Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 07
April 2, 2007
Nazareth Village ready for its close-up:
Film producers seek biblical authenticity
Nazareth, Israel
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A filmmaker 2,000 years ago would have had realistic settings for biblical movie productions, but where can they go now?
Nazareth Village is in the spotlight again as an increasingly popular production locale for film and documentary producers to get the realistic first century look they want for sets and characters.
“Nazareth Village is the only archaeologically accurate ‘recreated town’ in Israel,” says Simcha Jacobovici, president of Associated Producers, based in Toronto. “I couldn’t have wished for a better filming environment.” Jacobovici is the director of the recently released documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which sparked worldwide controversy last month because of its suggestions that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, fathered a child by her and did not physically rise from the dead.
And The Nativity (released on DVD on March 20), which was filmed in Italy, benefited from contact a year earlier with Nazareth Village guides on staff.
One of them, Rani Espanioly, reports, “The producer and director came to the village and asked about daily life in Jesus’ time in order to recreate scenes that would be authentic.”
Following this visit, the production team requested three Nazareth Village staffers work with them as consultants regarding daily life in the first century. On the set in Italy, the Nazareth Village personnel taught the actors the practical skills of daily living 2,000 years ago—farming activities, milking goats, using an olive press, baking bread and weaving cloth.
“I guess it’s not surprising,” says Espanioly, smiling, “that the actor who played Joseph in The Nativity had no idea how to use carpentry and stone cutting tools…. But by the end of our training period, he came across as a professional first century carpenter!”
Earlier this year, Nazareth Village executives had a booth at the convention of the National Religious Broadcasters meeting in Orlando, Fla., where they sought to make more accessible to worldwide audiences the biblical setting and stories of the Bible through the life and teachings of Jesus.
Says Nazareth Village executive director Shirley Roth of the reason for attending the Orlando event, “Productions are invaluable to Nazareth Village, letting us showcase our authentic reconstructions and providing a living presentation of first century life in Nazareth during the Roman period.”
Amazing Grace not so amazing
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Amazing Grace. Roadside Attractions/Samuel Goldwin Films. Directed by Michael Apted; written by Steven Knight. Rated PG.
Few stories are more inspiring than the life of William Wilberforce, the member of the British Parliament who tirelessly fought for years in the 18th century to get England, the world’s leading superpower of the day, to abolish the slave trade.
Then why was I disappointed by Amazing Grace, a new film that some have compared to classics like Chariots of Fire or Shadowlands? After all, this film came with good credentials—directed by Michael Apted (Coal Miner’s Daughter) and based on a screenplay by Academy Award nominee Steven Knight.
Somehow the filmmakers have managed to take the story of an underdog fighting a moral cause against one of the world’s great evils—coupled with the story of what is perhaps history’s most-loved hymn—and turned it into a dull, didactic and sanctimonious film that runs for nearly two hours.
To be sure, the film does have some bright moments. We see John Newton (Albert Finney), the former slave trader who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” toiling with his demons as a monastic cleric while serving as a mentor to Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffold from Fantastic Four).
We are carried into the close friendship between Wilberforce and William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch), who became prime minister at age 24 and who also urges Wilberforce to take on the whole government. “Do you intend to use your beautiful voice to praise the Lord or to change the world?” he asks Wilberforce.
And we see Wilberforce wrestling with his own sense of mission and purpose, as he comes to faith while already a successful parliamentarian. He eventually heeds the advice of some of the leading abolitionists: “We understand you are having problems deciding whether to do the work of God or the work of a political activist,” they tell him. “We humbly suggest you can do both.”
While Amazing Grace certainly will be an improvement over most Sunday school videos, it’s disappointing that it could have been so much more. So many of the film’s decisions seem so calculated.
Notice how the movie posters play up the romance between Wilberforce and Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai). It was almost as if, after an initial reading of the script, a producer said, “Let’s get a Kate Winslet type to spice up this film like she did for Titanic.” And expect to see several other Hollywood movie clichés.
A film about faith put into action should inspire us in the literal sense of the word; it should breathe the spirit of the divine into all who watch. Any filmgoer gets that sense when watching great inspirational dramas like Chariots of Fire or Schindler’s List. Measured against these standards, what should have been powerful material turns out to be not so amazing after all.