – that is, physical – life.

I think the impossibility of realistically representing Jesus’ necessarily physical relationships with these women – necessarily physical because he emerged from Mary the Mother’s body, and he could have (if not actually) merged sexually with Mary the Magdalene’s – is that their bodies’, their persons’, inherent sexuality emphasizes too much their – and by extension, Jesus’s – human mortality. Jesus’s death, according to Christian doctrine, is mysteriously the beginning of new life for the rest of the world. But in what limbo world might these women have lived and died and lived again on film, poised so between sexual physicality and asexual divinity?

The solution to the problem of Mary, and indeed to the problem of women, on film, has been to radicalize her into Madonnahood or, failing that, into Whoredom; to define her according to the most basic of human characteristics, or purely the transcendentally divine.

Thusly, until we find an alternate mode of representation, our Marys will be living in a man’s man’s man’s world till Kingdom come. And maybe even after.

Cathal Wogan and Laura McKenna

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ot usually a magazine for lists, TFR has decided to indulge. We’ve polled writers, friends and family to find out what people watch over the holidays. We all know that what we watch over Christmas is not about what we love or hate. In some cases it is just about what might be on television, for others it might be a matter of family ritual, or perhaps there is a desire to feel warmed by something romantic. So, without further ado, here is our list of what people seem to watch over Christmas. Bottoms up, or something like that.

10. Zulu

9. Jingle all the Way Perhaps the only genuine Christmas film on our list insofar as it is directly based upon the consumerist spectacle of Christmas, Jingle all the Way is a rather curious beast.

Making the Santa-gift-happiness paradigm literal, the film dramatises an event that is not Christmas or Xmas, but $mas (thank you for that term, Oisín Murphy). The thirst for narrative resolution on the part of the passive audience is, of course, fulfilled; some greedy kid gets a toy. The lesson seems to be that toys are great. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is in it. Huzzah! Cathal

It might seem like a strange way to start our list but the inclusion of Zulu is perhaps a testament to the strength of will of many of our fathers over the holiday season.

Perusing the RTÉ Guide for something that reminds them of their missing youths, one father’s Zulu could well be another’s The Bridge on the River Kwai or Ben-Hur. While the years will ensure that Zulu is condemned to cultural anthropology rather than essential entertainment, for the time being it still occupies a special place as the quintessence of Christmas viewing, despite our silent reluctance in many cases. Cathal

8. Gremlins Gremlins is the perfect antidote for those of you have gotten a little bit sick of seeing Christmas movies full of cheesy cliches, life lessons and heartfelt emotions.

Gremlins shows a darker side of the festive season from Kate’s story on why she hates Christmas to Mrs Deagle’s inability to show compassion towards others. This film makes the list for not being afraid to show another, more sinister side to Christmas and serves to remind us that, for some people, Christmas isn’t the easiest or the happiest time of year. Laura

5. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Perhaps a strange one to make this list of Christmas film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory remains a holiday favourite for many people. Staple celluloid, Willy Wonka brings back many happy childhood memories of passing the sweets around while sitting in total amazement, staring at the delicious and unique world being opened up to you. Similar to those iconic coca-cola trucks appearing on the TV screen, it’s just not Christmas until the Oompa Loompas dance around while the fat kid is ironically stuck in a giant chocolate tube. Laura

7. Titanic Following Zulu, this is the second appearance on our list of large scale death. Such a trend perhaps suggests that our collective Christmas viewing is as much mired in fatal catastrophes as forbidden, class-defying romance.

Then again, at over three hours long, Titanic could be an indicator of just how masochistic the woman-withtissues-and-chocolate stereotype can be, as not a single male polled in our survey voted for this film. Cathal

4. Bridget Jones’ Diary

6. The Wizard of Oz Possibly one of the most bogus films of all time, some will argue that this is essential Christmas viewing because it displays the importance of family, friendship and goodwill which have been immortalised in the famous line “there’s no place like home.” However, upon reflection, Dorothy ran away from the black and white world of Kansas where a nasty lady wanted to murder her precious dog. It is only in the technicolor world of Oz that she makes friends and discovers the importance of helping others. Really, Dorothy didn’t need her family. Instead, a group of total strangers and some trippy shit made her happy. Laura

What would Christmas be without seeing Mark Darcy telling Bridget Jones that he likes her “exactly the way she is?” A mix of snow, comedy, love, disappointment and social awkwardness, Bridget Jones’ Diary seems to warm the soul over Christmas. The picture has a cold on the inside and warm on the outside feel. It also has the appeal of some pretty disastrous moments (such as Bridget’s karaoke song at the Christmas party) that the majority of us can unfortunately relate to! Laura

3. Die Hard Die Hard is a Christmas film in all but appearance.

Through the mechanisms of modern cinema, this 1988 blockbuster goes through blood-curdling pains to enforce the hegemonic ideologies and conservative social structures that Christmas in the modern world is all about. The goal, in the end, is to ensure that a lowermiddle class white man completes his family unit at the expense of lives and capital in the name of “justice.” Die Hard presses all the right buttons for a white couple with 2.4 children at the happiest time of the year. Cathal

2. Home Alone At a generational juncture where intellectual and artistic taste amongst the middle-classes shuns consistency of deliberation, giving Home Alone a contemporary context might be redundant. The task though, does remain. Only released recently, Jackass 3D springs to mind. Indeed, the entire Jackass series is relevant. Much maligned by the majority, the distinction between Jackass and Home Alone is not particularly striking. One might have an easy to swallow narrative brimming with nostalgia, but that’s it; enough, all the same, to come second in our list. Cathal

1. Love Actually Pre-survey speculation was exactly that; mere speculation.

Assumptions were tentative, and guesses ranged from reasonable to almost bizarre. So, to find Love Actually at the top of our list is strangely amusing. It seems that Hugh Grant pictures have that elusive Bridget Jones’ Diary quality; no matter how cold it might be over the holidays, feeling warm and fuzzy on the inside is what everybody needs. The masses have spoken. Love Actually is our most watched film over the Christmas period. Cathal

Secretariat

Burlesque

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Cathal Wogan

ecessity is the mother of invention, some say. Great art is borne of necessity also. The world consumes images, assimilates them as products. The most stunning pictures in film present that which cannot merely be assimilated into consumerist spectacle. This is the need of the art form, at this particular point in the history of the medium more than ever. It is the necessity to create a new and oppositional language of cinematic images that saw the invention behind Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void confront cultural consumption by the great maw of the collective earlier this year. That same necessity provokes the vision of the artists du jour such as Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier and Charlie Kaufman to name but a few.

Such a grandiose point of criticism, championing the compulsion to create and the drive towards something new and innovative, may not seem an adequate nor appropriate mode of criticism when looking at Randall Wallace’s Secretariat. However, it is when watching a film like Secretariat that cannot help but think of what can be truly great about the medium of film. There is so much room for the artistic ambition of those with creative control; every facet of the production has the potential to be pushed towards and through its respective creative boundaries, to achieve what could be art.

Secretariat marks the other end of the scale. Secretariat is a simple movie where adequate filmmaking skill and sheer banality fuse. In no single aspect does Secretariat do anything that could be considered artistic or innovative.

Indeed, it seems to merely exist as itself, for the sake of existing. The phrase “art for the sake of art,” may have lost most of its meaning by this stage, but Secretariat is certainly film for the sake of film. As an exercise in the process of film production, Secretariat vanishes into the nondescript mediocrity of itself.

Emma Keaveney

really wanted to enjoy Burlesque. However, the film delivered one too many clichés and a few too many Aguilera-warbles. So, in the end, trying to like it seemed like an effort it didn’t deserve.

The film centres on Ali (Christina Aguilera), your prototypical small-town All-American girl who wants to make it. She ends up working in the bar of ‘The Burlesque Lounge,’ a tired dance venue run by Tess (Cher). Ali falls in love with Burlesque and yearns for the stage. With luck, she gets a chance. Audiences love her. The venue is saved. Yadda yadda yadda. We’ve seen this before.

That said, part of the pleasure of genre films is satisfying predictability. Burlesque could get away with the clichéd plot, therefore, if it weren’t for a complete lack of redeeming qualities. It feels like an extended music video. Character development and plot are deemed less important than set pieces. Even the set pieces offer nothing new, paling in comparison to contemporary movie-musicals Nine, Chicago and Moulin Rouge.

However, the film’s biggest problem is that it thinks it’s subversive. It thinks that bitchy bosses, gay secondin-commands, feathers, sequins and bowler hats are different, new and exciting. While watching, you can’t help being constantly reminded that Caberet did everything Burlesque attempts, did it better and did it in the 1970s. Aguilera is seen studying a book on Burlesque but the film never communicates a clear idea of what it is she is fascinated by. The art of Burlesque is meant to be about challenging the status quo through song, dance, comedy and striptease. Burlesque thinks that surface frivolity is enough to engage with this theme. So while Caberet had nazis to contend with, the LA of Burlesque is a world of yacht parties where blonde wannabes dream about Louboutins.

Rare Exports

Machete

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Peter Barry

hile well known for nokia phones and that band that won Eurovision in 2007, films are indeed a rare export for Finland. Finnish films are generally confined to, well, Finland, and rarely enter our conciousness, but perhaps for the odd escapee. This film then, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale to give it it’s full title, is indeed very odd.

The plot is as follows: a group of shady “archeologists” in northernmost Finland dig a shaft to a depth of 486 meters in Korvakunturi mountain, discovering a block of ice containing the body of an unknown man. The locals, in particular young Pietari and his father, soon discover a pile of enviscerated reindeer not far from their house.

Turns out the sinister white-bearded man is Santa - and he has a slight lust for blood, especially that of naughty young boys who have misbehaved during the year.

That such a startling portrayal of Santa would come from Finland is not all that surprising, given that it is in Scandinavia that the Santa myth originated as a nasty man who would eat children who misbehaved. Capitalism has scrubbed the old fella into a jolly, roly-poly bringer of love, christmas cheer and sparkling bottles of CocaCola. What Jalmari Helander has done is completely subverted the cuddly Christmas movie into someting a lot darker and mysterious, straddling the genres of action, horror, comedy, adventure, fantasy, etc. This, it cannot be stressed enough, is not one for the kids - the scene featuring one or two hundred naked old men romping through the artic snow ensures that. In the end the film concludes with a series of plot twists and is resolved all too easily, unsatisfying in light of the brilliant first two acts. It sometimes disturbs, continually surprises and will probably make you fear Ol’ Saint Nick like never before.

All the same, how often do you see Santa portrayed as a murdering maniac? Not often I’ll bet.

Ciara Barrett

s a lady of delicate constitution with an inclination towards feminism and a penchant for 1930s screwball comedy, Machete is certifiably not “my thing”.

But I flippin’ loved it, and would advise anyone who has ever - or never - said they’d love to see Danny Trejo decapitate ten people in the first five minutes of a film to march right out and see this film now.

I actually have no idea if that bit about Danny Trejo decapitating ten people in the first five minutes of the film is true or not. He definitely decapitates many, as in more than one; it could be less than ten, it could be more. It doesn’t really matter.

What does matter is that you get to see bona fide New York tough guy actor Robert De Niro playing a conservative anti-immigration state senator. You get to see Michelle Rodriguez strut around in black leather belly top and eyepatch, firing a bazooka (or some such gun). You get to see Jessica Alba gouge out an eye with a stiletto. You get to see Cheech Marin smoke a doobey in church. You get to see Steven Seagal commit seppuku. And you get to see Lindsay Lohan engage in a threesome with Danny Trejo and a woman playing her mother. Plus Danny Trejo decapitates ten people, more or less, within the first five minutes of the film.

I should mention that I do appreciate Machete for its plight-of-the-Mexican-immigrants not-so-sub-plot, timely and brave, for its badass lack of subtletly and conciliation with current American policy. By turns outrageously violent, nudity-filled and hilariously funny, Machete is one of the best films I’ve seen all year.

And Danny Trejo decapitates ten people, more or less, within the first five minutes of the film.

Danny Dyer The Passion of the Christ Die Hard The Nightmare Before Christmas Bridget Jones’ Diary Ben-Hur Love Actually The Wizard of Oz Titanic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Gremlins Home Alone

Jews make Jesus brown bread.

Crazy bloke has serious cobblers.

I’ll show you nightmare mate.

Fat? I’d give her one.

I’m a cockney. Cockney. Cockney.

Martine McCutcheon’s thrupenny bits, yeah?

The Wizard of gay, eh?

I shrink in cold water.

Willy Wanker. That is all.

Sounds like a venereal disease.

I’d smash that little bastard.

Danny gives us his take on the films that we’ve been talking about...