After reading about it for the past few months, I found a copy of The Hidden God: Film and Faith on the new releases shelf of the university library during my lunch break today. Given the sensational coverage of film and faith in recent weeks, this collection of short essays is a breath of fresh air. The list of contributors is as interesting as the films they discuss. A random sampling:
- James Quandt on Au Hasard Balthazar and The Devil Probably
- Stuart Klawans on Andrei Rublev
- Terence Davies on The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiators
- Philip Lopate on The Green Ray
- Stan Brakhage on Artificial Intelligence: A.I.
In total, there are fifty essays, each accompanied by beautiful black and white stills. The Museum of Modern Art did a fine job with this one. And MoMA’s film festival must have been pretty damn amazing, too.
Only two minor disappointments: first, although it gets a brief mention in Nathaniel Dorsky’s “Devotional Cinema,” I wish Dreyer’s Ordet had been treated with an essay of its own. And second, David Sterrit and Mikita Brottman, who contributed a piece on L’Humanite, didn’t cite my Dumont essay. Not that they had any reason to. I’d just like to see my name in such a cool book.