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If everything goes according to plan for director Scott Derrickson, he’ll direct a feature film based on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and we’ll see the war in heaven and the fall in the garden depicted more vividly than any film that has come before.

But he’s apparently not the only one with such ambitions. The Hollywood Reporter says that producer Martin Poll has a similar aim. Who knows? Paradise Lost may follow in the path of Truman Capote, who had two films about him released within a short span of months.

It’s interesting to imagine two directors exploring the challenge of telling a story in which two of the lead characters are naked for a good section of the story. (Reuters reports that Poll’s project already has actors attached to the roles of Adam and Eve.) It’s also poses screenwriters one of the most interesting challenges of literary adaptation ever attempted. Have you read Milton’s epic poem lately? Did it scream “Screenplay!” to you? I’m curious to see if the screenwriters follow the thoughts of literary critics who interpret Milton’s poem as making Satan the hero. I’ve never been persuaded by such theories. Satan is supposed to be seductive and impressive, and I think readers who fall for him in the poem are being seduced. But that’s a debate for another time and place…

Whatever happens, I’m an admirer of Derrickson’s thoughtful screenplay for Wim Wenders’ Land of Plenty (which features Michelle Williams in an underrated performance as a conscientious Christian woman) and his direction of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I can’t wait to see how he’ll take it on. I rather hope he can see his project through without any inconvenience from any kind of parallel project, since he’s been developing it for so long.

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My latest installment in the “Through a Screen Darkly” series is a consideration of two films — Still Life and Up the Yangtze. Read it here.

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• There’s a new Sam Phillips song on the way May 1st.
• David Bazan rocks Seattle Pacific University.
• Robert Shiller discussed Starbucks VIA, Miracle Whip, and economic bubbles, at Seattle Pacific University’s Downtown Business Breakfast.
• “It’s 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?” Bono‘s Easter column in The New York Times
• Two views of the new Jim Jarmusch film, The Limits of Control: Jonathan Rosenbaum’s and Glenn Kenny’s
• Stephen Thomas Erlewine on the new Bob Dylan album

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My friend Robert Deeble wrote to me yesterday encouraging me to go see Leonard Cohen’s current tour at all costs.

Alas, that cost is steep, and I’m pretty much broke.

But there’s good news. Pitchfork is broadcasting the 26-song London show for one week only… and it’s free.

Watch it here.

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The latest Kindlings Muse podcast is up, featuring Dick Staub, Greg Wright, Jennie Spohr, and myself in conversation about:

• Knowing;
• Coraline;
• Sunshine Cleaning;
• Days and Clouds;
• Rachel Getting Married;
• Still Life;
• Silent Light;
• The Robe;
• and
• Jesus of Montreal.

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In the territory of art and culture, there is a lot of turmoil among Christians and conservatives in the Netherlands.

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This interview by Jeffrey Overstreet was originally published in The Crossing in 2000.

Copyright © 2000

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In a recent issue of re:generation, Scott Cairns, author of Figures for the Ghost and Recovered Body, among other highly praised poetry collections, offered an essay on the calling of the artist, titled “It’s Not Just You”. In it, he ventures to describe the plight of artists who perceive their task as communicating a message to the world. “The way I see it,” he writes, “the only thing that will keep any artist going long enough to actually become accomplished is realizing that she is not making art (or should not be making art) to tell the world anything. Instead, she must realize that she makes art in order to find out what she doesn’t know-in part, what she doesn’t know about the world, or about God, or about human relationships, but mostly what she doesn’t know about herself.”

This perspective may well come as a jolt, especially to artists who have grown up in the church trained to preach with their talents. It might even surprise readers of Cairns’ own work, who have found plenty of revelation in his rich contemplative poetry.

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This interview was originally published at Looking Closer in 2006. An abridged version of this feature and interview was previously published at Christianity Today Movies.

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A movie star is sitting on an old couch in the middle of the street in Butte, Montana.

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Woo hoo!

St. Vincent’s new album Actor comes out on May 5, but you can hear it in its entirety at NPR.

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Thanks to Lyle Wallace for the link.

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