REL 3111
Religious Quest in Contemporary Films
Midterm Exam
Is life a meaningful story about purpose and destiny? We have seen five films (Crash, Ground Hog
Day, Big Fish, Bend it Like Beckham, and Green Mile) and read stories that deal with synchronicity,
human destiny, the construction of spiritual truth vs. literal truth, “sense” or meaning making, and
the impact of the intersection of our lives with others. Compare and contrast at least two of the films
and their accompanying stories.
If religious quest is taken not as the search for a religion but as the search for the answers to
morality, mortality, and meaning, how have the interactions with the “other” driven the quest for
meaning or sense making? Discuss the dysfunction in the characters ideology that results in the
requisite paradigm shift.
1. How do we understand the quest of the film characters you are comparing? How the examples
of quest similar and different (i.e. is the quest their choice or by some force outside
themselves?)
2. What struggle are they facing in their journey to make meaning? i.e. racism, classism, death,
ego, cross-cultural boundaries, sexuality, modernism, fear, etc.
3. How do the characters deal with the struggle? Were there special film techniques used to
enhance the audience’s viewing of the quest? (Lighting, set, costume, cinematography,
dialogue, etc.)
4. What is the resolution of the quest and was the character changed by their quest? If yes, how?
Were there special film techniques used to enhance the audience’s viewing of the quest?
(Lighting, set, costume, cinematography, dialogue, etc.)
5. Discuss the effect the films had on you (not simply whether it was a good movie, or if you liked
it). Did the film affect the way you think or understand human destiny? Was one of the films
more effective in helping you understand the religious quest of the character? Why? What
about the film made it a more effective example?
Your essay must be 5 to 8 pages long, double-spaced (10 or 12 point type). Do not summarize the
films and you must use your readings. Pages should have one inch margins and be stapled together.
No covers or folders, please. Please pay attention to grammar, spelling, diction, clear sentence
structure, and logical organization of ideas. Remember, this is a Gordon Rule course—how you write
counts.
Required Readings for the First half of the Course:
Selections from Corrigan – On Writing, Ch1, Ch2, Ch3
Stories of War and Peace – Chapter 1 – Religious Experience and Religious Stories
Films:
Crash:
Selection from:
bell hooks: Ch 1 and Ch 9
Christine Farris, “Crash Course: Race, Class and Context”
Hsuan L. Hsu,“Racial Privacy, the L.A. Ensemble Film, and Paul Haggis’ Crash”
Stories Ch 3- “Religious Ethics and Storytelling”
Groundhog Day:
Stories of War and Peace – Chapter 9 – “The Life of the Buddha”
Big Fish:
Barrie Wilson: “Big Fish: Understanding Historical Narrative”
Bend it Like Beckham:
“Bend it Like Beckham: Dribbling the Self Through a Cross-Cultural Space”
The Green Mile:
Stories Ch 2 – “Life as a Spiritual Journey”
Pro-Copy - Spliced Readings:
A.S. Owen and P. Ehrenhaus, "Communities of Memory: Entanglements, and claims of the past
on the
present: reading race trauma through The Green Mile"
Dana Heller, "Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviors in American Literature and
Popular Culture"
Audrey Colombe, "White Hollywood's New Black Boogeyman"
Eraka Bath and Stephen Billick, "Race and Spiritualism: Facing Death Row - A Movie Review of
The Green Mile"
Additional Readings
Bend it Like Beckham:
“Bend it Like Beckham and Real Women Have Curves: Coming of Age Stories”
“Teaching Cultural Geography with Bend it Like Beckham”
“Juggling Cultures in Bend it Like Beckham”