Noah Adaptations p01: Introduction
Labels: Noah, Noah adaptations series
Looking at film interpretations of the stories in the Bible - past, present and future, as well as preparation for a future work on Straub/Huillet's Moses und Aron and a few bits and pieces on biblical studies.
Labels: Noah, Noah adaptations series
Labels: Greatest Heroes of the Bible, Noah
Labels: Abraham, Bible (The - Huston), Cain and Abel, Genesis, Lot/Sodom & Gomorrah, Noah
Labels: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Lot/Sodom & Gomorrah, Moses, Noah, Silent Bible Films, Solomon
"When people began to multiply...and daughters were born to them, the 'sons of God' saw that they were fair and took wives for themselves... the 'sons of God' went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them..." (Gen 6:1-4)And that's one of the passages that Aronofsky leaves out. Add in those making covenants by dismembering animal carcasses and perambulating between them; Lot sleeping with both his daughters on consecutive nights, and Abraham being just moments away from sacrificially chopping up his only son and you have one weird book. Of course, Genesis is not necessarily endorsing all the actions it describes. However, all too often people behave as if that the world of Genesis was broadly similar to out own, where people thought, felt and generally acted in a similar manner to the way in which we do today, despite the substantial evidence to the contrary, not least in our main source for these very stories.
He chose you for a reason, Noah. He showed you the wickedness of man and knew you would not look away. And you saw goodness too. The choice was put in your hands because he put it there. He asked you to decide if we were worth saving. And you chose mercy. You chose love. He has given us a second chance. Be a father, be a grandfather. Help us to do better this time. Help us start again."On all three fronts the rehabilitation is only partly successful, such trauma is not easily overcome, but it does manage to leave the film on a positive note, whilst also challenging its audience to re-examine its own environmental credentials. This, then, is a more hopeful ending than Aronofsky's later mother! which suggests that this film's second chance, if it even is only a second chance, is doomed to fail and will ultimately lead The Creator to endlessly destroy and misguidedly restart the world again. Here though, the despair is not yet so overwhelming. Noah may have begun amidst environmental apocalypse (with an implied modern parallel), but it ends still offering us a fig leaf of hope, urging us to act before its too late.
Labels: Genesis, Noah, Noah (2014)
Labels: Noah, The Ark (BBC)
Labels: Documentaries, Noah
Click on image to enlarge
These days most of the news about Bible Films in production goes through the Facebook page, partly because so many projects start but never really finish. That said the best place to go for updates for that kind of thing now is Peter Chattaway's new blog.Labels: Genesis, Noah, Noah (2014)
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Noah, Noah (2014)
To build an ark for all the animals, God chose Noah. To lead them to it, God chose... Gilbert?!?Two thoughts spring immediately to mind. Firstly, If the hero is Gilbert the Groundhog, then who is the pink hippo in the above photo (taken from the website's only image at the time of writing)? Secondly, it seems a little strange to me that this synopsis suggests that lying is good and God's plan. It could be argued that there is some kind of biblical precedent for this, for example the Jacob story, but this kind of message is likely to repel the kind of faith groups who would otherwise be those most likely to watch a film based on the Hebrew Bible.
Gilbert the Groundhog loves Caroline with all his heart. That's too bad for him, because Caroline plans to marry into the upper crust of groundhog society, and Gilbert dwells in the deepest, dingiest tunnels a groundhog can dig. That is, until they start to flood!
When a pair of very special doves warns Gilbert of the troubles to come, nobody in the burrow will listen. To get Caroline away from those groundhog snobs and on the road to safety, Gilbert tells a teeny tiny lie. Of course, lies don't stay little for long! Two-by-two, a menagerie of kooky, crazy animals begins to follow them. Day-by-day, the journey grows more perilous. Pretty soon, Gilbert finds himself leading a rowdy zoo of birds and beasts and all kinds of critters through deserts and jungles and much, much worse...
...all because he told a lie. Now, the storm is come. The waters are rising. All these animals want is to run wild and free, but soon there won’t be any place left to run to. Gilbert had better quit digging himself into a hole, because it takes a hero to lead his friends all the way to Noah's Ark!
Labels: Noah
Thanks to Peter Chattway for the latest addition.Not the End of the World - Illuminated Films Unnamed Noah Film - Darren Aronofsky Sold Out! - Uri Paster Aardvark Art's Ark - Warner Bros. / Casey Affleck (above) The Flood - Promenade Pictures' sequel to The Ten Commandments (2007) Rock the Boat - French animation (Gaumont) Noah's Ark - Unified Pictures / Bob Funk El Arca - Patagonik (Argentina) The Missing Lynx - Kandor Graphics
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Noah
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Epic Stories of the Bible, Noah
RoS: Looking forward to the projects you have coming up, what is the situation with the Noah project?I wonder if part of the thinking behind the graphic novel idea is its similarity to storyboarding? And, of course, it's also a cheap way to test out the market for such a film, whilst simultaneously building that market up.
DA: We have a script actually, it is a script but there is more work to do. We’re actually going to do a graphic novel of it right now, we’re just starting it, and we’re hiring a writer.
RoS: And are you shopping the script around to studios and actors…?
DA: There is an actor attached, but I’m not going to say who, but he’s a big movie star.
RoS: Steve Carell… [joking]
DA: [With a smile] Yeah, exactly… Eventually we’ll set it up, but we’re just figuring it out. It’s a very difficult film to get made and we’re slowly working on it to get it put together.
It's the end of the world and it's the second most famous ship after the Titanic... I think it's really timely because it's about environmental apocalypse which is the biggest theme, for me, right now for what's going on on this planet. So I think it's got these big, big themes that connect with us. Noah was the first environmentalist. He's a really interesting character.Second most famous?
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Noah, Noah (2014)
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Noah, Rock the Boat
Thanks to Peter Chattway for the latest addition.Not the End of the World - Illuminated Films Unnamed Noah Film - Darren Aronofsky Sold Out! - Uri Paster Aardvark Art's Ark - Warner Bros. / Casey Affleck (above) The Flood - Promenade Pictures' sequel to The Ten Commandments (2007) Rock the Boat - French animation (Gaumont) Noah's Ark - Unified Pictures / Bob Funk El Arca - Patagonik (Argentina) The Missing Lynx - Kandor Graphics
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Noah, Noah (2014)
Noah is presented as history's first stage director, and he puts the animals through auditions before they are assigned places on the ark, or rejected.By my count this is the eighth film about Noah to go into production in recent years (not counting last year's Evan Almighty which has already been released). Back at the end of July FilmChat also carried the story that Warner Bros. were working on an animated film about Noah's Ark along with Casey Affleck (pictured above in Vanity Fair's re-shot still from Hitchcock's Lifeboat. According to The Hollywood Reporter, that film, Aardvark Art, is about "a group of animals who are stranded when they are not chosen to go on Noah's Ark".
The cast of characters gives new meaning to the word multiethnic, reflecting the roles of Noah's three sons - Shem, Ham and Japheth - as the forefathers of all mankind. And mankind, in this case, includes an Algerian musician, a Reform rabbi, a black rapper, a hassidic tenor, a Hungarian stripper, a Chinese opera singer, a French pop vocalist, Jewish kids and, for good measure, a bisexual producer. Everyone, though, speaks English. The ark itself becomes the setting for a Broadway show, with Noah's wife as the producer.
As well as omitting Evan Almighty, I've also excluded the somewhat tangential Polish film Ark which played in Vancouver amongst other places at the end of last year.Unnamed Noah Film - Darren Aronofsky Sold Out! - Uri Paster (above) Aardvark Art - Warner Bros. / Casey Affleck (above) The Flood - Promenade Pictures' sequel to The Ten Commandments (2007) Rock the Boat - French animation (Gaumont) Noah's Ark - Unified Pictures / Bob Funk El Arca - Patagonik (Argentina) The Missing Lynx - Kandor Graphics
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Noah, Noah (2014)
Peter Sciretta: Who wrote it?That part of the interview has apparently gained such a lot of interest that Sciretta posted a follow-up piece just on Aronofsky's Noah in which he adds this to what we already know:
Darren Aronofsky: I wrote it. Me and Ari Handel, the guy who worked on the Fountain. It’s a great script and it’s HUGE. And we’re starting to feel out talent. And then we’ll probably try and set it up…
Peter Sciretta: So this isn’t something you can make for six million dollars?
Darren Aronofsky: No, this is big. I mean, Look… It’s the end of the world and it’s the second most famous ship after the Titanic. So I’m not sure why any studio won’t want to make it.
Peter Sciretta: You would hope so.?
Darren Aronofsky: Yeah, I would hope so. It’s a really cool project and I think it’s really timely because it’s about environmental apocalypse which is the biggest theme, for me, right now for what’s going on on this planet. So I think it’s got these big, big themes that connect with us. Noah was the first environmentalist. He’s a really interesting character. Hopefully they’ll let me make it.
The idea originated ten years ago, even before Pi, when Aronofsky saw a museum exhibit. But the director’s fascination with Noah’s Ark began when he was only 13-years-old. Aronofsky won a United Nations poetry competition at his Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn school. The poem was about the end of the world as seen through the eyes of Noah. When Brad Pitt abruptly left The Fountain just weeks before principal photography, Aronofsky took some time off and began to develop a variety of different projects, one of them being the Noah screenplay.Obviously I'll be reporting on this one as it (hopefully) progresses. Meanwhile, you can read all of the posts I've made on films about Noah here. Incidentally the image above is from Jacopo Bassano's 1574 painting "Noah's Sacrifice" which seems kind of fitting given Aronofsky's earlier comments about Noah's "survivor's guilt".
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Noah, Noah (2014)
Labels: Bible Films in Production, Comedy, Genesis, God Complex, Noah
Labels: Abraham, Adam and Eve, Comedy, Creation, Genesis, God Complex, Noah