The Most (Unexpectedly) Spiritual Film of the Week
Posted on October 18, 2008 at 7:47 am
This week’s releases include some very spiritual themes. W. shows us the 43rd President’s decision to let his life be guided by God, his lessons from a spiritual advisor, and his participation in Bible study. The Secret Life of Bees portrays three sisters who conduct Christian religious services in their home and call their brand of honey “Black Madonna.” But it just might be the based-on-a-videogame “Max Payne” that has the most spiritual themes of the week. Along with a lot of guns, chases, and explosions, it finds time to consider its title character’s thoughts about angels, Satan, Judgment Day, and the afterlife. Not just grafted on, these themes are central to the character’s decisions and ability to find meaning in life following the murder of his wife and child.
The faith-based film Fireproof, starring Kirk Cameron, is enjoying impressive advance ticket sales this week according to Harry Medved of Fandango. It is the story of a firefighter who finds that his most difficult challenge is finding a way to give his wife the love and intimacy necessary to keep their relationship strong. It is not until he turns to God for help that he begins to find a way to let her know how much she means to him.
It opens in more than 800 theaters this Friday, small in Hollywood terms but an extraordinary achievement for a film that cost only $500,000 and was made mostly by amateurs from a film-making ministry in Albany, Georgia. “No one is expecting it will rule the box office,” Medved told me, “but it has made an impressive beginning.”
Church-based “action squads” have been buying tickets in bulk, a powerful reminder to Hollywood that an under served audience will respond positively to a film like this, even without a lot of ad support. “It’s a great couples’ movie,” said Medved. “When’s the last time a movie improved your marriage? We get a lot of movies about falling in love or about temptations away from marriage but this is a film about making a marriage work.” Couples can learn from this film about how to give fully of themselves for a strong and lasting relationship, no matter what their religious beliefs.
“For moviegoers who plan to see a smaller release on opening weekend, online ticketing is the way to go,” says Fandango Chief Operating Officer Rick Butler, who adds that advance ticket sales for “Fireproof” continue to be “healthy.”
The AV Geeks have an amazing archive of “film ephemera,” of over 20,000 little odds and ends (mostly odds) that have been retrieved from warehouses, garbage dumps, and thrift shops. It’s like seeing our culture through the eyes of an anthropologist. You can find educational and safety films you may have seen in school or Bible study or training films you may remember from work. Take a look at “School Rules: How They Help Us” from 1953.
The AV Geeks have made some DVD compilations available including “Atomic Age Classics Vol 6 : Love & Marriage DVD” (Social-Sex Attitudes in Adolescence, How Do You Know It’s Love?, Are You Ready For Marriage?, Marriage Is A Partnership, Should I Marry Outside My Faith?) and the “I am Joe’s…” series based on the Reader’s Digest articles about the organs of the human body. Also on the site, film Professor Brian Hess shares his paper on the history of Christian educational film pioneers Charles Baptista and James K. Friedrich.
I was privileged to attend the very first showing of the upcoming film “Not Easily Broken,” based on the book by the Bishop T. D. Jakes and starring three of my favorite performers, Morris Chestnut, Taraji P. Henson, and Jennifer Lewis. It is the story of a young couple struggling to keep their connection to each other and to God in the early years of marriage. And it is the first of what Bishop Jakes hopes will be a series of films with compelling stories told with heart and without crassness, profanity, or violence. It was made for a very small budget as a labor of love and they are trying to get the word out now so that the opening week’s box office will be big enough to persuade Hollywood to make some more.
There was a half-hour delay in getting the film started, which was fine with me because Bishop Jakes picked up a microphone to talk to us. It was a great pleasure to see his extraordinary ability to bring an audience together. It took him just a couple of seconds to turn to Washington’s largest movie theater into a congregation and to make us feel involved and connected. After the film, he, director Bill Dukes, and producer-star Morris Chestnut spoke about the project and answered some questions.
I can’t post a review until the film opens in January, but I can say that I very much appreciate their effort to create meaningful stories with good values that are unapologetically positive about spirituality and to create roles with some depth for these talented actors. It made me think again of how few movies there are that begin where most movies end — with a wedding — and talk about what marriage and happily-ever-after really mean. I’ll have another post on that topic soon.
In honor of the 2012 Olympics in London, this 1981 classic and winner of the Oscar for Best Picture has been reissued.
This is the true story of two athletes who raced in the 1924 Olympics, one a privileged Jewish student at Cambridge (Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams), the other a missionary from Scotland (Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell). Wonderfully evocative of the time and place, with superb performances, the movie shows us the source of the runners’ determination, for one a need to prove his worth to himself and the society that discriminates against him, for the other, a way of connecting to God.
The movie begins with the memorial service for Harold Abrahams, and then goes back to his first day at Cambridge, just after World War I. A speaker reminds the entering class that they must achieve for themselves and for those who were lost in the war. Abrahams is a bit arrogant, but finds friends and impresses the whole university by being the first to meet a long-term challenge and race all the way around the quad within the twelve strokes of the clock at noon.
Liddell is deeply committed to missionary work. But when his sister asks him to give up running so that he can go with her, he explains that “I believe God made me for a purpose. He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”
Abrahams is devastated when he loses to Liddell, saying he won’t race unless he can win. But his girlfriend reminds him that he can’t win unless he races. Both Abrahams and Liddell make the Olympic team. There is a crisis when Liddell’s event is scheduled for a Sunday, because he will not run on the Sabbath. But Lord Lindsay (Nigel Havers) graciously allows Liddell his place in a different event, “just for the pleasure of seeing you run,” and both Liddell and Abrahams win.
Both of the athletes must make difficult choices with a great deal of opposition. One uses a coach (who isn’t even English), in defiance of tradition and expectations. The other resists the urging of his sister, the person he loves most, who wants him to quit racing and defies the Prince of Wales, who wants him to race on the Sabbath.
One of the themes of the movie is the problems that the Jewish athlete has dealing with the prejudice of society. The other athlete has to confront the conflict between the dictates of his religion and the requirements of the sport (including the entreaties of the heir to the throne) when he is asked to compete on the Sabbath.
Families who watch this movie should talk about these questions: Why was running so important to these men? Was it different for different athletes? Why does Harold Abrahams think of quitting when he loses to Liddell? Have you ever felt that way? What did you do? Why doesn’t Eric’s sister want him to race? Why does he race despite her objections? Why don’t the teachers at Harold Abraham’s school think it is appropriate to have a coach? Would anyone think that today?
This movie deservedly won the Oscars for best picture, screenplay, costume design, and music.
Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy a two-part made for television miniseries called “The First Olympics — Athens 1896,” about the American team entering the first modern Olympics in 1896. It features Louis Jourdan (of “Gigi”), David Caruso (of the original cast of television’s “NYPD Blue”) and David Ogden Stiers (of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”). While it does not have the resonance and meaning (or the production values) of “Chariots of Fire,” it is heartwarming, funny, exciting, and a lovely period piece. Not currently available on video, it usually shows up on television around the time of Olympic competitions. An extremely silly movie about the first modern Olympics is “It Happened in Athens,” with Jayne Mansfield and real-life Olympic athlete Bob Mathias.
“Miracle on Ice,” another made for television movie, is the true story of the 1980 U.S. hockey team, which astonished the world at the Olympics in Lake Placid. Yet another Olympic made for television movie, “The Golden Moment,” is the story of a romance between a Soviet gymnast and an American athlete. Its primary charm is the fact that it takes place at an Olympics in which, in real life, the U.S. never competed — that was the year the U.S. protested the Soviet invasion of Afganistan by boycotting the Moscow Olympics.
See also “Cool Runnings” about the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team, “The Bob Mathias Story,” with the real-life decathalon champion playing himself, “The Jesse Owens Story,” with Dorian Harewood as the legendary athlete, and “Babe” with Susan Clark as Babe Deidrickson Zaharias.
On the silly side, try “Animalympics,” an animated spoof of the Olympics with some comical moments, and the very funny “Million Dollar Legs,” with W.C. Fields as the President of Klopstockia, a country entering the Olympics.
And of course Bud Greenspan’s documentaries about the Olympics are always worth watching, for the stories and the personalities as much as for the athletic achievements.
