Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2007
Constantine's Sword (film)
Buy Constantine's Sword (film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'James Carroll's Constantine's Sword', or 'Constantine's Sword', is a 2007 historical documentary film on the relationship between the Catholic Church and Jews. Directed and produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Oren Jacoby, the film is inspired by former priest James P. Carroll's 2001 book 'Constantine's Sword'.
Synopsis
The title page of this film shows the shadow of a cross, with "No war is holy" written across the transept. 'Constantines Sword' is the story of James P. Carroll's journey to uncover the roots of war. Carroll, a former Catholic priest whose father (Joseph Carroll) was a famous Air Force general, implies that there has been a relationship between religiously inspired violence and war, beginning with the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 312 AD. Constantine was convinced that he had won a battle because he had followed the instructions of a vision, to inscribe a sign of the cross (the Labarum) on the shields of his soldiers. In Carroll's view, this event marked the beginning of an unholy alliance between the military and the Church.
Carroll focuses on Catholic and evangelical anti-Judaism, and invokes the cross as a symbol of the long history of Christian xenophobic violence against Jews and non-Christians,[http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/movieDetail.cfm/i/61D3FDB1-C43A-34AD-1D9440BEF01F9779 Constantine's Sword (2008)] , HollywoodJesus.comChris Barsanti. [http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/Constantines-Sword Constantine's Sword film review] at Filmcritic.com. from the Crusades, through the Roman Inquisition and the creation of the Jewish ghetto, to the Holocaust. Carroll also charges that there is an ongoing evangelical infiltration of the U.S. military, and that this has had negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy. The film's final chapter, "No war is holy", concludes with views of military cemeteries as Aaron Neville sings "With God On Our Side".
Technical details
*95 minutes
*Languages in film: English, German, Italian and Yiddish
*Cast/Featuring: Liev Schreiber, pastor Ted Haggard, Philip Bosco, Natasha Richardson, Eli Wallach
*Director: Oren Jacoby
*Producers: Oren Jacoby, James Carroll, Michael Solomon, Betsy West.
*Supervising producer: Elgin Smith
*Screenwriters: James Carroll, Oren Jacoby
*Production company: Storyville Films
*Studio: First Run Features
See also
*'Constantine's Sword' (2001) book by James P. Carroll
References
Buy Constantine's Sword (film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 2007