Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, Vol 21, No 3 (2008)

Playing with Paradigms: The Christ-figure Genre in Contemporary Film

Adele Reinhartz
Issued Date: 5 Mar 2009

Abstract


As many commentators have noted, numerous mainstream films feature a plot line loosely based on the Gospel narrative and a protagonist who has some Christ-like features. This paper will argue that in many films the Christ-figure motif is not a minor element; rather, Christ-figure films constitute a genre in their own right. This paper will provide a brief overview of the Christ-figure film, as illustrated by The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and then engage in an analysis of two movies – the Quebecois film C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) and the American film Stranger than Fiction (2006) – that explicitly and humorously demonstrate the interplay of convention and innovation, familiarity and novelty that is the salient characteristic of the genre film.

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DOI: 10.1558/jasr.v21i3.298

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