Looking for Truth at the Oscars

Gravity and American Hustle each snagged 10 Oscar nominations this morning, including for Best Picture. But they'll have to contend with seven other nominees for that top honor: 12 Years a Slave, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Overall, it's a strong mix of movies (even with the sad, nay, horrible omission of Saving Mr. Banks) in a year that had more than its fair share of good ones. But that doesn't mean they're all great to sit back and watch with your sweetie and a bag of popcorn. 12 Years a Slave and its depiction of horrors is, at times, almost torture to sit through. The Wolf of Wall Street is as rough and foul a movie to be released in—well, maybe ever. American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club, Her and Nebraska are all rated R for good reason, and many Christians won't see R-rated movies unless they have the words "passion" and "Christ" in the title.

There are lots of good reasons to skip harsh movies, of course, whatever their artistic merit. Plugged In (the ministry for which I work) exhorts people to be wary of the entertainment they consume, just like health-conscious folks might clear of trans-fats. Watching a lot of sex and violence and whatnot can be unhealthy, studies suggest. And if that's not enough rationale, we can point to Scripture—the oft-quoted Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

But should all of that preclude us from, or make us feel guilty for, watching the movies above? Not necessarily.

Many Christians take Phil. 4:8 to mean that we shouldn't expose ourselves to unpleasantness. If a movie contains elements that rub us the wrong way or make us feel uncomfortable or run counter to our faith, we should steer clear. And maybe they're right. I'm no theologian.

But when it comes to the art of storytelling (and movies, of course, are simply powerful visual stories), it seems to me like you often need to bring in some negative elements to bring forth the true, the right, the pure. The Bible itself is certainly no gigantic Hallmark card of inoffensiveness. It challenges us and sometimes shocks us. The people who wrote it lived in a harsh, brutal, sensuous and often unforgiving world. And so when I read Phil. 4:8, my eyes are pulled again and again to the beginning of the phrase.

Whatever is true.

"God's artistic choices should govern our own," writes N.D. Wilson in a fantastic online column for Christianity Today. "More than any other type of artist, Christian artists should be truth-lovers and truth-tellers. More than any other consumer, Christian readers … should be truth-seekers."

And so, I think, should Christian movie-watchers.

The movies selected as Best Picture nominees, by and large, hide truth inside their messy folds: artistic truth, emotional truth, spiritual truth. They touch a nerve. Most of them are not made to honor God. And yet, because of the truth embedded in each, they do in spite of themselves.

Over the next several weeks, until the Oscars are announced March 2, I'm going to periodically post some mini-musings on the Best Picture nominees. I'm calling them "discussionals" (a mixture of devotionals and discussions) because, well, I like to make up words every once in a while. They'll be mainly a series of thoughts and questions and even a Bible verse or two—stuff that I found worth mulling over. As such, they'll be quite personal, written as much to work through my own thoughts as anything.

I won't promise to get through all the nominees. But hopefully, I'll get to most of them—in alphabetical order. They'll be mostly for folks who've actually seen the films already and, of course, shouldn't be taken as a reason to go see them. But I hope they'll be of some use.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Films

The Denver Film Critics Society (of which I'm a member) just unveiled their picks for the best movies/performances of 2013. Next week, Plugged In (which pays my bills) will announce its own picks for the "best" films of the year. No surprise that these two "best of" lists will look quite different. We Denver Film Critics judge films on artistry and quality, while we Plugged In reviewers are more concerned with a film's morality. Sure, American Hustle might be sharp and funny, but it's not the sort of thing folks would likely watch in small group.

To this miasma I add yet another list—a "best of" list for me. It doesn't set aside artistic quality, because I like good movies. It doesn't completely set aside my Plugged In hat, since I also like good movies (if you catch my drift). And it also, of course, reflects my own personal taste—how it made me feel. After all, watching movies, and even reviewing them, is an inherently subjective process. What we see and hear is not designed so much as to teach us as to move us—to laughter, to tears, to sheer terror. And what moves us differs greatly from person to person.

So with that said, here are 10 movies (in alphabetical order) that moved me this year.

12 Years a Slave: It's one of those movies that everyone should watch, even though you might never want to watch it again. 12 Years—based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sent to the pre-Civil War south—lays bare the evil of slavery, showing the scars of its victims and the corruption of its perpetrators. A raging Michael Fassbender is wickedly great as a tyrannical slave owner, using the Bible as justification for how he runs his plantation. Benedict Cumberbatch (who seems like he's in everything this year) exposes the lie of the "good" slave owner, who despite his best intentions feeds the diabolical system. "In his own time, the Good Lord will manage them all," we hear. "The curse of the pharaohs was a poor example of what waits for the plantation class." A fantastic, hard-to-watch classic.

August: Osage County: Think Grendel had a monstrous mother? The Beowulf creature doesn't have anything on Meryl Streep's Oklahoma beast, Violet Weston. Besieged by relatives after the suicide of Violet's long-suffering husband, Beverly, the drug-addled matriarch seems set on making everyone as miserable as she is—setting up a titanic clash of wills with her daughter, Barbara (Julia Roberts). For Plugged In, I called this an Old Testament story of reaping the whirlwind—a tale in which lives are crushed and no one leaves Osage County without being bruised by the story's tornado. This is a dark, sometimes bitter comedy, but the performances—particularly by a gritty, angry Julia Roberts—are uniformly great.

Before Midnight: This is the third of a trio of movies filmed over 18 years—all directed by Richard Linklater and all starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The first two chronicled the curious romance of Jesse and Celine: The third finds the couple middle-aged and married now, but not happily so. Before Midnight is a delightful, painful cascade of dialogue showcasing a relationship falling apart. Batting eyelashes are replaced with terse retorts, languid kisses make room for long-held grievances. It's the most realistic picture I may have ever seen of an unraveling marriage and the frustrations that plague solid relationships from time to time. This is a movie that shows love—not the infatuation or romance or lust that movies sometimes mistake for love—as a darker, more complex thing, and wonders aloud whether it exists at all. But Before Midnight holds out a candle of possibility—a flicker of truth that Christians know particularly well: Sometimes, love can endure the darkest night. Sometimes it can be reborn.

The Conjuring: Almost every moment of this 2013 frightfest was a cliché. The old house, the possessions, the evil witch, the music boxes, the creepy puppets, the murdered dogs. None of that made The Conjuring any less terrifying. This flick creeped me out more than the two-year-old tomato I found in the back of the refrigerator (though the tomato and the demon Bathsheeba did look surprisingly similar). And if scares weren't enough, it was also an in-your-face exhortation to read your Bible—and read it right now before the monsters come. Sometimes, Christian-tinged movies give me nightmares for all the wrong sorts of reasons. But this one was meant to be scary.

Frozen: Oh, Disney, how I've missed you. For almost two decades, the Mouse House has played wallflower to sister studio Pixar—Sue Ellen O'Hara to Pixar's Scarlett. But Frozen may signal that the animation's grande dame may be ready for another turn on the dance floor. Sure, maybe this film isn't quite Beauty and the Beast. The music is more trendy than timeless, and I still the magic of 2-D animation. But the gags are funny, the story first-rate and the themes are simply wonderful. Back in the day, a Disney princess would need to be saved by a prince—perhaps with a tender kiss. This time 'round, it's these princesses themselves that do the lion's share of the saving. The result is magical—so magical that this is the only film on the list that I've actually cried during. Twice.  

Gravity: I've written so much on Gravity I'm loathe to bang out many more words on the subject. You can read what I said about Alfonso Cuarón's beautiful epic here or here or here, if you'd like. So let me just offer one stray, perhaps slightly nonsensical thought—that the universe we see in Gravity may give us a very small glimmer of God, maybe. After all, both are beautiful, terrifying, completely incomprehensible in so many ways. And yet, there's a familiar spot of it that we call home. It gives us warmth and sustenance, provides everything that we need in the way that we need it. It feels like it was made for us. And when we, like Ryan, become overwhelmed with how big everything is and how small we are, we focus our attention on that spot of home, and do whatever we can to get back there.   

Philomena: With the help of a caustic journalist, a woman struggles to reunite with her son—a child she was forced to abandon 50 years before. It's perhaps the most understated movie on this list: Star Judy Dench does not float through space, nor is she possessed by demons, nor does she sing with any snowmen. But Dench does offer us a measured, moving performance of an old lady who was woefully misused by her church but still loves her God all the same—and in keeping with His wishes, shows the capacity to forgive.

Saving Mr. Banks: It's a clash of storytelling titans—P.L. Travers, the caustic creator of the beloved Mary Poppins, and Walt Disney, the animation impresario who wants to bring Poppins into his own fold. This gloriously acted period piece delves deeply into the redemptive power of storytelling: How we can, through the alchemy of language, twist what was or is into what should've been or could be. For me, the film had a whiff of the great Christian wit G.K. Chesterton, who often talked about the power of story. Some critics have noted that Saving Mr. Banks twists its own facts: Travers detested Disney's Mary Poppins and certainly would've hated this retelling of how it came to be. Which makes this movie, I suppose, a meta-narrative of itself.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: I don't know how much this charming Ben Stiller movie had to do with James Thurber's original short story. I don't know what so many critics have against this film (hovering right now at 50% on rottentomatoes.com). All I know is that, when I left the theater, I was practically ready to ask my son if he'd want company on a cross-country roadtrip to Brooklyn. Granted, Walter Mitty doesn't have anything to do with Brooklyn (though it is set at the old Life magazine, based in New York). But it does have everything to do with shedding our fears and worries to embrace life at its fullest and most frightening—a timely message always, but especially timely today when so many of us can fall into our own virtual lives.

The Way Way Back: Almost everyone has forgotten about this summer sleeper. But I couldn't. The Way Way Back, about a 14-year-old boy (Duncan) with a life-changing summer job, is a funny, poignant coming-of-age story that shows what a family should look like--and it sometimes doesn't bear much resemblance to the folks raising you. Steve Carell is fantastically caddish as Duncan's overbearing would-be stepfather. Sam Rockwell makes a great bad boss. And Liam James plays Duncan with just the right amount of awkward insecurity. The Way Way Back shows what a world of difference that a little bit of love and confidence can do for you.

Thor: We're All a Little Loki

Thor: The Dark World rolled into American theaters this Friday, and it’s pretty much exactly what we’ve come to expect from Marvel superhero movies: big, fun and a little silly. One does not expect a lot of complexity from a film whose main character wins arguments with, quite literally, a big hammer. Nor would one expect to find much Christian faith in a film whose heroes and villains were plucked straight from Norse pagan mythology.

And yet, when we look at the story of Marvel’s odd-couple brothers, Thor and Loki, I’m reminded of a couple of other brothers who had their own problems.

Thor, of course, is our hero: Played by Chris Hemsworth, he’s big and blond and ever-so-heroic. Loki (the scene-stealing Tom Hiddleston) is Thor’s opposite in almost every possible way. Thor’s strong and straightforward, Loki’s smart and sneaky. Thor looks like—well, a god; Loki looks more like an English teacher. Loki is oil to Thor’s water, moon to Thor’s sun, Nicki Minaj to Thor’s Mariah Carey.

It’s hard to imagine two brothers more different, really. But then again, they’re not really brothers.

We learn in the first Thor movie that Loki is actually a frost giant, rescued as a baby from certain death by Thor’s father, Odin, and raised as his own. And when Loki realizes that he’s been adopted, it changes everything for him: He feels like an outsider—separated from the family and Odin’s love (even though in truth he and mother Frigga love him a great deal). From that point on, Loki breaks bad and, for two movies, causes no end of mischief.

If you stripped away the armor and magic, this picture of familial strife would fit comfortably in the Bible, the pages of which are full of quarrelsome siblings: Jacob, who stole the birthright and blessing of his brother, Esau. Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. And then, of course, you have the first brothers ever—Cain and Abel.

Cain and Abel, like Thor and Loki, both sought their Father’s love. They offered God gifts, hoping to win His favor. The Bible, we’re told, “looked with favor on Abel and his offering,” apparently because Abel gave God the best of what he had. That made Cain very angry, which triggered this response from God Himself.

“Why are you angry?” God said. “Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

Most of us know what happened, though. Sin did master Cain, and he killed his brother.

It seems to me that Loki and Cain have a lot in common. Both felt as though their respective fathers (both heavenly fathers, in a manner of speaking) didn’t love them. Not as much as their blessed brothers, anyway. Both grew jealous and bitter. And when Loki’s anger began to fester, God’s words could’ve been spoken to him, too.

Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.

Both were eventually cast out, as it were. And yet, they are still loved—and still family, in a way. Cain is punished, but God marks him, too, ensuring his survival. And while Loki falls out of Odin’s good graces, he’s offered many opportunities to return to the Asgardian fold.

Loki is both villain and tragic character in the Thor movies. In both films, we see his anger and pain, and we, like Thor, sense the goodness still hiding inside him. Sometimes it comes out: In Thor: The Dark World, Thor and Loki join forces for a time, and Loki earns a measure of redemption. And yet he can’t fully accept the grace held out to him. In movie after movie, Thor has asked Loki to reject his evil ways—to return to the loving arms of his family. But Loki can’t and won’t. His seat at the table is still there, but he refuses to take it.

Perhaps he’s so convinced that he is the frost troll of his birth—that he is, at his core, bad—he can no longer believe that he can be good. He sees what he is, not what he could be.

For all of Thor’s heroic traits, Loki is a far more compelling character for most of us. And I think that might be because we understand his struggle. Like Loki, we’re all fallen creatures—broken and misshapen and not at all what God would like us to be. It’s not all our fault, of course: Sin and brokenness are inescapable in this fallen world. God understands that, and He holds His hand out to us, anyway. All we need do is call Him father, and we become his sons and daughters. He offers us grace and forgiveness for whatever we might’ve done.

And yet, it still can be hard to accept that hand. Often we reject it for all the same reasons that Loki does: Our pride gets in our way. Our anger makes it impossible to reach out to Him. And sometimes, we can convince ourselves that we are unforgiveable—too horrible to ever really be a part of God’s family.

Some theologians might say that we’re all descended from Cain: We have Abel’s blood on our hands. When I realize how stubborn I can be—how petty and bitter and how resistant I am to anyone who might try to help me—the analogy feels frighteningly right.

I see a lot of Loki in me—more Loki than Thor, that’s for sure. I’m a disappointment in so many ways. And I pray that I always have the sense to hold onto God’s hand in spite of it.

The Exorcist and Frightening Faith

In honor of its 40th anniversary, The Exorcist was recently re-released on Blu-ray, complete with a director's cut and a special little book that has who-knows-what sorts of horrors in it. Grace Hill Media—an organization that helps market largely secular movies to Christian audiences—sent me a copy. It's sitting at home now, and I honestly don't know when—or if—I'll be able to watch it.

See, The Exorcist is the scariest movie I've ever/never seen.

When I was about 16 or 17, I "watched" the film with my best friend. He and I would often watch horror flicks together, and the moment felt right (to my friend, at least) for us to watch of the most horrific, notorious flicks of all time. We popped in the tape at about 2 a.m. and, about 20 minutes into it, I decided the story of Regan's diabolical bodymate was going to be waaay too intense for me. I feigned sleep for the rest of the flick.

But it proved to be impossible to sleep—what with the sounds of retching and cursing and my friend saying, "Dude! Did you see that?!"

"I'm asleep!" I kept saying. But I kept peeking, too. And while I didn't see all of The Exorcist, I saw enough to know that the other horror flicks I'd seen before were mere child's play. And I've never quite had the courage (even though I review horror flicks all the time) to re-screen it.

Some may wonder why Grace Hill was involved in marketing The Exorcist—an R-rated movie about a possessed, profane, upchucking pre-adolescent—in the first place. It's not the sort of film that most Christian audiences gravitate toward.

And yet, the film—as scary and as profane and as disturbing as it is—has some deeply faithful elements.

The Exorcist book, published in 1971, was based on the real-life exorcism of Roland Doe in 1949, and the book's author William Peter Blatty is a committed Catholic. In 2011, he wrote (for Fox News) that the book wasn't even supposed to be all that scary. He writes:

That I am regularly hauled out of my burrow every Halloween like some furless and demonic “Punxsatawney Phil” always brings a rueful smile of bemusement to my lips as I lower my gaze and shake my head, for the humiliating God’s-honest truth of the matter is that while I was working on "The Exorcist," what I thought I was writing was a novel of faith in the popular dress of a thrilling and suspenseful detective story – in other words, a sermon that no one could possibly sleep through -- and to this day I haven’t the faintest recollection of any intention to frighten the reader, which many will take, I suppose, as an admission of failure on an almost stupefying, scale.

The Exorcist (like this year's The Conjuring) isn't just a goosebump generator: It's a film that insists to its skeptical audience that good and evil are real and tangible. That there is both a God and a devil. That there are powers beyond our comprehension, just as the Apostle Paul told us. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood," he writes to the Ephesians, "but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

These things are not often dealt with in your average romcom or Oscar-bait dramedy. Of the typical movie genre, only horror allows such an in-your-face examination of these sorts of themes and almost begs for spiritual soul-searching.

In a 2005 interview with Christianity Today, Scott Derrickson (director for the well-regarded The Exorcism of Emily Rose) said this:

To me, the horror genre is the genre of non-denial. It's about admitting that there is evil in the world, and recognizing that there is evil within us, and that we're not in control, and that the things that we are afraid of must be confronted in order for us to relinquish that fear. And I think that the horror genre serves a great purpose in bolstering our understanding of what is evil and therefore better defining what is good. And of course I'm talking about, really, the potential of the horror genre, because there are a lot of horror films that don't do these things. It is a genre that's full of exploitation, but the better films in the genre certainly accomplish, I think, very noble things.

But many Christians, particularly in Evangelical circles, don't see horror as redemptive at all. In fact, many believe it's a bit of a black hole—leading viewers toward dark and demonic themes. And while Derrickson admits that a little bit of balance is in order, he's a little bit surprised that Christians don't cotton to horror more.

"To me, this genre deals more overtly with the supernatural than any other genre, it tackles issues of good and evil more than any other genre, it distinguishes and articulates the essence of good and evil better than any other genre, and my feeling is that a lot of Christians are wary of this genre simply because it's unpleasant. The genre is not about making you feel good, it is about making you face your fears. And in my experience, that's something that a lot of Christians don't want to do."

Let me be honest: I agree more with Derrickson than some. And honestly, I like a good scare now and then. I'm not nearly as apt to watch horror as I was in my younger days, but I still appreciate a well-crafted, creepy movie. I might even watch one tonight while handing out candy.

But The Exorcist? Sorry. Not tonight. There are some fears I'm not quite ready to face.  

Gravity, Grace Unplugged and God

I got a call from a reporter from a Christian media outlet yesterday who wanted to talk a little about the movie Gravity and some of the spiritual themes I found there (which I wrote about for The Washington Post). Toward the end of the interview, he asked me a simple but very ticklish question: Is Gravity more effective in drawing people to Christianity than Grace Unplugged?

Gravity, released last weekend, is the best movie I've seen so far this year—a technical and artistic achievement that'll probably be in contention for an Oscar or two or 10. Grace Unplugged, also released last weekend on about 500 screens, is an explicitly Christian movie whose makers will likely watch the Academy Awards on TV, just like the rest of us.

But the question wasn't which movie is better. It was which movie was more effective as an evangelical tool. It's a variation of a question that Christians—at least Christians who think about movies a lot—have been asking for a long time. Should movie-making or, more importantly, movie-watching, Christians be more concerned with art or message? Is it better to tell a great story, like Gravity? Or a GREAT story, like Grace Unplugged?

My answer, in essence, was this: Do we have to make a choice?

Now, let's rewind a bit and scrub clear a potential misunderstanding—that Gravity is a good movie and Grace Unplugged isn't. Grace is quite good by Christian movie standards. The filmmakers should be proud of their product.

But it ain't Gravity. It doesn't pretend to be. And I think that's just fine.

Christians tend to split off into two camps when it comes to movies.

On one side, you have the movie idealists: They're the ones who believe that Christians should support clean, often explicitly Christian movies to send Hollywood a message. This is not to say that artistry is not important: Every Christian moviemaker wants to make a good one, and every Christian movie-goer wants to see a good one. But they're not going to compromise the message for the sake of the art. And for many, a great message is indistinguishable from great art. I've heard from many folks who believe Fireproof was robbed of a Best Picture Oscar.

On the other side, you have the more artsy Christian moviegoers. This is not to say they paint all the time. Rather, they'd argue that the greatest story ever—the story of our faith—should be told with the very best craft, and anything less is selling our faith short. Top-notch talent and artistry are essential, not optional. They tend to be more comfortable with what we'd call at Plugged In "questionable content"—sex and violence and cursing and whatnot—if it effectively furthers the story. A story worth telling is a story worth telling well, they'd say. And if you tell it badly, it may do more harm than good.

Personally, I lean a little toward the latter philosophy, even though the organization I work for tips toward the former. But in my six years working for Plugged In, I think I can see the value in both.

We all mean well. But we sometimes, I think, run the danger of forcing God into a box. We can think that there's a "right" way to spread our story and that, in itself, assumes that God prefers to show himself only under certain conditions. But to me, saying there's only one right way of telling God's story is like believing that there's just one right tree, or one right season. If God made them all, doesn't that imply that all are equally valued and, in their own ways, beautiful?

In the same manner, God made us all different, too. We love different foods. We like to play different games. We're moved by different things. It's in our God-given design. And I think that God shows Himself to us in ways that we can best see Him—even if the view looks a little differently for each of us.

That's not to say that I believe God is OK with cinematic beheadings. Or that he doesn't want His love conveyed in the most persuasive, most beautiful way possible. I'm just saying that He's remarkably adept at showing Himself to us in unexpected ways. God, I believe, can work His way into almost every story—even when the storytellers are as imperfect as we.

What is more effective—Gravity or Grace Unplugged?

The answer, I think, is yes.