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God in the Movies
The religious imagination is alive and well in the movies. Contrary to those who criticize Hollywood, popular movies very often have metaphorically represented God on the screen. From Clint Eastwood as an avenging angel in Pale Rider and Nicolas Cage as a lovesick angel in City of Angeles to Jessica Lange as an angel of death in All That Jazz, God is very much present in the movies. This intelligent, insightful volume, now available in paperback, is an exercise in urban anthropology. Religious imagination is the subject and the movie house is its location. The authors show that the religious imagination is irrepressible, and shows up in our best-known example of popular culture: movies. Contrary to conservative opinion that suggests that Hollywood is anti-religious, Bergesen and Greeley find just the opposite. Ordinary movies, not explicitly about religion and not made by particularly religious individuals, often demonstrate some basic religious theme, point, or message. God in the Movies does not judge or approve, recommend or criticize; the authors simply alert the reader to the great variety of metaphors for God, angels, heaven, and hell, from beautiful women to white light at the end of the tunnel to Groundhog Day. They are not concerned with explicitly religious movies, but of ordinary mass release movies. The authors' vivid explication of various cinematic metaphors for God is accompanied by an analysis of what these movies tell about our sociological attitudes toward life and death. This book is for both the professional concerned with religion, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, media and cinema studies, and the layperson interested in how popular movies also containreligious imagery.
196 pages, Hardcover
First published January 6, 2003
9 people want to read
About the author
Albert J. Bergesen
11 books3 followersAlbert James Bergesen is an American sociologist and Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at University of Arizona.
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January 22, 2010I wrote a long review of this and several other books on my blog, Sacred and Profane a Survey of Christian Film Criticism.
In God and the Movies, Bergson and Greeley posit that God is portrayed in micro and macro ways in film. The macro portrayals of God are often epic Science Fiction and Fantasy movies, Star War being a prime example. The macro God is also cast in films with elements of magical realism they say:
"The God of magical realism is a God of enormous power, a God who can make bells ring even when there are no bells, a God how causes a spring garden to bloom overnight despite the snow, a God who saves a drowning man in a body of a whale, a God who can send the dead back to free a survivor of paralyzing grief."
At first, I was lost in a discussion of magical realism because I only know this term in the literary sense, in the writings of Angela Carter or Garcia Marquez, but the writers go on to include films such as Like Water for Chocolate and What Dreams May Come, which seem more compatible with the term. Bergson and Greely's point is that god-like forces, and evil forces, are revealed in both small and fantastic situations in films like Star Wars. The small revelations, like the moment "[w:]hen Luke turn off his targeting computer and opened himself to pray for God's help," as Overstreet writes, taught us how to pray. An then there's the big picture, which Anker writes about:
"Obi-Wan is after nothing less than the defeat of Darkness[sic:]12 itself, the metaphysical power that seeks to destroy all that is good in the world."
Additionally, Anker has a nice way of explaining the spiritual significance of the trilogy of the 1970 and 80s in contrast with the 2000s trilogy: "The future of the Star Wars saga lies in its past... [T:]he first of the original trilogy to be filmed showed how light comes out of darkness. The trilogy now underway shows how darkness emerges from light, how people and societies come to lose harmony and hope." Why is it, though, that even in epic films the largest displays of spirituality are usually the darkest ones-- the portrayal of evil? Why is it that God does not, in the world we live in, reveal his light in miracles or any other heuristic events? Why must Christians insist of things like the resurrection, the virgin birth, and the intelligent design of the universe? Or as Lars Von Trier13 wonders ,
"The general assumption is that all people are able to differentiate more or less equally between good and evil. But if this is the case, why does the world look like it does? Why have all the good intentions of my parents come to nothing. And why do my own good intentions lead to nothing?"
I'll leave these question aside, beside having just asked them. But I must point out that majority of Christian criticism is not about the beauty and truth of God in film, but rather about the absence of God.
In God and the Movies, Bergson and Greeley posit that God is portrayed in micro and macro ways in film. The macro portrayals of God are often epic Science Fiction and Fantasy movies, Star War being a prime example. The macro God is also cast in films with elements of magical realism they say:
"The God of magical realism is a God of enormous power, a God who can make bells ring even when there are no bells, a God how causes a spring garden to bloom overnight despite the snow, a God who saves a drowning man in a body of a whale, a God who can send the dead back to free a survivor of paralyzing grief."
At first, I was lost in a discussion of magical realism because I only know this term in the literary sense, in the writings of Angela Carter or Garcia Marquez, but the writers go on to include films such as Like Water for Chocolate and What Dreams May Come, which seem more compatible with the term. Bergson and Greely's point is that god-like forces, and evil forces, are revealed in both small and fantastic situations in films like Star Wars. The small revelations, like the moment "[w:]hen Luke turn off his targeting computer and opened himself to pray for God's help," as Overstreet writes, taught us how to pray. An then there's the big picture, which Anker writes about:
"Obi-Wan is after nothing less than the defeat of Darkness[sic:]12 itself, the metaphysical power that seeks to destroy all that is good in the world."
Additionally, Anker has a nice way of explaining the spiritual significance of the trilogy of the 1970 and 80s in contrast with the 2000s trilogy: "The future of the Star Wars saga lies in its past... [T:]he first of the original trilogy to be filmed showed how light comes out of darkness. The trilogy now underway shows how darkness emerges from light, how people and societies come to lose harmony and hope." Why is it, though, that even in epic films the largest displays of spirituality are usually the darkest ones-- the portrayal of evil? Why is it that God does not, in the world we live in, reveal his light in miracles or any other heuristic events? Why must Christians insist of things like the resurrection, the virgin birth, and the intelligent design of the universe? Or as Lars Von Trier13 wonders ,
"The general assumption is that all people are able to differentiate more or less equally between good and evil. But if this is the case, why does the world look like it does? Why have all the good intentions of my parents come to nothing. And why do my own good intentions lead to nothing?"
I'll leave these question aside, beside having just asked them. But I must point out that majority of Christian criticism is not about the beauty and truth of God in film, but rather about the absence of God.
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