Religion in Film Debate

Follows screening of Life of Brian

Cinema and religion (or, to take a more Hollywood and Eurocentric view, specifically Christianity) have long been interconnected, from the first film versions of The Passion Play in 1897 to recent releases like End of Days and The Omega Code.

In the first half of the 20th Century, religion was a powerful influence on all films, from the few that tackled religious themes or figures directly to the masses of westerns, musicals and melodramas that filled the screens. Religious pressure groups like the Legion of Decency were of prime importance in forcing and shaping self-regulation in the form of the Studio Code. By this all films and film-makers were effectively compelled to make suitably ‘Christian' entertainment.

Inevitably, of course, there were reactions against this and the Code eventually fell by the wayside in the 1950s and beyond. The result has been a far more interesting situation: Now religious groups can only put pressure on studios, distributors and cinemas not to make and screen ‘blasphemous' films, and barring a successful campaign of this sort can only really influence what their own followers will see.

While well meaning, the effects of this are not always as intended. John Waters credits the nuns at Sunday school with interesting him in banned films and thereby encouraging him to "make the trashiest motion pictures in cinema history", while several people I know invert the scale used by Capalert in their Christian movie reviews (http://www.capalert.com) in deciding which films to see.

While one can understand why religious people might find Monty Python's Life of Brian, Godard's Hail Mary, Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ and Keven Smith's Dogma -to list four of the most controversial religious films of the past 20 or so years - objectionable it can also be hard to keep a straight face when looking at Capalert-type reviews. They're just so devoid of context that one can imagine an absolutely literal movie about the life of Christ losing marks for showing the Crucifixion because this could only be categorised as ‘an act of violence'.

But, religious or not, we would all have to acknowledge the strong ties between religion and cinema. It often seems that the very greatest directors are the ones who have been most influenced by religion, or who have felt compelled to investigate religious subject matter: Hitchcock, Bunuel, Breyer, Bergman, Bresson, Pasolini - the list goes on and on.

Notes by Lou Cypher
Taken from EUFS programme spring 2000