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jackThe Noah film was actually interesting, although only so-so to actually watch. It made more sense as a story than I was expecting, more sense than I expected from most Noah films.
In many ways it felt like a vision of interesting theology, an interesting view of the early pre-flood world with all sorts of weirdnesses which are gone now, interesting moral questions, interspersed with an angry red pen scribbling "needs more fighting!"
The ark was the least ship-like ark I've ever seen, more like a cuboidal container ship. Which I guess makes as much sense as anything else.
It was full of quite interesting questions -- I don't know if any of these come from religious tradition, I had the impression most of them were made up on the spot, but they fit the *sort* of thing you'd expect.
The world was populated with mostly descendants of Cain, who did all the falling-into-wickedness, here portrayed as over-building an industrial civilisation and over-hunting, in contrast to Noah who won't even pick flowers. Noah is the only proper descendant of Seth.
There were "fallen" angels, more of the curiosity, mischief and disobedience, cursed to roam the earth as stone giants with a hidden fire, until those killed defending the ark are freed to return to heaven.
Noah (Russel Crowe) is seized with doubt whether the human race should continue. He has three sons and an adopted daughter (Emma Watson) who is de-facto betrothed to eldest Shem, but can't have children. He tries to rescue some more women or girls, but fails. And takes this as a sign the human race should die out. And then Emma Watson is miraculously cured again, and everyone else takes this as a sign, but he doesn't. Which I think is wrong, but is exactly the sort of morality tale which plays out in the bible with a hundred different interpretations, like Abraham and Isaac.
In fact, there's almost quite an ecological message. Humanity destroys the world through over-hunting, over-mining, over-consumption and violence, which leads to a giant water-level-rise. The best, strongest people are completely vegetarian, probably vegan; eating meat is potentially tasty but really horrible. Serious thought is given to not continuing the human race, but on balance, it's decided on mercy.
And there's surprisingly little God. Noah has a prophetic dream. There's a few miraculous things left over from the early days of the Earth. But other than that, everyone wants to love or resent the creator but felt abandoned by Them. There's mention of temptation, but it's all abstract, there's no personification of the devil. I'd assumed the film was pushed by someone pushing a particular Christian ideology, but now I'm not sure, it seemed to try hard to be interesting and open, even if it had some unfortunate flaws.
Dangling moral questions
Of course, there were lots of interesting questions raised.
The film stops with a new beginning and a rainbow, but we don't get any positive decision for Noah to start eating animals. Obviously that the interpretation I like, but not one I necessarily want to impose on everyone, I was almost surprised not see some "oh, but you know, we don't REALLY endorse vegetarianism, we just have to pretend because it's in the bible and we can't cut it" tacked on at the end.
Bad guy, leader of several roving bands of descendants of Cain, is clearly bad and kills lots of people, but his viewpoint is sympathetic-if-very-wrong, not a complete straw man, namely, he was cast out of the garden to suffer with the sweat of his brow, and that's what he's doing -- his unwillingness to commit mass suicide so all the animals can live is, well, pretty understandable.
Noah rescues Emma Watson. So "descendants of Cain are evil" is clearly not passed on by physical inheritance. So (as bad guy points out) there must be lots of other children in the world who could have been saved, but there was no way to get them on the ark. That fits the original myth well -- if humanity is tainted with unremovable cultural evil, the drastic reset-button may be equally justified on a population scale. But it implicitly envisages a creator-type God who can make broad sweeping changes to the planet, but not just snap Their fingers and have everyone teleport to a new Garden of Eden.
This isn't really theological, but I notice everyone argues and pleads with Noah not to kill Shem and Emma Watson's daughters, but even when Shem tries to fight him, he's not really serious about it. They still implicitly defer to Noah even when they disagree. That's completely realistic, but I also think they would have been justified in pushing him overboard when they lost any realistic hope he would come to his senses.
Of course, that itself is a significant moral decision. If I was more purely pacifist, I would have said, "wait, and hope he makes the right choice after all", which he eventually did. But it's not clear if this would always work -- if Noah, his family, and the stone Watchers had refused to fight the bandits desperate to kill him and take over the ark, would it all have turned out ok? Or would they all have been killed, the ark capsized, and all non-sea life on earth ended forever?
Criticism
Basically the third of the film that made it into the trailer, the massive fight scene and the mechanistic looking whoosh-bang miracles I found fairly tedious. So I spent all this post talking about the bits I thought were flawed but fascinating, and left out the bits I thought were flawed and boring.
In many ways it felt like a vision of interesting theology, an interesting view of the early pre-flood world with all sorts of weirdnesses which are gone now, interesting moral questions, interspersed with an angry red pen scribbling "needs more fighting!"
The ark was the least ship-like ark I've ever seen, more like a cuboidal container ship. Which I guess makes as much sense as anything else.
It was full of quite interesting questions -- I don't know if any of these come from religious tradition, I had the impression most of them were made up on the spot, but they fit the *sort* of thing you'd expect.
The world was populated with mostly descendants of Cain, who did all the falling-into-wickedness, here portrayed as over-building an industrial civilisation and over-hunting, in contrast to Noah who won't even pick flowers. Noah is the only proper descendant of Seth.
There were "fallen" angels, more of the curiosity, mischief and disobedience, cursed to roam the earth as stone giants with a hidden fire, until those killed defending the ark are freed to return to heaven.
Noah (Russel Crowe) is seized with doubt whether the human race should continue. He has three sons and an adopted daughter (Emma Watson) who is de-facto betrothed to eldest Shem, but can't have children. He tries to rescue some more women or girls, but fails. And takes this as a sign the human race should die out. And then Emma Watson is miraculously cured again, and everyone else takes this as a sign, but he doesn't. Which I think is wrong, but is exactly the sort of morality tale which plays out in the bible with a hundred different interpretations, like Abraham and Isaac.
In fact, there's almost quite an ecological message. Humanity destroys the world through over-hunting, over-mining, over-consumption and violence, which leads to a giant water-level-rise. The best, strongest people are completely vegetarian, probably vegan; eating meat is potentially tasty but really horrible. Serious thought is given to not continuing the human race, but on balance, it's decided on mercy.
And there's surprisingly little God. Noah has a prophetic dream. There's a few miraculous things left over from the early days of the Earth. But other than that, everyone wants to love or resent the creator but felt abandoned by Them. There's mention of temptation, but it's all abstract, there's no personification of the devil. I'd assumed the film was pushed by someone pushing a particular Christian ideology, but now I'm not sure, it seemed to try hard to be interesting and open, even if it had some unfortunate flaws.
Dangling moral questions
Of course, there were lots of interesting questions raised.
The film stops with a new beginning and a rainbow, but we don't get any positive decision for Noah to start eating animals. Obviously that the interpretation I like, but not one I necessarily want to impose on everyone, I was almost surprised not see some "oh, but you know, we don't REALLY endorse vegetarianism, we just have to pretend because it's in the bible and we can't cut it" tacked on at the end.
Bad guy, leader of several roving bands of descendants of Cain, is clearly bad and kills lots of people, but his viewpoint is sympathetic-if-very-wrong, not a complete straw man, namely, he was cast out of the garden to suffer with the sweat of his brow, and that's what he's doing -- his unwillingness to commit mass suicide so all the animals can live is, well, pretty understandable.
Noah rescues Emma Watson. So "descendants of Cain are evil" is clearly not passed on by physical inheritance. So (as bad guy points out) there must be lots of other children in the world who could have been saved, but there was no way to get them on the ark. That fits the original myth well -- if humanity is tainted with unremovable cultural evil, the drastic reset-button may be equally justified on a population scale. But it implicitly envisages a creator-type God who can make broad sweeping changes to the planet, but not just snap Their fingers and have everyone teleport to a new Garden of Eden.
This isn't really theological, but I notice everyone argues and pleads with Noah not to kill Shem and Emma Watson's daughters, but even when Shem tries to fight him, he's not really serious about it. They still implicitly defer to Noah even when they disagree. That's completely realistic, but I also think they would have been justified in pushing him overboard when they lost any realistic hope he would come to his senses.
Of course, that itself is a significant moral decision. If I was more purely pacifist, I would have said, "wait, and hope he makes the right choice after all", which he eventually did. But it's not clear if this would always work -- if Noah, his family, and the stone Watchers had refused to fight the bandits desperate to kill him and take over the ark, would it all have turned out ok? Or would they all have been killed, the ark capsized, and all non-sea life on earth ended forever?
Criticism
Basically the third of the film that made it into the trailer, the massive fight scene and the mechanistic looking whoosh-bang miracles I found fairly tedious. So I spent all this post talking about the bits I thought were flawed but fascinating, and left out the bits I thought were flawed and boring.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-12 03:42 pm (UTC)Without having any real confidence, I'd venture to say that the snakeskin phylactery represents a commitment on Lamech's part to the memory of the Garden of Eden and the price Adam and Eve paid for their sins, a commitment he attempts to pass down to Noah. Perhaps the film is trying to say that while the rest of humanity regards the exile as an offense committed against humanity by God, Lamech and Noah recall the way their ancestors teamed with the snake to betray God's will, and the cost of this betrayal. But I'm not certain of this theory, and I haven't seen a better one anywhere.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-13 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-13 11:52 pm (UTC)That was one of the things I thought about the garden of Eden story, as always, I'm hearted to hear I'm retreading traditional ground :) Although on the other hand, I had to admit, the story as written seemed to support the traditional "it was bad and God was cross" interpretation...
Thank you for suggesting the connection to the snake/tefillin scene. I don't know that's the correct interpretation, but it makes sense. Although it seems like the film may have had to merge two or more competing mythologies, IIRC there's mention of Adam's "sin" etc which suggests there was something wrong in, or in addition to, eating the apple. I felt the symbolism was anti-snake, but I'm not sure.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 02:36 pm (UTC)I felt Noah was most successful as a movie about the question of why God asks difficult things of us. What if God asks us to assist in a genocide, how do we respond? What if God asks us to kill our granddaughter, how do we respond? Ultimately, Aronofsky puts what feels like the movie's definitive answer into Ila's mouth: Harder than any of these things is when God doesn't tell us what is right and what is wrong, what God wants and what God doesn't want. The hardest thing of all is when God leaves us be and trusts that we will do the right thing even without direct guidance. It is easy to feel certain in a God who tell us what to do, even if the thing God asks seems evil. But what God appears to want, argues Aronofsky, is for us to feel uncertain, for us to constantly test ourselves and our faith in our ability to serve God. Only when we're willing to expose ourselves like that will God reward us with the gift of the rainbow.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 04:38 pm (UTC)