RELIGION/LITERATURE/FILM: TOWARD A RELIGIOUS VISUALITY OF FILM

Abstract

Recent scholarship that falls under the general heading ‘religion and film’ has been marked by a deficiency of truly interdisciplinary approaches, and religious scholars have remained bound by literary and religious studies methodologies. Responding to this situation, this article articulates the nature of interdisciplinary work that would begin to allow for the particularities of a religious visuality of film. Such a visuality finds its models in the visual studies work of scholars like Mieke Bal, Norman Bryson, Kaja Silverman, and W.J.T. Mitchell. Utilizing the writings of these scholars, attention is drawn to the type of film being seen (arguing for more interest in ‘alternative’ film), the format of film (without essentially defining ‘film’, the article yet argues for some specificities of the film medium), and the crucial status of the body in the cinematic experience. Finally, these elements are brought together to argue that a religious visuality of film is an ongoing process of interpretation taking into account formal analysis, socio-political environments, and phenomenological interactions between subject(s) and object(s)

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