Abstract
The article uses Sunset Boulevard (1950) and the cinematic Paul pattern to reflect on San Paolo, Pasolini’s script for an unrealized Paul film, and on Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018). Typical Paul films, including television and church-use productions, present Paul in terms of a repeated pattern including 1) a spectacularly conceived Acts, 2) his martyrdom, 3) hagiography, and 4) biopic film structure. Despite focusing on Luke’s writing of Acts, rather than the content of Acts, Paul, Apostle of Christ follows the cinematic pattern quite closely. Even though it follows Acts more closely, San Paolo deviates from the cinematic pattern extensively, primarily because it transposes Paul to modernity where Paul struggles weakly and apocalyptically, rather than spectacularly or hagiographically, against dominant institutions. Unlike most films about early Christianity, San Paolo is not about the triumph of Christianity. Sunset Boulevard makes a nice foil for Paul’s cinematic history and these two films specifically because of its story of a forgotten film star who fantasizes about a glorious cinematic return and because of its use of a dead, scriptwriter narrator to tell its story. Paul, too, still awaits cinematic celebrity. In San Paolo and Paul, Apostle of Christ, scripts, scriptwriters, and dead narrators dominate the tales.
Works Cited
Aichele, George. 2002. “Translation as De-canonization: Matthew’s Gospel According to Pasolini.” Crosscurrents 51: 524–534.Search in Google Scholar
Badiou, Alan. 2013. The Incident at Antioch: A Tragedy in Three Acts, trans. Susan Spizer, introduction by Kenneth Reinhard. New York: Columbia University Press.10.7312/badi15774Search in Google Scholar
Badiou, Alan. 2014. “Foreword.” In Pier Paolo Pasolini. Saint Paul: A Screenplay, trans. (and introduction) Elizabeth Castelli, vii–xi. London/New York: Verso.10.2307/j.ctv23985z8.3Search in Google Scholar
Barański, Zygmunt G. 1985. “The Texts of Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo.” The Italianist 5: 77–106.10.1179/026143485791470937Search in Google Scholar
Baugh, Lloyd. 1997. Imaging the Divine: Jesus and Christ–Figures in Film. Kansas City: Sheed & Ward.Search in Google Scholar
Blanton, Ward. 2010. “Reappearance of Paul, ‘Sick’: Foucault’s Biopolitics and the Political Significance of Pasolini’s Apostle.” Journal for Culture and Religious Theory 11 (1): 52–77.Search in Google Scholar
Blanton, Ward. 2014. A Materialism for the Masses: Saint Paul and the Philosophy of Undying Life. New York: Columbia University Press.10.7312/columbia/9780231166911.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Blanton, Ward. 2014. “Afterword: Appropriation’s Excess, Paul of Tarsus for an Age of the Capitalization of Mastery.” In Pier Paolo Pasolini. Saint Paul: A Screenplay, trans. (and introduction) Elizabeth Castelli, 111–142. London/New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Blanton, Ward, and Hent De Vries, eds. 2013. Saint Paul Among the Philosophers. New York: Fordham University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Castelli, Elizabeth. 2014. “Introduction: Translating Pasolini Translating Paul.” In Saint Paul: A Screenplay, Pier Paolo Pasolini, trans. (and introduction) Elizabeth Castelli, xv–xli. London/New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. 2004. In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom. New York: Harper, San Francisco.Search in Google Scholar
Custen, George F. 1992. Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Dubuisson, Daniel. 2007. The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology. Translated by William Sayers. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Grace, Pamela. 2009. The Religious Film: Christianity and the Hagiopic. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781444310559Search in Google Scholar
Greene, Naomi. 1990. Pier Paolo Pasolini: Cinema as Heresy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hooper, John. 1999. “Long-dead Pasolini Plans Next Film.” The Guardian Newspaper July 5. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jul/05/johnhooper.Search in Google Scholar
Hurd, J. C. 1976. “Paul, the Apostle.” In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume, edited by Keith Crim, Victor Paul Furnish, Lloyd Richard Bailey, Sr. and Emory Stevens, 648–651. Nashville: Abingdon.Search in Google Scholar
Kreitzer, Larry. 2018. “Ben-Hur (2016): Jesus Finds a Voice.” In T & T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film, edited by Richard Walsh, 381–392. London/New York: T & T Clark.10.5040/9780567666239.0039Search in Google Scholar
Maggi, Armando. 2009. The Resurrection of the Body: Pier Paolo Pasolini from Saint Paul to Sade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226501369.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Mariniello, Silvestra. 1999. “St. Paul: The Unmade Movie.” Cinemas: Revue d’Études Cinematographiques 9 (2): 67–84.10.7202/024787arSearch in Google Scholar
McLean, Dorothy Cummings. 2018. “Scripture is ‘The Only Source Material’ for New Film about St. Paul.” LifeSiteNews. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/scripture-is-the-only-source-material-for-new-film-about-st.-paul.Search in Google Scholar
Moore, Anne. 2018. “Counting Errors or Understanding Filmic History: Historiophoty and Bible Films.” In T & T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film, edited by Richard Walsh, 36–48. London/New York: T & T Clark.10.5040/9780567666239.0008Search in Google Scholar
Nongbri, Brent. 2013. Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. New Haven: Yale University Press.10.12987/yale/9780300154160.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Page, Matt. 2006. “Interesting Question at the Looking Closer Journal.” BibleFilmBlog. January 12. Accessed January 20, 2019. https://biblefilms.blogspot.com/2006/01/interesting-question-at-looking-closer.html.Search in Google Scholar
Page, Matt. 2011. “Some Obscure Paul Films.” BibleFilmBlog. May 4. Accessed January 20, 2019. https://biblefilms.blogspot.com/2011/04/some-obscure-paul-films.html.Search in Google Scholar
Page, Matt. 2017. “Paul, Apostle of Christ set for 2018 Release.” BibleFilmBlog, October 5. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://biblefilms.blogspot.com/search?q=paul%2C+apostle+of+christ.Search in Google Scholar
Page, Matt. 2019. “Visual Bible: Acts (1994).” Bible Film Blog, January 20. Accessed January 20, 2019. https://biblefilms.blogspot.com/search/label/Paul.Search in Google Scholar
Pasolini, Pier Paolo. 1988. Heretical Empiricism, ed. Louise K. Barnett, trans. Ben Lawton and Louise K. Barnett. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Pasolini, Pier Paolo. 2007. Der heilige Paulus, ed. Reinhold Zwick, trans. Dagmar Reichardt. Marburg: Schüren.Search in Google Scholar
Pasolini, Pier Paolo. 2014. Saint Paul: A Screenplay. trans. (and introduction) Elizabeth Castelli. London: Verso Books.Search in Google Scholar
Pyper, Hugh S. 2018. “Son of Man: A Case Study in Translation, Postcolonialism, and Biblical Film.” In T & T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film, edited by Richard Walsh, 210–222. London/New York: T & T Clark.10.5040/9780567666239.0024Search in Google Scholar
Reinhartz, Adele. 2003. Scripture on the Silver Screen. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox.Search in Google Scholar
Reinhartz, Adele. 2007. Jesus of Hollywood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195146967.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Roetzel, Calvin. 1999. Paul: The Man and the Myth. Minneapolis: Fortress.Search in Google Scholar
Rosenstone, Robert A. 2006. History on Film/Film on History. Harlow, England: Pearson.Search in Google Scholar
Rumble, Patrick, and Bart Testa. 1994. “Introduction.” In Pier Paolo Pasolini: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Patrick Rumble and Bart Testa, 3–13. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442678484-004Search in Google Scholar
Schrader, Paul. 1972. Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Schwartz, Barth David. 1992. Pasolini Requiem. New York: Pantheon Books.Search in Google Scholar
Siciliano, Enzo. 1982. Pasolini: A Biography. Translated by John Shepley. New York: Random House.Search in Google Scholar
Sobchack, Vivian. 2008. “Embodying Transcendence: On the Literal, the Material, and the Cinematic Sublime.” Material Religion 4 (2): 194–203.10.2752/175183408X328307Search in Google Scholar
Stack, Oswald. 1969. Pasolini on Pasolini: Interviews with Oswald Stack. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Testa, Bart. 1994. “To Film a Gospel … and Advent of the Theoretical Stranger.” In Pier Paolo Pasolini: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Patrick Rumble and Bart Testa, 210–231. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442678484-015Search in Google Scholar
Twomey, Jay. 2016. “Fighting the Good Fight: Paul’s Conversion as Political Insurgency in The Way.” Unpublished presentation delivered in the Bible and Film Section of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL).Search in Google Scholar
Twomey, Jay. Forthcoming. “To an Unknown Apostle: Moments of Pauline Undoing in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Saint Paul.” Unpublished manuscript, forthcoming in an issue of Biblical Interpretation devoted to Pasolini’s San Paolo.10.1163/15685152-02745P04Search in Google Scholar
Vander Stichele, Caroline. 2018. “A Deadly Daughter? Salome’s Cinematic Afterlife.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film, edited by Richard Walsh, 358–368. London/New York: T&T Clark.10.5040/9780567666239.0037Search in Google Scholar
Viano, Maurizio. 1993. A Certain Realism: Making Use of Pasolini’s Film Theory and Practice. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2003. Reading the Gospels in the Dark: Portrayals of Jesus in Film. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2005. Finding St. Paul in Film. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: T & T Clark International.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2013. “A Beautiful Corpse: Fiction and Hagiography in Son of Man.” In Son of Man: An African Jesus Film, edited by Richard Walsh, Jeffrey L. Staley and Adele Reinhartz, 192–205. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2016. “Paul and the Early Church in Film.” In The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film, 2 vols, edited by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, 497–515. Berlin: de Gruyter.10.1515/9781614513261-034Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2016. “Getting Judas Right: The 1925 Ben-Hur as Jesus Film and Biblical Epic.” In Bigger than Ben-Hur: The Book, Its Adaptations, and Their Audiences, edited by Barbara Therese Ryan and Milette Shamir, 125–142. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2018. “Cinematic Acts and the Triumph of Christianity.” In “A Temple Not Made with Hands”: Essays in Honor of Naymond H. Keathley, edited by Mikeal Parsons and Richard Walsh, 188–201. Eugene: Pickwick.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard, Jeffrey L. Staley and Adele Reinhartz, eds. 2013. Son of Man: An African Jesus Film. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix.Search in Google Scholar
Ziolkowski, Theodore. 1972. Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Zwick, Reinhold. 2007. “Nachwort.” In Pier Paolo Pasolini, Der heilige Paulus, edited by Reinhold Zwick and trans. Dagmar Reichardt, 157–181. Marburg: Schüren.Search in Google Scholar
Zwick, Reinhold. 2014. Passion and Transformation: Biblische Resonanzen in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “mythischem Quartett.” Marburg: Schüren.Search in Google Scholar
Zwick, Reinhold. 2018. “German Jesus Movies.” In T & T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film, edited by Richard Walsh, 139–150. London/New York: T & T Clark.10.5040/9780567666239.0017Search in Google Scholar
©2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston