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Son of Rambow

Fri, 02 May 2008 03:35:27 PST

By Steven D. Greydanus

Will Proudfoot and Lee Carter first meet in the school corridor one day when neither is in class. Lee is there because he’s a young hooligan who’s been thrown out of the classroom. Will is there because his science class is watching a documentary videotape, and his ultra-conservative religious persuasion — Plymouth Brethren — doesn’t permit him to watch movies or television. The next day they’re both out in the same corridor again, for the same reasons.

There’s a Darwinian ruthlessness in the events that follow as Lee remorselessly bullies, cons and domineers Will, who’s so sheltered and isolated (turns out fish in a barrel are easier to shoot) that he doesn’t even understand that he’s being abused, and before long comes to regard Will as a friend. Yet the two boys have more in common than first appears, and zero-sum attrition is ultimately not the final word on their relationship.

After making his feature debut with the rather inspiration-challenged big-screen Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, director Garth Jennings wisely shifts to a more intimate and personal canvas with Son of Rambow, a quirky British indie, set in the early 1980s, that made a splash at Sundance. Although somewhat scattered and uneven, Rambow has enough heart and wit to sustain its 96-minute running time.

Both Will and Lee live inside their heads, and seek creative outlet in image-making. Lee’s inner world is populated by mainstream culture images and icons, such as Sly Stallone’s hero John Rambo in First Blood, which Lee pirates with a clunky camcorder at a theater screening. Will, of course, has never experienced anything like that, but at Lee’s house he has an electrifying encounter with those contraband images of Stallone battling law-enforcement officials in the mountain wilderness of Washington State.

Will’s worried mother (Jessica Stevenson) — and the members of their strict Brethren community, like faux-concerned Brother Joshua (Neil Dudgeon) — would doubtless say that Lee has “corrupted” Will by exposing him to First Blood. The reality, though, may be a little more complicated, as suggested by the awed eagerness with which Will embraces this Hollywood pop mythology… and the darker themes running through Will’s imagination even before he met Lee.

Will’s literal and figurative Bible is a dogeared, heavily decorated volume crammed and overwritten (presumably for lack of other writing material) with doodles, flip-book animations and other graffiti. The whimsy of Will’s imagination doesn’t obscure a running theme of darkness: one of Will’s hand-animated scenarios involves an airplane that grows legs and feet as it comes in for a landing — yet once safely on the ground it unexpectedly explodes and bursts into flames.

If Lee can’t bear all the blame for “corrupting” Will, perhaps “corrupting” isn’t entirely the right word in the first place. For generations well-intentioned parents, teachers and guardians have sought to remove toy weapons and violent play from the nursery, backyard and playground. Many children have grown up sheltered from stories about scary monsters, witches and giants — anything that could induce nightmares. Yet nightmares come anyway, and, deprived of external inspiration, children willy-nilly invent monsters, weapons and hair-raising scenarios of their own devising. Perhaps there is something about how children develop that is served by such play and such stories (not that I’m advocating First Blood for ten-year-olds).

While Will creates his flip-book animations, Lee’s idea is to make a movie and submit it to a young filmmakers contest run by the BBC children’s game show “Screen Test.” Specifically, he wants to remake First Blood, and coerces Will into participating. Yet in Will it turns out that Lee he has an eager partner with ideas of his own: Will wants to be Son of Rambow (so Will spells the name in his new Stallone-influenced Bible doodles), on a mission to rescue his father. He also has fanciful story ideas, drawn from his own imaginative repertoire, from menacing scarecrows to flying dogs.

Significantly, both Will and Lee are growing up fatherless: one orphaned, the other abandoned. Lee’s family situation is additionally complicated by his mother’s relationship with a man who runs a UK-based elder care facility largely from the Continent, which means a very odd living arrangement for Lee and little parental contact. Of course, Will’s situation is additionally complicated by his Plymouth Brethren milieu.

One of the first things Lee does after meeting Will is to con him out of the watch he’s wearing — which just happens to have belonged to Will’s father. So far, so-so… but then the other shoe drops when we meet Lee’s older brother Lawrence (Ed Westwick). The theme of the bully who is himself bullied at home may be a familiar one, but Rambow wrings extra pathos from Lee’s genuine devotion to his big brother.

At some point during filming, Lee and Will’s project comes to the attention of their fellow students, particularly flamboyant, androgynous Didier (Jules Sitruk), a French exchange student whose MTV couture and studied ennui make him a superstar to the boys’ awed classmates. What happens next only partly echoes French director Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind, another recent nostalgic and silly fable about DIY filmmakers inspired by Hollywood films. In Gondry’s tale, filmmaking ultimately brings the community together; Rambow suggests that not all visions can be shared, at least not without becoming a different sort of vision, losing something in the process.

Alas, in a film that offers understanding to everyone from schoolyard bullies to abusive older brothers, from droning sixth-form science teachers to pretentious French pretty boys, Rambow’s unsympathetic, even vindictive portrayal of the Proudfoots’ Plymouth Brethren religious milieu is all the more disappointing.

Will’s isolation and awkwardness might dimly echo the maladjusted protagonist of the quirky American indie comedy Lars and the Real Girl, but Son of Rambow has none of that film’s respectful attitude toward believers. And unlike Millions, another fanciful British comedy about a boy with religious issues, Rambow isn’t interested in moral conflict or ambiguity. Pressured by his mother to mend his ways, Will solemnly promises not to “betray the Brethren again,” but has no intention of keeping that promise and no second thoughts either about that or lying to his mother.

Rigid, domineering Brother Joshua is a dissonantly unpleasant presence, and Will’s mother’s childhood story about buying a record player for a song she heard outside a shop will rightly strike viewers as a tragic anecdote of faith gone wrong. Rambow offers glimpses of innocence in Will’s spirituality, from spontaneous and set prayers to the juxtaposition of religion and imagination represented by his Bible, but the loss-of-religion vibe is the dominant spiritual note.

Still, despite its flaws, Son of Rambow works more often than it doesn’t, and its celebration of imagination and the ties that bind even in highly dysfunctional situations makes up for most of its faults. It’s one of those pretty good films that’s good enough to make you wish it were even better.

Prince Caspian: Eye candy and vague faith in Narnia

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:05:52 PST

Eye candy and vague faith in Narnia

Narnia filmmakers discuss Prince Caspian

By Steven D. Greydanus

“You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember,” warns Trumpkin the dwarf in a trailer-ready line from this weekend’s new family adventure, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Adapted by Walden/Disney from the second volume of C. S. Lewis’s beloved Narnia stories, Prince Caspian is the sequel to the 2005 blockbuster The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Ostensibly addressed to the returning protagonists from the first film, Trumpkin’s warning is also intended to alert viewers to expect a darker, more action-oriented world than they remember from the first film (both are rated PG). Meanwhile, Lewis fans — many of whom had mixed feelings about the first film — wonder how the new big-screen Narnia squares with what they remember from the book.

Speaking by phone from New York, producer Douglas Gresham, Lewis’s stepson and heir, suggested that the new film’s more mature tone was partly a reflection of the book itself. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was written very much to be read aloud,” Gresham explained. “With Prince Caspian, in [Lewis’s] mind his audience had moved up a few years in age, and so Prince Caspian was written for them to read to themselves.”

Other filmmakers agreed that Prince Caspian mitigates the storybook feel of the first book. “The starting point for the story is that the magic has gone out of the land,” British actor Ben Barnes, who plays Caspian, commented at a recent New York press event with other Narnia filmmakers. “A lot of people are a little cynical, thinking, ‘They’re making a sequel; it’s got to be darker and have more action, or no one will see it.’ But I think actually it’s simply the way the book has been written.”

In particular, Barnes cited Caspian’s human villain as a key difference from the earlier story. “The villain of this story is not a magic witch,” he said. “It’s a very human dictatorship.” According to Barnes, Castellitto “very much saw Miraz as a kind of Hitlerian figure.”

Will Moseley, who plays Peter, agreed. “I think it makes it a very different film — fighting humans as opposed to fighting mythical creatures. That’s almost like a greater evil, and something kids need to be reminded of — that the evil person like the White Witch isn’t going to be with great big horns and breathing like a bull.” (Not that Tilda Swinton quite fits that description, but point taken.)

At the same time, Gresham acknowledged that bringing this book to the screen posed special challenges. “The story is much more difficult to put in a film,” Gresham said. “But I do think we’ve made a better movie.”

Fair enough. So what did they change? Unlike presidential candidates, producer Mark Johnson doesn’t even want to talk about change, at least when it comes to Narnia.

“I’ve produced a lot of movies based on books,” he said, citing The Natural, My Dog Skip and The Notebook. “We made big changes in all of those in order to adapt them to film. It’s clear with The Chronicles of Narnia that you just can’t tamper with them that way. They’re too important to too many people. They are in many ways written almost filmicly. I think the themes and just the world of Narnia — you tamper with it, you make changes at your own risk.”

Is this spin? Well, yes. The fact is, both films “tamper” with the books — Prince Caspian even more than the first film, in part because Caspian the book isn’t as “filmic” as its predecessor. “Jack would understand and appreciate the changes we made and understand why we made them,” Gresham maintained, using Lewis’s nickname. “If I thought there was something there that Jack would disappove of, I would try to stop it altogether.”

As in the past, the filmmakers seem uncomfortable discussing one important dimension of the Narnia stories: their religious themes and underpinnings. “Obviously, you know, these stories have a lot of stuff about having faith in something bigger than yourself,” Barnes conceded.

Moseley likewise acknowledged that “there’s this thing about faith. I’m not trying to use the Christian allegory. But it’s really a big part of the story.”

Most open about his reservations in discussing Narnia’s religious significance was Peter Dinklage, who plays the skeptical Trumpkin. A self-described “lapsed Catholic,” Dinklage suggested that doubt rather than belief is in greater need today.

“I think it’s healthy to be skeptical,” Dinklage said. “I think people rush into sort of blind faith… It’s sort of, you don’t really know why you’re entering into something… I was raised going to Catholic church every Sunday, and I haven’t been in a long time… I think at least in this country it’s been really stretched to limits that I disagree with, and that’s why my wall goes up a little bit in talking of this movie in terms of faith and Christianity, because I think that sort of labels it and I think it goes beyond that. Even atheists have a certain spiritual side.”

What about Aslan, the omnipotent Lion who represents Christ in Lewis’s fantasy world? Gresham insisted that the movie gets Aslan right.

“I think [Lewis would] probably be most pleased with our portrayal of Aslan,” Gresham said. “I think one of the things he always feared about Aslan in film or Aslan on television was that he would be some sort of cartoon, comic figure. And we’ve avoided that like the plague. We’ve produced an Aslan that has huge majesty and dignity and a great warmth of character. Yet at the same time he’s ‘not a tame lion.’ I think Jack would have appreciated that enormously.”

Yet, as noted in my review, the film makes slight edits in Aslan’s dialogue that subtly un-divinize him. For instance, Lewis has a seemingly larger Aslan tell Lucy, “I have not [grown]… every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” In the film, the line is simply, “Every year you grow, so shall I.”

Asked about this, Gresham seemed caught off guard. “I can’t really answer that — you’ve hit me with something that’s never crossed my mind before. I didn’t make that distinction.” Noting that Aslan assumes various shapes and sizes throughout the series, Gresham mused, “I never really considered his size as really of very much importance, except with the fun we could have with it on the screen. In the Prince Caspian movie, he does appear larger, because it’s in the text. I think you’re probably digging a little too deep and discovering gems that probably aren’t there.”

A far more serious revision, the omission of Trumpkin’s disbelief in Aslan’s existence, was also downplayed by Gresham. “I think it’s probably obvious throughout the movie that Trumpkin doesn’t believe. He’s more of an agnostic than anyone else in the whole story.“ Pressed further, he went on, “These are things that in a movie you could overplay too heavily. It’s true that Trumpkin is someone who doesn’t believe in Aslan. Whether he believes that he ever existed at all or not I don’t think is important one way or the other. It’s just that he doesn’t really have any credence that this is going to help.“

Gresham’s readings seem unlikely to be persuasive to many careful readers of Lewis. Trumpkin’s disbelief in Aslan’s existence evokes post-Enlightenment skepticism; Aslan’s exchange with Lucy profoundly evokes the mystery of God, changeless in itself, looming larger with our growing capacity to appreciate it. Of course these edits matter.

What does the future hold for big-screen Narnia adventures? According to Johnson, “Right now we have no plans to go beyond The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” currently set for a 2010 release. “There are seven books, and luckily, with your support, if these films continue to do well artistically and commercially, we will keep making them… I’d like to definitely do The Silver Chair after that.”

That may require Dawn Treader to be considerably more successful as an adaptation than Caspian. In the Narnia canon, Caspian may be a relatively minor work, but Dawn Treader is clearly one of the major favorites. A Caspian disappointing to Lewis fans might not ruin the franchise, but a disappointing Dawn Treader probably would. If Dawn Treader shows no more sensitivity than Caspian to Lewis’s themes and ideas, many Lewis fans may give up on the series for good.

The good news is that two-time director Andrew Adamson is moving on, leaving Dawn Treader in the hands of director Michael Apted and screenwriter Steven Knight, who previously collaborated on Walden’s Amazing Grace. Apted and Knight might take the series in a bold new direction — or they might continue the course charted by Adamson. The fate of the franchise may hang in the balance.

In the Shadow of the Moon

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:59:55 PST

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In the Shadow of the Moon (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft once said that the terror Pascal felt looking into the “eternal silence” of the night sky was fear of his own shadow. The sense of paltriness and insignificance man feels in the face of the vastness of the universe is itself a mark of his greatness.

Man’s own shadow, as much as the moon’s, lies across In the Shadow of the Moon, David Sington’s moving documentary of the U.S. Apollo program. An eloquent testament to the grandeur of creation as well as man’s unique place in it, In the Shadow of the Moon offers a remarkable look at the history and technology of the Apollo program, but an even more extraordinary glimpse of the men who lived it and made it happen.

Ten of the eleven surviving Apollo astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins of Apollo 11 and Jim Lovell of Apollo 8 and the ill-fated Apollo 13 (played in Ron Howard’s film by Tom Hanks), were interviewed for the film. Archival NASA footage, some never before seen, is spectacular and frequently transporting, but the film’s soul is the memories, insights and reflections of the astronauts, whom the filmmakers allow to speak for themselves, avoiding intrusive outside narration and using only minimal titles.

With gratifying humility and grace, the astronauts convey their awe and wonder at leaving the planet of our birth; at seeing with their own eyes, for the first time in history, the whole rim of the earth; at visiting our nearest celestial neighbor and leaving their footprints in its unshifting dust.

The failures and tragedies of the program are also discussed, from explosively abortive test launches, to the tragic fire that killed the crew of the Apollo 1 on the launch pad to the near-disastrous Apollo 13 mission. Belying the familiarity of the history, the film succeeds in evoking the very real threat of failure, underscoring the audacity of the whole enterprise.

It was one thing for President Kennedy, responding to national consternation over the Soviets’ early successes in launching the first satellite and the first manned mission to space, to literally promise the moon by the decade’s end. It was another thing for an intrepid team of brilliant scientists and daredevil pilots to tackle the unknown challenges of improvising a means of actually doing it.

“That’s science fiction!” exclaims Gene Cernan of his actual experiences, and if those under half a century old can’t fully appreciate that sentiment, the achievement it bespeaks is no less singular four decades later, as the fraternity of men who have been to the moon still stands at twelve members. (In the comic strip Peanuts, Linus van Pelt once said he would never want to be the first, second or even third man on the moon because of the pressure and expectations; I don’t remember the exact number where he hit his comfort zone, but I think it was something like 18 or 23. He never would have made it.)

Even at the moment of greatest triumph, as Armstrong and Aldrin took those first small steps, the risk of disaster loomed. While negotiating a suitable landing spot, Armstrong had come within seconds of expending too much fuel to break free of the moon’s gravity. Would the first moon pioneers return from their mission? The White House, it turns out, was ready for the worst, having taped a speech by Nixon to be aired if the lunar blastoff failed.

Perhaps fittingly, much of the screen time goes to Collins, the Apollo 11 crew member left behind in orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin went down to the moon’s surface. Collins was dubbed “the loneliest man in the universe” during that first moonwalk, a moniker he dismisses here. By contrast, the famously reclusive Armstrong is present only in the respectful accolades of his colleagues (“I can’t think of a negative thing about Neil Armstrong,” notes Alan Dean).

In addition to rocks and photographs and data, the astronauts have brought back from the moon something even more valuable: perspective. Their reflections speak to a sense of order and purpose in the universe, the fragility of the earth and the triviality of our terrestrial squabbles in the grand scheme of things, and the importance of our responsibility for the welfare of our planet. The Apollo 8 crew, the first to orbit the moon, recall their Christmas 1968 transmission, the most widely viewed television broadcast at that time, in which they read from Genesis 1. And Charlie Duke, the yougest of the lunar club and a devout Christian, discusses finding God on earth after traveling through the heavens: “My walk on the moon lasted three days… My walk with God will last forever.”

The shadow of human cupidity, failure and tragedy lies dark across the landscape of documentary filmmaking. Exposés, polemics and historical inquiries explore corruption, war, assassinations, negligence and every kind of disaster. These are important and have their place. But we also need documentaries like In the Shadow of the Moon, films that showcase the shadow of man’s potential for collaboration, achievement and even greatness, not just frailty. It wasn’t space or the moon that made the Apollo astronauts remarkable. It was the earth.

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In the Shadow of the Moon (DVD)

The Dark Crystal

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:49:55 PST

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Set in a mythic world populated entirely by fictional races from Jim Henson’s Muppet workshop, The Dark Crystal is ambitious high fantasy with Tolkienesque aspirations and a vague George Lucas vibe that’s part Star Wars mysticism, part Willow blandness. (Curiously, Lucas had nothing to do with The Dark Crystal, though he did executive produce that other 1980s fantasy family film with a Muppety cast, Labyrinth.)

The Dark Crystal opens in a world blighted and in darkness ever since the mighty “Crystal of Truth” shattered a millennium earlier and a tiny shard was lost. Now the cruel, vulture-like “Skeksis” reign while the gentle, camel-faced “Mystics” live in exile.

Among the Mystics lives a young, elf-like “Gelfling” named Jen, a survivor of Skeksis persecution. When his Mystic master dies (with a Jedi-esque fadeout), Jen is sent on a quest to “heal” the the Crystal of Truth, now the Dark Crystal, and thus the world. Pursued by the monstrous beetle-like Garthim, agents of the Skeksis, Jen sets out to find the missing shard of the crystal and reunite it with the whole.

Imaginatively ambitious and often visually engaging, The Dark Crystal resolutely remains a distant, uninvolving experience. The filmmakers’ attention seems occupied by the technical challenges of bringing this fictional world to life; characters and emotions, even by the archetypal standards of high fantasy, never come to life, and the overarching mythology seems too self-consciously contrived rather than taking on a mythic reality of its own.

Jen is a placeholder in the hero role, the Skeksis political intrigues have nothing hanging on them, and the Mystics spend the film walking really slowly toward the final confrontation. One Skeksis wanders through the film voicing a suggestive high-pitched interjection that sounds like he’s thinking something more intriguing than anything that ever actually materializes onscreen.

Before long it becomes clear that the Mystics and Skeksis are linked somehow. Their small numbers parallel one another, and the Skeksis emperor dies at the same time as the Mystic who was the master of Jen. Later we see that to wound or kill a member of either species is to inflict the same injury on his opposite number. This theme builds to an overtly monistic finale in which good does not triumph over evil, but is instead merged with it in a sort of yin-yang balance of harmony.

It’s meant to seem transcendent, I guess, but it comes off kind of ho-hum. Perhaps destroying the One Ring and the power of Mordor, or even blowing up the Death Star and sending Darth Vader careening out into space, makes for more satisfying drama and mythopoeia than just smooshing Obi-Wan the Grey and Darth Saruman and all their ilk into a bunch of big glowy Spielberg aliens on their way back home, leaving Frodo Skywalker behind to do who knows what with the world he’s redeemed. Either way, The Dark Crystal comes off more like a film about the idea of an epic mythic fantasy than a persuasive example of the thing itself.

The Mormons [The American Experience/Frontline]

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:24:04 PST

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“The Mormons” (DVD)

Isaiah Bennett, Inside Mormonism (book)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Co-produced for PBS by “American Experience” and “Frontline,” “The Mormons” is a two-part, four-hour documentary presentation on the history and social development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Directed by Helen Whitney (“John Paul II – The Millennial Pope”), “The Mormons” is at once as scrupulously respectful and sympathetic as any religious adherent might hope for in such a treatment, while also dealing directly and fairly with thorny subjects from Joseph Smith’s evolving accounts of his religious experiences to the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 120 travelers by Utah Mormons and the subsequent church cover-up.

With a clear intent to confront popular preconceptions and misunderstandings about Mormonism, Whitney emphasizes the church’s transition from self-imposed outsider status to the American mainstream, saving the topic of polygamy for the end.

A plethora of talking heads represent various points of view, from Mormons to non-Mormons to ex-Mormons — affiliations that unfortunately aren’t always made clear. Discernment is needed to navigate some of the rhetoric dealing with the historical problems of Mormonism’s recent origins, such as the suggestion that historic religions like Judaism and Christianity somehow get a break by having origins obscured in the mists of time.

Oddly, the actual doctrinal content of Mormon theology is virtually absent. Whitney focuses on the movement’s historical odyssey, and touches on some of Smith’s kookier ideas regarding, e.g., the Garden of Eden, but largely avoids discussing what the founders and leaders of this movement taught and teach about God and the afterlife.

Still, as a historical overview of Mormonism’s origins, “The Mormons” is worthwhile introduction for discerning viewers. Christian viewers may want to supplement it with a doctrinal critique, such as one of Mormon-turned-Catholic Isaiah Bennett’s books, such as Inside Mormonism.

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“The Mormons” (DVD)

Isaiah Bennett, Inside Mormonism (book)

Ghost Rider

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:20:27 PST

A Christianity Today Movies review

By Steven D. Greydanus

“If someone makes a mistake — a big mistake — do you think they should have to pay for it every day for the rest of their life?” ponders Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage). Or does everyone deserve “a second chance”?

Carter Slade (Sam Elliott) is sure Blaze deserves a second chance — even if his “mistake” was selling his soul to a devil named Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) in order to save a loved one dying from cancer. “You did it for the right reason,” Slade assures Blaze, “and that means you’ve got God on your side.”

Well, that’s a nice thought. In supernatural comic-book movies, though, “God’s side” can be a pretty abstract concept, especially compared to, well, the other side. Religious references and iconography are allowed, yet as the powers of hell run amok on the earth, the powers of heaven seem distant and uninvolved.

In Hellboy, the villain goes so far as to taunt one of the heroes about how “your God remains silent” while the villain’s “god” is active in the world. Constantine at least has angels around, although they seem impotent and passive compared to the demons. (In one scene demons kill a priest right in front of an angel, who can only comfort him as he dies, and another major angelic figure turns out to be a dangerous wacko.) Then there’s Spawn, in which a damned soul subverts hell’s plans to attack heaven, without much evident support from heaven itself.

An early Ghost Rider storyline in the comic books featured a startling contrast to this general principle: In Ghost Rider #9, Johnny Blaze is granted his “second chance” by no less than Jesus Christ himself, who stands between Blaze and the Devil, saying, “Johnny Blaze’s soul is beyond you, Satan. He has earned his second chance.”

Writer Tony Isabella, who developed the story in that 1973 issue, has observed that there were “plenty of Satan avatars active in the Marvel Universe, but precious little evidence of the loyal opposition.” (Isabella planned to have Blaze become a Christian and be delivered from the Devil’s power, but this was squelched, and even Jesus’ appearance later reinterpreted, apparently at the insistence of controversial editor-in-chief Jim Shooter.)

Filmmaker Mark Steven Johnson knows the Ghost Rider mythos backward and forward, and has synthesized elements from four decades of different comic-book series about characters called Ghost Rider, not all of which were originally connected, into a single story.

Yet in a story that finds room for (I think) six to eight different demonic figures (depending whether you count the two Ghost Riders), once again the powers of heaven are present in name and image only. God may be on Johnny Blaze’s side, but he doesn’t seem to be doing blazes to help him against the forces of darkness arrayed against him. Once they’ve been cast out of heaven, it seems the only thing fallen angels have to fear on the face of the earth is someone badder than they are.

Depictions of St. Michael casting down Satan are seen more than once, and we’re told that four of the demonic characters were cast out of heaven by Michael himself. There’s also a Spanish priest who defensively raises the crucifix of his rosary against a demon named Blackheart (Wes Bentley), apparently to no effect. (We never learn happens to the priest, but Blackheart, who has just finished lighting a rack of candles in a church, doesn’t seem intimidated by sacred things. Perplexingly, the movie elsewhere assures us that the demons “can’t go on sacred ground.” This is typical of the movie’s failure to establish its rules.)

As he did in Daredevil, Johnson distills elements from multiple versions of his source material into an eclectic story peppered with homages and asides that diehard fans may appreciate. Johnson’s interest in his subject is palpable, and it’s not hard to believe that Nicolas Cage, a lifelong comic book fan and motorcycle enthusiast, relished the role of Johnny Blaze, and lobbied hard for the part. This isn’t Fantastic Four, a film so woefully adrift from its origins that it seems to have been made by people who never actually read a comic book.

Yet for all their evident interest and affinity for the material, the filmmakers haven’t made a very good movie. They’ve figured out how to get Blaze (Cage), the motorcycle-riding hellion who makes a deal with the devil, into the same picture as Carter Slade (Sam Elliott), the originally unconnected (and not even supernatural) Ghost Rider of the Old West. But they haven’t figured out either who Johnny Blaze is as a character, or what the Ghost Rider is all about.

On the Johnny Blaze side, the comic-book character has long been seen as a tortured soul living in the shadow of a Jekyll-and-Hyde curse in which he must share his life with an uncontrollable figure of evil. The movie, though, defers the Ghost Rider’s first appearance for decades after Blaze’s initial deal with the devil.

This leaves Blaze, an Evel Knievel–type motorcycle stunt rider, spending his life pursuing ever more suicidal stunts in an effort to prove to himself that his life is still his own. Ever fearful of the fate that hangs over his head, he flees from his lifelong love, Roxanne Simpson (Eva Mendes, displaying more cleavage per minute of screentime than any two actresses in recent memory). Yet it seems that Blaze can’t die, for Mephisto wants him alive. “You got something more than luck,” says a crew member, shaking his head. “You got an angel looking out for you.”

“Maybe it’s something else,” Blaze mutters to himself. A wittier movie might have remembered that demons are fallen angels, and so Blaze does have an angel looking out him, after a fashion. (The film misses the same opportunity later when Blackheart shows up at a biker bar, for no apparent reason, and is told that admission is “Angels only.” “You got a problem with that?” the biker asks menacingly. “Actually, I do,” Blackheart answers, passing on the chance to say, “Actually, I am an angel.”)

In the comic books, the Ghost Rider has long been understood as a figure of vengeance, a hellion whose wrath is directed at punishing the guilty. The classic incarnation had a mystic “hellfire” power that could scald the soul without harming the flesh, while a later version added a “penance stare” power that works like the contraposto perditions of Dante’s Inferno, inflicting back on the wicked the weight and suffering of their own sins.

The movie includes this, but essentially as a sidebar. Ghost Rider gives hell to a random street thug, and later to a jail cell full of brutal prisoners (though he spares one terrified prisoner, declaring him innocent). Later, the Ghost Rider finds a way to use his power against his archenemy Blackheart, even though the latter is a demon and has no soul to burn.

But the idea of punishing the guilty just doesn’t figure much into a story that doesn’t have any human villains for the Ghost Rider to punish. Instead, the plot is driven by a war in hell between Mephistopheles and his brat kid Blackheart, who are battling over a supernatural MacGuffin, a contract for the souls of an entire town of damned souls.

It seems this contract was snatched out of Mephistopheles’ hand 150 years ago by the Carter Slade Ghost Rider, and now Blackheart is after it. For reasons that seem murky at best, this contract, and the damned souls it commands, may give Blackheart the power to claim the entire earth as his own. Go figure.

In this war of powers and principalities, the Ghost Rider’s role as a punisher of human wickedness is subordinated to a new job description invented for the film: the devil’s “bounty hunter,” or rather goon squad. Mephistopheles sends the Ghost Rider after Blackheart and his squad of fallen angels, and the film becomes a series of devil-on-devil smackdowns, which are occasionally visually interesting but never clever or even particularly coherent.

There are also a series of vehicular chases in which the police chase Ghost Rider by car, helicopter and so forth. This is the best Johnson could do with a fiery, chopper-riding skeleton that punishes the wicked — put him in chase scenes and have him duke it out with other supernatural beings? What a waste.

Green for Danger

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:14:46 PST

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Green For Danger (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Sidney Gilliat’s Green For Danger is an overlooked gem that transplants the trappings of a droll British murder mystery in an unexpected WWII context, with Nazi air raids and an emergency wartime hospital set up in a rural manor home outside London.

Alistair Sim, forever remembered as the definitive Ebenezer Scrooge, gives a witty, acerbic performance as the unnervingly mischievous Scotland Yard investigator Inspector Cockrill, called to the hospital after a seemingly accidental death is followed by a clearly unnatural one.

Not until Cockrill’s appearance is it entirely clear that the film is at once a whodunit and also a sendup of the genre. Blithely self-satisfied, wryly cold-blooded, Cockrill — the character himself, not just the actor Sim — clearly relishes playing the part of the blasé, take-charge investigator putting everyone on edge with his blunt observations about potential suspects, motives and opportunities.

Plot twists can be contrived or far-fetched, but the point isn’t the plot, or even the solution to the mystery. Rather, the film’s pleasures are in the specificity of its period detail and style, in its subtle subversion of the detective story conventions, and in Sim’s performance and understated voiceover narration.

DVD note: Making its Region 1 DVD debut courtesy of the Criterion Collection, Green For Danger comes with an in-depth commentary by film historian Bruce Eder and an interview with cultural historian Geoffrey O’Brien, who also contributes an essay on the film to the liner notes. Writer–director Gilliat also contributes some thoughts on the film to the liner notes.

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Green For Danger (DVD)

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 05:55:28 PST

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Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Zhang Yimou is increasingly two different directors.

His most recent film, the disastrously misconceived The Curse of the Golden Flower, is the latest in his series of opulent art-house wuxia epics that began with the stunning Hero and continued with the seriously flawed House of Flying Daggers.

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles represents the other Zhang Yimou, the director of bitterswewet, intimate character pieces, films like Not One Less and The Road Home. (A third Zhang, director of provocative melodramas like Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern, hasn’t been seen in awhile.)

Although a road movie of sorts, the film’s daunting title doesn’t refer to the onscreen journey, at least not in a primary sense. Instead, the film is named after a song from a Chinese folk “mask opera” that holds a particular significance for the protagonist, Gou-ichi Takata (Ken Takakura), an emotionally distant Japanese fisherman, and his alienated adult son Ken-ichi.

When the younger Takata is diagnosed with terminal cancer, his wife Rie (Shinobu Terajima), hoping to make peace between father and son, summons her father-in-law to Ken-ichi’s Tokyo hospital; but Ken-ichi refuses to see his father.

From a videotape made by his son, Gou-ichi learns of Ken-ichi’s fascination with Chinese mask operas and of his friendship with a well-known performer, Li Jiamin (real-life performer Li Jiamin playing a fictionalized version of himself). Watching the tape, an idea forms in Gou-ichi’s mind: He will travel to China to film Li performing “Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles,” ostensibly as a peace offering for his son.

This is potentially slight and sentimental stuff, but the film is wise enough to know that filming Jiamin isn’t really going to be the key to Gou-ichi’s troubled relationship with his son. Instead the story spins off in other directions, with bureaucratic obstacles, cultural and language barriers, and the troubled personal life of his would-be subject Li Jiamin.

Eventually Gou-ichi’s journey takes him to an isolated rural village in the mountains of Yunnan province, where he has an unexpectedly personal encounter with a young boy growing up without a father. The landscapes are stunning, and to Gou-Ichi as uncharted as the emotional territory he is exploring for the first time.

The themes are timeless and humane, and if the film isn’t always entirely persuasive, it earns enough viewer goodwill to make up the difference. Funny, visually sumptuous, and bittersweet, Riding Alone movingly suggests that it’s better not to.

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Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (DVD)

The Passion of the Christ: A Note on the DVD “Definitive Edition”

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:13:35 PST

The Passion of the Christ: A Note on the DVD “Definitive Edition”

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The Passion of the Christ – Definitive Edition (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register column

By Steven D. Greydanus

The original DVD edition of The Passion of the Christ was a “bare bones” edition featuring only the film itself. This week’s two-disc “Definitive Edition” is packed with extras, from The Passion Recut (which trims about six minutes of some of the most intense violence) to four separate commentaries, including a theological commentary featuring Legionaries Father John Bartunek, radical Traditionalist convert Gerry Matatics, and Gibson consultant Fr. William Fulco, who translated the script into the ancient languages.

Other features include hours of behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making (and marketing) of the film, including documentary segments on the special effects and overviews of the historical and religious background of the film.

The most valuable extra is probably the theological commentary, which offers consistently interesting and sometimes fascinating insights into the symbolism and details of the film, as well as helpful scriptural and historical context on the film’s subject matter. Even viewers who have seen the film many times will gain new insights, and have a new appreciation for the film’s artistic richness and thematic profundity.

There’s also some defensive posturing around some of the more controversial aspects of the film, such as the contrast between the inscrutable, one-dimensionally villainous Caiaphas and the far more nuanced and developed Pilate. Criticisms of the film are mentioned but not adequately framed before being dismissed.

On the whole, though, the commentary adds a great deal to the film. Non-Catholic viewers may learn more about some of the underlying ideas regarding themes connected to Peter, the Virgin Mary, the Eucharist and so forth. At the same time, Gibson and Matatics (a sedevacantist and Feeneyite) avoid antagonizing non-dissenting Catholic viewers with their dissident views. Even if you only watch the film with the theological commentary once, this new DVD edition is well worth having.

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The Passion of the Christ – Definitive Edition (DVD)

Must-see DVDs of 2006

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 04:48:06 PST

Must-see DVDs of 2006

From a National Catholic Register article

By Steven D. Greydanus

When you walk into a DVD store, “New Releases” typically dominate the displays. “New Releases,” of course, means movies that played in theaters in the last six to twenty-four months or so. Yet in fact every year many of the most exciting new DVD releases are movies that haven’t played in theaters in years, decades — or even longer.

Here, in no special order, are a few of what I consider the most exciting DVD releases of 2006 for films that didn’t play in theaters in the last year or two. Some have never before been available on DVD for Region 1 (North America); others have had earlier DVD releases, but gotten new releases this year worth mentioning.

Of the 45 films on the 1995 Vatican film list, a few remain unavailable on American DVD. This year, one of those few came to DVD in style from Criterion: Louis Mallet’s Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987), a deeply felt coming-of-age tale set in a Catholic boarding school in Nazi-occupied France.

Among the most enjoyable films Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn ever made, George Cukor’s Holiday (1938) was astonishingly available only on used VHS until this year. Thematically similar to the better-known The Philadelphia Story, from the same creative team, Holiday is less satiric, more compassionate and bittersweet — and equally memorable.

A number of excellent, inspiring productions on saints came to American DVD this year from Italian production companies. Umberto Marino’s St. Anthony of Padua (2002), the first feature film on the life of the great saint, is an illuminating depiction of the struggles and choices that led Anthony, inspired by the example of his contemporary Francis of Assisi, to join the new order.

Ignatius also distributes two Italian productions brought to Region 1 by Italian import specialist NoShame: Padre Pio: Miracle Man (2000), Carlo Carlei’s vivid portrait of the gruff, irascible stigmatist saint and mystic, and St. Francis of Assisi (2002), Michele Soavi’s flawed but intriguing depiction of the little poor man of Assisi, with a worthwhile second half depicting Francis’s ministry compensating for a flawed first half.

Few films released by Christian film companies are much good. This year, 20th Century Fox gave a DVD release to one of the best: James F. Collier’s The Hiding Place (1975), from Billy Graham’s World Wide Pictures. Based on the memoir by Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place sticks closely to the inspiring true story of the ten Boom family’s work with the Dutch underground hiding Jewish refugees from the Nazis in their Amsterdam home, and their eventual imprisonment and transferral to the Ravensbrück camp, where nearly all of them died.

Two classic 1930s seafaring swashbucklers from director Victor Fleming came to Region 1 for the first time: Treasure Island (1934) and Captains Courageous (1937). Stevenson fans will be happy to discover the previously hard-to-find 1934 Treasure Island, which sticks closer to the text than the familiar 1950 Disney version, while Captains Courageous offers a better-than-average morality tale with a strikingly positive Catholic milieu.

Another oceanic DVD release, Deep Blue (2003) — not to be confused with the action thriller Deep Blue Sea — ranks high among recent nature documentaries, touching on March of the Penguins and Winged Migration territory, but most resembling Besson’s artful 1991 ocean doc Atlantis. Directed by Andy Byatt and Alastair Fothergill, Deep Blue will astonish you with things you’ve never seen or even imagined — no matter how many other nature docs you’ve seen.

A few years back, Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki made a splash on US screens with Princess Mononoke Oscar-winning Spirited Away. This past year, one of his best, My Neighbor Totoro (1988), got a wonderful new DVD edition from Disney. One of the gentlest and most enchanting family films ever made, My Neighbor Totoro is mesmerizing entertainment for even the youngest viewers.

Another Disney DVD release from Miyazaki’s studio, Whisper of the Heart (1995), offers an equally wise and wonderful though less fantastical look at the world through the eyes of adolescence rather than childhood. Meanwhile, another company gave a DVD release to an utterly different Miyazaki project, the wacky, action-packed adventure extravaganza The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), a 007–esque thriller with spectacular set pieces and exotic settings (though marred for family viewing by some unnecessary profane and crude language).

A number of films celebrated anniversaries this year with special new DVD editions. Celebrating fifty years, Cecil B. DeMille’s holiday staple The Ten Commandments (1956) got a snazzy new box edition with extras including DeMille’s own very different 1923 silent film of the same name. From the same year, Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956) is now available in an anniversary special edition with numerous extras. There was also John Ford’s celebrated challenge to the Western mythos, The Searchers (1956).

Celebrating its 60th anniversary, the quintessential Christmas classic — and Vatican list film — It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) received a rather spartan anniversary edition, with enhanced picture quality but no new extras.

Then there are films that got special new DVD editions just because they deserved them. Among these are a pair of classics from director Billy Wilder: Stalag 17 (1953), Wilder's darkly comedic film about desperation and subversion in a Nazi POW camp; and Double Indemnity (1944), with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in one of film noir’s most hard-boiled classics.

Also noteworthy is the new Criterion edition of Akira Kurosawa’s martial-art masterpiece Seven Samurai (1954), a rare war film that at once acknowledges the necessity of killing while finding even in victory the sorrow and bitterness of defeat.

The Nativity Story and Catholic Teaching

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 17:43:33 PST

The Nativity Story and Catholic Teaching

Religious critiques of the film examined

By Steven D. Greydanus

On November 26, 2006, New Line Cinema’s The Nativity Story, the first major Hollywood feature film to focus on the birth of Jesus, had its worldwide premiere at Pope Paul VI Hall in Vatican City, becoming the first film ever to premiere at the Vatican.

High-ranking Vatican officials, including Pope Bendict’s secretary of state and right-hand man Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, were among the audience of 7,000 to 8,000, which reportedly responded enthusiastically to the film. Catholic News Service reported “thunderous applause” breaking out at several points, notably at the birth of Christ.

US Archbishop John P. Foley, head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, introduced the film, remarking that “we are happy to celebrate here this evening a film in which we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, the God Man, the Savior of the world, born of the Virgin Mary” — particularly at “a time when in so many places people are hesitant to say ‘Merry Christmas’… to say the name of Jesus Christ.”

After the screening, Cardinal Bertone described the film as “well done,” adding, “It re-proposes this event which changed history with realism, but also with a sense of great respect of the mystery of the Nativity. It is a good cinematic event … the judgment is positive.” This positive response was echoed in the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, which CNS reported praised the film as “graceful and unpretentious.” A separate screening for US bishops drew praise from a number of American prelates.

Other positive responses came from priest-blogger Fr. John Zuhlsdorf of What Does the Prayer Really Say? and AskFather.net (who lives in Rome and attended the premiere), Catholic critic David DiCerto of the USCCB Office for Film and Broadcasting, and the Catholic League.

It’s worth pointing out that none of this constitutes any sort of authoritative Church endorsement of the film. The Catholic Church doesn’t issue authoritative pronouncements on particular works of art; Catholics are free to disagree with the views expressed by Cardinal Bertone and the other individuals mentioned above.

And, in fact, some Catholics have done so so. In blogs, discussion boards, and other fora, a range of criticisms and objections concerning The Nativity Story have been raised by concerned Catholics. Some of these critiques are thoughtful and worthy of consideration, and raise issues regarding the film that have merit, or are at least defensible. Other complaints are more problematic, resting on misrepresentations of the film or even of Catholic teaching.

Mixed reviews

Even among these critical voices, the film’s virtues and achievements haven’t gone without recognition. For example, Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger, US head of an order called Franciscans of the Immaculate, posted a decidedly mixed review of the film at his blog, and has been very active in the Catholic blogosphere discussing issues in connection with the film. In his review, Fr. Geiger credits The Nativity Story as “a pious and reverential presentation of the Christmas mystery,” one that is “sincere, untainted by cynicism, and a worthy effort by Hollywood to end the prejudice against Christianity in the public square,” without any tendency toward demythologizing or skepticism.

At the same time, Fr. Geiger finds the film “muddled,” largely “one-dimensional and rarely moving.” In general he feels that “The Nativity Story in no way compares to the masterpiece which is The Passion of the Christ,” and contends that “The Passion is a fundamentally Catholic film, while The Nativity is clearly a Protestant one.”

Fr. Geiger is a nuanced and thoughtful writer; his review has merit, and his concerns deserve consideration. Similar concerns were raised by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, head of Human Life International, in a brief blog post that has appeared elsewhere online. Like Fr. Geiger, Fr. Euteneuer praises the film’s acknowledges the movie’s “many redeeming qualities,” but implies that the film “gets Mary wrong,” thereby skewing “our understanding of Jesus.”

Not all Catholic criticism of The Nativity Story has been so nuanced. One scathing critique, widely distributed on the Internet via email and online forums, begins by proposing the possibility that the film may be nothing less than “a vile anti-Christian movie created by people who hate Christ and His Church and whose main motive was to defame the name of the Blessed Mother and warp the story of the Birth of Jesus.”

That’s the authors’ worst-case scenario; as a best-case scenario, they allow that the film may be “a Protestant movie directed by men who did not even follow the Biblical account of the birth of Christ.” Apparently, the authors, Daniel and Kathleen Heckenkamp, didn’t bother to learn that the film wasn’t “directed by men” at all, but by a woman, Catherine Hardwicke. (Hardwicke and screenwriter Rich are church-going Protestants; as to whether they “followed the biblical account,” I will review some of the Heckenkamps’ complaints below.)

The Heckenkamps also claim that the “cinematographers” are “the same ones that produced ‘The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.’ ” In fact, the two projects have neither producers nor cinematographers in common — only a distributing corporation, New Line Cinema.

Needless to say, to throw around language like “a vile anti-Christian movie created by people who hate Christ and His Church” without bothering to learn the first things about the people you’re potentially slandering seems astonishingly irresponsible, to say the least. Yet this screed has been widely reproduced and linked online. (I’ve received it via email several times, and excerpts from it appear on various Catholic message boards. The whole thing has been reproduced here and there on the Web; It’s also available from the Heckenkamps’ website in Adobe PDF).

The Heckenkamps’ critique isn’t devoid of merit. In particular I agree with the substance of their criticism, if not their tone, regarding the severely edited version of the Magnificat that appears in a closing voiceover at the end of the film. This abbreviated Magnificat includes only those lines that refer in general terms to God’s mighty deeds, systematically excluding every line that refers specifically to Mary (as well as every line that refers to Israel).

This means that lines like “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones” are included, while lines like “From this day all generations will call me blessed” are dropped. Perhaps the worst edit is in the line “The Mighty One has done great things for me,” which cuts out the final two words only, reducing the line to a general statement robbed of its original Marian significance.

This is a real flaw in the film, and the Heckenkamps have a valid point here. In general, though, their critique is riddled with problematic claims and overheated rhetoric.

Vows of virginity

Typical of this critique is the claim that a scene in the film “is in line with the Protestant viewpoint that Mary and Joseph had many children after Jesus and counters the Catholic Church as it has always taught that both Mary and Joseph took vows of virginity and mutually consented to live as virgins in the married state.”

This misrepresents both the film itself, which offers no indication that Joseph and Mary in fact had other children after Jesus, and more importantly “what the Catholic Church has always taught,” which is not what the Heckenkamps say it is.

In particular the idea that Joseph took a “vow of virginity,” or that he and Mary “lived as virgins” — so far from being Catholic teaching — is actually contrary to the very ancient and well-established Catholic tradition that St. Joseph was not a virgin at all, but a widower with children from a previous marriage (Jesus’ “brethren”).

This tradition is well within the mainstream of Catholic belief through the centuries. That doesn’t mean that it is definitive or necessarily true; another tradition suggests that Joseph may not have been a widower after all, and that Jesus’ brethren may simply have been kinsmen, not foster brothers. It is thus possible that Joseph was a virgin, and even possible that he took a vow of virginity (not that I’m aware of any tradition to this effect, though one may exist).

Even so, it is clearly false to claim, as the Heckenkamps do, that the Catholic Church teaches or “has always taught that both Mary and Joseph took vows of virginity and mutually consented to live as virgins in the married state.”

Nor does the Church definitively teach that Mary was an avowed virgin prior to her betrothal to Joseph or the Annunciation. The Church does definitively teach that Mary remained ever virgin, and an ancient tradition holds that she was an avowed virgin long before she was betrothed to Joseph. However, Church dogma does not exclude the possibility that Mary’s vocation to perpetual virginity could have come about in some other way.

For instance, it is within the scope of permitted Catholic opinion that Mary may have accepted her vocation of perpetual virginity after, and due to, the Annunciation and her becoming the Mother of God, and that originally both Mary and Joseph assumed that they would have an ordinary marriage and hopefully have children. This may not be the most plausible possibility, as Mary’s answer to the angel (“How can this be? I know not a man”) is widely understood to imply a preexisting intention to remain a virgin; but Church dogma doesn’t exclude the possibility of a contrary interpretation.

Alternatively, Mary may have had a prior intention to remain a virgin that Joseph was unaware of, or did not fully appreciate, until the angel appeared to him.

Whatever the case, the movie’s portrayal on this point is within the parameters of permitted Catholic opinion, and the Heckenkamps’ claims to the contrary can only cause pious Catholics unnecessary scruples on this point.

The portrayal of St. Joseph

This is not the only misrepresentation of the film in the Heckenkamps’ critique. For instance, they claim that the film implies “that Joseph was ready to stone Mary until he had a vision through a dream… that Mary was telling the truth.”

This is an egregious misreading of the film. Far from being “ready to stone Mary,” Joseph was deeply distraught at the thought of Mary coming to any harm. The solution he proposed was to make no accusation against her, in which case there could be no trial.

The Heckenkamps’ claim to the contrary rests on a sequence depicting a nightmare in which Joseph dreams about a crowd preparing to stone Mary, and his best friend presses the first stone into his hand. From this nightmare Joseph is rescued by the appearance of the angel in his dream, and the revelation that Mary’s child was of the Holy Spirit. (This sequence is remarkably similar to a parallel sequence in Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” which also blends from a nightmare about Mary being stoned into the angel’s appearance in Joseph’s dream.) On no remotely serious reading of the film can this scene be construed as evidence that Joseph was “ready to stone Mary.”

The Heckenkamps also criticize Joseph’s behavior in a scene during the time that Mary is gone to visit Elizabeth. “During Mary’s absence at Elizabeth’s, Saint Joseph was portrayed as being upset that Mary left. … suddenly with a look of frustration and anger, he throws his tools to the ground. Saintly behavior for sure!”

Evidently the Heckenkamps are unfamiliar with the historic tradition in Christian iconography in which St. Joseph is depicted as querulous and doubting even at the Nativity itself. But, beyond that, these remarks suggest a hyperpious misunderstanding of what “saintly behavior” must look like, as if “saints” go around full of beatific calm and peace at all times, never get frustrated or angry, and would certainly never throw something. If they could go back and meet some of the saints in their earthly lives, how scandalized they would be. Joseph’s behavior in this scene is quite human and understandable, hardly sinful.

Remarkably, in blasting the film’s portrayal of St. Joseph, the Heckenkamps attack one of the aspects of the film that even Catholics who are otherwise critical of the film most consistently praise. For instance, Fr. Geiger’s review praises the film’s depiction of St. Joseph as “refreshingly masculine and virile,” and “well-developed as a just man.” Fr. Euteneuer likewise cites the portrayal of Joseph among the movie’s “many redeeming qualities.”

The portrayal of Mary

With respect to Mary, on the other hand, the critics find less to praise. Fr. Geiger describes the film’s Mary as “rather flat and disappointing,” and feels that she “lacks depth and stature.” To Fr. Euteneuer, Mary comes across in the film as an “immature adolescent.” The Heckenkamps find her to be like “any normal 14 year old given to sullen, sulky moods.”

Some of these responses fall under the heading of fair critical opinion. In some cases, I see their point. In particular I sympathize with Fr. Geiger’s disappointment with the characterization.

Disappointment with a characterization is one thing; moral criticism of the character’s behavior is something else. Insofar as the film’s critics claim to find Mary’s behavior morally objectionable, and thus contrary to the truth of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, I think the objections are misplaced.

A key scene here occurs at the betrothal ceremony of Mary and Joseph, which the film depicts as an arrangement made by Mary’s parents without her knowledge. Mary, who does not want this union, is surprised and visibly upset; at her father’s bidding she completes the ritual, but afterwards abruptly walks out of the house, to Joseph’s consternation and her parents’ concern.

For Fr. Geiger, this is a Mary with “attitude,” “asserting herself in a rather anachronistic rebellion against an arranged marriage.” Fr. Euteneuer speaks even more strongly of Mary’s “quasi-feminist tizzy against her father’s authority,” objecting that she who is the Immaculate Conception “could not have had a fit of rebellion against Her father’s legitimate authority that concretized God’s Will for Her.” The Heckenkamps, again riding roughshod over what the Church has and hasn’t defined, claim that the film “shows her to be unhappy with the future marriage that is being arranged for her by her parents (which we know to be historically incorrect).”

What is one to make of this? Certainly Mary is upset, but she hardly “rebels” — on the contrary, she submits to her father’s authority, completing the betrothal ceremony at his bidding. She is unhappy about the betrothal, but she submits to it.

Given the circumstances, it seems entirely reasonable that Mary should feel upset with her parents and the situation. Even a sinless heart may feel anger when provoked, as Jesus did more than once in his ministry; and, granted the legitimacy of her parents’ authority to make such a decision, certainly they might have handled it better than the movie depicts them doing. Mary had no idea that this arrangement was in the works. For her parents to confront her with the betrothal ritual out of the blue seems insensitive and unfair, if inadvertently so.

If the character in question were anyone other than Mary, few if any would be inclined to use terms like “quasi-feminist tizzy” or “rebellion.” In other words, what might be charitably interpreted as non-sinful behavior in an ordinary character is judged more harshly here.

Behind this harsher judgment of Mary’s actions may be some sort of expectation that Mary’s behavior always be not only non-sinful, but also somehow super-enlightened or super-beatific. The possibility that Mary might not have immediately understood the place in God’s plan of her betrothal to Joseph may be uncomfortable to pious sensibilities.

In a way, it may be a more subtle and theologically nuanced variation on the Heckenkamps’ resistance to the scene of Joseph throwing his tools to the ground. Fr. Geiger and Fr. Euteneuer may not object in that case — in part, perhaps, because Joseph is not immaculately conceived.

Yet does this act really necessarily betray some deficiency on St. Joseph’s part? Would the dogma of the Immaculate Conception necessarily exclude the possibility of Mary ever throwing something to the ground in a moment of emotion? Or, for that matter, abruptly walking out of her parents’ house?

Mary: An “ordinary” teenager?

Mary’s Immaculate Conception rendered her free from every kind of inordinate and disordered passion and inclination, as well as from all actual sin, throughout her life. Like Jesus in the wilderness, she would have faced temptations, but no concupiscent desires gave temptation any foothold in her will.

This doesn’t mean that Mary would never have found God’s will hard to accept, or that she would never have struggled or agonized over what God might or might not be asking her to do. Even Jesus Himself, during the Agony in the Garden, went so far as to pray to His Father that the Passion that He Himself had already repeatedly prophesied might in fact not be necessary, and might pass from Him. In that light, it seems hard to fault a depiction of Mary that finds her unhappy about an unwanted marriage arranged by her parents.

None of us really knows what it would be like to be immaculately conceived; the mystery of Mary’s sanctity defies our comprehension. At the same time, Mary was a finite human person caught up in mysteries that she herself didn’t always fully comprehend. For example, Lumen Gentium tells us she didn’t understand her Son’s puzzling words at the finding in the temple (LG 57).

In a word, the mystery of Mary, like the greater mystery of Christ, comprises ordinariness as well as extraordinariness. When men caught a glimpse of the extraordinariness of Christ, they were dumbfounded: “Never did any man speak like this man!” On the other hand, the residents of Nazareth who had known Him all His life knew Him only as a local tradesman, and were caught off-guard at the suggestion that He was anything more: “Is this not the son of Joseph the carpenter?”

It seems likely that if we were able to see Jesus himself as He actually was in His earthly life, we might find the reality of what He was like to be quite different from our pious imaginings. At times, surely, the reality would be far more edifying and inspiring than anything we might have imagined on our own. Yet at another times the reverse would be the case: We could just as easily be struck by how much like anyone else He was, how little indication of His divinity could be discerned.

Fr. Geiger’s claim that “The Mary of the The Nativity Story is definitely and decidedly fallen” is not supported by the facts. The Nativity Story does depict Mary as a teenager who, though “ordinary” in many ways, accepts God’s will readily; she isn’t always happy about her parents’ decisions, but isn’t established as sinful or fallen. Fr. Geiger may not find this type of approach edifying personally, and he’s certainly entitled to his critique of the execution as “flat and disappointing.” That’s not the same as saying that Mary cannot be in any way “ordinary,” or that the film contradicts Catholic truth.

Filmmaker comments

It’s worth noting that the critics’ interpretation of Mary’s actions is evidently influenced — perhaps unduly so — by comments made by and regarding the director, Catherine Hardwicke. In his review (and elsewhere) Fr. Geiger points to producer Wyck Godfrey’s remark that Hardwicke, who previously directed the teen rebellion films thirteen and Lords of Dogtown, was perfect to direct The Nativity Story because she “has had great success at really capturing the lives of young people in particular, and the conflict, crisis, and pain of growing up.” Fr. Geiger also cites a comment from Hardwicke about the betrothal scene, and what she as the director sees as Mary’s discomfort with a statement from her father about chastity during the betrothal period.

As any critic who regularly interviews filmmakers can attest, one can’t be too careful about about how much or what sort of weight one attaches to how filmmakers speak about their work. An artist, never mind a producer, is not necessarily the most reliable or useful commentator on his or her own work. Filmmakers may say all kinds of things, for all kinds of reasons, as artists they are often better at execution than at analysis and interpretation.

For a critic, the bottom line is what is in the movie itself, not what filmmakers may say about it. Watching the betrothal scene in the film, the most natural reading of Mary’s abrupt departure is that Mary is unhappy about the whole business and, once the ritual is over, doesn’t want to stand around talking about it. Hardwicke’s interpretive comments may add an unnecessary anachronistic gloss — one to which viewers need not subscribe — but either way there is nothing contradictory of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Hardwicke’s previous filmography has nothing to do with it. (If anything, most critics have found The Nativity Story to be far more informed by the typically homespun 1950s wholesomeness of screenwriter Mike Rich (The Rookie, Radio) than the edgy 21st-century indie milieu of Hardwicke’s last two films.)

The Virgin Birth

The critics’ most serious objections to The Nativity Story center on the portrayal of Jesus’ birth itself, which, they argue, is contrary to Catholic belief regarding the Virgin Birth. Specifically, they contend that the film contradicts Catholic belief that Mary gave birth in a miraculous way, one that preserved her physical virginal integrity and which involved no pain in childbirth. Mary’s body, ancient language tells us, is as a sealed or closed door, while the Lord’s passing from her body was as light through glass, leaving no mark of its passage (see the Catechism of the Council of Trent, Art. III, section 2).

“First and foremost,” writes Fr. Euteneuer, “any portrayal of Mary as giving birth in pain is simply contrary to the Christian Church’s long tradition of Mary as virginal before, during and after birth.” Fr. Geiger agrees, writing in blog comments, “the Perpetual Virginity is denied by the movie at least on the ground of pain in childbirth.”

The Nativity Story does depict the Virgin Mary in labor, and apparently in pain. If this is grounds to reject the film, we must also reject “Jesus of Nazareth,” which Pope Paul VI, following a private Vatican screening, endorsed to crowds in St. Peter’s Square on the day of the film’s worldwide premiere on Italian television. “Tonight,” the pope said, “you are going to see an example of a fine use that can be made of the new ways of communication that God is offering man.”

I cite the Holy Father’s praise for a cinematic presentation that includes a depiction of Mary laboring in childbirth, not to dismiss the issue, but to put it in perspective. The critics’ concerns here are not without merit, though they have been somewhat overstated.

The Heckenkamps overstate more than most. “The scene of the Nativity was extremely heretical,” they write. “Mary is laboring, her face sweating and in extreme pain with all of the normal actions of a woman in a delivery room and then she gives birth. Joseph raises Jesus in the air showing the baby covered with blood and Joseph laughs for joy totally discrediting belief in the Virgin Birth.”

Addressing the most obvious distortions first, the infant Jesus is certainly not “covered in blood.” If there is any blood at all, it’s not obvious; two well-known and trusted parental advisory websites, Screen It and Kids‑in‑Mind, make no mention of blood (Kids‑in‑Mind reasonably notes “a bit of goo”). The infant Jesus is somewhat in shadow when Joseph lifts him up, though, so it’s not an obvious point either way.

Not only is there no obvious blood, it may be noted that there’s also no umbilical cord and no afterbirth of any kind — which seems consistent with how a miraculous birth might be depicted. Worth noting, too, are the luminous effects hailing the actual moment of the birth. Light from the Christmas star, shining down on the cave like a beacon, fills the cave, and a fade to white fills the screen just before Jesus appears. This effect is strikingly convergent with the account of the Infancy Gospel of James, one of the earliest sources attesting Mary’s perpetual virginity and the miraculous birth of Jesus: “A great light appeared in the cave so that our eyes could not endure it. And by little and little that light withdrew itself until the young child appeared: and it went and took the breast of its mother Mary.”

The film’s depiction, not unlike that of the Infancy Gospel of James, suggests the mystery of a birth that cannot be fully explained. The Heckenkamps’ attempts to establish the contrary by arguing that Mary undergoes “all of the normal actions of a woman in a delivery room” does not justify their allegation that the scene is “extremely heretical,” because heresy involves denial of dogma, and no dogma of the faith establishes what actions were or weren’t involved in Jesus’ birth.

What does the dogma teach?

Mary’s virginity before, during and after Jesus’ birth is an article of Catholic faith. What virginity in childbirth (in partu) entails in terms of physiological specifics, and in particular whether it necessarily excludes labor pains, are ultimately questions for the Magisterium. They are questions for which the Magisterium has not thus far proposed infallible answers.

So I was told by Avery Cardinal Dulles, holder of the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society at Fordham University, and America’s most eminent Catholic theologian, when I checked with him on this point recently. The Church, Cardinal Dulles said, “has not committed itself to any particular physical theory” of virginity in partu, and therefore the possibility that Mary “could have suffered some pains in birth” may be “compatible with Catholic doctrine.” The cardinal also pointed out that further doctrinal development and magisterial teaching could clarify the question one way or the other.

A similar assessment is expressed by Dr. Ludwig Ott, whose Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma is well respected for its careful assessment of the degree of authority pertaining to various articles of belief.

Dr. Ott declares that the doctrine of Mary’s virginity in partu “merely asserts the fact of the continuance of Mary’s physical virginity without determining more closely how this is to be physiologically explained.” While acknowledging that the Fathers and Schoolmen generally held that “Mary gave birth in miraculous fashion without opening of the womb and injury to the hymen, and consequently also without pains,” Ott states that “the question is whether in so doing they attest a truth of Revelation or whether they wrongly interpret a truth of Revelation, that is, Mary’s virginity, from an inadequate natural scientific point of view” (p. 205).

Other theologians are certainly free to offer differing opinions, but the Magisterium has not so far excluded the possibility of Mary suffering labor pains as contrary to Catholic Marian dogma. The most authoritative attestation of this belief is the 16th-century Roman Catechism, which, though of great value, is neither infallible or error-free. More recent official texts, such as Lumen Gentium and The Catechism of the Catholic Church, use more circumspect language, reaffirming Mary’s virginity in partu without addressing the question of labor pains. From this it might not unreasonably be inferred that the Magisterium may be distancing itself somewhat from formulations of the past, leaving the door open to different opinions and further doctrinal development on this point.

Pain and labor

None of this is to deny the weight of various arguments put forward on behalf of traditional Catholic beliefs regarding Mary’s physical intactness and absence of labor pains. It is simply to say that the film offers no contradiction of dogma and no endorsement of heresy; the film’s imaginative dramatization is not outside the bounds of defined Catholic dogma.

What about arguments from scripture or theology? Aren’t labor pains a punishment of the Fall? And wouldn’t Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the New Eve, be exempt from these punishments?

Perhaps. Yet Genesis 3 may suggest that labor, and even some kind of pain in labor, may be part of the order of creation, not just a result of the Fall. What God says to Eve is: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing” (Genesis 3:16 RSV; other translations give “increase” and “intensify”).

In the same way, incidentally, the labor that is laid on man as a result of the Fall is not an entirely new labor, but a new burden of difficulty and futility on the labor already given him prior to the Fall. In Genesis 3:17–19 God consigns the man to toilsome labor in the cursed soil, to sweat and thorns and thistles. Yet even before the Fall we read that God put the man in the garden “to till and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Labor itself, then, is part of the order of Creation, not the Fall. What happened as a result of the Fall was not that labor came into existence, but that man’s labor in the earth became onerous, subject to futility, thorns and thistles.

Woman’s labor in childbirth may be a similar case. It doesn’t seem from Genesis 3:16 that apart from the Fall, childbirth would not have been attended by any sort of labor whatsoever. Rather, the pain of labor greatly increased as a result of the Fall.

In this connection, it’s worth noting that while The Nativity Story undeniably depicts Mary laboring, she doesn’t suffer like Elizabeth. If she is in pain, it seems to be a markedly less severe pain. In fact, whether she is truly in pain at all, or simply in the strenuous effort of labor, may be in the eye of the beholder.

But did Mary labor at all? If the Virgin Birth was a miraculous event — if Jesus passed from Mary’s body “like light through glass” — was any effort on Mary’s part required at all?

Those are good questions. I cannot see that the only thinkable answer is “Absolutely not.” “How should I know?” seems just as defensible, or more so. I see no reason why, if He wished, God could not miraculously preserve Mary’s virginity yet still allow her to be actively involved in the birth of her Son — nor why He cannot have wished to do so. Ott and others observe that both Matthew and Luke tell us that Mary “brought forth” or “bore” Jesus (Matt 1:25, Luke 2:7), an active-voice verb in Greek that suggests a mother’s active effort or labor in bringing her offspring into the world. Is it possible that the Virgin Mother labored with her Child? Might the God-Bearer have borne her Son with maternal effort to bring Him forth? I’m not arguing for one answer over another. I’m simply observing that neither answer seems contrary to established Catholic Marian dogma.

What the film does right

Although The Nativity Story doesn’t contradict or deny the Immaculate Conception or Mary’s perpetual virginity, clearly it doesn’t affirm them either. On these Catholic distinctives, the film is silent. To that extent, the critics are right to contend that The Nativity Story is informed by an outlook that is Protestant rather than Catholic.

This doesn’t mean that the film doesn’t affirm Catholic truth regarding Mary and the Nativity story. It does.

It affirms the Annunciation, the Incarnation, the virginal conception, the divine sojourn in Mary’s womb, the Nativity of the Lord.

It affirms the Visitation (Elizabeth’s inspired greeting, the infant leaping for joy in her womb), various angelic appearances (to Joseph, Zechariah, the shepherds), the Christmas star and the journey of the Magi, the adoration of the shepherds and the Magi.

It affirms the betrothal of Joseph and Mary, the Roman census, the journey to Bethlehem, Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, the flight into Egypt.

It affirms prophecy fulfilled, faith in God honored, virtue tested and rewarded.

It affirms Jesus Christ, God made man and Savior of the world. It affirms His coming into the world as the turning point in sacred history.

It affirms Mary’s faith in the word of the angel and the acceptance of her Fiat, “Let it be done to me accord to your word.” It affirms Joseph’s obedience to the word of the angel who appeared in his dream. If the characterization of Mary isn’t everything it might have been, its success with St. Joseph goes a long way toward making amends.

That’s a lot to get right. A film that does all that has affirmed a major chunk of what is central to the Christmas mystery. Has The Nativity Story done all of this as well as it might have? Has it affirmed everything a film by Catholic filmmakers might? No on both counts. In my review and elsewhere I’ve acknowledged and critiqued the film’s flaws and limitations, with respect to its cinematic art and its theological vision. The question, then, is whether what the film does do is of sufficient value to recommend it on that basis, irrespective of what it doesn’t do.

My answer, along with Cardinal Bertone and Archbishop Foley, is that The Nativity Story is worthwhile. Like Pope Paul VI, I prefer a biblical film that gets right much of what matters most, even if it is not without some issues and drawbacks, to no film at all. Hypothetically, some cinematic masterpiece from Catholic filmmakers might be preferrable — but no such film exists. Fr. Geiger has repeatedly contrasted The Nativity Story with The Passion of the Christ. When it comes to the Christmas story, though, the practical choice is not between The Nativity Story and some hypothetical Christmas equivalent of The Passion of the Christ, but between The Nativity Story and nothing.

I would rather have The Nativity Story than not have it. I’m glad it was made, glad I was able to see it with my family this past Advent, glad for the prospect of watching it on DVD next Advent. I don’t claim that it’s perfect. It isn’t. But a film, like a meal or a friend, doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be worthwhile. Of course some meals and some friends will do you more harm than good; the same is true of some films. But others will do more good. Taken altogether, with all its limitations and virtues, The Nativity Story is among the latter.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 02:31:55 PST

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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (DVD)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (VHS)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Riveting, downbeat, and full of surprises, John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is both a gripping adventure and one of Hollywood’s best and most resonant morality tales, a smart and remorseless story of gold, greed, guns, and guile in the mountains of Mexico.

Humphrey Bogart, forever associated with tough-hero roles in films like Casablanca and The Big Sleep, gave some of his best performances in darker roles (e.g., The Caine Mutiny, High Sierra). In Fred C. Dobbs, a down-and-out American in Mexico suffering from a lack of options and moral fiber, he may have had the role of his career. Equally splendid is the director’s aging father, former matinee idol Walter Huston, as an eccentric but canny and tough old prospector named Howard.

A couple of early scenes suggest that while Dobbs is far from noble or honorable, he’s not especially dishonorable or dishonest either. Annoyed by a persistent young beggar, Dobbs splashes water in the boy’s face; but on the other hand when Dobbs and a companion, Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), run into a shady operator who owes them a week’s wages, and they manage to get the upper hand over him, Dobbs goes into the con man’s wallet and takes the money he owes them — but only that much, leaving the rest.

In fact, Dobbs and Curtin both seem fairly ordinary men, neither especially bad nor especially good, perhaps capable of either nobility or treachery, as circumstances might inspire or tempt him. This is important, because when the story puts them to the test, if they were either particularly honorable or dishonorable the end result would be either trivial or contrived. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre shrewdly avoids these pitfalls, along with the misanthropic implication that, when push comes to shove, anyone always does whatever is in his own self-interest.

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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (DVD)

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Key Largo

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:48:13 PST

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Key Largo (DVD)

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From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Like the similarly sweaty, claustrophobic 12 Angry Men nine years later, John Huston’s Key Largo is a rare adaptation of a stage play in which the physical constraints of the stagebound source material are a strength rather than a weakness. Tension and tempers seethe within the confined space of an old hotel in the Florida Keys — linked to the mainland only by a far-flung causeway — while the unpredictable violence of the late summer hurricane season accentuates the rising inner and outer conflict.

Humphrey Bogart’s Frank McCloud is a variation on his most familiar persona, the disillusioned, cynical ex-soldier confronted with a crisis that puts his me‑first ethic to the test. What makes Key Largo different from Casablanca and To Have and Have Not is that it takes this familiar character out of his self-defined comfort zone and pits him against a postwar foe that rattles his nerves and tests his limits in a way that the Nazis and Vichy French never could.

Not that aging gangster Johnny Rocco (a bravura Edward G. Robinson in a memorable turn on his own best-known role) is really a worthy adversary for the canny McCloud. A formidable public enemy during the Prohibition era, now exiled to Cuba, Rocco has neither the self-awareness of Rains in Casablanca nor the equanimity of Seymour in To Have and Have Not. McCloud’s contempt for the thug is evident in his barely veiled mockery, flattery and manipulation.

Yet for all that McCloud recognizes that the desperation of a wounded old lion may make him all the more dangerous, and his anxiety is tangible. Wartime bravado has given way to postwar malaise, and even the tarnished valor of studied indifference is no longer an adequate defense.

The setting for the conflict is a hotel belonging to the family of a GI buddy of McCloud’s who was killed in battle. McCloud stops by to pay respects to the family, only to find a hotel under siege, occupied by gangsters staging a summit meeting. Despite the worrisome circumstances, McCloud is welcomed by his buddy’s war widow Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall in her fourth and final film with husband Bogart) and wheelchair-bound father (Lionel Barrymore), who are eager for the heroic details about their loved one’s last days that McCloud willingly provides.

Yet the ex-soldier is equally willing to disappoint the Temples’ expectations for similar heroism in their present straits, and hopes only to give Rocco a wide berth and ride out the storm. McCloud endures Rocco’s abuse of himself and his hosts, his cruelty to the local American Indians, even (in one of the film’s creepier touches) the unheard whispered obscenities that Rocco breathes in Nora Temple’s ear.

Ultimately, though, something cracks in both men, and McCloud risks Rocco’s wrath to return the small kindness of Rocco’s alcoholic moll (Claire Trevor), a drink for a drink, and the die is cast. Both McCloud and Rocco are men adrift in the post-war era, Rocco pining for the glory days of Prohibition, McCloud hoping to leave the past behind and move on to an unknown future. As Rocco’s desperate flailing increases, though, McCloud slowly finds the footing he needs to stand his ground.

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To Have and Have Not

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:41:22 PST

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To Have and Have Not (DVD)

Bogey & Bacall – The Signature Collection (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

To Have and Have Not, Howard Hawks’s more or less in-name-only adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “worst novel,” has more in common with Casablanca (including nearly half a dozen players) than with its ostensible source material. Its real claim to fame, though, is the first pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who appeared together in only three other films but remained ever after linked off the screen.

The witty screenplay by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner samples from the novel’s dialogue, plot points, and character names, but the setting has been shifted from 1930s Cuba to WWII-era Martinique, and the drama of a broke sea captain forced to smuggle illegal immigrants to support his family has been replaced with a heroic romance about a hard-bitten ship captain asked to smuggle a French resistance leader past Vichy agents.

Lauren Bacall was an 18-year-old unknown when she signed up to play 22-year-old Marie “Slim” Browning opposite established star Bogart, and was so intimidated by the older man that they had to keep reshooting the scene where she casually catches a matchbook from him because she kept dropping it. But their onscreen chemistry is palpable, all but overshadowing the fictional back story that made Rick and Ilsa's dance in Casablanca so memorable.

In spite of this, To Have and Have Not doesn’t have the elements that make Casablanca immortal: lovers with a complex history, a romantic triangle with equally sympathetic rivals, noble sacrifice for a higher cause, and one classic line after another (Walter Brennan’s “Was you ever bit by a dead bee?” doesn’t quite cut it, although Bacall’s “maybe just whistle” line comes close).

Dan Seymour exudes smooth menace as Vichy Captain Renard, Brennan’s sweet rummy is amusing and ingratiating, and songwriter Hoagy Carmichael plays “Hong Kong Blues” and “How Little We Know” with Bacall herself singing the latter. It may be Casablanca lite, but To Have and Have Not generates its own modest charm.

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To Have and Have Not (DVD)

Bogey & Bacall – The Signature Collection (DVD)

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Son of Rambow

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The Nativity Story and Catholic Teaching

The Nativity Story and Catholic Teaching

Religious critiques of the film examined

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Mixed reviews

Vows of virginity

The portrayal of St. Joseph

The portrayal of Mary

Mary: An “ordinary” teenager?

Filmmaker comments

The Virgin Birth

What does the dogma teach?

Pain and labor

What the film does right

See also

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

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By Steven D. Greydanus

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Key Largo

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