I was thinking this morning about Tad Friend’s just-published New Yorker article about the conflict between Noah director Darren Aronofsky and Paramount Pictures about trying to appeal to the Christian community, and the more I kicked it around the more Paramount’s position (i.e., the one more or less voiced in Friend’s article by Paramount vice-chairman Rob Moore) seemed reasonable to me. If I was running the show, I too would have tried to assemble a pandering, vaguely dipshitty Christian-friendly version of Noah — a version that would have blatantly kowtowed to Christian values. But — this is important — I would only show it in the hinterland territories where most Christians live.
I would give this version of Noah a special rating — C for Christian. I would then open the real Noah — the Aronofsky version, the artistic-integrity cut that was more or less intended all along and is true to itself and doesn’t pander to simpletons — in the cities and their suburbs and other semi-educated areas.
Christians live on their own planet, they want what they want, and they’ll never come down to earth. I don’t see the problem in making and trying to sell them the kind of cereal that they want to eat. And then you could include both versions on the Bluray/DVD.
That, to me, sounds like a sensible business plan for the film’s release, and one that would totally respect Aronofsky’s vision. From Paramount’s perspective, releasing a C-rated version wouldn’t be any kind of dismissal of the Aronofsky cut. It would simply be a practical acknowledgement that Christians want what they want, and that they don’t care about real filmmaking or artistic intent as much as others do. They want and have always insisted upon having a certain kind of spiritual heroin in their lives, and that’s their game — take it or leave it.