There is an ark with animals boarding it two by two, a great apocalyptic flood and the builder of the big boat, driven by foreknowledge of the catastrophe. Everyone knows the story, taken from the Bible’s Book of Genesis and now spun into Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” starring Russell Crowe and opening in the middle of Lent.
The writer-director is not promising that it will please the faithful, declaring in one interview, ” ‘Noah’ is the least biblical movie ever made.”
Maybe “Noah” will turn out to be as provocative as Aronofsky’s comments seem to promise, or maybe not, but it does underline that biblical dramas are not one-size-fits-all.
This seems like a good time to look at some of them. This list barely scratches the surface of a genre that has its roots in the silent era. Here are a few movies that represent a sample of the celebrated and the obscure:
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Director Cecil B. DeMille ended his long and storied career with a remake of his own 1923 silent-era drama with this massive, glittering epic, which has had a place on ABC’s prime-time spring schedule since the 1970s. Charlton Heston is Moses in this production, which also stars Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Vincent Price and 25,000 extras. Nearly four hours long, it wastes none of that time as DeMille applies his showmanship and eye for detail to the tale of the Hebrew prophet who led his people to freedom.
Ben-Hur (1959)
A wealthy Judean, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) is sentenced to a lifetime of slavery when he crosses Messala (Stephen Boyd), a boyhood friend who is now a Roman tribune. Ben-Hur will regain his freedom and seek revenge in the chariot arena, but he will also find faith when he has two momentous meetings with Jesus. The chariot race is thrilling, but there is more to recommend in William Wyler’s opulent classic, not the least of which is its sheer scope.
Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
“A Clockwork Orange” scribe Anthony Burgess was among the writers on Franco Zeffirelli’s six-hour miniseries. Robert Powell is yet another blue-eyed Jesus in this expansive, all-star (Christopher Plummer, Ernest Borgnine, Olivia Hussey, Rod Steiger, Michael York, Anne Bancroft, James Farentino) biopic, which begins with Jesus’ boyhood and presents him as much as an ordinary human being as a divinity.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
It’s been a decade since Mel Gibson’s controversial drama opened on Ash Wednesday to a rapturous reception from those willing to buy into the auteur’s blood-soaked vision of Jesus’ final hours. A box office behemoth, it grossed more than $600 million worldwide, but critics perceived anti-Semitism in Gibson’s storytelling and decried his laser focus on Jesus’ suffering.
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Val Kilmer is the voice of Moses and Ralph Fiennes his nemesis Ramses in this animated version of the Bible tale. This DreamWorks production is terrific, especially when it comes to such things as a plague of locusts swarming the kingdom and the parting of the Red Sea. It is also a musical, with a handful of tunes from “Godspell” songwriter Stephen Schwartz, including the Oscar-winning “When You Believe.” Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum, Martin Short and Steve Martin co-star.
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