Past Exhibitions

Browse the chronological list of past exhibitions at the Saint Louis University Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCRA), or search for a specific exhibition. Click “View” for more information about an exhibition. If you need further information about an exhibition, please contact us.

Name

The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture

Dates

September 16, 2007 to December 09, 2007

Description

A uniquely modern art form, film and its associated motion picture industry have taken Judeo-Christian scripture as subject matter from the very beginning of the medium and have continued that treatment to the present day. The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture examines how the Bible has been visualized on film by bringing together 53 vintage movie posters that survey films from 1898 to the present—films classic and obscure, domestic and international, grandiose and camp—along with a selection of ancillary promotional and commemorative materials.

The posters (which range from small window cards to 9-foot mural-like posters) serve as aesthetic objects in their own right, and as indicators of changing trends in the film industry’s approach to the Bible. Designed to inspire the imagination and entice viewers to make a cinematic pilgrimage, the posters allow us to trace developments in the graphic arts as well as in advertising and marketing. Many of the posters have topical imagery that links them to a particular time and place, while others achieve a timeless quality; a number deserve to be considered as bona fide works of art. The posters, like the films they promote, can reveal much about the social milieus in which they functioned. The posters also hint at the various stances filmmakers have taken toward their biblical material: reverent or irreverent, ironic or dogmatic, understated or epic.

The Celluloid Bible draws on the extensive collection of film posters of scholar Rev. Michael Morris, O.P. Morris received his Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986 and for twenty years has been a Professor of Religion and the Arts at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. A special interest in film has led him to build a world-class collection of movie posters and allied material for films that charts the intersection between religion and the cinema. Morris writes for both scholarly and popular publications. His biography of the wife of the actor Rudolph Valentino (Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova, Abbeville Press, 1991) was named by The New York Times as one of the Notable Books of the Year. MOCRA is only the second venue to publicly display the Morris collection.

above:
Installation view of The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture at MOCRA, 2007. Photo by Jeffrey Vaughn.

Related programming

Michael Morris, O.P.: “Moving Pictures: The Bible and Beyond”

Celluloid Bible Classics: The Ten Commandments

Celluloid Bible Classics: Ben-Hur

Related MOCRA Voices episodes

Watch Michael Morris, O.P.: Moving Pictures - The Bible and Beyond

Media

Watch the "Living St. Louis" profile of The Celluloid Bible.

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Exhibition
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