2 hrs & 17 min, color, 2014
Biblical
movies do not come any more large scale than this one. Certainly it is the most elaborate of any
attempt yet to pump life into the ancient fable of the man assigned by God to
the task of saving the world from total destruction by the flood waters. Though the picture has racked up big grosses,
it does not seem to speak to people of all faiths and persuasions and current
mindsets. In a word, it is not a movie
for everyone, for all tastes, not even for all secular interests. To the extent that it speaks on behalf of
human survival and the value of even the smallest morsel of life on this earth
it rings a somewhat momentous bell, one deserving to be heard. But there is much more in it to be contended
with, and that additional content is what divides one audience from
another. It forces one to determine
where she/he stands in relation to cosmological assumptions.
Let
me explain:
“Noah”
is the movie for you, if you are comfortable with its concept of deity. In this Old Testament myth, God is an
arbitrary ruler and manipulator of the forces of nature, a vengeful scourge of
human masses, and, I might add, a deceiver, a trickster, a silent fury. By his silence he tantalizes his enemies as
well as his followers and messes with their minds so as to push them close to
the bounds of sanity and sobriety to get what he wants from them.
“Noah” is the movie for you if you can abide a
three-decker universe, the earth as a plain between an upper heaven and a
subterranean hell.
“Noah”
is the movie for you, if you do not mind keeping company for two hours with
savagery, brutality and bestiality portrayed as means of righteous
purification.
“Noah”
is the movie for you if you like your heroes rugged and raw, stubborn and prone
to delusion.
Russell
Crowe’s portrayal of the man is beyond reproach, as are the fine performances
by Jennifer Connelly as Noah’s wife and Emma Watson as his
daughter-in-law. Crowe makes the man as
human as any mythological figure could ever be.
As long as the script concentrates on his personal struggle to protect
his family and ascertain the will of the Almighty, it rings home. Any of us who are frightened and worried by
what we read in the papers and hear on television news broadcasts about the
encroachment of bald evil across the globe in so many forms or the threat of ecological
holocaust can feel some identification with him – until he sheds the vestments
of common sense and loses his mental grip.
To become protective of his own at such a time is understandable, but
when he equates the divine will with self-destructive, drunken cravings, he
becomes a creature hard to identify, something other-worldly and almost
monstrous.
And
now I would like to add one more note of qualification: “Noah” is the movie for you, if you are
content with an obscure and presumptuous approach to the subject of evil. Evil is never defined in the story, even
though it is supposed to be the reason for all the drownings and slayings. We are taken through quick sketches of old
wars during the generations from Adam and Eve until the arrival of Noah – the
descendents of Cain killing people, etc.
But what is the primal cause and explanation for this evil? What has gone wrong in the interplay of
fallible races and peoples that blood has been so exceedingly shed? Mere overviews and summaries will not
suffice. We arrive too late in the
lengthy saga to get any real insight into how God was driven to destroy “the
wicked.” People are seemingly wicked
simply because they oppose Noah, and we know that that could not be true.
I
am grateful for the fact that we never have to listen to God speaking in a
human voice. God remains mysterious,
relating to the obedient through intuition and instinct. Revelation does not come about easily. No handwriting in the sky and no
oracles! I am grateful for that. But evil in this picture never takes on
dimensionality. The brutes are just
there, and the armed warfare goes on and on – at too much length for my taste. And what was the point of writing Methuselah
into the script? It is always something
of a pleasure to watch Anthony Hopkins at work, but why has Director/Writer
Darren Aronofsky and his co-writer Ari Handel given him so little to do? His part in preparing Noah for the flood is
somewhat vague.
Perusing
the footage, it appears that a “cast of thousands” has been employed in the
making of the film. When I was growing
up, such an advertising claim was considered to be a drawing factor in the
marketing of many a big budget spectacle.
But now we have computer generation, and the hordes can be simulated,
and in my estimation this device has been overdone. I have spoken about this in an earlier
writing and I will say it again. The
Special Effects people seem to think that what they now have the capacity to do
they must do. If it can be done, throw
everything you have got into it and do not worry about excess. What has become of balance? Would it not have been enough for Noah to be
faced with a small local tribe when getting the Ark built and getting it off
the ground? But no, they have to have
him facing a swarming armada of faceless warriors bearing weapons that look as
if they have been forged in a foundry.
That early in civilization!? The
drubbing that these marauders take seems to require divine intervention in the
form of hideous giants who claim to be fallen angels. Humanity is supposed to be scattered all
through the known world, so how convincing is it that all living flesh seems to
know of what Noah is up to? Did they
read about it on Facebook?
It
is not until the story turns personal and domestic (at last) that it began to
grip me on a somewhat rewarding emotional level. In the last hour, after the enemy has been
vanquished and the floods begin, we find Noah’s household divided. His three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, are
all in hateful conflict with their father and for quite plausible reasons, as
are the wife and the daughter-in-law.
They all have to contend with Noah’s psychosis, his obsession with
wiping humanity off the map, even to the extent of killing his infant twin
granddaughters. I was profoundly shaken
by the internal battle he had to fight to rediscover his heart of love. But oh the intricate plot we have to plod
through on the way to this emotional catharsis!
From
time to time we hear of someone or some group who claim they have found the
remnant of Noah’s Ark on some mountain or in some archeological dig. The most enlightened of us will look askance
at such claims. The only place where the
Ark will ever be found is in the pages of Genesis. The story is not history; it is mythology,
and mythology can only come meaningfully to life if it succeeds as
metaphor. In this department I find the
long tedious epic seriously lacking.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn
about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
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