Watch: The first full trailer for The Book of Clarence
We also have a new behind-the-scenes video for the film, as well as the first single from the soundtrack, which is performed by director Jeymes Samuel himself.
We’ve already had a teaser for The Book of Clarence.
Now comes the first full trailer for the film, which stars LaKeith Stanfield as a man living in first-century Jerusalem who fakes being a messiah for financial gain and ends up getting caught in a Roman plot against Jesus, or something like that.
The studio has also released a new behind-the-scenes video about the film, and we also now have the first single from the soundtrack, which is performed by director Jeymes Samuel with help from Lil Wayne, Buju Banton, and Shabba Ranks.
You can check them all out below.
First up, the trailer:
Next, the behind-the-scenes video:
Before I get to anything else, a few quick things that jump out at me from these videos:
There’s a lot of dancing here.
Clarence’s miracles might be fake, but Jesus’s are apparently the real deal: in the trailer, you can see him stopping rocks in mid-air during an attempted stoning, the way Neo made bullets freeze in the air in the Matrix movies.
Then again, we also see Clarence hold a ball of light in his hands. Is this one of Clarence’s miracles, or is it more of a visual metaphor or something?
Come to think of it, there’s also something kind of Matrix-y about one or two of the shots, e.g. the one from the Last Supper, where the actors don’t appear to be moving at all but the camera certainly does (though I don’t think any “bullet time” effects were used here; these look more like tableaux vivants).
Roman soldier: “Bring in the prisoner!” Pilate: “You don’t always have to shout.”
At one point, Clarence looks at a town in the distance and says, “Jesus lives there.” Is this just outside Jerusalem? Or does the film go to Galilee, too? Either way, it’s interesting to hear Clarence say that Jesus is living there in the present tense, as Jesus is usually depicted wandering all over Palestine during his ministry; he may have grown up in Nazareth, and he may have had bases of operation in Capernaum and the like, but he didn’t really live anywhere, per se. He didn’t have a home, as such. (As Jesus himself says in Matthew 8:20 and Luke 9:58, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”)
We still haven’t seen any images of Benedict Cumberbatch in this film. Hmm.
Next, we have the first single from the soundtrack, which is called ‘Hallelujah Heaven’ and is performed by director Jeymes Samuel himself, along with a few other people. (It’s striking to me, incidentally, that the two big Bible films released by Sony this year—this and Journey to Bethlehem—were both directed by music producers.)
You can find this song on all the usual music platforms, but Samuel posted a lyric video to his YouTube channel, so that’s what I’m going with here. Note: the track includes one or two bleep-able words. In addition to reading the words onscreen, you can read all the lyrics to the song on the video’s YouTube page.
Samuel spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his work on the film’s soundtrack:
“‘Hallelujah Heaven’ appears in the film when we first see Jesus, the majestic Messiah, so I wanted three majestic human beings to feature on that track. I approached Lil Wayne, I approached Buju Banton, and I approached Shabba Ranks and they all resonated with the song and did it,” explains Samuel who recorded the song by himself several years prior.
“I perform every single song on this soundtrack, unlike The [Harder They] Fall. I just wrote and produced all of those songs,” adds the British singer-songwriter and filmmaker. “This movie was just too singular. Everything lived inside my head. When I take a backseat from performing, whether that be acting or singing, it’s because I know that there’s other people that can do it, but this soundtrack was too close to me.”
Film Music Reporter says there will be two soundtrack albums for the film: one from Roc Nation Records featuring songs by Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, and others; and one from Milan Records featuring the actual score for the film written by Samuel.
Finally, Baz Bamigboye at Deadline posted an interview with Samuel yesterday, and it feels like it might just be a repackaging of earlier interviews that the two of them have done. Or maybe it just covers a lot of the same territory and Samuel is really, really good about sticking to his talking points.
In any case, a few bits from this interview jump out at me:
Samuel speaks fondly of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth and says it starred “every single dope actor on the planet that wasn’t Black”. To be fair, though, it did feature James Earl Jones as one of the Magi!
Samuel says, “I wanted to throw a nightclub scene [into the film]. They go to the club. What does it look like when we’re in the building? When we’re young. You know how many people from the hood are in the building, not just the rich, not just King Herod and his cohorts and his concubines.” Wait a minute, the Herods go out nightclubbing in this film? They don’t just hold private parties, à la Mark 6:21ff? (This feels a little reminiscent of that bizarre bit in The Chosen where a Roman magistrate makes a “reservation” at his “favorite restaurant”.)
Samuel notes that there’s nothing “historically inaccurate” about Clarence being a false messiah in Jesus’ day because Jesus himself warned his followers about false messiahs (and Samuel quotes Matthew 24:5, chapter and verse!). Samuel also compares Clarence to “misguided charlatans” like Simon the Sorcerer, who tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from the apostles (Acts 8:9-24).
And, I think that about covers all the new stuff that came my way today.
The Book of Clarence had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival last month (my friend Matt Page got to see it, and I spoke to him about it in a Zoom chat that you can watch here), and it comes to theatres everywhere January 12.
Past posts on The Book of Clarence:
‘Jeymes Samuel and LaKeith Stanfield are going to make a Bible movie’ (May 16, 2022)
‘The Book of Clarence gets a production company and a new co-star’ (October 22, 2022)
‘Pins and Needles (formerly The Book of Clarence) now filming in Italy’ (November 25, 2022)
‘The Book of Clarence: a lot of new actors, and a few new plot details’ (December 6, 2022)
‘The Book of Clarence gets a release date’ (March 4, 2023)
‘The Book of Clarence gets a test screening’ (June 5, 2023)
‘The Book of Clarence is now coming out in January’ (August 16, 2023)
‘Watch: The first trailer for The Book of Clarence’ (August 29, 2023)
‘October release-date news: The Book of Clarence gets a world premiere, Taylor Swift scares off Angels and demons’ (September 2, 2023)
‘The Book of Clarence — the world premiere round-up!’ (October 13, 2023)
‘Talking about The Book of Clarence’ (November 3, 2023)