{"id":6242,"date":"2006-08-29T15:17:06","date_gmt":"2006-08-29T15:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-nativity-story.html"},"modified":"2006-08-29T15:17:06","modified_gmt":"2006-08-29T15:17:06","slug":"a-nativity-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-nativity-story.html","title":{"rendered":"A Nativity Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s interest building about this film, The Nativity Story, a retelling of, well…that’s obviousl <\/a><\/p>\n

It’s directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the well-regarded, if controversial and brutal Thirteen<\/em><\/a> (brutal for its honesty I understand. I’ve not seen it) and it stars Keisha Castle-Hughes, <\/a>the marvelous young star of Whale Rider, <\/em>as Mary. The first link above has marvelous trailers and other information, and today, Christianity Today runs an interview with screenplay author Mike Rich.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

This film may not have the flash points<\/a> of The Passion of The Christ<\/em>, but whenever there’s a new movie with Christian themes, there’s often controversy. What are your concerns?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rich: <\/strong>I think there may be some who take exception with a very human telling of the story. And anytime you’re dealing with this particular subject matter, there is a responsibility to get the cultures and traditions spot on. We’ve done our best to do that, and I think the film is going to stand up in that regard.<\/p>\n

I think some purists will perhaps raise an eyebrow at the fact that we blended the two Gospel narratives, with the shepherds [from Luke] and the Magi [from Matthew]. Yes, we do show that quintessential Nativity scene at the end, with the shepherds and the Magi there together; purists are likely going to take exception with that. But if we had made a film that would have been strictly respectful to Matthew, people would wonder where the shepherds were. If we made a film that was strictly respectful of Luke, people would wonder where the Magi were. So, the film is called The Nativity Story<\/em>, and that’s what we’re focusing in on\u2014that quintessential moment that millions of individuals still put out on their fireplace mantels in December.<\/p>\n

Do you see this movie attracting an audience beyond Christians?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rich: <\/strong>I do. Even for non-believers, this is a compelling story. We have sent the script out to those way outside of Christian evangelicals. We’ve shown it to Jewish scholars, who are appreciative of the fact that we were respectful of their traditions and culture.<\/p>\n

I’m often asked what I hope to get out of this, what we’re hoping to accomplish. We live in a time where the month of December goes by in a heartbeat because of the hectic nature of the season. There’s very little time for families to talk about this story. If this movie can serve as a two-hour window in that season to get families talking about this remarkable, amazing story of faith, then that will be a great thing.<\/p>\n

Do you see the movie as "evangelistic"?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rich: <\/strong>Not particularly. It could plant a seed in that direction. We see Jesus for all of five minutes onscreen\u2014and he’s not exactly delivering the Sermon on the Mount. But if after seeing this movie someone opens up the Gospel of Luke, then you never know.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There’s a question in there about not upsetting Catholics, and the hopes of getting faiths to dialogue, and it’s all very vague – I have no idea if that relates to "ever virgin" or not. <\/p>\n

It’s sort of odd, too, this concern with not wanting to puzzle people too much if the film doesn’t match their Christmas manger sets. Most Catholics I know wait to put the Magi out until Epiphany anyway, and if that doesn’t quite complete the scholarly view that the visitation of the Magi happened up to two years after Jesus’ birth, that’s okay, because at least it acknowledges a sense of what Scripture seems to be saying about the event – that it was well after the birth. <\/p>\n

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There’s interest building about this film, The Nativity Story, a retelling of, well…that’s obviousl It’s directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the well-regarded, if controversial and brutal Thirteen (brutal for its honesty I understand. I’ve not seen it) and it stars Keisha Castle-Hughes, the marvelous young star of Whale Rider, as Mary. The first link…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA Nativity Story - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-nativity-story.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Nativity Story - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There’s interest building about this film, The Nativity Story, a retelling of, well…that’s obviousl It’s directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the well-regarded, if controversial and brutal Thirteen (brutal for its honesty I understand. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}