Religious Films

Today’s episode of Sounds of Cinema featured a look at religious films. This field of movies is actually far more varied than the sentimental crap that’s usually playing in theaters (see: God’s Not Dead and War Room) and offers a breadth of insight into spiritual life and traditions.

Here is a look at some films discussed on today’s show as well as some additional titles.

The Ten Commandments (1956) 
Dir. Cecil B. DeMille

Perhaps the de facto entry in the genre of religious films is Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic The Ten Commandments. This film tells the Exodus story with Charlton Heston as Moses an--along with his titular part in Ben-Hur--Heston would be forever linked with the Moses role. This film is one of the most successful motion pictures ever made and when its box office gross is adjusted for inflation it still ranks among the top ten domestic releases of all time. The enduring popularity of The Ten Commandments is partly due to its annual television broadcast. The picture has been shown on the ABC network on or around Easter nearly every year since 1973. In 1999, ABC did not to televise it (ironically, the same year that the film was added to the National Film Registry) and the network received numerous complaints, so they’ve kept it on the broadcast schedule ever since.

 
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)
Dir. Pier Paolo Passolini

In the heyday of Hollywood’s religious and historical epics it was considered a given that movies about Biblical stories were to be made on an epic scale with huge casts, elaborate sets, and a grand musical score. They were also very safe and nonpolitical with any challenging elements filed off. As this trend began to wane, Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Passolini directed The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Passolini was a writer and filmmaker whose work was politically charged and frequently controversial. Shot in black and white and filmed in a gritty cinema verite style, Passolini’s Jesus film stripped away the gloss of Hollywood productions and presented Jesus as a Marxist prototype who spoke against the powerful and the wealthy. This film was influential on Martin Scorsese and its impact can be seen in The Last Temptation of Christ.

Godspell (1973)
Dir. David Greene

Godspell is perhaps the strangest telling of the Christ story ever filmed. Based on the off-Broadway production, the film reinterprets the Gospel of St. Matthew through the lens of the counter culture of the early 1970s. Godspell plays very much like a stage production and it is pretty lightweight but its playfulness and weirdness make it worth a look.


The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Dir. Martin Scorsese

Adapted from the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ is a fictionalize take on the crucifixion, imagining Jesus as a man who struggled with human desires. The movie has a reputation for being shocking but for some viewers the most shocking thing about it may be how earnest it is in its intentions. The filmmakers do take liberties with religious tradition and theology but those liberties are taken for the purpose of examining the relationship between earthly desires and higher callings. For many years the controversy has overwhelmed the content, but The Last Temptation of Christ is one of the most interesting religious films ever made.


Dogma (1999)
Dir. Kevin Smith

Religious films are not renowned for their humor. In fact, they tend to be quite humorless and self-serious. But filmmaker Kevin Smith, who had directed Clerks and Mallrats, decided to apply his unique brand of comedy to religion with Dogma, a mash-up of fantasy adventure, theology, and scatological humor. In this film, a lapsed Catholic is given a holy mission by the Voice of God to stop a pair of renegade angels from inadvertently undermining the Almighty and negating all existence. Despite its silliness, the movie has a sharp sense of humor and a few terrific performances by Linda Fiorentino, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. The movie caused some controversy at the time of its release in 1999 with Smith receiving hate mail and death threats. Smith was flabbergasted by the controversy, pointing out that protesters were getting upset about a movie that featured a rubber poop monster.


Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
Dir. Terry Jones

Monty Python’s Life of Brian satires the Gospels through the story of a man who is mistaken for the Messiah. The film faced protests both in Britain and in America as high profile faith organizations and religious figures complained that Life of Brian was offensive and ridiculed the story of Christ. Defending the movie, director Terry Jones has said that Life of Brian is not blasphemous, as it does not lampoon actual religious figures, but it is heretical because it criticizes the abuse of religious authority.


The Omen (1976)
Dir. Richard Donner

During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s there were a series of occult themed movies. Of these, the most popular were the so-called Satanic Blockbusters: 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby, 1973’s The Exorcist, and 1976’s The Omen. Each of these films spoke to a different constituency. Rosemary’s Baby was well received by the occult audience, The Exorcist was very much a Catholic film, and The Omen spoke to the evangelical movement that was surging in the late 1970s. The Omen supposes that the Anti-Christ of the Biblical Book of Revelations is alive on Earth as a little boy. The film has recently been spun off into the dramatic television series Damien.


Lucifer Rising (1980)
Dir. Kenneth Anger

Although movies like The Exorcist and The Omen deal with satanic characters, these films are to be understood as Christian pictures. They spring from a Christian worldview and reaffirm Judeo-Christian values. A film that would more authentically be described as Satanic is Kenneth Anger’s legendary short film “Lucifer Rising.” Anger is an occultist who approached the cinema as a magical ritual and “Lucifer Rising” was intended to usher in a new spiritual age. The film also features an inspired musical score by Bobby Beausoleil.


Samsara (2012)
Dir. Ron Fricke

A lot of what are referred to as faith-based movies are re-tellings of Judeo-Christian stories but there are other possibilities. The 2012 documentary Samsara visualizes the Buddhist concept that people are stuck in a cyclical existence of ignorance. This picture is a collage, not a story, and it is best understood as a cinematic poem. Samsara juxtaposes images of geography, architecture and industry to a slow, meditative score and the combination of visuals and sounds makes for some startling connections.


The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Dir. Mel Gibson

The Passion of the Christ is a dramatization of the crucifixion of Jesus with an emphasis put on the gore. The movie was one of the most controversial titles of the last decade, with accusations that The Passion was anti-Semitic, although the debate centered less on the actual content of the film and more on the personal foibles of director Mel Gibson.


Noah (2014)
Dir. Darren Aronofsky

Despite the enormous box office success of The Passion of the Christ, Hollywood steered clear of Biblical films for another decade. As movies from independent faith-based production houses started succeeding in mainstream theaters, Hollywood got in on the act. Of these, the most notable title is 2014’s Noah. Darren Aronofsky’s retelling of the Biblical flood story was not necessarily the uplifting movie that the faith-based crowd was looking for but it was an intelligent and ambitious film that presented the flood story as a parable for climate change.

Religious Films on Sounds of Cinema

On Sunday, March 27th Sounds of Cinema will feature a look at religious films. The program will feature a look at a variety of pictures such as The Passion of the Christ, Life of Brian, and The Omen.

Sounds of Cinema can be heard on Sunday morning:

• 9am on 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona, MN
• 11am on 89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato, MN

If you're not in the broadcast area, Sounds of Cinema can be heard live streaming from each stations website.

Spring Film Screening: Network (1976)

Network will be shown on Friday, April 8th at 7pm in the Stark Hall Auditorium on the Winona State University campus.



Network is a satirical comedy about a fictional television network. When UBS Evening News anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has an on-air meltdown, an unscrupulous network programmer (Faye Dunaway) takes over the news division and turns the nightly broadcast into a circus. Success leads to a whole new slate of programs in which information is replaced by sensation, terrorist groups are given their own weekly shows, and Howard Beale becomes “the mad prophet of the airwaves.”

Since its release in 1976, Network has come to be regarded as one of the greatest works of American cinema. The movie was included on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films and in 2000 it was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. Howard Beale’s proclamation, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” has become one of the most frequently quoted and imitated lines in all of popular culture.

Network has also proven to be one of the most prophetic feature films of all time. The movie anticipated the absorption of television networks and Hollywood studios into corporate conglomerates, the corruption of news divisions, as well as the arrival of “reality television.” Network also articulated the popular rage that pervaded audiences of 1976. That rage is recognizable to contemporary viewers and the whole film is incredibly relevant to audiences of 2016. And Network does all of this while being wickedly funny.

Network runs 121 minutes and is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Admission is free and open to the public.

You can find out more about the film here. 

This event is sponsored by the Winona State University Department of Theater and Dance, English Department, Mass Communication Department, the Darrell W. Krueger Library, and Sounds of Cinema.

Movies for International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. Here are some suggested titles to complement the day:

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007)
Set in Romania in 1987, the film tells the story of a woman seeking an abortion when it was illegal.


Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
Ellen Burstyn's performance in the title role of Martin Scorsese's 1974 film is still extraordinary in its honesty, complexity, and rawness.


The Blue Light (1932)
German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl is best known for her Nazi propaganda films The Triumph of the Will and Olympia and that has association has tainted her filmography. But Riefenstahl directed and starred in other work, many of which were impressive in their own right. Her first film was 1932's The Blue Light.


Daughters of the Dust (1991)
This movie was helmed by Julie Dash and Daughters of the Dust was the first feature film by an African American woman director to receive a theatrical release in the United States.The movie is a portrait of a family in the Gullah community in early twentieth century South Carolina.


The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
One of the best movies of 2015, this film tells the story of a teenager's sexual awakening amidst the counterculture of the 1970s.The movie is creatively executed and deals frankly with the link between sexuality and identity.


Frida (2002)
The story of artist and activist Frida Kahlo, played by Salma Hayek and directed by Julie Taymor. The style of the movie replicates the aesthetic of Kahlo's paintings.


Girlhood (2015)
A French film from Céline Sciamma, Girlhood tells the story of a black teenager who joins a clique of rowdy teenage girls. The movie has some impressive performances. especially by Karidja Touré in the lead role.


In a World (2013)
Written, directed, and starring Lake Bell, In a World is a show business comedy about a woman attempting to make it in the field of voice-over acting and competing to be the voice of a major movie trailer.


Stories We Tell (2013)
Filmmaker Sarah Polley's documentary about her family is a complex piece of work in which she discovers secrets about her mother and father and ultimately reveals something about how and why we tell stories.


Suffragette (2015)
This film is a drama of women fighting for the right to vote in early twentieth century Britain. The film captures the danger and violence faced by the activists.

The Academy Awards and #OscarsSoWhite

The Academy Awards will be broadcast on television tonight. For the past few years I’ve ignored the ceremony because, as actor George C. Scott once said, the Oscars are a “meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons” that is “barbarous and innately corrupt.” But this year’s Academy Awards ceremony begs to be commented upon, if only for the controversy that has erupted around it.

For the second year in a row all of the nominees in the Academy’s acting categories are white. This has inspired the social media hashtag #oscarssowhite and the outrage has led to many think pieces and commentaries decrying the lack of diversity at the Oscars and in Hollywood as a whole. Several high profile actors and filmmakers are boycotting the ceremony and Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs (who is black) released a statement saying she was “heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion.”

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the most important thing to say about the Academy Awards—and the entire Hollywood award circuit—is this: it is stupid and meaningless. The Oscars began as nothing more than a private dinner party in which industry figures recognized each other’s work. But eighty-eight years later it’s become a grotesque spectacle of self-congratulation and the obsession over these golden statuettes has literally become idolatrous with the value of an Oscar grossly overstated by the press, by Hollywood, and by the Academy itself.

But just because the Oscars are a fashion show masquerading as art appreciation doesn’t mean we should ignore these critiques of the industry. In fact the slate of all-white Oscar nominees visualizes a very real problem plaguing Hollywood. According to a 2015 study by UCLA, eighty-three percent of lead roles are played by white actors, eighty-two percent of motion pictures are directed by white filmmakers, and eighty-eight percent of produced screenplays are credited to white writers.

Not only does this data lay bare the industry’s problems with diversity, it also exposes the shortsightedness of the #oscarssowhite meme. The lack of diverse nominees is not a cause but a symptom. Filmmakers, like all storytellers, spin yarns about characters who are just like them. It’s a completely natural thing to do. Storytellers always begin from their own point of reference. And wading into someone else’s cultural experience is fraught with pitfalls that can result in embarrassing or even offensive results.

If we want to see greater diversity among Academy Award nominees then there has to be greater diversity among the people in front of the camera. And if we want greater diversity of people in front of the camera then there has to be greater diversity among the people behind the camera. That primarily means writers, directors, and producers but in the case of Hollywood studios it also means executives who green light these movies.

If you think Hollywood will be shamed into changing its ways because of your pithy Tweets and outraged Facebook posts, please remember that this is the industry that keeps employing Adam Sandler. Shame and show business are frequently mutually exclusive. However, Hollywood will change when it is compelled to. Like any other industry, it will follow the incentives of the marketplace. The 2015 box office gives some reason to hope with the success of Straight Outta Compton, Furious 7, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Creed.

If, as a viewer, you are concerned about the lack of diversity in American movies there is a very simple thing you can do. When a movie features a diverse cast, go see it. Box office has always been the greatest incentive for Hollywood to make more of something. I don’t mean to suggest that you should deliberately see a bad film because it has a cast of color. We don’t need any more terrible movies starring black comedians in drag. But Hollywood’s exclusion of minority actors isn’t a white supremacist plot. It’s a result of a business model that sticks with familiar formulas and an industry-wide set of assumptions about who goes to the movies and what they want to see.

In many parts of the country motion pictures featuring diverse casts may not get to the local theater. Don’t get mad at the management. If the theater is part of a national or multistate chain the manager probably has little say in what plays there. But let the theater staff know that you’d like to see a greater diversity of films and follow up with letters to the corporate office.

But given how few people of color—and for that matter how few women—are working as writers and directors, the industry and the culture will have to make a concerted effort to recruit talent from excluded communities into the filmmaking process. Some have suggested hauling studio executives before the United States Congress to make them atone. That’s not especially constructive (and more than a little hypocritical) and the Academy’s pledge to shake up its membership does not address the root of this problem.

I would instead suggest the creation of outreach programs to cultivate interest and talent in moviemaking. This is something the Academy could sponsor in conjunction with high schools, libraries, and community organizations. Start with putting cameras and moviemaking equipment in the hands of young people in diverse communities. As it is, mobile phone technology has advanced to the point that most people have a camera in their pocket. Then teach these young people how to edit their footage and how to use sound. Pretty soon they’ll be making short films that could play at school and community film festivals.

In conjunction with community outreach, offer paths and financial support for minority students to attend post-secondary film production programs. And not just USC and NYU but state schools and community colleges which may be better suited to train students in the practical industrial skills that will land them their first job as a production assistant. That will bring people from diverse backgrounds into the factory floor of the movie industry and from there they can gain the experience and the skills to make their own films whether it’s within the Hollywood system or the independent scene.

And there’s no reason to wait for Hollywood to get its act together. The major studios have always been well behind the rest of the culture. But the whole nature of the movie industry is changing and the traditional production and distribution models –which have contributed to the marginalization of women and people of color—is becoming obsolete. With filmmaking tools becoming democratized and new distribution models making content more accessible than ever, filmmakers can bypass the studio system altogether and still reach an audience. Their films may not achieve summer tentpole box office but most Best Picture nominees don’t make that kind of money either.

Here is the rub: this is a long term project. It will take a generation, at least, before any change really becomes apparent in Hollywood. And even if there is a concerted effort to recruit aspiring filmmakers of diverse backgrounds into the industry there is no guarantee they will ascend in the corporate studio system. Maybe Hollywood is too structurally racist for that. But if we create a whole movement of grassroots independent filmmakers who have the tools and the knowledge to create powerful, relevant, and innovative work that tells the stories of otherwise marginalized people, that’s worth more than its weight in Oscar gold.

Black History Month on Sounds of Cinema

The Sounds of Cinema episode airing on February 28th will recognize Black History Month with a look at movies that dramatize aspects of African American history or feature notable performances by black actors.

The program will also feature a commentary on the #oscarssowhite controversy.

Sounds of Cinema can be heard every Sunday morning at 9am CST on 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona, Minnesota and at 11am CST on 89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato, Minnesota.

Flashback Post: That Time I Wrote About Diversity and the Oscars

Back in 2006 I was a contributor to Static, a monthly arts and culture magazine published in Mankato, Minnesota. In the February 2006 issue I wrote the following column in response to the Oscar nominations. At that time Brokeback Mountain was nominated for several awards and was regarded as a breakthrough for diversity in Hollywood. The backlash against the 2016 Academy Award nominations and Halle Berry's recent comments on her 2002 Oscar win made me want to revisit and re-share the column I wrote a decade ago.

The original column is reprinted below as it appeared in 2006:

Comin' Round the Mountain 
Static magazine, February 2006

On January 16th, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded Brokeback Mountain a number of Golden Globes, including Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. In the week following the show, Brokeback’s box office surged past other films in much wider releases. With the combination of critical recognition and financial success, Brokeback’s place among nominees—and winners—at the 2006 Academy Awards is all but assured. While Brokeback Mountain deserves everything that it has coming to it, the amount of critical praise for this film feels like overcompensation on Hollywood’s part.

It is no secret that the award season is largely about politics. Consider the Best Picture awards of the past few years. 2005 Best Picture winner Million Dollar Baby, a film that paled in quality to many other nominees, was awarded to Clint Eastwood after his 2004 nominee, the superior Mystic River, was passed over for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The award for The Return of the King, the satisfying but somewhat clunky finale to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, appeared as compensation for the previous two installments, especially The Two Towers, and Peter Jackson’s accomplishment with the series as a whole. None of the best picture nominees of the last three years were terrible films and one should resist the conspiracy theorist’s temptation to account for this with insidious plans made by powerful figures sitting around a boardroom table. But nonetheless, these patterns exist.

In 2002 the Academy gave three awards to African Americans: Denzel Washington received a Best Actor statuette for Training Day, Halle Berry was awarded Best Actress for Monster’s Ball, and Sidney Poitier was given an honorary Oscar “For his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence.” Halle Berry’s acceptance speech revealed something about the underlying agenda of the award. A teary-eyed Berry proclaimed that she accepted the Oscar “for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.” The awards were not merely for these actor’s performances; they were public displays of self-conscious diversity appreciation. To put it another way, the 2002 ceremony was a way for the Academy to say, “See, we don’t have a problem with black people. We’re giving them awards!” 

The real measure of whether Hollywood’s door of has been opened to minorities is in the product.  And in the years since Berry, Washington, and Poitier were given awards little has changed in the industry. African Americans continue to be underrepresented in Hollywood films and their roles continue to be split between a few wise mentor figures (Morgan Freeman, Laurence Fishburne) and a lot of gangsta rapping idiots (almost any film featuring a black musician). While occasionally a film may contradict this element or play with the stereotypes, such as 2005’s Hustle and Flow, it is never enough to turn the tide.

Now, in 2006, Hollywood is patting itself on the back again by recognizing Brokeback Mountain, showering it with praise and awards. For the most part the praise of this film is deserved, although I do believe that other films released in 2005 (namely Munich, Crash, and Capote) were better. And, to be fair, Brokeback Mountain does represent some level of progress. The film does not rely on the flaming, Bird Cage-like stereotypes and, aside from the fate of Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, the film rises above most conventions associated with gay love stories. The cinematography is gorgeous and the performances are solid. This is a well-made film and its positive reception by critics and audiences is encouraging.

However, the enthusiasm for Brokeback Mountain is eerily reminiscent of the Academy’s 2002’s handout to African Americans. Despite its characterization as a liberal hotbed, Hollywood, or at least its product, does have issues with homosexuality. The past twenty-five years have seen dramatic shifts in the public regard for the gay community but it remains an estranged other. Many films and other mass media stories featuring homosexual characters still rely on stereotyped characterizations; consider The Bird Cage, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, In and Out, and Will and Grace. These are not the negative, predatory characterizations of homosexuals that dominated the culture in the past; instead they are comic fools. And while Hollywood’s regard for the subject is keeping in step with American culture, to see Brokeback Mountain as representing a major turn in Hollywood’s relationship with the homosexual community is premature. Without a significant change in their output, whatever recognition the Academy might bestow on Brokeback Mountain may ultimately come off as an act of unwarranted and undeserved self-congratulation. But then again, that’s what the award circuit is all about.