THE NEON BIBLE, writer-director Terence Davies first literary adaptation, is based on John Kennedy Toole's coming of age story set in the 1930s and 1940s Bible belt. Similar to Davies's autobiographical TRILOGY, the film is a series of remembrances by 15-year old David (Jacob Tierney), who reflects back on his troubled childhood while riding a train to an unknown future. As a small boy, David (Drake Bell) was a friendless outcast who watched his angry father, Frank (Denis Leary) vent the frustration of their poverty by beating his wife, Sarah (Diana Scarwid). David gets a playmate when glamorous Aunt Mae (Gena Rowlands) comes to live with them. Mae regales David with stories of her days on the stage, and provides some security in the midst of his parents' troubles. Despite Mae's influence, however, David is forced to grow up too soon, and finds himself in a shocking predicament. With his fluid, languorous camera movements, Davies guides the viewer through David's familial life and the life of the South at a particular moment, with its revival meetings and book burnings. Davies's cinemascope reverie is another compelling examination of his personal themes of youth, memory, and religion.
Theatrical release: 1996
An Official Entry at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.
Co-produced by Scala Films. Developed with the support of the European Script Fund, an initiative by the MEDIA Programme of the European Union.
Filmed in CinemaScope; color by Metrocolor.
Shown at the New York Film Festival October 2 & 3, 1995.
Additional credits: Teresa M. Yarbrough (unit production manager), Rich Greenberg & Thomas D. Coe (assistant directors),
Laura Rosenthal (casting), Howard Bashew (2U DOP), Kristin Messina (set decorator), Kathy Heiner (wardrobe supervisor), and Sarah Mays (makeup artist).
Rated BBFC 15 by the British Board of Film Classification.
Neon Bible Reviews:
"...The film is stunningly crafted..."
-- David Stratton, Variety
"...The images are beautiful to look at; Davies still knows everything about composition and moving a camera..."-- Phillip Lopate, Film Comment
"...Hallucinatory....[The] storytelling is wound around a montage of images and songs that have a mystical personal resonance..."
-- Stephen Holden, New York Times
"...THE NEON BIBLE is elegiac, formal and sometimes boldly stylized. The result is an extraordinary experience in which the familiar is made deeply and effectively unsettling..."-- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
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