For years, “Ben Hur” was my favorite movie of all time. I was too young to have seen it in the movie theater, but every year one of the broadcast networks would show it on TV around Easter. So I’d sit on the floor of my parents’ bedroom where the portable black and white television was, and allow myself to be caught up in the grandeur of Rome and the powerful story of the triumph of love and forgiveness over hate. I never failed to cry at the end when the powerful Miklos Rosza score swelled as Judah Ben Hur gazed upon the clear, healed faces of his mother and sister, who had been miraculously cured of leprosy following Christ’s crucifixion.
I love big blockbusters. Having been a fan of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy since I was a kid, I was overjoyed that it was brought to the screen so magically and yet still stayed faithful to the story. I was spellbound by the recreation of ancient Rome in “Gladiator”. But it’s the religious epic that has always captured my imagination. I can still remember Victor Mature as the Greek slave Demetrius in “The Robe”, or “Demetrius and the Gladiators”.
There have been dozens of movies about the life of Christ, some highly fictionalized and others more faithful to the Gospels. Cecil B. DeMille gave us the life of Moses in “The Ten Commandments”, there was “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”, about the life of Saint Francis of Assisi. And there have always been the numerous “sword and sandal” flicks about ancient Rome or Greece.
But I don’t recall a movie ever having been made about the fascinating and intersecting lives of the two greatest Christian Apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. So, here is my “pitch” for just such a motion picture.
The basis for the movie would be the Biblical book, “The Acts of the Apostles”, which takes up where the Gospel of Luke leaves off with the ascension of Jesus into Heaven. It records the birth of the Church at Pentecost, and follows the lives and ministries of Peter, James and the other Apostles during the earliest days of Christianity. It records the dramatic conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and the beginning of his missionary journeys as Paul.
The movie would also weave into the narrative the “back story” behind many of the letters Paul and Peter wrote to the churches scattered throughout the ancient world.
But most significantly, it would illuminate (in a fictionalized way, of course) the tension between Peter and Paul. Both were Jews, but Paul clearly saw his mission as being the apostle to the Gentiles, whereas Peter, at least initially, still believed in the centrality of keeping the ancient Jewish Law as vital to the life of the church. I think this tension would make for a very compelling story, and the fact that Peter eventually had a vision in which it became clear to him that the good news of the Gospel of salvation was for all people, suggests a resolution of that tension in the sovereignty of God’s will for the church.
I tried to search for a book that might form the basis for a screen play for my movie (working title, “Apostle”) but the closest I could find was Taylor Caldwell’s classic 1974 bestselling novel, “Great Lion of God”, a fictionalized account of the life of Paul. There is also a new non-fiction book about the tension between Peter and Paul entitled, “St. Paul vs. St. Peter”, by Michael Goulder. It has received pretty good reviews, and could serve to provide some background material for a screenplay.
As for actors who would play the starring roles of Peter and Paul, I have no idea! Certainly not Tom Cruise or George Clooney! Maybe it would be better to hire relatively unknown actors so people can really focus on the beauty of the story.
So there you have my “pitch” for a big, religious blockbuster about the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul. It would be better, I’m sure, if I already had written a screenplay and was trying to persuade a movie studio to produce a film from it. But this is the blogosphere, and maybe someone out there reading this might take on this project. I certainly don’t have any financial interest in making this movie – I just want to see it!
Maybe a film like this is already in someone else’s head or is in the works. If so, I pray that it will bear fruit, and that one day we will see the drama of the early church and her greatest Apostles unfold on the big screen!
