Where Brecht projected his nihilistic vision onto an imaginary city in Florida, Schoenberg made his critique of hedonistic life styles in the form of a biblical allegory.

If there is a play anywhere in all this, it will not be found in biblical allegory and bedside theology but in the details of the characters' lives.

Archetypes and symbols solemnly parade through "Seraphim Falls," a handsome, old-fashioned western of few words and heavy meanings that unfolds with the sanctimonious grandeur of a biblical allegory.

Robinson is correct to point out that many of literature's great works are based, to varying degrees, on biblical allegories.

But the director speaks of a psychological thriller, the title points to a biblical allegory and the scriptwriter insists he has sold Hollywood an adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The work is loosely based on the biblical allegory of Jonah and the Whale, although Tavener admitted that "The 'fantasy' grew and perhaps at times nearly 'swallowed' the biblical text: so the swallowing of Jonah became almost 'literal' in the biblical sense."

But Disney's tricky marketing strategy for "Narnia" - which includes aggressively courting Christian fans who can relate to the story's biblical allegory while trying not to disaffect secular fans - is particularly tricky when it comes to music.

And there is something of the force and strangeness of a biblical allegory in the problem Dershowitz has built here.

He often uses archaic analogies and biblical allegories, such as referring to Alex as the "Young Pliable".