Greeley, Andrew M., and Albert J. Bergesen. Somerset, NJ:
Transaction Publishers, 2000. 186 pp. $24.95 (USD). ISBN: 0-7658-0528-6.
[1] If we paraphrase St. Anselm of Canterbury and claim that scholarship
is passion toward the object of study in search of understanding,
then this book contributes handsomely to its field. Both authors admit
their passions up front: they are Christians engaged in their faith
(one a Catholic priest, the other a Protestant), and they love the
movies. Fr. Greeley may annoy some academically-minded readers with
his frequent substitution of anecdote for argument, but for the patient
reader, there is substance beneath the casualness of his tenor. The
book of essays is published by a respected academic publishing house
specialising in the social sciences, but effectively addresses everyone
who has an interest in the topic, from scholar to student, from the
converted to the agnostic.
[2] The authors stress that books about popular culture should be
written so that their consumers can understand the arguments. As if
to make the point Chicago Sun Times critic Roger Ebert was
invited to make some introductory comments; perhaps not your typical
consumer of popular culture, but I can think of a number of academic
books on film that would likely leave him cold. And critics are worth
informing about religion in the movies, since most of them are, claims
Greeley, "with happy exceptions, as religiously illiterate as
filmmakers - and even more religiously insensitive" (89). All
of us likely have our own examples that support this claim. Even Ebert,
one of the "happy exceptions" according to the authors,
seems unaware when writing about Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue
Series of the two different traditions of numbering the Ten Commandments,
and is puzzled by the obvious Catholic ordering that the Polish filmmaker
uses in his artistic rendition of them.
[3] The assumption common to Greeley and Bergesen is that religion
begins in and returns to stories. It is hardly surprising, then, that
David Tracy's Analogical Imagination inspires their comprehension
of the religious imagination, stressing the importance of metaphors
in God-talk. Bergesen succinctly proffers the thesis of the book:
admitting that interpreting specific films is hazardous, "no
one doubts films reflect basic beliefs, including, we want to argue,
beliefs about the nature of God" (17).
[4] The book reworks a dialogue in which both authors engaged through
teaching a course on religion and film at the University of Arizona,
and dialogic might be an apt adjective for its organization. Each
chapter is written by a single authorÜthus we have two introductory
chapters. Some of the films are discussed from a different perspective
by each author, etc. Quite appropriately, the effect approaches that
of scriptural parallelism, since occasionally one of them says one
thing and the other subsequently repeats it in a different version.
Nor do the authors attempt to cover up their infrequent differences;
Greeley argues that Jessica Lange is a metaphor for God in All
That Jazz, while Bergesen sees her as an angel of death.
[5] Although God in the Movies contains a number of pertinent
insights on the source of contemporary religious metaphors (for instance,
the influence of near-death experience literature), it is the collaboration
between two different sensibilitiesÜCatholic and ProtestantÜthat is
in some ways its most stimulating aspect. Could this interaction not
have been pushed even further? Consider Babette's Feast; the
film itself revolves around the confrontation and mutual enrichment
of the two distinct sensibilities. Yet this aspect was barely touched
upon in the study devoted to it, even though the authors seem predisposed
to such an undertaking. It might be considered symbolic that, despite
"the artistic genius and theological power" (53) of the
Danish film, that chapter is among the least developed in the book.
[6] A good number of the chapters deal primarily with individual
films, after which approximately a third follow more thematic issues.
The order of these mini-studies is far from haphazard. The first three
concern films that have marked God metaphors; moreover, these metaphors
are primarily feminine. According to Greeley, this includes not only
Jessica Lange in Fosse's All That Jazz, but Audrey Hepburn
in Spielberg's Always, while Stephane Audran embodies a Christ
figure in Axel's Babette's Feast. The point Greeley makes here
is punctuated throughout the book by the consistent use of the feminine
pronoun for God. Rather than merely an exercise in political correctness,
the strategy seems to be part of the authors' concerted effort to
bring home to their readers the need for a full range of metaphors
to broach the mystery of the divine.
[7] A brief book can hardly prove whether the authors' optimism concerning
the presence of the religious imagination in Hollywood film is fully
warranted or not. However, Bergesen and Greeley offer valuable clues
as to how we can conduct our own search and make up our minds for
ourselves.
Christopher Garbowski
Maria Curie-Sklodowska University
Lublin, Poland
jacek@klio.umcs.lublin.pl
