|
It’s a strange phenomenon: Most Christian
communities become enthusiastic about movies only when blatant,
religion-related films arrive. And yet, on any given week, the big
screens are filled with stories that reflect spiritual truths, offer
glimmers of God’s glory, champion justice, portray the wages of sin, and
appeal to our desire for a savior.
Why is it that so many believers celebrate only
films that could be described as “tools for evangelism” rather than
those ever-present films that raise important questions and reflect the
world’s brokenness, needs, and desire for beauty, justice, hope, and
healing? What do they mean when they say they want more “Christian
movies”? The category “Christian movie” is, after all, a misleading
label, because it implies that other movies fail to reflect anything
meaningful about God. It also implies that “Christian movies” are in
some way free of the flaws and weaknesses of “secular movies,” when, in
fact, they are often characterized by mediocrity, sentimentality, and
propagandism.
More and more Christian moviegoers are discovering
on their own, and with the help of Web sites like this one and those
featured weekly in the Film Forum column, that the cinema is a place
full of provocation to contemplation and dialogue about spiritual
matters. Within that dialogue Christians have many opportunities to talk
about the gospel with other moviegoers. Moreover, they have opportunity
to encounter greater visions of the truth themselves. After all,
creation never ceases to “pour forth speech,” even when non-Christians
capture it on film.
Perhaps you are one of those moviegoers interested
in seeing more than just those occasional films that make headlines in
popular Christian publications. Perhaps you want to go beyond the
limited menu of “Christian cinema” like Hangman’s Curse and the
Left Behind films, and the new wave of contemporary mainstream
cinema that involves Christian terms directly (The Passion of the
Christ, Woman Thou Art Loosed, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and the
much-anticipated Narnia films).
If you want to explore and wrestle with spiritual
issues and questions in the wide world of international filmmaking, in
works contemporary or classic, narrative or documentary, traditional or
experimental—look no further than the annually revised list of 100
spiritually significant films published at
Arts & Faith
The community at Arts & Faith is made up of a wide
variety of Christians, including many who write about cinema on Web
sites like Crosswalk, Christian Spotlight on the Movies, Decent Films,
and Looking Closer, or in publications such as Christianity Today,
Books and Culture, Paste, Relevant, The Catholic Exchange, and
mainstream newspapers. (CT Movies’ Peter T. Chattaway and Ron Reed are
regulars there, for example.) The board also welcomes seekers who are
curious about spirituality in film. But the conversation doesn’t stop
there. It has grown over time to explore politics, music, visual arts,
literature…even sports!
The conversations of this enthusiastic community
have been going on for years, overseen and moderated by Alan Thomas, who
also maintains the board’s structure, and each year the number of
participants and “lurkers” grows. These reviews, debates, and
explorations culminate when members volunteer to participate in a vote—a
vote determining the community’s favorite films that explore
transcendent spiritual themes.
Don’t be surprised if the list seems intimidating.
It includes a few popular, recognizable titles, but it also demonstrates
that these voters are true cinephiles, eagerly exploring the entire
territory of filmmaking. They watch films repeatedly, comparing and
contrasting the filmmakers’ techniques, vision, perspective, failures,
and accomplishments.
The result is a list that others can use as a map
to significant landmarks in the vast country of cinematic expression.
Some titles are inspiring and beautiful, others are troubling paths into
the underworld of sin and darkness. But all of them challenge us to
consider new perspectives on timeless truths. All of them ask us to
wrestle with the artists’ perspectives and examine their ideas about
spirituality. Many echo, and some challenge, Christian ideas. These are
in no way the Top 100 “Christian films.” Better to say they are films
that Christians, attending to their individual consciences and
proceeding with caution and discernment, would do well to encounter,
meditate upon, and discuss.
In a prime example of the list’s unconventional
integrity, this year’s Top 100 finds a film by the Dardennes Brothers at
the top: Rosetta, an award-winning international favorite, is
relatively unknown to the common American moviegoer. Other films by the
Dardennes, The Son and La Promesse, show up on the list as
well. All three are characterized by striking realism and a focus on
action rather than dialogue, mere representation rather than
storytelling that interprets the events for you. They’ll challenge you
to consider choices and consequences. They’re not “feel-good” films by
any means, but they nourish those who are willing to pay attention and
think them through.
At
The Matthews House Project, Michael Leary writes, “I like to think
of the list as a sort of back door to faith, your own private entrance
to the houses of the holy. … It is a monument to a history of people
speaking a different language about eternal concepts, testing this new
grammar of light, texture, and rhythm as it contacts the contours of
faith and reality. The list honors artists in tune with the human
condition, putting human faces on high-concept theological realities.
And most of these films do more than simply describe these realities;
they rehearse them, reproduce them, and enable us to inhabit them. These
films are catalysts, mirrors, and antidotes.”
The wide variety of selection on the list begs the
question: What do these voters consider “a spiritually significant
film”?
I invited voters to offer their definitions of the
list’s category. I thus learned, from many and varying answers, that “a
spiritually significant film”
- “plugs one into the world of the spirit.”
- “talks about spiritual issues.”
- “leads me to think about spiritual matters, for
example, the nature of God and His relationship to creation, and the
nature of Man and how he relates to the rest of creation and to God.”
- “has reached a wide audience and has impacted
their knowledge of and appreciation for the things of God, for good or
for ill. For example, the Star Wars films helped define some of
the terminology that people have to use when talking about spiritual
things.”
- “must meet two requirements. It must be true and
it must be excellent.”
- “raises the questions of life in a way that
respectfully confronts our prejudices and beliefs. When such a film
deals with religious issues it does so with sensitivity and insight.
When it is not overtly religious, it is spiritually informed and
reveals the universal human condition.”’
- “often rise above the din of commercial cinema
[and], point to truths about the human experience.”
A film student responded that spiritually
significant films are “not the ones which have changed my opinions about
what a movie can or should be, but the ones which have most strongly
influenced what I think my life can or should be.
Arts and Faith regular Dan Buck argues, “The lack
of formal definition of a ‘spiritually significant film’ is one of the
best attributes of the process. Any attempt to put parameters on those
terms probably would've taken the bite out of the list. We'd lose films
that approach the transcendent through backdoors and hidden alleys.”
Buck is thrilled with this year’s list. “What was
true of last year's list and is even truer of this year's list. The list
has so many films that I've not seen. But I trust the list, because the
films I DO recognize are stellar. This opens up a year of potentially
life-changing movie moments for me. That's exhilarating.”
But Matt Page, voting from the UK, says, “I was
disappointed that the list was so heavily slanted away from what the
average person on the street would choose to watch. The 2004 list had
enough popular films on it to make the list of interest to normal
people, which would draw them in to the lusher pastures beyond. I feel
the current list will put similar people off this time who will see it
as irrelevant to them.” Page was sorry to see Field of Dreams, Waking
Life, and The Matrix come up short.
Now, it’s your turn. Which profound and challenging
works of art will you choose to explore this year? You’re welcome, of
course, to
join the conversation.
Alan Thomas plans to publish supplements to the
list that will include both popular and obscure titles. And, looking
over the list, he concludes, “I admittedly approach the 2005 list with a
bit of hesitation, because it's going to push me out of my comfort with
the 2004 list I had grown to know… and almost to conquer.”
You can peruse the list
here. |
