A Biblical movie?
January 5, 2011 (Wednesday)
The oldest daughter in the Von Trapp family, showcased in the movie, “The Sound of Music,” has died at the age of 97. Agathe was represented in the film by 16-going-on-17 Liesl, played by Charmian Carr. But Agathe was far more reserved than the outgoing Liesl, it is said. Although Agathe admired the movie, she felt it misrepresented her father as too strict and not as the loving, caring parent he was. She cried when she first saw it because of the way they portrayed him. She said that if it had been about another family she would have loved it. She recently published a book, “Memories Before and After The Sound of Music,” to set the record straight.
Hollywood is always doing stuff like that. When you see a movie about history or biography, you have to do additional research on your own to get the complete and true story. One can’t help wondering what kind of movie it would have been if it had stuck with the facts. After all, the family made a great enough impression upon someone to make the movie seem like a good idea.
The movie industry rarely shows Biblical films at all anymore, but in the past, whenever Bible stories were portrayed on the screen, many times the true facts were hard to find or handled quite loosely. In one of our youth groups in the sixties, the movie, “The Ten Commandments,” was being discussed, when the teacher asked, “What happened to the golden calf?” One of the kids said, “They blew it up!” That’s the way he thought the movie presented it. That teenager today is about 60 years old–hopefully he now knows better. The Bible says it was ground to powder.
When we read the Bible, we can trust what we read. As the saying goes, they “let it all hang out.” The glaring faults and sins of heroes are presented just as they really happened, without cosmetic changes. Peter put it this way: “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21 NIV). You can trust what the Bible says.
I saw a couple of movies on a Christian T.V. network while I was living in Houston that were first rate and featured top name actors, that were true to the Bible and great movies too. One starred Anthony Hopkins and was about Peter and Paul. That one told it like it really is, just as the Bible presents it, and it is an interesting and exciting movie. The other one was about Jacob and Joseph, and I’ve never seen a better presentation. They don’t have to change the facts presented in the Bible to make them exciting. The truths written there have already changed history. The words are powerful.