Darren Aronofsky's Noah – Chapter 5

Notes on Russell Crowe's singing, how oil spills and ballet dancers inspired the fallen angels, and the meaning of the Nephilim.

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Noah and his family get unexpected help from a Watcher named Og—and along the way, Og tells the story of how the Watchers came to Earth, and how they came to be estranged from God and humanity alike.

The film builds on, but also diverges from, a number of traditions about giants and fallen angels that go all the way back to the Bible.

Genesis 6:1-4 says some angels mated with human women and produced a hybrid race of heroes known as the Nephilim. The Book of Enoch calls the angels “Watchers,” and Numbers 13:32-33 says the Nephilim were giants.

The angels and the giants are clearly two different kinds of creature in the ancient and biblical traditions, but the film conflates them, so that the angels/Watchers do not produce the giants/Nephilim but become them after they fall to Earth.

The filmmakers wavered somewhat on what to call these creatures.

At every stage of the film’s development—from the early screenplay to the graphic novel to the finished film and its two novelizations—the film and its various offshoots called these giants “Watchers.”

Aronofsky, however, called them “Nephilim” in his tweets from the movie’s set. And when he hosted a preview screening for several rabbis, he told them he now regretted not using the word “Nephilim” within the film itself. “We thought it was too esoteric a term, but it is not,” he said, according to The Jewish Standard.

ILA: Dada?
NOAH: Sleep now.
ILA: Sing to me. I want my daddy to sing to me.
NOAH: You know, I, too, lost my father when I was very young. There’s a song he used to sing me sometimes when I couldn’t sleep. Would you like to hear it?

Themes. The relationship between Noah and Ila will go on to form the emotional heart of this movie. Their bond begins in this scene, when Noah connects with Ila over the fact that they are both orphans.