The Disappearing Christ : Secularism in the Silent Era / Phil Maciak.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maciak, Phil, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jesus Christ--In motion pictures.

Jesus Christ.

Silent films--History and criticism.

Silent films.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (260 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

At the turn of the twentieth century, American popular culture was booming with opportunities to see Jesus Christ. From the modernized eyewitness gospel of Ben-Hur to the widely circulated passion play films of Edison, Lumière, and Pathé; from D. W. Griffith's conjuration of a spectral white savior in Birth of a Nation to W. E. B. Du Bois's "Black Christ" story cycle, Jesus was constantly and inventively visualized across media, and especially in the new medium of film. Why, in an era traditionally defined by the triumph of secular ideologies and institutions, were so many artists rushing to film Christ's miracles and use his story and image to contextualize their experiences of modernity?In The Disappearing Christ, Phillip Maciak examines filmic depictions of Jesus to argue that cinema developed as a model technology of secularism, training viewers for belief in a secular age. Negotiating between the magic trick and the documentary image, the conflicting impulses of faith and skepticism, the emerging aesthetic of film in this period visualized the fraught process of secularization. Cinematic depictions of an appearing and disappearing Christ became a powerful vehicle for Americans to navigate a rapidly modernizing society. Studying these films alongside a multimedia, interdisciplinary archive of novels, photographs, illustrations, and works of theology, travel writing, and historiography, The Disappearing Christ offers a new narrative of American cultural history at the intersection of cinema studies and religious studies.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction. The Disappearing Christ and Other Stories

The Historical Jesus in Broad Daylight

Unseen Somethings: American Studies and Postsecular Critique

Things Normally Unseen: Film Studies and Postsecular Critique

Outline of the Book

1. A Rare and Wonderful Sight: Ben-Hur's Historicism

2. Looking Sideways: Media Theories of Jesus Christ

3. Tricks and Actualities: The Passion Play Film and the Cinema of Attractions

4. The Double Life of Superimposition: W.E.B. Du Bois's Black Christ Cycle

Coda. Resurrectionists: Toward a Post-Cinematic Postsecular

The Resurrection is in Technicolor: Cecil B. DeMille

The Resurrection is CGI: Mel Gibson

Post-Cinematic/Postsecular

The Resurrection is Straight to Video: Abbas Kiarostami

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780231547000

0231547005

OCLC:

1091290996