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Scripture Filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille: Biblical, Religious or Spiritual?

Version 2 2024-06-13, 14:34
Version 1 2021-07-26, 08:22
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-13, 14:34 authored by Anton Karl Kozlovic
The legendary producer-director Cecil B. DeMille was a master of the American biblical epic who shaped the public’s perceptions of Judeo-Christianity in his role as Hollywood’s Sunday school teacher. Despite his exceptional narrative talents as a sacred storyteller, critics praised or condemned his Bible films according to whether they deemed him a biblical, religious or spiritual filmmaker. But what sort of Scripture filmmaker was DeMille exactly, were the critics’ condemnations fair and valid, and what of the DeMille style today? Utilizing humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, a selective review of the critical literature and a reading of CB’s biblical oeuvre were performed to address this issue of category confusion. It was concluded that DeMille was primarily a biblical filmmaker, not a religious or spiritual filmmaker, whose scriptural oeuvre was frequently mislabeled and unjustly assessed as a consequence. Further research into storytelling, Cecil B. DeMille studies and the emerging interdisciplinary field of religion-and-film is highly warranted, warmly recommended and already long overdue.

History

Journal

Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media

Season

Spring

Pagination

1-16

Location

Waterloo, Ont.

ISSN

1192-6252

eISSN

2562-5764

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Publisher

University of Waterloo

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