Overview

This book examines the connections between film and Christianity, considering how films express and depict Christian faith and spirituality and provide experiences associated with it. The notion of movement as immobility (from Simone Weil) is employed to describe film and its images in motion. Its movements can reconnect us with the movements of the world, those motions in which a mysterious sense of order, what Weil calls ""immobility,"" arises. Film is understood as a privileged form to access inscrutable spiritual (in)visibilities that can be linked with Christian concepts and practices. The chapters in Exploring Film and Christianity offer new studies of famous directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Robert Bresson combined with analyses of recent notable films, including Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups, Martin Scorsese’s Silence, and Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. Organized around the productive topics of theory, expression, depiction and experience, this volume is a valuable contribution to interdisciplinary research on film and Christianity.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rita Benis ,  Sérgio Dias Branco
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9781032163741

ISBN 10:   1032163747
Pages:   242
Publication Date:   22 May 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Exploring Film and Christianity Rita Benis and Sérgio Dias Branco PART I: Theory1. The European Tradition?: Film and Christianity Beyond the Canon Catherine Wheatley 2. “My Sister Reality”: The Franciscan Sources of Bazin’s Philosophy of Cinema John Caruana 3. Toward a Christian Aesthetic of Cinema Flow Joseph G. Kickasola PART II: Expression 4. Cinema Places Us Waiting for What?: A Religious Look at the Cinema of João Salaviza José Tolentino Mendonça 5. Filming the Soul? From Robert Bresson to Manoel de Oliveira Maria Do Rosário Lupi Bello 6. On Christian Values and Bresson’s Forms: A Contribution to a Philosophical Legacy of Cinema Maria Irene Aparício PART III: Depiction 7. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia: Between Art, Biography and Christianity Mário Avelar 8. The Striving Promiser: On the Immobile Movement of Promise in The Given Word (1962) José Manuel Martins 9. Herzog’s Kasper Hauser, or The Enigma of the Hidden God Paolo Stellino 10. Remembrance of Acto da Primavera in Manoel de Oliveira’s Filmography Adriana Martins 11. Theft and Return or Bresson’s Grace Gerard Loughlin 12. To Be Is to Be Free: Cybernetic Life as Christian Subjectivity in Blade Runner 2049 M. Gail Hamner PART IV: Experience 13. Of Balloons, Bells and Icons: Andrei Rublev from Above Bruno C. Duarte 14. Silence Is Golden, or How the West Meets Japan in the Theory of Spiritual Film Aesthetics Dan Chyutin 15. Terrence Malick, or the Portrayal of Marriage as a Sacrament Pablo Alzola 16. Movement as the Core of Being: Watching Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups Through David Bentley Hart’s Theology Denys Kondyuk

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Author Information

Rita Benis is a Researcher at the Center for Comparative Studies at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Sérgio Dias Branco is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.

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