![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2014\/03\/n-34852c.jpg\" "\\"NOAH\\"")
<\/a>Well what do you know, Darren Aronofsky\u2019s Noah<\/a><\/i> is already playing in theatres and raking in the big bucks\u2026 in South Korea.<\/p>\nVarious sources are reporting that the film opened there on Thursday (which might mean yesterday, given that it\u2019s on the other side of the international date line), and that its first-day gross was on par with that of films like Gravity<\/a><\/i> and Inception<\/i>. I imagine those particular examples are cited because they were big hits that, like Noah<\/i>, did not have the advantage of being sequels or part of a franchise.<\/p>\n Amusingly, The Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i> suggests that the film owes part of its success to the fact that South Korea \u201chas a large Christian population\u201d, while Variety<\/a><\/i> notes that \u201ca large percentage of the South Korean population is agnostic\u201d. Well, there\u2019s no reason the film couldn\u2019t be playing to both<\/i> audiences.<\/p>\n The film opens in Mexico tomorrow, and in much of the rest of the world<\/a> the week after. The first reviews should be online by tomorrow (hint, hint).<\/p>\n In other news, the last time we checked in with the promotional tour<\/a>, Aronofsky had gone with a couple of the actors to a premiere in Madrid, while Russell Crowe had made his first public appearance in support of the film at a premiere in Moscow. Since then, Aronofsky has attended a premiere<\/a> in Iceland<\/a>, and he then popped down to Rome to attend one of the Pope\u2019s general audiences with Crowe \u2014 the first time Aronofsky and Crowe have appeared together during the film\u2019s promotion.<\/p>\n You might recall that there was a lot of sound and fury a few days ago over whether Pope Francis and his team had nixed a meeting with the filmmakers. The reports coming from Rome indicate that the Pope might<\/a><\/i> have<\/a> met<\/a> them<\/a> personally<\/a>, after addressing the crowds, but if he did, it was very brief, and no photos were taken. A Vatican spokesman downplayed the whole thing, telling the Associated Press the filmmakers \u201ccould have been at the audience like anyone else<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Crowe is now in Rio de Janeiro<\/a>, for the film\u2019s Brazilian premiere tonight.<\/p>\n While the director and the leading man are touring the world, at least one of the other actors has returned to North America to drum up awareness for the film. Jennifer Connelly appeared on Good Morning America<\/i> this morning to talk about the film<\/a>, and along the way they played a clip from the film that has not appeared anywhere else yet, as far as I can tell, in which Noah tries to persuade Naameh that the wickedness in Tubal-Cain\u2019s camp exists within each member of their own family, too.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Emma Watson has an interview<\/a> in The Telegraph<\/i>, from Calcutta, in which she describes how she auditioned for the part of Noah\u2019s daughter-in-law Ila:<\/p>\n The auditioning process was a challenge. Before my audition he sent me one page of the script, which I performed and then he said \u2018Okay, you did alright with that\u2019 and then he handed me another three pages and said, \u2018I\u2019m going to leave you alone for five minutes and then you get to do it\u2019. And so you can imagine when he left me alone for those five minutes how I was feeling. But it was fun and I\u2019ve never produced real tears in an audition environment before, but I did with Darren.<\/p>\n It\u2019s incredibly difficult because you\u2019re not in costume, there are strangers in the room, there\u2019s a cameraman you\u2019ve never seen before and it\u2019s your first time doing it. And yes, I was crying my eyes out by the end of the audition!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And now, turning to how the film was developed in the first place, The Jewish Week<\/a><\/i> has one of the first stories I\u2019ve seen that takes a good look at the film from a Jewish<\/i> perspective. Among other things, it highlights the role that Rabbi Geoffrey Dennis, an expert on Jewish myth<\/a>, played in advising the filmmakers:<\/p>\n Aronofsky has admitted that \u201cNoah\u201d was being written by \u201ctwo not very religious Jewish guys,\u201d so Handel was calling Rabbi Dennis, author of the \u201cEncyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism\u201d (Llewellyn Publications), and a 2007 National Book Award finalist, to give a Jewish sense of the story.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the trailer,\u201d says the rabbi, \u201cthere\u2019s a moment when Noah strikes the ground with a flaming sword. I spoke to them about Methuselah, Noah\u2019s grandfather, who had a sword inscribed with God\u2019s name. He used that sword to tame demonic spirits that were tormenting humanity.\u201d This was not the angel\u2019s flaming sword that guarded the Garden of Eden, \u201cbut they may have fused the two\u201d because the sword in the trailer is flaming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Also interesting, in light of the controversy over Aronofsky\u2019s decision to explore Noah\u2019s dark side, is this bit from the article:<\/p>\n The tradition, says Rabbi Dennis, negatively compares Noah to Abraham and to Moses. However, the kabbalistic text \u201cShaar HaGilgulim\u201d teaches that Moses is the \u201cgilgul\u201d and \u201ctikkun,\u201d the \u201creincarnation\u201d and \u201cfixing,\u201d of Noah. Both were given a covenant. Both were saved by floating on water. (In Hebrew, the word for \u201cark\u201d and Moses\u2019 \u201cbasket\u201d are the same, \u201cteva.\u201d) The time of the flood is echoed at Sinai where it was raining at the time of the Revelation, among another half-dozen similarities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Meanwhile, Aronofsky himself has an written an article<\/a> on why he made the film (and curated a Noah-themed art show<\/a>) for T: The New York Times Stye Magazine<\/i>:<\/p>\n When I asked Russell Crowe to star in \u201cNoah,\u201d I promised him one thing: I would never shoot him standing on the bow of a houseboat with two giraffes sticking up behind him. That\u2019s the image most people have of Noah and the ark and I didn\u2019t want to give audiences what they were expecting. I wanted to break the clich\u00e9d preconceptions we have from children\u2019s toys, adverts, 1950s biblical epics and even much of the religious art of the last two millennia: the old man in a robe and sandals with a long white beard preaching in some Judean desert. I wanted Noah\u2019s story to feel fresh, immediate and real. So when my team and I started to imagine how to bring the prediluvian era to life, we threw away all the tropes and returned to the Bible. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Attached to the article are four images from the art show, most if not all of which have not appeared online yet, as far as I\u2019m aware.<\/p>\n In other news, Time<\/a><\/i> magazine has an article (for subscribers only) on Jonathan Bock, the founder of Grace Hill Media, a company that has been helping Hollywood studios market their films to Christian audiences for the past 14 years:<\/p>\n In the months leading up to the March 28 release of Noah\u2013the biblical epic by writer-director Darren Aronofsky, starring Russell Crowe\u2013Paramount Pictures screened half a dozen versions of the film, some more overtly religious than others. The studio discovered something surprising: people didn\u2019t really know the story. And it wasn\u2019t merely nonbelievers who had misconceptions about the tale of a man who built an ark to survive a great flood. It was Christians too.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some of the screenings, there were people who expressed concerns because Noah got drunk,\u201d says Jonathan Bock, founder and president of marketing firm Grace Hill Media. \u201cWell, that\u2019s in the Bible. We had people talk about the townspeople making fun of Noah for building an ark. Well, that\u2019s not in the Bible.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Below the Line News<\/a> has an article on LOOK Effects, a company that produced 300 visual-effects shots for Noah<\/i>.<\/p>\n