{"id":7557,"date":"2013-04-30T07:32:04","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T14:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=7557"},"modified":"2013-06-30T18:45:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T01:45:53","slug":"christmas-musical-black-nativity-releases-its-first-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2013\/04\/christmas-musical-black-nativity-releases-its-first-pictures.html","title":{"rendered":"Christmas musical Black Nativity<\/i> releases its first pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Four years after I first mentioned<\/a> that a film version of the Langston Hughes musical Black Nativity<\/a><\/i> was in the works \u2014 and three months after cameras finally started rolling<\/a> on the adaptation \u2014 we now, at last, have some images from the film, courtesy of USA Today<\/a><\/i>. Alas, all four of the pictures in question seem to be set pretty firmly within the real world, so we\u2019ll just have to wait to see the \u201cdream sequence\u201d that re-tells the story of the birth of Jesus. The article that accompanies the new images does describe at least one part of that sequence, though:
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HARLEM, N.Y. \u2014 On a frigid Saturday in early March as the midnight hour draws nigh, Mary J. Blige materializes on an outdoor basketball court sporting a blond mushroom-cloud of an Afro wig, a white leather maxi-coat and matching stiletto-heeled boots \u2014 along with a pair of giant wings perched on her back.<\/p>\n

Among her audience: three goats hanging out by the bleachers.<\/p>\n

This angelic queen of hip-hop soul is busy proclaiming the arrival of baby Jesus in song, exhorting a chorus of inner-city shepherds to rise and follow the star to the manger. It is all part of a dream sequence in the film Black Nativity<\/i>, due Nov. 27, a visual mash-up of a preacher\u2019s Christmas Eve sermon and his napping grandson\u2019s dream of a Times Square Bethlehem. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The USA Today<\/i> story also mentions that Jacob Latimore, the 16-year-old actor who plays the grandson in question, will get to sing a \u201cfresh take\u201d on the classic spiritual \u2018Motherless Child\u2019. As it happens, this would not be the first time that a Nativity-themed film made use of that song; Pier Paolo Pasolini put it on the soundtrack for the scene in The Gospel according to St. Matthew<\/a><\/i> (1964) in which the Magi pay homage to the Christ child and his parents. You can watch that scene below:<\/p>\n