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Film Community Speaks Out Over Violence In Church.
London:
Leaders in the media and filmmaking communities have expressed their concern over the culture of violence in the Bible after a man was arrested after attempting to sacrifice a baby on the Altar of St Margaret's Church in Uxbridge.
"Obviously, we're not talking about every gospel. Some of them are harmless, and even provide moral guidance," said Eric Fellner of Working Title. "I'm a great fan of some of Corinthians, and Luke's gospel is a charming piece of work. But Paul? They shouldn't allow that kind of thing."
"It's very sad," added Tim Bevan, Mr. Fellner's partner. "Of course the teaching of morality is a responsibility of the media, and we're not shirking that. But we do look for help from enterprises like the Church, and to see them encouraging this kind of sacrificial violence is upsetting. The Bible is full of genocides, and no one questions the morality. And in the final act - I don't want to spoil it for anyone - but in the final act, the body count is pretty much the entire material universe. And that's represented as a good thing."
Albert S. Ruddy, a well-known Hollywood producer, went further. "I see this kind of thing every day," Mr. Ruddy said sadly, "And it breaks my heart. It's a lack of education. These things obviously aren't meant to be taken literally, yet people read about sacrificing children to God, and of course they go off and do it. I wish the authors had been a bit more socially responsible. We in movies try to teach a clear morality - killing is bad. Have any of these people even seen 'The Godfather'?"
"The cosmic morality in movies is very clear," said critic Jonathan Ross. "If you're a bad person, an evil person, you have a plan to take over the world or whatever, then a huge Austrian-born Americna bodybuilder will burst through your living room wall and bombard you with one-liners before killing you in an ironic and exciting way. There's no coming back once you've crossed that line. The Church offers a way back which is unrealistic. You kill a few thousand and you go to confession, then it's all okay. What kind of moral compass is that?"
The actor Daniel Day Lewis was more moderate. "Unfortunately, there are unbalanced people out there. They read the Bible and they hear what they're told in Church - and admittedly sometimes that's going to be pretty unpleasant stuff - and they act out their own violence through that filter. If they watched a film, of course, they might fixate on that instead. But it comes from within." |
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