. . . Graphically and accurately portrayed bible accounts from other points of view? Let's face it, movies have a greater impact than books. It pains me to say this since I like to pretend I can write, but that is just the way it is. I don't pretend to be an expert on Bible movies, but what I've seen of them, they present the story from points of view that confirm how a believer sees things. But what it . . .
The scene opens on a Canaanite village. Women are weaving and baking bread. Men are farming. Children are playing. Suddenly a bloodthirsty band of desert dwellers invade them and massacre. Movies are bloody today--so they could portray what really happens. The scene should include men driving swords through newborns bodies and bashing in the head of toddlers. Brains, gore everywhere. Screams and pleas for mercy. It won't help though. This band methodically goes through and brutally kill all the inhabitants. The scene could close with dead, broken, bloody bodies strewn about the village--mothers clutching dead babies, husbands and wives still clinging even in death, flies landing on their blank staring eyes. And in the foreground, this band could be offereing up a burnt sacrifice to their god and crediting him with victory.
Or a scene opens up with a mother nursing her newborn and a proud father gazing at the scene that exudes love. Fastforward a year and watch the couple rejoice as the babe takes its first steps and falls into daddy's arms. Another year passes and they clap their hands as the child utters mama. After years of warm and loving scenes of a child growing up, forward to a disobedient teenager who drinks too much wine and disrespects his parents. They seize him and yank him to the center of town, calling for reinforcements. Mommy and Daddy heft heavy stones at their son's head and the townspeople join in. They only stop when there is no more sign of life and bits of brain and blood spatter all the participants.
A young woman picking flowers is seized by a man who violently rapes her. Movies show worse, so the scene should be explicit. The girl screams out for her father, but no one hears. She runs home to her father sobbing and traumatized. In the next scene, the rapist hands the father a bag of silver and takes the woman home to be his wife where he gets to rape her without restraint. These scenes won't show her crying out for her father--we know what that got her--but show a woman who has lost all feeling and sense of selft.
Another scene where men demand a man to send his wife out to them. He does, even as she clings to him and begs his protection. He just pushes her harder and closes his door. The scene would be violent and horrible as they rape the woman to death. In the morning, the husband comes out, takes a knife, and butchers her body. The scene could show the knife slashing through her flesh and being stained rea. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, because this is hard work. Then he takes the pieces of her body and ties them to mules and sends them out into the land. Perhaps it could close with a scene of wolves chewing her leg bone and scavenger birds ripping at her foot.
What do you think would happen with such a movie? It could not be argued that it was inaccurate.
Just something that was going through my head.
NC
