Abstract
In
his previous Quodlibet articles,
Anton Karl Kozlovic explicated the religious films fears associated with: (a)
satanic infusion, graven images and iconographic perversion, (b) cinematic
sinfulness, and (c) being sacrilegious, criticising or devaluing the faith. In
this latest instalment, he explores the religious film fears of abandoning
orthodoxy, paganisation and the ascendancy of post-Christian culture. Utilising
humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, the critical film and
religion literature was briefly reviewed and the popular
Introduction:
Film, Fear and Futurity
This
is the second century of the “Age of Hollywood” (Paglia, 1994, p. 12) during
the ascendancy of moving image culture wherein movies1 have become “the
lingua franca of the twentieth
century” (Vidal, 1993, p. 2) that will continue to dominate throughout the
post-Millennial period. Unfortunately, they have also generated intense fears
within Christian communities throughout its history because of their potential to
corrupt morally, socially and doctrinally, as self-evident by the many provocatively
titled books against the media, such as: The
Devil’s Camera: Menace of a Film-ridden World (Burnett & Martell,
1932), What is Wrong with the Movies?
(Rice, 1938), Hell Over Hollywood: The
Truth about the Movies (Gilbert, 1942), What’s
Wrong with the Cinema? (Derham, 1948), Hollywood
Cesspool: A Startling Survey of Movieland Lives and Morals, Pictures and
Results (Sumner, 1955), The Menace of
the Religious Movie (Tozer, 1974) and Evil
Influences: Crusades Against the Mass Media (Starker, 1989).
These
film fears were sometimes justified and sometimes exaggerated, but whatever the
intrinsic merits of their arguments; they are legitimate concerns that can
dramatically impact upon congregations, the discipline of religion studies2
and its teachers, thus warranting serious consideration. Consequently, the film
fears associated with satanic infusion, graven images and iconographic
perversion (Kozlovic, 2003a), cinematic sinfulness (Kozlovic, 2003b), and being
sacrilegious, criticising or devaluing the faith (Kozlovic, 2004) were investigated.
However, there are still many more fears to deal with to assuage the anxious
and smooth the pathway for the exciting and emerging interdisciplinary field of
religion-and-film (aka sacred
cinema, spiritual cinema, holy film, cinematic theology, cinematheology,
theo-film, celluloid religion, film-and-faith, film-faith dialogue).
To
aide its growth into an even more powerful pedagogic tool, such fears have to
be acknowledged, examined and rationally addressed. Not only is this important
for the future of the field, but as Robert K. Johnston (2001, p. 15)
appreciated, the dialogue between theology and film is a valid contemporary
means of revitalising religion studies itself, otherwise: “the church risks
irrelevancy without its walls and complacency within. We have boxed in God and
the results are proving disastrous. New eyes are called for as we attempt to
see God anew.” Indeed, “Christians cannot afford to be out of touch with popular films if they are to remain in touch with the swirling currents of
contemporary society” (Maher, 2002, p. 5). Besides, such “is the power and
influence of the modern mass media, that to a large extent it has replaced the
church as the major institution in society which informs public opinion,
constructs our values and provides us with the stories that will shape our
outlook on life” (Jenkins, 2003, p. 21). Therefore, it strongly behooves the religion
professions to look seriously at this extra-ecclesiastical resource rather than
just lament films’ existence and its supposedly deleterious influence upon our
youth and society.
The
writer argues that one should employ the popular Hollywood cinema3 as
an essential component of a 21st century theology that proactively embraces
rather than rejects our media-saturated society, especially if it wishes to
remain culturally relevant to our film-savvy youth, and allow the profession to
thrive in our increasingly post-print, postmodern and post-Christian world. As
Bob McKinney (2003, p. 13) advised his teaching staff: “Learn to use the trends
and current events displayed by the media as resources for connecting faith
with the real world and thereby teaching biblical truths. Develop the ability
to see God at work in all things”
including the popular cinema because as Marilyn Gustin put it: “Do we imagine
than when we step onto a sailboat, God stays ashore? Or that when we enter a
movie, God waits on the sidewalk?” (Brussat & Brussat, 1996, p. 537). Of
course not! Indeed, seeking out the flickering light of God in the popular cinema
is nowadays a necessary part of ones’ Christian duty to “discern the signs of
the times” (Matt. 16:3).4
Utilising
humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens (i.e., examining the textual
world inside the frame, but not the
world outside the frame—Bywater & Sobchack,
1989), the
critical film and religion literature was briefly reviewed and the popular Hollywood
cinema selectively scanned to reveal the film fears associated with abandoning
orthodoxy, paganisation, and the ascendancy of post-Christian culture. The
following is an introductory explication of these fears interleaved with
pro-film justifications, defences and other counter-arguments for utilising feature
films for religion studies. Copious inter-genre exemplars were employed to
demonstrate the range, relevance and diversity of the phenomena.
Popular Films
as a Source of Extra-canonical Insights
Popular
feature films can provide valid extra-canonical insights, but whose
non-traditional sources are potential concerns for some religionists. For
example, Edward Fischer (1977, p. 56) reported how a “priest said that when he
saw, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter he
came away feeling that it had done more for him than a spiritual retreat, an
admission he made with some embarrassment because things are not supposed to
happen that way.” Pastor Edward McNulty (1998) confessed:
I first became aware of the spiritual effect of film
almost thirty years ago while watching Franco Zeffirelli’s “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” For its two
hour duration I sat in the darkened theater with a group of strangers and was
totally mesmerized as the story of Francis of Assisi transported me to another
time and place, the effect strongest in the scene in which Francis was joined
by former friends and poor villagers in restoring the ruined church where
Christ first had called him.
The lush photography, fine performances of the
actors, and lilting musical score by Donovan all contributed to an experience
in which my own calling to serve God through the church was reaffirmed and
renewed. I left the theater feeling lifted high, but was unable to explain the
feeling the next day to my wife or anyone else who had not seen the film. Many years
later, when I visited Assisi itself and sat quietly for a while in the little
church of San Damiano, I felt a peace and a gentle presence, but no more
strongly than I had felt at the movie theater. This feeling of Presence, of
receiving a glimpse of the Holy, has occurred at a number of other film
viewings, including “The Pawnbroker,”
Diary of a Country Priest,” “Babette’s Feast,” “Romero,” “Eleni,” “Field of Dreams,” “Grand Canyon,” “Jesus of
Montreal,” “Places in the Heart,”
“The Fisher King,” “The Bagdad Cafe,” “Rhapsody in August,” “Tender
Mercies,” “Secrets and Lies,” and
“The Spitfire Grill” (pp. 1-2).
These
heart-felt confessions proved that popular films can indeed be “pearls of
revelation” (Verbeek, 1997, p. 172), and that finding “a film that which seeds
true nourishment for our soul is better than gold” (Sinetar, 1993, p. 5), if
not the Bible itself, which film can never replace, only buttress. However, if
one watched the French comedy Let There
Be Light, it showed the possibility of film being the revelatory medium of the
Divine in the future. God had decided that humanity needed an updated version
of His holy message for modern times, so he wrote the perfect film script and through
various human intermediaries, had the movie made. It impressed everyone who saw
it, including the Devil!
That
playful scenario is not as far-fetched as it may at first appear. As Anglican
Christian, Sally Cloke (2003, p. 5) lamented about the Bible: “God could have
chosen any art form—as the religious ‘stories’ of other traditions make
extensive use of dance, painting and theatre. But we’re stuck with the book—and
at the mercy of the writer,” but not necessarily for eternity. Of course, film
technology did not exist in Jesus’ time, yet, is it too outrageous to consider
that when Jesus eventually returns at the Second Coming that he, his followers
and the media, would not use the
communications tools of the day to transmit, document and disseminate his
sacred words and images? Let alone preserve that archival material for
posterity and repeated showing during religious instruction? One would suggest a
resounding ‘No!’ After all, Jesus was a man of the people whose teaching
strategy was to go to the people,
speak to them in their language about
their concerns so as to teach them his desires.
Popular Films
as a Source of Turf Wars
For
religionists suspicious of film per se,
these extra-canonical insights can manifest as turf wars, especially when they see
filmmakers as professional rivals who should not be doing their sacred
work. This source of anxiety may manifest as a concern over getting the
theological/religious/biblical “facts” wrong (i.e., monitoring the scholarly
sins of omission and commission), or worries about distorting “the true meaning”
(i.e., their specific interpretation of scriptural passages, meanings and
intent), or qualms about promoting sectarian views anathema to their own
religious stance (e.g., rejecting any suggestion that God is dead).
Therefore,
such fearful religionists would desperately need to control the cinema as a
form of religious/moral/ideational quality control (i.e., the traditional
gatekeeper function). The most obvious historical manifestations of this film
fear were the genesis of the Legion of Decency, the National Catholic Office
for Motion Pictures, and the many other associated censorial organisations-cum-name
changes (Black, 1994, 1998; Skinner, 1993; Walsh, 1996). These religious bodies
were deliberately designed to regulate films’ content, public distribution, and
audience viewing habits, with varying degrees of influence and impact.
In
other quarters, popular films were seen as a pagan challenge to the authority
of the Church itself, and thus another major turf war in the making. For
example, during the 1930s, the Most Revd. John Cantwell (1936, p. 21) was
concerned that seventy-five per cent of scriptwriters were pagans who practised
infidelity and cared nothing for decency, good taste, refinement, respect for
religion or spiritual values. As he claimed:
So great is the power of the motion picture to
impress the youth of the land that one hour spent in the darkness of a cinema
palace, intent on the unfolding of a wrong kind of story, can and frequently
does nullify years of careful training on the part of the Church, the school,
the home. So great is the problem suggested by the wrong kind of talking
picture that drastic efforts must be launched at once if we are to stave off
national disaster (Cantwell, 1936, p. 25).
Similarly,
Dan Gilbert (1942, p. 11) argued in Hell
Over Hollywood: The Truth About the Movies that Tinsel Town had
“established a sort of uncrowned and unofficial dictatorship” over manners and
morals, standards and tastes, modes of dress and speech, and the ways of
thought and personal conduct. In short, societal influences that the Church
considered were its professional domain. Furthermore, Gilbert argued that:
These
comments were a heart-felt attempt to character assassinate the cinema, albeit,
for good and pious reasons. They were designed to put the fear of God into the
religious community by evoking God’s traditional enemy, Satan (aka the Devil,
the great dragon, old serpent, Lucifer—Rev. 12:9; Isa.
·
It violated the scriptural law of hearing.
·
It embodied the mischievous notion that religion is, or can
be made, a form of entertainment.
·
Religious movies are a menace to true religion because they
embodied acting which was a violation of sincerity.
·
The filmmakers owed it to the public to give biblical
authority for their act which they have not done.
·
God only ordained four methods by which truth should
prevail, and the religious movie was not one of them.
·
Religious movies are out of harmony with the spirit of the
Scriptures and contrary to the mood of true Godliness.
·
They have harmful effect upon everyone associated with them.
Although
each of these propositions are defendable historically, scripturally, logically,
theologically, philosophically, spiritually and pragmatically (Cosandey,
Gaudreault & Gunning, 1992; Ludmann, 1958), it is an important cultural indicator of the strength of anti-film
feeling that is only three decades old. Nor is such anti-film prejudice
out-dated today. As Margaret Miles (1996, pp. xiii-xiv) reported: “many people,
including some of my academic friends, believe that one should not study
popular films because one will--at best--become tainted with their triviality,
their invidious superficiality; at worse, one will absorb their highly
questionable values,” or as Revd. Larry J. Kreitzer (1999, p. 30) heard when a
colleague found out he was working on another volume in his fiction and film
series: “When are you going to do some serious
New Testament work?”
Films
were frequently cast as the boogeyman in many a mother’s warning to her child.
For example, Paul Crouch, executive producer of The Omega Code reported within his DVD special feature Behind the Codes: The Making of the Feature
how his mother filled him with fear over the incompatibility of feature films
and Jesus Christ. When he disobeyed her and watched a Roy Rogers and Dale Evans
movie, he was miserable throughout because he expected Jesus to catch and
punish him for his transgression. Clive Marsh (1997, p. 33) suggested that anti-film
prejudice occurs because: “Theology which takes film seriously reminds itself
of its own ephemeral character.” After all, when all the holy prophecies are
fulfilled, the Second Coming came and went, and the priests’ religious
care-takers roles were fulfilled, what is left for this professional class of
sacred devotees now out of work?
Dabbling with
Non-Orthodox Religion
Another
disturbing possibility is that the popular cinema can showcase non-orthodox
Christianity and foreign religious traditions. For example, Michael Medved
(1993) was deeply concerned with
They follow the Tibetan
Book of the Dead and the spiritual guidebooks of L. Ron Hubbard far more
closely than they follow the Bible; they reflect
Yet,
without any statistical evidence, one suspects that more Christians and Jews
live in
…three popular films have been released which feature
explicitly Gnostic themes, evidence that the myth is alive and active in the
imaginations of Xers. The Truman Show,
This
feature hints at a post-Christianity metamorphosing into a pre- or
parallel-Christianity that has already accepted the fusion of sound and image, text
and screen as normal and their
cultural birth right. Indeed, for the American writer John Updike, movies were a
secular church. As he confessed:
…the cinema has done more for my spiritual life than
the church. My ideas of fame, success and beauty all originate from the big
screen. Whereas Christian religion is retreating everywhere and losing more and
more influence; film has filled the vacuum and supports us with myths and
action-controlling images. During a certain phase in my life film was a
substitute for religion (Herrmann, 2003, p. 190).
Peter
MacNicol similarly claimed: “No priest or homily so calibrated my moral compass
as did movies. No classroom lecture so humanized me as did
Therefore,
the religion professions should take more seriously the possibility that the
popular cinema can act as a substitute for organised religion, as well as be a
significant shaper of human consciousness and values, let alone be a phenomenal
technological medium for transmitting religious ideas worldwide. In fact,
Christians in this post-Millennial age increasingly want the cinema as part of their regular theological diet. As
Robert K. Johnston (2001, p. 14) noted: “With attendance at church stagnating
and with movie viewing at theatres and through video stores at an all-time
high, Christians find themselves wanting to get back into the [God/theology]
conversation.”
This
is surely one of those “signs of the times” (Matt 16:3) that warrants further
investigation, in addition to being a powerful pedagogic tool with which to
explore religion, theology and Scripture, whether in the classroom, home or
pulpit. However, before this cinematic tool can become a practical reality, a
necessary first step upon its developmental path is to acknowledge the
sacramental dimension of film itself. That is, to appreciate that a secular
medium can legitimately give lessons in spirituality to an audience composed of
believers and non-believers alike.
Eschewing
Myopia and Acknowledging Films’ Sacramentality
As
Fr. Andrew Greeley (1988, p. 248) argued: “film is a sacramental art form par
excellence. Sacramental films are not for the Church a luxury or a utility but
a fundamental and essential necessity.” Why? Because “either as a fine or
lively art nothing is quite so vivid as film for revealing the presence of God.
Film in the hands of a skilled sacrament-maker is uniquely able to make “epiphanies”
happen” (pp. 245-246), and thus a hierophanic medium for revealing theological
truth (Kozlovic, 2000). Fr. Greeley (1988, p. 254) also warned that because “we
ignore it when we are not condemning it is sad proof of how much we are cut off
from our own traditions.” Yet, in “the contemporary postmodern situation, it is
precisely the film image that has the power to signal, in a manner accessible
and reliable for everyone, that religion is not a dried-up existential and
historical source” (De Bleeckere, 1997, p. 101). Film really can make religion
live anew, just as Robert K. Johnston (2001, p. 15) claimed.
Fortunately,
this film diet deficiency is slowly being corrected within the scholarly
community, as evidenced by Peter Fraser’s (1998) Images of the Passion: The Sacramental Mode in Film which explored
sacramentalism as a religious film style in such diverse features as: A Farewell to Arms, Andrei Rublev, Babette’s
Feast, Black Robe, Diary of a Country Priest, Gallipoli, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Hardcore, Jesus of Montreal,
The Mission, On the Waterfront, Rome, Open City, The Word and You Only Live
Once. Not surprisingly, Presbyterian Charles
It seems to us an essential calling of the church,
synagogue, temple or mosque to help people interpret the “signs of the times.”
And when you think about it, movies are one of the most revealing signals of
what is happening in American [and Western] culture. Our movies often reveal
the central hopes and fears of people who are trying to make their way through
these confusing times (p. 6).
Interestingly,
Raymond Schroth (1995) saw the screen character of Fr. Leclerc (Gilles Pelletier)
in Jesus of Montreal as a living
embodiment of the Roman Catholic Church’s fear of change. As he argued:
The film’s most pathetic, though poignant, character
is the shrine priest, who first orders the play renewed but backs off in fear
when it succeeds and church authorities protest the play’s disturbing content.
Leclerc joined the priesthood as a boy, hoping to use his theatrical talent.
Now he trembles in fear of his religious superiors, but lacks the courage to
leave the priesthood. Though his woman friend would marry him, he wobbles in
face of the “outside” world and marriage’s risks and responsibilities. Clearly,
he symbolises the post-Vatican II church--intimidated by the forces let loose
by renewal, and lacking the religious faith and emotional resources to ride the
rough seas of change (p. 109).
Other
religionists objected to the popular cinema because they considered that sacred
subject matter was just too complex to vulgarise in feature films, or when it
came to filming the life of Jesus Christ, it was “un-do-able” (Tatum &
Ingram, 1975, p. 471), even if his message was filmable. Others were more
concerned about religious authenticity, accuracy and the attendant fear of
incompleteness. For example:
In 1921 a priest had written to the Ecclesiastical Journal asking if it
would be appropriate for the clergy to play themselves in the movies. The
answer was definitely not; “those finer qualities of the true priest” were too
subtle to be captured on the screen, and anything
Christian,
Christian Films: Possible?
While
accepting popular films as potentially worthy of aesthetic consumption, some
viewers only wanted to see “good/wholesome” films, thereby establishing a de facto religious film orthodoxy. Yet,
even this simple desire is fraught with complexities. For example, Peter Fraser
railed against the evoking of simplistic, pro-Christian rules that may not be
effective when it comes to watching films in the real world. Consider:
…“I won’t allow my young kids to see a PG film, but
all Disney films are fine.” But are all Disney films fine? Have Christian
parents watched all of The Little Mermaid
or Aladdin or Pocahontas and given thought to the messages of these films? One
suggests that a sixteen-year-old should be defiant of her father and pursue the
person most incompatible with her. One implies that all first dates should end
in a kiss. One distorts American history beyond recognition in an age when
students a need prompting to name the man who discovered
Christian
filmmaker Lloyd Billingsley (1989) encountered even greater difficulties when
he recommended Chariots of Fire to a
Christian friend who wanted assurances about its “Christian” nature before
watching it:
I replied that I didn’t know if Chariots of Fire was a Christian film, but that one of its major
characters was a committed Christian. I thought this explanation would suffice,
but it did not. One Christian character, my friend insisted, did not a
Christian film make. As the discussion unfolded, I raised the question whether
there was any such thing as a specifically Christian movie. My friend was a
still photographer of considerable talent. I asked him if the photos he took of
trees and rock were “Christian” pictures. If the subject of one of his
portraits was a faithful pastor, would this automatically make it a Christian
photograph? What if a Zoroastrian priest or atheist had taken the same
photograph? Would it still qualify as Christian? Did he perhaps use Christian
film or a Christian camera? Or, if a picture of the
Conversely, how about a picture of, say, Billy
Graham, with his face cropped just above the eyebrows? What about an
overexposed, out-of-focus shot of Chartres Cathedral, with a garbage truck
parked in front? Would these poor efforts qualify as Christian pictures, even
if a Christian took them? No clear answers to the questions emerged. I then
applied this line of reasoning to Chariots
of Fire. I didn’t know the religious beliefs of those who made the film,
but I assumed they were not Christians, since few in the film business are. Nor
were all the characters in the story Christian, and no one gets converted.
Moreover, it is made clear that the Christian character meets an untimely
demise. My photographer friend was still not satisfied, but his sole answer to
these arguments was to repeat his original question. I believe that at one
point I asked if The Ten Commandments
was a “Jewish film.” We eventually called a truce (pp. ix-x).
These
debates are intriguing and worthy of further philosophical analysis, but beyond
the scope of this paper. Fortunately, Fr. Andrew Greeley’s argument concerning
cinematic portrayals of God can be fruitfully applied to these issues and other
religious film debates. Namely:
Is any image adequate and accurate? I would rather
say that it is surely not adequate because no metaphor for God, no collection
of metaphors is adequate to describe the ineffable, but that it is accurate as
far as it goes--and perhaps a good deal more accurate than that presented in
most Sunday homilies or theological tracts. But does not this image
anthropomorphize God, a certain kind of intellectual will ask? Surely it does,
but is there any other way of speaking about God except through metaphor?
Or
as the Lebanese mystical poet Kahlil Gibran (1972, p. 66) succinctly put it in The Prophet: “Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth” [my emphasis]. After all, no
one person, book, image, medium or institution has a monopoly on truth, and there
is also a very thin line between religious fact and religious fiction,
regardless of the intentions of the author. As William Telford (1995) explained:
The representation of Christ in fiction and film is
based on the representation of Christ in the Gospels, as is the scholar’s
Christ. Indeed it is based on no less than four
such representations. Is the Markan Christ, or the Matthean Christ, or the
Lukan Christ or the Johannine Christ to be considered any less a ‘construction’
than the Kazantzakis Christ? Even when the search for ‘the Galilean’ is
conducted with all the scholarly precision of a Gerd Theissen, the fact that
our knowledge of Jesus is after all based on such literary sources and representations should give us pause when
seeking the answer to historical questions, and make us consider all the more
keenly the part played by the imagination in the creation of so-called
‘historical tradition.’ Indeed, recognizing the power of the literary and
religious imagination, as these studies lead us to do, serves to expose the
relative subjectivity of all our efforts to secure facts in areas like religion
(p. 385).
Notwithstanding
this argument, Stanley Grenz (1996) posited that the popular cinema is the new
cultural foundation of our society, and should be respected because:
Living in a postmodern society means inhabiting a
film-like world -- a realm in which truth and fiction merge. We look at the
world in the same way we look at films, suspicious that what we see around us
may in fact be illusion. Despite a film’s disjunctions, however, the viewer can
at least be certain that it expresses something about the minds that produced
it; the filmmaker provides an often unattended center to the world the film
creates (p. 33).
Nor
is this directorial input necessarily a bad thing, for as Bruce Stewart (1972,
p. 43) argued: “the cinema has given us Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, as profound a bit of Christianity as
you could hope to encounter in months of churchgoing.” One suspects that in most
cases, a film will be remembered longer than any specific Sunday sermon! Just
as importantly, one should not overlook the fact that mere exposure to the
cinematic Christ can prompt (if not actually cause) radical religious
conversions. For example, Geoffrey Macnab (1993, p. 14) reported, that The Mastership of Christ was shown in
“the
Popular Film as
Kitsch Art and Pretentious Piousness
Some
religionists were concerned that even if a religious film was made, its
quasi-religious power was prone to being transformed into something tawdry—the
dreaded kitsch art, that is, pretentious piousness wrapped in kitsch
reverentiality (Brown, 1975; Dorfles, 1968). For example, Lotte Eisner (1968)
claimed that:
In Cecil B. de Mille’s first [The] Ten Commandments
(1922) there are grandiose sequences such as the pursuit of the Jews by the
Egyptians and the crossing of the
Yet,
the “chief aim of religious kitsch is to justify the ways of man to man by
making him Feel Good, all safe and snug deep down inside” (Brown, 1975, p. 44).
This is what DeMille’s The Ten
Commandments (1956) was partially designed to do, in fact:
…religion as spectacle is the longest-running road
show in
Therefore,
it is not too surprising to find that the supposedly kitsch The Ten Commandments (1956) was considered
virtuous by Steve Simels (1993, p. 75) who claimed: “Cecil B. DeMille’s
kitsch-run-riot sensibility makes this biggest of Fifties blockbusters
something to marvel at even now. Bernstein’s wonderfully overripe score matches
it note for grandiose note.” In fact, watching DeMille’s Technicolor Moses movie
was part of the Passover festivities (and associated Seder rituals and Pesach
stories) for at least one Jewish elder—Ted Roberts. As he playfully reported:
Around Passover I spread the word to the kids and
grandkids. “Channel 10,
Not
only is religious showmanship a prime site for kitsch religiosity, but the very
nature of filmmaking itself can contribute to it. As George MacDonald Fraser
(1996) argued:
…more than ordinary films, they [historical filmmakers]
are liable to strike a false note. Those who make them know that while millions
of dollars’ worth of planning and building, and painstaking research beyond the
dreams of many academics, and sheer technical brilliance, can pass without much
notice, one bad line (and it doesn’t even have to be a bad line, it just has to
sound amiss), or one visual anachronism, or piece of unhappy casting, or
directorial slip, will have the customers falling about. There have been enough
of these - as well as more culpable commissions of bad taste, wilful
philistinism, and sheer ignorance - to give costume movies, if not a bad name,
at least a patronised and faintly derided status. My history teacher was
reluctant to see The Sign of the Cross
because he feared he might be offended by the sight of gladiators who chewed
gum and talked like gangsters (pp. 5-6).
Interestingly,
Fr. Daniel Lord complained that DeMille’s religious film The Sign of the Cross was not immoral, just uninspiring. As he
reported:
We had been waiting so eagerly for this picture; we
hadn’t had a religious picture for so long; we thought this would be a
magnificent story of the martyrs…and the martyrs played a secondary part to the
pomp and circumstances that was Pagan Rome. The Jesuits of the city saw the
film just yesterday. I’ve only seen a few of them. Those that I saw took pretty
much this attitude: “Morally, there is really not much to object to. The dance
is bad; the bath is unnecessary; the undressing of the girl who joins the
empress indelicate; but in the main it is not nearly as objectionable in those
parts as the advertisements and the criticisms had led us to expect. But it is
ethical rather than Christian in the motivation of the martyrs. They seem in
general a rather sorry lot compared with the pagans who rush triumphantly in
power and pleasure through the scenes. Their martyrdom lacks the elements that
would inspire others with the same idea; Marcus plainly does not believe and
simply dies, except for a brief flash of possible [God?] light, to be with the
girl. There is a feeling that many of the group go out to die under the lash
rather than voluntarily. We were not inspired by the Christians’ going to death
(quoted in Winters, 1996, p. 90).
It
was an assessment cynically confirmed by Roger Dooley (1981, p. 279) who said:
“except by implication [it was] no more a tract for promoting Christianity than
the anti-Nazi films were propaganda for Judaism.”
Popular Films
as a Source of Evil and Anti-Education
For
some, the kitsch potential of films came a poor second to their alleged evil
impact, particularly its anti-literacy, anti-education and anti-cultural
influence upon society. As Steven Starker (1989) argued in Evil Influences: Crusades Against the Mass Media:
…literacy and intelligence also were at risk. The
power of their attraction was equated with a surrender of the will, which
transformed human beings into passive repositories for all manner of
suggestion…Intellectuals of all persuasions…found that movies represented a
distinctly unwelcomed break from the primacy of the written word. Even a “bad”
novel maintained some baseline of literacy in readers, providing an avenue of
eventual improvement through “better” readings. Movies, on the other hand,
offered sensation, emotion, and entertainment through mere images, without
requiring or sustaining literacy. This seemed a return to a more primitive
pre-alphabet form of communication. Some feared the death knell of culture and
the written word had sounded in
This
is still a prominent fear today, as evidenced by John Davies (1996, p. xii) who
argued in Educating Students in a
Media-Saturated Culture: “Television, video, film, and popular music
require no particular skills to be used. Listening/viewing can be done by anybody
at any time!” Even Christian filmmaker Lloyd Billingsley (1989, p. 205) argued
that a “cinematic culture, practically speaking, amounts to no true culture at
all” because “the language of cinema narrows our imagination by substituting
its images and memory for our own. Perhaps that is why Christians have
historically been people of the word more than people of the image.” Yet, this
is not strictly true, even if a historical excuse for eschewing feature films
in pedagogic contexts today. As Commonweal
film critic Richard Alleva (1999) passionately argued:
All my life I had been told by teachers that reading
was greater than movie-going because you had to work at reading, had to
decipher the words, turn them into images in your mind, had to work at understanding
what the author had to say, and it was the work of reading that consecrated
that activity and made literature a greater form than film, which was scarcely
art at all, since movies just flowed in front of your eyes and did all your
imagining for you. [Not so!]…To truly watch a movie was to read it, i.e. to see
all that was put before you and to question yourself about what was shown (p.
468).
Or
as Richard M. Gollin (1993) put it:
Supposedly a passive medium but in fact highly
interactive, films require subtler acts of perception and discrimination than
we like to acknowledge. Their narrative, visual, and aural intricacy should not
surprise us, since films include the expressive and persuasive conventions of
virtually every earlier art form, as well as some unique to themselves (p.
391).
This
is presumably the underlying reason why S. Brent Plate (2003, p. 159) lamented
the fact that a serious cinematic theology had to take a more critical stance
toward the re-creation of the world by film. His prescription entailed learning
the art and science of cinema to more fully understand, deploy and appreciate
the true value of the medium, and because: “Unless theologians and religious
leaders can critically examine the formal nature and modes of production of
film itself (everything from cinematography to mise-en-scene to editing), they will do little to build a bridge
between theology and culture.” It was sound advice and the basis for a second
strand of religion-and-film studies.
Conclusion
The
popular
…I have found that inter-disciplinary studies such as
those offered here have proved to be enormously rewarding professionally, as
well as immensely enjoyable personally. I am more than excited than I have ever
been before about the relevance of the New Testament for the contemporary
reader, and find again and again in teaching situations that biblical stories
suddenly spring to life for students when they are approached through more
familiar subjects, such as those contained in literature and film. I remain
confident that inter-disciplinary hermeneutics is a sign of the future (p. 30).
One
can only agree with him. Further research into the emerging and exciting
interdisciplinary field of religion-and-film is warranted, recommended and is already
long overdue.
Notes
1. Although there are real ontological
differences between “movies,” “film,” “cinema,” “video,” “TV movie,” “DVD,”
“VCD,” “MPEG-4,” “Internet movie” etc., they all deal with audiovisual images,
and so will be treated herein as essentially interchangeable.
2. The term “religion studies” will be
used herein as an umbrella term to cover the professional disciplines of
“religion,” “studies in religion,” “religious education,” “theology,” “faith
education,” “new religious movements” etc., thus avoiding needless repetition
and boredom for both reader and writer.
3. The term “
4. The Authorized King James Version of
the Bible (KJV aka AV) will be used throughout, unless quoting other
translations, because most of the biblical phrases that are embedded in Western
culture are from the King James Version, which is the most widely used English
translation of the Bible today (Taylor, 1992, p. ix, 71).
References
Alleva, R. (1999). I would toss myself aside: Confessions of a Catholic
film critic. Catholic International: The
Documentary Window on the World, 10(9),
467-469.
Billingsley, K. L. (1989). The
seductive image: A Christian critique of the world of film.
Black, G. D. (1994).
Black, G. D. (1998). The Catholic
crusade against the movies, 1940-1975.
Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2001). Film art: An introduction (6th edition).
Brown, C. F. (1975). Star-spangled kitsch: An astounding and tastelessly illustrated exploration of the
bawdy, gaudy, shoddy mass-art culture in this grand land of ours.
Brussat, F., & Brussat, M. A. (1996). Spiritual literacy: Reading the sacred in everyday life.
Burnett, R. G., & Martell, E. D. (1932). The Devil’s camera: Menace of a film-ridden world.
Bywater, T., & Sobchack, T. (1989). An introduction to film criticism: Major
critical approaches to narrative film.
Cantwell, J. J. (1936). The motion picture industry. In W. J. Perlman
(Ed.), The movies on trial: The views and
opinions of outstanding personalities anent screen entertainment past and
present (pp. 13-25).
Cloke, S. (2003). Scripture as literature. Zadok Perspectives, 81,
4-5.
Cosandey, R., Gaudreault, A., & Gunning, T. (Eds.). (1992). An invention of the Devil?: Religion and
early cinema. Sainte-Foy: Les Presses De L’Universite
Davies, J. (1996). Educating
students in a media-saturated culture.
Deacy, C., & Ortiz, G. W. (2007). Theology and film: Challenging the sacred/secular
divide.
De Bleeckere, S. (1997). The religious dimension of cinematic
consciousness in postmodern culture. In J. R. May (Ed.), New image of religious film (pp. 95-110).
Derham, M. (1948). What’s Wrong
with the Cinema?
Dooley, R. (1981). From Scarface
to Scarlett: American films in the 1930s.
Dorfles, G. (Ed.). (1968). Kitsch:
The world of bad taste.
Eisner, L. H. (1968). Kitsch in the cinema. In G. Dorfles (Ed.), Kitsch: The world of bad taste (pp.
197-217).
Fischer, E. (1977). Everybody
steals from God: Communication as worship. Notre Dame:
Fraser, G. M. (1996). The
Hollywood history of the world (rev. ed.).
Fraser, P. (1998). Images of the
passion: The sacramental mode in film.
Fraser, P., & Neal, V. E. (2000). ReViewing the movies: A Christian response to contemporary film.
Garrett, G. (2007). The
Gospel according to Hollywood.
Gibran, K. (1972). The prophet.
Gilbert, D. (1942). Hell over
Godawa, B. (2002).
Gollin, R. M. (1993).
Greeley, A. (1988). God in popular
culture.
Greeley, A. (1995). God in the movies: Film as a source of revelation?
In D. Burke (Ed.), CCICA annual 1995: The
Church and popular culture (pp. 42-61).
Grenz, S. J. (1996). A primer on
postmodernism.
Henderson, C. (1996). Interpreting
the signs of our times. <http://www.aril.org/arilmovie.html>, pp.
6-8.
Herrmann, J. (2003). From popular to arthouse: An analysis of love and
nature as religious motifs in recent cinema. In J. Mitchell & S. Marriage
(Eds.), Mediating religion: Conversations
in media, religion and culture (pp. 189-199).
Jenkins, J. (2003). Christians and the media: Touching the spirit of our
culture. Nurture: Journal for Home and
School, 37(3), 20-22.
Jewish Outreach Institute (1999, February 26). Celebrate with JOI. Pesach stories. C.B and me.
<http://www.joi.org/celebrate/pesach/cb.htm>, pp. 1-3.
John, J., & Stibble, M. (2002). The
big picture: Finding the spiritual message in movies.
Johnston, R. K. (2001). Reel
spirituality: Theology and film in dialogue.
Johnston, R. K. (Ed.). (2007). Reframing theology and film: New focus for an emerging discipline.
Kozlovic, A. K. (2000). Cinematic epiphanies: Popular films as sites for
reel devotion and psycho-spiritual encounters. Religious Education Journal of
Kozlovic, A. K. (2001). Nourishing faith through film: Using popular
biblical epics as a religious education resource. Journal of Christian Education, 44(2), 45-53.
Kozlovic, A. K. (2003a). Religious film fears 1: Satanic infusion,
graven images and iconographic perversion. Quodlibet:
Online Journal of Christian Theology and Philosophy, 5(2-3), 1-19. [http://www.quodlibet.net/kozlovic-fears.shtml].
Kozlovic, A. K. (2003b). Religious film fears 2: Cinematic sinfulness. Quodlibet: Online Journal of Christian
Theology and Philosophy, 5(4),
1-20. [http://www.quodlibet.net/kozlovic-fears2.shtml].
Kozlovic, A. K. (2004). Religious film fears 3: Being sacrilegious,
criticising or devaluing the faith. Quodlibet:
Online Journal of Christian Theology and Philosophy, 7(2), 1-26. [http://www.quodlibet.net/kozlovic-fears3.shtml].
Kreitzer, L. J. (1999). Pauline
images in fiction and film: On reversing the hermeneutical flow.
Ludmann, R. (1958). The cinema as a means of evangelization. Cross Currents, 8, 153-171.
Mabry, J. R. (1999). The Gnostic generation: Understanding and
ministering to generation X. Presence:
The Journal of Spiritual Directors International, 5(2), 35-47.
Macnab, G. (1993). J. Arthur Rank
and the British film industry.
Maher,
Malone, P., & Pacatte, R. (2003). Lights, camera…faith! A movie lover’s guide to Scripture. A movie
lectionary - cycle C.
Marsh, C. (1997). Film and theologies of culture. In C. Marsh & G.
Ortiz (Eds.), Explorations in theology
and film: Movies and meaning (pp. 21-34).
McDannell, C. (Ed.). (2008). Catholics in the movies.
McNulty, E. (1998). Spirituality
and film. <http://horeb.pcusa.org/sf/hhn1998fallwin/film.htm>, pp.
1-5.
Medved, M. (1993).
Menking, S. J. (1999). Generation X: The first post-Christendom
generation. Quarterly Review: A Journal
of Theological Resources for Ministry, 19(2),
153-166.
Miles, M. R. (1996). Seeing and
believing: Religion and values in the movies.
Overstreet, J. (2007). Through a screen
darkly: Looking closer at beauty, truth and evil in the movies.
Paglia, C. (1994). Vamps &
tramps: New essays.
Plate, S. B. (2003). The re-creation of the world: Filming faith. Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 42(2), 155-160.
Pope, R. (2007). Salvation
in celluloid: Theology, imagination and film.
Rice, J. R. (1938). What is wrong
with the movies?
Schroth, R. A. (1995). The body of Christ: Three films. In D. Burke
(Ed.), CCICA annual 1995: The Church and
popular culture (pp. 102-114).
Simels, S. (1993). Bernstein on CD. Stereo
Review, 58(9), 74.
Sinetar, M. (1993). Reel power:
Spiritual growth through film.
Skinner, J. M. (1993). The cross
and the cinema: The Legion of Decency and the National Catholic Office for
Motion Pictures, 1933-1970.
Starker, S. (1989). Evil
influences: Crusades against the mass media.
Stewart, B. (1972). The world of
film.
Sumner, R. L. (1955).
Sung, J., & Peace, R. (1998). Eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds
to understand: Movies and other media. In W. D. Spencer & A. B. Spencer
(Eds.), God through the looking glass:
Glimpses from the arts (pp. 141-149, 187).
Tatum, W. B., & Ingram, H. B. (1975). Whence and whither the
cinematic Jesus? Religion in Life,
44(4), 470-478.
Taylor, M. D. (1992). The complete book of Bible literacy,
Tozer, A. W. (1974). Menace of the
religious movie.
Verbeek, M. (1997). Too beautiful to be untrue: Toward a theology of
film aesthetics. In J. R. May (Ed.), New
image of religious film (pp. 161-177).
Vidal, G. (1993). Screening
history.
Walsh, F. (1996). Sin and censorship: The Catholic Church and the motion
picture industry.
Winters, C. R. (1996). DeMille as
phoenix: The rise, the fall, the rise of an American director. M.A.
dissertation,
Filmography
A Farewell to Arms (1932, dir. Frank
Borzage)
Aladdin (1992, dir. John Musker & Ron
Clements)
Andrei Rublev (1966, dir. Andrei
Tarkovsky)
Babette’s Feast (1987, dir. Gabriel
Axel)
The
Black Robe (1991, dir. Bruce
Beresford)
Brother Sun Sister Moon (1973, dir. Franco
Zeffirelli)
Chariots of Fire (1981, dir. Hugh Hudson)
Diary of a Country Priest (1951, dir. Robert
Bresson)
Eleni (1985, dir. Peter Yates)
Field of Dreams (1989, dir. Phil Alden
Robinson)
The Fisher King (1991, dir. Terry
Gilliam)
Gallipoli (1981, dir. Peter Weir)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964, dir. Pier Paolo
Pasolini)
Hardcore (1978, dir. Paul Schrader)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968, dir. Robert
Ellis)
Jesus of
Let There Be Light (Que la Lumiere Soit) (1998, dir. Arthur Joffe)
The Little Mermaid (1989, dir. John Musker
& Ron Clements)
The Mastership of Christ (1934, dir. Aveling
Ginever)
The Matrix (1999, dir. Andy &
Larry Wachowski)
The
The Omega Code (1999, dir. Rob
Marcarelli)
On the Waterfront (1954, dir. Elia Kazan)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, dir. Carl Theodor
Dreyer)
The Pawnbroker (1965, dir. Sidney
Lumet)
Places in the Heart (1984, dir. Robert
Benton)
Pocahontas (1995, dir. Mike Gabriel
& Eric Goldberg)
Rhapsody in August (1991, dir. Akira
Kurosawa)
The Robe (1953, dir. Henry Koster)
Romero (1989, dir. John Duigan)
Secrets & Lies (1996, dir. Mike Leigh)
The Sign of the Cross (1932, dir. Cecil B.
DeMille)
The Spitfire Grill (1996, dir. Lee David
Zlotoff)
The Ten Commandments (1923, dir. Cecil B.
DeMille)
The Ten Commandments (1956, dir. Cecil B.
DeMille)
Tender Mercies (1982, dir. Bruce
Beresford)
The Truman Show (1998, dir. Peter Weir)
The Word (aka Ordet) (1957, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer)
You Only Live Once (1937, dir. Fritz Lang)
