![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/1999\/04\/noahsark1999-300x243.jpg\" "\\"noahsark1999\\"")
<\/a>Just about every kind of disaster film has appeared on screens big and small in the past few years, so it was only a matter of time before some producer turned to the Bible for inspiration. The result is Noah\u2019s Ark<\/i>, a two-part mini-series produced by Robert Halmi Sr., the renowned showman who has made it his mission to bring literary classics such as Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/i>, The Odyssey<\/i> and Moby Dick<\/i> to TV sets everywhere.<\/p>\nFloods, volcanoes, meteors, tornadoes, shipwrecks \u2014 Noah\u2019s Ark<\/i> has it all. The film also begins with a glaring anachronism. In Genesis, the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah are not destroyed until hundreds of years after Noah\u2019s lifetime. But in Halmi\u2019s version, scripted by Peter Barnes, Noah (Jon Voight) is a native Sodomite, albeit a righteous one, who flees the town shortly before its destruction; his best friend Lot (F. Murray Abraham) also escapes, even though he is decidedly not righteous.<\/p>\n
Years pass, and Noah\u2019s sons grow into handsome young men \u2014 all of whom are despised by the local villagers because, while the town suffers from a drought, Noah and his family seem to live in divinely ordained prosperity on a nearby farm. (It doesn\u2019t help that Noah\u2019s sons interrupt a virgin-sacrificing ritual with the help of some heavenly pyrotechnics.)<\/p>\n
Then God tells Noah and his family to build an ark, and so they do. The second part of the film concerns the flood itself, and it\u2019s almost entirely fictitious. Lot returns as the captain of a pirate ship, sporting an eye-patch and a full complement of grappling hooks. James Coburn has a brief cameo as a salesman in a primitive paddlewheeler who mourns the passing of monetary systems and sells Noah some liquor (for which there is at least some sort of biblical precedent).<\/p>\n
Mad with boredom<\/b><\/p>\n
Eventually, in the film\u2019s most bizarre sequence, the ark\u2019s residents begin to go mad with boredom. What\u2019s more, Noah decrees that there is to be no procreation aboard the ark, and hence no sex. Tensions mount. People hallucinate. And then God tells Noah that he\u2019s reconsidered his plans and, well, all humanity is going to have to die after all. Noah, faced with imminent death, responds the only way he knows how \u2014 by whistling and dancing. God, amused, decides to keep humans around a while longer.<\/p>\n
No, this certainly isn\u2019t the story we heard in Sunday school. Some of the film\u2019s innovations are rather cute, as when Shem (Mark Bazeley) turns out to be allergic to one of the animals. But the filmmakers, including director John Irvin, refuse to sober up even when the material demands more serious treatment. The dialogue is hopelessly modern \u2014 \u201cUp the creek without a rudder,\u201d sighs Japheth (Jonathan Cake) when he learns that the ark has been travelling in circles \u2014 and the film often seems to wink at its audience, as if to say, \u201cIsn\u2019t this silly?\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, this just may be the first post-modern biblical epic: shortly after their escape from Sodom, Noah tells his wife Naamah (Mary Steenburgen) that they should get a scribe to write their story down. Naamah balks at the idea. \u201cScribbling scribes have a very bad reputation,\u201d she says. \u201cThey change things. By the time they\u2019ve finished the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, they\u2019ll probably say we weren\u2019t even there.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is not to say that Noah\u2019s Ark<\/i> never takes itself seriously; it does have a few points to make, mostly concerning the need to protect the environment. But these points are couched in a narrative that is often too glib for its own good.<\/p>\n
\u2014 A version of this article was first published in <\/i>ChristianWeek.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just about every kind of disaster film has appeared on screens big and small in the past few years, so it was only a matter of time before some producer turned to the Bible for inspiration. The result is Noah\u2019s Ark, a two-part mini-series produced by Robert Halmi Sr., the renowned showman who has made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1650,167],"tags":[730,169,171,731,55,168,170,647],"class_list":["post-3531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-movies","category-christianweek","tag-gomorrah","tag-john-irvin","tag-lot","tag-naamah","tag-noah","tag-noahs-ark-1999","tag-robert-halmi-sr","tag-sodom"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Just about every kind of disaster film has appeared on screens big and small in the past few years, so it was only a matter of time before some producer turned to the Bible for inspiration. The result is Noah\u2019s Ark<\/i>, a two-part mini-series produced by Robert Halmi Sr., the renowned showman who has made it his mission to bring literary classics such as Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/i>, The Odyssey<\/i> and Moby Dick<\/i> to TV sets everywhere.<\/p>\n