The sacred and the cinema : reconfiguring the "genuinely" religious film / Sheila J. Nayar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nayar, Sheila J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--Religious aspects.

Motion pictures.

Religion in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Continuum, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"For more than half a century now, scholars have debated over what comprises a 'genuinely' religious film one that evinces an 'authentic' manifestation of the sacred. Often these scholars do so by pitting the 'successful' films against those which propagate an inauthentic spiritual experience with the biblical spectacular serving as their most notorious candidate. This book argues that what makes a filmic manifestation of the sacred true or authentic may say more about a spectator or critic's particular way of knowing, as influenced by alphabetic literacy, than it does about the aesthetic or philosophical and sometimes even faith-based dimensions of the sacred onscreen. Engaging with everything from Hollywood religious spectaculars, Hindu mythologicals, and an international array of films revered for their 'transcendental style,' The Sacred and the Cinema unveils the epistemic pressures at the heart of engaging with the sacred onscreen. The book also provides a valuable summation of the history of the sacred as a field of study, particularly as that field intersects with film."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Contents:

Tackling transcendence: an introduction

A history of the sacred as a field of study

A history of the sacred and the cinema

The oral contours of the religious spectacular

The literate contours of the transcendental style

Varieties of hierophanic experience

Technologizing hierophany: concluding remarks.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-187) and index.

ISBN:

9786613610867

9781472549495

147254949X

9781280581083

1280581085

9781441147929

1441147926

OCLC:

787843535