The Bloomsbury Companion to Religion and Film

William L. Blizek

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781441107961
• eBook ISBN: 9781441138781
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

Originally published as the The Continuum Companion to Religion and Film, this Companion offers the definitive guide to study in this growing area. Now available in paperback, the Bloomsbury Companion to Religion and Film covers all the most pressing and important themes and categories in the field - areas that have continued to attract interest historically as well as topics that have emerged more recently as active areas of research. Twenty-nine specifically commissioned essays from a team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and provide a map of this evolving research area. Featuring chapters on methodology, religions of the world, and popular religious themes, as well as an extensive bibliography and filmography, this is the essential tool for anyone with an interest in the intersection between religion and film.

Part I

The Study of Religion and Film

1

Religion and the Movies

William L. Blizek

There are different kinds of movies in which religion and film scholars may be interested, from Hollywood blockbusters to foreign films, from documentaries to shorts. Religion and religious themes can be found in different kinds of movies and this fact is one reason for the wide interest in religion and film studies. The following chapter provides some categories of films that include religion or religious themes.

1. The first category is the feature length narrative film. Feature length films run approximately from one and one half to two and one half hours, although some may run longer. This distinguishes them from short films that usually run less than one hour. Narrative films are those that tell a story that is open to interpretation. This distinguishes them from documentary films which purport to provide factual information about the world outside of the film itself. Feature length narrative films are the movies with which most people are familiar, the movies showing at the local Cineplex.

A. Within the category of feature length narrative film, however, there are subcategories that can be identified, one of which is the Hollywood block-buster.¹ The Hollywood blockbuster is a movie, usually made by a Hollywood studio, that makes a great deal of money compared to the average film. A recent example would be The Matrix (1999) and its sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (15 May 2003) and Matrix Revolutions (5 November 2003). The Matrix might be considered a secular movie in which religious symbolism or content is discovered. The Passion of the Christ (2004), however, is an example of a blockbuster film that would be considered a religious film. An earlier example of a Hollywood blockbuster might be the Oscar winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). Finding religion in these very popular movies has increased significantly the popularity of religion and film studies.

The Matrix is the story of Thomas Anderson, a young man who discovers that there are in fact two worlds, a false world in which most people live and a real world in which the truth is to be found. Anderson is given the name, ‘Neo’, often interpreted as ‘The One’. He is seen as the Christ on the basis of his name and since he plays the role of a saviour of others. The Matrix is often interpreted as a story of orthodox Christianity – Neo comes to the world of the Matrix from another world and offers salvation to those who will follow him at considerable risk to himself.² But the story also can be seen as representing Gnostic, rather than orthodox, Christianity. For Gnostic Christianity, there is one supreme God, but also a malformed deity who breathes the divine spark into human beings. The malformed deity in The Matrix is represented by Artificial Intelligence (AI) – the creator of the matrix – and the redeemer is represented by Neo. The Matrix is a very popular movie in which people have found both orthodox and Gnostic Christian ideas.

There may be more to The Matrix from a religious perspective, however. Some people have found important elements of Buddhism in The Matrix. For Buddhists, human beings are trapped in a cycle of birth, death and rebirth, a cycle from which one can escape only through enlightenment. Enlightenment is the discovery of another plane of existence without desire and suffering. In The Matrix, there are two planes of existence. One is the world in which human beings are trapped and in which they suffer – the matrix. The other plane of existence, discovered by Neo, is the real world, a world that is similar to the Buddhist state of enlightenment and in which people no longer suffer. Neo reaches the stage of enlightenment and then returns to the matrix to help others recognize their condition.³

In addition to Christian and Buddhist themes in The Matrix, Julien Fielding finds elements of Hinduism in The Matrix. Neo may have more in common, she claims, with the Hindu god, Vishnu, than with either Jesus or Buddha. In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo participates in sexual activity with Trinity, something that cannot be accounted for by the chaste Jesus or Buddha. Neo has a partner in Trinity, something that neither Jesus nor Buddha had, but something that Vishnu does have in his wife, Lakshmi. Trinity is a strong and powerful woman and Hinduism is populated by strong and powerful female deities. Hinduism, then, provides an alternative to Christianity and Buddhism for understanding The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded.⁴

Another blockbuster, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is the story of a petty criminal, R. P. McMurphy, who is sent from prison to a mental institution for evaluation. While in the mental institution, McMurphy changes the lives of the other inmates. He shows them how they might live outside of the institution without fear by challenging the authority of the institution represented by the evil Nurse Ratched. In freeing the other inmates, however, McMurphy has to pay a price. He is betrayed by Billy Bibbit, one of the inmates he has helped the most. He then is crucified symbolically by means of a frontal lobotomy. He is resurrected, again symbolically, as the Big Chief escapes the asylum and ‘takes McMurphy with him’. A movie that seems to be the story of a criminal treated badly by the mental health system turns out to be the story of Jesus.⁵

The very significant interest in the study of religion and film is, at least in part, a result of people finding religion in popular films. Finding religion in popular movies is something that many people enjoy. It simply is fun to discover that a popular movie that seems to have nothing to do with religion may include elements that can be given a religious interpretation. Some other movies that were very popular and that can be given religious interpretations include Superman (1978); Apocalypse Now (1979); Star Wars (1977) and its sequels/prequels; Platoon (1986) and Amadeus (1984).

The movies identified above are movies that usually would be identified as secular, non-religious movies. But there are some blockbuster hits that would count as religious films. These are feature length narrative films, some of which are based on Biblical stories. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is probably the most famous of these movies. The Passion of the Christ became one of the largest grossing films of all time. It is for the most part a retelling of the passion story on the big screen. Some of the controversy that surrounded the movie was similar to the controversy that surrounds other dramatic presentations of the passion, primarily the portrayal of Jews as Christ killers. But also the movie was promoted as the most accurate recounting of the Gospels ever and it soon was discovered that parts of the movie are not to be found in any of the Gospels.

Another famous religious blockbuster is Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. This tells the story of Moses leading his people out of the land of Egypt and into the Promised Land. It was a large-scale spectacle movie of the sort for which DeMille became famous. The first version was released in 1923 and it was one of the most successful movies of the silent era. DeMille remade the movie and released the second version in 1956. This is the version with which most people are familiar. It stars Charlton Heston as Moses and continues to be shown on various television stations on an annual basis. Other religious blockbusters include King of Kings (1927), The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Sampson and Delilah (1949), all by Cecil B. DeMille; as well as Going My Way (1944); The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945); Ben-Hur (1959); Spartacus (1960); The Exorcist (1973) and The Da Vinci Code (2006).

B. Other feature length narrative films are those that never had the box office success of a blockbuster. Some of these non-blockbusters are very good films and many of them are of special interest to religion and film scholars. They vary greatly in topic or approach to religion. The Mission (1986), Romero (1989) and Priest (1994) all provide a critique of the Catholic Church. Movies in which Buddhism plays a significant role include Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East (1989), Little Buddha (1993) and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). Devi (1960), Kanchana Sita (1976) and Lajja (2001) are movies that focus upon India and Hinduism, as are the movies of the Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998) and Water (2005). Movies related to Judaism and Jewish identity include The Jazz Singer (1927), Gentleman’s Agreement (1948), Liberty Heights (1999) and Trembling Before G-d (2001). Movies related to Islam include My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), My Son the Fanatic (1997) and Towelhead (2008). Movies related to indigenous religions include Chris Eyre’s Smoke Signals (1998), Edge of America (2003) and Imprint (2007), as well as Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves (1990) and Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006). Movies that relate to spirituality rather than religion itself include Ulee’s Gold (1997), Good Will Hunting (1997) and Billy Elliot (2000). Jesus movies include The Gospel of John (2003), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Jesus of Montreal (1989) and The Life of Brian (1979). Holocaust movies include Europa Europa (1990), The Grey Zone (2001), Punch Me in the Stomach (1997) and, of course, Schindler’s List (1993).

Movies with redemption as a theme include The Fisher King (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Never Die Alone (2004). The afterlife appears in such movies as Meet Joe Black (1998) and its predecessor, Death Takes a Holiday (1934); What Dreams May Come (1998) and After Life (1998). Images of God in the movies can be found in The Seventh Seal (1957); All That Jazz (1979); Oh God! (1977) and Dogma (1999). Saviour figures can be found in such movies as Pale Rider (1985), Donnie Darko (2001) and Iron Man (2008). Karma plays a role in Groundhog Day (1993), Twister (1996) and Devdas (2002). The end of days is the focus of such movies as The Rapture (1991), Armageddon (1998) and An Inconvenient Truth (2006). The Devil or Satan makes an appearance on screen in such films as Bedazzled (1967 and 2000), The Devil’s Advocate (1997) and The Ninth Gate (1999). Evil plays a central role in such movies as Se7en (1996), The Killing Fields (1984), Crash (2004) and Dirty Pretty Things (2002).⁶

C. Many foreign films are also considered feature length narrative films. There are a number of European films that have become popular in religion and film. One such film is The Gospel According to St. Matthew, by Italian director, Pier Paolo Pasolini, which was released in 1964. Since Pasolini was an atheist and a Marxist, the movie is often interpreted as a Marxist allegory in which the story of Jesus is used to provide a Marxist understanding of the world. Pasolini, however, found spiritual elements in the story that come to the screen in a unique way. ‘The Gospel According to Saint Matthew’ in the Bible, with some exceptions, is followed relatively closely, but this means that where there is no dialogue in ‘The Gospel’, there is no dialogue in the movie and the significance of these scenes must be inferred from the images on the screen. This gives the movie an interesting cinematic quality and offers the opportunity for spiritual reflection rather than theological analysis. The Gospel According to St. Matthew is frequently compared to other Jesus movies.⁷

Another European film that has caused some stir in the field of religion and film is Danish director Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996). This is the story of Bess McNeill, a young simple childlike woman living in a repressive and deeply religious community in the North of Scotland. Bess meets and marries a Danish oil-rigger, Jan, to whom she is devoted. The community openly disapproves of her relationship with Jan, an outsider to the community. When Bess finds it difficult to live without Jan, who must spend most of his time at sea on the oil rig, she prays for his return. When Jan does return, however, he has been injured in an accident on the rig. Bess blames herself. When Jan finds that he can no longer engage in sexual activity, for both physical and emotional reasons, he asks Bess to engage in sex with other men and report her activities to him, thereby providing him with some sexual satisfaction. Bess is loathe to do so, but eventually comes to see such sexual activity as the will of God and as a way of healing Jan. She is shunned, of course, by the community. Toward the end of the story, Bess is killed by sailors for whom she performs the sex acts requested by Jan. In an odd twist, at the end of the movie, Jan has been healed and as Bess is buried the bells of the church that have been silent for years begin to ring.⁸

One other example is another Danish film, Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast (1987). Babette comes to a small village on the western coast of Jutland looking for work. She is taken in by two sisters, who are part of a small and dwindling religious community started by their father. Babette does the cooking, cleaning and shopping for the sisters and seems to have some impact on the small religious community, bringing some joy into an otherwise rather desolate existence. Finally, the sisters decide to have a special celebration on the 100th anniversary of their father’s birth and Babette asks if she can prepare the meal for the celebration. Since Babette has won a French lottery she imports all of the elements of the dinner, from plates and glasses to items on the menu, as well as the wine. Much of the movie shows the preparation for the dinner – sometimes identified as the ‘last supper’ – and the serving of the meal. In the end, the religious community is transformed. Old wrongs are forgiven, love is rekindled and a kind of redemption takes place during the dinner.⁹

For additional European movies related to religion, see The Seventh Seal (Swedish, 1957); Proces de Jeanne d’Arc (French, 1962); Bend It Like Beckham (British, 2002); The Passion of Joan of Arc (Danish, 1928); Dancer in the Dark (Danish, 2000); Amen (Greek, 2002); The Ninth Day (German, 2004); A Man For All Seasons (British, 1...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Series
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• The Future of Religion and Film
• Part I: The Study of Religion and Film
• Part II: Religious and Films
• Part III: Religious Themes in Movies
• Part IV: Resources
• Film Index
• Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Notes
• Index