I Dreamed I Interviewed Flannery O'Connor
I love doing interviews with thoughtful artists. It's one of the greatest thrills of my work. I've had the privilege of interviewing writers like Scott Cairns and Dana Gioia, musicians like Linford Detweiler and Don and Karen Peris, and filmmakers like Patrice Leconte, Spike Jonze, Kevin Smith, and Peter Jackson. Sometimes, it's frustrating to see how many of my dream interviews are "out of reach"... like Flannery O'Connor.
So I decided to unearth some of the most wonderful things O'Connor ever said... and imagine how a conversation with her today might go.
Please understand: This is an IMAGINARY INTERVIEW... which I offer with my tongue firmly in my cheek.
O’Connor’s “responses” were culled from online archives of O’Connor quotes from the following sources.
1 - Quoted on various Web sites (like Little Blue Light), credited to O'Connor's lectures and essays
2 - Mystery and Manners
3 - The Habit of Being
4 - The Nature and Aim of Fiction
5 - quoted by Robert Cole in Flannery O’Connor’s South 6 - From one of numerous letters to Betty Hester (November 22 1958).
* * * *
Q: Is there a recurring theme in your stories?
A: “All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.” - 5
Q: The "tone" of your writing... the audacity and the caustic, sometimes violent nature of your scenarios... must come as a surprise to readers who expect Christian writers to be meek and mild.
A: “I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.” - 3
Q: There are a lot of voices clamoring for superiority in the dialogue about Christianity and the arts. Some of those voices are very loud, harsh, and condemning of popular culture. What’s your perspective on that?
A: “Conviction without experience makes for harshness.” -2
Q: Have you ever seen Touched by an Angel?
A: “Today’s audience is one in which religious feeling has become, if not atrophied, at least vaporous and sentimental.” - 2
Q: Seattle Pacific University is starting a new graduate program in creative writing. This seems like a timely endeavor—contemporary “Christian writing” has become distinct in its mediocrity and dogmatism. What would be your advice to the folks heading up that program?
A: “Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” -4
Q: So much of the fiction currently written by Christians has been crafted with an aim to “save souls.” Your stories do not have that propagandistic feeling. Did you think about the end result of the influence of your stories on readers much?
A: “When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God’s business.” - 3
Q: Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was quickly seized by church leaders as a great work of art because it could be used as an evangelistic tool. As a novelist, do you think a work’s “evangelical potential” is a measure of its worth?
A: “The novel is an art form and when you use it for anything other than art, you pervert it.” - 1
Q: So you didn’t dwell on making the message of your stories clear?
A: “It is the business of fiction to embody mystery through manners, and mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind.” - 2
“In the greatest fiction, the writer’s moral sense coincides with his dramatic sense, and I see no way for it to do this unless his moral judgment is part of the very act of seeing, and he is free to use it. I have heard it said that belief in Christian dogma is a hindrance to the writer, but I myself have found nothing further from the truth. Actually, it frees the storyteller to observe. It is not a set of rules which fixes what he sees in the world. It affects his writing primarily by guaranteeing his respect for mystery.” -2
Q: Popular cinema is becoming more and more a battleground of political viewpoints and worldviews. There are conservative movies, liberal movies, "Christian" movies, etc.... They usually get bad reviews from those who disagree with their messages, and raves from the "choirs" to which they preach. Then there are other films which just seem bent on appeasing our appetites for high emotion, for melodrama, for sentimentality... and for baser appetites like violence and exploited sexuality. Is this just the nature of art?
A: “The fact is that if the writer’s attention is on producing a work of art, a work that is good in itself, he is going to take great pains to control every excess, everything that does not contribute to this central meaning and design. He cannot indulge in sentimentality, in propagandizing, or in pornography and create a work of art, for all these things are excesses. They call attention to themselves and distract from the work as a whole.” - 2
Q: If you were writing for today’s attention-deficit-disorder audience, would you write differently in order to gain and hold their attention?
A: “There are those who maintain that you can't demand anything of the reader. They say the reader knows nothing about art, and that if you are going to reach him, you have to be humble enough to descend to his level. This supposes that the aim of art is to teach, which it is not, or that to create anything which is simply a good-in-itself is a waste of time. Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it. We hear a great deal about humility being required to lower oneself, but it requires an equal humility and a real love of the truth to raise oneself and by hard labor to acquire higher standards.” - 1
Q: It seems that more and more Christian media is co-opting the modes and styles of mainstream entertainment in order to present the gospel to a larger audience. Take for example the upcoming Christian version of American Idol called Gifted. Is this a valid approach?
A: “In the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.” - 2
Q: So many times, Christians reject a work of art because of the behavior, politics, or lifestyle of the artist—for example, Michael Moore, Woody Allen or Tim Robbins. Media “watchdogs” like Movieguide frequently include attacks on artists in their reviews of those artists’ works. Is there merit to this approach?
A: “A work of art exists without its author from the moment the words are on paper, and the more complete the work, the less important it is who wrote it and why.” -2 “The intentions of the writer have to be found in the work itself, and not in his life.” - 2
Q: Do you have words of encouragement for those of us fiction writers who haven’t scored a publishing deal yet?
A: “It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.” -6
How Good is Alien vs. Predator?
So good that a Vancouver, B.C. film critic informs me that there will be no early press screenings, no opportunities for critics to offer an opinion of the movie before it opens.Read more
Kurt Cobain Rises Again
Tidbits:
- If you missed my headline-scan at CT Reel News this week... it's not too late. There's news about Hobbits invading Boston, children entering Narnia, Bryan Singer jumping on Superman, Malaysians attending The Passion, Stephen Baldwin entering the ministry, Ralph Fiennes stalking Harry Potter, Kevin Smith renewing wedding vows, Shawshank celebrating an anniverary, Faramir falling in love... and more.
- The next Sofia Coppola film will star Kirsten Dunst as Marie-Antoinette, with Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI. Production starts in February in France.
- Michael Pitt, that dude shuddering in the watchtower in The Village is playing Kurt Cobain in Gus Van Sant's fictionalized version of the Nirvana star's last days ... a movie called Last Days.
- The role of Mr. Beaver in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe will be played by a sexy beast: Ray Winstone. YES!! Winstone's one of my favorite actors. He turned in solid and varied work in Sexy Beast, Cold Mountain, and Ripley's Game.
A Big Hello to My Younger Readers!
On Sunday morning, there I was sitting and chatting with my beloved church family, when nine-year-old Amy Lind looked at me and said, "You write a blog, don't you?"Read more
In TIME...
Well, it’s been an exciting day already, and it’s only 11am.
For what it’s worth, I’m quoted in this week’s issue of Time Magazine.
Collateral is Tom Cruise's Best Work
...and one of Michael Mann's most formulaic and insubstantial films.
Still, it's worth seeing. Here's my review.
Number of Deceits in F9/11 Climbs to 59
...according to this Web site.
Note the convenient, free, downloadable PDF version at the top of the page.
Note #59... that Moore is happy to cooperate with terrorist organizations who want to promote his film.
Even if only half of these stand up to scrutiny, it's hard to believe that this is the behavior of the guy who went on Bill O'Reilly's show, and called Bush a liar, then defined "liar" as someone who reports false information even if they believe what they're saying is true?
By that definition... what does that make Michael Moore then, who has clearly fudged on the details in his film?
Understand, I say this in full sympathy of Moore's cause. He's got a monster by the tail, and he's trying to convince everyone there's a monster there. I believe him... I believe there IS a monster there. And F9/11 does contain some important information. I just think that the monster looks different than the one Moore's imagining. And I'm frustrated that the Bush administration doesn't 'fess up to the fact that there IS a monster there. There HAVE been mistakes made. There ARE some pretty suspicious dealings going on behind the scenes. The American people HAVE been taken for a ride. I just resent the fact that Moore, who's in a great place to speak about the mistakes that have been made, is blowing his opportunity by using such lousy tactics. It just robs him of his credibility.
Again, the tag line from that Alien vs. Predator movie comes in handy:
WHOEVER WINS, WE LOSE.
Because You're All Wondering
...why I didn't include Peter T. Chattaway's review of Thunderbirds in today's Christianity Today Film Forum, well... it's because I'm sloppy and forgetful, and because this week's forum took twice as long to assemble due to a suddenly flurry of new review-activity online.
So, I enthusiastically do hereby present unto you the link...Read more
ClearPlay: A Very Bad Idea
[This article was originally published at Christianity Today on June 1, 2004.]
When I was in the sixth grade, some of our school library books had words crossed out with black markers—words that teachers thought would harm children who read them. Even Mark Twain received this treatment. To me, it seemed somehow unholy to stain the pages of someone's story in that way, to delete words the author had chosen. Those black bars were an eyesore, and they distracted me from the story.
The teachers thought they were doing me a favor, but they were taking away from my experience of a worthy work of art. Worse, those black bars only threw fuel on my childish curiosity; I was preoccupied with exposing what had been inked out.
Now we have the ClearPlay DVD player, which lets the user edit certain content from films. It's intended to provide concerned viewers—especially parents—with alternate versions of movies that have been made "safe" and "clean." But I believe it'll only make kids morepreoccupied with those certain elements of movies that parents are hoping to eliminate. If you cover up part of a painting, you increase the allure of the section you're covering up. So it's best to keep kids from seeing that painting at all, until they're mature enough to deal with it responsibly.
Why should we show children movies that weren't intended for them? There is a lifetime of good family movies available; let families spend time with those rather than settling for sorely compromised versions of movies that were intended for a different audience.
If you start chopping up movies meant for grownups and showing them to children, you'll succeed in shielding them from excessive elements, but you'll also deprive them of the experience of art the way it was meant to be seen.
Ultimately, I think the CleanPlay idea is flawed on three fundamental levels:
1. It suggests that only certain "corrupting elements" are inappropriate for young viewers.
Specifically, it signifies a preoccupation with eliminating sex, violence, and bad language, as if those were somehow "special" offenses. If we are corrupted by these three unholy behaviors, are we not also corrupted by hearing a character lie? What about jealousy? Pride? Self-righteousness? Covetousness? Idolatry? Personally, I'm far more distraught by seeing a character deceive another character than I am by hearing somebody call somebody else a bad name. But ClearPlay has no setting for "Deceit."
Many movies include excessive misbehavior, sometimes even glorifying it. Such movies should be ignored, not altered. There are goodmovies that portray sex, violence, and foul language too. If such elements are a meaningful part of the story—for biblical examples, look no further than David and Bathsheba, the Song of Solomon, the death of John the Baptist, or Christ calling the Pharisees names—theyshould be part of the final work. To cut misbehavior would render the stories pointless. One of art's primary functions is to reflect the world, goodness and bad, in a context that invites us to consider, interpret, accept, or reject its presentations.
2. It suggests that a work of art is open for customization by the individual viewer.
Artists have reasons for making their work a certain way. To have someone else snip up the work disrespects their efforts. Such censorship interrupts the intended "flow" of the film. It eliminates vital details. Confusion may result. The theme may lose its potency.
If ClearPlay proves popular and successful, we'll soon see variations that exclude other "offensive" elements—like prayer, mentions of God, the name of Jesus. We might end up seeing the TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth available in different formats—for those who want the whole story, for those who want just the miracles but not Jesus's claims of divinity, for those who don't want to bother with that discomforting crucifixion scene. If customization develops a heavy demand, we might even see software that will embellish the violence and the sex, increasing them to more explicit levels.
3. It suggests it's better to "see no evil" than to learn to recognize and deal with evil.
Censorship does not keep us from doing evil—it just blocks us from seeing it. If we develop a "cover your eyes" response to bad behavior, we are not developing a strength of spirit that resists sin. We are simply ignoring sin, and thus remaining weak and vulnerable. Jesus says it is not what goes into a man that corrupts him, but what proceeds from him that corrupts him. Scripture exhorts us to put on the "full armor of God" so we might resist the schemes of the devil. It does not exhort us to avert our eyes whenever someone's misbehaving.
This doesn't mean we should seek corrupt things to absorb. It simply means we must train ourselves and our children to interpret what we see and respond to it with discipline and discernment. If we can't deal with the misbehavior we encounter in films, how will we respond to it in the real world?
Grownups should also pay close attention to their own voices of conscience, showing maturity and wisdom by walking away from those things that cause them to stumble. It is also the responsibility of mature adults to protect young, vulnerable, untrained minds from encountering things they are not yet prepared to process, consider, interpret and respond to. To buy technology that claims to do it for us is irresponsible, naïve, and ultimately … a cop-out.