Location: Institute of Sacred Music
ISM Gallery of Sacred Arts
409 Prospect St.
New Haven, CT
Admission: Free
Open to: General Public
Description: An exhibition of film posters on biblical themes, on display at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Reception, Thursday, September 23, 4:30 - 6:00pm
Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible on Film draws on the extensive collection of film scholar Rev. Michael Morris, O.P., Professor of Religion and the Arts at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. The exhibition of film posters on biblical themes will be on display from September 21 - November 19 at the Institute. It consists of over fifty vintage movie posters from around the world, surveying films from 1898 to the present - films classic and obscure, domestic and international, grandiose, and camp. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, September 23 from 4:30 - 6 pm in the Great Hall of the Institute of Sacred Music at 409 Prospect Street.
Judeo-Christian scripture has served as subject matter for the uniquely modern art form of film from the beginning of the medium to the present day. Designed to inspire the imagination and entice viewers to make a cinematic pilgrimage, the posters in this exhibition track developments in the graphic arts as well as in advertising and marketing. A number of the posters have topical imagery that links them to a particular time and place, while others achieve a timeless quality; some deserve to be considered as bona fide works of art. The posters, like the movies they promote, reflect the social milieus in which they functioned, and hint at the various stances filmmakers have taken toward their biblical material; reverent or irreverent, ironic or dogmatic, understated or epic.