JOURNAL ARTICLE ->

From Still to Moving Image: The Shifting Representation of Jerusalem and Palestinians in the Western Biblical Imaginary

This article looks at the shifting representation of Palestine and Palestinians in the Western biblical imaginary, initially focusing on European and then later North American imaging modes. It considers the trajectory of Bruno Piglhein’s Panorama of Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifixion within the lineage mid-nineteenth century Western photographic practices. In analyzing the role of his work in popularizing the New Testament as a mode of mass entertainment, it considers how he assimilated nineteenth-century traditions of scientific methodology, that most notably engaged with fields such as biblical history, ethnography, and archaeological surveying, to establish their influence on Hollywood New Testament epics of the twentieth century. It then compares Piglhein’s panorama to Cecil B. de Mille’s King of Kings (1927) and George Stevens’s The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), both of which take as their subject the life and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In drawing together these different generations of representation of the crucifixion narrative, ‘From Still to Moving Image’ considers how supposedly objective nineteenth-century modes of imaging presented – or indeed did not present – Palestinians and how such representations changed in response to their respective cultural and political contexts.

Public lecture: Eye on Art: Hollywood and the Landscapes of ‘the Orient’, introductory lecture to ‘Reel Bad Arabs’, Eye Film Museum, 13th October, 2020
Image credit: 1880s reproduction of Prof Bruno Piglhein’s Cyclorama of Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifixion taken from Thomas De Witt Talmage - From Manger to Throne. Philadelphia: Historical Publishing Company, 1893

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