Page - 59 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

which became the model for all subsequent visions of the End of Days: “And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be” (Daniel 8:19).16 The descriptions presented in this vision have become the cornerstone of histor- ical perception of the “End of the days” in Western culture. Nevertheless, the Old Testament sources do not present a coherent picture of final salvation, but rather provide a series of apocalyptic motifs emphasizing the drive towards salvation and redemption at the End of Days. Joseph Klausner emphasizes that the Hebrews were the only ancient nation to have a messianic vision of the cosmos.17 That messian- ic tradition was then transmitted to the Western world through Christianity. The apocalyptic narratives within that religious tradition have penetrated deeply into the substrata of Western culture and still inform many works of literature and art, as well as science fiction films of the apocalyptic genre, to which Interstellar clearly belongs. The Story of the Spies and Noah’s Ark As a child, Murphy, one of the film’s protagonists, believes her room to be haunted by a ghost following the discovery that certain books have fallen off their shelves during the night, creating blanks in the stacks of books reminiscent of Morse code. The girl thinks that the bookshelf is “talking to her” (00:14:57) and believes she is also receiving other “signs”, such as the sand from the sandstorm which bursts through the window and settles in what is clearly a non-random pattern (00:19:40). Murphy and her father, Cooper, discover that the Poltergeist18 must be an intelligent being sending them messages by way of gravitational waves (00:20:54). The message is binary code that transmits a set of coordinates lead- ing to an unknown spot on the map. They travel to the location specified by the coordinates and discover that it is the site of a secret NASA base (00:24:32). Upon being escorted inside, they meet Professor Brand, director of the agency and an old friend of Cooper’s. Brand reveals to them that NASA has discovered a wormhole, most likely created by an unknown intelligence for the sake of saving humanity, which could be used to travel enormous distances to uncharted areas of the galaxy and therefore offer humanity a chance of surviving by settling on a new planet. 16 All biblical citations are taken from the King James Version (KJV) unless stated otherwise. 17 Klausner 1926, 199–200. 18 The word Poltergeist comes from a combination of the German words poltern (to make noise) and geist (ghost), and thus can be loosely translated to mean “noisy ghost”. 58 | Bina Nir www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 53–69