This piece first appeared in Catholic
Life Magazine
Feast
Your Eyes
Some Quality Christmas Viewing
By Dwight
Longenecker
Tinsel-Town
One of Hollywood's favourite tricks
is to boost a film's appeal by setting it at Christmas-time.
So a poor offering is made worse with lashings of soft-touch
photography, carol singers and a snow-blanketed American suburbia.
In addition to films set superficially
at Christmas, Hollywood is one of the guiltiest parties in the
secularisation of Christmas. So the typical Hollywood 'Christmas
Film' features Santa Claus, cute elves and cheerful snowmen.
When Hollywood does try to address the 'the meaning of Christmas'
all we get is yet another version of Dicken's The Christmas
Carol in which a grumpy fellow learns to be a nice guy. So
the mystery of the Incarnation disappears under a blanket of
sentimental, secular myth.
Incarnational Movies
Nevertheless, there is a link between
Christmas and movies. Christmas is about incarnation, and quality
films-- like all good drama-- are incarnational. They flesh out
themes of truth, goodness and human struggle. In a well-written
film the hero embodies eternal truths in his own battle with
evil. As we view the film we identify with him and an emotional
bond develops so we enter into the conflict between good and
evil with him. When filmic incarnation works its magic we leave
the cinema having gone through a sort of religious experience.
With the hero we have gone down to the depths, faced the dark
forces and emerged triumphant.
So the best Christmas films are not
movies with lots of Christmas trees, snow and grinning children;
but films which incarnate the truth and so take us to the heart
of the Christmas message. That message is about God taking flesh
and sharing the joys and sorrows of humanity. So a good film
at Christmas takes us deeper into the human condition and opens
windows of perception and new understandings about ourselves,
our redemption and our destiny.
Working as a script writer and film
critic, I've been asked to select some films for holiday viewing.
The films I've chosen should be available from a good video shop
or local library. I've tried to choose films which are worth
seeing several times. I've also chosen films which are both entertaining
and thought-provoking. None of them are 'Christian' or 'Catholic'
as such, but I believe each of them is deeply incarnational because
they flesh out religious themes without being explicit. Each
film draws us into the human drama and kicks us out the other
side a better person. We may analyse this process and how the
film works, but I reckon its better to just sit back and let
the magic happen.
Celebrate Life
Despite my criticisms, there is one
'Christmas Film' on my list. Frank Capra's classic Its a Wonderful
Life focuses on George Bailey, a small town American whose
life is so troubled that he is contemplating suicide at Christmas
time. Just as George is about to throw himself from a bridge,
his guardian angel steps in and gives him a chance to see what
the world would be like if he goes through with it.
The film is properly set at Christmas
since part of Christmas is a reflection on the past and a chance
to look forward to the new year. As such, It's a Wonderful
Life is a great celebration of human goodness, family love
and the endurance of optimism in an evil world. Spiced with wit,
honest emotion and charm, It's a Wonderful Life is an
exuberant and moving celebration of life.
The Holy Family
At the heart of human life is the
experience of family. It is there that we grapple with the difficult
lessons of love. The joys and tensions of family life are excrutiatingly
acted out in Mike Leigh's recent comedy-drama Secrets and
Lies. In this gentle English film, Maurice and Monica have
worked hard to escape working class roots and make good. But
their perfect home is empty and childless. At the same time
Maurice's sister--single mum Cynthia-- struggles on in her factory
job, copes with her sullen teenaged daughter, and tries to come
to terms with an unexpected visitor from the past--the baby she
gave up for adoption when she first became pregnant at sixteen.
The tangle of secrets and lies in
this ordinary family holds a mirror to our own family life. So
desperate for love, we often keep secrets and tell lies to our
loved ones in order to win their approval. Secrets and Lies sounds
like yet another depressing 'kitchen sink' drama. It rises far
above that. It is at once hilarious, sad and intensely human.
With sharply observed characters and sparkling dialogue, Secrets
and Lies could be a gently astringent therapy as our own
families gather together to celebrate Christmas.
A very different family affair is
played out in Ang Lee's film Sense and Sensibility. When
their father dies, the two Dashwood sisters-- Elinor and Marianne
are impoverished along with their mother and young sister. The
only way they can escape poverty is to marry a well-to-do gentleman.
As Sense and Sensibility unfolds we share the ups and
downs of romance with the emotional, romantic Marianne, and her
sensible sister Elinor.
A finely acted, beautifully photographed
costume drama, Sense and Sensibility draws us into the
delicate inter-play of emotion and reason in our lives. But
it goes deeper. Like Secrets and Lies, Sense and Sensibility also
examines family relationships and shows how love, loyalty and
painful honesty can overcome all obstacles. In a far more polite
and understated way, the Dashwood family also struggle through
their own set of secrets and lies to find the open-ness and honesty
which accompany genuine love.
Hope Made Visible
Far from the constumes and manners
of Jane Austen's England, The Shawshank Redemption takes
place in an American prison. There is some pretty nasty violence
and strong language in this prison drama, but the powerful ending
and redemption of the characters is a pay off worth the trauma
of the first thirty minutes.
When cold‑hearted banker, Andy
Dufresne is wrongly accused of murdering his wife and her lover
he is sentenced to life in Shawshank Penitentiary. He eventually
settles in and is befriended by Red‑‑an established
lifer. Although beaten and abused by the prisoners; Andy quietly
endures, eventually bringing a measure of education and civilisation
to the inhumane prison.
But
the warden wants to use Andy's accounting skills for his own
fraud. Through a series of plot
twists Andy is almost released, only to be incarcerated in solitary
confinement for months at a time. At the very end of his resources,
he finds himself, and in that moment of enlightenment hope grows,
he rallies, and in a surprise ending finds justice and redeems
the wasted years for himself and Red.
At
the heart of The Shawshank
Redemption is an embodiment of that most elusive virtue--
hope. As a kind of Christ-figure Andy is the innocent child
who enters the world of sin and despair. Although he goes through
the worst darkness, he never gives in. With a powerful emotional
punch, the film brings hope alive and points beyond the narrow
prison house of this world to a wider perspective which brings
freedom and peace.
Celebrate the Feast
The best film I can recommend for
this festive time of year is the excellent Babette's Feast. Two
sisters live in a strict Lutheran community in Jutland when a
mysterious Frenchwoman turns up pleading to be protected from
persecution. The sisters offer Babette a job and home in the
ascetical Protestant village. Eventually when Babette wins the
lottery she spends the lot to produce a celebration meal in memory
of the sister's clergyman father.
The puritanical villagers come to
the meal but say they will not enjoy the food. Then a visitor
from the past arrives and reveals Babette's true origins; the
food is presented and as the wine flows, so reconciliation and
goodness flow amongst the dour village folk.
Babette's Feast emodies multiple
levels of Christian meaning in a gentle and moving story. It
not only shows the power and release of real celebration, but
like the cross, the extravagent feast costs Babbette everything.
Reflecting the Eucharist, Babette's feast is a meal of thanksgiving
and fellowship. It is a commemoration and a culmination of all
things.
A quiet film masterpiece, Babette's
Feast takes us to the heart of the Christmas mystery in
a most subtle and beautiful way. It gently probes the hardness
of false religion and shows how cold legalism is warmed by
the naturalness and goodness of the physical world. So Babette's
Feast is a little picture of the incarnation itself--God
giving his all to break down the hardness of human hearts with
the simplicity of a physical human birth. If you haven't seen
it get Babette's Feast. If you've seen it before try
it again. Like all the films on my list, there is more there
than first meets the eye.
