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With over four hundred movies coming out of Hollywood alone each year, recommending movies is risky business. Beginning in this issue of the MB Herald I will periodically be recommending movies (both older and current), books about movies, and movie-related websites.
I continue to be surprised, when I ask church groups and students, how many people do not know about thoughtful Christian movie review sites. A very fine place to start is Hollywood Jesus . You will get a visual impression of the film, as well as an analysis of the film through the lens of a Christian worldview. Explore the site’s nooks and crannies.
For those wishing to understand North American audiences’ attraction to end-of-the-world scenarios in movies, there is nothing better than John W. Martens’s The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film & Television (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing, 2003). Martens examines the context and theological worldview of ancient and biblical apocalyptic literature, and compares those texts to the apocalyptic end as it is imagined in contemporary film and television. He identifies clearly how movies express the fears and anxieties of our culture, yet how they (unlike the biblical apocalypses) offer neither a transcendent hope nor a moral vision for human action in the face of the dangers we face.
I am looking forward to seeing Luther (check out the two reviews at Hollywood Jesus, one offering an Anabaptist perspective). In the meantime, I suggest two movies that are available for home viewing. Robert Duvall’s The Apostle depicts a southern holiness preacher whose life takes a very wrong turn. Is it possible for God to use such a person? For dialogue with the apostle Paul, have a look at my study guide. The Man Without a Past, by Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, is a droll parable (or deadpan comedy) about the possibility of living the resurrected life.
Gordon Matties teaches at Canadian Mennonite University and is a member of River East MB Church.
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