Critically assess Hindu film 'Daya Sagar' (1978) that depicts the life Essay

Critically assess Hindu film 'Daya Sagar' (1978) that depicts the life of Christ. In what way might your chosen film be said to be religious - Essay Example said to have had a long history of use as a missions tool in India, being used to tell the story of Christ to the Indian population in a presentation that makes them feel that they can own the story, since it presents the religious tale in a way that seems culturally relevant. In this sense, the film has a long history of presentation as a religious film. However, as a strictly academic matter, this raises an important set of questions: James Wall (1971), the editor of The Christian Advocate wrote a classic volume of film interpretation that begins with a consideration of censorship of such themes as sexuality in modern cinema and moves toward an aesthetic consideration of the filmmaker’s responsibility when presenting a film as a religious work. In the book, he argues that it is only natural for people oriented toward religion to move beyond a secular concern for assessing film according to religious values to developing standards that can direct the production of film that serves the purposes of religion in a more proactive manner. After all, he writes, concerning Christianity specifically, the need to communicate religious messages is felt as a requirement of the faith by adherents of religion, and film is a particularly good medium to use to communicate with the masses (p. 18). Once we consider the fact that, according to Christian doctrine, â€Å"all realms† are to be used for the Glory of God, i t is no longer controversial to consider the possibility that film, which is sometimes thought to deal mostly with serious secular topics such as drugs and sex, can be used to represent religion as well. In many ways, in fact, appropriating film as a religious tool is similar to the practice of putting Christian-themed lyrics to popular songs in bygone eras, including some tunes that may have been heard more likely in a saloon rather than a bar. It is using an evocative medium to tell a compelling message, and doing so in a way that appeals to the masses. One