Zach Wilson--General Topic 4

In our class, the stated purpose was to explore the religious themes within secular films.  The website filmsnobbery.com released a list of religious films that were 'the most important.'  The list can be found here: http://web.archive.org/web/20100115064809/http://filmsnobbery.com/2010/01/06/the-50-most-important-religion-films-of-all-time/
The list features Charlton Heston's  The Ten Commandments, a film which has set the standard for reenactment of biblical stories, in the top spot.  Number four on the list was Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, which told the story of the final hours of Jesus Christ's life on earth.  The question that these films include their biblical accuracy, but also the bias of the filmmaker.  Gibson, a Catholic, constructed the entirety of the film in Aramaic and Hebrew, with subtitles in the audience's vernacular.  This preserves the original language of the Bible and portrays the scenes in the purest form.  The Ten Commandments was filmed entirely in English, and therefore allows for some warping of the original language.
Although the point of the course was to recognize religious themes in secular movies, there is a bit of the reverse which must occur in order for filmmakers to portray the sacred.  In order to portray Christ's prayer in the garden, Gibson had to speculate, and introduce his own human fallibility into the film.  The Ten Commandments features many fleshly themes such as sexuality, and dance numbers that rival Broadway musicals.  These films, as well as other modern Christian box-office films such as Fireproof and Facing the Giants portray secular issues within a religious perspective, and approach the religious and secular in a different hierarchy.