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Copyright of Journal of Ilahiyat Researches / Ilahiyat Tetkikleri Dergisi is the property of Ataturk University Coordinatorship of Scientific Journals and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the ideological resurrection of Hindutva alongside the popular Krrish and Baahubali franchise films in contemporary India. Topics discussed include the entanglements between religion and cinema technology; the aesthetics of contemporary sci-fi/fantasy films and iteration of religious fundamentalism.

Israeli Orthodox Jewish women are, for the first time, using film to speak and reflect in a public voice upon various challenges and aspects of their lives that were previously taboo. This article, which draws upon in-depth interviews with twenty-six Orthodox Jewish women filmmakers, gives the reader a sense of the upheaval that these filmmakers are already creating and will continue to create both within the Orthodox Jewish world and within Israeli society. Many of the Orthodox Jewish women's films focus on subjects that are voice-less in their community, and topics concerning women's sexuality are especially noteworthy here. Each in her own way, the filmmakers discussed at length in this article proclaim agency and ask questions concerning the traditionally silenced topic of sexuality. These women are devoted not to religion's status quo but to Judaism and to their Jewish community. The filmmakers know about the oppression of women in Orthodox Judaism, and they want change. They tend not to view their filmmaking as their inner voice versus their community's voice—they embrace both and build a home for both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks into the challenge posed by religious beliefs concerning cinema and filmmaking in Iran for acting among Iranian women from 1904 to 1934. Topics discussed are movie theater openings in Tehran despite opposition of clergymen, cultural status of Iranian women and their eventual presence in movie theaters, training of actors and actresses in acting or cinematic schools, and the challenge for Iranian women in playing roles in Iran's newborn cinema due to their minority status.

The article discusses the relationship between Islamists and film in Egypt during the 20th century and early 21st century, with a particular focus on Islamists' development of motion pictures. An overview of Islamist Egyptian films' depiction of the medieval Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyya is provided.

This article asks about the processes of 'seeing the other' using the medium of cinema. Films discussed include Baraka, West Bank Story, Eve and the Fire Horse, and Babette's Feast. Each demonstrates unique perspectives on distinct religious traditions, exploring differences as well as resemblances. Two consequences emerge. First, films are not merely 'escape' that people watch and then forget about. Instead, what we see 'on screen' changes our relationships with other people 'off screen'. Watching movies becomes part of the social construction of reality, constructing our understandings of race, religion, gender, nationality, and ethnicity. Thus, films that demonstrate strong interreligious connections may affect our perceptions of seeing each other. Second, comparing these films allows us to see how interreligious connections are not merely about 'dialogue', but about shared food, smells, sights, and spatial locations. The sensate body stands at the heart of religious life, as well as the heart of interreligious connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present text deals with the semantic and discursive richness of Balarrasa through the detailed textual analysis of the feature film, revealing how its religious thematic is problematized through insistent enunciative comments that critically distant its discourse from the standard reading pattern. Our intention is to show the internal tensions that run through the filmic text, whose discursive epicenter is tangentially displaced towards social and moral issues while outlining subaltern themes that complicate the apparent simplicity and schematism of its argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reflection on film will be situated within the framework of popular culture and lived religion as recognised themes within the discipline of practical theology. It is argued that the perspective of viewers is of importance within the process of meaning-making. By focusing on the experience and meaning-making through the act of film-watching the emphasis is not so much on the message that the producer wishes to convey but rather on the experience that is created within the viewer. Experience is not viewed as only emotional, but rather that, at least, both the cognitive and emotional are key in the act of watching a film. It is therefore argued that this experience that is seldom reflected on by viewers could serve as a fruitful platform for meaning-making by the viewer. In a context where there seems to be a decline in institutionalised forms of religion, it is important to investigate emerging forms of religion. Furthermore, the turn to the self also makes people’s experiences and practices in everyday life valuable resources for theological reflection. This reflection could provide a theoretical framework for especially empirical research on how film as specific form of media serves as a religious resource and plays a role in the construction of meaning and religious identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Office Catholique International du Cinéma (OCIC), founded in 1928, established itself as an influential institution that played an important role in setting the Catholic agenda with regards to cinema during an existence that spanned more than 70 years (1928-2001). OCIC derived its influence primarily by maintaining an intermediate position between its national member organizations and the Vatican. This intermediary position, however, was not built overnight. This article looks into the late 1940s and 1950s, when OCIC had to reassert its relevance in the post-war field of Catholic cinema and rebuilding its relationship with the Vatican was crucial to this endeavour. This article investigates this process, making use of the OCIC archives (KADOC, Leuven University) as well as documents related to the Italian Catholic Action, made available through the project 'I cattolici e il cinema in Italia tra gli anni '40 e gli anni '70' of the Università degli Studi di Milano. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the films "PK" and "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" which reveal religious groups in a way showing various communities and their practices and beliefs. It explores Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, in the ascendant in India in the national government of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) redefining and reconsidering the history of India. It discusses the Hindi film industry as a secular site where Muslims and Hindus have worked together.

The article highlights films as epics of the modem world. It report that Filmmakers, in particular, crafting stories that shape our understanding of the world. It discusses how filmmakers who make religious films, like Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," weave the original text with threads formed out of the vast arsenal of modem film technology, often creating a new type of narrative that transcends the source material.

This study is a close examination of The Nun's Story (Fred Zinnemann, 1959) and The Sins of Rachel Cade (Gordon Douglas, 1961), two Warner Bros. productions adapted, respectively, from a Catholic- and a Protestant-themed bestseller. The novels' similarity in subject and setting is as striking as the differences in their manner of production. Utilizing archival research, this analysis reveals Production Code Administration negotiations with producers and religious officials to be a crucible of concerns about aesthetics, religion, and market access, while also highlighting religious principles and crucial differences in Catholic and Protestant approaches to movie regulation when the Production Code era was showing its first signs of decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the visionary tradition in motion pictures and the films of director Frank Borzage. Emphasis is given to topics such as the replication of the techniques of mystical transformation in films, the relationship between cinema and religious art, and the film criticism of author Siegfried Kracauer. The author analyzes films such as "7th Heaven" and "Street Angel."

The article analyzes the film "Zorns Lemma" directed by Hollis Frampton. Particular focus is given to the religious underpinnings of the film which show the theoretical and practical approach of Frampton to filmmaking. Details on how the film activates infinity and awakens the viewers, as well as the characteristics of the film are presented.

Since the 1950s, the religious growth of Egypt's Coptic Christians has been shaped by diasporic migrations abroad, resulting in new ritual outcomes of representing their cultural and moral origins of communal coherence and periphery. This article approaches the modernizing aspects of Orthodox dispersion from their foundationally mediating locus in holy parts, and more specifically in relics and their technical continuities and discontinuities. Entering into the communicative exhibition of St. Marina's right hand in Egypt, it studies the practical extensions of remembering martyrs across space and time. Relic technics via sensory techniques and cinematic technologies create the very special living properties and metamorphic effects of divine imagination. Ultimately, in gesturing to the materialities of a post-natural body, it seeks to think through what felt fragmentability does for the geographic transmission of a communal body politic--i.e. the material making of the Coptic Orthodox "global" community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an art form, an academic discipline and an ideological instrument that finds a place in cultural studies and social sciences, film plays a significant role both in the creation and as a reflection of the culture in which it is produced and sustained. Within the relationship between religion and the cinema in the Turkish context, religion has ironically become an ideological discourse contrasting with the Islamic attitude prohibiting human depiction. This paper seeks to examine the transformation of both religious and secularist clichés and stereotypes in the Turkish cinema, by means of ideological and sociological critiques of some sample films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to query the established wisdom that the celebration of consumerist values, as exemplified in many Christmas films, is evidence of a decline of religious significance in the modern world. Rather, I argue that the celebration of consumerism is itself a repository of 'sacred time' and that Christmas is one of the most fertile embodiments of religious activity in the world today. I interrogate the way in which Eliade, Tillich and Durkheim understand the relationship between religion and culture, the sacred and the profane, to present a more subtle understanding of the interplay between material and spiritual configurations, to the point that Christmas is a religion because of rather than in spite of its material and commercialized teleology. The intention is to move away from conventional binary language in order to develop a more sophisticated and realistic understanding of where religion can be encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judeo-Christian Scripture quoted within the popular cinema is frequently an unexpected yet pleasurable occurrence because it embodies diverse meanings that invite investigation. Adele Reinhartz's biblical texts approach to film analysis was utilized as the guiding analytical lens, accompanied by a careful review of the critical literature and a close reading of notable Scripture-quoting exemplars culled from anad hocselection of popular Hollywood movies from diverse genres and historical periods. This examination revealed six functional heuristic categories of this fascinating filmic phenomenon, namely, (1) Scripture-quoting as verbal weapon-cum-divine protection, (2) Scripture-quoting as moral guidance, (3) Scripture-quoting as interpersonal jousting, (4) Scripture-quoting as indicator of madness, (5) mock Scripture-quoting, and (6) Scripture-quoting as scene-setting. Each rubric-category was illustrated with key dialogic quotations accurately transcribed, contextualized, and explicated herein. Expanding and refining these categories along with further scholarly research into the emerging interdisciplinary field of religion and film was recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Religion and film courses have become popular additions to undergraduate course calendars. However, this relatively new discipline still lacks methodological sophistication. The present study proposes that instructors and critics should begin to afford attention to the ways in which films articulate meaning through their audio-visual, stylistic dimensions. Film style is an important element of filmmaking that has largely been ignored by scholars of religion. By affording attention to the aspects of film that distinguish it from other artistic media, critics and instructors will be able to better illuminate the manner in which religious material is expressed through the film medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apocalypticism has been a consistent theme in modern culture. In recent religious studies, the definition of 'apocalyptic' has undergone extensive revision and expansion, resulting in the articulation of a distinctively 'Pauline' apocalyptic theology. This new conception of apocalypticism offers a new way to interpret works of popular culture, especially film. This paper argues that Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 movie, Magnolia, is properly viewed as an apocalyptic film in this revised Pauline sense. Viewing it from this perspective helps to make better sense of its key themes and plot developments. The goal of the paper is to initiate a broader conversation regarding the field of apocalyptic cinema in light of the latest theological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in religion and film has skyrocketed over the past twenty years. This is due in large measure to finding religion in popular film, in Hollywood blockbusters--and now Bollywood blockbusters. People who are not interested in art films, documentaries, or shorts, do seem to be interested in religion and film because of such movies as: Superman, Star Wars (with its sequels and prequels), The Matrix (with its sequels), The Passion of the Christ, The Da Vinci Code, Slumdog Millionaire, Avatar and others. Given the plethora of interest, we find a variety of methodologies proposed for religion and film studies. So far, no single methodology has emerged as the most important and comprehensive methodology for religion and film. In this paper I will explore "finding religion in film" as a methodology for religion and film studies and I will compare this methodology with others, including a) film as religion, b) religion and film in dialogue, c) cultural studies, d) psychoanalysis, e) critical religious film theory, f) the transcendental style in film, and g) the formation of faith. I also will argue in favor of "finding religion in the movies" as the most important and comprehensive methodology of those considered in this essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have analyzed Carl Theodor Dreyer's Ordet for its unusual camera movements, long takes, and reverse-editing. Some have gone so far as to link these cinematic devices to Ordet's narrative focus on miracles, exploring connections between the film's form and its content. This essay attempts to bridge the gap between formal analysis and theological analysis. It examines the film's representation of miracles against the conceptual history of miracles, considering the extent to which we may regard the film as a theological argument, making visual assertions as important and fruitful as verbal ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors discuss the relationship between religion, spirituality, and film in Australasia, particularly focusing on the depiction of religious belief in visual media. They address the prevalence of Christian themes in Australian, Pacific Island, and Oceanic films, as well as comment on the increasing attention being paid to indigenous spirituality in Australasian motion pictures.

Copyright of Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni is the property of Editrice Morcelliana S.p.A. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers criticism on the 1943 film "Day of Wrath," from Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer and adapted from the 1909 theatrical melodrama "Anne Pedersdotter" by Hans Wiers-Jenssen. The author focuses on tragic aspects of the film as well as themes of religion, witchcraft, and good and evil in the film. Other topics include the making of the film during Nazi occupation of Denmark, the character of Absalon, the tragedy "King Lear" by William Shakespeare, and the film's austere visual style.

In Ulysses’ Gaze, a film made in response to the Balkan crises following the break-up of Yugoslavia, the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos several times makes use of the trope of the sudden appearance of a divine presence. The most visually striking epiphany is when a statue of Lenin is shown being taken through Romania on a barge and the local inhabitants rush to the canal bank to pay their respects. This scene is based on similar scenes in Angelopoulos’ work, that are in turn influenced by earlier European films. There are also poetic precedents, particularly in modern Greek poetry to which the director alludes, that syncretize classical and modern Greek religious values. Whereas one might be tempted to see this system of allusions as reflecting modern Europe’s cultural links with ancient Greece, closer examination shows that Angelopoulos is instead claiming continuity between the ancient and modern Greek worlds and, in a film about an Odyssean journey, expressing a nostalgia for a shared Balkan world that may perhaps be recreated once more. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Film sits alongside religion as a transmitter of and conduit for ideological values and meanings. Taking Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director, the author explores what dominant cultural texts and gender stereotypes Bigelow interrogates in her films through the lenses of feminist theology and feminist film theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theology offers a lens that reorients cinematic story so that the organic connection between liberative movements in human history and the in-breaking reign of God is recognized and clarified; film challenges theology to explore questions of social justice in imaginative and visceral ways. Viewing films through the clarifying lens of a reign-focus allows us to see films as portals to theological discoveries, as audiovisual stained-glass windows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the conference "Iconic Turns. Nation and Religion in Eastern European Cinema since 1989" held in Münster, Germany from June 18-20, 2010. Topics discussed include imperial and religious turning points in Russian religious films, the Hungarian film made it 2006 by György Pálfi, titled "Taxidermia," and the representation of the Russian monarch Ivan the Terrible in the 2009 film by Pavel Lungin, titled "Tsar."

This article investigates spiritual trends in the fandom that has developed around the movie Avatar, asking in particular whether nature, represented by the 'goddess' Eywa, is seen as sacred by fans and if so, if this may influence fans' environmental practices. For this purpose I have analyzed the popular Internet-based fan forums avatar-forums.com and naviblue.com, because these sites show a broad, non-specialized interest in the movie. The result of the investigation shows a weight on pantheistic or animistic interpretations of nature. The practices springing from this view include meditation in nature to enhance awareness as well as daily practices like recycling, vegetarianism, and an ecological lifestyle. Radical environmental perceptions are expressed but such action-related initiatives are few; political action has been directed primarily at influencing politicians. A comparison to already-established fandoms indicates that a development in the direction of more communal and face-to-face fan activities, and even more development of Avatar-related nature religion, may well be on the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses academic conferences, projects, and books as of 2010 focusing on the theme of Religion and Film, such as the "The Journal of Religion and Film," published by the University of Nebraska, the seminar series Cinema e religione, and the work of the Dipartimento di Studi Storico-Religiosi.

In Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark director Lars von Trier experiments with the limits of sacrificial notions of atonement by gendering his Christ figures as females who sacrifice their lives for the men they love. Many feminist critics find in this formulation a reinscription of patriarchal hegemony. While posing the same scenario initially, Dogville ultimately offers a justice-oriented, rather than sacrificial, model of redemption. An intertextual reading of all three films results in an appropriately complex understanding of Judeo-Christian models of salvation that may bridge the critical divide between von Trier’s sceptics and ‘believers’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses the interplay between religion and marketing and argues that Islamic-themed films in Indonesia involve more than just religious commodification. He argues that the market can be a vital tool for religion to survive in a global consumer culture. He offers the possibility that Islamization has also influenced market forces and contends that, in this case, religion has not lost its meaning.

This article begins by recognizing the increasing use of film in Religion, Theology, and Bible courses. It contends that in many Biblical Studies (and Religious Studies and Theology) courses, students are neither taught how to view films properly, nor how to place films into constructive dialogue with biblical texts. The article argues for a specific pedagogical approach to the use of film in which students learn how to view a film closely, in its entirety, on its own terms, and in its own voice. Viewing a film in this manner by attending to its aesthetic integrity is a prerequisite for constructing a fruitful dialogue between films and biblical texts. The essay concludes with three specific examples of what this approach might look like. Two responses follow the essay; Erin Runions of Pomona College considers two additional learning goals we might consider, and Richard Ascough of Queens University at Kingston helpfully distinguishes a range of possible pedagogical goals for introducing film into the Biblical Studies classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that manifestations of the sacred in Hollywood biblical spectaculars, as well as in films from Bollywood (the Hollywood of Bombay), have been significantly contoured by a reticulate set of oral norms. That is, the films' depictions of hierophany are tied to a way of knowing that maintains roots in orality (as distinct from a way of knowing historically permitted and/or induced by a cultural investment in the written word). Such orally inflected norms as epical and exoteric abundance, melodrama, frontality, and a telescoping of the real into the mythic compel us to re-think the common critical assumption that religious spectaculars are not authentically manifesting the sacred or that they can only be operating as escapist metaphors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the cinematic tradition of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the genre of Mormon cinema. The various styles of Mormon cinema are discussed, noting that the corpus includes such works as the missionary film "God's Army," the inspirational film "Windows of Heaven," and the anti-Mormon film "The Godmakers." The inclusion of fictional films, documentaries, works of instruction, and several other types of film within the genre of Mormon cinema is also discussed.

Oshima's film In the Realm of the Senses is an early example of what today is called 'artcore': films that employ the transgressivity of the representation of sexuality in order to discuss its meaning for human existence. This transgressiveness is intensified by the connection between sex and death that the film establishes. This article understands transgressivity as a positive value, arguing that the analogy between sexual and religious experiences is reinforced by the film's uncovering of the irresolvable ambivalence of sexuality. The analysis of the representation of a transgressive sexual relationship upon the background of Georges Bataille's reflections on sex, death and the sacred, shows how the film achieves a broader perspective on the meaning and role of sexuality in human life, and how precisely in sexuality's transgressiveness and ambivalence the sacred is evoked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Canterbury Tale, a 1944 'why we fight' film, mixes a pastoral celebration of England's history with a perverse plot concerning the peculiar Glue Man. The protagonists solve this mystery during their Canterbury pilgrimage and, in so doing, realize that England's glories depend upon accepting, not defeating, perversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the relationship between religion and film in different parts of Africa. The author offers an overview of films in Africa during the colonial period and post colonial period. It is stated that during the colonial period, films were made for educative and evangelistic purposes and post colonial period films portrayed religious practices and beliefs. The author states that there are several African countries which are yet to produce full-length feature film.

The article focuses on the new dimensions in the study of film and religion. It is stated that with the easy access of foreign language movies, scholars can consider films made beyond the West. It is mentioned that the cultural context in which the films are produced and viewed is closely linked to the growing interest among the audiences. The author states that a wide range of new approaches have emerged in the forms of film analysis.

The article focuses on the career development of American film director Cecil B. DeMille and his contributions to the development of new genre of Hollywood Bible films. It discusses the role of his film "Samson and Delilah," in changing the perceptions of the Bible, religion and American culture in general. It also examines DeMille's aesthetic practise of using multiple overlapping layers of sacred subtexts to enhance the drama, sacredness and credulity of his biblical storytelling.

The article provides a comparison of philosophies of tragedy between Buddhism and Lacan relative to the characters in the film "Ashes of Time." It focuses on the two protagonist in the film, Huang Yaoshi, a perverse person and a womanizer, and Uoyang Feng, who was associated with malignity because of his enviousness to others. It provides brief information on how the two fall in love with the same woman and finds a different response to their sufferings of not having the woman they both love. Moreover, the author offers comparison between desire and need, as well as pain and salvation relative to the beliefs of Buddhism and Lacan.

The article examines the films of filmmaker Werner Herzog. It says that Herzog's films are often difficult to refer as fiction or documentary, considering the divergent forces that inhabit his films including the vision of God, the demon-like figure, and the images overlapping in the temporal body of an electrician. It concludes that Herzog creates the visions of heaven and hell through physical, psychological, and ecological environments that encompass the human condition.

The article focuses on the contingency of connection in the 2006 film "Babel" as a form of politicization. It discusses the different editing techniques applied in different films to reach sequential or connections on events. It cites several topics which include religion, necessity of experience, and contingency of events. According to Charles Ramirez Berg's taxonomy, "Babel" along with Alejandro Gonz á les Iñárritu's two other films "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams," employ the 'Hub and Spoke Plots' in which story lines of multiple characters intersect at a single time and place. Moreover, it discusses the highlighted events in the film when the shooting occurred in a bus traveling in the Morrocan desert. Comparison to other events in different films is also included.