Quantcast
your £$ support needed

part of a small rebellion | by maryann johanson

is Russell Crowe’s Noah a “crazy, irrational, religious nut”?

Fri Feb 14 2014, 09:56pm | 26 comments

noah

Accidentally hilarious article at The Hollywood Reporter about how Paramount is hoping to sell Darren Aronofsky’s Noah to both secular and religious audiences. I love this bit (with the best sub-bit bolded by me):

Paramount, nervous about how audiences would respond to Aronofsky’s fantastical world and his deeply conflicted Noah, insisted on conducting test screenings over the director’s vehement objections while the film was a work in progress.

…

THR spoke with several people who saw an early test screening in Southern California’s Orange County and who identified themselves as religious. One viewer, who declined to give his name because Paramount required him to sign a nondisclosure agreement, echoed the sentiments of others by criticizing the depiction of Noah as a “crazy, irrational, religious nut” who is fixated on modern-day problems like overpopulation and environmental degradation.

Imagine that: a guy who talks to God about the end of the world is a crazy nut obsessed with the environment.

It gets better:

Aronofsky, who grew up in a conservative Jewish household, says his goal from the start was to make a Noah for everyone. For nonbelievers, he wanted to create “this fantastical world a la Middle-earth that they wouldn’t expect from their grandmother’s Bible school.” At the same time, he wanted to make a film for those “who take this very, very seriously as gospel.”

…

To Paramount, Noah seemed like an opportunity to do what Warner Bros. had done in entrusting Alfonso Cuaron with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as he came off of Y Tu Mama Tambien — take a chance on pairing an auteur talent with an important, big-budget project.

Got that? Noah is like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings: a big-budget fantasy. Except Paramount also wants to make a tiny segment of the audience believe it’s all really real.

*grabs popcorn*

It’s gonna be very interesting watching the reaction to this movie…


posted in:
movie buzz | talent buzz
  • Maurice Depestre

    hum. dunno about the movie but that promotional image looks like something i’d be able to do in photoshop with my eyes closed…

  • Yeah, I can’t wait for it. Not the movie itself, really, but all the clamor around it. Religious people tend to be amusing in that regard.

  • jepressman

    Actually there will be plenty of clamor coming from secularists,you know atheists and agnostics who loathe the Bible. Their take is that Noah is fantasy much like IronMan. In time humanity will look back on this period as an era of great contentiousness and bad manners.This movie looks interesting and it is one film which I will see.

  • I’m one of those atheists you speak of. It’s hard to loathe something you don’t believe in. Sure, I think the bible is silly, but it definitely has it’s place in our history.
    Now that you mention it, Noah might make a kick ass avenger! Dude lived for hundreds upon hundreds of years, somehow managed to wrangled a gajillion species into a boat, and re-populated the earth! Where’s Sam Jackson when you need him?

  • I’m an atheist, and I certainly don’t “loathe” the Bible. But I am mystified as to how anyone can take it literally.

    The story of Noah *is* fantasy. The very concept of it is, quite literally, fantastical.

  • Steve

    As is a world out of nothing

  • Tyler Mitchell

    If it doesn’t follow the real Noah from the bible then I’ve changed my mind about seeing this movie. I was interested until I read this.

  • bronxbee

    aronofsky is making one of the classic blunders — never make a movie with something for *everyone* — all you get is mush. or a granola bar of a movie.

  • bronxbee

    well, that would make for a very strange and boring movie. first of all, where are you going to find a 500 year old man? secondly, the most character development we see of Noah in Genesis is: Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
    so, i’m not sure what “real Noah” you would expect to see.

  • Bluejay

    Their take is that Noah is fantasy much like IronMan.

    No way. Iron Man is real. People have been telling his story and putting it down on paper since before I was born.

  • If you’re trying to start a “the Big Bang is fantasy” troll, it’s not going to work.

  • Hilariously, some Christians have been objecting to a scene in the movie where Noah gets drunk, because that’s all Hollywoodization. Except the scene is right out of the Bible.

    Like I said, this is gonna be fun.

  • LaSargenta

    As a Friend — and, yes, we are both Christian and christian — the Bible is not something to be idolized. It is a testament to and of the spiritual ancestors. As we say, though, about all testimony, “the water always tastes of the pipe.” It is filtered through the flesh — flesh in another age, who cannot (by flesh’s nature) have direct and full contact with the Infinite, and speaking other languages that edited, translated and also cherry-picked what is now known as the Bible.

    I do believe Noah as written is a fantasy.

  • LaSargenta

    …and that’s possibly his most believable action in the whole story.

  • RogerBW

    My prediction: the American-Christian demographic won’t go for this, because it isn’t made by one of their own, using only guaranteed Christian actors and crew. Therefore it’ll be deemed “of the world” and to be rejected.

  • bronxbee

    *and* he was naked. and when one son Ham told the other two that he’d seen his father naked, the sons covered him up. then good old noah, threw poor ham out into the wilderness, who then became the progenitor of the land of canaan…. now, if you look at this as a tale or a metaphor for ow different tribes spread out across the land, winding up enemies eventually, and being “conquered” by the jews when they came along… it makes literary sense. but not literal sense.

  • Tonio Kruger

    That method used to work for Disney and Spielberg. What happened?

  • Tonio Kruger

    Well, first of all, Mel Brooks is still alive. Rumor has it that he has had some experience playing long-lived individuals…

  • Tonio Kruger

    Well, if they didn’t mention it in Fantasia 2000 or that Irish Rovers song about the unicorn, it didn’t happen.

  • IT IT IT

    FORGET the overproduced, F/X saturated
    disco beat scored Hollywood ‘product’.

    CHECK OUT the interviews with Biblical scholar L.A. MARZULLI
    on the —–REAL—— scriptural NOAH and conditions of that time.

    WOE!

  • LaSargenta

    …and he tries to be hospitable, too! Much more than Noah. Even if his guests ate on the dinosaur…

    O_o

  • Beowulf

    Lordy… Dinosaurs, the billion species of bugs, the unicorns, the lions not eating the sheep… There is SO much of make fun of here it’s almost too easy. Imagine a serious, respectful film about the birth and life of a literal Mickey Mouse or Santa Claus.

  • The reaction to “Noah” has been one of mild and disinterested amusement from the general public, and moral panic among Christians who see Gnosticism where there is none. The era of religion is over.

  • Tonio Kruger

    And yet ironically the most hostile reception the movie has received thus far has been in Muslim countries, where, of course, religion has little influence. ;)

  • Arfon Davies

    i just watched it and its not good at all. no character development, crappy story yeah definitely don’t recommend

  • What’s crappy about it?

Pin It on Pinterest