World Cinema, Theology, and the Human

Humanity in Deep Focus

Antonio Sison

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781138921887
• eBook ISBN: 9781136334511
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Forging an open-minded but reasoned dialogue between nine acclaimed titles of world cinema, and a range of theological perspectives that touch on the theme of human experience, World Cinema, Theology, and the Human offers fresh portals of insight for the interdisciplinary area of Theology and Film. In Sison's approach, it is the cinematic representation of vivid humanity, not necessarily propositional statements about God and religion, that lays down a bridge to a conversation with theology. Thus, the book's project is to look for the divine presence, written not on tablets of stone, but on "tablets of human hearts" depicted on screen by way of audiovisual language. Seeking to redress the interdiscipline's narrow predilection for Hollywood blockbusters, the book casts its net wider to include a culturally diverse selection of case studies– from festival gems such as Singapore's Be With Me and South Africa's Yesterday, to widely-acclaimed sleeper hits such as Britain's Slumdog Millionaire and New Zealand's Whale Rider. The book will appeal to scholars of theology and religious/cultural studies interested in the Theology/Religion-Film interface, and, because of its commitment to an examination of film qua film, a crossover readership from film studies.

Part I

Creative Humanity

1 Dance of the Humanum

Billy Elliot

(Stephen Daldry/UK, 2000)

I am a dancer. I think the reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living…art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man.¹

The foregoing reflexive piece is borrowed from legendary dancer-choreographer Martha Graham, who is counted as one of the most influential creative forces of the 20th century.² Here, Graham recognizes the quasi-religious dimension within the humanity of the artist made visible in the dance. Interestingly, the quote may have well been the words of Billy Elliot, the eponymous central character of the 2000 British film. Though there is no overt mention of a religious experience in the film, the pure energy and passion emanating from Billy when he dances around, through, and over the harsh realities that surround him open a window to his “inner landscape”; we are allowed a glimpse of his soul. In this opening chapter, our project is to move across the sacred/secular border and reflect upon the artist’s “journey of becoming” as locus theologicus.

When we meet eleven-year-old Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) in the film’s storyline, he is an ordinary kid in the middle of boxing lessons at the local gymnasium. Obviously inept at the combat sport, Billy finds himself more transfixed on the ballet lessons temporarily being held in the premises. Upon the encouragement of the ballet instructor, the artistically frustrated Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters), the boy is drawn to practice with the girls week after week, and opts to spend his 50-pence boxing money on ballet lessons. There is nothing particularly unusual about boys training for ballet except that this is the small British coal-mining town of Everington (fictional) in the northeast of England, not culturally sophisticated London; under no circumstance would ballet be considered a masculine endeavor. Wisely, Billy does not divulge his ballet training to his widowed father, Jackie (Gary Lewis), and his volatile older brother, Tony (Jamie Draven), miners both, who are also union militants in the historic 1983–1984 Thatcher-era strikes. The irate Jackie, having discovered his son’s secret, bans Billy from ballet, but the boy is not dissuaded. Meantime, Mrs. Wilkinson recognizes that Billy is a child prodigy and arranges for an audition at the Royal Ballet School in London. The plan is thwarted, however, when the miners’ strike turns violent, and, before Billy’s eyes, Tony is beaten and arrested. A moment of disclosure happens one bleak Christmas day when Jackie discovers his son dancing with his gay best friend Michael (Stuart Wells). The defiant Billy launches into an inspirited solo dance performance before his father, who realizes for the first time that his son has the makings of an artistic genius. Jackie loses no time in trying to gather resources for Billy’s London audition, self-sacrificially giving himself over to be a “scab,” that is, a turncoat from the miners’ strike, before Tony stops him in an emotional confrontation. Instead, the miners themselves pool their meager resources and raise the money. The outcome of Billy’s audition remains ambiguous until he receives a letter announcing the good news of his acceptance, even as the miners’ strike collapses. The film flashes forward years later to an exhilarating coda, when Billy, now the lead danseur of the modern version of the ballet Swan Lake, leaps to take center stage as Jackie, Tony, and Michael watch in wonderment.

Billy Elliot is stage luminary Stephen Daldry’s debut directorial feature following his stint as artistic director of London’s Royal Court Theatre. The film enjoyed worldwide success and won for its lead actor Jamie Bell the Best Actor prize at the 2001 annual BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards.³ Critical reception for the film was generally favorable; the rich shadings of the characters, the actors’ convincing performances, and the story’s authentic feel, were some of the film’s merits noted in the reviews. One of the film’s salient subplots, breaking through social/gender barriers in pursuit of a dream; and its cinematic idiom, social realism with comedic touches, have a familiar ring in the broad view of cinema, leading critics to draw comparisons with other titles of a similar make. Not a few reviews, including that of the Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert, compared Billy Elliot with Girlfight (Karyn Kusama/USA, 2000), an independent film about an eighteen-year-old female high school student who, against the will of her father, challenges gender convention by training to be a fighter in the male-dominated boxing ring. Critics note that the two films may be seen as mirrors of each other; the latter representing the male inroad to the traditionally feminine domain of ballet, while the former, the female incursion into the hermetic, testosterone-marked sport of boxing. There was also a tendency among critics to compare Billy Elliot with films that tell the story of the underdog who dares to dream dreams that are too audacious for the circumscribed, small-town imagination. One title referenced in the critical reviews is October Sky (Joe Johnston/USA, 1999), the film adaption of NASA engineer Homer Hickam’s autobiographical novel Rocket Boys. The young Hickam’s dream of launching a rocket into space differs from Billy Elliot’s terpsichorean aspirations, but both characters share a similar crusade of challenging the fated destiny of men in their poor mining hometowns, which is to work literally below the ground as coal miners.

While there is unquestionable merit to comparing Billy Elliot with films that problematize either gender issues or the narrowness of provincial thinking, these trajectories under-conceive the center of gravity of Daldry’s film, that is to say, the story of the artist’s quest for his true calling or as we previously indicated, “the artist’s journey of becoming.” Unequivocally, Billy Elliot is the story of the dancer and the dance; to not accord privileged discursive space to the artist’s story that is so integral to the film’s dramatic arc is an oversight indeed. Following the hermeneutical project we had established earlier, our analysis of Billy Elliot represents a departure from the route trodden by the critics. In this regard, I submit that Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel/Denmark, 1987) and Séraphine (Martin Provost/France, 2008), films that trace the artist’s journey toward fuller humanity, offer possibilities for a more coextensive and nuanced interfacing with Billy Elliot. These comparative references will form part of the discussion at subsequent turns.

Apropos, the chapter is organized conceptually as three “dances”: Dance of Defiance, Dance of Willpower, and Dance of Inspired Creativity.

DANCE OF DEFIANCE

When the film begins, we immediately enter into Billy Elliot’s world, where semblances of beauty and creativity are stymied by the many rough edges of life. We see a sprightly Billy jumping up and down in slow motion against a wallpaper backdrop of sunflower prints, but soon afterward, this moment of carefree play cuts immediately to a contrasting scene in which the boy prepares breakfast for his senile grandmother, who, we soon learn, had wandered away. In his haste, Billy drops the eggs he had prepared, spots his grandmother near a road, and escorts her back home. Simultaneously in the background, riot police are alighting from their cars; they are conspicuously armed with shields and truncheons. In the succeeding scene, we are taken to the shared bedroom of Billy and Tony. Just before they go to bed, the cantankerous Tony barks at his younger brother for using his phonograph. This transitions to the next day, when Tony, still despotic and loud, goads his father to hurry and join him in the picket line. While Tony and Jackie address each other in gruff tones, we see close-up shots of Billy practicing a few notes on the piano. Jackie orders the boy to stop playing, to which the boy replies, “Mom would’ve let us.” Visibly agitated, Jackie slams the piano door on Billy and walks out. In a subtle act of defiance, Billy gently lifts the piano door and continues playing, while Jackie re-enters the room to remind him of his 50-pence boxing money on the fridge. As Billy continues playing the same bar of notes, his playing segues to a matching musical score, which we hear while Billy looks up to the family photographs displayed on the piano. The photos include that of his mother, who had recently passed away.

The assemblage of scenes gives an early picture of the harsh dissonance surrounding Billy’s life. Anger is the dominant mode of communication of Jackie and Tony, who are both antagonized and stressed by the labor dispute at the mines and who, on some unacknowledged level, still mourn the loss of a wife and mother, respectively. On the exterior, they are tough, angry men slugging it out in an unforgiving milieu. Jackie’s reminder of Billy’s boxing money is a tacit invitation for Billy to enter this male world of illusory toughness but the boy, quite apparently, does not fit this mold. Being of the sensitive artist-type, Billy’s creative inclinations are bound to suffer in this narrow, hostile world that depletes the air of oxygen so that art and beauty cannot breathe and thrive. The piano, as indicated both by Billy’s words and the visual reference of the family photographs, symbolizes the sorely missed presence of his departed mother, who would have provided the gracious, nurturing space needed for the artist-child to emerge and flourish. But even a symbolic appeal to this space via Billy’s piano playing is rudely suppressed by his angry father. From the outset, it is established that Billy will have to traverse the road less travelled that is the artist’s way, in a world that barricades such a passage. In an ironic, figurative sense, Billy is on strike against this world and the male authority figures in his life are the riot police whose precipitous anger works as truncheons that keep him from crossing the picket line. That said, Billy’s journey as an artist will be an uphill climb and, at the most basic level, this is what constitutes the “dance of defiance.” He has to learn how to dance amid the oppositional forces that arise from the realities of human finitude. Apart from the narrow macho expectations of the adult men around him, Billy also has to face the sobering reality of the miners’ strike, which has caused dire financial strain on his family. Surely, practical judgment would deride artistic endeavors as mere flights of fancy, completely out of touch with the hard facts of real life. Because of the repressive milieu that constantly threatens to clip his wings before he even gets the chance to stretch them, Billy also carries within himself an inarticulate anger. If Billy is going to be a true artist, he must learn to creatively harness that anger by way of his art.

A scene that points toward a creative expression of anger is presented at a later turn in the film when Tony had just been released from jail after an altercation with the police during a strike. In a stroke of indecorous timing, it was also the day that Billy was scheduled to audition for the Royal Ballet School, and a concerned Mrs. Wilkinson had decided to drop by the Elliot house to check on Billy, who had failed to show up at the agreed time. Tony explodes in a fit of anger when he learns about the ballet audition. He grabs Billy, places him atop the dinner table, and humiliates the boy as he orders him to prove that he can dance. Judiciously, Billy refuses to dance under duress; that would be an affront on the freedom and authenticity of his art. As an exchange of angry words fly between Mrs. Wilkinson and Tony, we see intercuts of a deliriously angry Billy performing a stylized tap dance as he struggles against the brick walls of various sections of the tenement buildings, including the outhouse. We then see a frontal, wide-angle shot of Billy tap dancing through a steep road, with the contrasting image of a postcard-perfect blue sea in the background.

Doubtlessly, God and religion do not figure in the film in any express manner, but there are convincing theological resonances, albeit evocative, that can be explored even at this early stage of Billy’s journey as an artist. The divine presence here is not apprehended in an epiphany, as in the burning bush in the story of Moses, or the tongues of fire that descend on the post-resurrection community in the book of Acts; neither is it heard in exegetic pronouncements from the characters. Rather, an indirect, allusive appeal to the divine presence arises within the dialectical space of human finitude portrayed in the film. This indirect appeal to the divine, precisely, within the artist’s experience of disappointment, pain, and contingency, meaningfully dovetails with a “negative theology” or what is referred to in the Greek Orthodox tradition as apophasis (literally, “denial of speech”), a paradoxical way of speaking about God in the darkness of “unknowing,” in contradistinction to kataphasis (“affirmation”), which refers to a positive, doxological acknowledgment of God. Simply put, apophatic theology is “the attempt to say what God is by saying what God is not.”⁴ In Billy Elliot’s dance of defiance, he is staging a strike against the external forces around him that hinder his God-given right to realize his full potential as an artist, indeed, as a human being. Through the medium of his own body, which is dancing to a drumbeat different from that of the groupthink, Billy refuses to accord god-like status to these antagonistic forces. He will not let their will be done.

Billy’s dance of defiance grafts onto Thomas Franklin O’Meara’s vivid description of the aesthetic sense of apophasis as a kind of “chiaroscuro,” which, in its original denotation in the art form of painting, refers to the disposition of light and shadow:

There is a negative aesthetic: pain and limitation. The scriptural theme of life and death is also an artistic truth. The ultimate critique of everything is suffering, and each suffering is ultimately the messenger of death. Contradiction and negation are presence and glory. Every human life, not just Jesus Christ’s, like every art-work, has the quality of chiaroscuro: the beautiful is glimpsed with the sharp lines of finitude, the limits of negation, and the shadows of apophasis.⁵

The particular scene when an angry Billy dances within the claustrophobic walls of a brick outhouse may be seen as an interpretive rendering of apophasis as cinematic chiaroscuro. The outhouse resembles a prison designed for solitary confinement, and the only fixture present in the enclosure is a toilet bowl. In this lowly space of the tenement where beauty is least likely to exist—a symbolic representation of whatever impedes Billy from emerging as a true artist—he is dancing the dance of defiance. Billy Elliot’s dance of defiance against the “anti-art” is the chiaroscuro embodied in the artist’s arduous journey of becoming; there, sublimated in the light and shadow of the dance, is the divine presence, thus far, apophatically accessible. It is, in a sense, God without affixing his/her signature.

DANCE OF WILLPOWER

Another dance, which I designate as the “dance of willpower,” marks Billy Elliot’s journey as an artist. I take willpower here to mean the discipline, perseverance, and strength of character the incipient artist needs to pursue his or her dream. For Billy, this means the hours he spends surreptitiously practicing the techniques of ballet, whether in his weekly classes with Mrs. Wilkinson, or on his own. It is not an easy start for Billy. In the first two scenes in which we see him practicing with the girls in ballet class, he is a fish out of water, awkward in his feeble attempts to get into the rhythm of the exercises and choreography. In another scene, Billy steals a ballet manual from the public library and supp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I. Creative Humanity
• PART II. Reconciling Humanity
• PART III. Liberating Humanity
• PART IV. Inclusive Humanity
• Notes
• Filmography
• Bibliography
• Index