“The Book of Clarence” is unquestionably not your common “Bible movie,” as its first trailer makes very clear. Though it attracts inspiration from Outdated Hollywood’s fascination with large-scale historic epics, it takes the traditional setting to inform a very new story, that includes imagined characters whose lives intersect with biblical figures we’re extra aware of. With an all-star forged led by Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield, it is a new tackle the style, with the thought of specializing in the folks whose tales would have been missed by historical past.
Is “The Book of Clarence” a True Story?
“The Book of Clarence” is about in an actual time and place: historic Jerusalem in the course of the ministry of Jesus. Though biblical figures like Jesus, his disciples, John the Baptist, and Mary Magdalene are characters within the film, the principle story just isn’t a part of any identified historical past or non secular narratives. As a substitute, it focuses on the imagined story of Clarence, a younger man who decides he needs to develop into one of many apostles, even when he is not fully bought on the concept Jesus is the Messiah.
“This story is about a young man who finds his faith through love and through wanting to become somebody in the world, which is the story of everybody,” producer JAY-Z advised Self-importance Truthful. “Everyone wants to find love and everyone wants to leave this place having accomplished something, having left their mark that they’ve been here and hopefully affected the world in a positive way.”
What Impressed “The Book of Clarence”?
“I wanted to tell a Bible story about an everyman,” director Jeymes Samuel advised Self-importance Truthful. “I always wanted to explore the Bible stories, but from the angle of the person that sells Jesus his sandals, the woman or man that owns the hair salon.” Samuel beforehand made an enormous splash with “The Harder They Fall,” one other genre-bending story (a Western) that put a twist on style conventions by centering characters of coloration, and notably Black characters. This time, the thought was to revisit the biblical tales that so many individuals are aware of, however to offer it a contemporary view from the angle of somebody not already “known” to audiences or to historical past.
Though it is a film that pulls inspiration from the Bible and from Christian narratives, Jay-Z defined to Self-importance Truthful that faith is merely “a backdrop” to the story. As a substitute of being a basic biblical epic, it is extra of a narrative in regards to the energy of “celebrity,” nevertheless it is outlined in a selected time and place, and the way Clarence’s journey of skepticism, confidence, and religion takes him (and viewers) on a extra sudden journey.
Watch the trailer for “The Book of Clarence” under.
