In his study of the Holy in art, Gerardus van der Leeuw traces the history of the major arts from their origins in religious practice to the present secularized state. At its beginnings each art form was one with religion but throughout the centuries progressively suffered a “breakup of unity.” The ceremonial religious dance evolved into the sacer ludus, the sacer ludus subsequently subdivided into bourgeois drama and liturgy, the liturgy in its progressional turn became popularized; throughout history the constant trend of art is from the sacred to the profane. The Renaissance, with its emphasis on naturalness and individual effort, usually takes the rap for the “breakup of unity,” but van der Leeuw points out that this trend goes as far back as “the great heretic Akhenaten” who gave Egypt’s gods the sculptural faces of his family.4 Only rarely in the history of art, van der Leeuw contends, have talented artists been able to resist the trend toward secularization and return to the religious origins of art.

Van der Leeuw does not discuss cinema in his study. It is quite crucially the only major art form which does not fit into his schema. Motion pictures were not born in religious practice, but instead are the totally profane offspring of capitalism and technology. If a religious artist in cinema attempts to go back to his origins, he will find only entrepreneurs and technocrats.** When the Holy tries to enter into the cinema, the intrinsically profane art, there are bound to be some unusual consequences—consequences which van der Leeuw did not anticipate.