Description
Book SynopsisReligion and Film introduces readers to both religious studies and film studies by focusing on the formal similarities between cinema and religious practices and on the ways they each re-create the world. S. Brent Plate shows that by paying attention to the ways films are constructed, we can shed new light on myths and rituals and vice versa.
Trade ReviewContributes crucially to film theory as much as religious studies, marking a pivotal moment in the humanities in which religiosity, mythology, media, and narratology are once again being revisited in the continued critique of the Enlightenment, Western society, and secular humanism. * Reading Religion *
This new standalone version is erudite yet accessible, with a truly inclusive and knowledgeable appreciation of both cinema and religion. -- Joel Mayward * Journal of Film and Religion *
[This] volume is a stimulating contribution to the field of film and religion that will be read with profit by scholars in the field, graduate students and others with an interest in this conversation. -- Stefanie Knauss * Journal of Religion, Film, and Media *
Plate gives us the best introduction into the exploration of religion and film by brilliantly interweaving the worldmaking of religious myths and rituals, sacred times, and spaces, with the worldmaking of cinema. Insightful and illuminating,
Religion and Film helps us to understand the stagings, structures, and embodiments of film in the light of religion and to rethink the dynamics of religion in the light of film. -- David Chidester, author of
Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular CultureA truly compelling comparative study. The analogues between filmic and religious worldmaking are richly illuminating, bringing the reader to fresh insights about the structure and dynamics of both mediums. Setting aside the customary approach of simply analyzing religious themes in movies, this volume compares mythic and ritual ways of constructing a world with cinematic processes such as framing, focus, editorial selection, lighting, camera angle, voice, use of time and space, and iconicity—doing so with lucidity, ingenuity, and masterful use of a repertoire of interpretive frameworks. -- William Paden, University of Vermont
Spiritual questions are still anathema to most film theorists. On the other hand, many religious scholars who dabble in cinema have treated it illustratively and shown a blunt insensitivity to the specifics of film form. This book is exemplary in the cogent and creative way it builds a bridge between these two alienated intellectual worlds. Plate’s unfailingly perceptive mise-en-scène analysis discovers the visual mythologizing at work in an eclectic filmography ranging from George Lucas to Dziga Vertov and Stan Brakhage. At the same time, he remains critically aware of politics and ideology, attempting a more inclusive definition of religion that goes beyond the dogmatic and the doctrinal. A wonderfully syncretic study that offers an amazing bricolage of ideas. -- Peter Matthews, University of the Arts London
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Worldmaking On-Screen and at the Altar
Part I. Before the Show: Pulling the Curtain on the Wizard1. Audio-Visual Mythologizing
2. Ritualizing Film in Space and Time
3. Sacred and Cinematic Spaces: Cities and Pilgrimages
Part II. During the Show: Attractions and Distractions4. Religious Cinematics: Body, Screen, and Death
5. The Face, the Close-Up, and Ethics
Part III. After the Show: Re-Created Realities6. The Footprints of Film: Cinematic After-Images in Sacred Time and Space
Notes
References
Filmography
Index
