ABSTRACT
The cinema has always been interested in God. The Gospel and The Acts of the Aposdes were the first best sellers on the screen, and the Passions of Christ were hits in France as well as in America.1 At the same time in Italy, the Rome of the first Christians provided filmmakers with subjects that required gigantic crowd scenes, which were later seized upon by Holly wood and are still present today in films like Fabiola (1948; dir. Alessandro Blasetti) and Quo Vadis? (1951; dir. Mervyn LeRoy).2 This immense catechism-in-pictures was concerned above all with the most spectacular aspects of the history of Christianity. These films were simply amplified variations on the Stations of the Cross or on the Musee Grevin.3
