Hope/Nostalghia

Finding Meaning in One Human Action

2011-12-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

Nostalgia - Andrei Tarkovsky (1983)

"'Why a candle?' I queried. 'Because of the flame, the unprotected fire. Remember the candles in Orthodox churches, how they flicker. The very essence of things, the spirit, the spirit of fire. Well, as for the pool,' continued Andrei, 'they drained it unexpectedly. Foul-smelling bubbles rise from the ancient lime oozing with mud and slime and burst on the bottom of the pool, then the leading character — you, Oleg — lights a candle — it's a thin, uncertain, weak flame and you cover this flame with your hand, the hand of a strong, grown man. And you walk across the foul bed of the pool, trying not to slip or stumble, and all your will is concentrated on one thing: to save this weak flame, to keep it burning. But it goes out and you return to where you started, and again you light this uncertain, quivering flame, once again you shield it with your palm and set off. You are more than halfway along the path you must cover to bring the miracle into being. But the flame goes out again. You feel your last strength is leaving you and you will be unable to find the spiritual or physical strength to start over again. But you do. You return to the place you already set out from twice before, light the candle again, cover it with your hand and venture out on this endless journey, carefully picking your way. You walk on and carry the candle to the end. Then you leave it at the edge of the pool, understanding that not only has a human life been saved, but that now a hand will always be found to protect the flame when you are no longer there. This is when the leading character understands he has carried out the most important task in his life. He slowly sinks to the foul-smelling bottom of the pool and dies.'

'You see,' and Andrei suddenly changed to the familiar form of 'you' in Russian, 'if you can do that, if it really happens and you carry the candle to the end — in one shot, straight, without cinematic conjuring tricks and cut-in editing — then maybe this act will be the true meaning of my life. It will certainly be the finest shot I ever took — if you can do it, if you can endure to the end.'"

- Oleg Yankovsky, lead actor in Nostalghia, from an article, "How We Shot the 'Inextinguishable Candle' episode for Nostalghia, published on the Tarkovsky website, Nostalghia.com.

Here is a large portion of Oleg's article to give a frame of reference for the candle-walk scene. But I want to reflect on the candle-walk scene by focusing in on one quote of Andrei Tarkovsky given in the larger quote: "then maybe this act will be the true meaning of my life."

By saying this, Andrei Tarkvosky seems to be quite the existentialist, such that instead of human beings Andrei is describing humanity in terms of human doings. Such a focus on the single human action. It's a powerful scene for certain, but is it what gives life meaning? This lonely action? For whom? So what? What could be transcendent about the action? And yet, watching the scene, I'm overcome by the forces that are bigger than the human, that dwarf the human, not the least of which (as has been mentioned) is the overwhelming power of time. Time seems to stop as we hang on the poet's every breath as he walks the candle, yet time marks the breaths, the steps, the candle flickers, and even though Tarkovsky may allow the poet to fully live in the moment of the successful transportation of the candle, the moment timeless in that sense, the viewer is yet painfully aware of the time it takes for the sequence to unfurl. And regardless of human agency within time, time comes crashing down on the poet at the end of the sequence, as there are only so many breaths allotted within time; in other words, death awaits the poet.

Another force which I am reminded of watching the scene that is bigger than the single human is the human institution, in this case, religion, as the poet's moment of action in fact becomes a ritual very like a procession at the beginning or ending of a religious service. Though the poet is alone within the film's universe, would I be remiss if I suggest that the viewer becomes the poet's fellow congregant and onlooker to the procession? The walking of a candle as a ritual cannot achieve its full significance outside of what we know of the power of human rituals in general as they are connected to some institution, especially in their giving life to and receiving life from the communities in which they were born.

And then the question is: how do rituals relate to time? In the rhythmic nature of the candle-walking ritual (as rhythmic as a person's attempt to steadily walk forward may be), there is a marking of time. However, in connecting this ritual moment with the rituals that have come before it within a collection of ritual moments within a community, there is the sense that time is overcome. Through successfully completing the ritual as the poet imagines it, the poet puts his stock into a communal reality of meaning that he has both affirmed and participated in uniquely. The communal reality defies time as long as it has persons that participate in that reality by making the communal reality personal through ritual.

And so perhaps there is transcendence in these larger forces at work in the solo human's action. Facing the void is an aspect of the existentialist situation that remains for the poet, but the complete meaning of that confrontation is not created in the void in the moment (though there is some of this); rather, the poet's action is prescribed for him as he affirms the community in which such a ritualistic action has power. Thus, where I see the existentialist's wet-dream of a totally free action failing insofar as not being able to give the person acting any relational affirmation of the meaning of that action, Tarkovsky both acknowledges the heroic element of the existentialist action and yet brings the person acting back into the fold so to speak, back into the communal fold, and in-so-doing, I would argue, allows the action to have meaning across time (not just in that moment for a single individual) in light of a communal context.

Here the understanding is that the transcendent is experienced through an individual's interpretation of communal ritual. God meets us through enacting interpretations of communal ritual. This, I believe, is most certainly true. Yet as a Lutheran viewer, I cannot help but also pose that God meets us through our failure to find ultimate meaning in our own acts. Certainly, glimpses of transcendence are possible, as is the case for the poet, but the meaning and experience of transcendence is finally dependent on God's being and doing. It cannot be otherwise. If our lives were dependent on our being and doing, we would be lost in the oblivion of human habit and construction. Habits enslave, constructions crumble. The poet's act is beautiful because it points to that yearning in the poet for ultimate meaning and transcendence. I believe only God can provide that kind of grounding.

"Uncle Ira" Gets Suspicious

2010-09-24T13:18:00.000-07:00

Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Siegel (1956)

The 1990 Concert: A Non-Religious, Liturgical Event in Post-Pinochet Chile

2010-09-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Above we have two songs that Richard Elliott features in his article "Reconstructing the Event: Spectres of Terror in Chilean Performance" written for the British Postgraduate Musicology journal.¹

The song on top is Victor Jara's "Te Recuerdo Amanda."
The song on the bottom is Silvio Rodriguez's "Unicornio."

English translations of the lyrics can be found in the above article.

I ran across this article by chance for a class on Worship and Politics. We're reading William Cavanaugh's Torture and Eucharist,² which witnesses to the horrifying acts of systematic torture perpetuated by the military dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile in the 70s and 80s. Cavanaugh also documents the painfully slow response of the Catholic Church in Chile to be a prophetic voice against the atrocities committed by the state. A major component of Cavanaugh's argument is that the church responded slowly due to a theology that advocated an "untouchable 'spiritual' space for the church which is both interior to the person and transcendent to the state."³ As a result of putting this theology into practice, the church left matters of social justice and common good to the state, forming a partnership with the state that Cavanaugh refers to as The New Christendom. With the church left neutered of its power to speak against the state, and the state systematically destroying any threat of opposition in the form of political parties, labor unions, and most other organizations, the Chilean people suffered.

The above article hints that a voice for the voiceless existed outside of the church in the form of musical movements for social change such as the nueva cancion. The church would eventually play a major role in advocacy for the Chilean oppressed, but during times when it was silent, folk protest songs spoke on behalf of the people. Elliott explores one particular concert as an event of personal and communal transformation that gave the people back their memories, identities, and voices. It is noteworthy that this event took place outside of the boundaries of the church. I'll ask more questions about this fact below.

In the article, Elliott talks about a concert that occurred in Chile in 1990, soon after Pinochet was voted out of office and democracy was restored. This concert featured the Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez and formerly exiled Chilean folksinger Isabel Parra, both prominent members of socially-committed musical movements within Cuba and Latin America, the nueva trova and the nueva cancion movements respectively. The concert was held in an arena in front of 80,000 Chileans and was recorded on video.⁴ Rodriguez dedicated the concert to Victor Jara, a Chilean musician and artist who was closely associated with the campaign that brought Marxist Salvador Allende to power in the early 70s. Jara was arrested, tortured, and murdered by Pinochet's military forces following the coup. We have a video of a live performance of Jara on the left.

Elliott argues in the essay that the concert (featuring prominent voices of resistance and their songs of protest, loss, and hope) functioned as a cathartic event in which Chile could participate in a communal act of mourning. But this performance was not only a looking-back, but a looking-now, and looking-forward. By providing the concert attendees the opportunity to publicly come together and reflect and hope and simply be together in a safe space, the concert opened up hopeful possibilities for the past, present, and future. Elliott describes this phenomenon referencing Walter Benjamin's use of the Jewish concept of "Messianic Time." There are certainly religious connotations here. Elliott asks, "Can we see performative musical events such as the stadium concert as ritualistic processes analogous to other ritualistic events (sacred or non sacred)?" Although I doubt whether Elliott is writing from a religious perspective, there is no doubt that he is aware of the transformative potential of the concert and the spiritual element at play therein.

As this concert opened up a performing space in which Chileans could reclaim their identities individually and communally, the concert stood as a drama in direct opposition to the drama of state-enacted torture that ruled the Chileans' lives for so long. Whereas torture divided communities into suspicious-minded, broken individuals, the concert brought them back together through familiar and emotionally-cathartic music. Whereas torture conflated time to the horrifying present, the concert recalled the past, and gave hope and possibility back to the present and future. Whereas torture broke down their bodies and minds, sometimes splitting the two apart from each other, the concert brought mind, body, and spirit back together in communal song. Whereas the torture was private and the scars made invisible, the stadium concert was as public as can be.⁵ Although it is a bit much to say that the concert mended what torture had torn apart, the concert at least became symbolic of the movement back towards wholeness. Elliott is right to note that the video recording is a testament, a monument even, that can serve as tangible evidence of this movement. Part of this movement involves the exorcism of the right-wing terror that had inhabited the Chilean people. This is a powerful image. Can communal song expel the demons of torture?

Communities that are dislodged from time, identity, body, etc., take comfort in anything that can bring them back to the ground of their existence. Elliott notes that there was a great attempt in the concert to provide this ground. The songs above, for example, were well-known tunes, but they also featured lyrics that carried connotations of loss and disappearance that jogged vivid memories for the concert attendees. Perhaps in these songs, the attendees rediscovered (at least for a time) their grounding in history.

This all sounds awfully familiar: analogies to Christian worship, anyone? The concert provided a liturgical experience of transformative healing outside of the church. Was this worship? I have more questions than I have information. I wonder whether the concert goers treated the concert as worship. I wonder what the Chilean Catholic Church's view of the event was, and what their stance was on these radical, musical, social movements in general. I wonder what the Chilean people's view of the church was by the end of the Pinochet years. I wonder what healing role the church tried to play around this time.

Beyond these historical curiosities, from a theological perspective, I would want to wonder about God's presence in non-religious, liturgical events such as this concert. Certainly I would affirm the concert as a site where transformation happened. I would also want to ask: What IS the role of the church in providing healing for the victims of torture? What can the church offer that a non-religious event cannot, if anything? And vice versa, what can a non-religious event offer that the church cannot, if anything? More specifically, is it presumptuous of me to ask what this concert provided that the Chilean churches could not? I realize that I'm taking one historian's interpretation of history in picking out one specific event to represent the healing of the Chilean people. There would certainly be other events to choose from. From what I gather of the structure of Cavanaugh's book, he gets to examples of how the church provides the site for transformation as well (I'm not there yet). I can guess one example: Eucharist.

PS. If you have time please read all of the Elliott article. It's fantastic.

¹Richard Elliott, "Reconstructing the Event: Spectres of Terror in Chilean Performance," British Postgraduate Musicology 8 (Jun. 2006).
²William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1998).
³Ibid., p.181.
⁴Since the above video on the right is cited as from 1990, I wonder whether the performance is from this very concert!
⁵Cavanaugh, pp. 21-71.

Approaching the Christmas Window to See a Friend

2010-09-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

Curse of the Cat People - Wise and von Fritsch (1944)

Head and Soul

2010-09-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

Untitled (Skull) - Jean-Michel Basquiat (1984)

Pentecost by Derek Walcott

Better a jungle in the head
than rootless concrete.
Better to stand bewildered
by the fireflies' crooked street;

winter lamps do not show
where the sidewalk is lost,
nor can these tongues of snow
speak for the Holy Ghost;

the self-increasing silence
of words dropped from a roof
points along iron railings,
direction, in not proof.

But best is this night surf
with slow scriptures of sand,
that sends, not quite a seraph,
but a late cormorant,

whose fading cry propels
through phosphorescent shoal
what, in my childhood gospels,
used to be called the Soul.

Reaching For Bela's Head

2010-08-30T01:47:00.000-07:00

The Body Snatcher - Robert Wise (1945)

Theological Aesthetics and Luther - Part 3 of the Series

2010-05-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

I continue my search for some theology of Luther's that might be used to support my independent study's foundational question of "Why not the image as a source for theology?" In reading Luther’s “Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,” I may have found just that in his incarnational theology. First let's take a closer look at the confession:

Luther draws out this theology in his argument that Christ can be both present in heaven and in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. As Christ is both God and man in one single person, Christ has three modes of being according to how finite and infinite beings occupy a space: circumscriptively, as a person occupies a position in space, the space and person corresponding exactly; definitively, as a spirit occupies space in a nonpalpable, immeasurable fashion; and repletively, God’s mode of being in that God is both simultaneously present in all places and at all times and is at the same time without measure or circumscription.¹ It is the second mode of being that Luther says makes sense of Christ’s saying, “This is my body” in the Last Supper. If Christ’s body can be present in and pass through spaces entirely occupied by stone and wood— the closed doors of the room his disciples had fearfully locked themselves in post-crucifixion (John 20:19) and the stone at his grave (Matthew 28:2)— why would he not also be able to occupy the bread and wine in a similar uncircumscribed manner.

For our purposes, it is the third mode of being that will especially accommodate a justification of images. Since Christ is of one being with God, it follows that Christ shares with God the repletive mode of being, whereby wherever God is present, so Christ is also, and since God is everywhere at all times in this mode of being, so Christ is also. Also the opposite: wherever Christ the man is present, God is also present. This is the radical nature of the incarnation. At the same time, this God is altogether incomprehensible, and beyond our reason. Indeed, God is beyond creation as well; God is not contained by God’s presence. As Luther says, God is “a supernatural, inscrutable being who exists at the same time in every little seed, whole and entire, and yet also in all and above all and outside all created things.”² And yet, “He is according to his nature a God who comes out to meet us… God is by his nature the God who becomes really present.”³

With this incarnational theology in hand, we come to some understanding that God wants to be involved in our existence. If Christ is present in the body and bread of The Lord’s Supper, might he not also be present in the stuff of art through the irregular nature of the Word?⁴ Though Luther does not use his incarnational theology to justify images as equally effective as other bearers of the Word, in that his theology points to a radical God and Christ who fill every little seed on earth and are yet beyond our comprehension, there is ample room to do so.

¹Timothy Lull, ed. Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 2nd edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005), pp. 265-266.
²Ibid., p.272
³Simo Peura, “What God Gives Man Receives: Luther on Salvation,” Union With Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p.86.
⁴See previous post.

Mythic Pluralism in Stalker

2010-05-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

*Note: there has got to be a better phrase for what I'm looking for than mythic pluralism. Suggestions welcomed.*

For the final unit of my independent study, the focus is on myth. I've read parts of Paul Ricoeur's The Symbolism of Evil, watched Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, and referenced a number of different resources on Tarkovsky and his film. Bear with me as I try to put some of this great material together.

Though some might question as to whether Stalker is a science fiction film since it portrays no special effects-driven futuristic world, I would maintain that the film is science fiction at its best. It is like Children of Men (please refer to this previous blog post for reference) in casting a mirror back on the ills of the present world— in this case, the spiritual ills— by offering a journey to the alien world of the Zone. The Zone appears as an intrusion into the present reality, and, according to the Stalker, the spirit guide of the Zone, grants its supplicants and seekers their innermost wishes. Though perhaps not so forceful in its truth-telling as Cuaron's film, Stalker offers the viewer a meditative space in which to consider the collision of a variety of different myths (and the symbols that ground them) and the crisis of faith that may occur when confronted with mythic pluralism.

Myth as Paul Ricoeur defines it:

Myth will here be taken to mean what the history of religions now finds in it: not a false explanation by means of images and fables, but a traditional narration which relates to events that happened at the beginning of time and which has the purpose of providing grounds for the ritual actions of men of today, and in a general manner, establishing all the forms of action and thought by which man understands himself in his world.¹

In the present world, there are a number of myths from which to choose (although there have always been a variety of options; hence, for example, religions' inherently syncretistic nature). I suppose there is some question as to whether we can choose myths, whether we subconsciously inherit them, or whether we are forced to accept certain myths in order to function in society, etc. I'd rather not get into this anthropological discussion. Mark Heim adequately describes the situation for the purposes of this blog post: "Individuals and communities live their way through a cloud of live, alternative possibilities. In their passing, they make some of these possibilities rather than others concrete, as the act of detecting an electron 'collapses' a quantum probability distribution into an actual location or velocity."² In Stalker, Tarkovsky lays out the myths side by side in his symbolically-charged sequences. I will briefly attempt to represent what I see as the myths in play in Stalker in one of its most famous dream sequences.

Consider the following clip (about 18 minutes into the second part):

Stalker - Andrei Tarkovsky (1979)

The dream sequence here takes place in the course of the journey to the Zone. The Stalker leads the Writer and Scientist outside of the city confines, eluding the military that wishes to restrict access to the Zone. The Zone is a room couched in a set of decaying, unoccupied rural buildings. Having left the city and entered the general vicinity of the Zone, the three follow a haphazard course, set by the Stalker (the longest route is the least risky), through the ruined military machinery and green fields that surround the buildings, and then the buildings themselves, which contain claustrophobic tunnels, flooded and trash-strewn antechambers, and sand-filled halls. Over the course of the buildings lying dormant, nature has begun reclaim the space; greenery tugs at the walls, moss grows on almost every human-built surface, and water is ubiquitous. The dream sequence occurs during a moment of rest for the pilgrims on their journey.

The camera moves forward through (or inches above?) the water covering the floor of the roofless hall in which the three rest. While facing downwards, the camera glides over a number of objects resting on the floor of the sometimes inches, sometimes feet-deep water. One could easily deem these objects as symbolically-charged: syringes, gold dishware, coins, a broken glass fishbowl with fish inside, pages from a calendar, a gun, metal coils and wire, a religious image of John the Baptist (from a famous altarpiece by Belgian painter Jan Van Eyck). These objects could be seen to represent various myths (or micro-myths) at play in the present world: the myths of pharmaceutical medicine, financial wealth, human dominance over nature, military might, technology, and religion. Perhaps these micro-myths are not best seen as independent myths, but better seen as aspects of the overarching myth of civilization. I would rather not reduce them all into one myth, however, because, as Heim alludes to above, not everyone's syncretization of myths will be the same; there is no one myth of civilization. In showing us objects that are symbolically-charged and point to these various micro-myths, perhaps Tarkovsky is wanting to have us consider the objects that accompany the various myths that may frame our lives.

If we are right in this assumption, perhaps Tarkovsky also points to the role that these objects play in our limited and fractured modern existence; by pointing to and embodying the myths that ground our ultimate concerns, they become sacred objects. Ricoeur says that myths attempt to restore some wholeness to a world in which the supernatural, natural, and psychological have been torn apart. The wholeness signified by the myth, but so little experienced, "becomes available only when it is condensed in sacred beings and objects which become the privileged signs of the significant whole."³ The objects Tarkovsky shows us are elements of wholeness in people's lives when framed by the myths the objects signify. Though perhaps it is not consciously recognized as such, for a person dependent on the micro-myth of modern medicine, the syringe is a object symbolic of that ultimate structuring narrative. In a way, the syringe is a sacred object for that particular mythic structure. In laying out these objects, Tarkovsky shows us the sacred objects of modern culture.

Another element that is important to consider is the manner in which Tarkovsky presents these objects. They are submerged in murky water, rusting, decaying, and broken. They have been dislodged from their primary location of meaning (eg. the machine gun removed from a scene of violence, the rusting coil removed from the machine it helped operate), and placed together here in a filmmaker's still-life. As such, their meanings bleed together; the myths bleed together. As such, it is hard to say exactly which objects relate to which myths. Does a broken fish-bowl have to represent human dominion over nature? What is the meaning of placing these myths, these sacred objects side by side?

Tarkovsky calls attention to the objects as sacred objects in the midst of this journey of faith, and yet also obliterates their referential meaning by placing them in the still-life in a setting in which human civilization no longer has any firm hold. Without a clear mythic structure, the object loses its particular sacrality. A piece of bread is just a piece of bread outside of the structure of communion. It is important to note this element of ambiguity in the imagery of the sequence.

We notice then that it is hard to place some of the objects; where, for example, do we place the upside-down image of the tree? What myth does this symbolize? Is the image a photograph or a reflection or what? How does the image of the tree fit with these other objects? The symbolism is not altogether clear.

Still we press on with the idea of micro-myths in play in the sequence. If we pay attention to the audio of the scene we're immediately struck with more questions. What do we make of the voice-over reading of Revelation 6:12-17 describing God's judgment as a force of nature? Does Tarkovsky mean to frame all of these micro-myths inside of the Christian myth? By coupling this spoken text of God's judgment through nature with the imagery of the ruined sacred objects of the modern micro-myths, it is hard not to see the sequence as a pronouncement of judgment on the human idolatry of the trappings of civilization (religion is even included in the St. John the Baptist imagery). The question then is, does Tarkovsky wish to remind us of the deeper divine reality grounding all human endeavors such as myth-making?

Confronted by the pluralist reality of myths in the sequence, we wonder why this phenomenon occurs so often in history. Ricoeur offers an explanation: "The Sacred takes contingent forms precisely because it is 'floating'; and so it cannot be divined except through the indefinite diversity of mythologies and rituals."⁴ The disaster described in the Revelation narrative forces all of the people of the earth, the kings, generals, slaves, free, rich, poor, the faithful, the unfaithful, regardless of the myths to which they cling, to recognize and fear the Lord of Heaven and Earth. In a way, framed by the Revelation reading, the sequence is a foretaste of the apocalypse, when all of the trappings of civilization, all of the myths fall away, and reveal the Hidden God. Myths offer an ideal of wholeness, but wholeness cannot be fully realized until the eschaton. In the still-life of decaying sacred objects, sacred no more, Tarkovsky exposes the fallibility of the micro-myths to which the objects point.

What is interesting about this apocalyptic reveal, if we can use this sequence as a reference point for the film as a whole, is the role that nature plays. I have already alluded to this to some extent, but allow me to try to put it together. Tarkovsky puts nature and civilization in a dialectic tension in the film. The following comment from Tarkovsky will be helpful for understanding his position:

It is obvious to everyone that man's material aggrandisement has not been synchronous with spiritual progress. The point has been reached where we seem to have a fatal incapacity for mastering our material achievements in order to use them for our own good. We have created a civilization which threatens to annihilate mankind.⁵

Though he doesn't mention this explicitly in his book, in Stalker, at times, I wonder if Tarkovsky means to set up nature as antidote to the ills of civilization by exposing civilization's finitude. In the very sequence above, we can see the tension between nature and civilization. The murky water works at the objects of civilization, breaking them down, obscuring their functions. The forces of nature in the Revelation reading— the earthquake, the eclipse, meteorites, the moving of mountains and islands— all run counter to the normal functioning of civilization. They also can quickly destroy or swallow up the constructs of human civilization, the architecture, infrastructure, etc.

I doubt whether Tarkovsky would mean to romanticize the occurrence of natural disasters; certainly they cause immeasurable human suffering. Perhaps, though, at the very least, we can notice that when natural disasters happen, they can reveal the ultimate concerns of a society. They can expose human mythologies. For example, when natural disasters happen, we get still lifes such as the one described above: objects are strewn together, dislocated from their primary loci of meaning.

I have a personal example from a mission trip I took a couple years ago down to New Orleans to help hurricane victims. As we know, Hurricane Katrina caused great destruction, with the Gulf rising over the levies, flooding homes, dislodging precious objects from their mantels, and throwing all sorts of household items together in unexpected and haphazard piles. While helping clean up some of the homes, I noticed in particular, the soggy, photo albums that featured family pictures. Water had caused the colors to run together, obscuring the faces and ruining the pictures. Once invaluable as family memories, they were now worthless as they could no longer function as tangible manifestations of the memories. The faces in family pictures serve as reference points for the memories.

In this way, natural disasters (but even the everyday working of natural forces of wind, water, sand, etc.) can be seen to expose the limitations of all human projects. Architecture breaks down when left to the elements. And yet, one wonders about this tension in light of the fact that humans are a part of nature. In what way is human civilization and technology a part of nature (this has been a central question for this independent study)? What do we make of the Tarkovsky's contribution that humans can destroy themselves (and I would add, destroy nature)? The Zone and its surroundings make for a space in which we can, along with the Stalker, Writer, and Scientist, consider the place of humanity in creation, and consider the myths of civilization that inform that understanding. It is telling that humanity would need a place apart, even an alien space, to have the appropriate room for such consideration. The Stalker's remark upon their return to the greenery of the Zone landscape is also telling: "Here we are... home at last." What would it mean that we have a home outside of civilization?

In his imagery, Tarkovsky sets up the tension between natural spaces and the spaces of civilization. Tarkovsky films the city scenes in which civilization has its hold in sepia tone. There is a drabness and a griminess to the urban landscape that makes one wonder, why would anyone want to live here? Is this home? Upon reaching the general Zone area (now outside of the grasp of civilization), Tarkovsky floods the camera with the green of nature. The sensual effect of this switch is a joyous occasion for the viewer: ah, green again. We identify with the Stalker in his above words. The film slips back into sepia tone for the dream sequence above, which features the sacred objects of civilization.

Then also, over and over again, Tarkovsky frames his characters through doorways or claustrophobic spaces, so as to say, it seems to me, that these characters are confined by their surroundings. Confined within civilization, do we have room to consider the myths that order our lives? Tarkovsky gives many images of the characters trapped in drab and somewhat horrifying architecture in a manner that reminds one of the fish in the fishbowl of the above sequence. As such, in his imagery Tarkovsky clearly seems to delineate a tension between nature and civilization, and perhaps suggests that one over the other would make a better home, a better space to occupy.

Note the contrast in color and mood between the indoor (in the, aptly named "Meat Grinder" tunnel) and outdoor scenes:

And yet this line of thinking is not entirely representative of what the film offers or "says," if one were to be so bold as to venture a guess. There are questions that complicate this vision of deconstructing civilization, deconstructing myth to get at the true grounding of our reality, God. For instance, given that the apocalypse is still not imminent as far as we know, and this is also the case in the film's narrative, what do we do? The spirituality advocated by the Stalker and Tarkovsky does not merely comprise a deconstruction of belief. If we deconstruct in the way highlighted above, all we're left with is a belief in an unknowable God. That is hardly satisfying.

And so the Stalker believes in the Zone. A new mythological structure and accompanying ritual actions have been set up around the spiritual pilgrimage to the Zone. It is a purifying, humility-giving action to make it through the course that the Stalker stakes out. Realizing the need for this kind of action, Stalker says things like, "Hardness and strength are death's companions, weakness and pliancy are expressions of the freshness of being" and "The Zone lets wretched people pass." It is easy to recognize the Christian undertones in such sayings, and yet, the Stalker has clearly gone beyond the realm of Christianity to accommodate this new religious reality of the Zone. The Zone has given the Stalker his vocation and his hope, which neither civilization, nor his family can give him, it seems. As such the Zone makes him an outsider. He wonders, should I force my family to live in the Zone, or should I give up on the Zone because no one believes in it but me? He cannot seem to do either. What should the Stalker do then? Return to the myths of civilization that we see represented in the discarded objects of the dream sequence? What hope does Tarkovsky give us finally?

Robert Bird has an answer. He says, "In the final analysis, it would seem unimportant whether one is 'supposed' to believe in the Room of Desires or not; what is important is the performance of the act of faith."⁶ The question then is, what is the act of faith portrayed in Stalker? The act of faith is a common theme perhaps portrayed more clearly in other Tarkovsky films. For example, in Nostalghia, the final scene portrays the act of faith in the poet attempting to walk a lighted candle across the length of an empty, desolate pool. Bird suggests that it is the Stalker's daughter that portrays the act of faith in the miracle of telekinetically moving the glasses across the table. I'm not so sure. Is not the act of faith also the Stalker's recurring pilgrimage to the Zone?

At any rate, Ricoeur links the act of faith to a pre-myth reality, which would seem to make ritual more elementary than myth. He says:

According to the phenomenology of religion, the myth-narration is only the verbal envelope of a form of life, felt and lived before being formulated; this form of life expresses itself first in an inclusive mode of behavior relative to the whole of things; it is in the rite rather than in the narration that this behavior is expressed most completely, and the language of the myth is only the verbal segment of this total action. Still more fundamentally, ritual action and mythical language, taken together, point beyond themselves to a model, an archetype, which they imitate or repeat; imitation in gestures and verbal repetition are only the broken expressions of a living participation in an original Act which is the common exemplar of the rite and of the myth.⁷

Using Ricoeur's thinking, I would make an argument for the Stalker's first pilgrimage being the act of faith, since it can function as repeatable ritual, as opposed to the daughter's telekinesis, which would seem to me to be secondary to faith, a miraculous empowerment as a result of faith perhaps.

Do acts of faith comprise a satisfactory answer for the hope we can have in the midst of the pluralism with which we are confronted? What would comprise an authentic act of faith?

One criticism I would have to Tarkovsky's act of faith being the answer is that the examples that Tarkovsky gives us are often solitary, alienating acts. They are acts of existential angst: rituals that require the individual to cut himself off from all others to be successful. Even in the case of the pilgrimage to the Zone, which features a group of three, the Stalker attempts to have the other two focus on their personal, innermost wishes, and their personal state of mind. The Stalker often seems frustrated with the ongoing conversation between the Writer and the Scientist, as if the pilgrimage was best meant to be taken in a silent, devotional state of mind.

How do we construct myths and rituals based on these inward acts of faith? The monastic life seems like an option. Perhaps leaving civilization behind and living a hermetic life in nature would be another. However, most of us post-modern or late modern folk need an answer that will allow us to participate in communities of the world: families, churches, cultures, nations. The need for nature and places apart from civilization is well taken, however (we all have a need to unplug, to go out into the wild for a time). And in light of human-driven environmental disasters, it would be better to recognize that we need to be led by different myths than the myths of capitalism, human domination over nature, endless technological and scientific progress, and military strength. Though perhaps Stalker does not offer a constructive answer, the film does point to a deeper mythical ground to which we must return.

¹Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil Trans. by Emerson Buchanon (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1967), p.5.
²Mark Heim, The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), pp.30-31.
³Ricoeur, p.168.
⁴Ibid.
⁵Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, Trans. by Kitty Hunter-Blair (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986), p.234.
⁶Robert Bird, Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema (London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2008), p.168.
⁷Ricoeur, pp.166-167.

Old Testament Social Justice Texts

2010-04-29T10:01:00.001-07:00

In connection with the previous posts, I think it's interesting to frame some of Cuarón's truth-telling concerns in Children of Men next to some of the concerns of the God of Israel in the Old Testament. These are hard images I'm pulling from the film; likewise, the OT texts are forceful in addressing injustice towards the outsider, poor, widow, orphan, etc. These texts still speak to us today, in a very different way than do the images. The images raise awareness of injustice; the texts directly enlist us to address the injustice and threaten judgment on those who ignore the call.

Children of Men - Cuarón (2006)

"You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry." — Exodus 22:21-23

"When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." — Leviticus 19:33-34

"For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord, and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?" — Jeremiah 5: 26-29

"And I said: Listen, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Should you not know justice?— you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people, and the flesh off their bones, who eat the flesh of my people, flay their skin off them, break their bones in pieces, and chop them up like meat in a kettle, like flesh in a caldron. Then they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have acted wickedly. Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry 'Peace' when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths." — Micah 3:3-5

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am." — Isaiah 58: 6-9

-----------------------------

I do not share these texts to say, oh, in light of the injustices perpetrated by those participating in the ruling narrative in the film, that this is a reason for their infertility. Some sort of divine justice. I don't want to go there. To claim that natural disasters, for instance, are the result of God's wrath is a dangerous move. I am, however, wanting to present the alternative narrative that God would have structure our society. It is a narrative that reminds Israel of its time of slavery in Egypt. It is a narrative that would have Israel show care and grace towards the outsider among them.

I am also wanting to point again to the incisiveness of the film in holding up a mirror to the injustices of the present. The film shows us that these Old Testament social justice texts are for us as well. We have to carefully consider, for example, our immigration laws. We have to show caution in how we interrogate those we would label our enemy. We should be careful in labeling people as "terrorist" and "illegal immigrant." We must not let fear rule the way we treat others. The disasters of Abu Ghraib, My Lai, and Dachau are not natural disasters. They are unnatural, horrific events that reveal the worst of which humanity is capable. The potential for another of these disasters is always there, and we cannot allow ourselves to become unmoored in history such that we forget. The Old Testament social justice texts won't allow us to forget.

In America, unless we have Native American blood, we should remember that our forefathers immigrated here, many of them leaving behind harsh circumstances and coming to America with little or nothing of value to their names. This land is not our land. This land is for everyone. We would be wise to heed the truthful speech of the prophets and the film, to show care and concern for those unfortunate among us (or even those not among us). It will be a better world if we do. There would be less violence and hatred. There would be more compassion, more peace, more of a hint of God's fullness erupting in the world. I want to live in that world.

I don't mean to get preachy; it's hard not to get wound up with these matters. God grant us the grace to feel moved to loving, truthful speech and action.

Parrhesia in Children of Men

2010-04-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

Children of Men - Alfonso Cuarón (2006)

"There is absolutely no social criticism, of even the most implicit kind, in science fiction films. No criticism, for example, of the conditions of our society which create the impersonality and dehumanization which science fiction fantasies displace onto the influence of an alien It."

- Susan Sontag, "The Imagination of Disaster," in Gregg Rickmann, ed. The Science Fiction Film Reader (New York, NY: Limelight Editions, 2004), p.111

Writing in 1965, Sontag did not have the opportunity to see Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. If she had, I'm guessing she would not have been able to make the above statement. Children of Men is most definitely a science fiction film: set in the year 2027 in a world staring down impending disaster because women can no longer become pregnant. And yet the film also operates as a mirror for the present in highlighting problems facing society.

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek relates how the film holds up this mirror to the present:

In Children of Men, there are no new gadgets, London is exactly the same as it is now, only more so— Cuaron merely brought out its latent poetic and social potentials: the greyness and decay of the littered suburbs, the omni-presence of video-surveillance… The film reminds us that, of all strange things we can imagine, the weirdest is reality itself. Hegel remarked long ago that a portrait of a person resembles it more than this person itself. Children of Men is a science-fiction of our present itself.¹

What is the present the film is trying to mirror? Compare the screenshots from the film (including the one above) with a couple of U.S. news items that have found significant play recently:

Al Jazeera, Monica Villamizar reporting, Apr 24, 2010

Al Jazeera, Tom Ackerman reporting, May 9, 2009

In Children of Men, in the wake of the political chaos and mass migration caused by humanity's infertility, Britain has shut down its borders and imposed strict penalties on illegal immigrants and those harboring illegal immigrants. The police and military have been given free reign to treat the immigrants as brutally as they wish. And the government is running a propaganda campaign through the media to win over the public to its cause. Clearly, as seen above, the images we get from the film are not unknown to us. We have seen imprisonment, humiliation, and torture of outsiders labeled "illegal immigrants" and "terrorists."

It is happening today, due to a climate of fear. Žižek says that fear is the mode of politics, the mode of mobilizing political groups made up of people who are afraid of immigrants, radicals, too strong of a state, and taxation.² Fear plays a significant role in how we treat one another as populations come into closer contact in light of globalization. Franco-Bulgarian philosopher, Tzvetan Todorov, adds to this point:

This new contact of populations is, I think, dominated by two major passions, and these two passions come out of a reaction to our inequalities. These two passions are called humiliation and fear. Humiliation is experienced by the powerless toward the more powerful. It encounters on the other side, fear, and fear is just as powerful a source of violence. In fact if we think of major violences of the recent times, they all come out of fear. It is because we were so afraid of what will happen that we accepted torture. And if you are really frightened you get accustomed to different transgressions of the rules of normal life between human beings.³

This climate of fear, Žižek says, is the infertility of today's global society which Children of Men is representing literally. What does our theology have to say about this crisis of fear and injustice and how does Children of Men fit into the theological discussion?

When struck down with a sense of helplessness about these matters, when perhaps, the suggestion that the world is heading for disaster does not seem so far-fetched, it is not inappropriate to question humanity's role in the disaster. However, it is perhaps also apt to wonder: where's God in all of this? The question of theodicy will always, to some extent, indict God. If God was God, why would God allow disaster and evil to run amok?

Eschatology might have an answer to this question. Clearly we are in a time of "not yet." Sin and evil abound. Yet God does not impose on the freedom God granted creation. Eschatology points to the future when God will draw creation back into God's fullness. German theologian Jürgen Moltmann says, "God's being is coming, that is, God is already present because his future decides what becomes of the present. But this also means that he is not present in the way of his unmediated and immediate eternal presence. His future is our presence, and his presence will be our future."⁴ History, then, says Moltmann, is the time of hope.⁵ Faith is belief that God will be God, and not only that, but that God will be God for us in bringing creation into God's fullness. It is a matter of faith to stand with the Marys at the empty tomb and in fear and amazement, receive the angel's news that Jesus is going ahead to Galilee and that we will see him, just as he told us.

Yet, what does our hopeful expectation of this future have to do with the present? So far, this eschatology seems rather lukewarm on addressing the dire matters outlined above. Moltmann has an answer to this too: one must view together the expectation for the future and the predicament at hand. He says, "Christian eschatology is not an apocalyptic explanation of the world and also not a private illumination of existence, but the horizon of expectation for a world transforming initiative through which 'the renewal of the world is anticipated in this age in a certain sense."⁶ We are enlisted through Christ's life and death to be "construction workers" in the Architect's world transforming initiative.

The initiative, if we look to the Bible, always finds God on the side of the humiliated, outsider, and immigrant. Insofar as we participate in sinful societal structures in which fear allows us to turn a blind eye to injustice against the "outcast" among us, we find ourselves indicted. Moltmann says that the proper response to this accusation is "through the verum facere of the Christians [and all others] in their various vocations directed to the world of misery."⁷ The Latin phrase Moltmann uses means truthful action, action that speaks to the truth of God's loving initiative. Part-and-parcel with this truthful action is truthful speech. Truth speech and action can be practiced by anyone in myriad vocations.

Brazilian theologian Vitor Westhelle also has a word for our discussion when he analyzes the Greek word for truthful speech parrhesia. He uses the word in light of its connection to the cross' full disclosure of the unjust nature of societal and human relations. Parrhesia also means: to speak the truth boldly, or plainly saying it all without reserve.⁸ Parrhesia has a transgressive quality to it; speaking the truth in this way requires one to be unafraid of breaking the boundaries of the ruling societal narrative and exposing the systems of knowledge, convictions, and power that are propped up by the ruling narrative. ⁹ As such, parrhesia points to an alternate narrative, one full of hard truths but grace as well. Westhelle notes that the cross, in pronouncing the death of the old narrative, the "law of this age," empowers one to truthful action.¹⁰ I would add in eschatological terms: in that we believe in God's fulfilling action throughout history, as well as hope for God's final consummating activity, both of which reveal God's transforming initiative, we are freed and empowered to speak truthfully to the sinful structures of this world.

The next question, then, for this post is: in what way does Children of Men fit in with this eschatological truth-telling? I hope I have made it somewhat clear already that I believe the film engages powerfully with the issues of our time, especially in its imagery. When many Hollywood films shirk from provocative issues, Children of Men is set on exposing them for all to see. Cuarón did not have to feature this particular background to his action-heavy, sci-fi foreground. Already well known for previous work, Cuarón could have played the genre straight, the way Sontag would expect. However, Cuarón took the risk that the film would speak to people despite the "downer" factors in play. Indeed, even though Children of Men met with critical acclaim and three oscar nominations, it lost money at the box office. The Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Business Blog called it "another grim dystopian look at our future that simply cost too much money to make a profit."¹¹ In this way, as a risky bit of filmmaking that holds up a mirror to the ruling societal narrative, I would argue that Children of Men is a form of parrhesia.

A couple of points to support this suggestion. One point to emphasize is Cuarón's use of one-shots, continuous shots of a longer duration, the longest of which runs 454 seconds. In response to the question of why one-shots in an interview with Kim Voynar, Cuarón said:

"Another thing is not to use editing or montage, trying to seek for an effect. It is to try to create a moment of truthfulness, in which the camera just happens to be there to just register that moment. So that leads into the long shots. Because then you just register the moments as they go. So what becomes important, then, is not the camera, but the moment. If you are going through life and something happens, you don't have the luxury of going, 'Stop, stop, guys, and let me get a close-up!'"¹²

In attempting to create these moments of truthfulness, Cuarón allows the material of the film to speak rather than trying to control it. The gritty, documentary feel of these shots (which are also the result of the set design) add a somber air of realism to the scenes; they are unblinking in their portrayal of this future/present dystopia. Holding onto the truthfulness of the moment, rather than cutting away, Cuarón creates a tension that draws the viewer into the filmic world. Perhaps the idea is that, having been drawn into the world of the film, the viewer can more easily become involved with the ways in which this world reflects back on the world off-screen. Thus, accusations of the film being a "downer" betray real involvement on the part of the viewers; the film is hard to watch because it touches a nerve in its viewers. They also reveal Cuarón's commitment to speaking the truth about our times.

Lastly, the film portrays a sensitivity to the underdog (running parallel to God's world-transforming initiative). For one, the film gives special attention to the background characters. The caged immigrants and refugees are not only part of the landscape in which Cuarón's protagonists move; they are the silent soul of the film, driving Theo (Clive Owen) to protect Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) and her baby as a hope for all, but especially for the downtrodden. Second, there is the character of Kee, a young woman who comes to be pregnant when no one else is so blessed. Kee and her baby should be the miracle the world is waiting for. Yet Kee is an immigrant, black, single mother, ostracized from society. Even though it is the first birth in 18 years, we wonder whether the government would recognize the baby since the baby comes from ignoble origins. Cuarón plays up this aspect of the narrative as part of his truth-telling; society rarely treats outsiders with respect, and even less so in times when fear rules. The story is as much about Kee and her baby as it is about the anti-hero Theo, who stumbles into the task of protecting them.

It is the baby that gives Todorov optimism for the future of humanity, even as we sink deeper into self-perpetuated disaster:

"If we have reason not to be fully pessimistic, it is because of basic features of human beings. The human child only becomes independent after something like six or seven years. This means that during one-tenth of our lives we are dependent on others, which is not true of other mammals. So for a long time, we all know that our small ones are completely helpless and we have to protect them, to nourish them, to take care of them. This attitude, of which every single human being has been the beneficiary, is inscribed if not in our genes, at least in our minds. This means that we in some instinctive way know that we can only survive if we take care of the weaker ones, of the baby."¹³

Indeed, one scene in particular points to Todorov's hope. Theo, Kee, and the baby, find themselves in the middle of a war between the British military and rebel forces. All hell is broken loose, as the military fires shells into the apartment building in which the rebels have taken roost. The three are stuck on the third floor. Yet, the baby begins to cry, and everyone in the building is stunned by the sound; they have not heard a child crying in so many years. Calls for cease-fire ring through the building and out onto the broken streets. As Theo, Kee, and the baby make their way out of the building, the buildings' beleaguered residents reach out to touch the baby. The military men and women give way as well, with looks of wonder on their faces. Some, still clutching their weapons, drop down on their knees while crossing themselves. The baby is more important than their war. There are no questions asked of this vulnerable party of three. Yet as they leave the scene, the gunfire starts again.

It is refreshing to find a film that doesn't flinch from portraying the challenges facing our society. Children of Men does not have easy answers, yet there is hope portrayed in new life. The sound of a baby crying can remind us most viscerally to put aside our worldly concerns and care for the least among us. Christians remember the beginnings of another child of questionable origins every Christmas. Throughout the rest of the year, we trace the child's adult ministry. We note that Jesus was never afraid to say and do the things that would bring about a better world. Truthful speech and action become more attainable in light of the fact that Jesus and God go before us to show the way.

¹Slavoj Žižek, “The Clash of Civilizations at the End of History,” 2006.
²Commentaries by Slavoj Zizek, Tzvetan Todorov, Naomi Klein, Saskia Sassen, and Fabrizio Eva, “The Possibility of Hope” bonus feature, Children of Men, DVD. Produced by Alfonso Cuarón et al., Interviews by Riccardo Romani. Universal Studios, 2006.
³Ibid.
⁴Jürgen Moltmann, "Theology as Eschatology," in Frederick Herzog, ed. The Future of Hope: Theology as Eschatology (New York, NY: Herder and Herder, 1970), p.10.
⁵Ibid., p.21.
⁶Ibid., p.36.
⁷Ibid., p.47. Brackets mine.
⁸Vitor Westhelle, The Scandalous God: The Use and Abuse of the Cross (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), pp.84, 86.
⁹Ibid., p.90.
¹⁰Ibid., p.91.
¹¹ "Children of Men: Brilliant But Expensive," The Hollywood Reporter Risky Business Blog, November 19, 2006.
¹²Kim Voynar, "Interview: Children of Men Director Alfonso Cuaron," Cinematical, Dec. 25th, 2006
¹³“The Possibility of Hope” bonus feature, Children of Men, DVD.

An Objection

2010-04-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

"Our self-transformation into androgynous cyborgs is not a prospect to be celebrated and blessed, for it marks a callous disregard for the embodied particularity that defines us as finite and temporal creatures, created in the image and likeness of God."

- Brent Waters, From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in a Postmodern World (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006), p.121.

In the above referenced book, Brent Waters is responding to what he sees as a failing of much post-modern theology in regurgitating posthuman discourse in a Christian dialect without offering an attractive, alternative moral vision. The above quote highlights a caution he gives to consideration of human transformations through technology. It would appear that Brent Waters would have some objections (from a theological standpoint) as to the breakdown of gender dualities (and other "particularities") that are definitive of the molecular conception of an individual. Bukatman's terminal identity is also in question here.

I realize that I didn't properly address in the last post the prospect of terminal identity being amenable to a Christian faith. To what theological resources would Waters point to argue against embracing a terminal identity that would lead to the breakdown of embodied particularities (if he were indeed to do so)? I want to know more about what Waters means by embodied particularity in the phrase "the embodied particularity that defines us as finite and temporal creatures, created in the image and likeness of God." Is the embodied particularity of keeping the following dualities intact - male/female, human/non-human, organic/inorganic - necessary for remaining creaturely in the manner intended by the Genesis creation texts?

In two films I've seen recently, Videodrome and The Man Who Fell to Earth offer images of bodies losing gender specificity in a technologized, sci-fi space. In the former, Max Renn develops a massive, vaginal slit in his stomach to receive the Videodrome program's videocassettes. In the latter, the alien Thomas Newton and earthling Mary-Lou are captured in a gender-neutral image that recalls the melding of Alma and Elizabeth in Ingmar Bergman's Persona. In both of these films, these visuals are backed up by other narrative and thematic elements (which I won't get into) that emphasize the androgyny of the male protagonist.

Videodrome - David Cronenberg (1982)

The Man Who Fell to Earth - Nicholas Roeg (1976)

A third film that I will spend a little more time with - Tron - at times paints a similar confusion over gender and sexuality visually but in every other way tries to erase this confusion. Taking place for much of the action in a cyberspace world in which computer programs find representation, it is curious that these programs are anthropomorphized in a distinctly homogeneous manner: "Computer programs are human - in fact, computer programs seem to be white, heterosexual, and chaste."¹ Visually, there is the androgyny of the programs in their appearance (common uniforms, the lighting) as you can see below.

Tron - Steven Lisberger (1982)

However, in many other ways, there is an emphasis on the division between male and female (it is no small wonder that the film is a Disney film) and the establishment of the heterosexuality of the main characters. For instance, there is the love triangle that is awkwardly set up between Tron, Yori, and Flynn in the virtual world to parallel that of Alan, Lora, and Flynn in the real world. In no scene is this more apparent than in the scene where Flynn is introduced to Yori (at around 1 hour, 12 minutes in). Flynn recognizes Yori as Lora's corollary in the virtual world and steps towards her to be cut off by Tron, who, playing the protective and domineering boyfriend, is wary of Flynn's approach. The rest of the scene involves a series of dialogue cuts between the Flynn on the right of the space and Yori and Tron on the left. In the film world, the three are still standing right next to each other; yet, the way the scene is shot, the scene explicitly captures and separates the three in their heterosexual roles. Flynn is the charming lone ranger desiring a woman who has been deemed "hands-off" by Tron.

Yori is captured as stereotypically feminine in her submissive lower positioning on the screen in the shots with Tron. In the image below, she looks fawningly at her masculine lover. In addition to Tron playing the possessive boyfriend, Tron is clearly in control in this relationship: he is the one that does the talking in the scene. Thus, there seems to be the distinct attempt to represent these traditional stereotypes of the male/female duality (and traditional male/female roles in a relationship) to overcome any potential element of terminal identity that might be expressed in the virtual representation otherwise.

Returning to the original objection of Waters, I do share his questioning of what it might mean for dualities such as gender to crumble in future human becomings. To the extent that we occupy a terminal identity in engaging with films that feature these gender-neutral human becomings, for a Christian skeptic of such matters, viewing such films could be seen as a dangerous activity. However, and perhaps this is my critique of the idea that engaging terminal narratives comprises a significant factor of human becoming in the direction of terminal identity (my last post), I think it's quite possible to establish a reflective distance from these narratives such that we consider them but don't embody them in such a way that they dictate our becoming.

I do see the benefit for Christians to take a reflective stance on the traditional ontological dualities. When viewing the shattering of these dualities, we ponder the way in which many aspects of these dualities are socially-constructed. For example, male-ness and female-ness are often defined in crude terms by society, such as in Tron, and to laugh at these representations is one step towards freeing ourselves from oppressive societal definitions. Establishing a distance from these gender distinctions, we recognize that we are beloved in God's eyes even if our personalities and bodies don't align with societal expectations about gender. We recognize that others are also beloved and we treat them lovingly.

There is, of course, the matter of God creating us biologically male or female, human, and organic, and perhaps this is more precisely what Waters is concerned about. These particularities could be seen as what God intends for us. It might be undesirable, then, for our bodies to in any way be changed. Certainly, a sex change would be a radical example of this, but a tattoo, or glasses, or a piercing could also be seen as distortions of God's original creation of our bodies as these foreign objects become a part of our bodies in some way. What is the line at which we say that we are sinfully altering God's design for us? Is there a line? If there is a line for us personally, should we hold others to the same standard? Should we condemn films that portray individuals crossing it?

¹Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), p.222.

Science Fiction and Human Becoming

2010-04-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Tron - Steven Lisberger (1982)

"We cannot get rid of our technology, for we can no longer survive without it. We depend upon the existence of technology, as much as our technology depends upon our cognitive abilities. Our relation to technology has become one of symbiosis between humans and machines."

- Taede A. Smedes, "Technology and Evolution: The Quest For a New Perspective," Dialog: A Journal of Theology 44:4 (Winter 2005), p. 359.

Starting out this study with the question "What does it mean to be human in a technologically-driven society?" presupposed a consideration of technology. However, it's become apparent to me that even if I were to ask the question without the qualifying second part - "What does it mean to be human?" - I would still have to consider technology. For example, a theological anthropology without reference to technology's impact on human beings and becomings would be unpersuasive. However, simply because we have to consider technology does not mean that there is not a place for legitimate struggle with Smedes' conclusion of symbiosis between humans and machines. Scott Bukatman, drawing on Freud, makes the suggestion that confronting this proposition of symbiosis is an ego-smashing moment on the level of Copernicus declaring that the earth is no longer the center of the universe or Darwin situating humans in an evolutionary process of descent from the animal world.¹ I hope I have been demonstrating and continue to demonstrate the way in which sci-fi film and theology offer spaces to grapple with these issues. In this post in particular, I'm going to look at the way in which science fiction embodies this struggle.

Bukatman has a great deal to say on this subject. He says that science fiction is able to give us this wrestling space through "the narration of new technological modes of being in the world."². Let's pick up on the narration part of that phrase first.

Indeed, it is apt that we would find a space for struggle through narration as story is a primary place for human meaning-making. For example, Christian biblical stories contain the primary myths and symbols relevant to the Christian faith. It is not a huge leap then to follow Philip Hefner's statement that "we are dependent upon story for the meaning of technology, or, we might say, of human meaning in a technological culture."³. Science fiction, according to Bukatman, remains the genre that has represented "the most sustained attempt to identify and narrate the ambiguities that mark the technological contours of contemporary culture."⁴ Sci-fi films frame an imaginative moment in our vision of technology through which we have the opportunity to engage in the filmic space to construct meaning.

However, the consequences of such an engagement are potentially much more explosive than I've been suggesting. Bukatman and Hefner might want to go further. One could look at the meaningful narration as a significant aspect of not only hypothetical, fairy-tale, technological modes of being in the world, but our potential technological modes of being in the world. In other words, referencing my previous post, such story-telling could be seen as part and parcel with a molecular conception of individuals: a conception of individuals that focuses on human becomings.

Terminal identity is the term that Bukatman uses (coined by the sci-fi author William Burroughs) to describe science fiction's role in human becomings. In terminal identity, "we find both the end of the subject and a new subjectivity," constructed by engagement with the wide range of media in which the sci-fi narration finds a home.⁵ In establishing a terminal identity, we construct a worldview in which traditional ontological understandings of body, mind, and memory are challenged and destabilized. Science fiction narrates this in part through a breakdown of dualities: male/female, organic/inorganic, image/reality, artifice/nature, human/nonhuman.⁶ Bukatman points to the symbiosis of humanity and machines when he concludes, "Terminal identity is a form of speech, as an essential cyborg formation, and a potentially subversive reconception of the subject that situates the human and the technological as coextensive, codependent, and mutually defining."⁷ It seems that through engagement with science fiction, we take on the speech of the cyborg's terminal identity, spurring a transformation in us. Perhaps, though, the transformation has already taken place and sci-fi terminal identity narratives reflect and consummate this fact.

Hefner has a somewhat similar notion of our becomings being connected to imagination and story. Imagination gives us stories about what the present could be like, and we construct technologies to make our imaginings a reality. Hefner says, "Stories are inseparable not only from the conception of our technology, but also from the uses we imagine for these technologies."⁸ Thus, in that stories help us realize technologies that become integral to who we are and who we want to be, stories are linked with our potential technological modes of being in the world. It is apt that Hefner engages with such sci-fi films as A.I., Blade Runner, and Gattaca to demonstrate his points about technology and human becoming. He is aware of the implications of this choice: he asks, for example, whether A.I.'s director Steven Spielberg has, "recounted the trajectory of human becoming that everyone of us, in fact, must say is our journey?"⁹ Implicit, I think, in his question is the idea that the sci-fi story is instrumental in this journey.

Can this journey of struggle and becoming through engagement with science fiction be a Christian journey?

Although there are good reasons for some level of skepticism, I believe that the kind of journey outlined above can be part of a faith journey. The reality is that we are dependent upon technology and must define ourselves as persons of faith in a new way as a result. Science fiction narratives give a space for struggle and redefinition, and persons of faith can use this space as well. Engaging with the space with others (as a community of faith, for example) can be especially helpful as dialogue brings fresh ideas and challenges.

We are dependent upon technology but not captive to it. By actively engaging with stories about our technology, and by making meaning out of these stories from a perspective of faith, we outline desired human becomings that are essential to Christian life. These becomings do not neglect traditional sources of theology - scriptures, for example - rather, the traditional sources are assumed as foundational for the community in which the person of faith participates. The suggested becomings outlined above are not the only aspect of human becomings sum total. They are an important aspect to consider in light of a highly technologized context.

Hefner offers an example of how this might be done. As he engages with the questions posed by the science fiction narratives (and other writings, art, and cultural artifacts), he notes the theological nature of these questions. He asks what all this means for God, creation (us included), and God's relationship with and intention for creation. These questions are essential for one's faith journey. No narrative has all the answers (not even the Bible!), but through our engagement with science fiction narratives, we can address these theological questions that are inevitably raised for us in struggling with the idea that our relation to technology has become one of symbiosis between humans and machines.

¹Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), p.8
²Ibid.
³Philip Hefner, Technology and Human Becoming (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 65.
⁴Bukatman, p.6.
⁵Ibid., p.9.
⁶Ibid., p.10.
⁷Ibid., p.22.
⁸Hefner, p. 61.
⁹Ibid., p. 19.

The Video Word Made Flesh

2010-03-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Videodrome - David Cronenberg (1983)

In his essay "Bodies Without Organs: Cyborg Cinema of the 1980s," Hassan Melehy draws on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus for definitions of individuals as "molecular" and "molar":

"A "molar" conception of individuals is that they are whole, complete beings with a set of mainly fixed attributes, whereas a "molecular" conception characterizes human beings as incomplete, made up of fragments that come from various sources, constantly undergoing transformation both within themselves and in relation to their enviornments, as not strictly placed in oppositional categories such as male/female, black/white, Western/non-Western, and even human/animal."¹

In the essay, Melehy uses the molecular conception of individuals to characterize protagonist Max Renn's transformation in Videodrome from human to cyborg. Renn is the manager of a public-access cable station that features sex and violence. In the process of trying to find the newest in shock programming, Renn runs across a signal for a show called Videodrome which piques his interest with its realistic depictions of sexual torture. Renn tries to make contact with the show's creator, Brian O'Blivion, and receives the video we see in the Youtube scene above. Here, Renn gets a taste of transformation; exposure to the Videodrome signal causes a tumor in the brain of the viewer that results in hallucinations of melding with technology; the scenes of torture are merely the visceral means by which the signal cuts into the mind. In the horrific Youtube scene, Renn hallucinates coupling with a living TV screen which hosts the image of his lover, Nicki Brand, who had previously tried to make contact with Videodrome and who we assume had already underwent the transformation.

Melehy describes Renn's transformation as molecular in that it is the result of what director David Cronenberg calls a "creative cancer."² The brain tumor caused by the signal destabilizes the host's mind and body so as to make drastic transformation possible: a melding of body and technology. Melehy says, "This freely acting organ... will allow hallucination, or, as it turns out to be the case, the production of simulacra such that the hold of instituted reality ceases to be viable, reveals itself to be the ruse of an imposing and exclusive simulacrum."³ The simulacrum gives Renn a new sexual encounter which does not rely on traditional sexual configurations and organs. Here we see the breakdown of molar conceptions of the individual.

Philip Hefner in Technology and Human Becoming also relies on a molecular understanding of individuals in his description of a cyborg:

"We have painted a picture of ourselves as creatures who integrate in themselves the nature from which we have emerged and the technology that has transformed nature. We have seen that technology is not, most importantly, outside us, but within us, shaping who we are and how we live our lives. Cyborg is a relatively recent term that expresses the dimension of techno-nature within human nature."⁴

Hefner sees technology as the medium for new selves and new identities. What would he say about Renn's transformation? Is the cyborg body Renn acquires in the course of the film what Hefner has in mind when he alludes to technology being an expression of the divine self-transcendence available to humanity? Surely, Videodrome offers a perverse take on Hefner's philosophy.

For example, Videodrome would seem to pervert Hefner's idea of the cyborg being made in the image of God. The cyborg that Renn becomes is a violent tool of the forces who control Videodrome. Renn loses his personhood, his freedom, and his imaginative ability. What is godly about the cyborg in Hefner's view is the potential for imaginative remakings of ourselves. Hefner says, "Classically, God is also the One who speaks the word of possibility to the creation and sustains its drive toward that possibility... When we participate in this drive for new possibilities, we participate also in God. This is the dimension of holiness in technology."⁵ There is certainly a drive towards new possibilities in Videodrome; a new creation is made with Renn acquiring this new flesh. However, is every possibility God's word of possibility? Is Renn's enslaved cyborg created in the image of God?

One could certainly argue that the violent nature of the Videodrome cyborg is due to its vulnerability to reprogramming and the destructive whims of those who would wish to take advantage of Renn's vulnerability. Thus, it is not the technology that is at fault but the sinful nature of the persons who misuse it. This interpretation becomes viable when we learn that the creator of Videodrome, O'Blivion, did not intend the signal to enslave those who encountered it. O'Blivion had control over Videodrome wrestled from him by his business partners who had other, crueler plans for it. O'Blivion, as we see in the Youtube clip above, was simply a naive philosopher/idealist who had notions, like Hefner does, about new technologies (in this case, video) allowing for a positive transformation of the self.

Aside from the gruesome acts that Renn commits under the control of others, the question remains: can we see the Videodrome cyborg transformation as a positive transformation of the self, such as to be in the image of God? To be honest, watching the film, I have a hard time separating O'Blivion's ideal of the cyborg from the violent actions of Renn's cyborg. I also have a hard time separating the end-point transformation from the means of the signal using a sexual torture program to more effectively implant the tumor. It is hard for me to see a potential positive manifestation of the Videodrome cyborg. I cannot imagine how this particular form of cyborg, with its lack of autonomy and its perverse means of becoming, could be said to be created in the image of God.

However, the film presents many ambiguities with respect to what the possibilities of this cyborg are. Cronenberg's own definition of the tumor as a creative cancer has both positive and very negative connotations. Can one harness this cancer as a Videodrome cyborg to channel its creative "growth"? The film ends with Renn's hallucinations convincing him to commit suicide to fully become the new flesh. A black screen comes abruptly with the gunshot ringing out, leading some interpreters of the film to surmise that whatever comes next for Renn, Cronenberg is implying that we are unable to imagine it yet: "We’re too early in the video revolution to know where that concept will end up."⁶ In having to leave behind his cyborg body, the new flesh seems to be divorced even further from what we know to constitute the human organism as we imagine God created it. If one were to say that this new flesh, whatever it is, allows for us to be created in the image of God, one would have to have a progressive imagination for accommodating human-perpetuated evolution into a reading of the Genesis 1 text.

Then, also, an extension of the imago dei question is that of the "video word made flesh." Traditionally, the Word made flesh refers to Jesus as Logos of John's Gospel. Through him, the Word/Logos, all things were made in the beginning of creation (John 1:3). Also, the addition of Word made flesh comes into play in the fourteenth verse: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Jesus as Logos is God becoming flesh in the human person of Jesus. This is a profound affirmation of humanity as being made in the image of God. If the human Jesus can reflect the glory of God then might it also be possible for other humans to reflect God's glory as well? At the very least we know in the Word made flesh that beyond the act of creating creation, God continues to work in and with creation.

What do we make, then, of the film's use of the title "video word made flesh"? The film introduces the idea when O'Blivion's daughter Bianca gives the title to Renn and enlists him to destroy those who have enslaved him. This titling seems to be another reprogramming of Renn, who is at the whim of those who know how to use him. Bianca, representing her late father's interests, wants to exact revenge on her father's murderers by using Renn. Bianca's use of the biblical title gives her a powerful symbolic propaganda by which to redirect Renn's attentions. "Death to Videodrome" is the mission Bianca gives to Renn as a proper vocation for the "video word made flesh." There is some confusion, however, in the mission slogan in that Bianca is not actually having Renn destroy Videodrome, the ideology behind Videodrome or the technological apparatuses by which Videodrome is made or submitted. Rather, Bianca wants Renn to assassinate those misusing Videodrome. Wrapped up in all of this violence and ideology, it is hard to see how this particular word made flesh would reflect God's glory (the Christian God anyway). In fact, one would be hard-pressed to discern a god of Videodrome. Whose glory does Renn mediate? Is O'Blivion the god figure? Is Videodrome itself? Do Bianca (and Cronenberg by extension) misappropriate the title as we understand it?

This word made flesh, imagined in the film, is of course very different from the Biblical symbol. It is hard to compare the Biblical story to the Videodrome mythology, but since Cronenberg appropriates a biblical title, he's asking for some attempt at parallels between the two "words." The titling of Renn's cyborg hails him a savior of sorts. Just as the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus brings the divine Gospel Word to the world, Renn, reprogrammed as the video word made flesh, represents the potentially salvific philosophy of Videodrome's creator, O'Blivion. One can draw parallels between the content of the "words" as well. Both offer a message of death to an old life and the possibility of a new, connected life. They offer connection to a deeper something. And then, both Jesus and Renn embody their messages in their lives. Jesus lives a life that prefigures the Kingdom of God in his subverting of social norms and relationships, welcoming the outsider and challenging the insider. Renn goes to every length to achieve mystical union with the new life, the new flesh, and destroys everything that stands in his way representing his old life, even his own cyborg body. One can only go so far in drawing these parallels. Renn is not much of a savior. Who does he save, other than himself?

Renn does, however, present a model of sorts for spirituality within the Videodrome framework. This spirituality is very much connected to and driven by the becoming of molecular individuals. Philip Hefner also sees spirituality in this way. He says, "Since we are cyborgs, technology is also the place where, like Jacob, we wrestle with the God who comes to engage us."⁷ Technological restlessness may be key to both spiritualities, but I can't imagine that Hefner's cyborg would look similar to the Videodrome cyborg. The process of becoming is too dependent on violence and oppression to be desirable. There is a sense of perversion, horror, captivity, and loneliness that pervades the becoming so as to isolate the cyborg. It is hard to see how such a becoming would allow the freedom for the human imagination to work. And there is no room in the Videodrome framework for the Christian Gospel to challenge the new life to be other-oriented, communal, and loving. No, Videodrome has its own gospel, and from what I can make out of it from the film, it is a poor substitute.

But this is an obvious point to make. Videodrome is, after all, a horror film and a satire. Perhaps it is more appropriate to ponder which gospel modern society takes as its truth. There are some eerie parallels between reality TV and the online world of Second Life and O'Blivion's statement that "the television screen is the retina of the mind's eye; therefore the television screen is part of the visible structure of the brain; therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it; therefore, television is reality and reality is less than television." Can the Christian Gospel accommodate this other gospel?

¹Hassan Melehy, "Bodies Without Organs: Cyborg Cinema of the 1980s," in Gregg Rickmann, ed. The Science Fiction Film Reader (New York, NY: Limelight Editions, 2004), pp. 332-333. Definitions given in footnote 8.
²Chris Rodley, Cronenberg on Cronenberg (London: Faber and Faber, 1992), p. 80.
³Melehy, p. 327.
⁴Philip Hefner, Technology and Human Becoming (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 74.
⁵Ibid., pp. 83-84.
⁶ Travis Mackenzie, "Videodrome: Home Invasion," Reverse Shot, no. 19.
⁷Hefner, p. 88.

Framing David, Part 2

2010-03-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

I wanted to listen more closely to a couple of different scenes that struck a chord with me while watching A.I. (directed by Steven Spielberg in 2001). One scene uses a circular framing visual motif that Ben Sampson touched upon in part 2 of his visual essay (noted in my last post). The second part of his essay shows the scene at the 1:04 minute mark. In the other scene, a different sort of visual motif is used, and I wanted to touch upon that as well. I pair these scenes together because they offer reflective, transitional moments in the narrative. Both feature a framing of David and a camera movement away from David. In light of V.F. Perkins' contribution to the last post, I also wanted to note how the details of these scenes might simultaneously complicate and clarify the film's viewpoint (as well as the viewer's viewpoint).

Scene 1 - 52:09 minutes into the movie

David's "mother" Monica takes David for a drive in the country. It is a ruse for her to take David to a remote spot in the woods to abandon him. David pleads with her to not leave him, and that he'll be "real" for her if she were to give him a chance. Monica, mind made up but still very upset, drives away and we see David fading into the woods in the car's rearview mirror.

I cannot isolate this visual motif and camera movement from the narrative, nor from other technical aspects such as the audio. All of the technical aspects work together with the narrative to form the filmic world we as viewers take in, and we cannot ignore them. The scene is a transition in the narrative from David's struggles at home to David's journey through the world to find the Blue Fairy who, he hopes, will turn him into a "real boy." It also operates as a sort of emotional climax to what has come before: Monica is abandoning him and he will be left to fend for himself in a cruel world. The visual focuses on David's devastated face briefly before it is shrouded in darkness and we're left only with David's receding figure. However, David's face remains etched in our memory as the climax comes with the swell of pianos and strings in John William's score. The shaking camera reflects the chaotic swirl of feelings that Spielberg invites us to share with David and Monica.

There is, on the other hand, an ethereal, meditative mood to the imagery that is mirrored in the otherworldly hum of the car that plays throughout. The staging of the receding figure, bathed in both shadow and an oddly bright moonlight, seen in the sideview mirror of the car, has a distancing effect that adds to this other mood. It is easy to notice a layering of visuals, audio, and emotions. This tension between the emotional climax and self-conscious, reflective aspect of the scene pull the viewer in different directions. There is simultaneously a desire to feel taken up in the emotional wash of the scene and to reflect deeply on the matters at hand.

Let's allow ourselves to give in to the latter desire. One of the central questions of this film is the question of "What does it mean to be human?" It is especially apparent in the framing of David that this question is at the forefront in the film. Poised at a moment of loss and devastation, the framing invites us to consider the humanity of the film's characters as well as our own humanity. One could argue that David's humanity is reflected in his face. Whereas at other moments in the film when David reacts unnaturally to a given situation (such as his odd laughing at the dinner table), here David vividly portrays feelings with which we can identify - feelings of inadequacy, rejection, etc. As David clearly feels these human feelings as we see them in his expression, does that make him human? Does it make Monica inhuman that she commits one of the most unnatural acts in abandoning her child?

Once the camera moves further away from David, we see his shadowy figure engulfed in the mist and moonlight of the forest. His figure appears as that of a lost little boy. The scene reminds us that in many ways, visually and otherwise, we cannot tell David apart from flesh-and-blood boys. Such is the case for the Flesh Fair stage manager later in the film who must use a x-ray device to see that David is NOT flesh and blood. The stage manager cannot rely on his interactions with David to tell him apart. Likewise, the Flesh Fair crowd, even after being told that David is a mecha, cannot tell David apart either. The figure of a little boy calling for help compels strong feelings of identification and compassion to consume even the cruelest of crowds. Through this figuring of David, we grow closer connected to his character, which further complicates our thoughts on his humanity.

Then there's the matter of the sideview mirror through which we, the viewers, are connected to David. The mirror throws the question of David's humanity back at us. What makes US more human than David? We can identify with David's situation and feelings. However, we are also disconnected from David in the fact that we are moving away from David with the car and with Monica. We are looking through the car's sideview mirror as Monica would look through it. We feel averse to Monica's decision but it's also possible that we remember in this moment that David is not human. David's presence in Monica's home-life was greatly disruptive for her family. Looking through the mirror in this way, we can identify somewhat with Monica to consider David's humanity in a more skeptical light. David is not biologically human. He has been programmed to act in the way that he does.

Even if we move in this direction however briefly, perhaps the emotional nature of the scene will call us back to compassion for David. Regardless of the question of David's full humanity, does he not deserve our compassion in this situation? David feels pain. David has been mistreated. David is an innocent. David is capable of love. These statements also demand our attention and ask us to consider how we should relate to our technologies, especially when the technology and the human seem to converge to some extent. The framing of David in this scene both complicates and clarifies our viewpoint of David as we consider the question of what it means to be human. This, it seems, is what the film intends.

Scene 2 - 44:45 minutes into the movie

David's "brother" Martin and his friends play a cruel trick on David to see if he reacts to pain at Martin's birthday pool party. David, panicking, grabs a hold of Martin, asks Martin to protect him, and the two fall into the pool. His defense mechanism stronger than his awareness of Martin's need for air, David has to be pried apart from Martin by adults. Martin returns to the surface to be resuscitated while David, not needing air, is left alone at the bottom of the pool, wondering at the consequences of his actions. The camera assumes David's point of view underneath the water before cutting to a receding overhead shot of David, his image shimmering as he still lies motionless at the bottom of the pool.

This scene works in a similar way to the one described above in that it allows a moment of reflection following an emotionally violent scene. Like the first highlighted scene, it also uses techniques for both the viewer's identification with and disconnection from David. The beginning of the scene has us looking through David's eyes up to the surface of the pool where the adults attend to Martin. We can understand, to some extent, the alienation David must feel as someone who doesn't fit in. We worry with David: did David just blow his last chance with Monica and the family? However, the scene then cuts to an above shot looking down at the figure of David below the water. The score sets a curious, slightly ominous mood with its tense strings, menacing brass, and otherworldly piano. For a brief moment, we are separated from David's plight to consider this odd character who does not need air and lies inert at the bottom of a pool. What is moving, however, is the surface of the water, and David's figure appears distorted and inhuman as a result.

This distortional framing portrays a different visual motif than the ones Sampson talks about. In this scene, and in others - such as at 15:18 where we see David through a paneled glass door - Spielberg plays with the image of David using light and an amenable surface. In the second scene, we see many Davids in the refractive surface of the water. As the camera moves, the play of the light on the water is different, and thus, David's image is constantly changing to reflect this. The distortion occurs in that different parts of David's body (head and chest, for example) appear to be disproportionate to the rest of his body from one moment to the next. The distortion is off-putting, but in this distancing effect, also invites our further consideration.

I see this visual motif as important in three ways. First, it foreshadows at times and mirrors at other times David's inner conflict with his make-up. David's vocation is to love Monica and his greatest desire to be loved back. He comes to the conclusion that if Monica is to love him, he needs to be a real boy. Cast out into the world where robots are second-class citizens, and hunted down for humiliation and destruction in the Flesh Fairs, David sees time and again that to be mecha is to be unwanted. David does, however, hold onto the fact that he is a special mecha, one-of-a-kind as he is told by many who encounter him. Still, David concludes that turning into a real boy is the only chance he has for his mother to love him. The distorted and at times fragmented image of David as a visual motif reflects David's turmoil over this matter.

Second, the motif accompanies the different perspectives that others in the film world have of David. David is many things to many people. David is a threat to Martin, a friend and companion to Gigolo Joe and Teddy, an object to be manipulated for people's entertainment to the Lord Johnson-Johnson, a creation of much pride to Professor Hobby, etc. The ever-changing image employed by the distortional motif exemplifies the variety of images of David that other characters have.

Third, and somewhat similar to the second, the motif allows us to consider our own struggles with how to define David. Who is David? Does David change over the course of the film? Is David human? What actions, feelings, identities, and motivations reflect humanity or inhumanity in David? How should the others relate to David?

Picking up on visual patterns that become motifs, such as the ones Sampson points out or the distortional motif, is helpful in our contemplation of what the film is speaking (or showing) to us. I hope I have shown that to some extent, the details surrounding these motifs both clarify and complicate the viewpoint of the film. V.F. Perkins would argue that the most successful films are able to accomplish this through a coherent organization of these details. Coherence, however, does not mean that the details blot out complexity or ambiguity. A.I. fits the bill in this regard, and certainly allows for a deep engagement with the theological questions of this study.

Framing David, Part 1

2010-03-13T23:46:00.000-08:00

Part One of Ben Sampson's 'A Visual Study of A.I. Artificial Intelligence', 2010

Part Two of Ben Sampson's 'A Visual Study of A.I. Artificial Intelligence', 2010

"Throughout the film, faces become superimposed on top of one another, different characters repeat similar actions, and even the film narrative circles around on itself. In addition, specific characters are repeatedly framed through oval structures or reflected against rounded surfaces. These repetitions of shot choice and composition suggest multiple readings and underlying themes, including an interconnection between humans and machines that spans both desire and destiny.

...

"All of these motifs throughout A.I. suggest possible readings and interpretations, but the theme of interconnectivity appears most dominant. The superimposing of faces on top of David not only connects him visually to other individuals, but eventually leads to a connection with robot evolution. The repeated images involving mechas and humans not only connect them by behavior, but also by common destiny. Indeed, the circular narrative suggests that while mechas ultimately replace humans, they do not necessarily improve upon them. Both species seem obsessed with the things they lack and both look to the other for modes of fulfillment, represented chiefly in the film by the figure of David. Yet even he is trapped by personal desires, unable to consider anything outside of obtaining Monica’s love, even in the face of total human extinction. The film’s circular framing mimics his circular logic, which in turn mimics the circular logic of everyone else in the film. All sentient creatures, the film argues, become interconnected through chronic dissatisfaction and single-minded self-interest, forced to share a common fate intended for all intelligences, artificial or not."

- Ben Sampson, "Intelligence Doubled: A Visual Study of A.I. Artificial Intelligence"

...

Ben Sampson's visual essay (and the original essay he wrote, linked directly above) are helpful for us here because they exemplify the epistemological method I tried to lay out for this independent study. Paying attention to visual motifs as Sampson does with A.I.- to the doubling and circular framing techniques used by director Steven Spielberg, for example - Sampson allows the film to speak its peculiar language. This is a language that, like all films, communicates through use of space. Thus, V.F. Perkins says about filmic space in general, "With action, decor, and image in coherent relationship, space itself becomes charged with meaning."¹ The visual motifs of A.I. are obvious examples of Spielberg investing the film's space with meaning. Sampson notices the various instances of the motifs in the film, and by asking questions of the relationship between the instances, also notices their connection to broader thematic material.

In the process, Sampson stumbles upon, as Perkins says, "an organization of details whose relationships simultaneously complicate and clarify the movie's viewpoint."² Perkins states that the outcome of the film viewer's listening to the film is "a way of seeing; the direct registration and embodiment, in a 'secondary world,' of a point of view."³ In coming into contact with, listening to, and even embodying the film's worldview, Sampson opens himself up to the truths the film has to speak about such matters that concern this independent study: "What does it mean to be human?" and "How shall we relate to our technology?"

My next post will take Sampson's cue and look to examples of some visual motifs to do my own work with the film concerning these questions (while keeping Sampson's contributions in mind).

¹V.F. Perkins, Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 94.
²Ibid., p. 119.
³Ibid., pp. 119-120.

Approaches to Technology

2010-03-03T13:23:00.000-08:00

Ode to Things - Pablo Neruda

I have a crazy,
crazy love of things.
I like pliers,
and scissors.
I love
cups,
rings,
and bowls –
not to speak, of course,
of hats.

I love all things,
not just the grandest,
also the infinite-
ly
small –
thimbles,
spurs,
plates,
and flower vases.

Oh yes,
the planet
is sublime!
It’s full of
pipes
weaving
hand-held
through tobacco smoke,
and keys
and salt shakers –
everything,
I mean,
that is made
by the hand of man, every little thing:
shapely shoes,
and fabric,
and each new
bloodless birth
of gold,
eyeglasses,
carpenter’s nails,
brushes,
clocks, compasses,
coins, and the so-soft
softness of chairs.

Mankind has
built
oh so many
perfect
things!
Built them of wool
and of wood,
of glass and
of rope:
remarkable
tables,
ships, and stairways.

I love
all
things,
not because they are
passionate
or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don’t know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine:
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms,
glasses, knives and
scissors –
all bear
the trace
of someone’s fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.

I pause in houses,
streets and
elevators,
touching things,
identifying objects
that I secretly covet:
this one because it rings,
that one because
it’s as soft
as the softness of a woman’s hip,
that one there for its deep-sea color,
and that one for its velvet feel.

O irrevocable
river
of things:
no one can say
that I loved
only
fish,
or the plants of the jungle and the field,
that I loved
only
those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.
It’s not true:
many things conspired
to tell me the whole story.
Not only did they touch me,
or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death.

...

The next two units in the independent study are an engagement with questions concerning humanity and technology. The question "What does it mean to be human in a technologically-driven age?" is an important one for us now more than ever with our reliance on computers. However, humanity has always relied on its creations, its tools for example, to achieve what would not be possible otherwise. A variety of thinkers have dealt with the question of technology, including the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. In the above poem, Neruda suggests that humanity is intimately intertwined with the things that humanity has made. He seems to emphasize things that are hand-made and made out of organic materials - cloth, glass, and wood for example. Although I wonder whether Neruda would have the same love for factory-made "things," his approach is one example of thinking that says that, to some extent, technology is essential to understanding modern human being and becoming.

There are other approaches to technology, however.

Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick (1975)

Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens.

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

...

As Philip Hefner sees it, Stevens' poem represents the other pole in approaches to technology: extreme skepticism. The jar is out of place in nature (as is the coin in the still from Barry Lyndon). Hefner interprets the poem:

"As a symbol of humans - of us - in our process of becoming, the jar says something about our spirituality. In fact, it places us before a fork in the road, a choice that will determine how our spiritual journey proceeds. If we affirm technology, which the jar symbolizes, then we believe that our spiritual task, our religious calling, is to dominate and manipulate the natural world around us. The poet interprets this as perversity; he believes that our spiritual calling is to destroy the technology and support nature."¹

In Neruda's poem, certain kinds of technology are internal to understanding what it means to be human. In Stevens' poem, technology is an external and potentially harmful thing. Hefner lays out a process of becoming reconciled with our technologized world and self from a beginning approach of feeling alienated. The end point is embracing the techno-self. Thus, Hefner acknowledges a variety of moderate approaches to technology as well, though these are intermediate stages in the movement towards reconciliation. My response to Hefner is that a healthy dose of skepticism towards technology can be helpful in discovering what it means to be human. Although I think it's naive to think that we are called to destroy technology as a way of getting back to nature, I am convinced that there is something essentially human that can be found in unplugging and escaping into the wilderness for periods of time.

I am concerned when Hefner says, "Many of us are now so intimately connected to our computers that our creativity - whether it is writing or graphic art, or interpersonal communication, mathematical modeling, or other research procedures - is integrated with the machine, and the computer scarcely qualifies as an entity that exists "outside" our spirits."². I am scared of the idea that creativity is somehow dependent upon computers. Certainly different technologies are helpful in expressing human creativity; that does not mean that we equate creativity with those technologies. A certain amount of caution is helpful so that we CAN once in a while separate ourselves from our machines.

Therefore, I understand by the phrasing of the question, "How should we relate to our technologies?" that I am taking a side on the issue. I am in a sense suggesting that our technologies are indeed somewhat external to what it means to be human, even as I admit that they are extremely helpful tools for accomplishing what humans want to accomplish. I agree with Hefner that technology is essential to modern and future human becomings. However, it is not the only factor. Hopefully, humans do not lose their yearning for wilderness adventure, face-to-face human interaction, and other unplugged experiences.

I would guess that some of the sci-fi films I watch in the course of this study will also express a level of ambiguity towards technology. This is not a black and white issue. It is, rather, an integral discussion that is and will be on-going for humanity.

¹Philip Hefner, Technology and Human Becoming (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 7.
²Ibid., pp. 21-22.

Martin Luther's Views on Art - Part 2

2010-02-26T10:55:00.000-08:00

Even if Martin Luther does not treat the subject of art thoroughly or systematically, perhaps other aspects of his theology could help inform this project if they could be applied towards a justification of images.

One interesting idea that has come up in the course of my reading is Luther's view on the irregular aspect of God's Word. Although Carl Christensen notes that for Luther "it was above all the spoken or preached Word that really constituted the chief means of grace,"¹ perhaps there could be other means as well. God speaks to us in ways we do not expect. Missiologist Paul Chung notes that "From an irregular perspective, according to Luther, God's presence is attested by the sun and moon, heaven and earth, and all of the fruits on earth. If we do not recognize God's presence in the cultural and natural world, it is not God's fault but our fault. God does not desire to be hidden from our eyes."² Taking Chung's reading of Luther's incarnational theology to heart, perhaps there is room for the idea that God might speak to us through images (or even sci-fi film). One could argue that human-created images are in some way an extension of the fruits of God's creation.

Christensen asks the question directly: "Must the Word of God take an exclusively verbal form?"³ It seems for Luther, images can aid scripture in conveying the Gospel, but Christensen thinks Luther would not go so far as to place the two on equal ground. In fact, the written Word is not even as prominent as the oral or preached Word as a means of conveying grace. Christensen lays this all out:

"The relationship of religious art to the means of grace must be seen finally within the context of this larger question of the nature of the Word and its expression. Visual images for Luther indeed are useful instruments for conveying the message of the Gospel. They assist in making the Word manifest by providing additional media— with their own particular type of pedagogical effectiveness— for its proclamation. But, ultimately, the fine arts cannot claim for themselves a full equivalence with preaching and the sacraments as channels of divine, saving grace. For they not only share the disabilities of the merely written word (as compared with living oral proclamation), but they also suffer from an inadequacy at the point of indicating explicitly and without further elaboration what the true content of God's message is."⁴

It appears that Luther would allow that art can convey grace (Luther is especially amenable to music for this possibility), but there is this hierarchy of effectiveness in a given medium's conveying of the Word. Images are less effective, in Luther's eyes, than words, and much less effective than spoken words. I have experienced this argument recently from a mentor of mine seeking to challenge me. I explained that people will use different forms of non-verbal art (singing, painting, dancing, sculpting, filming, etc.) as sources of meaning-making whether or not the Christian Church endorses them. To this he replied, yes, but do these sources "speak" in the same sense? This is certainly a provocative question, and I'm not exactly sure how to answer it.

No, non-verbal sources of meaning-making will not speak in the same way as verbal sources. They do not as directly convey the gospel message as verbal communication is the most direct form of language humans have devised. However, such verbal communication does not engage significant portions of who human beings are (and who God has created human beings to be). Mind, body, and spirit are not engaged by just words. We need more than words! Images may not directly speak in the same way as words, but might they provoke reflection on the Gospel in a unique manner? Non-verbal art gives more room for ambiguity of message, but might this ambiguity offer the viewer or participant the possibility to engage more fully with the form and subject of the art? This is not to say that as a rule this is the case. It is to suggest that the non-verbal Word of God might "speak" more deeply to a person who is especially receptive to non-verbal mediums.

There is much much more in Luther to chew on for this subject, but I must move on. Having dealt with questions of method, hermeneutics, theological aesthetics, etc., it is time to turn to the meat of the course. Coming up: "What does it mean to be human?"

¹Carl C. Christensen, Art and the Reformation in Germany (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979), p. 63.
²Paul S. Chung, Christian Mission and a Diakonia of Reconciliation: A Global Reframing of Justification and Justice (Minneapolis, MN: Lutheran University Press), p. 48.
³Christensen, Art and the Reformation in Germany, p. 60
⁴Ibid., p. 64.

Martin Luther's Views on Art - Part 1

2010-02-24T21:46:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther von Lucas Cranach d. Ä. 1532 in Regensburg

One of the goals for the first couple weeks of the study was to try to get an understanding of where Martin Luther sits with this idea of "Why not the image as a source for theology?" As my background is Lutheran, it would make sense that I would know Luther's position on this subject. I know this appears to be far off-base from where this study is eventually going, but it is important to me to have questions of theological aesthetics running throughout the course of this conversation. It is helpful in this case that I get a sense of the history of the theological debate about images to better appreciate the current context in which I freely say, 'Of course sci-fi films can engage me theologically.'

For starters, I read the three brief passages of Luther's in Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen's Theological Aesthetics: A Reader and read her introduction to the section on thinkers from the Reformation. Thiessen notes that "for Luther visual images are a 'small matter'"¹ Luther does not write a classic treatise on the subject, and only in his Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments does he go into any depth. Carl C. Christensen notes that Luther's writings on art are scattered across occasional writings, biblical commentaries, and didactic sermons or tracts.² My first response in reading this was disappointment. Scattered references? Is art really such a small matter for theology?

In reading the passages themselves, I have a few observations.

1. Luther seems profoundly ambivalent about art. For example:

"God grant that [images] may be destroyed, become dilapidated, or that they remain. It is all the same and makes no difference, just as when the poison has been removed from a snake. Now I say this to keep the conscience free from mischievous laws and fictitious sins, and not because I would defend images. Nor would I condemn those who have destroyed them, especially those who destroy divine and idolatrous images."³

But then later:

"Of this I am certain, that God desires to have his works heard and read, especially the passion of our Lord. But it is impossible for me to heart and bear it in mind without forming mental images of it in my heart. For whether I will or not, when I hear of Christ, an image of a man hanging on a cross takes form in my heart, just as the reflection of my face naturally appears in the water when I look into it. If it is not a sin but good to have the image of Christ in my heart, why should it be a sin to have it in my eyes?"⁴

2. Despite the negative first quote above, Luther is not so concerned about the idol worship of images as he is about people believing that placing images in churches are in some way a good work and service to God. This worry must be framed in terms of Luther's larger theology of justification by grace and not by works.

3. Positively, we have the following in these passages: works of art can be used for pleasure and decoration; images of the saints and of Christ and crucifixes may be used for memorial and witness; and pictures of biblical characters and stories can even serve as a teaching tool for better understanding. These examples demonstrate a very tolerant view towards art (even though there are counter-examples elsewhere). Much more tolerant, I gather, than Luther's fellow reformers, Zwingli and Calvin.

However, ultimately, Luther does not seem very concerned with spelling out a systematic theological aesthetics. He is drawn into speaking about the issue due to accusations and misunderstandings about his view on images. Additionally, he spends a good deal of his time addressing extremists such as Karlstadt who were destroying images in Wittenberg when Luther was absent. So, we don't get a proper laying out of theological or biblical support for images. We get informal, pragmatic comments about their use and misuse.

¹Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, ed. Theological Aesthetics: A Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), p. 126.
²Carl C. Christensen, Art and the Reformation in Germany (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979), p. 43.
³Martin Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments. In Luther's Works, vol. 40, Church and Ministry II, trans. Bernhard Erling and Conrad Bergendoff, ed. Conrad Bergendoff, general ed. H.T. Lehmann (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1958), pp. 90-91.
⁴Ibid., pp.99-100.

Hermeneutics

2010-02-24T20:04:00.000-08:00

Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock (1958)

In doing some reading for another class, Roger Haight's Jesus: Symbol of God, I have run into some philosophy that gives more nuance to my introduction to this course. In my introduction, I mentioned the conversation that a person has with a piece of art when that person encounters the art. I tried to draw out in my rudimentary language how this encounter and ensuing conversation occur. However, many great thinkers have already done this. One field of philosophy that can enrich my original thoughts is that of hermeneutics.

It is key to note first of all that Haight sees hermeneutics as an integral human activity: “To be human is to interpret.”¹ Similarly, to be human is to seek out learning, which I would take to occur in the process of interpretation. Haight proposes forming Christological knowledge through an open-minded, relational, epistemological approach that is informed by the hermeneutical theories of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. These theories will also be helpful for understanding the process of learning in this study of sci-fi film and theology.

Drawing on Gadamer’s seminal work Truth and Method, Haight says that for Gadamer, “Foreknowledge and questioning on the one hand, and fusion of horizons and application on the other, enter into the structure of all knowing: knowing is interpreting, out of a tradition and into a present-day situation.”² Of importance are the text, the interpreter, and their contexts or horizons which are fused and applied in the interpretive event. Haight then references Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics and Human Sciences for the idea that texts bring a surplus of meaning to the interpretive event: “By an indigenous surplus of meaning, a text acquires new meanings in new situations, meanings which are also intrinsic to the original.”³ In the process a relationship forms between the text and the interpreter.

However, this relationship does not develop in an isolated bubble. Rather, it forms in a matrix of interconnected webs of relationships, past and present. This happens first in the personal experience of the interpreter, as the relational horizons (past and present) of the interpreter and text come together. Then, when meaning is concretized in language (or perhaps in images) and shared, it is released from the confines of its past meaning and new possibilities open up as it reaches more people and the web of relationships expands. Thus, Haight is led to say, “Surely the theory of communication, interpretation, and understanding that is outlined here presupposes a common anthropology that serves as the bond that links human beings and texts across time and cultures.”⁴ Implicit in this celebration of the relationality of hermeneutics is a celebration of the Other: both the Other of the text and the Other(s) represented in the web of relationships surrounding the interpretive event. Learning is enriched by a multitude of perspectives. As such, I hope to have interdisciplinarity and conversation drive my learning.

¹Roger Haight, Jesus: Symbol of God (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1999), p. 41.
²Ibid., p. 35.
³Ibid.
⁴Ibid., p. 43.

Confession: Some Biases

2010-02-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

Having an ideal of openness does not mean that I come to the conversation as an empty vessel. I have biases that have developed as I develop my own theology of images. For instance: I reject a spirit/matter duality. I believe God has invested God's self in all of creation, and thus we can experience God in the material stuff of this world. Matter carries grace. It does not capture God in any way, but God is invested in it. We are made of grace-filled matter as well. We should not be ashamed of any part of ourselves - our body, mind, heart, spirit, etc. We encounter grace-filled matter with our whole selves, and these encounters demonstrate the interconnectedness not only of body, mind, heart, and spirit, but the common threads of grace that run through all of creation (of which we are apart). By extension, I have a hunch that God is invested in human-created images - in science fiction films, for instance - and the possibility is that we can encounter God through them. And so I ask, "Why not the image as a source for theology?" This question serves as a basis for the semester's conversation.

Below are a famous icon and the words of St. John of Damascus, which inspired my riffing above.

A 6th Century Icon of Jesus at Mt. Sinai, St. Katherine's Monastery

If you say that God ought only to be apprehended spiritually, then take away everything bodily, the lights, the fragrant incense, even vocal prayer, the divine mysteries themselves that are celebrated with matter, the bread, the wine, the oil of chrismation, the form of the cross. For these are all material: the cross, the sponge, the reed, the lance that pierced the life-bearing side. Either take away the reverence offered to all these, as impossible, or do not reject the honor of the images.

[...]

You, perhaps are exalted and immaterial and have come to transcend the body and as fleshless, so to speak, you spit with contempt on everything visible, but I, since I am a human being and wear a body, I long to have communion in a bodily way with what is holy and to see it.

- Saint John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, Trans. Andrew Louth (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2003), p. 42-43.

Sci-Fi Film and Theology: Introduction

2010-02-18T20:33:00.000-08:00

Moon - Duncan Jones (2009)

When a person engages with a work of art, a conversation occurs between the person and the work of art, the art itself an act of disclosure on the part of the artist. God is also involved in this conversation - God is invested not only in the physical stuff of the art and the totality of the person, but also in the relationship that forms in the conversation. Wilson Yates describes the encounter between the artwork and the interpreter: "In this process the task for the interpreter is to 'see' the work of art and engage it in dialogue rather than simply 'look' at the work of art and remain detached from it or treat it only as an object for other ends... At its best, this process becomes, as I am suggesting, a dialogical engagement in which you and the work interact with each of you responding and embodying the other."¹ Such an epistemological method moves us beyond the objectivist approach of separating ourselves as subject from an object we are considering. By seeing the interconnectedness of all subjects and objects, we become more laid back in our approach to knowledge, more open, loving, and caring. We embrace mystery and life's ambiguity.

In the following weeks, this dialogical method will inform my approach to the worlds of science fiction film and theology. I will be engaging theological questions such as 'What does it mean to be human?' and 'How should we relate to our technologies?' by putting into conversation sci-fi films and theological texts that address the questions. I am no expert at theology, nor at sci-fi film, and in some ways I see this as an advantage. The ideal is to step into the worlds created by the sci-fi films and theology texts and be open enough to allow transformation as a possibility for the conversation. Therefore I do not offer any hypotheses as to how this conversation will go or where it will end up. I start with questions and texts to provide a starting point and I make a hunch that theology and sci-fi films have something to say to each other. Since learning never happens best in isolation, I will be watching as many films as possible with other people to bring other conversation partners to the table.

This statement of purpose is rather formal, and the hope is that this blog will NOT be too formal, but I find it helpful to lay out these original objectives. Let the conversation begin!

¹Wilson Yates, "A Model for Interpreting a Work of Art." From a classroom handout in TR 246: Theological Reflection on 20th Century Art. Class taken at United Theological Seminary, Fall 2009.

Summer Hours, Family, and Place

2010-01-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

Summer Hours - Olivier Assayas (2008)

Just saw Assayas' Summer Hours and was very impressed. Although I'm sure there are many parallels to other films that employ a setting of a French house in the country to great effect, I couldn't help but thinking of Tavernier's A Sunday in the Country when watching this film. Both films are dealing with similar familial issues: an aging parent, and different roles and life situations among the children. Both films have a lot of dialogue about art, life, and death, and both films create wonderful moments through the use of the camera in capturing stillness and movement in and around the country house.

One thing I appreciated about Summer Hours, however, was how well the film held up after the focus of the film changes to the children after the first act (moving beyond the narrative confines of another day in the country as in Tavernier's film), and then finally on one of the grandchildren in the final scene. Each of the characters are well-drawn and well-acted, and their relationships do not fall prey to cliche in their enactment of roles they occupy in the family.

An important aspect of the film (also present in Tavernier's film) is the aura surrounding the house, and how the house changes over time with it occupied or unoccupied. Indeed, the house, full of life in the beginning, abandoned and gutted in the middle, then returned to vibrancy in a completely different way in the end, gives a centering feel to the events. We feel its absence in the urban scenes in the middle, which is why it felt so right to return to it in the final moments. Although, perhaps it is not just the house that is important, but the whole yard and estate: the arch of trees over the walkway up to the house, the pond down off the hill the house rests on, the lawn on which the summer dinner table is set. Ultimately, there is a sense of timelessness in the estate that transcends the objects and people that fill it, though we note how much a family's memories are concretized in physical place and object.

The most poignant scene of the film to me is the scene with the housekeeper moving around the outside of the house and peering in the windows at what was once her home and the place of her vocation. The camera observes her from the inside, and we wonder in our position whether she would wish to come back inside, whether we might open a door for her, and if we did, whether she would be content staying in the yard outside, knowing that the emptiness of the inside of the house would trouble her all the more if she were to breathe the stale air of the house. This reversal, the housekeeper now the voyeur, is incredibly peculiar and powerful, as it makes us think on the above.

I'm reminded of my mom's ongoing interest in her grandfather's cabin up on the north shore of Lake Superior. It has not been in the family for thirty years, yet, she still feels very connected to it. Recently, whenever she's been up north near the cabin, she's stopped by to see whether its current owners are home, and this past summer, she was in luck. The owners were gracious enough to invite her in to look around and take a few pictures. As she describes it, there were many elements of the cabin that were exactly as she remembered it: the small kitchen table made by her grandpa from trees cut near the house, the exposed log frame seen inside, the one-car open-air garage, and the upstairs attic-space where she used to sleep on a cot as a child. She's extremely proud of these memories and was elated that the owners haven't changed the cabin beyond her recognition. It was a story for her to tell that though she is now on the outside-looking-in at what was once in some way her childhood cabin, she was invited in to relive and recapture some of her old family memories.

On a related note, I recently stumbled across a painting done of my great-grandparents' cabin in my parents' attic. I had been looking for something to put on the walls of the apartment my wife and I had just moved into, and I found it along with some old paintings my parents weren't using, covered by a dusty rug in one corner of the attic. I brought it down and showed it to my mom, not realizing what it was, and my mom responded with her signature, "Oh my gosh!" She told me that a family friend had painted the cabin, and that it used to hang in her parents' house in Anoka. To my surprise, she said that I could hold onto it if I had some use for it.

Now adding color in its watercolor greens and blues to the white wall of the apartment (we're unable to paint it unfortunately), the painting reminds me of my mom's experience this past summer. It reminds me of her love of family and family memories, and how much these are tied to particular places such as the cabin. It also makes me think of my place in all of this. Though I have never seen the cabin, I am connected to family (my great-grandparents who I do not remember, my grandparents, aunt and uncles, and particularly my mom) through the painting. It is a privilege for me to be using the painting, and I feel I honor my mom and family in doing so. It is this familial passing on and honoring process that is dealt with so powerfully in Summer Hours.

Returning to discussion of the film, how do we interpret the ending? With sadness in that the house will soon be gone? With hope that the granddaughter embraces the importance of her familial memories? And what do we take away from the film as to Assayas' approach to globalization and fragmentation in light of a family spread across the globe?

Isolation and the Darkness of Cupboards

2009-12-21T22:20:00.000-08:00

Man in Blue I - Francis Bacon (1954)

Perhaps the most revealing story I personally remember him telling about his early childhood in Ireland concerned a maid or a nanny - I had the impression of a sort of Irish mother's help - who was left in charge of him for long periods when his parents were absent from the house. She had a soldier boyfriend who came visiting at these times; and of course, the couple wanted to be alone. But Francis was a jealous and endlessly demanding little boy who would constantly interrupt their lovemaking on one pretext or another. As a result, she took to locking him in a cupboard at the top of the stairs when her boyfriend arrived. Confined in the darkness of this cupboard Francis would scream - perhaps for several hours at a time - but since he was out of earshot of the happy courting couple, completely in vain. ‘That cupboard,’ Bacon apparently said years later, ‘was the making of me.’

- Anthony Cronin, "An Irish Fear of Death?" in David Sylvester edited Francis Bacon in Dublin ( Dublin, Ireland: Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art and Thames & Hudson, 2000). Exhibition catalogue with contributions by Grey Gowrie, Louis le Brocquey, Anthony Cronin and Paul Durcan.

Humanity's Relation to Creation

2009-12-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

Genesis I, Paradise - Sawai Chinnawong (2003)

Most churches today are not "ecological." The Sunday sermon is not about the flourishing of God's whole creation; more often, especially in North American well-off churches, it is aimed at the care and comfort of human individuals. The gospel - the good news - is usually addressed to human needs and failings. Occasionally, on Earth Day and when children help with the service, the environment is brought into the picture. Creation is allowed to take center stage a few times a year. But the well-being of the whole of God's creation is not seen as part and parcel of the gospel message. It is usually an add-on. Christian theology has been anthropocentric - concerned mainly with the well-being of human beings.

But can human beings thrive apart from nature? If salvation is understood as eternal life for some humans, then perhaps the answer is yes. But if salvation means the flourishing of all God's creatures here and now on this earth, then the answer is no. The world cannot be left out. The church must become ecological through and through.

- Sallie McFague, A New Climate For Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), p. 32.

Genesis 7:13 - Sawai Chinnawong (2004)

Filmic Visions of Community and Vocation

2009-12-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

The Fireman's Ball - Milos Foreman (1965); Cinematography by Miroslav Ondrícek

Romans 12: 3-21 (The Message)

[3-6] I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

13 Conversations about One Thing - Jill Sprecher (2001) - Trailer

[6-8] If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

You Can't Take It With You - Frank Capra (1938) - Mr. Poppins Scene

[9-13] Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Gone Baby Gone - Ben Affleck (2007) - Opening Scene

[14-21] Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

Theology and Evolution

2009-12-07T16:30:00.000-08:00

2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick (1968) - Final Scene

How do you "put together" the theory of evolution and the affirmation of God's providence and/or continuing creation?

Jurgen Moltmann's three points on p. 196-197 of his God and Creation are especially helpful here to start. First, evolution is not concerned with the original creation itself, but is interested in shedding light on the ordering and development of creation. Second, this intersection between science and theology happens in a discussion of continuous creation (creatio continua). Finally, the human being is not the meaning and purpose of evolution, nor is the human being the crown of creation. In light of these realizations, we can talk about a biblically-based eschatological vision in line with an incomplete cosmic history of evolution. What we can say about the human being and his/her place in cosmic history and in continuous creation is that the human being is both a creature in the fellowship of creation and acting as creation's representative (imago mundi) and also as God's representative in the community of creation (imago dei) (pp. 189-190). Humanity has a special place in creation in this way, but it is a responsibility to open, loving participation and representation in the continuous creation.

Moltmann then proceeds into a discussion of evolution based around the metaphysical question: "Is the universe a determined system, or a partially undetermined one? Is it a 'closed' system or an 'open' one?" (p. 201). Over the course of the ensuing dialogue, Moltmann draws a picture of the evolutionary cosmos as an "irreversible, communicating system open to the future." (p. 204.) Some touchstones of this system, and the individual systems that comprise the whole, are: its participatory (highly communicative) nature, a trending towards the "universal symbiosis of all systems of life and matter"; its anticipatory nature, a movement or yearning towards self-transcendence (God and godliness); and its capacity for deepening complexity and interdependence (pp. 204-205). What does this mean for continuous creation? For one, it means that God both preserves creation through a constant Yes and prepares the way for creation's future completeness in the fullness of God. When we talk about creatio continua, therefore, we also need to talk about creatio nova, and creatio anticipativa, which, putting the three together, describe God's creative activity as sustaining, redeeming, and preparing creation for eschatological fullness, perfection, and unity (p. 209). Continuous creation participates in and points to God's other open, redeeming, and future-oriented activities.

I find this connection between the openness of the evolutionary cosmos and the openness of God's creative activity as incredibly compelling. It complements the picture of the perichorectic trinitarian community present in God. The perichorectic community is an open, future-oriented, interdependent, and highly communicative system. It engages what we know about the scientific principles of evolution and reframes them in light of what these principles say about God and humanity's place in the world. First, God is constantly opening up his creation and healing its brokenness, and we understand this activity through Jesus' actions on the cross. The God who opens up closed systems is one who would take all of the negativity and sin of the close systems onto God's self in a loving act of healing forgiveness. God desires wholeness for his creation, and the promise suggests that the evolutionary cosmos is moving creation closer to this future reality in God. Theology points to what humanity's role should be in this activity, as a proxy for both the creature and for God, as a loving participant in the perichoretic creation. Humanity's worldview towards creation should not be one of confrontation or separation or arrogance, but one of mutuality, belonging, and loving-ness. Humanity is called to acts and worldviews of wholeness that promote wholeness in the world and that engage creation holistically.

Commentary is mine. Quotes from Jurgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 101.

Trinity

2009-12-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

Trinity - Andrei Rublev (1411 or 1425-27)

The Trinity provides a symbolic picture of totally shared life at the heart of the universe. It subverts duality into multiplicity. Mutual relationship of different equals appears as the ultimate paradigm of personal and social life. The Trinity as pure relationality, moreover, epitomizes the connectedness of all that exists in the universe. Relation encompasses and constitutes the web of reality and, when rightly ordered, forms the matrix for the flourishing of all creatures, both human beings and the earth.

[...]

If the image of God is the ultimate reference point for the values of a community, then the structure of the triune symbol stands as a profound critique, however little noticed, of patriarchal domination in church and society. The power of an interpersonal communion characterized by equality and mutuality, which it signifies, still flashes like a beacon through a dark night, rather than shining like a daytime sun. Human community in a relationship of equals has yet to be realized save in isolated and passing instances. Yet the central notion of divine Trinity, symbolizing not a monarch ruling from isolated splendor but the relational character of Holy Wisdom points inevitably in that direction, toward a community of equals related in mutuality. The mystery of Sophia-Trinity must be confessed as critical prophecy in the midst of patriarchal rule.

- Elizabeth Johnson, She Who is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroads, 1992), pp.222-223.

The Black Spiritual: Longing for Freedom, Forgiveness, and Peaceful Community

2009-12-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

Steal Away to Jesus (traditional)

Steal away, steal away,
Steal away to Jesus!
Steal away, steal away home,
I ain't got long to stay here.

My Lord, He calls me,
He calls me by the thunder;
The trumpet sounds within my soul,
I ain't got long to stay here.

Steal away, steal away,
Steal away to Jesus!
Steal away, steal away home,
I ain't got long to stay here

Green trees are bending,
Poor sinners stand a-trembling;
The trumpet sounds within my soul,
I ain't got long to stay here.

There is a Balm in Gilead (traditional)

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.

Some times I feel discouraged,
And think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again.

If you can’t preach like Peter,
If you can’t pray like Paul,
Just tell the love of Jesus,
And say He died for all.

We Shall Walk Through the Valley (traditional)

We shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death
We shall walk through the valley in peace
If Jesus Himself shall be our leader
We shall walk through the valley in peace

We shall meet our brother there
We shall meet our brother there
If Jesus Himself shall be our leader
We shall walk through the valley in peace

There will be no weeping there
There will be no weeping there
If Jesus Himself shall be our leader
We shall walk through the valley in peace

Body

2009-12-07T01:25:00.001-08:00

Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders (1987); Cinematography by Henri Alekan

Eurydice by Arseniy Tarkovsky

A person has one body,
Singleton, all on its own,
The soul has had more than enough
Of being cooped up inside
A casing with ears and eyes
The size of a five-penny piece
And skin - just scar after scar -
Covering a structure of bone.

Out through the cornea it flies
Into the bowl of the sky,
On to an icy spoke,
To a wheeling flight of birds,
And hears through the barred window
Of its living prison-cell
The crackle of forests and corn-fields
The trumpet of seven seas.

A bodyless soul is sinful
Like a body without a shirt -
No intention, nothing ever gets done,
No inspiration, never a line.
A riddle with no solution:
Who is going to come back
After dancing on the dance-floor
Where there's nobody to dance?

Run along then, child, don't fret
Over poor Eurydice,
Bowl your copper hoop along
Whip it through the world,
So long as even quarter pitch
With cheerful tone and cold
In answer to each step you take
The earth rings in your ears.

Poem found in Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time (Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press, 1986), p. 157. Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair

Art as Act of Grace

2009-12-07T01:13:00.000-08:00

Strata XXX, Ash Wednesday - Alfonse Borysewicz (1993); from the cover of the Fall 2001 issue of Image Journal that contained a section called 9/11: "Psalms & Lamentations"

Flannery O'Connor writes, "Redemption is meaningless unless there is cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause." In my own forty-four years I have seen the meltdown of my hometown, racial injustice, Vietnam , poverty, the plague of AIDS, our endangered environment, and the narcotic of narcissism, along with my own frailties and self-inflicted stupidities. These have taught me, beyond doubting, that there is cause, that we need redemption desperately. And why painting? As the Renaissance Platonist Gabriele Paleotti noted, through painting is revealed the whole of life: the world of the senses, the world of the intellect, and finally the world of Love. Ultimately, painting leads us to love God's goodness. I want my painting to offer an opposition to our cultural iconoclasm, leading us not only to love God's goodness, but once again to see it.

[...]

I began working on a series of paintings called Strata . I walked paint across the canvas in horizontal rows, pushing it from right to left with my palette knife in layers of blue, yellow, pink, and black, like the poet in Tarkovsky's film Nostalgia, who walks a lit candle across a muddy pool, his road to Calvary.

- Alfonse Borysewicz, "Naked Grace," Image, Issue 32 (Fall 2001), p. 26, 34.

Nostalgia - Andrei Tarkovsky (1983)

Meditations on Wholeness: Introduction

2009-12-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

Automat - Edward Hopper (1927)

Why is there a special need to emphasize wholeness? A similar question is Why do we need departments of health, that is, departments of wholeness? This paradox arises because there has been a prevalence of disease and illness which indicate lack of physical wholeness. Similarly, over the ages, in the psychological, communal, and spiritual spheres, there has been a serious and sustained breakdown of wholeness. Typically, this has taken the form of widespread fragmentation between nations, races, religions, ideologies, and so on, going on down to smaller groups, including the family. Indeed, even the individual is fragmented. This is yet another paradox. For the word individual means "undivided." Yet, each human being is divided into conflicting interests, passions, aims, loyalties, motivations, and so on, to the point of neurosis, and even of psychosis. Perhaps such a person could better be called a "dividual" rather than an individual, being a combination of all sorts of contradictory features that are picked up from the collective mixture in the surrounding society.

- David Bohm, "Fragmentations and Wholeness in Religion and in Science," Zygon, 20.2 (1985), p. 125