Yes, the cinematographer did pass away before the film was released, though I think his work on it was done. If memory serves, his name was Geoffrey Unsworth, and the film was dedicated to his memory.
In the DVD Commentary and extras for SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, they talk about him - Margot Kidder said he was a beautiful Englishman who said things like, "prepare the camera to shoot the lady, please."
The director commentary for this film is pretty spectacular in one respect: it's the first time Dick Donner had seen this movie in years, so he'd forgotten a lot of it! It was fun to watch him go "Oh YEAH, Margot Kidder's in this, isn't she?"
Anyway I agree it's more fun when the viewer/reader is left to connect the dots himself. Making it overt is a lot clumsier and not nearly so clever as the storytellers seem to think.
I'm not saying that Superman doesn't have similarities to mythological figures and holy men, but these similarities are incidental. That's my problem also with Morrison writing "Superman as Hercules" in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN: it's unfair to the uniqueness of one to write him as the other. Like Busiek said, if just focus on telling good stories with Superman being who he is, mythic themes suggest themselves.
It was also a bit unsettling for me as the son of a Methodist minister...I remember having an aversion even to "Thor" comics because it seemed to endorse polytheism!
Heh! Really? If THOR wasn't your bag, I wonder what you'd think of Jim Starlin's "Adam Warlock: Space Christ."
Ohhhh, boy, what is it about Marvel "cosmic" comics that makes everybody involved think their farts smell like lilacs?
(And am I the only one that noticed that the chick from Epic Comics' DREADSTAR looks EXACTLY like Scarlet from G.I. JOE?)
I wouldn't read too much into it. They created the ultimate power fantasy, a strong man who could stand up to crooks and hoodlums and fight for the working class of America. A super nerd who could get any woman he liked, if he really wanted to, just by taking off his shirt.
Sure there was the whole Moses/Samson angle for his origin and powers but he wasn't suppose represent them. He was suppose represent Jerry and Joe!
The novel KAVALIER & CLAY gives a very interesting look at how the ethnicity of comics creators during the Golden Age was a significant factor that influenced their work without them noticing it.
I think you're right, though. These similarities were incidental instead of explicit, and more or less based on Jewish "themes" like exile and special identity - I doubt they were intentional, just another way people are affected by the world that produces them. But they are there, and much more invisible than the tack-hammer to the skull overtness in SUPERMAN RETURNS, where he falls in a "stained glass window" posture.
I've seen Superman compared to the Golem by commentators a lot better qualified to know than I, but (as admittedly a Christian with little insight into Jewish lore) I always thought Superman was a Jewish kid's (or maybe adult's) view of what a savior SHOULD be. One of the reasons Christ had his work cut out for him getting followers was because he arrived...the messiah foretold for centuries...as a poor carpenter preaching peace and riding into town on a donkey. I'm sure anyone who stayed up at night all those centuries telling or listening to tales of the coming messiah would have much preferred a savior who could toss the oppressor across the room, who kicked butt and took names, and just to make things even more iron-clad, wore an "S" for Savior on his tunic.
I always assumed Jerry and Joe were creating for themselves the savior history never gave them.
One Jewish song compares the Moshiach to an eagle, who saves a bird that cannot sing (Yisrael) from a bush (exile) where they are beset by vultures (anti-semites and other nasties).
HOWEVER, just like the idea of G-d being a "person" or "personlike" being is something of a simplification, so too, is the concept of the Messiah or Moshiach, and the End of Jewish History, which is a little more complicated than just a man (or a woman) that shows up to kick ass.
The End of History, according to the Jews, is more of a process, when the G-dliness in all things is made manifest,apparent, and visible. Think of it like this: when a cow is killed to use its hide to make a Torah, the G-dliness in the cow is made visible and apparent.
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