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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.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:37:37 PST

By Steven D. Greydanus

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is not a good movie, but it is made by filmmakers with panache who have some good ideas and a lot of bad ones, but in any case are giving it all they’ve got. Like its predecessor, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, it may not really work, but at least it’s not lazy or phoned-in like, say, Shrek the Third or Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa.

What both Ice Age sequels lack is discipline, somewhat as a Jackson Pollock drip painting lacks composition, perspective and negative space. Both sequels play less like bona fide movies than like initial brainstorming sessions for an Ice Age sequel, with every proposal thrown into a hat and then all put on the screen, without the bother of selecting, editing and rewriting, of exercising restraint, of shaping the material into a coherent whole.

As a collection of parts, almost an anthology of ideas, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is fitfully entertaining. It’s probably better made than The Meltdown, with more workable plot ideas, fewer completely unintegrated sequences, better stuff to look at, and their best animation to date.

This time out, mammoths Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) are having a baby, a major step forward from Ellie thinking she was an opossum in the last film for no good comic or narrative reason. Diego the sabretooth (Denis Leary) is worried that he’s lost his predator’s edge hanging around with herbivores — something so obvious the filmmakers should have thought of it last time instead of giving him some silly issue about fear of water. Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), feeling left out of Manny and Ellie’s family togetherness, decides to hatch a clutch of dinosaur eggs he finds in an underground chamber that turns out to be connected to a subterranean lost world, which at least gives him something meaningful to do, and leads to some great set pieces in the lost world.

Alas, Dawn of the Dinosaurs also marks Blue Sky Studios’ descent into the kind of crude and suggestive humor they once left to DreamWorks. Take this exchange between Manny and Diego, huddled together in the maw of a giant carnivorous plant:

“I feel kind of tingly.”

“Don’t say that when you’re pressed up against me!”

“Not that kind of tingly!”

That’s just for starters. While crotch trauma humor is an unfortunate staple of family entertainment, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the first family cartoon I’ve seen with so much overt verbal humor about male organs — gags ranging from basically harmless to downright nasty. On the harmless end, Sid the sloth exclaims “It’s a boy!” at the sight of a newborn, only to be told, “That’s a tail, Sid!” Then there’s a line from gonzo, swashbuckling weasel Buck (Simon Pegg of Star Trek), musing on the phrase “I’ve got your back”: “Why is it your back? Wouldn’t you rather they had your front? That’s where the good stuff is!”

On the nasty end, Buck brandishes a long knife while boasting about the time he used a sharp implement to “turn a T-Rex … into a T-Rachel.” But the low point may be a punchline shot of Sid shouting “I thought you were a female!” as he flees from an outraged yak he made the mistake of groping in pursuit of milk.

What makes this so disheartening is the departure it marks for Blue Sky Studios, whose previous work from Ice Age and Robots to Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who! has been marked by a refreshing ingenuousness, a lack of jaded sophistication. In their earlier films, even the occasional double entendre, like when a robot father-to-be arrives home too late for the “delivery” of the new-baby kit, but still gets to help his wife “make the baby” (“That’s the fun part,” she coyly reminds him), was innocent and sweet rather than crass or tasteless.

That’s not to say if you looked hard enough you couldn’t find something inappropriate about Blue Sky’s earlier work. Even with Ice Age, grown-ups with their eyes open would realize that the two rhinocerotoids were meant to be gay. Yet to the pure all things are pure, and children would make no more of them than of Ernie and Bert on “Sesame Street.” (Anyway, those bullying rhinos weren’t exactly role models.)

More overt in this film, though equally over children’s heads, is throwaway reference about someone having known a butterfly as a caterpillar “before he came out.” A line like that won’t corrupt children, only annoy their parents — but why should parents subject themselves to such annoyance?

Even Scratt the sabre-squirrel’s slapstick segments don’t escape unscathed. The opening sequence, adding a foxy female squirrel named Scratte to form a sort of triangle with Scratt and his beloved acorn, is a worthy addition to Scratt’s oeuvre, as is a later tango sequence. But parents may wince for more reasons than one at a later moment when Scratte tears away the acorn, stuck fast to Scratt’s torso by sticky tar, ripping fur from Scratt’s chest and exposing the pink skin beneath — a gag that, as Peter Chattaway among others has noticed, looks like an homage to a scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin involving chest waxing. (Chattaway also notes that the yak-milking scene recalls an exceptionally offensive scene from Freddy Got Fingered. Not that kids will know this, but what the heck were they thinking?)

Last week a couple of researchers at the University of Michigan published a report warning of the dangers of — no joke — “heteronormativity” in family entertainment, like Disney cartoons in which the princess always winds up with the prince. Thankfully, cartoons like Ice Age do fit this general pattern (Manny belongs with Ellie, Scratt falls for Scratte, etc.), though there are still stabs at the notion of “other kinds of families.” Sid adopting and hatching the three dino eggs and repeatedly calling himself a “mommy” (and even “a single mother of three”) is in that vein — though Manny may speak more wisdom than he intends when he points out that Sid that “taking someone else’s eggs” is no way to become a parent. Later, the real dino mother shows up, and for a while the dino triplets have two mommies — though the story does end on what the Michigan U researchers would probably find a regrettably traditional and biologistic note.

You can see the talent at work amid the muck. A slalom snowboarding sequence with Sid the sloth and a trio of dinosaur eggs has the same slapstick flair as Scratt’s segments. Dinosaur skeletons are inventively put to novel use as means of transportation, a conceit that is much cleverer than the lame tree-trunk ark from The Meltdown. The climactic act may be an overwrought mess, but it almost achieves a kind of screwball grandeur. All in all, though, Dawn of the Dinosaurs may be Blue Sky’s least appealing effort to date.

“We had a great run,” says Diego early in the film, “but now it’s time to move on.” That’s half true, anyway.

Slumdog Millionaire

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:31:40 PST

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Slumdog Millionaire

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

In a Danny Boyle film, it seems, it’s always about the money, and it’s never about the money. From Shallow Grave to Trainspotting, from A Life Less Ordinary to Millions, a big bag of money, or the prospect of one, proves a key turning point in the lives of Boyle’s characters, and variously reveals their venality — or their virtue.

Slumdog Millionaire is about one of the good ones. There’s no literal bag, but the film opens with Mumbai orphan Jamal Malik (played as young man by Dev Patel) within one question of winning the big prize on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? How did an uneducated child of the slums know the answers to all those questions about Indian and world culture? A. Did he cheat? B. Is he lucky? C. Is he a genius? Or D. is it written?

Don’t ask to use a lifeline. If anyone needs one, it’s Jamal. Violently orphaned during the Bombay Hindu–Muslim riots of the early 1990s, taken in by an underworld monster (Ankur Vikal) who trains children as beggars and maims them to maximize their earning potential, sundered for most of his life from his increasingly delinquent brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) and from Latika (Freida Pinto), the girl-woman he barely knows but loves faithfully, Jamal just might dissolve all his life’s problems with a single word, indeed a single letter — if he can get through an evening of torture by police who believe he must be cheating.

Directed by Danny Boyle (Millions, Sunshine), Slumdog Millionaire uses the questions and answers of Jamal’s game-show appearance as a hook to illuminate the tribulations of his hardscrabble life and the teeming, tumultuous city he lives in, but also to set the stage for a turning point that’s less about money than about love.

Celebrated by fans as the “feel-good” film of 2008 and damned by skeptics as “poverty porn,” Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire is, I think, neither of these. It’s a wrenching fairy tale, a yarn rife with desperate want, loyalty and love, a fable of the vagaries of life that are often cruel but sometimes unexpectedly, sublimely kind.

With his brother Salim, Jamal is reduced to petty thievery and scamming tourists. Unlike Salim, though, Jamal retains something of the childhood innocence and single-mindedness that once led him as a young boy to escape from a locked outhouse by plunging into a mountain of raw sewage, all to meet his hero, Bollywood icon Amithab Bhachan, and get an autographed photo — a photo that Salim later sells.

With similar purity of heart, the grown Jamal loves Latika, not for the unknown woman she is, but for the girl he remembers from childhood on the streets, whom she will always be to him. Latika herself could go either way: Like Salim, she’s capable of leaving behind the innocence of childhood and accepting the cruddiness of the world she lives in, an underworld that commodifies her sexuality as Salim commodified Jamal’s prized photo. But somewhere deep down is a little girl that Jamal can still reach, as he can no longer reach the little boy that no longer exists in Salim.

Still, it’s a mark of Boyle’s humanism that even Salim is seen as a semi-sympathetic tragic figure rather than a mere thug. (Major spoiler warnings.) Though a gangster, Salim kneels every day toward Mecca to say his prayers, and is ultimately willing to put his brother’s happiness above his own life. At the same time, Salim himself is no longer capable of simple happiness, and makes his squalid last stand confessing the greatness of Allah, but literally immersed in the money he chose to follow.

In a way, Salim’s last stand recalls Jamal’s stomach-churning outhouse escape — a scene that, as the echo suggests, is more than a shocking set piece, or even a dramatization of Jamal’s pluck. It’s the ultimate metaphor for purity of heart, for being in unedurable circumstances but not of them. Jamal literally swims through offal, but he doesn’t succumb to it. Part of him doesn’t even see it. He just sees escape. It’s the same with the Millionaire jackpot. For him, it was never about the money.

Jamal’s outhouse escape, as Teresa Wiltz (The Root) notes, echoes a sickening scene in Trainspotting in which Ewan MacGregor’s drug-addicted Renton plunges into an appalling public toilet in pursuit of lost opium. That scene illustrates the abjectness of Renton’s degradation. For Jamal, it’s just the opposite. A pile of feces, a pile of money — it’s all the same in the end.

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Slumdog Millionaire

Gulliver’s Travels

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:21:38 PST

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Coming on the heels of Disney’s landmark Snow White, Gulliver’s Travels, from rival Fleischer Studios, is an intriguing case study in the elusive gap between decent work by talented animators and a successful and satisfying film.

Max and Dave Fleischer were animation pioneers, and the Fleischer studios produced some terrific shorts from the silent era to the early 1940s. They were weak, though, on storytelling fundamentals like characterization, drama and emotion, as well as thematic heft — qualities that may or may not be needed in a five-minute Koko the Clown short, but are indispensable in a feature-length story, especially a fairy tale.

Gulliver’s Travels, the first of the Fleischers’ two feature films (followed by the 1941 Mr. Bug Goes to Town), showcases only some of the Fleischers’ strengths and all of their weaknesses. It’s second-rate imitation Disney, with a royal love story, little people and a song-filled soundtrack — inevitable after the success of Snow White, perhaps, but the Fleischers’ creative juices flowed in other directions, and they didn’t know what to do with this material.

The film’s best moments reflect the Fleischers’ love of process and technical problem-solving — on both sides of the camera. Gulliver himself is a fascinating effect, rotoscoped (traced frame by frame) from live-action footage to uncannily naturalistic effect, with painterly shadows and persuasive movements and gestures. The binding of Gulliver on the beach by the Lilliputians is vintage Fleischer, a massive engineering project involving arrays of archers, cranes, tunnels, horses and a makeshift dolly. Striking images crop up here and there, such as the prone Gulliver rolling slowing under the arch of a bridge just barely high enough for him to pass, and a scene in which the Lilliputians repair Gulliver’s clothes.

But there’s no getting around Gulliver’s failure as a story. There’s no main character, for one thing, if there are even any characters at all. Gulliver himself is an indulgently benevolent giant with no personality to speak of; he’s just passing through, and has no emotional investment in the events of Lilliput and rival kingdom Blefuscu. Among the Lilliputians, the irascible town crier Gabby (Pinto Colvig of Goofy fame) figures prominently, but he’s annoying rather than funny, and winds up sidelined during the climax.

Prince David and Princess Glory, lovers from rival kingdoms, are so generic that their relationship consists entirely of serenading one another in the anthems of their respective nations, “Faithful” and “Forever.” (Snow White’s Prince Charming isn’t a lot better, but there’s a reason it’s called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, not Snow White and Prince Charming.) Bombastic King Bombo might be mildly amusing for a few minutes as a foil to Popeye or Donald Duck, while dithering King Little makes almost no impression at all. Not helping matters is the score, which is pleasant at best, rather than memorable or moving.

The contrasting animation styles are jarring, with ultra-lifelike Gulliver, the cartoony Lilliputians, and David and Glory somewhere in between. In all these respects Disney did these things better: Snow White used rotoscoping for gesture and movement, but, rather than literally tracing their subjects, the animators redrew Snow White’s anatomy with more stylized proportions that worked better with the ultra-cartoony dwarfs. With Bambi, likewise, while the animators studied and evoked deer anatomy much more realistically than, say, Snow White’s shapeless deer among the forest creatures, Bambi’s deer are still stylized enough not to seem jarring next to cartoony Thumper and Friend Owl.

Gulliver’s Travels isn’t bad work. There’s talent and experience at work here, and it’s fitfully diverting. Open-minded children may enjoy it, and serious animation buffs will appreciate it historically. Even its limitations are of some critical interest. Gulliver’s Travels is the second-best 1930s animation studio’s best shot at a feature film. It’s worth seeing just to enhance one’s appreciation all that went magically right, but did not have to, in the early Disney classics.

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Gulliver’s Travels (DVD & Blu-ray)

Monsters vs. Aliens

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:58:17 PST

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

What would happen if the 50-Foot Woman teamed up with The Blob, The Fly, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and a larval Mothra to battle a giant robot from space and an alien invasion? That’s not precisely what you get in Monsters vs. Aliens, the latest computer-animated genre send-up from DreamWorks Animation, but it gets you in the ballpark.

A New York Times story reports that directors Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon researched their subject matter by watching 150 B-movies from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. I believe it.

The opening sequence, in which would-be bride Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is exposed to mysterious energy by a meteorite that nearly falls on her on her wedding day, then proceeds to swell to the gargantuan proportions of Ginormica, isn’t copied from Attack of the 50-Foot Woman or any other ’50s film, but it feels of a piece with that world.

Same goes for Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), who isn’t exactly The Fly, and the Missing Link (Will Arnett), who isn’t exactly the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The titanic Insectosaurus, who towers over even Ginormica, is at least as much Godzilla as Mothra. As for the gelatinous, literally brainless B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), well, he isn’t much like anything you’ve ever seen anywhere outside a computer-animated film, but he’s the most reliably entertaining thing in the film, both scriptwise and visually.

Monsters vs. Aliens is easily DreamWorks’ most ambitious and spectacular computer-animated effort to date. The worlds of the Shrek and Madagascar films have always felt somehow paltry and half-hearted to me, as if the characters themselves didn’t believe the world extended beyond the edges of the screen, or the opening and closing credits. Only Kung Fu Panda created a persuasive and satisfying alternate reality.

Monsters does something similar, but on a far larger scale, with secret government compounds, cavernous alien spacecraft and epic disaster-style set pieces. Perhaps kung fu and sci-fi creatures bring out the inner geeks of the DreamWorks animation teams better than fairy tales and other things they’ve tried.

If the supporting cast isn’t very well realized or utilized, well, neither were the Furious Five. But where Kung Fu Panda focused on the relationship of enthusiastic Po and gruff Master Shifu — and even developed some real poignance between Shifu and his villainous former pupil — Monsters only has one character that really matters — Ginormica — and no relationships to speak of.

More seriously, where Po’s acquisition of discipline, self-confidence and skill made his journey from hapless kung-fu fanboy to Dragon Warrior a satisfying one, Ginormica’s story — a feminist fable of grrl-power and male inadequacy — is more irritating than engaging.

In some ways, it’s even the same story as her counterpart in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. In both stories, the heroine is pursued by aliens who want her for a power source in her possession. In both films she’s initially unassertive and blind to the shortcomings of her self-centered man, who abandons her to institutional custody and whom, in a climactic scene, she manhandles like a rag doll. And she has wardrobe issues: Not only does Ginormica’s growth spurt leave her barely dressed, she spends the rest of the film in skin-tight cat suits accentuating her Barbie-colossus curves.

Monsters opens on a promising note, with the hopeful bride preparing for a church wedding and a teary prenuptial father–daughter scene, before fiancé Derrick (Paul Rudd) shows up. The first sign of trouble isn’t that Derrick, a small-town weatherman with dreams of big-network glory, wants to cancel their Paris honeymoon to go to Fresno for a job interview. It’s that he pitches this to Susan as great news, rather than telling her how sorry he is.

Disappointed, Susan is gamely supportive (“As long as I’m with you, Fresno is the most romantic city in the world”) — an attitude that could bode well for their future, in a story in which someone like Derrick was capable of enlightenment. In this world, though, it means that Susan is a passive victim of Derrick’s egotism. “Derrick is a selfish jerk!” Ginormica exclaims angrily after a reunion as painful as it is brief. “Why did I have to get hit by a meteor before I saw it?”

Besides waking up to Derrick’s selfishness, Susan needs to overcome her timidity, stop “short-changing” herself — yes, that feminist buzzword is actually used — and trust her own strength. In an age of fearless heroines like Tigress, Coraline, Giselle, Elastigirl, Elizabeth Swann and Hermione Granger, is this a story children will relate to? (Yes, The Incredibles’ Violet needs to learn self-confidence, but she’s (a) a painfully shy teenager (b) who’s been told for years to hide her gifts. Susan’s a grown woman with nothing more oppressive in her known past than loving parents and a suburban milieu.)

Will youngsters even understand why, in the first big battle sequence, Ginormica and her much smaller male fellow monsters all seem to assume that the thing to do is for Ginormica to run away while her teammates take on a giant alien robot on their own? Heck, I’m not sure I understand it. She’s obviously the only one remotely in the robot’s league. (Insectosaurus isn’t on the scene yet, and it’s not clear he understands anything at all.)

Susan’s callow fiancé Derrick isn’t the only embodiment of male inadequacy. The Missing Link sulkily nurses a wounded ego when his braggadocio is squelched following the giant robot battle, in which Ginormica shines while he ineffectually stands by.

The President (Stephen Colbert), after grandly trying — and failing — to communicate with the alien robot through music, screams like a woman when shown an image of Ginormica, evidently threatened by powerful women. (The scream is actually a decent gag, following repeated stereotyped screams from a female character when images of the other monsters are shown.)

A superfluous scene depicting a young couple parking in a convertible at night first ridicules the virility of the young man, a letter-wearing jock (the girl wants some action, and is clearly disappointed by her beau’s diffidence) — then depicts him trailing fearfully behind his intrepid date as she goes to investigate a mysterious crash in the distance. He even twists his ankle so that she has to carry him.

Other male characters fare little better. Dr. Cockroach is a typical movie egghead, besides looking like something you’d want to step on. In a gag with a hint of gender-bending, the B.O.B.’s perennial state of confusion causes him to continually mix up his teammates with each other and even himself, so that he repeatedly believes that he — rather than Ginormica — is engaged to Derrick (and in a climactic gag even indignantly “breaks up” with Derrick).

As a tale of female empowerment and male comeuppance, Monsters vs. Aliens might have been provocative, like, 50 years ago. Today, nothing seems more subversive — and unlikely — than a family film with a heroic leading man who’s the equal of the leading lady — one boys can look up to without having to learn a lesson about male weakness. Now that’s a movie I’d like to see.

Bolt

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:57:54 PST

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Bolt (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

A Bolt from the blue? Not exactly. True, Disney’s Bolt is the studio’s best animated film since Lilo & Stitch, with a welcome blend of wit, energy and heart that may come as a surprise to viewers who missed it in its disappointing theatrical run (perhaps due to lackluster marketing). But with Pixar honcho John Lasseter now at the helm at Disney, the real surprise would have been if the studio’s product didn’t improve.

Every day without fail, Bolt (John Travolta), a scientifically enhanced super-dog, saves his beloved person, tween adventurer Penny (Miley Cyrus), from the evil designs of green-eyed Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell). Every day, that is, until the day they shoot a cliffhanger. To Penny, it’s just another day on the set of a long-running “Kim Possible”–like TV show … but Bolt, the victim of an elaborate Truman Show–like ruse to make him believe the show is real, is frantic with worry, and busts out of the studio, winding up lost — and bewildered about his missing super powers.

The central conceit is as goofy as Ratatouille’s hair-pulling trick, and Bolt’s confusion bears more than a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear’s belief in his own space-rangerhood — a connection enhanced by other points of contact, such as a stray cat’s Jessie-like back story (and, as Peter Chattaway points out, a character who, like Stinky Pete, “spends most of the movie behind plastic”!).

Bolt opens with a bang, with an extended sequence from the TV show that plays like a set piece from a Spy Kids movie, and keeps things moving fast as Bolt’s after-hours rescue effort accidentally lands him inside a cardboard box bound for New York City. There, after a funny run-in with some “Goodfeathers”-like pigeons, he meets Mittens the alley cat (Susie Essman), whom he’s convinced is in league with Dr. Calico. Later they encounter the scene-stealing Rhino (Mark Walton), a cute bundle of fur in a hamster ball who also happens to be Bolt’s number one fan — and who, like Bolt, doesn’t realize it’s all make-believe.

A key part of the film’s success is that Penny, the object of Bolt’s devotion, really is a sweet kid who loves her furry co-star. Penny’s normality (and her mother’s) contrasts with Penny’s hilariously glib and callow agent (Greg Germann), which makes you wonder just how long Penny’s Hollywood career is likely to be. (As is often the case with Hollywood self-mockery, there’s a bit of meta-dissonance here, especially with Penny played by Disney princess and pop star Cyrus.)

It’s not quite Pixar grade, but Bolt blots out tepid memories of the likes of Chicken Little and Home on the Range, standing comfortably beside the likes of Kung Fu Panda and Horton Hears a Who in the race for second-best computer-animated family film of 2008. If you’ve taken a pass on Disney cartoons for the last few years, Bolt is reason enough to give the Mouse another try.

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Bolt (DVD)

Australia

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:25:54 PST

By Steven D. Greydanus

Australia is mad director Baz Luhrmann’s would-be magnum opus, his paean to his homeland and to classic Hollywood — a down-under Gone with the Wind with accents from The Wizard of Oz. Set in 1939 (the same year that those two films were released), Australia sets out to tell the story of the Japanese bombing of the city of Darwin and the “stolen generation” of mixed-race “creamies” (illegitimate children of white fathers and aboriginal women) who were taken from their mothers in the bush and placed in state or church missions. Starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman as Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable — and Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart — it’s a sprawling Western with a sprawling cattle drive, a war-torn romance, a send-up of British colonialism and an ode to aboriginal culture and spirituality.

Is that too much of a mouthful, even for a 165-minute movie? What do you think? Still, Luhrmann gamely chews for all he’s worth. Luhrmann’s strong suit has always been boldness rather than subtlety; his take-no-prisoners approach worked brilliantly in Strictly Ballroom, but as I see it he went off the rails with Moulin Rouge! and hasn’t managed to right himself since.

Australia is Luhrmann’s most personal picture, and his most haphazard. Much like Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, it’s a film that has been long labored over, and the artist’s love of the material is clear, but the inspiration has been lost along the way and the characters reduced to cartoony types. Jackman’s character is actually called “the Drover” — not just in the credits, like “the guy” and “the girl” in Once, but literally by the other characters: “They just call him the Drover,” a local introduces him to the veddy-proper-but-spunky Lady Ashley (Kidman). You tell me, ladies: Would you trust a man who doesn’t have a proper name?

The Catholic Church’s historical complicity in the stolen generation (for which the Australian bishops apologized in 1998) is fairly treated the film, and is nicely balanced by an idealistic priest who places himself in harm’s way to rescue endangered children from attacking Japanese. Adorable young Brandon Walters is charming as a half-caste “creamy,” and indigenous dancer David Gulpilil is suitably mystical and remote as the boy's grandfather, King George.

Messy and undisciplined, Australia isn’t without its pleasures. There is a certain epic magnificence to its best scenes, and the parts, or some of them, are sometimes more than the whole. If you love both Gone With the Wind and Moulin Rouge!, you just might enjoy it.

As a filmmaker, Luhrmann lives and dies by the adage celebrated in Strictly Ballroom: “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.” There’s nothing timid or half-hearted about Luhrmann’s work, that’s for sure. But fearlessness, photogenic actors and great scenery will only get you so far.

2008: The Year in DVDs

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:50:26 PST

2008: The Year in DVDs

From a National Catholic Register article

By Steven D. Greydanus

One of the reasons movie lovers love DVDs is the bonus features — extras that offer insight and context into a movie’s creation, subject or moment in history. Still and all, the film’s the thing, and a bare-bones DVD with no bells and whistles is a lot better than an out-of-print VHS — especially if the VHS is dubbed and the DVD offers the original language track.

With that in mind, among the most exciting new DVD releases of 2008 is Lionsgate/StudioCanal’s bare-bones edition of Maurice Cloche’s beautiful biopic of St. Vincent de Paul, Monsieur Vincent (1947). Long available only in out-of-print English-dubbed VHS, the Vatican list film is finally available for home viewing with the original French soundtrack with English and Spanish subtitles.

Between Monsieur Vincent and the 2007 Criterion release of The Burmese Harp, nearly all Vatican list films can now be purchased on DVD. (Almost the only exceptions are Bunuel’s disturbing Nazarín and Abel Gance’s 1927 silent epic Napoléon, the latter of being blocked from North American distribution by Ted Turner, alas, who owns the rights.)

Family films by the boxload

For family audiences, 2008 was a good year at the cineplex — but an even better year for DVD releases overall. In fact, in 2008 quality entertainment for families as well as older viewers came by the boxload.

Take the eight-disc box set The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection: over 20 hours of classic entertainment for all ages with Spanky, Darla, Alfalfa, Buckwheat and the whole gang, for a little over fifty bucks. Or, for a lot more money, Little House on the Prairie: The Complete Television Series — all nine seasons of the beloved Michael Landon series in a whopping 60 discs. (Completists take note: The Little Rascals doesn’t include early Our Gang episodes not syndicated as “The Little Rascals,” and Little House also offers the syndicated/edited episode versions.)

Don’t overlook the 7-disc box set Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre, 26 classic fairy tales for the most part honorably brought to life by a star-studded cast including the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Vincent Price, Christopher Reeve and Susan Sarandon. Then there’s the three-disc The Beatrix Potter Collection, wonderfully adapted by the BBC with highly faithful scripting and beautifully Potteresque animation.

In other storybook boxed editions, the Scholastic Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics offers just what it promises: simple animated interpretations with narration straight from the text of beloved children’s books from Where the Wild Things Are to Harold and the Purple Crayon, Is Your Mama a Llama? to Curious George Rides a Bike. (Or, for a fraction of the investment, pick up the Treasury of 20 Storybook Classics.)

In our house, we can never get too much high-quality nature documentary educational entertainment, especially narrated by the dignified, occasionally humorous Richard Attenborough. The 17-disc The BBC Natural History Collection offers some 33 hours of the best, combining the authoritative Planet Earth and Blue Planet with The Life of Mammals and The Life of Birds. (Those sets are also available singly.)

Among DVD holiday-movie box editions, one that stands out is The Peanuts Holiday Collection, comprising It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Other holiday family fare worth picking up includes the much-beloved A Christmas Story (1983), newly available in a 2-disc “Ultimate Collector’s Edition,” and Laurel & Hardy’s Toyland adventure The March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934), now available in a new edition with a newly restored transfer of the original black-and-white as well as the familiar colorized version.

Another boxed edition for families worth mentioning: The Disney Pixar Ultimate Movie Collection, a 14-disc set including every Pixar feature prior to Wall-E — both Toy Story films, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc. , Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille — for a little over a hundred bucks. It’s a great deal for the money, even if you don’t necessarily need A Bug’s Life and Cars.

Also from Disney, as usual, are a few offerings from the vault, including one near-classic new to DVD: 101 Dalmatians (1961), featuring villainess supreme Cruella de Vil. Sleeping Beauty (1959), newly available in a 2-disc Platinum edition, is also well worth picking up, and you might also consider new editions of the minor Disney efforts The Sword in the Stone (1961) and The Aristocats (1970).

In classic family adventure, The Thief of Bagdad (1940), Conrad Veight’s classic tale of Arabian Nights adventure, came to DVD from The Criterion Collection, while The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), showcasing Ray Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion effects, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a 1-disc edition from Sony.

Watership Down (1978), Martin Rosen’s honorable animated take on Richard Adams’s epic tale of life among rabbits, returned to DVD in a not-so-deluxe 1-disc “Deluxe Edition.” Tim Burton’s cheerfully macabre The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) got a 2-disc collector’s edition. And Shaun the Sheep: Off the Baa came to American DVD with eight rollicking episodes of the Wallace and Gromit spin-off series produced for British television. Finally, adventurous families may want to check out the Janus Films twofer The Red Balloon / White Mane, a pair of family art films from French director Albert Lamorisse.

Classics and religious themes

Also worthy of celebration is the much-anticipated stand-alone release of Steven Spielberg’s action classic Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), the Citizen Kane of swashbuckling action–adventure, elevated above its countless imitators by its Old Testament awe and mystery. Though Raiders has been available on DVD since 2003, until now it was always part of a three-box set with its two inferior sequels. Now at last no one has to buy the odious Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in order to enjoy Raiders on DVD.

Biblical faith also plays a role in another of Harrison Ford’s finest films, Peter Weir’s masterful adult drama Witness (1985), which returned to DVD in a not-so-special one-disc “Special Collector’s Edition.” And christological imagery and themes surface in the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

Other classics with new DVD editions are too many to count. Buster Keaton’s Civil War action–comedy The General (1927), among the best silent films ever made, has a new 2-disc Ultimate Edition from Kino that’s the version to get. The tense Gary Cooper anti-Western High Noon (1952) got a 2-disc ultimate collectors edition. Sidney Lumet’s tense trial drama 12 Angry Men (1957) starring Henry Fonda celebrated 50 years with a belated anniversary release. Lavishly restored and remastered, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy comprises two classic 1970s tales of the evil that men do, followed by a far-from-classic coda marred by anti-Catholic conceits.

Romance and comedy weren’t neglected. Paramount’s new Centennial Collection offered 2-disc collector’s editions of the Audrey Hepburn classics Roman Holiday (1953) and Sabrina (1954). Fans of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were treated to a lavish 3-disc special edition of Holiday Inn (1942), with a 2-disc edition of An American in Paris for Kelly fans to boot. And the delightful, hilarious Groundhog Day (1992), in which Bill Murray relives a single day over and over until he gets it right (and becomes worthy of Andie McDowell) celebrated its 15th anniversary with a 1-disc special edition.

Universal’s Legacy Series offered new editions for a number of films from the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, including Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960), as well as the classic Boris Karloff thriller The Mummy (1932).

Collectors editions from Columbia included Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Other epic films with new editions include the Charlton Heston saga El Cid (1961) and the sprawling, episodic How the West was Won (1962).

For fans of Terrence Malick’s lyrical, poetic Pocahontas–John Smith meditation The New World, one of the year’s most exciting releases was Malick’s The New World – Extended Cut, featuring new scenes, dialogue and even a new character, much of which serves to highlight the film’s spiritual themes. And fans of Catholic author Evelyn Waugh had cause for celebration with the DVD debut the classic British TV miniseries Brideshead Revisited (1981) in a 4-disc 25th anniversary edition.

Ignatius Press’s special edition of Bernadette (1988) is the must-have edition of Jean Delannoy’s biopic on the visionary of Lourdes, with the original French-language track and widescreen aspect ratio. Don’t settle for your older DVD — get the special edition!

Ignatius also added two new titles to their list of Italian Lux Vide imports: Clare and Francis (2007), probably the best cinematic treatment of both of the saints of Assisi, and John XXIII: The Pope of Peace (2002), starring a believable Edward Asner as “the Good Pope.” Another noteworthy Ignatius offering is After the Truth (1999), a provocative “what if” story that imagines Nazi “Angel of Death” Joseph Mengele turning up alive and facing the trial he never had in life.

Finally, returning to DVD is The Face: Jesus in Art, a remarkable two-hour documentary that surveys the history and theology of the portrayal of Jesus Christ in Christian art from different times and places. (A one-hour sequel production, Picturing Mary, was one of 2007’s DVD highlights.)

Quantum of Solace

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

A Christianity Today Movies review

By Steven D. Greydanus

The 2006 smash hit Casino Royale was James Bond’s Batman Begins, a darkly masterful, psychologically layered origin story that threw to the winds the tongue-in-cheek camp stylings of earlier franchise installments and completely rethought its iconic but flawed hero and his world from the ground up, taking seriously the rough edges that had previously been papered over with a wink.

If the unconventional title Quantum of Solace, more redolent of “Star Trek” cerebralism than the id-driven 007 world, held out any hope that the much-anticipated follow-up would be in any way analogous to The Dark Knight — that is, an even more ambitious crucible for the newly minted hero, a soul-searching exploration of chaos and order in a world of escalation, failure and incalculable exigencies — well, no such luck.

Where Casino Royale was the longest Bond movie ever, Quantum of Solace is the shortest ever — and the title track by Jack White and Alicia Keyes bearing the distinctly Bondesque title “Another Way to Die,” is at least one of the most abrasive and unpleasant ever. (Also, as was pointed out to me by CT Movies critic and inveterate list-maker Peter Chattaway, Casino director Martin Campbell was the oldest director ever of a Bond film, while Quantum director Marc Forster is the youngest.)

The result may not be the least consequential Bond flick ever, but it has no pretensions of topping or even rivaling Casino’s landmark contribution to the Bond mythos. Compared to Casino, Quantum is unquestionably a disappointment, a coda to its formidable predecessor. Compared to Bond films for the last twenty years or so, Quantum is… a decent post-Bourne action thriller, I guess. Ferocious car chases, rooftop pursuits, brutal combat sequences, elegantly choreographed stunts, a parade of exotic locations… Quantum does all this, with credible panache. Just don’t expect to care like you did in Casino.

Quantum does extend Casino’s cold, cynical tone as Bond finds himself adrift in a trust-no-one world of military intelligence blind spots, blunders and conflicts of interest. There is some attempt to develop a post-9/11 context for Bond’s adventures in the sinister secret organization “Quantum,” whose absolute invisibility and seemingly all-powerful reach are all the more implausible precisely because of the realism of MI‑6’s fallibility.

Daniel Craig is still the quintessential James Bond, cold, ruthless and somehow lacking in complete humanity. “A blunt instrument,” M (Judi Dench) called him in Casino, and villainous Mr. Greene (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ Mathieu Amalric) of Quantum, ostensibly an environmentalist–philanthropist, contemptuously describes both Bond and the heroine du jour as “damaged goods.”

The latter is Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a reckless, fragile femme fatale among equally fatales hommes, a woman who, like Quantum’s Bond, is driven by revenge. In one significant way, Camille might be among the most interesting Bond Girls, precisely because she might be, in a sense, the only Bond Girl who isn’t.

To be sure, in Casino Bond had little time for women, and in Quantum he has almost none. But there would ordinarily be little doubt that Bond could have pretty much any woman he wants, certainly by the end of the movie if not sooner. When Mr. Greene confides to Bond, with mixed resentment, envy and contempt, that Camille “won’t sleep with you unless you give her something,” the natural thought is that he doesn’t know Bond. But, by the same token, we don’t know Camille.

Alas, whatever plus Camille might represent is undermined by the inclusion of a token bedroom scene (token is definitely the word) involving an insultingly gratuitous plaything of a Bond Girl, a dewy, strawberry-tressed MI‑6 agent named Fields (21-year-old Gemma Arterton)… and only in the end credits does the film admit that, yes, her name is Strawberry Fields.

Fields confronts Bond in Bolivia wrapped in a knee-length trenchcoat and no other visible clothing, looking remarkably like a centerfold in some Playboy feature on International Women of Mystery. Isn’t that just the agent you would assign if you were MI‑6 to take Bond in hand, under arrest if necessary? (Answer: Pierce Brosnan Bond, yes; Daniel Craig Bond, no.)

Fields is easily the least credible approximation of a professional woman in a Bond film since then-28 Denise Richards tried to pass for a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough. Not that Fields doesn’t seem smart or self-aware, but Bond can’t be bothered even to make a show of flirtation or romancing her, and she obligingly follows him into the bedroom to help him, um, look for stationery (what a line)… and then finds herself naked and smilingly self-remonstrating with her back to Bond as he kisses her from behind?

The scene is just as problematic on Bond’s end. Consider: Fields is the first woman he’s been with since Casino — and the first woman with whom we see this Bond get physical in whom he has neither ulterior nor emotional interest. (The direct chronological dovetailing of the two films leaves no room for hypothetical other women in the interim.)

In Casino Bond began ravishing one woman because (as she knew very well) he wanted something from her, but when circumstances changed he left her on the floor with a bottle of champagne. Then came his beloved/hated Vesper Lynd, for whom he fell body and soul, who saved him and betrayed him and left him a hollower shell of a man than he had been before.

Given that history, meaningless, perfunctory sex with Fields may not be implausible on Bond’s part — but at least it represents some sort of turning point. It should mean something to the screenwriters, if not to Bond. But it doesn’t. It’s like a relic of the pre-Casino franchise, tossed in because you can’t have a 007 movie with no sex.

Just as bad is a nasty postscript that echoes the discovery of the villain’s wife in the hammock in Casino, among other such scenes in Bond history, except that here it’s pointless and unconnected to Bond’s callousness toward women. Quantum even has M making some disparaging remark to Bond (something like “See what your charm has done”), which is stupid, because this time Bond’s charm had nothing to do with it.

M’s role is bigger this time out, but her relationship with Bond is less prickly and more cartoony than in Casino. Quantum also brings back Casino’s Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), who, in a key scene that would have been even more important in a better film, urges Bond to “forgive” Vesper and himself.

Quantum also takes a turn toward the political: It turns out that the U.S. willingly colludes with military coups in foreign countries if they think there’s oil in it for them, and the British will do whatever the U.S. wants them to. Curiously, Quantum’s evil plot oddly resonates with a key plot point in Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa: In both films a third-world community living in desert terrain is threatened by a hidden group with controlling access to the earth’s most precious resource — a substance beside which even diamonds and gold or oil are seen to be of little worth.

Forster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland) directs his first action feature in a style clearly modeled on the Bourne and Batman films, all tight closeups and fast edits. For some reason he intercuts action scenes with other images: an underground chase sequence in Siena is punctuated by that city’s Palio horse race; a melee at an opera house is counterpointed by scenes from the opera; and Bond’s climactic duel in a burning desert fortress is intercut with the heroine’s own battle to the death.

Quantum isn’t a complete waste. Craig’s charisma holds up even when the screenplay lets him down. And while there’s nothing here to compare to Casino’s opening parkour chase sequence, the chases and fight scenes are entertaining and sometimes strikingly well staged. Three years ago, Quantum of Solace would have been a pretty good Bond flick. Two pair isn’t a bad hand. It’s just anticlimactic after a royal flush.

Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Released ten years after Pixar’s pioneering Toy Story, the first fully computer-animated feature film, DreamWorks Animation’s 2005 entry Madagascar is a credible contender for the dubious distinction of being the first truly lame computer-animated cartoon (if you don’t count the lame but non-cartoony CGI realism of the non-comedy fantasies Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and The Polar Express).

A listless, strangely cheap-looking affair lacking even the modicum of heart and energy — to say nothing of the visual interest — of a Shrek or Shark Tale, Madagascar’s tale of four Central Park Zoo animals making a break for the wild and winding up shipwrecked on the titular island was nevertheless a major hit with undemanding family audiences. And where there’s a hit, sure as rain, there must be a sequel.

Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa reunites the ensemble cast of the first film, and more money and effort has been thrown at the script and on the screen. The characters look about as good as they could be made to look while still resembling their original incarnations. The story — in which our heroes, the paramilitary penguins (once again the funniest and liveliest part of the mix) and a few of the lemurs escape from Madagascar in what’s left of a wrecked plane, only to crash it again in Africa near a wildlife preserve — is more competently crafted, building to a traditional climax where the original sort of petered out in the third act.

It’s also a bit of a hodgepodge, combining elements of The Lion King, Joe vs. the Volcano, Happy Feet and some romantic comedy that I’m sure must exist but which I haven’t yet identified. To wit:

The Lion King: A lion cub is separated from his kingly father due to the machinations of a scheming rival and grows up far away from the pride, never learning the ways of adult lionhood. The rival succeeds in taking over the pride, after which the plain goes from a paradise to a dustbowl. In this case the cub is Alex (Ben Stiller), whom a flashback prologue reveals was born in Africa but fell prey to poachers and wound up in Central Park Zoo by mistake.

Joe vs. the Volcano: A hypochondriac New Yorker who thinks he’s about to die of a terminal disease volunteers to throw himself into a volcano as a sacrificial victim to bring blessings to the local natives, only admitting his true feelings to the girl he loves just before his imminent death. This would be Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), while the girl is… well, wait for it.

Happy Feet: A macho animal father is chagrined by his son’s unbecoming affinity for dancing — a misunderstood habit that is socially suicidal among his fellows, but turns out to be critical in engaging human beings. This, again, is Alex, whose Central Park Zoo antics don’t fly back on the wildlife preserve.

More significantly, Madagascar 2 not only recalls Happy Feet’s satire of religion, it also makes the latter’s coy coming-out subtext look tame compared to its own overt running theme of sexual diversity.

Not once but twice in Madagascar 2 we are told that “Love transcends all differences” and “Love knows no boundaries.” Thus, for example, that Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) the hippo’s interest in meeting males of her own species, whether in the zoo “breeding program” or among the wild hippos of Africa, sends Melman (David Schwimmer) the giraffe into jealous indignation, since (the filmmakers have now decided) the awkward Melman has always carried a torch for Gloria.

In Africa, a sensual, ultra-macho hippo (husky-voiced rapper will.i.am) named Moto Moto (which we’re told means “hot hot”) expertly puts the moves on Gloria, who responds with all the “take me” willingness of a hippo who hears her biological clock ticking — until she realizes that Melman’s sweet devotion makes Moto Moto’s Barry White on-the-make style seem shallow. Ultimately, Gloria realizes that she’s traveled halfway around the world to find that the perfect guy for her was always right under her nose. Haven’t we seen this before in some chick flick where the heroine decides to ditch the stud and stick with the platonic/gay best friend, or something like that?

This builds to a scene in which Melman, convinced that he’s dying and preparing to offer himself as a sacrifice to the gods of the volcano, stands decked out in garlands and a kind of veil that gives him a distinctly bridal look — a connection reinforced when Gloria snatches him from falling to his death and stands holding him in her arms like a groom carrying a bride across the threshold.

This is immediately followed by, yes, a wedding scene, with the bridal Melman apparently marrying Gloria — though it turns out that another even more mismatched “couple” is apparently getting hitched (whether it’s a double wedding or misdirection wasn’t clear to me). Madagascar 2 repeatedly “pairs” the crisp-talking penguin Skipper (co-director Tom McGrath) with — I am not making this up — a hula-dancer bobble-doll.

Prior to the mock wedding, I thought the Skipper–doll theme reached a low point when the chimps, negotiating labor benefits with the penguins, produce “incriminating” photos of Skipper and the bobble-doll in their bid to secure maternity leave. I guess sexual blackmail knows no boundaries either. Incidentally, the photos are produced in response to Skipper’s objection to offering maternity leave on the grounds that (with a glance under the table) the chimps are “all male.”

Then there are further cross-dressing jokes, from an opening scene with King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) of the lemurs popping out of a cake dressed as a girl chortling “I’m a female! Which of you is attracted to me?” to a closing gag in which Alex, reunited with his leonine father Zuba (Bernie Mac), convince rival male Makunga (Alec Baldwin) that a lady’s pocketbook is a “man-bag” and get him to put it over his shoulder as a prelude to a butt-kicking.

All told, Madagascar 2 crosses the line from poor taste to propaganda. It’s family entertainment for the posthuman family, whatever that may entail (love transcends all differences). A generation raised on entertainment like this will find the passage of California’s Proposition 8 incomprehensible.

Then there’s Julien’s religious commentary. Just prior to taking off from Madagascar in their salvaged plane, Julien advises the passengers to “pray to your personal god this hunk of junk flies.” In Africa, proposing the volcano sacrifice, Julien performs an extended comic dramatization of a volcano god satiated with sacrifices while a hospitable worshipper insists that he take more. Later, concerned that his sacrifice proposal hasn’t worked, Julien exclaims, “The science seemed so solid!” Finally, an alternate “sacrifice” occurs at the very moment that the problem is solved, allowing Julien to believe that the gods have heard him, though we know the real explanation. None of this is as subversive as Happy Feet’s anti-religious themes, but it doesn’t help either.

I see I’ve left out, among other things, Marty (Chris Rock) the zebra’s identity crisis on learning that all African zebras look and sound exactly like him. Does this mean even female zebras sound like Chris Rock, or that there are no female zebras? At this point I’m not sure I want to know.

Mr. Bean’s Holiday

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:36:15 PST

Buy at Amazon.com

Mr. Bean’s Holiday (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

When it comes to brilliantly mindless slapstick humor, Americans don’t know Bean.

The rest of the world does, though. That’s why Mr. Bean’s Holiday, a charming and winsome G-rated family comedy that greatly improves on the cruder Bean: The Movie, outperformed such crass American hits as Knocked Up, Superbad and Norbit — at the worldwide box office. Yet it barely made a ripple in the United States, where we like our hit comedies dumb and dumber, not dumb and smarter.

That’s a shame, because Mr. Bean’s Holiday, starring Rowan Atkinson as his signature alter ego, is a treat — sweet, good-hearted, genuinely clever. Atkinson is a credit to the tradition of Chaplin, Jacques Tati and Jerry Lewis — and even if you don’t like Jerry Lewis, that’s still a good thing.

Bean, the character, is a pure imbecile — not morally pure to be sure, but with the basic disposition and unquestioning incomprehension of a two-year-old: single-mindedly in the moment, innocently malicious, probably nearly inculpable in his fundamental self-centerness.

Naturally, he unknowingly wreaks havoc everywhere he goes, but he does so with the perfect timing and conceptual wit of Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Early in the film is a brilliant shot in which Bean and a stranger, leaving an airport, each hail taxicabs and somehow wind up in each other’s cabs headed to the wrong destinations. It’s as perfectly conceived and executed as the classic scene in City Lights with the expensive car and the blind flower girl, and as casually tossed off.

Like Bean himself, the plot lurches from one misadventure to another, always with a vague goal of arriving at the French Riviera, Bean’s holiday destination after winning an all-expenses-paid holiday trip in a parish raffle. As good as Atkinson is, the film is mildly amusing for the first half-hour or so, but then catches fire in a hilarious scene in which Bean and a young boy named Stepan (excellent Max Baldry) earn some quick money doing street theater.

As he meanders along, Bean weaves an artless web inadvertently ensnaring other characters, starting with Stepan and his father (Karel Roden), a good-hearted French starlet named Sabine (winsome Emma de Caunes), and a narcissistic American film director (hilarious Willem Dafoe) — all of whom are on their way to Cannes, which, of course, is also where Bean wants to go.

Longtime Bean aficionados may find some of the gags familiar from the TV show and the earlier film. Others may feel (what seems plausible to me) that Atkinson has refined his act and given us “Bean’s Greatest Hits” in their ideal form, culminating in a delightful climax approaching feckless transcendence.

Buy at Amazon.com

Mr. Bean’s Holiday (DVD)

Brideshead Revisited

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:16:12 PST

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

With its blend of wistful nostalgia for and biting satire of bygone English nobility, Evelyn Waugh’s magnum opus Brideshead Revisited is among the most celebrated English novels — more despite than because of its preoccupation with Catholicism, for which it ranks also among the most celebrated Catholic novels. Among fans of both sorts it is also much beloved as a 1981 British miniseries in eleven parts.

A feature adaptation of an acclaimed novel that has already been successfully and faithfully adapted as a miniseries is a perilous proposition for a filmmaker. Every omission, conflation and revision invites unfavorable comparisons to the longer retelling, as Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride & Prejudice had to contend with the 1995 BBC miniseries.

My view is that there’s always room for a retelling meant to be watched in one sitting, however abridged it must be. Character arcs must be abbreviated, some characters may get short shrift and wealth of incident and detail must be sacrificed. But key characterizations and incidents may stand out with new clarity and persuasiveness, and the spirit of the original may be well honored, if it’s done right.

Brideshead Revisited, directed by Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane) from a screenplay by Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland) and Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones’s Diary), gets a few things right. The allure of the opulent elegance of Brideshead (York’s Castle Howard, as in the miniseries) for middle-class artist Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode, Match Point), and in particular the enigmatic appeal of Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell), for instance. The dry humor of Charles’s strained relationship with his eccentric father, for another.

Even the portrayal of the Flytes’ dysfunctional Catholicism isn’t without merit. Sebastian’s line “I’m not a heathen, I’m a sinner,” is not from the book (“half-heathens” is how Waugh’s Sebastian describes himself and his sister Julia), but I think Waugh might have approved.

Yet this Brideshead Revisited ultimately subverts Waugh’s subtlest and most subversive achievement: It offers all the foibles and puzzlement of the Flytes’ religious world, while all but obliterating the threads of grace running through their lives.

A Catholic convert and a fierce critic of modernity writing for a historically anti-Catholic secular culture, Waugh cannily offers an agnostic point of view — that of protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder — and, in the eccentric, extravagant Flytes of Brideshead, a portrait of a decadent, rococo Catholicism significantly confirming the prejudices of his age.

Readers who would be on their guard and skeptical of a portrayal of virtuous, sympathetic heroes of Catholic faith are drawn in by Waugh’s unsparing warts-and-all candor and critical outside perspective. Although Lady Marchmain reads aloud from The Wisdom of Father Brown, Waugh offers no Chestertonian priest with cherubic face and devastating theological, philosophical and psychological insights to overturn our preconceptions.

What Waugh does, almost imperceptibly, is to turn the tables on Charles, who slowly comes face to face with his own foibles and shortcomings, and begins to realize that for all their deficiencies there is something human and wholesome about the Flytes’ religiosity — something more to Catholicism and Catholics than guilt and superstition and ignorance. Fragile and broken as they are, these jars of clay hold a treasure after all.

The big-screen Brideshead is all jars of clay, little or no treasure. In fact, the so-called treasure turns out to be at the root of all their troubles. Thus the filmmakers include Sebastian’s conflicted guilt over his homosexual inclinations, but not his childlike affirmations of faith and declarations of the loveliness of the Catholic story. We get Julia’s outrage over the comment from Bridey (Ed Stoppard) about living in sin, but not her wish to have her own child brought up Catholic, even if the faith hasn’t done her much good. Young Cordelia’s chatter about buying an African god-daughter is retained, but her insightful commentary on the various characters’ spiritual trajectories is omitted.

Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson) is portrayed as manipulative and ruthless, which is fair, but also chilly and unfeeling, which is not. It’s impossible to imagine this Lady Marchmain expressing acceptance of her son’s drinking and concern only for his unhappiness. Where her husband’s mistress Cara in the book expresses sympathy for Lady Marchmain, calling her “a good and simple woman” who has “done nothing except be loved by someone who was not grown-up,” the film’s Cara (Greta Scacchi) has only condemnation for how she has “suffocated” her family and ruined their lives.

Catholic screenwriting maven and blogger Barbara Nicolosi, in a scathing blog post, raises on a key issue: Where is the compelling, elusive “charm” of the Flytes, of which so much is made in the book? Where is the complexity, the sympathy for or insight into these flawed but human characters? What is Charles supposed to see in them, other than Julia’s beauty and the splendor of Brideshead itself?

For that matter, where is the complexity of Charles, the machinations beneath the diffident, deferential exterior? What do the Flytes see in him? The film includes a line about his appetites devouring the family among whom he initially seemed a sheep among wolves, but events on the screen offer little warrant for this interpretation. As played by Goode, Charles seems simply blandly forthright and decent, with none of the manipulative cunning of his Match Point costar Jonathan Rhys Meyers in that film, for instance. Charles cites “guilt” as his dominant psychological state, but the filmmakers don’t seem to know what he’s guilty of.

Why is Charles now a confirmed atheist, who, when Lady Marchmain suggests “agnostic” as a preferrable option, insists on “atheist”? This is a flat reversal of the book, where Sebastian announces Charles as an “atheist” and Charles clarifies his status as “agnostic.” As this revision suggests, the film’s general subversion of Waugh’s religious point of view seems to be a deliberate decision of the filmmakers.

Thus, for instance, we are twice told that Catholicism allows you to do what you like and then go to confession — a canard not found in the novel. Yet the story’s homosexual themes have been carefully expunged of the connection in Waugh to affective immaturity. (In the novel, Cara suggests that a boy who is not yet ready to love a girl may love another boy with “a kind of love that comes to children before they know its meaning,” and pointedly notes that Sebastian with his teddy-bear is “in love with his childhood.” And when Julia asks Charles if he loved Sebastian, Charles replies, “Oh yes. He was the forerunner.”)

Waugh wrote that Brideshead “deals with what is theologically termed ‘the operation of Grace’, that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself.” Grace may not be totally missing from the film version — the ending isn’t wholly betrayed — but however real it may be for the characters, there’s no sense that it feels real to the filmmakers, or the audience. It’s as if Waugh’s story has been filtered through the spiritual blindness of young Charles. The movie sees, but it doesn’t understand.

Witness

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:03:00 PST

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Witness (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

A compelling thriller, a smoldering love story, a thoughtful study in comparative cultures, and a respectful exploration of religious community and nonviolence, Witness is one of the high points of 1980s American cinema, and remains one of Australian director Peter Weir’s best films as well as his first American film.

What makes the film work on its various levels is its juxtaposition of contrasts. As a thriller, Witness grabs the audience with a chance involvement of a sheltered Amish boy (Lukas Haas) and his widowed mother Rachel (Kelly McGillis) in a dangerous world of urban violence and police corruption. As a love story, the film powerfully realizes the allure of the unobtainable or forbidden, the attraction between the demure but warm-blooded Amish widow and tough Philadelphia detective John Book (Harrison Ford, in perhaps his best performance) being largely implied and unstated rather than overt.

Finally, as a culture study and exploration of faith and nonviolence, Witness alternately examines the “English” world through Amish eyes and the Amish world from the perspective of an outsider. Perhaps its only misstep is its rather monotonously grim depiction of the outside world, but it shines in its richly nuanced portrait of Amish life, which avoids the condescending attitudes of earlier depictions of religious communities, neither sentimentalizing its subjects, nor making their unusual ways seem quaint or humorous (cf. Lilies of the Field), nor undermining their beliefs in the face of practical necessity (cf. Friendly Persuasion).

This Amish community is not without a dark side, as we gather from the ominous warnings of Rachel’s elderly father Eli (Jan Rubes) and his obvious worries about the elders. Yet on the whole Witness is an unabashed tribute to a way of life that emphasizes community and cooperation, hard work, practicality, integrity, and responsibility. The barn-raising scene particularly is both a glowing celebration and an unanswerable challenge: This is no Hollywood fantasy, no idealized fiction, but how the Amish actually live. We can hardly imagine living that way ourselves, having that degree of commitment to our neighbor, to our community — but how reassuring it would be in this lonely world to be able to count on others in this way.

Witness is about looking, not talking, and some of its best moments are wordless. A brief exchange of looks between young Samuel and a Hasidic Jewish gentleman in the train station, Samuel smiling up hopefully at this familiar-looking bearded, black-garbed, brim-hatted man, and the Jewish man not quite frowning down at the little Christian boy. The powerful scene in the police station in which Book, on the phone, looks across the room at Samuel’s face and knows that he has somehow found the missing piece of the puzzle. And of course the moment that Book and Rachel will never forget, a moment of standing, motionless and silent, looking at one another through a door that ought to have been shut, neither willing for that moment to walk away or to move toward the other.

Another scene worth noting is an ostensibly crowd-pleasing but subtly subversive sequence in the second half of the film that has more significance than it first seems, and triggers the story’s harrowing final act. This scene depicts a trip into town that goes awry when Book and his Amish hosts run into some bullying tourists. Weir gives the audience just exactly the resolution to this conflict they’re rooting for — then pulls the rug out from under them with the unexpected consequences. It’s an oblique challenge to the demands and expectations of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, and sets the stage for the juxtaposition of conventional and unconventional elements in the finale.

The final act revisits the contrast between the professional violence of Book’s world and the principled nonviolence of the Amish. To its credit, Witness avoids definitively endorsing either over the other. Instead, it allows both sides to remain true to themselves, and, in the end, go their separate ways, as they must.

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Witness (DVD)

The Train

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:02:10 PST

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The Train (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

How do you weigh the cultural heritage of a nation against the value of human life? That’s the subtext of The Train, a wholly persuasive, intelligent thiller crisply directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) with documentary-like realism and emphasis on action and problem-solving.

The setting is 1944 France, in the last days before the Nazi withdrawal. Paul Scofield (A Man for All Seasons) plays a cultured Nazi colonel whose appreciation for the priceless art of the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris has led him to protect the museum from damage or plundering during the occupation, but now with his departure imminent causes him to plunder the museum himself and bring the collection by train to Berlin as a consolation prize.

Pitted against him is Burt Lancaster as a railway man named Paul Labiche with resistance ties, who must try to stop the train from leaving the country until the Allies arrive. Their battle of wits, based on a true story, drives the central action of The Train. Labiche and other resisters try a number of stratagems to impede the train’s progress, the most audacious of which is based on the way that the the real train was actually delayed (though additional complications have been invented for the film).

The Train’s meticulous authenticity is enhanced by its exclusive use of French shooting locations and real trains rather than miniatures or models. Shot mostly in English, the film is mostly populated by French actors using with French or German accents as required, with the English Scofield, excellent as always, giving a creditable German accent and the American Lancaster making no attempt at a French accent. (Lancaster was dubbed in another film in which he played a European, the Italian-language The Leopard. He’s a fine actor and very solid in his role here, but it’s a bit odd to think that he’s supposed to be French.)

By putting the art into marked crates with the masters’ names — Manet, Cezanne, van Gogh — stencilled on the outside, the film takes the actual aesthetic impact of the paintings out of the equation, leaving the viewer as blind to the visual power of the masterworks as is the prosaic Labiche. The value of the unseen art is reduced to an idea — as are the lives of a number of resistance operatives who die offscreen for their efforts. Is it worth the price? Is there any answering that question?

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The Train (DVD)

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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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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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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Mother Teresa

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:46:19 PST

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Mother Teresa (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Almost thirty years ago Olivia Hussey played the most venerated woman of all time, the Virgin Mary, in Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth.” Now she portrays the most revered woman of the twentieth century in the reverential, Italian-made English-language production Mother Teresa.

Hussey’s earnest performance brings to life Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s determination, simplicity and idealistic faith, from her early growing absorption with the desperate condition of the proverty-stricken and dying in the streets of Calcutta through the difficulties that faced her efforts to establish a new congregation and its various projects, and beyond.

Though shot in English, the film has been substantially edited for the English-speaking world from the original version exhibited in Italy; at 110 minutes, it’s a whopping 40 percent shorter than the 180-minute Italian original. (Is it a mark of these edits that the film’s IMDb.com page credits an actor playing Jesus, who nowhere appears in the English version? Or did that not make the cut in the Italian version either?)

Perhaps the edits are part of the reason for the rather choppy, episodic feel of the story, which presents vignettes from the beati’s life without always providing adequate narrative context to establish characters or situations. Glib, superficial dialogue doesn’t help; speeches and conversations play like a series of sound bites, with no real attempt at psychological depth or insight.

The filmmakers don’t shy away from some of the controversies and difficulties that dogged the Missionaries of Charity, from a scandal involving money and corruption to charges of child trafficking. Still, the film is never less than an overtly hagiographical homage to its subject, the Hallmark Channel version of Mother Teresa’s life. At the same time, it’s an homage with as little to trouble or challenge Blessed Teresa’s secular admirers as her Catholic followers, or less.

For example, the dialogue includes an instance of Mother Teresa’s sometimes perplexing comments about religious affiliation, which at times seemed to border on religious indifferentism (“A Christian should try to be a good Christian, a Muslim should try to be a good Muslim, a Hindu should try to be a good Hindu”). Yet we never see the foundress or her sisters quietly baptizing dying Hindus and Muslims in their care — a practice that has been the subject of some controversy, especially among Mother’s secular and non-Catholic critics.

Likewise, while the film includes a brief excerpt from Blessed Teresa’s 1979 Nobel Prize acceptance speech at Oslo, it includes her comments about smiling, along with general comments about the culture of death, but omits her specific and forceful denunciation of abortion. (Nor does it touch on the notable story behind the story: Apparently Teresa originally planned to decline the Nobel honor, but the Pope himself commanded her to accept it for the greater good, to use the opportunity to serve Jesus. Alas, John Paul II does not appear in the film.) Mother’s lifelong condemnation of divorce and contraception are likewise passed over in silence.

Despite its limitations, Mother Teresa is pious, inspiring viewing, most worth seeing for Hussey’s effective portrayal of the beati’s dogged personality, idiosyncratic leadership and administrative style, and total self-abandonment to serving Jesus in the poorest of the poor.

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Cars

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:41:09 PST

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Cars is Pixar’s most improbable success to date, a film that could easily have misfired, but somehow does not.

Directed by Pixar honcho John Lasseter, who helmed Pixar’s first three films (the brilliant Toy Story films and the lackluster A Bug’s Life) but hasn’t directed since, Cars ominously recalls some of the elements that made A Bug’s Life the most pedestrian and uninspired project in Pixar’s filmography. The total absence of human beings, for one thing. And a formulaic story of a threatened community pulling together to overcome adversity.

Happily, Cars is no A Bug’s Life. Offbeat and counter-intuitive, Cars finds a quirky creative groove and an emotional center that eluded the earlier Lasseter effort. The story of a callow young rookie racecar named Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) whose rise to the top is sidetracked by an unplanned stopover in a sleepy time-forgotten town may be formulaic, and on first viewing the first forty minutes or so — especially to an automotive non-enthusiast like me — seems a bit shaky. But the film’s sense of time and place, its 1950s small-town nostalgia, its jaw-dropping visual beauty, and its love of cars, the open road and the American Southwest ultimately elevate Cars to a level of art and entertainment that continues to defy even the best efforts of Pixar’s competitors.

Perhaps the film’s biggest risk is creating a automotive parallel universe without drivers — a world in which fixtures of 20th-century Americana, from NASCAR racing to the forgotten towns and mom-and-pop shops of Route 66, exist independently of human beings or indeed any animal life forms. In this world, if you squint at the flies buzzing around light fixtures, they turn out to be little VW Bugs, and tractors stampede like cows — and are subject to nocturnal tipping by rural pranksters. Even buttes and cloud formations in the background reflect the film’s autocentric milieu, with fin-tail and hood-ornament shapes cropping up everywhere.

The absence of drivers is reflected, almost literally, in the character design of the cars themselves, specifically in the placement of the eyes. Animated anthropomorphic autos (e.g., Speed Buggy) often “see” with their headlights, but in a driverless world it would be odd to see through the windshield into the empty driver’s seat, and so the windshields in Cars are transformed into the whites of enormous conjoined eyes.

Why does the absence of humans matter? The non-human worlds of the Toy Story films and Monsters, Inc. provided an emotional point of entry for viewers precisely by imagining how toys and monsters would feel about us, thereby holding up a mirror to our feelings about them. Had Cars developed the automotive side of the driver–car relationship, that might have been an intriguing way of tapping into the great American love affair with the automobile; but the filmmakers haven’t gone that route.

Without drivers to care about, what motivates a vehicle? As you might expect, it’s the same things — or rather, the same range of things — that motivate their human counterparts.

Take Lightning McQueen, who has come out of nowhere to be a spoiler for the Piston Cup. Like any brash, callow up-and-coming young athlete feeling his oats, McQueen is hungry to topple the big guys at the top — and to enjoy the rewards of celebrity, notably a lucrative new endorsement deal with Dinoco Oil. (Dinoco, the name of the gas station where Woody and Buzz fell out of Andy’s mom’s car in Toy Story, is one of numerous Pixar in-jokes.) Arrogant and self-centered, McQueen isn’t exactly a team player, and has little loyalty either toward his pit crew or his slightly stodgy current sponsor, Rust-eze, with its unglamorous clientele.

There’s also McQueen’s competition: classy reigning champ The King (voiced by racing icon Richard Petty), a 1970 Plymouth Superbird who’d like to retire in a (hopefully metaphorical) blaze of glory; and The King’s longtime rival, perennial runner-up Hick Chicks (Michael Keaton), who’s even more obnoxious than McQueen. Off the track, McQueen’s easygoing transport bigrig Mack (Pixar veteran John Ratzenberger) is content to haul the sporty racecar from race to race, and may be the closest thing McQueen has to a friend.

However, contrary to McQueen’s expectations, the most significant chapter in his life — and the heart of the film — takes place not on the racetrack or in the spotlight, but far from the beaten path of the Interstate, in the one-light town of Radiator Springs in Carburetor County. Once a prosperous rural community on the Route 66 thoroughfare from Illinois to California, Radiator Springs shared the decline of many similar towns that were bypassed by the new Interstate system.

For McQueen, Radiator Springs is the capital of nowheresville. He wants nothing to do with it or locals like gruff, no-nonsense Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), Mater the tow truck (comedian Larry the Cable Guy), and the businesslike Sheriff (Route 66 historian Michael Wallis), although he may make an exception for a sweet little Porsche named Sally (Bonnie Hunt). Of course circumstances contrive to keep him in town, and of course McQueen slowly learns that he’s misjudged the town and its inhabitants, not least Doc Hudson, as in Hudson Hornet, of 1950s stock-car fame.

The plot elements are familiar and somewhat corny, most overtly resembling the 1991 Michael J. Fox comedy Doc Hollywood. But Cars has a specificity that goes beyond the lip service to small-town values typical to such films. It’s a heartfelt elegy to a lost culture, an almost mythic part of America’s past.

The Eisenhower-era nostalgia may be heartfelt, but it’s not entirely convincing. After all, it was Eisenhower who signed the Interstate Highway Act that doomed Route 66 and its small-town culture. Cars romanticizes the local feeling of a road that turned and wound “with the land” rather than cutting across it — conveniently overlooking the fact that those turns and bends cost lives, earning sections of the highway the moniker “Bloody 66.”

By contrast, the Interstate is disparagingly said to save drivers only “ten minutes of driving time,” but multiply the number of drivers per year by the time and fuel saved, and the benefit seems appreciable. Painful as it may be to watch communities decline, the answer, if there is one, isn’t not building better roads.

If Cars is heavy on hooey, it’s also genuinely endearing. The story is polished to a faretheewell, and the filmmakers have a few surprises up their sleeves. Refreshingly, neither of the big races that bookend the film ends the way formula would dictate. Cars doesn’t just mouth the platitude that winning isn’t everything; respect, dignity and loyalty are really honored above finishing first.

Mater the tow truck (Tow Mater, get it?) is funny and sweetly personable, and Newman’s Doc Hudson has real dignity and quiet authority. And, while praising the visuals in CG cartoons has become commonplace, Pixar’s work here goes beyond eye-popping realism into stunning beauty. This isn’t just technique, it’s art. The sprawling landscapes in Cars are even more gorgeous than the colorful coral-reef vistas of Finding Nemo, and that’s saying something.

Is Cars a disappointment? Only Pixar’s enviable track record could make it seem so. Compared to even the better efforts of their competition (e.g., Over the Hedge, Robots), Cars is firing on all cylinders, and then some.

For what it’s worth, no matter how consistently brilliant Pixar has been, I find that I never come to expect the next Pixar film to meet the same standard. Going into Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, I rather doubted each time that the film I was about to see would live up to their predecessors, and I was pleasantly dumbfounded each time to find my expectations exceeded. Cars doesn’t exceed expectations, but it continues the winningest streak in Hollywood history with a film that any other creative team in Hollywood would kill to have be the weakest of their last five films.

P.S. Whatever you do, don’t miss the end-credit outtakes, which include the funniest end-reel gag in Pixar history, as the cars go to a drive-in and watch excerpts from a number of films that seem awfully familiar.

The Nun’s Story

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 04:47:50 PST

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The Nun’s Story (DVD)

“Films of Faith” box set (DVD)

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Challenging, controversial, but impossible to dismiss, The Nun’s Story stars Audrey Hepburn as a young woman named Gabrielle van der Mal who enters convent life with high hopes and ideals, but finds the disappointments and stumbling-blocks that accompany her vows of poverty, chastity and (especially) obedience a potentially insurmountable obstacle.

Directed by Fred Zinnemann (A Man for All Seasons) from Kathryn Hulme’s novel (partly based on the experiences of a real-life ex-nun), The Nun’s Story certainly doesn’t offer the positive depiction of religious life common in 1950s Hollywood, but it’s not an anti-religious or anti-Catholic depiction either.

There’s no effort to depict all nuns as warped or frustrated; there are certainly bad apples, but also warm, sympathetic, apparently well-adjusted human beings. One of the more insidious moments involves a twisted mother superior suggesting that Sr. Luke (Gabby’s name in religion) display her humility by deliberately failing a nursing exam — but another superior later confirms that this advice was wrong-headed.

First sent to work with mental patients in Belgium before being assigned to the Congo where she hopes to work with natives, Sr. Luke struggles with the demands of obedience. Why should she cut off a potentially salutary conversation with a patient at the sound of some bell ringing? Yet after suffering a wrenching personal tragedy, she also struggles with hate and unforgiveness. Is the Christian ideal itself called into question? Or is this simply the ugly side of life in this fallen world?

Sr. Luke approaches her vocation with all-or-nothing commitment. That’s a worthy ideal, yet in the end none of us can really give our all. Nothing, on the other hand, is within our power.

What, then, are we to make of Sr. Luke’s crisis? Who or what has failed? Is it the fault of the Rule itself, or of the other sisters? Or could Sr. Luke herself be on some level responsible for her own unhappiness? Right up to the devastating final shot, which plays out in silence, the film refuses to take sides. Is it a triumph or a tragedy? Alas, it is something that happens.

Note: Newly available for the first time on DVD, The Nun’s Story is available either singly or as part of the “Films of Faith” box set, which also includes The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima and The Shoes of the Fisherman.

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The Nun’s Story (DVD)

“Films of Faith” box set (DVD)

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The Mormons [The American Experience/Frontline]

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Amazon.com links

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Religious critiques of the film examined