Abstract:

For the next chapter in the Cinematic Childhood(s) and Imag(in)ing the Boy Jesus saga, I go back in time to the dawn of the cinema to examine some of the earliest attempts at screening the life of Jesus. I look specifically at the idea of childhood innocence in three key silent films: The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905), From the Manger to the Cross (1912) and The King of Kings (1927). From antecedents of ‘the child’ in Romantic art to philanthropic and state-sponsored child-saving efforts, the historical backdrops to these Bible-to-film adaptations are culled for their influences on these cinematic depictions of children and childhood, from the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Jerusalem temple to the imagined boyhood of Mark the Evangelist. The idea(l) of childhood innocence emerges from this analysis as historically contingent, variably expressed, and even contested.