I’m really excited to see the upcoming movie Noah. It’s directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Russell Crowe, so I’m pretty sure that it will be all of the following: beautiful, bizarre, and brilliant.

I may not love the movie, but I already know that I’ll be intrigued by it. I just read an interview that Christianity Today did with Aranofsky and his co-writer/co-producer, Ari Handel. The filmmakers describe their attempts to define concepts such as righteousness, justice, and mercy.

Both men talked about how they drew their inspiration from scripture, theology, and a variety of Jewish literature. Aronofsky was raised culturally Jewish, and he sought to understand who Noah from both a religious and psychological standpoint. The article explains, “Aronofsky sees his interpretation of the Genesis story as part of the midrash tradition, in which Jewish teachers create stories meant to explain the deeper truths of the Tanakh.” Handel mentions that they tried to explore “not the good guys and the bad guys, but both the good and the bad within us.”

I love Jewish commentary on scripture, because I find it to be beautifully symbolic and multilayered. It helps me to feel like I’m waking up to a story for the first time. I hope that this artistic representation of Noah will give me a fresh perspective on the Bible story that I’ve read about since childhood.