The spate of religious/biblical films and television series in the post-“Passion of the Christ” world have been a mixed bag of successes, failures, and everything in between. Popular culture that “borrows” from sacred Scripture usually churns out things so pious they are unwatchable, or takes such liberties and “reinterprets” what God has inspired, the writers of such faire could be charged with assault.
The First and Second Book of Samuel read like a Hollywood sword and sandal epic from the 1950s. Actually, they became just that in 1951 with the film “David and Bathsheba,” starring Gregory Peck and Susan Heyward. It is not a bad film, but it suffers from acute melodrama, with an overdose of overacting, and as good as these actors were in other films and other genres, it is just not possible to suspend our disbelief and see them as icons of ancient Israelite nobility.
“David and Bathsheba” was superior to the distracting presence of John Wayne as a Roman centurion in George Stevens’ ponderous film about the life of Christ, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” Hearing the Duke utter the line, “This truly was the son of God” at the foot of the cross while dressed in full Roman regalia is a cultural non sequitur I’m still trying to recover from.
“The House of David” on Amazon Prime is different. This multi-part series is so far both a faithful recounting taken from the Books of Samuel and the story of King David, and a slice of popular culture with subplots and fictional characters creating a matrix of intrigue and compelling storytelling.
Whether the decision to forego the use of well-known actors in almost all the key roles was an economic or artistic choice is moot. The result created a sense of authenticity. No American or British accents and people who truly look like they belong in the Holy Land circa 1,000-900 BC.
It is not just how they look and how they sound, but what they say that makes this series exceptional. There is no dialogue that betrays a nod to any postmodern bias or agenda. There are no “girl bosses” who do not need men and wield swords better than Errol Flynn. But the series is filled with plenty of strong women, just like the Old and New Testament are.
The series depicts David as an outcast, the illegitimate son of Jesse who is a source of shame for the family. Biblical scholarship may debate the veracity of that plot point, but the scriptural David is certainly an outsider and unlikely king, so this nuance is not a deal-breaker for me.
There are other elements, though, where this series goes further afield from the original text. First, the only “name” actor people might know, Stephen Lang, who plays the prophet Samuel, plays the part more like an Israelite Gandalf the Gray.
A lot of liberties are taken with the plotline of the race of giants the Philistines ally themselves with to win back their kingdom. In the Bible, Goliath’s height is immense, anywhere between nine and 10 feet tall. In the series, the giants we encounter are 15 to 20 feet tall — I don’t know how much that is in cubits since I was never good at math. Regardless of the epoch, the gigantism is the closest the series comes to taking me out of the reality of the Bible story and into the Lord of the Rings fantasy realm.
Things get real with the portrayal of King Saul. He is a tortured person, vexed by an evil spirit, which is good television and also spot-on faithful to Scripture. And as we read in Samuel, Saul is soothed from his torment by the gift of music brought into his palace via a simple shepherd boy with a melodious voice and a talent for the lyre. All of these elements are woven into a narrative with a queen who is intent on helping her husband retain his power, and an assortment of princes and princesses doing the same.
I would not recommend this series for children, as there are disturbing elements of violence, as there are in the Books of Samuel, and there is a lot of talking that would bore them anyway. But for teens and up, I think “The House of David” is an excellent Lenten watch.
Source: Angelus News
