Jeymes Samuel was intent on putting a “hood” vibe into his Biblical epic The Book of Clarence starring LaKeith Stanfield as the eponymous Clarence, a local lad in the Holy Land who gets by dealing weed and holding chariot races against a no-nonsense Mary Magdalene.
Clarence soon sees an opening to make some bucks in the Messiah business but then he realizes that miracles can happen when you least expect them.
The Book of Clarence, which also features RJ Cyler, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Omar Sy, David Oyelowo, Teyana Taylor, Anna Diop and Michael Ward, follows the director’s debut feature, The Harder They Fall, which spiced up the Western genre. DEADLINE: All praise to you because I usually run so fast from Biblical movies, but this one answered my prayers. JEYMES SAMUEL: Yeah, we know we’re just in a place and time that we’ve never been.
I think the reason why we tune out of these things, just like with Westerns, it’s because we’re never fed. People like us are never fed the nourishment and the vitamins and the ingredients that we need to make this an all-encompassing genre.
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