Bible Movie Concept

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-10-22 03:29pm

I think Mike said a while ago that he'd like to see balls-out Bible epic that shows God and the patriarchs as the psychopathic arseholes accurate to the text. I really like this idea, and my cousin and I are setting up a small film productions company. We're currently writing, planning, acting in and producing a low budget but awesome horror film, but when we're done with this one, we have other projects in the pipeline, should we ever make it big in the business, this film is planned for a big budget epic. If it gets made, all contributors will be named in the credits.

So, what Biblical stories would be best for a film with God as the bad guy? What scenes would be the most emotive, ethically appalling and impressive?

Of this is more fantasy or OT material, my apologies.

Losonti Tokash · Post by **Losonti Tokash** » 2006-10-22 03:31pm

Job comes to mind immediately, for obvious reasons.

dworkin · Post by **dworkin** » 2006-10-22 03:33pm

Exodus, run the tale as a king trying to deal with rebels and a charasmatic leader.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-10-22 03:35pm

Fuck that, the story where Joshua murders the city of Jericho. Every bloody one of 'em.

I've never seen a rendition of that, so if you guys can do mass murder, that'd be cool!

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2006-10-22 04:07pm

The Book of Joshua. Epic battles, horrific atrocities, and Jericho.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2006-10-22 04:09pm

The mauling of children by bears comes to mind...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-22 04:14pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Fuck that, the story where Joshua murders the city of Jericho. Every bloody one of 'em.

I've never seen a rendition of that, so if you guys can do mass murder, that'd be cool!

The story of Jericho is ripe for a de-mythologized storytelling, in much the same vein as the Brad Pitt movie Troy did. Just as the butchery of Troy was portrayed as a long-awaited and long-deserved victory in the original tale but a ruthless atrocity in the movie, the butchery of Jericho should be treated the same way.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-10-22 04:15pm

dworkin wrote:Exodus, run the tale as a king trying to deal with rebels and a charasmatic leader.

If you do Exodus, make sure to include the fact that God deliberately "hardened Pharoah's heart" so that he wouldn't release the Israelites, thus giving God a chance to show off his powers. Hell, you could have a narrator quote that straight out of the Bible.

Job is also an extremely fucked up story you could do.

Stile · Post by **Stile** » 2006-10-22 05:01pm

The tale of Abraham and Isaac really should be included. "Sacrifice your first borne son to me, no, really. HAh! fooled you!!"

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2006-10-22 05:11pm

The problem with any Old Testament depiction is the repetition. How many times can you honestly go with that?

And I think the censures might blow all their veins at the incest.

dworkin · Post by **dworkin** » 2006-10-22 05:46pm

Jim Raynor wrote: If you do Exodus, make sure to include the fact that God deliberately "hardened Pharoah's heart" so that he wouldn't release the Israelites, thus giving God a chance to show off his powers. Hell, you could have a narrator quote that straight out of the Bible.

Job is also an extremely fucked up story you could do.

It's the systematic extermination of all first born that always brings me back. You just need to show the Egyptian capital as a marvelous, cosmopolitan city systematically being destroyed. Of course having Rameses being openly willing to relese the rebels until YHWH magics him back to being a hardliner is an essential touch.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-10-22 05:59pm

The portrayal of the exodus of Jews out of Egypt, giving the Egyptians massive sympathy. God changed Pharoh's emotions to make him not release the Jews so he'd have an excuse to vent his wrath, and kill all the firstborn.

Incidentally, show that the Jews weren't treated nearly as badly as Christians like to proclaim, and show how Abraham was a deluded egomaniac who thought he was the savior of the Jewish race, who led a group of terrorist guerilla fighters in an effort to take down the Pharoah.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-10-22 06:00pm

Ghetto edit: Moses, not Abraham. Stupid lack of caffeine.

Kettch · Post by **Kettch** » 2006-10-22 07:21pm

I want to see Deborah & Barak, in Judges 4, because it is a great story. Especially how Sisera gets it in the end could be done in an awesome way, with the right director. If only Hitchcock had the urge to do a Bible epic. It could be like Psycho in Sandles.

For an excellend synopsis, see David Platz in Slate.

The nice thing about Chapter 4 is that it has not one but two heroines: Neither is a prostitute, and both are role models for their courage and their skillful manipulation of weak men.

Has any one been reading Slate's Blogging the Bible? Platz is reading the Bible straight through & Blogging his responses. Heck its great for titles:

The Complete Book of Joshua: Why the Bible Has So Many Prostitutes & Will the Book of Joshua Make You Stop Believing in God?

Is Samson a Hero?

Chapter 13
Has there ever been a more depressing story about the relationship between men and women than the tale of Samson? Its two conclusions:

1) Men shouldn't trust women because they're deceptive, heartless creatures.

...

Chapter 14 and Chapter 15
Visiting a nearby town, Samson sees a Philistine girl and falls in love with her. Manoah and his wife then become the first Jewish parents in history to say: What? You couldn't find a nice Jewish girl? You think I'm joking, but I'm not. "Is there not a woman among your kin, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But their son just has a thing for pagan chicks, and insists that dad get him the Philistine wife.

Samson, it soon becomes clear, was the original meathead—born 3,000 years too early to be a hockey goon, or the fraternity rush chairman. On the way down to the wedding, Samson tears a young lion apart with his bare hands. Later he eats honey from the carcass of the lion. At a post-wedding party, Samson bets the Philistine guests they can't solve his riddle, which is about the lion and the honey. The riddle stumps the Philistines for three days, so they threaten Samson's new bride, saying they'll kill her and her dad unless she coaxes the answer out of him. She nags and wheedles and cajoles her husband for four days. Samson, clearly not the sharpest sword in the scabbard, tells her the answer. She immediately tells the Philistines, who solve the riddle. This enrages Samson, who also seems to think the Philistines have slept with his wife. (He tells them: "[You] plowed with my heifer.") The furious judge kills 30 other, apparently innocent, Philistine men. It says Samson kills them while he is possessed by the "spirit of the Lord"—a kind of holy 'roid rage—but it's not at all clear why God would encourage such pointless murder.

Side note: It has been pointed out in the textual analysis that Samson rads more like a Greek Hero than a Jewish Judge. The only interations a between Philistines & the Tribe of Dan. It has been speculated that Dan was not a Semetic Tribe, but an early arriving Greco-Sea People that was subsumed into the Israelite Tribal system.

And to top it off...

Hemorrhoids of the Lost Ark: A Bizarre Incident With the Ark of the Covenant. Plus, Why the Bible's Priests Are So Corrupt.

The jubilant Philistines bring the captured ark to the temple of their god Dagon. In the morning they find the statue of Dagon face down before the ark. They remount Dagon, but the next morning they find him on the ground again, this time with his head and arms chopped off. And that mighty ark is just getting started harassing the Philistines. It then inflicts hemorrhoids—what's with all the Biblical hemorrhoids?—on the people of Ashdod. (So, Spielberg was also wrong about the ark causing your face to melt. It works its magic on your other end!) The Phils move the ark to Gath, and sure enough, the Gathites are soon itching hemorrhoids, too. Then the ark goes to Ekron, and, yup, it's Preparation H time there as well. (The "H" stands for "Holy.") With Ekronites dying, the Philistines are desperate to return the ark. Their priests advise sending it back with a "guilt offering" to appease God. What's the gift they come up with? Five gold mice and five gold hemorrhoids! What would a gold hemorrhoid even look like? One shudders to think! (According to a quick Google search, scholars debate whether the ark caused "hemorrhoids" or "tumors." Let's face it, hemorrhoids make it a much better story.)

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-10-22 08:05pm

Yes, but wouldn't a movie depicting the ancient Hebrew tribesman as monsters be viewed as anti-Semitic or intolerant with many Jewish and Christian religious leaders blocking it at every turn? I don't mind moral ambiguity with new adaptations of Bible stories, but not seemingly aimless smearing like this.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-10-22 08:36pm

Big Orange wrote:Yes, but wouldn't a movie depicting the ancient Hebrew tribesman as monsters be viewed as anti-Semitic or intolerant with many Jewish and Christian religious leaders blocking it at every turn? I don't mind moral ambiguity with new adaptations of Bible stories, but not seemingly aimless smearing like this.

That's something I've been thinking about some of the suggestions here. My solution? Don't put anything in the movie that isn't in the Bible, or go out of your way to make the non-Christians look really nice. That will only make it seem like you're intentionally trying to smear the Bible.

Just depict the stories as they are. A faithful (no pun intended) adaptation of Job or Exodus that isn't watered-down like the versions they show in movies or tell in Sunday schools would be fucked up enough to open the eyes of the average person. And the fundies won't be going after you. These are the people who scheduled mass church group viewings of The Passion of the Christ despite its gore, and who support that new documentary Jesus Camp. Violence and cruelty in movies is bad to them, unless it's the word of God. Their support for what is a blatantly fucked-up movie would open even more eyes than the movie would by itself.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-22 09:07pm

Big Orange wrote:Yes, but wouldn't a movie depicting the ancient Hebrew tribesman as monsters be viewed as anti-Semitic or intolerant with many Jewish and Christian religious leaders blocking it at every turn? I don't mind moral ambiguity with new adaptations of Bible stories, but not seemingly aimless smearing like this.

There would be no "smearing" at all if my suggestion were implemented. According to the Bible, the Hebrews really did attack Jericho simply for being in their way, and they really did massacre every last man, woman, and child in the city when its walls fell. It was actually more brutal than the sack of Troy, which at least left a fair number of survivors according to the ancient myths. The Biblical story, taken literally, requires brutal scenes like a woman running from the burning city holding her baby in his arms and Hebrew soldiers cutting her down and then butchering the baby.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-10-22 09:21pm

If you're going to do it, I would suggest doing it in the style of the recent (I think) adaptations of the gospels: have the only words, the only language in it lifted directly from the Bible. So, for example, the Jericho scene would be like this:

NARRATOR: And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them,

JOSHUA: Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD.

NARRATOR: And he said unto the people,

JOSHUA: Pass on, and compass the city, and let him that is armed pass on before the ark of the LORD.

NARRATOR: And it came to pass, when Joshua had spoken unto the people, that the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams' horns passed on before the LORD, and blew with the trumpets: and the ark of the covenant of the LORD followed them. And the armed men went before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the rereward came after the ark, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets. And Joshua had commanded the people, saying,

JOSHUA: Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall ye shout.

NARRATOR: So the ark of the LORD compassed the city, going about it once: and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp. And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD. And seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD went on continually, and blew with the trumpets: and the armed men went before them; but the rereward came after the ark of the LORD, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets. ... And the second day they compassed the city once, and returned into the camp: so they did six days. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time , when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people,

JOSHUA: Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city. And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live , she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.

NARRATOR: So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

Of course, during this, you'd have the narrator voicing over the action scenes he's describing, and you don't have to dream up dialogue to go along with the scenes. It will also lend you credibility with the literalists, and strengthen your point: you're going with nothing but what the Bible itself says.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-10-22 09:36pm

But is Hollywood going to fund this, if it's going to expose Judeo-Christian ideology as the murderous clap-trap that it's always been? It be good if the film adaptations of the Exodus or the siege of Jericho were very similar in tone to Der Undergang, with the story concept essentially normal people being driven to evil by insane but charismatic loonies who have "a vision".

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-10-22 09:45pm

Big Orange wrote:But is Hollywood going to fund this, if it's going to expose Judeo-Christian ideology as the murderous clap-trap that it's always been?

Done properly, it wouldn't be anything but what the Bible says. That's something that we AND the fundies want to see. Violent but accurate depictions of Bible stories will make money. Just look at The Passion of the Christ.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-10-22 09:51pm

It would be the best of both worlds. Sticking entirely to the Literal Word of the Bible produces a film which will cause millions to seriously question the book while the Fundies get all the Smiting the Heathen porn they could possibly wish for in a lifetime.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-10-23 12:03am

Oh, there are so many. Show the flood with all the children drowning. Soddom and Gomorrah with the children being burned alive. Abraham getting ready to sacrifice Isaac and Isaac pleading for his life.

This is really the proverbial fish in a barrel.

General Soontir Fel · Post by **General Soontir Fel** » 2006-10-23 01:11am

How about David and Bathsheeba? And then have the narrator hammer how "righteous" David is...

Noah's flood would work too. Show people (including little children) drowned for not believing in God.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2006-10-23 01:44am

Darth Servo wrote:Oh, there are so many. Show the flood with all the children drowning. Soddom and Gomorrah with the children being burned alive. Abraham getting ready to sacrifice Isaac and Isaac pleading for his life.

This is really the proverbial fish in a barrel.

And make a point of it looking exactly like a nuclear explosion with all the fireball/blast-wave/mushroom-cloud trappings too

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-23 02:05am

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:
Darth Servo wrote:Oh, there are so many. Show the flood with all the children drowning. Soddom and Gomorrah with the children being burned alive. Abraham getting ready to sacrifice Isaac and Isaac pleading for his life.

This is really the proverbial fish in a barrel.
And make a point of it looking exactly like a nuclear explosion with all the fireball/blast-wave/mushroom-cloud trappings too

To be honest, I doubt that would faze Christians too much. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is common knowledge, and how far are you really going to get by painting such actions as irredeemably evil in front of an American audience, when America also destroyed two cities in similar fashion?

Jericho is more visceral, as are most of the atrocities in the Books of Judges and Joshua etc, because it is not a single huge blast. Instead, it is individual soldiers cruelly hacking down women and children. It is Moses telling his men to kill all the boys and take the girls for themselves in some of the other campaigns. That is a level of cruelty which will have much more impact than showing the effects of a nuclear blast over Sodom and Gomorrah.