Christian History Home > Issue 61 > Judgment Day on the Big Screen
Judgment Day on the Big Screen
The end of the world according to filmmakers.
Peter T. Chattaway | posted 1/01/1999 12:00AM
Sandwiched exactly between the lives of John Nelson Darby and Steven Spielberg, Abel Gance directed La fin du monde (1931), France's first feature-length talking picture. In it, a comet threatening the earth divides humanity between those who spend their last days indulging in wanton orgies, and those who unite in the name of peace, following a man first seen playing Christ in a passion play.
Apocalyptic themes didn't really take off, however, until the 1970s. Society was in a state of turmoil, exploited by films about conspiracy theories and disasters both natural and supernatural. In both Stephen King's 1978 repackaging of Revelation, The Stand, and in The Omen (1976), the Antichrist is pop culture's ultimate, serious, bad guy.
That decade also saw the rise of a parallel popular culture, best exemplified by the Jesus music scene. The Rapture and the Second Coming were especially common topics. Larry Norman wrote perhaps the definitive early Christian pop song when he composed "I Wish We'd ...
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