Catching Light: Looking for God in the Movies

by Roy M. Anker

Films have come to not only entertain modern minds but also inform and shape them. Many of the best cinematic works have profound religious elements -- some obvious, some more subtle. In Catching Light Roy Anker examines nineteen popular films, showing how they convey a range of striking perspectives on the human encounter with God. These selected films portray God showing up in different, surprising ways amid the messy circumstances of life. Anker looks closely at the plot of each film, especially at how characters, through their experiences, ultimately move "toward Light," toward recognition of a loving, redemptive deity. The first section of Catching Light looks at classic 1970s films that inspect personal, social, and cultural The Godfather trilogy, Chinatown, and The Deer Hunter. The second group of films depicts the ways and depths of specifically Christian notions of Tender Mercies, The Mission, Places in the Heart, and Babette's Feast. Some of the most successful films of our time have come as fairy-tale the Star Wars saga, Superman, and three of Steven Spielberg's "lost boy" stories (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Extra-Terrestrial, and Artificial Intelligence), each of which Anker interprets as a fable of search and redemption. The films in the last section of the book feature characters who, to their great surprise, are ambushed by a wholly unexpected Grand Canyon, American Beauty, and Three Blue. In addition to focusing on the theological dimension of each film, Anker comments on its merits both as story and as cinema. Also included are sidebars that discuss each film's history and significance as well as the quality and special features of DVD editions. For anyone interested in the intersection of religion, art, and culture, Catching Light offers a unique view of contemporary faith.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

412 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book for a class I'm taking on Postmodern Theology, Film, and Youth Culture. The author, Roy Anker, argues that most people are seeking some kind of light (e.g. higher purpose, an encounter with the divine, some hope in a dark world) and that many films address this desire. He helpfully points out that movies are most convincing when they don't try to portray the divine directly or show people in ecstatic bliss, but rather when they more subtly show the darkness of human life--what it looks like when regular people have surprising experiences of light. After his excellent and helpful introduction, Anker moves into discussions of individual films which he sees as seeking or portraying this theme, and which he divides into 4 categories: films that show the darkness of human experience (The Godfather trilogy, Chinatown, The Deer Hunter) films that portray light in the midst of darkness (Tender Mercies, Places in the Heart, The Mission, Babette's Feast), fables of the light (the Star Wars saga, Superman, Spielberg's "lost boy" movies), and the stories of people who are "found" in the midst of darkness (Grand Canyon, American Beauty, Three Colors: Blue).

It's a cool idea for a book, and I really enjoyed some of Anker's insights about the films he discusses. For those I had seen he almost always had some thoughts I'd never considered, and I actually added a couple to my Netflix queue that I had not seen before. The thing that killed this book for me was that the movie discussions are WAY too long, and get a bit tedious after a while. They mostly involve Anker summarizing the plot in great detail, and sharing along the way how the plot points relate to his thesis. Each of chapter really only needed to be a few pages, but instead they go on and on. Also, some of the films feel a bit forced to me. If he really is looking at how people are seeking light in film, it feels he ought to be more inclusive of movies that portray less Christian versions of "seeking light". Instead he repeatedly chooses films that have Biblical or Christological narratives, and squeezes those that don't into a Christian formula for understanding the world (i.e. the world is dark and light/grace invades it from the outside). At the same time, it feels like he squeezes in some movies that don't belong. For example, I'm not convinced that movies intending to portray the intense darkness of this world (i.e. Godfather and Chinatown) should be included in a book about "catching light." Sure, it makes sense for a Christian viewer to see those movies and say, "Yes, the world IS that dark! Good thing light exists too!" But the films themselves may actually be more nihilistic in their worldview. Chinatown, for example, seems to portray a world in which darkness always wins.

[Blaine Welgraven · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting phenomenological approach to some of cinema's greatest films, one that treats the movie screen as a "text" and views its protagonists' "religious lived experiences" as venues for refracting and reflecting metaphysical truth. Anker's work has many helpful insights and reveals the soul of a solid film critic and analyst; however, Catching Light is hindered by its protracted style and chronological (versus systematic) approach. Anker is quite capable of recognizing and accurately diagnosing the technical aspects and artistic choices within a film--he just doesn't do it consistently--opting instead to write about the entire plot of each movie, in intensive detail, from beginning to end. In my opinion, this method of organization prohibits Anker from thoroughly addressing what he correctly terms "the language of the medium," i.e., the "production design, setting, costuming, music, lighting, and...host of camera strategies" that provide movies with symbolic meaning. Ironically, I believe a systematic approach to these production features (as well as organized attention to each film's script) would allow for a far smoother narrative style, and actually lend itself better to supporting Anker's thesis: that film can serve as powerful means to catch divine Light and reveal theological truths, as they are phenomenologically understood through each protagonist.

On a side note: Anker's review of The Deer Hunter, specifically, the methodology it employs and the meta-themes it uncovers, are startlingly analogous to Clint Eastwood's just released biopic, American Sniper. This review alone is worth the sometime slog of Catching Light.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wrote a long review of Anker's book on my blog, Sacred and Profane a Survey of Christian Film Criticism.

In Chasing Light, Roy Anker writes for several pages, in technical detail, about the process of making movies— that is exposing film to light. In many cases, as it is in Chasing Light, these light/dark metaphors are central to the writer’s purpose. The critic’s self-proposed task is to praise films that shed light on beauty and also understand the darker, unexposed parts of film. In most of these books, light is primarily a metaphor for the theology of general revelation. General revelationists believe that truth of a Christian God is revealed in the natural universe and common human events. General revelation is really a placeholder for anything that is not special revelation, which is the authoritative revelation of God i.e. the Bible. There is an important feature to general revelation, what Calvinist and other Protestants call common grace: it is evidence of God’s goodness plainly evident to all humans, including non-believers.