To list the changes writer and director Darren Aronofsky makes to the source material in “Noah” would take more room than this column is afforded. Suffice to say he makes many alterations, some of which are shocking at first but ultimately make sense within the framework of the film. In the end, a movie isn’t about how faithful it is to the book on which it’s based, but about how well the filmmaker tells his or her version of the story. In that respect, Aronofsky succeeds.
Clearly, Aronofsky was not targeting the “God’s Not Dead” crowd. If he’d been concerned about drawing Christians to theaters, he wouldn’t have shown giant rock creatures building the ark.
To be fair, they’re not actually rock creatures, but angels who fell from heaven to help mankind when God cast Adam and Eve out of Eden. In the Bible, angels fell from Heaven when they rebelled against God, and these spiritual beings have no love for humanity. The “giants” mentioned in Genesis 6:4 were the offspring of these demons and human women, not angels who’d become encased in rock. If you were weaned on scripture, you’re going to have a hard time swallowing the differences in “Noah.”
To Christians, Genesis is fact; to others, its myth. Aronofsky clearly believes the latter. Still, he weaved the spirit of the biblical story of Noah into his movie.
Brilliantly played by Russell Crowe, Noah is a righteous man surrounded by sin. (Aronofsky demonstrates Noah’s righteousness by showing him to be respectful of the environment, while vast, barren landscapes stripped of resources represent man’s sinfulness. The green theme in “Noah” is a subtle snub at conservatives who scoff at global warming and are eager to frak every drop of oil out of the Earth. So who does Aronofsky consider to be evil?) Through dreams, God tells Noah of his plans to wash creation clean. A man of faith, Noah takes his Creator at his word: God is going to kill everything but him, his family, and a few animals.
But even as Noah begins to build the ark, he struggles with his thoughts. He sees sin in himself and his family, and wonders why God would save them. He decides the Creator merely wants them to rescue the animals, and mankind will end with their deaths. Like the Noah of the Bible, who stumbles off the ark, gets drunk, and gets naked, Crowe’s Noah is a flawed man who struggles to understand and do God’s will, and who needs redeeming. The idea isn’t that Noah was perfect, but that God saw in him someone worth saving.
As screenwriters are prone to do, Aronofsky changes the story to suit his purposes. Gone are the wives of Noah’s sons, which opens the door for tension between Noah and Ham, who wants to bring a woman onto the ark. His father insists he set aside his selfish desires and focus on the task at hand. The absense of wives also creates division between Shem and Noah, but for a different reason I won’t spoil. Also, someone who has no place on the ark sneaks on, setting up a climactic fight. While these changes flesh out the story, they’ll only annoy purists.
That said, there are moments that stick to scripture and additions that make sense. As in the Bible, God’s invisible hand closes the door of the ark, and Shem and Japheth walk backward toward their father to cover his nakedness with a blanket while Ham just gawks at Noah with shame. Also, Aronofsky’s Earth resembles Pangaea, with a single land mass; when the flood breaks out, the director suggests the event was so cataclysmic, it cracked the world apart. Say what you will about the changes Aronofsky made, he evidently put a lot of thought into the material. Whether or not he believes the Bible contains truth, he needed the story to make sense to him.
Gripping visuals are a trademark of Aronofsky’s films (see “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Fountain”), and there’s no shortage of disturbing sequences in “Noah.” God’s chosen one dreams of hundreds of dead bodies floating up from deep waters, and of walking on blood-soaked soil. Then there’s the shot of people clinging to the peak of a mountain, and a wave pulling them into the churning depths. While some viewers will recoil from these images, they’re appropriate, given the nature of the story. This is not your felt board Sunday School version of “Noah and the Ark.”
Aronofsky offsets these moments with beautifully animated and scored scenes: the welling of an underground spring from which a forest instantly grows; the water snaking across the land to draw animal and fowl to the ark; birds, reptiles, and mammals arriving by the thousands; and the story of creation, artfully rendered by Aronofsky and his special effects team.
In the latter sequence, a series of snapshots of life forming in the ocean and then crawling onto dry land and evolving into new animals (imagine flipping through a book of pictures that goes from amoeba to elephant) makes a not-so-subtle statement about the compatibility of science and religion. In Aronofsky’s story of Noah, the “days” of Genesis were actually millions of years during which God shaped life on Earth. Again, this will outrage literalists, but it’s a story of creation liberals can embrace.
When you set aside Aronofsky’s alterations and brazen embellishments, he lifted a compelling story from the pages of scripture. I can understand why many Christians loathe this movie. Aronofsky has an eccentric touch as a director, both visually and when it comes to telling a story. But if you can set aside your notions of what the movie should be, and listen to the artist, then you might take something other than incredulity or outrage away from it.
I learned I have a lot in common with Noah. I’m a flawed man who’s struggled to understand and do God’s will, and who needs redeeming. I’m not perfect, but I’m grateful God sees in me someone worth saving.
Three-and-a-half stars out of four. Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, and brief suggestive content.