Thinking Faithfully About Film

Film and Faith:
Modern Cinema and the Struggle to Believe
edited by micah watson and carson holloway
lexington books, 220 pages, $100

Many years ago, Doug Geivett and I edited a volume of essays entitled Faith, Film and Philosophy, which analyzed classic and contemporary films from a Christian philosophical perspective. Doug and I hoped at the time that the book would catalyze more such scholarly analysis of film and faith issues. I am happy to report that, finally, a similar volume has appeared: Film and Faith: Modern Cinema and the Struggle to Believe, edited by Micah Watson and Carson Holloway. Unlike our book, Film and Faith is not exclusively philosophical in its approach, though many of the chapters do touch upon philosophical themes. And much like our book, all of the authors model how to think seriously about film as Christians, even when the films themselves ostensibly lack any substantive religious content. At a time when popular culture is nearly devoid of religious substance, such modeling of careful Christian analysis of film is especially important.

The book is divided into three parts. The first of these, “Sin and Alienation in a Fallen World,” includes the chapter “Gran Torino: The Sins of Walt Kowalski” by Matthew Franck. Gran Torino is one the few films treated in the book that explicitly features persons of faith. The film even highlights an apparently serious act of religious faith in the form of self-sacrifice on the part of the film’s central character, Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood). Franck subjects this act to close moral-theological critique. His analysis reveals that Walt’s act, though implicitly lauded by the film, is actually “irredeemably sinful.” Thus, Franck’s discussion provides an excellent case in point regarding the Hollywood tendency to flout the warning of Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

Another chapter is Susan McWilliams Barndt’s “Flying the Faithless Skies,” an incisive analysis of Up in the Air, a film that illustrates the nihilistic aimlessness of a life devoted to the technological idols of our age. The central character, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), represents the pragmatic naturalistic attitude that is a common, and often antagonistic, substitute for religious faith. Barndt notes that “all technologies seem to have god-like power in our day and age; they shape and reshape everything in their image.” Such, she says, “does not make for a contented life. It makes for a faith that fails us in the end.” Whatever the intentions of the creators of Up in the Air, Barndt shows how the film powerfully portrays the failure of that naturalistic faith.

The second part of the book tackles “The Workings of Grace in a Fallen World.” In the chapter “Receptivity to Grace and the Affirmation of Life,” Kirstin Carlson and David McPherson reflect on the Danish classic Babette’s Feast, which portrays the preparation of an elaborate French feast by the film’s namesake as both an act of culinary artistry and religious piety. The authors provide a rich meditation on the film’s themes of grace and gratitude, though the essay would be enhanced with more emphasis on the significance of Babette’s personal sacrifice and self-denial.

In one of two chapters that discuss Terrence Malick’s films, R. Michael Olson provides a perceptive interpretation of Knight of Cups, which follows one man’s spiritual journey in the tradition of Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress. Viewers sometimes find that Malick’s impressionistic style renders his narratives overly cryptic. But Olson shows how Knight of Cups depicts the unbridled pursuit of erotic love as a tacit embrace of nihilistic despair. It is essentially a rejection of agape love and, as Olson puts it, a “trivialization of life” that inevitably leads to suffering. But the hopeful final message of the film is that suffering is itself a portal to redemption, which demands self-sacrifice and willful surrender to agape.

The essays in the final part of the book concern “Faith and the Confrontation with Radical Evil.” Interestingly, the first two examine superhero films. Micah Watson’s chapter discusses “Radical Evil and Redemption in the Dark Knight Trilogy.” Though they make no mention of God, the supernatural, or an afterlife, Watson insists that the Dark Knight films are religious because “they invite us to wrestle with religious themes regarding evil, morality, the good life and sacrificial love.” While these are certainly themes of interest to religious viewers, that doesn’t mean the films themselves are religious. I believe a stronger case can be made for the claim that the Dark Knight films are radically naturalistic. Notwithstanding this critical point, Watson’s discussion is fascinating, as he explores an instructive threefold distinction between “ordinary evil,” vengeful evil, and radical or demonic evil that is pointless and nihilistic.

Film and Faith concludes with what I regard as the two strongest essays in the volume, perhaps owing to the theological intelligence of their subjects. Carson Holloway’s analysis of “Tradition, Demonic Evil, and Despair in No Country for Old Men” reveals the philosophical and psychological depth of the Coen brothers’ filmmaking as well as their theological subtlety. Holloway’s exploration of the complex moral psychologies of two central characters, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), is particularly compelling. Jennifer Frey’s “Malick on Martyrdom: A Hidden Life” begins with a Thomistic exposition of the virtues involved in martyrdom, most notably fortitude and charity, and then shows how these traits are dramatically exemplified by Franz Jägerstätter, the central character, in Malick’s film. Frey’s keen observations demonstrate a rich moral theology worthy of Malick’s powerful work.

Other chapters include J. Columcille Dever on The Northman, Francis Beckwith on the theological anthropology of It’s a Wonderful Life, Christopher Tollefsen on Gravity and gratitude, and Jordan Ballor on the problem of evil in the Marvel films. Some readers might be perplexed by the fact that several of the films discussed in a book dealing with film and faith lack any explicit mention of religion or the supernatural. They would do well to remember the book’s subtitle, which refers to the “struggle to believe.” The authors show us that while such films as Up in the Air, the Dark Knight Trilogy, and the Marvel franchise may ignore all things religious or supernatural, they nonetheless evince the universality of spiritual struggle. Whatever we actually believe, in the end, we all wrestle with God. And as all art inevitably reflects the mind of its maker, when it comes to cinematic art, this struggle will, one way or another, be manifest on the big screen.

James S. Spiegel is executive director of the Kalos Center for Christian Education and Spiritual Formation in Columbus, Ohio.

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Image courtesy FreeRange, licensed via Creative Commons. Image cropped.