Samuels injects modern-day humor into his biblical epic
Hollywood used to love the big biblical epic movie back in the 1950s and 1960s with classics such as “Ben Hur,” “Spartacus” and
“The Greatest Story Ever Told.”
Jeymes Samuels, 34, a British musician and producer whose breakthrough film was the 2021 Western “The Harder
They Fall,” loved these movies and missed them.
“But even watching those movies, they never resembled the world I grew up in,” said Samuels, during a recent interview. “Bible stories are all about the ’hood, people from the land of the have-nots. I just didn’t know anyone who looked like Charlton Heston or Marlon Brando.”
So Samuels created
“The Book of Clarence,” an unusual take on the weeks leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, featuring an entirely fictional yet complicated character named Clarence. A skeptic of Jesus with a comedic air about him, Clarence is played by Oscar-nominated actor LaKeith Stanfield. Now in theaters, the film was shot in Italy in late 2022.
Samuels said the film idea had been percolating in his head for many years but only came to fruition when he cast Stanfield in “The Harder They Fall.”
“I knew I had Clarence. He was delivered to me on a golden chariot,” Samuels said.
Stanfield said once he read the script, “it was ride or die. I had a religious upbringing. A lot of the themes in the script were familiar to me . ... Clarence’s story identified directly with me.”
To Stanfield, Clarence
“is a regular guy who happened to be around in the time of Jesus and the apostles. We never hear from the people who were around him and how they looked up to a messiah. I wanted to emulate that and situate a story with Black skin in a story we’re not typically seen in.”
Stanfield said he hopes Clarence’s journey “resonates with people so they can see themselves in him and his brother,” a twin who is an apostle of Jesus, also played by Stanfield. In Clarence, he added, “I hope you want to be better and do better, to bring your family up, find your faith and find your foundation.”
While writing the script, Samuels focused on his own ideas and didn’t worry about what others might think of his take on a classic biblical story, which includes modernday quips and jokes. “You cannot create truth under scrutiny or judgment,” he said. “You have to eradicate the notion of other eyeballs and stay in your tunnel. It was just a really, really exciting ride from script to screen.”
Legendary Entertainment gave Samuels the budget and creative space to make the film he wanted to make.
“I honestly felt like a spirit was running through me and everyone else on set,” Stanfield said. “This was bigger than us as actors and filmmakers and creators. This was something that God I feel had led us in. We were walking with God the entire time.”
The most revelatory scene for Stanfield was when Clarence attempts to walk on water. “I realize I had to find my balance,” he said. “That wasn’t a camera trick. I had to trust the process. It was not easy getting through that. I didn’t know what was happening beneath me.
... We made one of those most iconic images: a Black man walking on water. It’s beautiful.”
Samuels cast A-list stars — like Benedict Cumberbatch, Alfre Woodard, James McAvoy and David Oyelowo — in other roles. “They’re all great artists,” Samuels said. “I believe
I’m a great communicator of my art. I’m fortunate to be able to collaborate with people I love.”
The film also took full advantage of Matera, Italy, a stone city that dates back thousands of years.
“Stone buildings. Horses. Livestock. Beautiful Black skin and robes,” Samuels said. “I’d touch those walls, and it felt like a bunch of history surging through me. It felt like a magical environment I knew existed inside of me manifested in front of me. This strangely felt like home.”