Theology And Film – Where To Start?
Say you wanted to get up to scratch as a thinker in Theology and Film – where would you start? It’s a question I’ve been asked a few times. Back in mid 2001 I proposed a Masters level module for theology and film and what follows below is adapted from the paper I wrote in support of that submission.
The most straightforward place to start is with the portrayal of Jesus in films. First with accounts of the historical Jesus and then movies that reference Jesus in more symbolic, abstract and metaphorical ways. You could look for films that portray other Biblical characters (e.g., Noah, Paul, David). There’s actually a lot of material to cover here and if you haven’t done so already, this is a good time to start exploring non-English-language, non-mainstream and non-western films.
From there, it’s a smart move to pick some theological themes (or doctrines, if that’s what you call them) and consider films that deal with those topics, looking to reference a number of ideas and also a number films that consider each idea. A lot of people start with redemption and atonement, since these themes are so popular in contemporary western cinema. However, evil, hospitality, hope, truthfulness, pride, sacrifice, envy, fear and deceit are good places to start. Or, you could consider genres in Biblical Theology, like apocalyptic or wisdom.
One place where, in my opinion, a lot of theological commentators fall flat is their failure to discuss films as commercial products in an economy of entertainment. So, to really have depth to your thinking, it will pay to not just look at religious motifs and myths but also the role of studios, distributors, directors and paying audiences.
After all, film is an experience in consumer society. Ponder the film experience, differentiating it from other experiences of consumer entertainment. Moreover, consider what is unique about the social experience of film in cinemas, in contrast to films experienced in other contexts (home, classroom, in-flight, etc).
Understanding the development of film technology and the manipulation of images is important. This would include the role of cinematography, editing, performance and post-production, sound design, music scoring, as well as the technology of film delivery and the architecture of the contemporary cinema. Invest some time specifically on the director’s role, both as a creative force and as the focus of a commercial venture. This would include the question of how films get made, what happens from the inception of the idea, though the scripting and genre choices, to the production of the movie, to the critical and commercial reception of the film and the role that movie marketing plays in each step.
Once we understand the commercialisation and commodification of images we are in a better position to consider the relationship between myth, truth and worldview in cinema. This will hopefully help us avoide naive and simplistic analysis of any redemptive, messianic and cosmogenic myths we encounter in films (maybe the director did want to say something profound about human nature, or maybe they just wanted to make a fast buck).
Our theology of film will be incomplete if we don’t go further into the nature of storytelling, authoring and narrative construction. This is also a good opportunity to look at the way stories are adapted for film, either from existing novels/poetry. Of particular interest in our current moment of globalisation are films that look at cultures other than those of the film maker and situations where essentially the same film is re-made for a different audience.
With that sort of broad understanding of the culture of film and the film industry together with the basic ways films draw on theological themes you could start to consider from broader issues in cultural interpretation and the problem of using films as a source for theological reflection. This is topic that will take a different shape for different traditions, especially in terms of how they understand the question of general and special revelation and in turn how they approach hermeneutics, contextualisation and theological method.
The last condundrum I introduce is the idea of the double hermeneutic. Just as we try to interpret films (as cultural objects), so they also intepret us (as agents within a cultural context). Every interpretive act reveals just as much, if not more, about us as it does about the film. Perhaps the best place to finish an introduction is to see this kind of double hermeneutic at work in existing writing on theology of film.
This should leave us with a well rounded, but humble sense of the way films help us shape our identity often referencing or connecting with deep theological themes, but also the way films operate within a broader economy in the consumer society.