Screening the Afterlife

Theology, Eschatology, and Film

Christopher Deacy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136597503
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Screening the Afterlife is a unique and fascinating exploration of the 'last things' as envisaged by modern filmmakers. Drawing on a range of films from Flatliners and What Dreams May Come to Working Girl and The Shawshank Redemption, it offers the first comprehensive examination of death and the afterlife within the growing field of religion and film. Topics addressed include:

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• the survival of personhood after death

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• the language of resurrection and immortality

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• Near-Death Experiences and Mind-Dependent Worlds

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• the portrayal of 'heaven' and 'hell'.

Students taking courses on eschatology will find this a stimulating and thought provoking resource, while scholars will relish Deacy's theological insight and understanding.

1

Mapping the Afterlife in Theology, Eschatology and Film

The problem of death

From the outset, we are faced with a paradox. Why is it that the depiction of the afterlife – despite being, as Tom Ruffles puts it, ‘a perennial topic in cinema’ (Ruffles 2004: 1) – should be such a relatively unexamined field of enquiry within film studies? One possible answer is that this may have as much to do with questions concerning the aesthetic quality of those movies which depict life after death as with the more general scepticism which has tended to prevail in some corners of academia about the suitability of looking at work which carries spiritual or theological connotations.¹ Indeed, the films themselves are often treated as lightweight and flimsy products by critics and reviewers, unworthy of serious intellectual scrutiny. Upon its release in 1978, Warren Beatty’s directorial debut, Heaven Can Wait (Warren Beatty & Buck Henry, 1978), a remake of the 1940s celestial fantasy Here Comes Mr Jordan (Alexander Hall, 1941), was dismissed by Richard Combs in the Monthly Film Bulletin as ‘cottonwool fantasy’ and ‘antique whimsy’ (Combs 1978: 201), while Paul Hogan’s follow-up to Crocodile Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986), the supernatural-themed Almost an Angel (John Cornell, 1990), was written off by Nigel Floyd in the same publication in 1991 as no more than ‘a slight, sentimental tale consisting almost entirely of contrived set-pieces and smart one-liners’ (Floyd 1991: 38). Veteran director Blake Edwards similarly fell foul of Sight and Sound’s Philip Strick in 1992 when his gendercrossing reincarnation comedy Switch (1991), starring Ellen Barkin as a man trapped inside a woman’s body following an arrangement between God and the Devil, was castigated as a film which, even ‘within the laws of its own magic’, was ‘glibly evasive’ (Strick 1992: 53). Moreover, according to Vincent Canby in the New York Times, ‘Any movie that depends on the presence of either the Devil or God is asking for trouble, and Switch has them both’ (Canby 1991: <http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D0CE7D8113CF933A25756C0A967958260>). These reviews not being unrepresentative, it is hardly surprising that research conducted in this area has been so sporadic. The fact that afterlife-themed films are also often associated by critics with sub-literary forms such as Gothic and horror literature, horror films and comics – a point made by Ruffles at the beginning of Ghost Images: Cinema of the Afterlife (Ruffles 2004: 1), a rare venture by a film studies scholar² into the terrain of eschatology – only serves to underscore the point: this is simply not fruitful academic material and should be broached at the scholar’s own peril.

At the same time, however, death itself is the least flippant or trivial of all subjects, which makes its often unsophisticated and unchallenging treatment in films particularly incongruous. Indeed, death is the one incontrovertible certainty in life – ‘Death is the one inevitable human fact. We all have to die at some time’ (Badham & Ballard 1996: 1). In Ferrell’s words, ‘There is no other moment when man is closest to nature than when he recognizes his mortality. This is the element of truth that underpins all myth’ (Ferrell 2000: 191). According to a survey from the mid-1970s, 27 per cent of a nationwide sample of Americans reported having had contact with the dead, a situation which was most common among those who were elderly, women, black, poor or widowed, as well as those who believed in the existence of life after death in the first place (Lester 2005: 161). Furthermore, according to a study published by Ross and Joshi in 1992, 5.2 per cent of the American population – not counting those who had experienced child abuse or who suffered from mental illness, among whom the figures were higher – claimed to have had contact with ghosts, 4 per cent claimed to have knowledge of living a past life, and 0.6 per cent believed that they had been possessed by the spirits of those who had died (in Lester 2005: 161). According to one 1986 survey, 20 per cent of people also reported having been the recipients of after-death communications, in the form, for instance, of hearing the presence or voice of the deceased, smelling a fragrance associated with them, and seeing them while asleep, in visions, in so-called out-of-body experiences, or simply when doors were being opened or closed (in Lester 2005: 162). Irrespective of whether or not these statistics are to be taken seriously – and there is no doubt that the parameters of this discourse are far from definitive, as when Singer and Singer in a survey from 1990 noted, though without being convinced themselves, ‘that some people believe imaginary playmates to be spirits and, certainly, the concept of spirits could account for the phenomenon of imaginary playmates’ (in Lester 2005: 166)³ – these are particularly striking claims.

If there is any scepticism surrounding such figures, it comes down, arguably, to the same reason as to why afterlife-themed films are given such short shrift within the academy. In his Theology, Death and Dying, Ray Anderson identifies the problem thus:

[Our western culture] has lost its fundamental connection with death itself. The individual no longer presides over his or her death, as was common in the biblical practice and continued in many ways through the medieval period. The family no longer participates in the ritual of dying. These rituals have now become restricted to monitoring bodily functions, administering chemical substances and connecting with artificial life support systems, all under the supervision of medical professionals. Death has become institutionalized and professionalized.

(Anderson 1986: 19)

In such terms, a dichotomy may be said to have been set up between the realm of the living and that of the dead and dying, from whom the former are physically excluded. Indeed, in Andrew Edgar’s words, the living are increasingly ‘denied the language to express their feelings or their support for the dying, precisely because there are no longer the cultural resources available that will allow most people to feel secure in the face of death’ (Edgar 1996: 164). This concern has been reinstated by Peter Stanford, whose Heaven: A Traveller’s Guide to the Undiscovered Country, published in 2002, concluded with the admonition that ‘As a society, we have become ever more naked in our avoidance of death’ (Stanford 2002: 348). Where we entertain thoughts pertaining to the afterlife, Stanford observes that this is not usually for very long – ‘which may perhaps explain why so much of the thinking about afterlife has been confused, not thought out, simplistically earthbound and, often, plain banal’ (Stanford 2002: 349). Not only, then, are films which deal with the afterlife accorded such limited scholarly attention, but the theme of the afterlife itself has been somewhat marginalised even within theology. Indeed, one of the reasons Chester gives for eschatology never having been ‘as fully developed, profoundly reflected upon, or given as rigorous and imaginative intellectual probing, as were other areas of Christian theology’⁴ is ‘the embarrassment and difficulties that eschatology presents’ (Chester 2004: 255). Stanford, likewise, makes the instructive point that, today, ‘There is no mention of hell from the pulpits of the mainstream churches’ and that ‘Purgatory and limbo have been put to grass’ (Stanford 2002: 20), even though, ironically, ‘the assumption in most religious circles is that we are all bound for some sort of heaven’ (Stanford 2002: 21).

The reasons for this retreat from discourse about death are very far from clear, however. Is it because, for many people today, the only reliable path to knowledge is believed to be provided by the ‘objective’ and ‘rational’ pursuit of science, along the lines espoused by Richard Dawkins for whom ‘Natural selection not only explains the whole of life; it also raises our consciousness to the power of science to explain how organized complexity can emerge from simple beginnings without any deliberate guidance’ (Dawkins 2006: 141)? If so, then it is the very mystery, capriciousness and irrationality of death that, like religion itself, stands at odds with life in a secular, technological age. In Stanford’s words, ‘The secular answer to the mystery of death is effectively to deny death an airing’ and so to not talk or think about it: ‘when we face death in our own backyard … amongst our family and friends, we sweep it under the carpet and instead grow ever more obsessed with our living bodies – new diets, health regimes and endless work-outs – in the hope that somehow we can arrest the march of time’ (Stanford 2002: 21). Death on such an interpretation is thus something associated with failure – ‘a failure to eat the right food, or exercise or avoid the sun’ (Stanford 2002: 21) – and something which we thus have some kind of autonomy and responsibility over, so that as long as we look after our bodies and do not eat too much chocolate, drink too much alcohol or smoke any cigarettes we can in some sense postpone or even negate that which, in Christian terms, for example, might be deemed to be our ultimate destiny. A theist might be inclined to hold, indeed, that when it comes to questions of our rights, these are God-given rather than inherent possessions and so life should be viewed, rather, ‘in the transcendent context of God-givenness’ (Gill 2006: 431). Against this, Stanford makes the critical observation that ‘even among the rituals of a Christian funeral, we refrain from pressing our noses against the smell of our own physical corruption, from seeing, touching or holding a dead body’ and that we ‘rely on undertakers and hospices to maintain a cordon around the unpalatable reality and save our most flamboyant grieving for those we know only through the media and therefore can’t touch’ (Stanford 2002: 22), the death of Princess Diana being an obvious case in point.

The argument being adduced here is that this is a society that attempts to evade death – by, as Paul Fiddes puts it, ‘shutting it away in elaborate funeral arrangements, by not allowing space to grieve’, and ‘by pretending aging does not happen through the use of cosmetics and surgery’ (Fiddes 2000: 12). We see traces of this in TV and film. In Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her (Robert Zemeckis, 1992), a deft satire about the extremes people will go to in order to defy the ageing process, Meryl Streep’s character, a former Broadway and Hollywood siren, discovers immortality through imbibing the elixir of eternal youth. This predilection towards staying young and remaining impervious to decay has also been something of an obsession on British television, with programmes such as Channel 4’s 10 Years Younger, in which, in the words of the show’s web site, ‘two women go head to head each week with one goal – to look younger’ (<www.channel4.com/programmes/10-years-younger>), regularly showing in prime time. At the time of writing, a quick perusal at some contemporary news stories finds heated debates in the British press concerning whether female talent show judges are too old at 66 or women newsreaders at 57. Indeed, one headline on the Guardian web site in July 2009 read ‘Strictly ageism? Row as Arlene Phillips, 66, is axed for a 30-year-old’ (Holmwood 2009: <www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/17/arlene-phillips-strictly-come-dancing>), while in 2008, British newscaster Selina Scott sued TV channel Five for age discrimination (BBC News 2008 [b]: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7764644.stm>), a comment echoed in 2006 by outgoing veteran newsreader Anna Ford who believed that, had she remained at the BBC, she would have been sidelined because of her age (BBC News 2006: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4892178.stm>). In another topical story, a former contestant, Niki Evans, on the British TV talent programme The X Factor was quoted in The Scotsman in September 2009 as saying that artists over the age of 25, who are placed in a separate category to their boy, girl and band counterparts under that age, are at a competitive disadvantage due to ageism: ‘I will eat my hat if an over-25 woman ever wins The X Factor’ (The Scotsman 2009: <http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment/XFactor-judges-accused-of-ageism.5667957.jp>). These controversies are, it must be said, as much about alleged sexism as ageism, but they do provide some ballast to the view that old age and death are somewhat out of kilter with what modern society, or at least the media, considers acceptable.

Nor is this predilection unique to Britain or America. In Germany, as the Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann attests, the number of so-called ‘anonymous burials’ has risen, and mourners have no public status anymore. In his words, ‘In the great cities, the districts where people live and the cemeteries where the dead lie are now far apart, and families no longer live together in a single place, so the graves can neither be visited nor cared for’ (Moltmann 2000: 254). Likewise, when it comes to pastoral care and counselling, Moltmann bemoans the fact that ‘we ask less about what happens to the dead than about what is going to happen to the living after their loss’ (Moltmann 2000: 254). This is all in marked contrast, according to Moltmann, with what happened in the past, both in the old village communities of Europe and in traditional societies of Africa and Asia, where there existed a cult of one’s dead ancestors. As in the supernatural romance The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1947), where the ghost of a middle-aged, rambunctious sea captain, played by Rex Harrison, befriends a young widow and intervenes, from beyond the grave, to save and protect her from embarking upon a doomed affair with an alreadymarried man, so Moltmann has in mind the way in which the dead were believed by the living to be spiritually present. Rex Harrison’s character, Captain Daniel Gregg, may not have been a relative of Gene Tierney’s headstrong widow, Lucy Muir, in Mankiewicz’s film. Rather, he is merely a previous occupant of the Cornish coastal home, Gull Cottage, she has bought in order to escape from her unhappy past. But, Moltmann’s illustration of how ancestors could ‘torment their descendants through their unrest, or bless them through their peace’ (Moltmann 2000: 253), and in which if the dead do not receive justice then they find no peace and, in turn, do not allow their descendants to live in peace, is mirrored in the events of this film. For, Gregg’s ghost goes to extreme lengths to disrupt and re-arrange the seemingly serene new life that Lucy has found for herself until she is literally badgered and cajoled into seeing through the unscrupulous advances made by the rakish Miles Fairley (George Sanders). By the end of the film, so ‘inexorably, eternally joined’ are the deceased sea captain and the widow that ‘When Lucy dies, the captain dies as well’, since ‘Lucy is the catalyst that brings the captain into existence and she alone fosters his immortality’ (Kovacs 1999: 49). Kovacs’ claim that ‘With or without Lucy, the wonderful irascible ghost of Daniel Gregg is, in mid-20th century, the last of his kind’ (Kovacs 1999: 49), is a very pertinent observation, squaring as it does with Moltmann’s claim that, unlike in the past, in modern societies ‘the dead no longer have influence on our lives in the same way – rather, the living have ascendancy over the dead’ (Moltmann 2000: 253).

Even the constant representation of death in television news and on film somehow manages to evade its real impact. This is a point made by Fiddes, for whom ‘Death has been packaged as virtual reality, as a media event’ (Fiddes 2000: 13). The thinking, here, is that even though we are ‘a society that views more simulated deaths on television in a few days than most of our ancestors confronted real deaths in a lifetime’ (Anderson 1986: 20), this is not the same as saying that we are able ‘to face the fact of death’ (Fiddes 2000: 12) and thereby confront and address the possibility of our own demise. There is a strong Heideggerean existentialist ballast to all of this, in that, for Heidegger, unless one is able to transcend the limitations and constraints of our being – which, as it stands, is caught up in illusory and fragmentary affairs – then there will be no deliverance from what presently amounts to an inauthentic existence (see e.g. Heidegger 1962: 277). Heidegger thought that an authentic relationship to death was required, in which we accept the fact that ‘the very nature of our existence is characterized by death’ (Edgar 1996: 160), at the moment of which ‘all the worldly projects that have sustained us, and given meaning and purpose to our existence, crumble to nothing’ (Edgar 1996: 159–60). It is only, then, by ‘meditating on such limit-situations in life that we can be awakened to decision, to freedom, and, hence, to authentic existence’ (Livingston 1971: 350), or else we run the risk of remaining transfixed and incapacitated in transitory and inauthentic concerns, together with the concomitant inclination ‘to cling to them as secure indicators of what we really are’ (Richardson 1991: 195).

So, although, in the modern day, we are only too familiar with the phenomenon of death through the media this does not mean that death has been squarely faced. In Hick’s words, ‘Children as well as adults see men being shot and otherwise deprived of life very frequently on films and TV’ (Hick 1976: 86) – to the point, indeed, that according to a 1971 report from a meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics by the time a child in America is 14 he or she can be expected to have seen on average the deaths on television of 18,000 people. But, to quote Hick, ‘those 18,000 deaths on the screen simply trivialize death and make it unreal to the viewer’, managing to ‘turn the fact of death into part of the magic world of the screen which is unconsciously bracketed as unreal’ (Hick 1976: 87). Anderson similarly adds that ‘these same children will live, on average, for the next 40 years without experiencing the death or loss of an immediate family member’, and that even at such a time ‘they will be shielded from the death so that the living will disappear instantly, almost like the sudden departure of a character in a television drama’ (Anderson 1986: 20). The fact that, when we do see death on the TV screen, it tends to take the form of those who have been killed in war or in some natural disaster only reinforces the point that, though it makes death visible, what we are seeing is ‘death in exceptional forms’, which is not the end that ‘the ordinary person may expect’ (Hick 1976: 87) to happen in their own life. This is all redolent of Heidegger’s talk of how authenticity requires the stripping away of all the cosy security of that which we take for granted in our everyday life where death remains a distant threat in a secure and homely world (see Edgar 1996: 158). Otherwise, all we are really doing is evading confrontation with the world as it really is – namely, ‘characterized by mortality and transience’ (Edgar 1996: 160) – and failing to accord the fact of our deaths ‘the most profound reflection’, with the concomitant ‘stripping away of every taken-for-granted presupposition of worth or value that I might have used to justify my existence’ (Edgar 1996: 160).

Hence, notwithstanding the concern expressed by conservative commentator Michael Medved that every night on prime time American television the four major networks (Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC) feature an average of 350 characters, of whom seven will be murdered (see Deacy & Ortiz 2008: 129), the influence upon us of the mass media can actually inoculate and estrange us from taking death seriously. For the New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann, moreover, the influence of the mass media, together with the monotony of everyday living and our passion for material things, have succeeded in alienating us from our true selves and have caused us to lose ourselves to the variety of outside pressures that try to deny our individuality and freedom. In Bultmann’s words, ‘Man exists in a permanent tension between the past and the future’ and is confronted with one of two choices – ‘Either he must immerse himself in the concrete world of nature, and thus inevitably lose his individuality, or he must abandon all security and commit himself unreservedly to the future, and thus alone achieve his authentic Being’ (Bultmann 1972 [a]: 24–25). As things stand, in other words, we remain in bondage to death, and it is only when we face the reality of death (which he saw in terms of our creatureliness and mortality), as well as the nothingness of human existence, that we can more properly appreciate ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• HalfTitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Mapping the afterlife in theology, eschatology and film
• 2. Resurrection or immortality?: the body and the soul in theology and film
• 3. Near-death experiences and mind-dependent worlds in theology and film
• 4. Towards a cinematic realised eschatology: the afterlife as now
• 5. Heaven and the New Jerusalem as a place on earth: case studies of Working Girl and The Shawshank Redemption
• 6. Punishment or rehabilitation?: competing perspectives on hell in theology and film
• 7. Conclusion: using film to revisit eschatology
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index