Written by Brian Laughran – Senior Viewpoints Editor
This Friday, the new biblical epic “Noah” will hit the big screen – starring Russell Crowe as the titular ark-builder. “Noah” is the second in a series of Bible-based films to be released this year.
The first of these films was the February release “Son of God” – a film centered on the life of Christ featuring the cast from the History Channel’s “The Bible.” “Son of God” easily came out on top of the box-office the weekend it came out.
To be fair, “Son of God” had only one other major competitor – “The Lego Movie” – which had been out for weeks by the time “Son of God” came to theaters, leaving me wondering whether “Noah” and “Exodus” – Ridley Scott’s upcoming retelling of the Moses narrative – will be able to share the same success.
“Noah” intrigues me just based on its inception. It is a film with religious roots, stars Russell Crowe (a Catholic) and is directed by Darren Aronofsky (an atheist). It’s the atheist part that I find endlessly fascinating.
Aronofsky is a fantastic visual filmmaker whose films are always packed with gritty content…which is why I’m really kind of looking forward to “Noah.” I want to see how a filmmaker like Aronofsky will take the simple story of a man who built a boat into an epic, visual spectacle.
Yet another atheist filmmaker is entering the arena with a biblical epic as well, Mr. Ridley Scott. Ridley Scott has always been one of my favorite filmmakers. His resume includes films such as “Alien,” “Gladiator,” “American Gangster,” “Thelma and Louise,” and many, many more classic cinematic masterpieces.
Scott, like Aronofsky, is an atheist as well. Not that atheist filmmakers can’t make movies based on religious texts and have them be great films, but I just wonder what draws these directors who can basically do anything to do a biblical story. That’s especially considering that both men have sort of professed to not believing what these films are about.
As always, people have run to the internet to voice their concerns. Saying that it’s “blasphemous” that atheists like Scott and Aronofsky are directing these films. To them I say, let the best man or woman qualified make the movie they want to make.
Ridley Scott and Darren Aronofsky are two directors who have proven time-and-time again that they are brilliant filmmakers given a vast area of subject matter. That has me interested in these films alone. How they’ll interpret this material has me even MORE interested.