The Story of God looks at what lies beyond death. It is an ambitious journey, helmed by Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, writes Debashine Thangevelo
|||The Story of God looks at what lies beyond death. It is an ambitious journey, helmed by Oscar winner, Morgan Freeman, writes Debashine Thangevelo
MORGAN Freeman cuts an imposing figure for a septua-genarian. The long-limbed actor has aged charmingly and retained his youthful energy, sense of humour and insatiable curiosity about life.
Having long-established his legacy on the big screen, Freeman has decided to explore a less-travelled path; travelling around the globe to understand how different faiths have moulded civilisation over the centuries.
Freeman, who is the executive producer (with Revelations Entertainment) and host of The Story of God, sheds light on the origins of this six-part documentary.
He says: “I think the idea first took root when Lori (McCreary, co-founder, along with Freeman) and I were in Istanbul five or six years ago. We were visiting the Hagia Sophia, a museum that, 1 400 years ago, was built as a Greek cathedral and then, in 1935, was transformed into a mosque. While observing the museum’s frescoes, we noticed that many of their portrayals were of Biblical stories usually associated with only the Jewish and Christian faiths. Lori asked our tour guide if these had been covered up during the time that it was used as a mosque. The man said that no, Muslims celebrated these stories, too. And we were quite surprised that we didn’t know how much history and narrative the three faiths have in common.
“From there, Lori and James (Younger, director and executive vice-president at Revelations Entertainment) developed the idea, thinking that a documentary about God, one that focused on telling the stories from myriad perspectives, could be very interesting. At some point, they asked me if I would be interested in not only narrating the film, but also starring in it, and, I said ‘yes’.”
In the past, the Bruce Almighty actor’s religious beliefs were explored by the media. There were questions over whether he was an atheist or agnostic. His curiosity about things like life, death, the afterlife, reincarnation, the root of evil, the dawn of civilisation, miracles and talk of the end of days, offer some clarity on where he stands.
He also revisits the place of his childhood – Greenwood, Mississippi – and the events that moulded his life and sparked his curiosity about it and death. Freeman shares: “I call myself a life-long student of religion. But I haven’t landed on any conclusions. I can relate to the big questions most of us ask ourselves at some point: ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What’s my purpose?’ ‘How did we get here?’ Those questions resonate with me. And while science has produced answers to many of the big questions people have asked throughout history, it doesn’t have answers for everything.
“Like, for instance, when I was at the Vatican, I was talking to Monsignor Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo (the Vatican’s chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences), and I thought what he said about the Big Bang was interesting. He was very clear in his explanation that the Big Bang does not explain away creation because it doesn’t explain what existed before the Big Bang. I’ve wondered about that, too – if all of the matter that exists in the universe condensed down to a dot, where did that dot come from? You can’t answer that question. So, for me, God is the great mystery, the term that we use to talk about the great mystery.”
Freeman visits Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, India’s Bodhi Tree and Varanasi, the Mayan temples in Guatemala and the pyramids of Egypt, among other spiritual places. He chats to religious figures, archaeologists and those knowledgeable about the history of the faiths he comes across. This exploration is offset by scientific approaches to understanding faith.
There are re-enactments of events to help viewers gain a visual perspective, too.
The Story of God, National Geographic Channel, April 3 at 8.05pm.