Silence and Spectacle: How Film Shapes Our Understanding of Scripture with Dr. Richard Lindsay

In the latest episode of Quadcast, Hollywood cinema and religion scholar Dr. Richard Lindsay ’04 M.Div discusses the films that form America’s imagination around the Bible.  

Listen to the Quadcast on SoundCloud.

Dr. Lindsay is the author of Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and the Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day, the first book of its kind to explore the transgressive queer subtexts of biblical films from the silent era through the twenty-first century. He has partnered with Fr. Christopher Renz, OP, to curate a collection of movie posters, stills, promotional materials, and other rare film finds pulled from the extensive collection of his late mentor, Fr. Michael Morris, OP. 

Quadcast host and journalist Emily Judd, ’19 M.A.R., got Dr. Lindsay on the mic to talk about everything from the practical effects used to create resurrection in the silent film era, to the Cold War politics that influenced 20^th century biblical epics, to the ways these films shape our collective cultural understanding of Scripture even today.  

 “When we watch these biblical films, they [often] have a way of colonizing our imaginations,” said Dr. Lindsay in the podcast interview. “A lot of times when we are thinking ‘the Bible says this’ or ‘the Bible looks like that’, we are [actually] thinking about the films.” 

He continued, “[films that portray] a white white American Moses or a white American Jesus shape our perception of what the Bible is, who is in the Bible, and who the Bible is for.”

The “Silence & Spectacle” exhibition, curated by Fr. Christopher J. Renz, OP, and Dr. Richard Lindsay ’04 M.Div., opened in the Croll Entrance Hall at YDS, Monday Sept 14, along with rare movie ephemera on display in the Divinity Library Day Missions Room. 

Dr. Lindsay gave a presentation on “Expressionism and the Transcendental Style of Cinema,” on Monday, September 14, followed by a screening of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) that evening in Niebuhr Hall. The silent masterpiece was accompanied by Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, a modern oratorio composed for the film. 

The YDS Quadcast is hosted by Emily Judd ‘19 M.A.R., who started the podcast when she was a student. She is now Senior Communications Specialist at the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity and previously worked as a journalist in the Middle East. 

The exhibition is open to the public 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday (excluding campus holidays) until December.

Download the episode transcript (pdf).