Mary, the 2024 film about Mary, the mother of Jesus: a Mariological analysis
The film “Mary” (2024)
“Mary” is a 2024 biblical film directed by D.J. Caruso, distributed by Netflix. The work narrates the life of the Virgin Mary from the Annunciation to the flight into Egypt, starring Noa Cohen in the role of Mary and Anthony Hopkins in the role of Herod. The film was produced with attention to the historical and cultural context of 1st century BC/1st century AD Judea, although it incorporates dramatic elements and narrative interpretations proper to the cinematic genre. Its premiere generated wide discussion about the representation of Mary in contemporary visual arts.
Mary in cinema: a centuries-old tradition
From the earliest days of cinema, Mary has been a central figure in biblical films: from D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” (1916), through “Ben-Hur” (1959), “The Story of Ruth” and the great biblical epics of the 50s and 60s, to Franco Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth” (1977), in which Anne Bancroft’s Mary is considered one of the most faithful to the Gospel profile. The “Jesus Film” (1979), the most viewed in the history of cinema, includes Mary in a discreet way but faithful to the sources. “Nativity Story” (2006) focused specifically on the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the birth of Jesus, with Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary.
What theology says about the representation of Mary
The Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium, n.67) asks that representations of Mary be “of genuine artistic value” and avoid everything that might mislead the faithful or “turn the faithful away from the worship due to God”. The Instruction Communio et Progressio (1971) on social communication encourages Christian art, including cinema, provided that it does not violate the dignity of sacred persons. To represent Mary in cinema is an act of visual catechesis: aesthetic choices inevitably convey an implicit theology. The way Mary is presented determines what the viewer understands about her identity.
The historical figure of Mary: what we know
The historical sources on Mary are exclusively biblical and patristic; there are no secular documents from the 1st century that mention her. The New Testament mentions her in: Lk 1:26-56 (the Annunciation and the Magnificat), Lk 2:1-52 (the Birth, the Presentation, the Finding in the Temple), Jn 2:1-11 (Cana), Jn 19:25-27 (at the foot of the Cross), Acts 1:14 (the Upper Room). The apocryphal Infancy Gospels (the Protoevangelium of James, 2nd century) add her origin in the family of Joachim and Anne and her upbringing in the Temple, but they are not verifiable historical sources. Any film about Mary inevitably works with partly imagined material.
The Annunciation on screen
The scene of the Annunciation (Lk 1:26-38) is the core of any filmic representation of Mary. How is one to represent the moment in which the Eternal enters into time? Cinema has wrestled with this question in varied ways: supernatural light, a voice alone, a human angelic figure. What Scripture reports is the dialogue between Mary and the angel Gabriel, a dialogue that reveals Mary’s intelligence (“how shall this be?”, Lk 1:34) and her freedom (“behold the handmaid of the Lord”, Lk 1:38). Any representation that reduces Mary to a passive receptacle betrays the Lucan text.
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