From Holy Harlot to Passionate Penitent
Mary Magdalene in Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings (1927)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.v21i3.345Keywords:
Mary Magdalene, The King of Kings (1927), Cecil B. DeMille, Biblical Cinema, Religious EpicsAbstract
Hollywood pioneer, Cecil B. DeMille, was a master of the American biblical epic, a pop culture professional, and a Christian true believer who went to great pains constructing religious characters whilst pursuing his cinematic art. Although eagerly awaited by the paying public, his films were frequently ignored, dismissed or devalued by academia thus resulting in scant scholarly attention and pedagogic under-utilisation. This situation needs urgent correction and renewal. Consequently, utilising humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, the critical DeMille, film and religion literature was selectively reviewed, and his construction of Mary Magdalene within The King of Kings was explicated and briefly compared to other exemplars of this infamous scarlet woman. It was concluded that DeMille’s Magdalene was artfully constructed, dramatically engaging and scripturally insightful, thus demonstrating his deft skills as a cinematic lay preacher. Further research into DeMille studies and the emerging interdisciplinary field of religion-and-film was recommended.References
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Filmography
The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945, dir. Leo McCarey)
The Book of Life (1998, dir. Hal Hartley)
Casablanca (1942, dir. Michael Curtiz)
The Da Vinci Code (2006, dir. Ron Howard)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (a.k.a. Il Vangelo secondo Matteo) (1964, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini)
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965, dir. George Stevens)
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958, dir. Mark Robson)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973, dir. Norman Jewison)
Jesus of Montreal (1989, dir. Denys Arcand)
Jesus of Nazareth (1977, dir. Franco Zeffirelli)
Judas (2001, dir. Charles Robert Carner)
The King of Kings (1927, dir. Cecil B. DeMille)
King of Kings (1961, dir. Nicholas Ray)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, dir. Martin Scorsese)
Mary Magdalene (1914, dir. unknown)
The Passion of the Christ (2004, dir. Mel Gibson)
Power of the Resurrection (1958, dir. Harold Schuster)
Samson and Delilah (1949, dir. Cecil B. DeMille)
The Sword and the Cross (a.k.a. La Spada e la croce) (1958, dir. Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia)
The Ten Commandments (1923, dir. Cecil B. DeMille)
The Ten Commandments (1956, dir. Cecil B. DeMille)
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