Film and Redemption

From Brokenness to Wholeness

David Rankin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032159287
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000613285
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book explores the representation of the idea or theme of redemption in contemporary, popular film. The discussion focuses primarily on the work of three directors – Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and Kore-eda Hirokazu – but also considers a few films from other directorial hands. David Rankin divides the notion of personal redemption into transactional and transformational aspects, differentiating between redemption, understood as that which is external to the person but impacting on their being and environment, and that which is internal to the person. Redemption is viewed broadly as a journey from brokenness to wholeness, from imprisonment to release, or from some form of slavery to freedom. Both secular and religious (especially Christian) understandings of the notion are discussed, and consideration is given to how the former might inform the latter.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003248293-1

The primary purpose of this book is to explore how the notion of redemption – understood, originally and primarily, as a commercial and transactional process and not as a moral or religious one – is represented in films from a number of sources, both English language and world cinema; and then, and only then, to see how such a notion variously represented in film might inform or influence its representation in a religious (primarily but not exclusively Christian) context. Patrick Sherry comments that one ‘may on occasion learn more about redemption from a novel than from a theological treatise’.¹ While he says only a little about films, in comparison to his lengthy treatments of various novels; he would, I might suggest, be inclined to say something similar about a film. He suggests, for example, that ‘many films that do not set out to be overly religious often draw on religious themes’ and includes the film Taxi Driver – discussed in this book – in those which he believes do so.² He does, however, also comment that ‘novelists are very different from theologians, and we should not regard their characters as illustrations of theories!’³

One thing has often concerned and disappointed me about much writing in the field of religion and film. This has been the extent to which some (but not all, of course) scholars involved have assumed that the theme or notion under consideration will be primarily understood or defined by its particular religious (read primarily Christian) meaning; that the films under review should then be read or commented upon, or even rated as of particular value, by the extent to which they correspond with such religious meaning or meanings.⁴ The treatment of the theme of redemption as found in contemporary cinema is no exception to this tendency. This is, so the argument seems to go, to consider what salvation or honour or shame or redemption might mean in classic, Christian thought⁵ and, starting at this point, to see how the film under consideration measures up to, or is consistent with, such meaning or meanings. With respect to the question of how the cinematic world addresses the question of redemption, for example, the scholar will often begin with a definition of sorts for religiously understood redemption, including often the need for a redeemer figure, as if this exhausts all the possible meanings for the notion of redemption, and of redeemer, and then sees to what extent the film under review offers a take on, or shows the influence of this particular religious representation.⁶

It is the case, however, that the notion of redemption at its core is primarily non-religious in background and meaning – it is an essentially commercial or transactional term, which suggests the notion of something being ‘bought back’ or ‘redeemed’ (from the Latin root redimere [to buy back, to repurchase, to redeem as with points in a contemporary setting on a store card]) – and therefore that religious (mainly Judaeo-Christian) notions of redemption are simply variants on this basic, uncomplicated and foundational meaning, which are themselves merely informed by the context of the religious story. Religious (read here Judaeo-Christian for the most part) redemption, therefore, is then but one application of an originally non-religious notion. Redemption, therefore, as a journey from brokenness to wholeness, from imprisonment to release, from slavery to freedom – or, in its most basic sense, a purchasing back of something previously owned or possessed – is not at all essentially religious, or even moral, except in the broadest possible sense. It is, again, originally transactional in meaning – relating originally to the notion of the conducting of business, especially of buying or selling, or socially of an exchange or interaction between people – at its heart. Thus, in my view, it would be preferable if within a religion and film context one might start with how a film understood broadly as ‘text’ (verbal, sonal, auditory and visual) might represent a notion of redemption, the redemption of an individual, a community, a nation, the world community, the planet itself – understood as a primarily and originally transactional matter – and then, and only then, look at what correspondence this or these might have with particular religious representations of the notion. One of the things which we will also consider is the matter of redemption occurring or happening in community: either within a community of relationships or through, or by means of, a community of relationships, or both; and also, where it is a relationship, once lost or broken, which is itself restored or redeemed. In this way we will look at the idea that authentic redemption is, or can be, relational.

We will now look at some of the scholarly writing in the religion and film field, particularly that around the theme of redemption, much of which, to be fair, does recognise the dangers I have indicated above, and often, but not always, seeks somehow to address the issue. We will look first at scholarly work on film and religion in general – and do so chronologically to give some sense of how the religion and film field has developed, over the past three decades at least – before moving to the particular matter of representations of the theme or notion of redemption in film, with particular attention to the work of Christopher Deacy and Clive Marsh. I begin this, too, by declaring that I am a person of faith whose upbringing and learning from early in my life carried a particular Christian take on the notion of redemption and the human person.

Literature Survey

In his introduction to a collection of conference papers which he edited⁷ in 1997, John R. May comments that ‘another significant change is noted in the last decade and a half (thus the 1980s and the early 1990s), in which efforts have been made to discern the theological or religious implications of films that do not deal explicitly with religious issues, events, or even symbols’.⁸ Two of the themes explored in contemporary films, he says, are redemption and damnation.⁹ ‘Even the presentation of alienation, isolation, or fragmentation as reflections of human experience’, he says, ‘would seem to be a fertile ground for the initiation of theological discussion, if not deepened religious consciousness’.¹⁰ Such an observation would, of course, be less necessary to make as we move into the third decade of the 21st century, but no less important for us as we explore the onward trajectory of the development and growth of the film and religion field.¹¹ May then suggests that

some rightly insist that in the final analysis the perception of the viewer – a reader response process where readers/viewers actively construct as much as they seem to passively consume – is the principal factor in discerning whether films have religious significance or not.¹²

The matter of reader(viewer) response is a critical one. The notion that the meaning of a film lies not solely in the (singular or collective) intention/s of a scriptwriter, a producer, a director, an editor, or others involved in the production of a cinematic product – the creator or creators, that is – but may involve or include, even substantially if not solely, its reception by a viewer or critic is established somewhat powerfully in the minds of many; for some it is a given which does not bear challenge. I have to say that I am not myself fully convinced of this. To say that the meaning of a film – or of any artistic product – may lie as much, if not even more so, in the reception or reading of it, of or by a viewer, as in the intention of its creator or creators is problematic at best for me. To say that I might find the particular meaning of an artistic product, independent of the intention, explicit or implicit, of that of the creator or creators of that product, is perhaps potentially to say that such a product can have whatever meaning a reader or viewer might attribute to it. I might not here do the notion of reader (viewer) response full justice, but this is often how I see it applied.

Ambrose Eiche...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Redemption in Christian Thought
• 3. ‘I’m not like that anymore’: Redemption in Clint Eastwood’s films
• 4. ‘Pay up’: Redemption in Scorsese films
• 5. ‘Why did my life end up like this?’: Redemption in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s films
• 6. ‘I coulda been somebody’: Redemption in other films (individual directors)
• 7. Conclusions
• Index