These three films are all Hollywood’s productions under the domination of Legion of Decency. They cannot be named perfect from a strict point of view of Christians (some violence and revision of the Scripture), They are still the most impressive interpretations of biblical stories that ever seen in the Hollywood film industry. In recent years, we could hardly find this kind of films on the screen until 1998 DreamWorks SKG did a film with brilliant animation also about the story of Moses—The Prince of Egypt. The film’s introduction states it is “true to the essence, values and integrity” of the story. There are still divergencies against the book of Exodus: Moses is not reunited with his mother as an infant, he speaks flawlessly and therefore does not need Aaron’s eloquence, he kills the Egyptian by accident rather than murdering him, Aaron is reluctant to support Moses and discourages him from speaking to Pharaoh… Even so, despite the many textual inconsistencies, the film’s central theme is clear. In the words of Dream Works principal Jeffrey Katzenberg, “A man has an experience with his God” which forever changes his life, his perceptions and his people’s history. They vividly show the burning bush of God’s image stating “I Am that I Am”, and the plagues on Egypt and the parting of the water of Red Sea are also very graphically impressive with the wonderful combination of the songs “I Will Get There” and “If You Believe”.
? Biblical Values on films
You may not find biblical stories or themes in most of the films. However since the Christian ideas and values have sunk into the deep part of the American culture. Almost every film will come down to moral issues or reveal directly or indirectly something from the Holy Bible. They have woven the preset values secretly into the films.
Pay It Forward, a newly released film is a good example. An eleven years old boy Trevor McKinney, a seventh grader challenged by Social Studies teacher Eugene Simonet in an extra credit assignment to “change the world”, he comes up with a plan to impact the lives of three people. If they accept, it is their duty to continue the idea of paying it forward by impacting the lives of three others. Instead of “each one reach one” it is “each one reach three”. Eventually the results can change the world. It doesn’t work out so successfully, but he did try. His effort was not in vain. More and more people get to know it, more and more people stretch their hands out to help. Trevor helps his mother out of alcohol and helps Eugene regain his faith in love. He is knifed by two rascals who are bullying a kid after his deed has been screened on TV. Many people come to mourn on his death and ‘Pay It Forward’ is being spread out all over the country. Though this boy doesn’t have a Christian background, the screenwriter provides him the most shining characteristics of a Christian. “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” “For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’” Trevor is put in the position of solving all the problems in Las Vegas, including but not limited to heroin addiction, alcohol abuse, strip bars, child abuse and homelessness. And he is transformed into a Messiah figure at the end.
Seven (1995) as another example is completely different from Pay It Forward. The title refers to the seven deadly sins, which a serial killer is using to brutally murder seven people in seven days. A fat man is punished for his gluttony, a lawyer for his greed, a model for her pride, and so on. The murders are apparently intended as a series of “medieval sermons,” a wake-up call to a civilization that doesn’t know it’s become utterly corrupt. The murderer finally receives his punishment. The Seven Deadly Sins never occur as a formal list in the Bible, but summarized from the Bible against the Seven Heavenly Virtues. The seven sins are pride, envy, anger, sloth, covetousness, gluttony and lust. Each of the Sins was associated with a specific punishment in Hell: like pride, broken on the wheel; envy, put in freezing water; anger, dismembered alive, and so on. The film exposes the Seven Deadly Sins through the clue the detective follows to find the killer. And the Bible becomes the key to the answer: the evil will finally get punished.
? Biblical skins on films
There is also another group of films having relationship with the Bible. They borrow the stories from the Bible to construct their own. This kind of movie always offends the Christian community, like Bless the Child and Warlock. Most of these movies are concerned with Apocalypse which means “revelation, unbiding”. It reveals the true meaning of events or their outcome, or the heavenly reality behind or beyond earthly appearances. It opens the imagination to strange worlds and dreamlike visions. “Now the LORD is about to lay waste the earth and make it desolate, and be will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants…The earth shall be utterly laid waste…for the LORD has spoken his word.” There are two areas of cosmic imagery in the visions of apocalypse in the Bible. One is cosmic catastrophes: the sun darkened and the moon turned to blood in Joel 2:31; the sky rolled up and the stars fell in Isaiah 34; earthquakes and floods in Isaiah 24:18,19. There is also social disintegration and conflict: deception, betrayal, murder in Daniel 11:32,33 and 2 Peter 2, etc. The other is pictures of cosmic renewal: a new heaven and a new earth in Isaiah 65:17 and 2 Peter 3:13; the rapture when God’s glory replaces the lights of Heaven in Isaiah 60:19, etc.
In Bless the Child (2000), an unusual little girl is a symbol of returned Christ. And she has tremendous power to retrieve the dead to life. In order to take charge of the whole world before the coming millennium, a Satan captures her and attempts to turn her away from her faith on right and wrong and thus away from her commitment to God and worship him instead of God. He takes her to the top of a skyscraper and asks her to throw herself down from there saying, “ Throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you’”. The girl replied exactly what Jesus answered to Satan, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”. Later he tries to scare her by burning a poor homeless man in front of her. He fails and has to kill her. But the evil is not the rival of this little Messiah. She saves the world from being controlled by the evil. The screenwriter engrafts the story of Jesus on the little girl.
God and Satan warring against each other and God’s ultimate victory are also adapted and woven into Warlock: the Armageddon. Satan’s only son the “Warlock” is born through a woman without pregnancy. His mission is to free his father from the fiery chains that imprison him and unleash Satan’s wrath upon the world. The prophets of Christianity foresee the coming war and get ready to train two young warriors who are the only ones can prevent complete world destruction. They alone possess the supernatural powers to challenge the Warlock and stop the inevitable Armageddon. Finally they outsmart and defeat the Warlock before the prophesied eclipse, sending Satan and his son back to Hell.
These two mentioned above remain the frame of biblical revelation and are easily identified. Others like Star Wars series, The Matrix (1998), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Independent Day (1996), etc. throw away the meaning of the Revelation, but focus on the eschatological part of apocalyptic texts mingling with science fictions and not on the revelation of God’s sovereignty. In these films humans are able to change their future, and are not simply spectators to the divine unfolding.
Actually Biblical or Christian shadow is not only cast over these three aspects. Some titles of films are from the Bible; many of them contain Bible-related dialogues or direct quotations from the Scripture and biblical figures, images or actions. Here I will not discuss the others in detail.
Conclusion
The Bible is one of the two main sources of Western civilization; the other is the culture of Greece and Rome, or classical civilization. Of the two, the Bible is several centuries older. Its contents affected Western values and the way westerners act and think. As a production of industry and technology and combination of various kinds of Arts and an instant mirror of the society, films cannot escape the influence of the Bible and Christianity. Western society’s symbols and values affected by the Bible shape the films, which on the contrary attest to the Bible’s role in shaping the ways in which westerners tell their stories, mold their heroes, understand their experience, imagine their future, and explain themselves to themselves, no matter how the filmmakers do a film, to copy a biblical story or to borrow a biblical structure or embed Christian values into a film.
United States is the best stage to show this story. First, the Bible has exercised a profound influence on the history and values of the United States. The early history of America is a history of the Pilgrims and other early European settlers seeking their new Israel that God’s promised to his newly chosen people. And the values the Americans cherish mostly originate from the Bible, such as the idea of equality, freedom. Second, though two French brothers first invented film, the blooming of this new form of arts and industry is achieved in America. It represents a new popular culture. And it’s an influential “educational” tool ever since it was born. In 1930s American society was experiencing the gloomy Depression. Not only economy but also moral standard decayed. The episode of Legion of Decency in American film industry is actually a self-defensive action of a biblical culture preoccupied society towards non-protestant values since they have noticed the power this popular cultural tool has to influence its audience. Through pulling film industry back to its right track, Christianity also consolidates its role in the American society. This is the point that we should pay attention to.