So, I decided to make a fresh start and to dedicate this blog to the representation of religion in film, hoping to exchange encouraging and challenging!
When I talk about my dissertation topic around me (Preaching in American cinema), most people, certainly those who decipher the word 'preaching', cited at the outset The Night of the Hunter . I do not think this movie was so well known!
If this film comes immediately to mind is probably because it is one of the few that is truly centered on the character of the preacher (you just also think 'The Preacher' by Robert Duvall but is an independent film and much less known than the film Laughton).
I think what I like about this film is that it is primarily a story. A nightmarish tale (as described by its director) certainly, but a tale. This story reminds chiaroscuro probably viewers of adult primitive emotions such as fear of the child in the big bad wolf (I think including two scenes in which Harry Powell is presented as a big bad wolf when he climbs the stairs to the basement and when he cries unreal after leaving John and Pearl on escape their raft). This aspect of storytelling is reinforced by the beginning of the film when the face of Lillian Gish appears transparent on a starry sky and it tells the Bible stories to children attentive and fascinated.
The nightmarish side, dominating the entire first half of the film, is expressed with great visual poetry that reminds one of the illustrations books for children and puppet shows.
Since Harry Powell has been found so evil and fascinating preacher? I do not think. Presumably the John Doe in Seven (Kevin Spacey) who preaches through his murder, but if he believes a mission, it is not identified as religious figure.
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