As the world awaits the theatrical release of “The Book of Clarence,” the second feature film and first cinematic venture into biblical narratives for “The Harder They Fall” writer-director Jeymes Samuel, the filmmaker already knows the next Bible story he’d like to bless audiences with: The Ten Commandments.
“None story so cinematic as The Ten Commandments, ‘Let my people go!’” Samuel told TheWrap during an interview for his Biblical times-set “The Book of Clarence.” “I want to do ‘The Ten Commandments.’ Give me ‘The Ten Commandments’ and I will show you the meaning of cinema.”
It’s been 70 years since Hollywood’s last live-action depiction of The Ten Commandments, a feat filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille took on with his 1956 adaptation “The Ten Commandments.” The story, which takes place in the Old Testament of the Bible (Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21), provides the account of the prophet Moses, who delivers God’s list of 10 principles He asks the Hebrew people to follow after Moses freed them from slavery in Egypt.
The filmmaker has only told a “couple of studios” about his desire to serve up his own “biggest, Blackest” version of the tale and he already knows who he’d like to star in it, as he’s started writing down notes for the film.
“I believe everyone should be in that movie. Everyone — Mahershala Ali, Idris Elba, Regina King, Denzel Washington, LaKeith Stanfield, everyone needs to be in that movie,” Samuel said, adding that the idea didn’t come about during his creative process for “The Book of Clarence.”
“Not that I was considering it while I was making ‘The Book of Clarence,’” Samuel explained. “I’m a storyteller, when you get the idea for a story…ideas are real things. They come to you for a reason, right? When you get an idea, it’s actually a living, breathing entity — as fully formed as a heartbeat. Everything, any idea, it comes to you to be realized. So I didn’t question whether I was going to make ‘The Book of Clarence’ or not, but there’s other stories in the Bible I want to, not tackle, but I want to do.”
Samuel started conceptualizing “The Book of Clarence” in the early 2000s, starting with its title. He later enlisted late jazz guitarist and singer-songwriter Terry Callier for the film’s soundtrack, which Samuel wrote, produced and performed under his music moniker The Bullitts.
“There was a huge spiritual journey [for me] both personally and creatively. They were kind of like the same thing, just the growth that I had as a human being, and from a boy to a man from first conceiving this idea,” Samuel shared. “I knew [this movie] was going to be called ‘The Book of Clarence’ in, like, 2004, 2005. The song of ‘Varinia,’ was vocal by Terry Callier for me, who’s no longer with us — he passed away in 2012. He did vocals for that song for me in 2006, for this movie, that I’ll direct one day, when I get the chance to become a filmmaker. He trusted that I was going to do that almost 20 years ago. I was 17 years younger. I was a whippersnapper.”
After finishing the script for “The Book of Clarence” in 2017, Samuel said he’d even decided that he wanted Stanfield to play Clarence the first day he met him while discussing “The Harder They Fall.”
“The day I met LaKeith Stanfield to play [‘The Harder They Fall’ character] Cherokee Bill, the day we met, the day we met, I was in Mexico,” Samuel said. “We had a Zoom. Literally the day we met, he put down the phone to speak to his cousin. He said, ‘Yo man, I got to speak to my cousin, something probably happened back home.’ He put down the phone, and I called my sister, ‘Tanya, I found [Clarence].’ When he was talking, it was Clarence. It was like an out of body experience.”
He continued: “So while we were filming ‘The Harder They Fall,’ I was telling [Stanfield], ‘I got something else. Don’t worry, we’ll speak about it later. Let’s just get this over with, but, there’s something else.”
So far, Samuel’s big screen works have taken viewers back into time, tackling historical events that feature real-life figures. However, Samuel has plans for a film that takes place in present-day and he’s scattered clues about it in “The Book of Clarence.”
“I just wanted to give everyone the ultimate one-two-punch with my first movie taking you to the old west. My second movie, I think it’s in the New Testament. I just thought it’s the dopest, illest one-two. For me, every one is a celebration of [the Black community] and a celebration of cinema,” Samuel said. “I definitely am going to do something huge, which is set in modern day. And incidentally, ‘The Book of Clarence’ has Easter eggs lathered all through it that allude to the film I’m going to shoot modern day, and it is amazing. In the words of Bass Reeves from ‘The Harder They Fall,’ ‘Y’all know what I do.’”
“The Book of Clarence” follows the journey of Clarence, a young man living in A.D. 33 Jerusalem who lacks faith but who seeks to find purpose in life. Down on his luck and struggling to pay a debt he owes, he opts to take advantage of the growing fame around a rising messiah named Jesus by misleading his community into believing he is the New Messiah in order earn a profit.
The film was written, directed and produced by Samuel and stars LaKeith Stanfield, RJ Cyler, Anna Diop, Omar Sy, David Oyelowo, Teyana Taylor, Babs Olusanmokun, James McAvoy and Benedict Cumberbatch. Also serving as producers “The Book of Clarence” are Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, James Lassiter and Tendo Nagenda.
“The Book of Clarence” premieres in theaters on Jan. 12.
