Chancellor’s Lectures 2014
Screen Spirituality
- from cinema to smartphones: saviours, (super) heroes, sacrifice.
Lecture Three, Monday 12 May
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the third in my series of
Chancellor’s lectures for 2014: Screen Spirituality - from cinema to smartphones:
saviours, (super) heroes, sacrifice.
Last week I examined a series of films seeking in different ways to depict the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We identified a number of reasons why the majority
of these are less than satisfactory, ranging from a tendency to ignore scholarship
advising against harmonizing four distinct Gospels into a single narrative, to the
distracting use of well-known actors, to an over-reverential, rather sanitised approach.
Paul Schrader's insights into depicting the holy on screen, through finding a balance
between 'abundance' and 'sparseness', helped us see why the Hollywood megaproductions, abundance personified with their cast of thousands and spectacular sets,
can be particularly poor at evoking the spiritual heart of the Gospel.
This week we will explore films which represent the Jesus story, to a greater or lesser
degree, in analogous form. In the language of film studies, I am speaking about films
that contain 'Christ figures'. As we will see, they include all manner of styles and
genres, from the art-house movie to the blockbuster, from the western to science
fiction. Such films have two levels of interpretation: the literal and the figurative, the
direct and the analogical. They are not unlike the parables of Jesus, which are stories
heavy with significance, that can be read at more than one level. These are films that
can be legitimately viewed and interpreted biblically and christologically.
Before we explore some examples, perhaps we should define our terms. A
straightforward definition of a ‘Christ-figure’ is [slide] ‘a fictional character who
resembles Jesus in some significant way’. A more nuanced way of expressing this is
given by the film journalist and theologian Ronald Holloway [slide]:
The Christ figure in allegory follows the main thread of the Christ story, while
disguising it through a surface narrative and relying on the viewer to provide the
necessary continuity. The figure is strong enough to exist by itself, but points to a
meaning far beyond this existence for its ultimate truth.1
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Ronald Holloway (1977) Beyond the Image: Approaches to the Religious Dimension in the Cinema Geneva: Oikumene
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Some of you will see links here with what CS Lewis was attempting in his Narnia
books, with the lion Aslan [slide] being an obvious 'Christ figure' who has now made
the transition from the printed page to the big screen. Lewis hoped that his Narnia
stories
…could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion
in childhood. But supposing that… stripping [God and the sufferings of Christ] of
their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first
time appear in their real potency?’
Perhaps, in a similar way, the stained-glass Jesus of many films creates a barrier,
especially if there is a proselytizing tone: as John Keats wrote about his own artform –
‘We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us.’ Could it be that a film with a
‘Christ figure’ is able to be more successful in helping its audience ‘see Jesus’ than one
explicitly about Him?
Ronald Holloway helpfully identifies various different categories within the genre, the
most important of which are these [slide]:
1.
The Christ-figure as allegory. Here the narrative of the Christ-figure is an
extended metaphor, in which the constituent parts of the story run parallel with that of
Christ. My key example this evening will be a film celebrating its twenty-fifth
anniversary this year, Jesus of Montreal.
2.
The Christ-figure as symbol. Here the Christ-figure concentrates on a key
element of the significance of Christ, and how that element is lived out in a particular
context. This most commonly has to do Christ's role as redeemer, bringing hope and
rescue to others at great personal cost. My key examples this evening will be Fellini’s
La strada, Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast, and Shane.
3.
The Christ-figure as myth. Here the Christ-figure leans on the cultural
significance of Christ, but cut loose from any connection with historical reality or
questions of truth. A clear example is the Superman films, and this category includes
films with only occasional linkages to the story of Christ, whether through plot or
image. Here I will also mention The Matrix and Harry Potter.
Holloway argues that a Christ-figure film will only be successful if the key character is
not too obviously moulded to a Christian straitjacket, but is a fully realised creation
whose life nonetheless parallels that of Christ. This may partly depend on the eye of
the beholder, however. C.S. Lewis tends to divide opinion, and his admirers and
denigrators are likely to take rather different views of where to place Aslan, the lion
'Christ figure' of the Narnian chronicles - what is Christian propaganda to one, is a
marvellously realised autonomous creation to another.
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I am not suggesting, by the way, that in every film I discuss this evening there was a
deliberate intention to create a ‘Christ figure’. After all, Western and perhaps
especially American culture has been shaped by the Judaeo-Christian tradition over
many centuries. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that scriptwriters and directors tap
into their religious heritage for imagery and ideas. Because the sacred stories and
theological themes are embedded in their culture, they (whether consciously or
unconsciously) tend to manifest themselves in their films.
Knowing this to be the case, arguably some have become too keen to spot ‘Christ
figures’ in just about every film and television drama going. The Holloway categories
help us by providing criteria by which we might judge the authentic recognition of a
‘Christ figure’, as opposed as the overactive imagination making tenuous connections.
But with the genuine article there is a reciprocal relationship: the intimations of Jesus
add depth to the actions and significance of the Christ-figure, and on the other hand, the
person and situation of the Christ-figure can provide fresh light on the contemporary
significance of Jesus.
Perhaps the earliest use of the Christ-figure is found in a film I spoke about last week,
D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. [slide] You may remember that here four parallel stories
of intolerance and cruelty are told. The passion of Jesus is one of them, and operates as
a hermeneutic for interpreting the remaining three. The other stories, including that of
an innocent worker arrested during an industrial dispute and condemned to death, in
their turn illuminate what happens to Christ.
The ideal film to introduce this evening’s topic, however, is the 1989 French Canadian
film Jesus of Montreal, directed by Denys Arcand [slide]. This is because it rather
cleverly manages to combine both a depiction of Jesus, and a convincingly drawn
allegorical Christ-figure. Its plot concerns a group of actors who are called together by
Daniel Coulombe, an actor hired by a Catholic pilgrimage site to rejuvenate what has
become a rather a tired Passion play held in its gardens.
The resulting presentation of the life of Jesus is unconventional (including the
suggestion His biological father was a Roman soldier) but powerful, and becomes a
huge popular success, the toast of the city. The pilgrimage site authorities strongly
object, however, and insist the production is closed down. Daniel and his colleagues
believe in their Jesus, however, and put on one final performance. During the
crucifixion scene, there is an incident involving the police, [slide] and the cross is
pushed over, crushing Daniel. He is treated (badly) at a Catholic hospital, and leaves,
before collapsing on a platform in the Montreal Metro. He is then taken to the Jewish
General Hospital, where the best efforts of the doctors and nurses are unable to revive
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him. His organs, including his heart and eyes, are then given for transplant purposes,
and his friends dedicate themselves to living according to his example. Note, by the
way, the way the director frames Daniel in hospital, [slide] the cruciform position
echoing his crucifixion scene [slide] in the passion play. This kind of visual signal to
the audience is common in the films I am talking about; I will give several more
examples later.
Jesus of Montreal is a Christ-figure film in the fullest sense, falling within Holloway’s
‘allegorical’ category. Many reviewers did not seem to notice this, perhaps because of
Arcand’s reputation as a satirist – and there are certainly some very funny sideswipes at
the pretentious Montreal bourgeoisie. In the very first scene, however, one actor points
to Daniel, calling him a much better actor, and if the John the Baptist reference is
missed here, the same actor later ‘sells-out’, allowing his head be used in an
advertisement - paralleling the beheading of the Baptist. Daniel has returned to
Montreal after spending a long period travelling in ‘the East’. He persuades others to
gather for the Passion play, some leaving safe jobs to do so, recalling Jesus gathering
the disciples. Daniel wrecks an advertising casting session, where the casting director
enjoys humiliating participants, in a manner that clearly parallels Jesus casting the
money-changers out of the Temple. And so on.
Last week we saw that the more a film tries to create the illusion of showing you what
it was ‘really like’ to be Jesus, the more it seems to fail. Pasolini’s The Gospel
According to Matthew works better than most because, with its Italian setting and focus
on a single gospel, the audience knows it is an interpretation. So it is with Jesus of
Montreal. In the excerpts we see of the passion play, we have come to know the actor,
playing the actor, who acts the part of Jesus, if you see what I mean. We see the
audience, as the action moves from one part of the shrine gardens to another. We, the
cinema audience, see the impact of Jesus’ words and actions, mainly drawn from
Mark’s gospel, on the on-screen audience.
Daniel Coulombe plays Jesus as a charismatic, energetic saviour. We see the research
that leads him to his portrayal – in the library, [slide] talking to an academic, watching
a video of the previous passion play. We see him and his company rejecting a series of
possible ‘Jesus’s’: the stiff, stylized Jesus of the previous play, the Jesus of the shrine
priest, so hedged in by dogma there is no space to breathe, and the Jesus of a new-agey
believer he encounters, ‘so sweet, so positive’.
Well done as the passion play excerpts are, [slide] however, increasingly the focus is
on Daniel himself, as parallels with Christ continue; for example, he resists the
temptation of a Satanic lawyer, who from the heights of his office block, tells him that
if he cashes in on his talent and popularity, the city below is his for the taking. A
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perceptive critic notes that in the very process of being pulled back from the story of
Jesus in the passion play, into the story of Daniel, the paradox is that the story of Daniel
draws us straight back into the experience of Christ himself.
The director, Denys Arcand, has commented that he was seeking to examine the
paradox of the actor: ‘he never knows where the role begins or where his own
personality ends’. At certain points we, the audience, hardly know whether it is Daniel
or Jesus who is speaking – such as when Daniel, speaking of the difficulty for a rich
man of entering the kingdom of God, goes right up to a particular member of the
audience to say these words – to whom, we soon learn, they are especially applicable.
And then the dying Daniel, no longer in role, [slide] staggers through the Montreal
metro, speaking words of apocalyptic warning taken directly from the Gospel of Mark.
This is the longest I have spoken about any one film in this series, from which you
might correctly deduce that I believe it is particularly effective, both as a ‘Jesus film’
and as a ‘Christ figure’ film. If you have seen it, by the way, I hope you stayed for the
credits, which begin as two women buskers on the metro sing a Pergolesi resurrection
prayer. As the credits roll, the camera tracks left, deep into the earth, and then moves
upwards, through and out of the soil into a building, the shrine’s church, past a stained
glass window with the morning sun breaking through it, continuing upwards and out of
the church to the skyline of the city at dawn, and finally to the mountain top, where, in
the final few seconds, the focus is on the empty cross. In the death of Daniel, Christfigure, a new morning dawns.
So much for the Christ-figure as allegory, where, as Ronald Holloway puts it, the
narrative of the Christ-figure is an extended metaphor, the constituent parts of the story
running parallel with that of Christ. Those of you who saw the final two episodes of
Rev on BB2 last month will realise that you were seeing something unexpected but
compelling; another example of this category, as the Revd Adam Smallbone
experienced his own personal passion, from betrayal and despair to resurrection on
Easter morning.
I now move on to the most common category of Christ-figure film, which Holloway
calls the Christ-figure as symbol, concentrating on a key element of the significance of
Christ, most commonly His role as redeemer, bringing hope and rescue to others at
great personal cost. The western Shane features here, but first two films in which the
Christ-figure is a woman: Federico Fellini’s La strada, [slide] and Gabriel Axel’s
Babette’s Feast. [slide] Unlike Jesus of Montreal, where it is hardly difficult to
identify the Christ-figure, here things are a little more complex. La Strada (The Road)
is a 1954 Italian drama, directed by Fellini, from a screenplay he co-wrote. The film
portrays [slide] the journey of a brutish strongman Zampano (Anthony Quinn) and a
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naïve young woman Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) whom he buys from her
impoverished family, and takes with him on the road; their encounters with his old rival
the Fool (Richard Basehart) lead to death and destruction. Now a recognized classic, it
proved controversial: when the 1954 Venice Film Festival jury awarded La Strada the
Silver Lion, while ignoring Luchino Visconti's Senso, a brawl broke out when
Visconti's assistant Franco Zeffirelli started blowing a whistle during Fellini's
acceptance speech, only to be attacked himself.
‘The Road’ is a much used metaphor for our journey through life, and so it is here, as
the characters travel through a devastated post-war Italy, from carnival to town to
wedding. Gelsomina, an unsophisticated young woman, grows in self-awareness
through conversations with two people. First, the Fool, who is a tightrope walker,
explains to a dispirited Gelsomina that like an apparently insignificant pebble, her life
has meaning, and she should continue helping Zampano. Second, a nun, who
sympathises with her and encourages her. Gelsomina stays with Zampano, until, in a
fit of jealous rage, he brutally kills the fool. Gelsomina is left desolate and abandoned,
and dies, off-screen. When Zampano finds out about her death, he goes on a drunken
spree, and ends up (in the concluding scene of the film) kneeling on the beach. [slide]
In a moment of graced self-awareness, he emits a cry of anguish at all he has done.
Gelsomina is a transparently good person, full of innocence and vitality. But, you may
be wondering, in what sense is she a Christ-figure? Here we need to recall Christ as
suffering servant, seen by the world as a failure, associating with untouchables and
outcasts. This is the Christ at the heart of the Francisan monastic order, and there is a
strong Franciscan element in Italian neo-realist cinema of this period, showing
redemption through love, compassion for every living being. The film manages the
difficult rather than the easy thing, to make your heart go out not only to Gelsomina,
but also to the brutal Zampano, when on the beach, he emits a primal scream of selfrealisation. This moment of recognition and conversion is inextricably connected with
Gelsomina’s goodness and death. Fellini makes of Zampano a metaphor of human
nature in need of redemption: he is both Adam and the prodigal son. And Fellini
makes of Gelsomina, on the surface a simple person of little significance, into someone
whose sacrificial life and death brings about spiritual liberation – in short, a moving
and magnificent Christ-figure.
Let’s move on from Italian neo-realism to a Danish fable, [slide] based on a short story
by Karen Blixen. Babette’s Feast, directed by Gabriel Axel, is set on the Jutland coast
of Denmark in 1883. In an extended flashback we see, nearly thirty years earlier, a
well disciplined and stern Lutheran community, dominated by the moral authority of its
Pastor, [slide] who is assisted by his two daughters, Philippa and Martina. Two suitors,
a young army officer and a French opera star, fall in love with the daughters, who in the
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end elect to stay with their father. In a further flashback, twelve years earlier, the
Pastor has died and the daughters carry on his mission. One stormy night they give
shelter to Madam Babette Hersant, [slide] a refugee from a Paris, traumatized by
revolution. She stays with them as their cook, her profession in Paris.
In the time the film is set, the original community has fallen on hard times. Some have
died, and those who are left have fallen prey to resentment, jealousy and guilt. Then
Babette hears that she has won the lottery in France, and offers to prepare a special
meal for the community, on the centenary of the birth of their founder. At first unsure,
the community accepts, and Babette serves a magnificent feast such as has never be
seen or dreamt of in the village. [slide] During the meal, the community, at first
determined not to give in to the sensual pleasures of the food, are gradually won over,
and as the evening proceeds, forgiveness, peace and hope are rekindled.
Unlike La strada, here we have a film in which religion plays a central role/
Nonetheless, the significance of its narrative shape may need some elucidation. Axel
clearly structures his film according to what is known in theological circles as
‘salvation history’. The first part, the golden years of the Lutheran sect, corresponds to
the Old Testament, patriarchal founder and all. This is community praying for a distant
salvation, worried they may fall short by not being sufficiently ascetic and selfdenying. Their saviour, however, if they could but recognize her, does not remain
distant, but comes to them. Although a famous chef in Paris, Babette submits to the
ways of the people who have taken her in, learning their language and their ways. She
identifies herself with the community in Christ-like fashion, accepting no wages,
promising only to serve.
Twelve people sit around the table, in what becomes a sacred, sacramental meal, with
the finest wines and gourmet dishes fit for royalty. There is even a short sermon,
delivered by the grizzled figure of a general who has turned up unannounced: this is the
young suitor of all those years ago. The General comments on Babette’s ability to turn
a meal into a love affair (not a bad description of the last supper) and then speaks about
the divine gift of grace. What we find out at the end of the evening is that Babette has
spent every single penny of her winnings on the feast; nothing remains. Unlike earlier
scenes in which she features, she is now wearing a small gold crucifix, a symbol of her
self-offering, as she pledges to stay on in the community she has liberated and
redeemed – a Christ figure indeed.
If I had more time, I might have given more time to discuss at least two other films
featuring women Christ-figures: Carl Dreyer’s silent classic from 1928, The Passion of
Joan of Arc [slide] and a 1995 film by Tim Robbins – Dead Man Walking, [slide]
starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Dreyer has the soldiers give Joan a crown of
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straw [slide] and a ‘mock sceptre’ and in this and other ways the parallels between her
trial and death and that of Christ are frequently alluded to. Sarandon plays a nun who
dedicates herself to working with those in poverty, [slide] and befriends a man on death
row. The film ends with a scene reminiscent of the penitent thief crucified with Jesus,
who receives grace and peace as he dies.
Paul Schrader includes Dreyer as an exemplar of the ‘transcendental style’, and one
critic suggests Tim Robbins had achieved a rare thing in filming ‘the triumph of the
Holy’. But that is as much I can say about these films, because I have other genres to
explore within this ‘Christ-figure as symbol’ category: beginning with the Western in
general, [slide] and Shane in particular. Now I hardly need explain that the Western
has been around almost as long as cinema itself, and films in this genre tend to have a
conventional structure and imagery. A classic western involves a conflict between two
groups, one clearly in the right, who are threatened by the ‘bad guys’. Into this
situation comes a mysterious and powerful stranger, who sides with the ‘good guys’
and helps them defeat the evil forces before riding off into the sunset.
Last week we discussed The Greatest Story Ever Told, directed by George Stevens, and
I could find precious little to praise. Shane, however, one of his earlier films, is
recognized as one of the greatest of the Westerns, and was released in 1953.
This is not a ‘cowboys and Indians’ kind of Western, but takes place in the second
wave of settlement, when homesteaders are trying to create new communities, and
sometimes coming into conflict with the cattle barons who were there before them.
Shane is a mysterious stranger, an ex-gunfighter and drifter, who [slide] arrives
unannounced into the lives of a homesteader family, Joe and Marian Starrett and their
young son Joey. The villain is an aging cattle baron called Ryker, who will not accept
that he must give up absolute power over land he has become used to having for
himself. Shane announces he wants to leave his past behind and work on the
homestead, buying himself new work clothes for his new life. He is a kind, generous
and reassuring presence for the homesteaders, although he gives nothing away about
himself.
Things come to a head when Ryker hires a gunfighter, Jack Wilson, who provokes and
kills a homesteader in cold blood. When Ryker’s gang follow this up by burning down
a homesteader’s house, Joe Starrett announces he will have it out with the old villain.
Having learnt that Ryker is setting a trap for Starrett, inviting him to discuss the terms
of a peaceful agreement while actually intending to kill him, Shane decides to go in
Starrett’s place. Starrett insists he’ll go himself, as it is his battle, but Shane forcibly
prevents him. So it is Shane who rides into town for the final showdown, secretly
followed by little Joey, and in the ensuing gunfight he manages to kill Ryker, Wilson
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(the hired gunman), and Ryker’s brother, himself sustaining a wound to the hand.
Shane gives the young boy a message of peace for his mother – that there will be no
more guns in the valley – and [slide] placing a hand on Joey’s head, blesses him with
the words ‘Grow up to strong and straight’ before riding up into the mountains from
whence he came. Mountains, note, not a sunset – Shane comes ‘from above’, from
mountains with summits mysteriously shrouded in clouds.
I’m sure elements of the Christ-figure embodied in Shane will already be evident. This
becomes even clearer when we consider the way Stevens begins his film, with beautiful
landscapes painting a picture of an earthly paradise, [slide] occupied by the ideal
family, whose very names (Joe and Marian) echo the Holy Family. This idyllic picture
is threatened by the existence of the physical evil of the Ryker gang, and in particular
Wilson, the smiling villain, [slide] which leads to a related evil amongst the
homesteaders – discouragement and loss of hope. Such a situation needs a restorer of
order, a bringer of grace and freedom, a redeemer. This is the role that Shane fulfils,
and as with so many Christ-figures, does so a way that seems to involve celibacy.
Shane seems to have the ability to relate freely to both women and men without any
sexual subtext, as is also the case with Daniel in Jesus of Montreal, and Babette. This
is an aspect of the Christ-figure that in my view is rather neglected in the literature.
You may recall that the most controversial of all Jesus films, The Last Temptation of
Christ, explored exactly this issue – through imagining Satan tempting Christ with the
possibility of marriage and children.
If part of what these Christ-figure films achieve is to encourage reflection on what it
might mean to be Christ-like in a whole variety of settings and times, from nineteenth
century Jutland to postwar Italy to 1980s Montreal, then this asexuality is an intriguing
theme. So far we have not come across a Christ-figure who is also happily married!
Perhaps this is a suitable point to turn to a genre so far not discussed, that of Science
Fiction. In the Superman films, for example, [slide] one of the ongoing aspects of the
drama is whether it is possible for Clark Kent to have a satisfactory relationship with
Lois Lane, while also staying faithful to his super-hero mission.
Here we have arrived at Holloway’s third category: the Christ-figure as myth, drawing
on the cultural significance of Christ, but cut loose from historical reality. While there
have been a multitude of versions of Superman on television and in the cinema, I am
going to refer her to two films made simultaneously from March 1977 and October
1978. These are Superman: The Movie and Superman Returns, both starring
Christopher Reeve. The first of these is credited with beginning the modern era for
super-hero films, and was that rare thing: a popular success that also impressed the
critics.
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If by any chance you are wondering whether some of this Christ-figure material is a bit
far-fetched, reflection on the Superman story should persuade you otherwise. This is
because, as the scriptwriter on the most recent Superman film, last year’s Man of Steel,
has said, ‘We didn’t come up with these allusions of Superman being Christ-like, that’s
something that’s been embedded in the character from the beginning.’2
To give just a few examples: Superman’s father, known as Jor-El (note the Hebrew
sounding name) sends him to earth, with the following mission: ‘Live as one of them,
to discover where your strength and power are needed. They can be a great people, if
they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason, above all,
their capacity for good, I have sent them you: my only son.’ The spacecraft that brings
the boy to Earth is in the form of a star. He is found by Jonathan and Martha Kent,
who are unable to have children. [slide] Martha Kent states, ‘All these years how
we've prayed and prayed that the good Lord would see fit to give us a child.’ Now
called Clark Kent, as a young man he travels into the wilderness to find out who he is
and what he has to do. He starts using his powers in the cause of good at the age of
thirty. He is prepared to sacrifice himself in order to rescue others. In the second film,
Superman tells the journalist Lois Lane [slide] ‘You wrote that the world doesn't need a
saviour, but every day I hear people crying for one.’ Later, Superman is stabbed in the
side, and falls to earth in a pose strongly reminiscent of a man being crucified.
Superman wakes from his coma on the third day… need I go on?
Here the identification of Superman as a Christ-figure unlocks the meaning and power
of the films. Writing about the original film, Roy Anker suggests that it imparts the
‘wonder and delight of the fantastic possibility of the incarnation of divine love itself…
the film-makers borrow freely, and usually with great wit, from biblical usage and
events…’. Professor Craig Detweiler, who wrote a sermon outline to accompany the
release of last year’s Superman film, describes himself as ‘an interpreter of dreams’,
fulfilling a similar role to Daniel in Old Testament, interpreting the dreams of
Nebuchadnezzar. He might have invoked Joseph doing something similar for Pharaoh.
If films are indeed, as Gerard Loughlin suggest, the ‘projection of dreams’, film-makers
may not always fully realize what their onscreen dreams mean.
I cannot leave the science fiction, mythic, genre behind without referring to The Matrix,
[slide] directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski, and released in 1999. This hugely
successful film, which had two sequels, has perhaps the clearest Christian parallels of
any recent Hollywood production. The very names of the characters indicate this, with
the two key players called ‘Trinity’ and ‘Neo’. Given where I started this series of
lectures, it is worth pointing out that the whole premise of The Matrix owes something
to Plato’s allegory of the cave, where what is seen with the eyes is illusory. The film
2
The Metro newspaper, Tuesday 11 June 2013.
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depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a
simulated reality called ‘the Matrix’. This virtual reality has been created by sentient
machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical
activity are used as an energy source. The hero of the story, Neo, learns of the illusion
created by this virtual reality and fights to end the illusion and free the human race. In
the climax of the story, Neo is killed by agents dedicated to preventing this unveiling,
[slide] before the love of Trinity brings him back to life, and final victory. Along the
way, alert viewers can easily identify John the Baptist and Judas Iscariot (Morpheus
and Cypher, for those of you who know the film).
I have not the time to go into Harry Potter, but in the eighth and final film, [slide] the
implicit Christian themes (for all the fuss some made about the magic) becomes
explicit, as Harry willingly gives himself up to death for the sake of his friends, and is
thereby able to defeat the forces of evil. Hence the existence of imagery like this icon
of Harry, [slide] used in an American newspaper to accompany an article about the
Potter phenomenon.
I need to draw this lecture to a close, and perhaps at this point I should mention the
extra question and answer session for those of you who’d like the chance to discuss
aspects of this series that interest you, or take me up on judgements you feel I’ve got
badly wrong. On the basis of previous years, you might expect this to be on a fifth
Monday – but, because of the forthcoming Flower Festival, that won’t be possible this
year. So the final Question and Answer session will in fact be on Thursday 22 May –
Thursday week in fact: 6.30pm in Vicars’ Hall. I’ll mention this again next week.
You may be wondering, for example, what the continued presence of Christ-figures in
films says about our culture and about ourselves, given the increasingly diverse society
in which we live. Consider, for example, the prevalence of the cruciform mise-enscene [slide] in a whole series of films, from Dead Man Walking and Spiderman to
[slide] The Shawshank Redemption, Iron Man, Cool Hand Luke and Platoon: to give
but a brief selection of examples.
Certainly the films I have been discussing this evening, with their symbolic rather than
literal use of Christ imagery, offer more opportunity for character development and
dramatic interest than most Jesus films do. While some may find this Christian subtext
a little insidious, at their best such films do convey something of the redemptive power
of Christ. They also offer and invite reflection on the way these fictional figures are,
and are not, really like Christ. Their depictions invite reflection on what it might mean
for the redemptive power of Christ to be lived out in a whole variety of contexts.
As Adele Reinhartz concludes an essay on this topic: [slide]
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‘…the unabating production of Jesus and Christ-figure films testifies to the enduring
power of this man and his story to go beyond Christianity as a set of beliefs,
traditions and institutions, to capture the imagination and to act as a vehicle to
grapple with the issues of the times and the essential dramas of human existence.’3
Next week, in my final lecture, I will explore films that are neither about Jesus, nor
contain a Christ-figure, nor are overtly religious: but nonetheless explore issues such as
sacrifice and reconciliation. I will also return to the question of whether or not cinema,
and the multiplicity of screens seen everywhere in today’s culture, are ‘good for us’. I
look forward to seeing you then, thank you for your attention this evening. [slide]
3
The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film (2009) P436
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