I SAW NOAH THIS WEEKEND. The film more or less met my expectations, which were not high, but it certainly did not exceed them. The CGI was good, of course. Thank you Titanic, Lord of the Rings, and Transformers.
Below are a few random thoughts, most of which I have not seen elsewhere, although I don't doubt that some of them have already appeared in other reviews that I haven't seen. There are some spoilers, so don't keep reading if that matters to you.
• It was a forgettable, shamelessly emotionally manipulative movie which said more about our society (indeed this decade of our society) than anything about the Bible.
• In its favor, it grasped and expressed the full psychotic horror of the Flood story which is only implicit in the biblical narrative.
• Earlier I expressed reservations about the movie functioning as midrash. But in favor of that view, it did make ample use of the midrashic technique of transferring biblical motifs from one story to fill out another one. Notably we have the theme of the barren matriach Ila (cf. Sarah, Rebekah, etc.) made fertile by divine dispensation; the blessing by the aged patriarch Methuselah (cf. Isaac and his sons etc.); and of course, the-binding of-Isaac theme applied to Noah and his granddaughters.
• The oddest departure from the biblical narrative was the matter of the wives of the sons of Noah. Genesis has God telling Noah to bring the sons' wives aboard (6:18) and reports that he did so (7:13). The movie makes up the story of Ila, which is fair enough in that none of the wives is named in Genesis. But then no other wives come aboard and we are left to believe that Ham and Japheth will eventually marry their nieces. Presumably all this was to inject some romance and drama into the story, but I still thought it was weird.
• Incidentally, the name "Naameh" for Noah's wife comes from the name of Tubal-Cain's sister ("Naamah") in Genesis 4:22, who was identified with Noah's wife in Rabbinic midrash.
• The story of the sons of God and the daughters of men (Genesis 6:1-4) was picked up in two different ways in the movie. The Enochic myth of the descent of the Watchers was brought in (where the sons of God are angels), but otherwise the narrative stuck to the Rabbinic and Patristic tradition that the sons of God were the godly line of Seth and the daughters of men were the corrupt line of Cain. The whole episode of the mating of the Watchers with mortal women and the resulting birth of the Nephilim or giants was left out entirely, perhaps to preserve that 12A rating.
• The idea of the Promethean descent of the Watchers to share their knowledge with humanity comes from Jubilees 4:15. The fallen Watchers are eternally damned, not forgiven, in all ancient versions of their story.
• What did Noah and his family eat if they lived in a blasted volcanic landscape with no crops and no eating of animals? Lichen?
• What did that snakeskin heirloom do besides glow?
• Why didn't anybody ever ask what an "Ark" was?
• Why were there only white people before the Flood?
• Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
• Why didn't someone kill Noah in his sleep during those nine months in the Ark?
• How many extinct species did Tubal-Cain eat during those same nine months? Is that what happened to the unicorns and the saber-toothed cats?
• Speaking of animals and the Ark, what about the dinosaurs?
• The message of the movie seems to be that a feeling of love (or not) should decide the most consequential of moral issues. It's creepy that a lot of people seem to think that's okay.
• I really, really hope that they don't make a sequel.
• Ham comes back in sixteen years and marries Miley Cyrus ...
More reviews of and commentary on Noah are here and links.
