Screening Divinity - (Screening Antiquity) by Lisa Maurice (Hardcover)

About the Book

Engaging with recent scholarship on film, particularly film and theology as well as classical reception, Lisa Maurice considers the gods of Greek and Roman mythology alongside the biblical God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Book Synopsis

Lisa Maurice examines screen portrayals of gods - covering Greco-Roman mythology, the Judeo-Christian God and Jesus - from the beginning of cinema to the present day. Focussing on the golden age of the Hollywood epic in the fifties and the twenty-first century second wave of big screen productions, she provides an over-arching picture that allows historical trends and developments to be demonstrated and contrasted.
Engaging with recent scholarship on film, particularly film and theology as well as classical reception, she considers the presentation of these gods through examination of their physical and moral characteristics, as well as their interaction with the human world, against the background of the social contexts of each production.

From the Back Cover

'What happens when theology meets the box office? Jesus, Zeus, Athena, Moses, Hera, Aphrodite and the Virgin Mary - no book has ever tackled a cast list like this before. In this unique study, Lisa Maurice deftly exposes the challenges and the compromises in representing divine figures whether they be Christian, Jewish or Pagan.' Alastair Blanshard, The University of Queensland Examines screen portrayals of the deities of Classical Mythology and the Bible How can we depict a deity on screen? How do we present the frequent immorality of the Greek gods while still maintaining an element of divinity? How do we interpret the deities of Judaism and Christianity in the modern Western world? From Le Tonnerre de Jupiter (1903) to The Ten Commandments (1956) to Troy, Fall of a City (2018), Lisa Maurice examines the whole history of screen portrayals of gods - covering Greek mythology, the Biblical God and Jesus - from the beginning of cinema to the present day. Engaging with recent scholarship on film, particularly film and theology as well as classical reception, this new work considers the presentation of these gods through examination of their physical and moral characteristics, as well as their interaction with the human world, against the background of the social contexts of each production. Lisa Maurice is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Cover image: Immortals, Tarsem Singh, 2011 (c) Relativity Media Cover design: Stuart Dalziel [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-2573-5 Barcode

Review Quotes

Screening Divinity offers a good mix of recent, popular, mainstream, and lesser known screen texts, both films and television series/miniseries/films, and emphasizes that while there is a correlation between secularism and the negativity of portrayals in recent years, the number of screen productions is clearly not lagging. Maurice offers good and ample illustrations, and her language and writing style make this an accessible and enjoyable read that will be of benefit to scholars, lay people, and undergraduates.--Meredith D. Prince, Auburn University "Bryn Mawr Classical Review"

[...]Screening Divinity is an erudite but at the same time lively and accessible book.--P. Mardeusz, University of Vermont "CHOICE, March 2020"

The book is a valuable contribution to the scholarly literature on the cinematic representations of and interactions with the classical and biblical worlds. Rather than treating cinema as an entirely self-referential medium, Maurice situates the films within the broader historical context concerning the role of God and the gods in ancient belief, thought, and practice. This emphasis is important in that it considers film not only as shaped by but also as a part of this intellectual history.--Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa "Scripta Classica Israelica, vol. 39 (2020)"

What happens when theology meets the box office? Jesus, Zeus, Athena, Moses, Hera, Aphrodite and the Virgin Mary - no book has ever tackled a cast list like this before. In this unique study, Lisa Maurice deftly exposes the challenges and the compromises in representing divine figures whether they be Christian, Jewish, or Pagan.--Alastair Blanshard, The University of Queensland

About the Author

Lisa Maurice is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She has published on ancient education, Plautine comedy and her research now primarily focuses on classical reception. She is the author of The Teacher in Ancient Rome (Lexington, 2013) and of many articles, and is the editor of three volumes in the Brill Metaforms series on the reception of the ancient world in popular culture.