Posted on 03/21/2014 10:51:24 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Darren Aronofsky’s Noah pays its source material a rare compliment: It takes Genesis seriously as a landmark of world literature and ancient moral reflection, and a worthy source of artistic inspiration in our day.
It is not a “Bible movie” in the usual sense, with all the story beats predetermined by the text, and actors in ancient Near Eastern couture hitting their marks and saying all the expected things. It is something more vital, surprising and confounding: a work of art and imagination that makes this most familiar of tales strange and new: at times illuminating the text, at times stretching it to the breaking point, at times inviting cross-examination and critique.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Waiting for personal reviews from Freepers.
Thanks for posting. I’ll go see it.
I am flexible enough to be happy with good, appropriate dialogue that is not taken directly from the Bible. If the writer/director gave Noah lines to help convey the Genesis story, or even to put other parts of the Bible in context, I would have no problem with that. However, if they change the meaning of the story, I have a huge problem with the script. Even after reading the review, I’m still unsure of this movie (which I think was the author’s intent).
I haven’t seen it. But I would be careful about believing this review. The National Catholic Register is known among orthodox Catholics as the National Catholic Fishwrap.
It’s pretty much the New York Times in drag.
If I heard right the movie at no time mentions God by name. Kind of hard to relay the biblical meaning without naming the author/creator.
That is kind of hard to believe. Why would Noah have built the Ark in the first place?
Was he the first 'Climate Scientist' and determined that mankind was burning too many fossil fuels (or maybe they weren't fossils at the time -- maybe they were just burning too many dinosaurs on the BBQ pit), and that the polar caps would soon melt (all at once)?
I will pass on the movie -- but I'll keep an eye on the reviews here...
” The National Catholic Register is known among orthodox Catholics as the National Catholic Fishwrap.”
I think you mean the National Catholic Reporter, aka National Catholic Distorter. I wasn’t aware the REgister had any issues with orthodoxy.
You are mixing up the National Catholic Register with the National Catholic Reporter, which is a leftist site.
National Catholic Register is owned by EWTN, founded by the very orthodox Mother Angelica.
I haven’t seen the movie, but as for myths of climate change back is the days of ancient Sumer (or, Sumeria):
Some Sumerologists (how ‘bout that word?) argue that Sumer poisoned its soil by continuous irrigation with brackish water. Thus, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates that HAD BEEN able to support wheat became calcified and unable to support agriculture of any kind.
(Some fold over-population onto this. That is, the Sumerians attempted to grow too much.)
I’ll speak to this as an economist: it is not reasonable for farmers who own the land to kill their own land. Farmers love the land. It is precious. They are the natural naturalists among us. Only, they’re practical people. Not ideologues. They love the land. Not worship it. Think about a hindu and a cow versus a milk farmer and a cow.
So, if those ancient farmers owned the land, they would have charged increasing prices, reflecting the alternative of trucking produce in from further and further distances; instead of over-working the land. As for soil conservation, just because those farmers were born a long time ago doesn’t mean they were stupid. So-called primitive farmers knew about fertilizer and about crop rotation.
As to what might explain the exhaustion of the land:
1.Communist farming. Communist-ownership of resources tends to lead to short-term exploitation and exhaustion. Communists have no natural incentive to conserve the value of land. If they dissipate the value of land, somebody else suffers. But, a private landowner has a personal stake in maintaining the value of land. They WILL preserve the land.
2.Climate change. Yes, climate change. Volcanoes and such disrupting the normal course of things, perhaps long enough for collapse of civilization (a dark ages) or for barbarians to conquer. Think of the Europeans. They fell into a dark ages, we think, because of a massive volcanic eruption combined with low crop yields, weakened population, and spread of disease.
3.Conquest (independent of #2).
INDEED, as Idb Kaldhun was the first to hypothesize, the normal course of civilization is one of growth, corruption and decline.
We know that after some kind of event, which just might have been the flood, the first civilization in that place was wiped out and a new civilization arose in its place. The Bible tells us about the Tower of Babel following the flood. And, the Tower of Babel civilization collapsed. I think the archeological record supports not one but a series of ancient civilizations in that part of the world.
“in Our image”
Refers to mankind’s spiritual nature, NOT our physical nature.
Recently, I am not a good Christian by any stretch of the imagination. Still, this is a non starter for me. You do not re-work, rewrite, or whatever. Wanna tell a Bible story, tell a Bible story. Don't write a "creative" work and call it a Bible story.
Plus when you do a movie based on a Bible story, for all purposes, you are giving a sermon. If a movie is done on a Bible story, for goodness sakes, be faithful to the Bible.
That would be the National Catholic Reporter. This review was found in the National Catholic Register, which IIRC is owned by EWTN. It's easy to confuse the two names - I've made the same mistake myself on more than one occasion.
You are correct. So-called primitive soldiers and farmers also knew about plowing salt into fields. There was a well-documented symbolic ritual of salting a conquered enemy's fields to symbolize absolute power over the enemy, and there are less specific reports of actual destruction through salting. I don't believe any real farmer (communists excluded) could fail to know the effect of salting a field or irrigating with salt water on crop yields, which is why the symbolism of salting a field "I have the power to destroy your land permanently, and you cannot stop me" was so effective in communicating the need to follow surrender terms.
Reviews won’t help. Everyone can smell the stultifying environmentalist revisionist history that is this movie. And what’s worse, the tracking is in.
Tracking is a type of polling that predicts box office success/failure by measuring audience awareness of a film and the intent to go see it. The tracking says no one is going to see “Noah.”
The trailer’s been out for months. The first tracking numbers were dismal. So they recut the trailer. They showcase the actors as themselves in the new trailers, doing interviews about how awesome the movie is. Um, their own movie.
I just saw the new trailer two weeks ago, and the untrammeled self-righteouness made the audience squirm and snicker. Emma Watson and Jennifer Connelly say I should go see it?! Well, why didn’t you say so?! All righty, then!
Oh, and the tracking hasn’t improved.
Even the director does a “talking head” in the new trailer, telling us how “important” this story is. Um, Darren — you’re not Spielberg. Nobody knows who you are. Or cares.
Big money down says “Noah” is DOA.
That’s gonna be a while for me. I won’t be paying for it. I’ll have to wait on Netflix.
“Um, Darren — you’re not Spielberg”.
So you like Spielberg liberal take in every movie he’s ever made?
“So you like Spielberg liberal take in every movie he’s ever made?”
Nope. But everybody knows who Spielberg is, his oeuvre, and what he looks like. And they’ll go see a movie with his name on it. The same was true of Hitchcock. Ditto M. Night Shyamalan for a minute, but he debased his currency with too many bad movies, so the jury is out if his name will sell his next film.
My point is nobody except Hollywood insiders and movie geeks know who Darren Aronofsky is. He doesn’t sell a film, so why put him in the trailer? It’s desperation time.
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