The strangest thing about actors is that they’re generally shorter than you might think they are. So when Darren Aronovsky makes all his “Noah” cast, apart from Anthony Hopkins and the hoards of filthy Canaanites, take to the stage in a curtain call, I get the distinct impression they are all pocket-sized waifs. Well, apart from Ray Winstone. And Russell Crowe, who appears to be under orders to say a few brief sentences before peeling off into the wings again. I ask myself – is he drunk or something ? Is he like the pickled, unsavoury uncle you have to keep in the back room at parties, just in case he says something intransigent ?
The one thing I have to say about the film Noah is E. P. I. C. This film is truly epic. It’s Ben Hur in its ambition, and from the second row of the audience, it’s quite literally huge. The Ark rocks. And when the lead goes home to the green ancestral mountain and clambers into the dark cave, can it be ? Is that the Pope taking a cameo role ? You half expect it, but it’s only Anthony Hopkins, in the end. Although he manages to look quite quite cardinal and pope-ish, actually. And gargantuan from where I’m sitting.
The Odeon puts on a fine show, and Paramount had provided an ocean flooring instead of a red carpet outside the cinema, interestingly all nicely packed away by the time we let the #NoahPremiere of the #NoahMovie after suffering tinnitus and glare from all that very big, very loud media.
This is supposed to be a film with big environmental themes, which it is, and which is probably why Damaris got offered some free tickets to the premiere, and handed them out to environmental organisations, in an attempt to engage this demographic segment. Well I’d say, if you’re at all green, definitely watch this film. It will resonate with you, even if you find the Biblical references a bit heavy.
When I was younger I was easily in thrall to public relations, stardom and pzzazz, but these days, it sort of all washes over me. So the stars and starlets giving out thousands of autographs and posing for a bank of hungry cameras really didn’t impress me. Should it have ?
I attended this event partly out of an interest in the anthropological elements – the division between red carpet and non-red carpet; how the barrier set up a desperate attitude of desire in those outside the red carpet zone. “Emma ! Emma !” the young things were calling for the white-robed Ms Watson with the architectural bangles, holding up signs, begging for selfies with their idols.
I noticed also that the many people working for the event had a kind of steely security guard attitude, even if they were only playing the role of general assistance. Without the stars in the theatre, the place was dull. With the actors and actresses in the room, the place was buzzing. It had an altogether higher energy.
I posed for a couple of photographs with my compatriots on the blue ocean-red carpet, but I felt I was at a school reunion rather than a media glitz event. I felt quite aloof from the process, right up until a surprise move in the film, when I literally jumped out of my seat. You see, the narrative did take me, wash me away with the portrayed doomed humanity. The power of the story; the power of the story-telling; even though the film should have been twice as long to cover all the themes and relationships it spun.
I identified with the narrative – as I expect most people will – the beseeching of the Heavens for an answer from God to our most urgent and important questions. We’ve all done it – asked the Universe for help, for a solution, for resolution, closure, certainty.
If you’re at all concerned about environmental dilemmas, you will know that today the United Nations has published another section of its Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change. This story couldn’t be greater, and for many people of faith it will trigger prayers and supplications to the Almighty. Our private prayer will parallel the frantic “Emma ! Emma !” that the troubled teenage fans call out, with anguish written on their faces.
Those in the faith communities who try to take Creation responsibilities seriously will hopefully come to praise this film and not ban it or pan it. Maybe Aronofsky could have made more of an impact if, instead of having Patti Smith recite his turgid 13-year-old teenage poem, if Russell Crowe had been put on stage to talk about the United Nations report and how serious he thinks the situation is. It seems almost one step too removed to leave the warnings about the risk of rising sea levels to the mouth of a dead, ancient prophet, but if this is the way that the story migrates, then maybe this film, too, is necessary.
This film is essentially about how humans have laid waste to the goodness and bounty of the Earth. After the house lights came up, I showed my companion the reams of empty packets of popcorn and water bottles strewn on the floor. Despite the earnestness and sincerity of the film’s director and his script, we clearly haven’t learned anything yet.
Further thoughts on “Noah”
They had soil under their fingernails, but the cast was universally white with perfect teeth and hair, and the audience privileged. We will learn soon enough that climate change doesn’t discriminate.
The budget for the movie would have been in the millions, but there are 800 million people who still don’t have enough to eat. Add a nought to that if we don’t address the water scarcity issues of climate change.
The violence of Genesis 6 is depicted in the movie as affecting the Earth as well as human society. Climate change is deeply affecting the Earth already, even though mining the Earth of resources has brought prosperity to many. We could be reaching a cusp, however, where we need to avoid the potential for human conflict and the social instability that climate change could now cause.
Genesis 9 writes that God promises not to destroy the Earth again by flooding, and climate change deniers claim that this means that sea level rise cannot possibly inundate cities. The evidence of the science is to be found in the data, and we shouldn’t just cling to fragments of an ancient narrative in vain hope.
Look – God changes his mind about things. At the beginning of Genesis 6 God considers killing every living being, but by the end of Genesis 6 he plans to save the right-living Noah and the animals he takes in the Ark.
The Bible says God regretted making the Earth. Did he also regret saving Noah ? Noah stops being righteous, right-on, perfect after the watery calamity. By the end of Genesis 9, we learn that drunkenness and deep disgrace came to Noah and his son directly after the Flood – despite the fact that God had shown favour on the father by directing him to build the Ark and save the creatures and his family.
When the waters receded, clearly there were no edible plants still viable, and God had to issue a dispensation that man could now eat meat – even from “unclean” animals – in order to survive. Is God in the process of compromise ? Dialogue ? Relenting ? Is he negotiating with us, even now ? By rights, he could just leave us to our self-imposed watery grave of a fate, but I feel he’s still as intimately connected and concerned with the human race as he was in the time of Noah. For those of faith who have never considered environmental destruction and the blowback effect on humanity, I think it’s time for us to ask him what we should be doing about climate change, start that conversation with the God of the Colourful Rainbows in the Sky.