Well I actually saw the Hollywood movie “Noah” with Russell
Crowe. It’s a movie full of visual
sensations. This movie depicts visually almost as though it is 3D, without actually
being 3D. It's one of the most visually captivating movies I have ever seen.
Knowing the Biblical story of Noah, however, I waited for this movie to
end. About an hour after watching the
movie, it was clear that I was watching “just” a movie, about a man that
happened to be named Noah with some similar scriptural accounts. There was nothing about the story-line that even fit
the character of the Biblical man named Noah. As a matter of fact, nothing fit the Biblical
story of his family either, including the wives which his sons took. That part didn’t even play out as being true
to the original story. Noah came across as a legalistic madman, who seemed
obsessed with a God who was not merciful. God did not seem to have a desire to make a way for man to find redeeming grace. According to Noah, God's plan was eventually to make man extinct, while the animals continued to thrive, after the flood. Neither did Cain find his way onto the ark
and fight Noah, for reign over the ark and Noah’s women. None of this is ever found in scripture. However, Noah does come around at the end and he spares his grand children from death, (in the non-Biblical story) so that one day, the world may be fruitful and multiply.
The controversy over this movie only drew more attention to it. The commercials for the movie only lead us to believe that it was the
same story found in the Bible. What else would you expect of someone who happened
to be named Noah, and happens to build an ark for a flood, that is sent by
God? Well that’s where the similarity
ends. Noah always refers to the “creator”, and that may have been the one thing
that kept the focus for the Christian viewer.
What is important to realize is that the producer Aronofsky, is Gnostic
and the movie is from a Gnostic point of view. How does one put a Gnostic twist on
a story that has already been written with factual accounts and ancient writing that provides the details? The story then purely becomes imagination – just another
story, another movie.
The producer Aronofsky, presented Noah, as a story of
good and bad, higher and lower spirituality, one with flesh and one that is
spiritual (his god) and who is seemingly out of reach. Several
times, there is a recount of the creation story involving Adam and Eve’s fall
from grace. It reminds us that they are responsible for all of this, because they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. This is why Cain is so
tightly woven into this story-line of Aronofsky's movie.
However, one might come to realize that after watching the
movie, perhaps it was Aronofsky, the producer, who actually ate the forbidden fruit himself, before he
made this movie. Don’t presume that this
has any redeeming Biblical reflection in it, except that the Noah and his family exist, there is a flood, and there is good and evil. Aronofsky has essentially stolen the
characters along with this event in time and created his own version. He may not like my assessment of his movie, but who am I in his eyes-- a nobody that wouldn't buy the DVD when it comes out anyway. I hardly think that God is pleased when his story is "borrowed" and the real story isn't told.
If you’re looking for the Biblical story of Noah then this
is not it. It was written as entertainment with fantastical Hollywood
imagination.
