Islamists Kill Their Cecil B. DeMille
Published November 14th, 2005 in MoviesOne of the articles in the Internet Movie Database’s news sections talked about the funeral for Moustapha Akkad, killed in the November 9 terrorist bombing in Jordan. The article summarized his career mainly for his role as producer of the Halloween series.
But for me a brief look at his imdb.com page alerted me to the fact that Moustapha was also the director of a forgotten 70’s film titled "Mohammed, Messenger of God." I can remember when this unique film came out and the negative reaction to it. For one thing, it depicts the events surrounding the founder of Islam and writer of the Koran. And I do mean "surrounding," as the Koran forbids any depiction of Mohammed and his family, so the Islamicly-correct film focuses on Mohammed’s Uncle Hamza. Anthony Quinn has to carry the film with this role and has to have conversations with Mohammed who remains unheard and off-camera.
The controversy I remember is poor reviews and audience reaction to a movie that attempts to tell its story from such a bizarre perspective, and about a religion that has such stupid rules that you can’t make a movie about it. Of course that was back in 1976, and I hear that really, Akkad didn’t do such a bad job under the circumstances. Considering the current atmosphere, it is probably a movie we should check out. Fortunately, the movie just came out on DVD and with a commentary track from its murdered director.
As for Islam, you might want to do some homework at Faith Freedom International.
I agree that it’s ironic that Islamists would kill such a great film maker. However, I would like to point out that it isn’t just Islam that doesn’t allow you to draw or represent God or Mohammed. There are sects of the Judaism that also don’t allow you to even utter the word Jehova (hence that great scene in Life of Brian). Also, there are many fundamentalist Christian groups that won’t let you represent or even say the name “Jesus” without being accused of blasphemy.