Mike's musings

Christianity at the Movies

Because I'm a soft, bleeding-heart liberal with no backbone, I'm uncomfortable with blanket condemnations of anything. And films ("movies", for non-British readers) are one of those things that we Christians sometimes leap to condemn very quickly: when it suits us, anyway. It's difficult not to think about condemnation when the papers here in the US are full of the death of Jerry Falwell - a founder member of the so-called Moral Majority over here.

I feel that, like many texts - by which I mean pretty much any type of interpreted object - films are very slippery. They move, and change, and - for some reason I'm not quite sure - they seem to morph into different things more often than books, for instance, do. A film seen twice or three times is a different kind of thing to a book read twice of three times, it seems to me. I tend to react differently to viewings - more than I would to multiple readings - possibly because of the immersive quality of films, and probably also because of the use of music. So, films change their meaning - in as much as anything has meaning, of course - their referents are more difficult to pin down. This means that a film may "mean" one thing to one person, and quite a different thing to another - and that this significations are quite liable - and likely - to change between viewings.

I'm not going to try to suggest that some films - like some books - are not morally compromised: this is a particular danger and power of any medium which is so immersive. Nor is the opposite danger to condemnation not something against which we should guard: March of the Penguins is _not_ an advert for creationism. But we should be careful.

Sorry for a rather random post, but that's just what came to mind.

Synchroblog

Today is a "synchroblog" on the subject of Christianity and movies. If you've liked what you read here, or, more particularly, if you didn't, and you'd like to read some other opinions, please visit one of the other participating blogs:

• Adam Gonnerman pokes at The Spider's Pardon
• David Fisher thinks that Jesus Loves Sci-Fi
• John Morehead considers Christians and Horror Redux: From Knee-Jerk Revulsion to Critical Engagement
• Marieke Schwartz lights it up with Counter-hegemony: Jesus loves Borat
• Mike Bursell muses about Christianity at the Movies
• Jenelle D'Alessandro tells us Why Bjork Will Never Act Again
• Cobus van Wyngaard contemplates Theology and Film (as art)
• Tim Abbott tells us to Bring your own meaning...?
• Sonja Andrews visits The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:Christ in Spaghetti Westerns
• Steve Hollinghurst takes a stab at The Gospel according to Buffy
• Les Chatwin insists We Don't Need Another Hero
• Lance Cummings says The Wooden Wheel keeps Turning
• John Smulo weaves a tale about Spiderman 3 and the Shadow
• Josh Rivera spells well with Christian Witchcraft
• Phil Wyman throws out the Frisbee: Time to Toss it Back
• Sally Coleman rushes up with Making Connections- films as a part of a mythological tradition
• Steve Hayes ponders The Image of Christianity in Films
• Kim Paffenroth pondersNihilism lite

Labels: films, synchroblog