Just last year or thereabouts I learned through Vol.3 of Simon Callow's biography of Orson Welles that Welles in the 60s was supposed to do the Abraham and Isaac in that biblical sandal movie where they hired famous directors to shoot a different bible story each.
And Welles had an idea for it, but it was completely rejected, so he quit the project. The idea was: Isaac doesn't go along with this willingly and passively, as in nearly all depictions through history. (I think the only exception is Caravaggio, go figure.) Instead, he's screaming and struggling and begging his father not to kill him, he's fighting for his life. And the producers were absolutely shocked by the idea, it would freak out the audience who came to be elevated. But, quoth Orson, that's what this story is. A child is about to be murdered.
I did my own version when I wrote a Star Trek: DS9 story about Jake Sisko called "Abraham's Son", because the episode in question - where he's nearly sacrificed as a test of Sisko's faith - really begs for it.
Of course, when I was a child we weren't taught that preceding chapter in the bible where Abraham is already persuaded to send Hagar and his other son into the desert earlier than that...
Re: Abraham
And Welles had an idea for it, but it was completely rejected, so he quit the project. The idea was: Isaac doesn't go along with this willingly and passively, as in nearly all depictions through history. (I think the only exception is Caravaggio, go figure.) Instead, he's screaming and struggling and begging his father not to kill him, he's fighting for his life. And the producers were absolutely shocked by the idea, it would freak out the audience who came to be elevated. But, quoth Orson, that's what this story is. A child is about to be murdered.
I did my own version when I wrote a Star Trek: DS9 story about Jake Sisko called "Abraham's Son", because the episode in question - where he's nearly sacrificed as a test of Sisko's faith - really begs for it.
Of course, when I was a child we weren't taught that preceding chapter in the bible where Abraham is already persuaded to send Hagar and his other son into the desert earlier than that...