h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: 'Stigmata' - The Film - A895061
Author: Saturnine - U189219

I'm submitting this now, because I think it is as close to finished as I can get it...however, it's lacking something. All suggestions are welcome, so fire away folks!

First up, nice!

Okay, what about mentioning hte alternate endings? The original Theatrical one and the alternate directors one that appears as an option on the dvd?

There's a few spelling and grammer misstakes in there, but I'll let you or the editor find them.

Perhaps put all the bits about the sound track into their own seperate paragraph? Makes it easier to read/scan. Also, how about the opening title sequence? It's not often that a whole part of the film is mixed in with the credits, and what a part as well? The remix of Chumbawamba's Mary Mary fits in not only with the screen action, but with the entire ethos of the film, a sort of "this is what we've been led to believe, but we don't believe" sort of thing. Turning the religious element on it's head.

Seperate too I reckon about what else the director has done from the synopsis of the film. And perhaps put in section headings? Synoipsis, Soundtrack, Visualisations, that sort of thing? Probably personal preference really, but hey, you did ask

I think you've got the right balance of information for the other bits, like the director and the stars, after all if there was to be more information, a seperate Guide entry would be better.

Are there no entries out there on the stars/directors already? Probably not really.

Do mention the alternate ending though. I'm not sure which I think is the better one yet though

What are the alternate endings?

I do not have the DVD!

This is why I needed help! And as for SPAG...oh, I'll do it later...

I was trying to keep it to quite a short basic entry on the film itself as opposed to creating a monster like Jim's "The Exorcist" entry!

But inform away...

Oh, and I still haven't got the bloomin' soundtrack either...

*holds up her poor starving writer sign*

Short entries for films are often best, you want to encourage someone to watch it, not make the act of watching it redundant.

On the dvd you get the directors ending, where they go out into the garden after he resues here, but there is no dialogue, he sits down on the bench with her, and the camera pans down to see a red stain developing on sheet covering her side, the fifth wound, so she dies. You then see her "spirit" walking around the garden, not actually her. Although it is her, if you see what I mean.

I've borrowed the dvd from my brother, but will definately be buying it with my next pay cheque.

No! She dies?

Oh my God. I actually want to cry now!!!!!!!!



B*****ks.

Once I find the means of DVD playing, it is definitely going to be the first one I buy. Glad you told me that now...that would have had an adverse reaction...

That would explain why Kiernan is on his own in the church at the end...

Perhaps not an alternate ending, but a directors cut?

Ooh.

Pretty much, yes. I'm glad when my brother told me to watch it he said "Watch the directors cut first."

I have that feeling you get when you wake up from a dream and really want to go back

Ok. let's get back on topic.

I've only just got up, so I will amend the SPAG later (quite horrified that there may be mistakes).

I've only seen this once, and it was something like two years ago now, but i liked it a lot. Visually it was great, oweing perhaps a little to Se7en, certainly following in it's footsteps.

I was really very let down by the fact that i recognised the supposedly 'secret' texts as soon as they were introduced. The Nag Hammadi codeces are so very well known and Gospel of Thomas is the most popular of them - i'm sure for many it spoilt the fun a little. I seem to remember a scene here she paints stuff on the wall (possibly in blood?) - and there was something destinctly wrong with that, but i don't remember what. Does anyone have pictures / links?

Why was it a let down? It wasn't really about the script was it? More of a hit against the Catholic Church...

I think the official website is http://www.stigmata.com

If that isn't right, check out the MGM website...

And the writing on the wall was done in marker pen! She painted over it in red paint

Saturnine - Who has watched the film far too much...

(By the way - any suggestions for the article? It'd not up to my usual standards and I need a little help!)

It was just a bit like making a film about life on an undescovered then using central Paris as the location for it's main town complete with Arc de Triumph and Eiffel Tower!

Wait. This depends on whether you have heard about the Gospel before hand. I was 15 when it came out. Yes, I *KNOW* I shouldn't have gone to the cinema to see it, and it was illegal (blah blah blah) but I had never even thougt about things like that...it opened up a huge doorway for me. I only went to see it because of the music being written by Billy Corgan.

You have to think of that element too!

It was *based* on the scrolls! It's not a factual movie. The wrtier heard about the scrolls and then used the idea to come up with the movie. I'm sure that there isn't really a Stigmatic out there called Frankie Paige living in Pitsburgh.

It's a film, not a documentary. Just because there have been a stint of dodgy war films claiming to be historical, doesn't mean all films are trying to pass themselves off as fact.

That wasn't my point at all, the Gospe of Thomas is an interesting and key text, particularly in understaning the Niciene process, Vatacan supression and our understanding of the biblical texts we have left.

Another similar fiction is the novel "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer" by Philip K Dick, a terrific book. Which works better because it only alludes to the 'secret' texts while refering to known suppressed texts. This sort of thing is a much more believablable construction.

I wasn't suggesting that Stigmata was or should try to pass itself of as fact, just that it's handling and fictionalising of factual information made it difficult for me to completely suspend my disbelief.

In a way films work in two ways, the stuff you believe and the stuff you go along with: I know it's a fiction, but i choose to go along with that for the duration of the film. But this fictional film is set in Pittsburgh, which i recognise, and know to be real; obviously i don't stop believing in Pittsburg now because it's been part of a fiction, thats how the film maker makes things feel real, by hanging his fiction on familiar and factual backdrops. He doesn't disrupt this though. He doesn't pretend Pitsburgh is in Africa, or that the people there have three legs - he doesn't fictionalise that fact. So when he does fictionalise the texts of the Nag Hammadi Gospel he does one of two things; if know know the texts already he creates a conflict a dislocation within you, you know what he's saying isn't true so you have to try harder to believe in the story despite the contradiction between what you know and what is being told; if you don't know the texts you assume they are not real, that they are without validity outside the film, and you probibly don't go a nd find out about them after you leave the theatre.

Both of which are a shame because it is a bloody great film.

I really liked the film (in fact i might go rent it now).

But he doesn't fictonalise the text...does he? He just fictionalises a story based around the existance of the text...uses that as a base of creativity, as most writers do...

He being Tom Lazarus I believe. Not sure about that one.

Well... he hoes fictionalise it to the extent that he makes out it is an unpublished and unknown work.

I've found rather a lot on the gospel of st thomas on this website - http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas.html would you think to link to it?

I don't think he has somehow. Maybe that's your interpretation??

And yours too! In the entry you describe it as: "a new gospel said to contain the words of Jesus Christ himself. However, when the Catholic Church realised the words contradicted their entire ethos, they shut down the project. Father Alameida stole the script and went into hiding in order to finish the translation, but died before he could finish"

This is pretty much how i would have described the gospels presentation in the film, but it's not "new" or newly discovered, niether was it's existance known or translation undertaken solely by the Vatacan, any one familiar with the text would know that. That is what i mean by fictionalising.

I point to your entry i would reword the 'new gospel' bit to say, "a newly discovered text of an ancient gospel said to contain...", and perhaps i wopuld suggest that the actual words of Christ are too dangereous, too potent for the Church. (let's face it they don't even follow the few lines of his that we actually do have!).

Just to make it clear, the phrases Frankie says in the film, and the bits writen on the walls and displayed (projected?) at the translation centre, are Logos from the Thomas gospel.

I very much like your use of the word 'representing' in the concluding paragraphs. She is obvoiusly re-presenting The Word as it was origonally presentend by Christ, but also she represents it in many ways by personifying the meaning of the logos. She enters god not through the Church but by experiencing Him. She is a woman, and both speaks god's word and accepts His grace. Both things embodied in the Gospel but opposed by the Church.

I think her being a woman is particularly relevent, as women are both excluded from the Pauline Church and are the largest group who experience 'alernative religious experience'. Their experience is ignored because women are not a suitable medium for god's word. The y are vessels for humility, not wisdom. Hence the hostility of the Church to her claim in the film, and the Churches rejection of the Gospel (both now and at the council of Nicea) in real life.