That pretty much sums up the two kinds of reactions people have had to this year's Old Testament epic "from the director of Black Swan," Darren Aronofsky. (If he has a thing for morality tales involving birds I hope he does The Ryme of the Ancient Mariner next.) The Catholic blogosphere has had the entire gamut of opinions. Since Noah is not strictly a verse-by-verse recitation of Genesis nor made purely for evangelistic purposes, some people are disappointed.
Noah's very modern feel is a red herring distracting audiences from its true spiritual merit. Yes, the wardrobe is heavy on ankle boots and skinny jeans, evoking Urban Outfitters more than the Stone Age. Russell Crowe's Noah is a vegan who stages funerals for dead animals and has visions of the ark thanks to hallucinogenic tea. Production values are slick; there are plenty of splashy CGI explosions and mythical creatures. At times I was reminded of The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, and Terrence Malick's sweeping landscapes. Unlike Son of God, Noah uses contemporary cinematography in a convincing way. Some of the images are truly stunning and worth seeing on the big screen. If Aronfsky's film feels like a blockbuster and not an indie flick, does that mean it's just a callous commercial grab?
Really, all Biblical movies are artistic reflections of their own time. Looking back to the golden age of mid-20th century Bible films, those weren't literal recitations either. Screenwriters added love triangles, pagan glam convents, and imagined conversations. As I mentioned earlier this week, Cecil B. DeMille's The 10 Commandments, arguably the greatest Bible epic ever made, certainly feels like the 1950s. Moses' vamping ex-girlfriend is a major plot device - where was she in the Bible? Anne Baxter's mad side eye may be not that different from angel/rock monster Ent knock-offs.
Even though Aronfsky pads out the slim Genesis account of Noah with his sometimes ridiculous imagination, he has still made a deeply religious movie that grapples with the big questions of human existence and its relationship to God. This isn't a 1990s self esteem pep talk about how everybody is special - it's a meditation on how we are all damaged by Original Sin. Aronfsky said as much in a recent interview: "Hearing the story of Noah [as a child], I thought about, "What if I was not one of the good ones to get on the boat? And I recognized that there’s wickedness in all of us." The God of Noah is very real and what He has to tell people matters.
Aronofsky positions Noah in a pre-history no man's land between Eden and God's chosen people of Israel. People have no image or name for God - they only know him as the very real Creator who also punishes. His will is often inscrutable, and there is no formal religion. The Fall of Adam and Eve looms large as Seth's descendants cling to a few relics and oral traditions from their ancestors' paradise. Now they are just trying to survive in a chaotic society where people's greed and appetites run out of control. The brutal, anarchic pre-flood world of Noah puts the rest of salvation history in perspective. Here, a covenant with God would be a welcome relief. If God gave, say, a list of ten ground rules for human behavior, that would be even better. God actually becoming a man to be punished for our sins? An unthinkable miracle.
The only time Noah flounders is when Aronofsky changes actual details of the Biblical account. In Genesis, all three sons Shem, Ham, and Japeth are married. The Noah movie makes procreation of the human race much more precarious, with Emma Watson's presumably barren character as the only young woman aboard the ark. Since the initial conflict of surviving the murderous hordes and the flood is over, this fertility drama takes over the third act of the film. Noah loses his marbles and becomes a scrupulous misanthrope while everyone else cowers in fear. [SPOILERS] Eventually he relents, and later gets wasted because he thinks he has failed God. Meanwhile Ham flounces off to be a celibate nomad and tween Japeth presumably joins Team Jacob and imprints on his newborn niece.
But I'm willing to forgive Russell Crowe's tedious extermination rage because it resolves in an incredibly pro-life story arc, discussing what being "made in God's image" really means. Noah and his family have just escaped a world where human life has little value. People were traded for food and dead bodies left to rot in open pits. Villain Tubal-Cain argued with God, shouting "I create life and destroy it, just like you!" Blinded by his outrage at this wickedness, Noah ignores his family's pleading and signs of God's clemency. Discernment fail. He stubbornly plows ahead doing his own will, until compassion reminds him to protect the lives in his care. In the end, family and the chance for new life win out.
Aronfsky took this angle to reinforce the Divine Mercy lesson of the Great Flood. "So what we decided to do was to align Noah with that character arc and give Noah that understanding: He understands what man has done, he wants justice, and, over the course of the film, learns mercy. What’s nice about that is that is how I think Thomas Aquinas defined righteousness: a balance of justice and mercy."
If a director quotes Thomas Aquinas as a source, that's probably a good indication that yes, he did read the Bible as well and spent a good bit of time pondering its lessons. Noah doesn't have the formal reverence of a Sunday School pageant, but it still tells a powerful story of the world longing for God's salvation. Its excellent performances take the Old Testament beyond cute animal pairs towards the old catechism question "Why did God make me?" Its themes stuck with me long after I left the theater, and have helped me appreciate the mercy God has shown His people in a new way.
No comments:
Post a Comment