New Line Cinema ("The Lord of the Rings") releases "The Nativity". Read all about it here...

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=22127

By "here", of course, I mean the above link. It's an article about the genesis of the movie. Here's an extract, to show you the tone or style of the article; Christian readers will agree that there really is something for everyone in this show...

"Genesis of a script

“The Nativity Story” was written by Mike Rich, a former radio news announcer in Portland, Ore. His previous medium-budget films, “Finding Forrester” (2000), “The Rookie” (2002) and “Radio” (2003), had all done well at the box office, but Rich wanted to move outside the sports genre for his next feature. “As a screenwriter, I love stories about ordinary people who do extraordinary things; this is my consistent theme as a cinematic storyteller. And I had always wanted to write ‘The Nativity Story,’ which is about ordinary people who did extraordinary things,” he told me in an interview.

In December 2004, both Newsweek and Time ran cover articles about Christ’s birth. This sparked Rich’s interest in taking a different approach to the Christmas story. Early in 2005, his father, Jack, passed away at the age of 67. This event, said Rich, made him feel that he could take on a subject of such magnitude “to write more spiritually about things that matter, because my father was always a strong supporter of my writing and the stories I was trying to tell. He was a great father, who held a very special place in his heart for the Christmas season.”

Rich belongs to the Southwest Bible Church near Portland. His wife, Grace, and their three children, Jessica, Caitlan and Michael, are Catholics and active members of St. Cecilia Parish in Beaverton, Ore.

When Rich began researching his topic, he knew that the primary source material was very limited, mostly chapters 1 and 2 of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Over the 11 months he prepared to write the script, what he calls the “nuts and bolts” phase of screenwriting, he consulted the works of Jewish scholars, as well as books by Raymond Brown (Birth of the Messiah), Peter Richardson (Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans) and John Meier (A Marginal Jew), all Catholic biblical scholars.

“I felt a little trepidation as I approached the actual writing,” Rich admitted. “If I kept only to the gospels, I would have a 20-minute movie. So I decided to tell the story of Mary’s journey from the perspective of character. I realized it would take some speculation and visualization to do this, and at the same time I was committed to staying completely true to the story and faithful to its tone.”

“I wanted to write during the Advent season so I could be immersed in its spirit,” Rich said. “Shortly after Thanksgiving in 2005, I made my way through my home office – there is barely a path to get from the door to my desk because it is surrounded with research and junk,” he said with a laugh – “with a sense of peace and purpose. This is not always the case, because scripts are difficult to write. But I began each day by playing Amy Grant’s song ‘Breath of Heaven,’ what she calls ‘Mary’s Song,’ about Mary contemplating the wondrous thing that had happened to her. I also surrounded myself with figurines from the crèche to visualize what I wanted to write.”

Rich typically writes no more than five hours a day. He spends the rest of the day formulating the next day’s scenes. He takes a very disciplined approach to writing. Many people are surprised to learn that most screenwriters write no more than four pages a day – four minutes in film time. A two-hour movie is based on a 120-page script."

Readers will find the background to the movie fascinating - I hadn't heard anyone describe herself as a "Texas Presbyterian" before (Catherine Hardwicke, the director); Keisha Castle-Hughes, who plays Mary, is pregnant at the age of 16 and unmarried. She claims she is "free" but her "grandparents are Catholic". The only American actor in the movie is Oscar Isaac, who plays "the most silent man in sacred scripture" - Joseph, the husband of Mary, (NOT he of Arimathea) a.k.a. Jesus' "father".

Nativity plays are common in Catholic (and some other denominations') Christmas celebrations. "New Evangelicals" in particular, might want to google for further information on Nativity plays before watching the movie.

LMT