Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-creation of the World

by S.B. Plate

Religion and cinema share a capacity for world making, ritualizing, mythologizing, and creating sacred time and space. Through cinematography, mise-en-sc�ne, editing, and other production activities, film takes the world "out there" and refashions it. Religion achieves similar ends by setting apart particular objects and periods of time, telling stories, and gathering people together for communal actions and concentrated focus. The result of both cinema and religious practice is a re-created a world of fantasy, a world of ideology, a world we long to live in, or a world we wish to avoid at all costs.



Religion and Film introduces readers to both religious studies and film studies by focusing on the formal similarities between cinema and religious practices and on the ways they each re-create the world. Explorations of film show how the cinematic experience relies on similar aesthetic devices on which religious rituals have long sight, sound, the taste of food, the body, and communal experience. Meanwhile, a deeper understanding of the aesthetic nature of religious rituals can alter our understanding of film production. Utilizing terminology and theoretical insights from the study of religion as well as the study of film, Religion and Film shows that by paying attention to the ways films are constructed, we can shed new light on the ways religious myths and rituals are constructed and vice versa.

This thoroughly revised and expanded new edition is designed to appeal to the needs of courses in religion as well as film departments. In addition to two new chapters, this edition has been restructured into three distinct sections that offer students and instructors theories and methods for thinking about cinema in ways that more fully connect film studies with religious studies.

Genres: Film, Religion

217 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2008

Reviews

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The field of religion and film is becoming increasingly popular. Humans are visual learners and we love stories. Movies provide both and often aid in our search for meaning. S. Brent Plate's introduction to the field is intelligent and insightful. Although brief, this book packs a wallop. I've read many books on the subject, and Plate handles it in a way that shows his natural ease with popular culture. The reader understands that the author is providing deep and important information about what films can teach us about religion without sneaking any religious messages in.

The choice of films to explore is intriguing and serves to make this an engaging treatment of the topic. This is one of the best books I've read on cinema and its religious implications. I highly recommend it.

For those interested, I put further comments on the book on my blog: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[Martin Riexinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very stimulating and insightful, but sometimes superficial and not without flaws. Published in a series of short books supposed to cover an aspect of film history and/ or theory, this volume rather comes forth with some darind assertions that deserve to be discussed.

The book touches only in some instances on how religious topics are covered in film. Instead Plate highlights parallels between film and religion. The most extensive treatment gets his argument that like myths, film are "worldmaking". Both create alternative worlds out of symbols. He stresses that in this respect imagery should be taken as least as serious as language and plot, as opposed to what is common in may film analyses (main examples Star Wars, The Matrix, Antonia).
Moreover he argues that film watching is a kind of ritual, and like rituals often constitutes communities.
Finally he discusses (very briefly) how film(s) affect(s) religious practices.

Although I agree with him as it comes to the "world making" aspect, Plate does not consider sufficiently, that the suspension of disbelief is supposed to be permanent in the case of myths, whereas it is usually temporary in the case of film watching. Film based cults exist but are a rather marginal phenomenon.

[Magi Savage · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read the 177 page second edition. I wish I hadn't. I really hated this book. After a certain point I was just hate reading it because I didn't want to DNF it. Would not recommend and I will not read more from this author.

👎

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

S. Brent Plate's book takes a dive into the intersection between Religion and Film, from how religion inspired film into how Film almost became religion. It is not about a specific religion, but rather about the religious experience, how religion affects and inspires us, how it is recreated in film in order to affect us in a similar way. Often Plate moves into the philosophical, both well-known and less well-known ideas are vowed into this book, a book that is surprisingly engaging and clear, as well as presenting an idea that we all take part in and are formed by.

[Kristian Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As each frame of a film goes by we witness a new world that is situated in space and time. This process of worldmaking happens through the cinematic lens but also through the myths and rituals of religious traditions. Or so argues S. Brent Plate, Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Hamilton College, in his book Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World (Wallflower Press, 2008). In this short work Plate sets out to create a “critical religious film theory” and demonstrates how understanding religion and film can help us comprehend the other in more nuanced ways. Through a close examination of mise-en-scène, editing, and cinematics we discover the interrelationship of the world we live and the one on the screen. Plate reveals that film serves many of the same functions myth and ritual do in defining space and time. Both Hollywood blockbusters and avante-garde films present a way of understanding the world and reveal a new visual ethics for understanding reality. Plate also tells us what happens when film leaves the movie theatre and re-ritualizes contemporary experience. In our conversation we discuss film techniques, Star Wars, Blue Velvet, The Matrix, Chocolat, Rocky Horror Picture Show, sensual aspects of religion, the altar and the screen, ethics, aesthetics, myth, ritual, and Plates role in developing new features in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
http://newbooksinreligion.com/2012/11...