You Can Stream I HEARD THE BELLS Just in Time for Christmas
By Movieguide® Contributor
Missed Sight & Sound’s I HEARD THE BELLS in theaters?
The hit movie about poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the man behind the beloved carol of the same name, is now available on Great American Pure Flix.
The Teddy Bear Award® nominee was initially going to be a short film and a “test run” for the production company known for bringing Bible stories like NOAH and DANIEL to the stage.
“[W]e ended up making the decision probably about three months into production to write more scenes, shoot more material, make it a feature length and just go for it,” co-writer and director Josh Enck explained.
“What it comes down to is this: Sight & Sound Films wants to tell stories of figures and events from history that changed the world because Christ first changed them,” Enck said.
So they chose Longfellow as the subject of their first movie.
“We discovered this beautiful story that came out of one of the nation’s darkest time periods, which was the Civil War, and it’s a poem, and it’s really a diary entry about the protagonist, Henry Longfellow, and his whole journey of faith,” Enck told CBN.
“[W]e thought there are a lot of people who can relate to this man who had it all, lost it all, and had it come back again and be redeemed through, in this case, the symbol of a bell ringing out more loud and deep: God is not dead, nor does he sleep,” he went on to say.
The majority of the movie was shot in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and the battle scenes were filmed at Gettysburg. The Sight & Sound team wanted the movie to be as historically accurate as possible, from the building of the New Hope Church that appears at the beginning of the movie to partnering with Civil War reenactors for the movie’s combat sequences.
Enck said, “This is the first film set that we ever built and you, for a moment, just believe, like wow, we stepped back in time. And I mean, I could not have been happier.”
Then there is the research on Longfellow and his family required to tell the complex story with a “lot of depth,” revealed Stephan Atherton who plays the poet.
“Honestly, reading some of his works was the start,” Atherton said. “Reading his poetry and kind of getting a feel for his creative genius. His journals were a very good resource for really kind of seeing into his struggles.”
For Enck, it was “surreal” to see the hard work bringing Longfellow’s story to life.
“When that team gets that vision, and they start adding their professionalism to it, and you can’t stand in those scenes and think of just your own specific role, you see everyone’s fingerprints on it,” he said.
READ MORE: I HEARD THE BELLS REVIEW
Sight & Sound is also bringing the nativity story to the stage with MIRACLE OF CHRISTMAS, which is running until Dec. 28 in Branson, MO. Those who can’t catch the live show can stream it on Sight & Sound TV.
