Manson's Memo - XLI is on the way

So, the Super Bowl teams are determined. Two Midwest teams will go to Florida to play each other. Seems to me it would be better to play the Game in Gary, Indiana, between the two, but it's not really about the football game -- it's about the event.

There is a load of money involved in Super Bowl XLI. There are the tickets -- that only corporations can afford to buy. There are the TV ads and the new promotions that begin with the Super Bowl. (I saw an ad this week about an ad that will play during the Super Bowl. Even the Super Bowl commercials have their own commercials.) There is the TV revenue that goes to the league. There's the money that the players will get. And there be more than any of this in legal and illegal betting on the game, the coin flip, and everything associated with the game. Take away all that money, and all you’d have left is a football game -- and this could be a pretty good game.

Things can very easily get buried under all the falderal. There may be a gem at the center, but there is so much junk built around it that the gem may be lost. Of course, there are lots of reasons for all the stuff that accumulates around the core -- some of it may even be valuable. In the history of the church things become institutionalized and carved into stone. There are good reasons for the things we do in church. But often, they become part of the clutter that buries the most valuable thing in the church.

We can do without much of the trappings of church. We can do without denominations. We can do without fancy equipment. We can do without pianos and organs. We can do without pastors. We can do without buildings. All of this is the stuff that has grown up around the core of the church.

If we dig through all that, we can find the gem that is so valuable -- without which all the other stuff has no meaning. The Gospel that in Christ, God reconciles the world -- in Christ, God reconciles us.

Darrel's Dozen -- top films of 2006

It hasn't been a bad year. If it's easy to put together a top films list, then there hasn't been much to choose from. This year my list overflows. Although all of these films are certainly worth seeing, what the year lacked is a few films that just plain knock your socks off. That means that the grade for the year is a respectable B-.

Here are my "dozen" films for 2006:

1. Tsotsi - the powerful story of a South African gangster who life is changed when he steals a car with a baby in it. Winner of last year's Best Foreign Language Oscar.
2. Lion in the House - four hour doc on a children's cancer ward. Heartbreaking. Life affirming. Played at Sundance, then went to PBS. I hope they show it again and again.
3. Letters From Iwo Jima - Eastwood sets a new standard for war movies.
4. Little Miss Sunshine - a VW bus with no clutch filled with a family of broken people careening out of control
5. Volver - one of the most entertaining and interesting approaches to death (and, by extension, life) that has made it to film in recent years
6. A double feature: The War Tapes & My Country, My Country - there may be other docs on life in Iraq that belong in this double feature. The life of GIs in one, the life of an Iraqi doctor in the other.
7. Death of Mr. Lazarescu - a man's descent into the hell of medical care (or medical nobody cares)
8. Another double feature: Sweet Land & The Secret Life of Words - A pair of love stories that I feel blessed to have seen, because they have such little distribution -- and because they are so good.
9. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days - bravery and commitment in the face of death
10. Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - revenge, grace, rebirth
11. Pan's Labyrinth - finding immortality by remember who you are
12. Babel - the world-wide connection of events and of people

Even though I have more than twelve films in my dozen, I still have half a dozen films that I'd like to have included (in no particular order): Joyeux Noel, The Proposition, Thank You for Smoking, The Departed, An Inconvenient Truth, and Children of Men.

Favorite discoveries or revisits from past years:

A Time for Burning
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Walkabout
Boys of Baraka
What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Favorite performances of the year:

Actress: Judy Dench in Notes on a Scandal
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed
Ensemble: Little Miss Sunshine

The Painted Veil

The Painted Veil opens in a florist shop where we learn that Kitty's family doesn't buy flowers, because why should you buy something that you can grow. They also don't grow flowers because it is "silly to put all that effort into something that's just going to die." Certainly an unromantic beginning to a love story. Well, I say it's a love story, but it takes a while to get there.

Kitty is a daughter of an upper-class British family. She seems to have no real interest in marriage because she's never fallen in love with anyone and can't see the point of marrying. But soon societal and family pressure leads her to consent to marry Walter Fane, a bacteriologist headed for China as part of the bureaucracy of the British Empire. Walter and Kitty are an ill-matched pair. Kitty yearns for passion; Walter is cold and detached. They become part of the British society in China where Kitty is seduced by Vice Consul Charlie Townsend. They have an intense affair, but Walter discovers it. A divorce would ruin Kitty's reputation, so he offers her an alternative -- go with him to the middle of a cholera epidemic in rural China.

They are now away from all that seems like civilization to Kitty. But Walter hasn't brought her to Mei-tan-fu to rekindle a flame -- they never had any flame. He has brought her here to punish her -- possibly even have her die from the disease. As Walter tries to fight the disease (he is more concerned with the microbe than patients, as he tells the Chinese doctor there, he's an M.D., but not a clinician), Kitty has nothing to do. In time she becomes involved with the nuns who are caring for the dying patients and for the orphaned children.

As I said above, it takes a while to become a love story, because the story we see is of a loveless marriage -- built on convenience, pride, spitefulness, and vengeance. They care so little about each other that it seems unimportant that the other might get sick in this far away place.

Over the course of the film, Walter and Kitty learn that passion and love are not restricted to the physical manifestations. There is a far more spiritual nature to love and to passion. As Kitty works with the nuns, the Mother Superior tells her of her own journey. When she was young she was passionately in love -- with God. But as the years piled up, and there were times God wasn't there (or so it seemed) they settled into an indifferent comfort -- like an old married couple. She has learned, she tells Kitty "where love and duty are one, then grace is with you." For Walter and Kitty, the process has to work in reverse -- they only had the indifferent comfort; from there they must find their passion.

In time we will learn if it really is "silly to put all that effort into something that's just going to die." That is an issue that faces us each day. How much effort should we put in to relationships or people or jobs that are transitory (as all are)? It is part of the issue that the writer of Ecclesiastes pondered: "For who knows what is good for mortals while they live the few days of their vain life, which they pass like a shadow? For who can tell them what will be after them under the sun?"

The Painted Veil is the kind of love story that moves us not through its romance, but because it shows us what makes life worthwhile.

Book Review: Reel Spirituality, 2nd edition

The original edition of Robert K. Johnston's Real Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue has been for many, myself included, a very helpful text to understand the interaction between theology and the movies we watch. In recent years this interaction has been a growing discipline. Johnston, who teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary, has been a leading writer in the field. Now a second edition of the book has been published and the expansion improves what was already a valuable resource.

Johnston has rewritten all of the chapters of the first edition, and added two more chapters. All the things that made the first edition valuable are still here, but with additional comments about more recent films and also bringing in the expanding body of literature focusing on film from a spiritual and theological perspective. The revisions of the text leave the core teachings intact, but provide even more examples and clearer understandings. This includes his basic approach to film and why film is so useful for theological discussion, and his basic approach to the critical analysis of film from a theological perspective.

Along the way Johnston includes what might be called mini-reviews of various films. The reviews are insightful and always serve to illustrate the critical approaches to understanding film theologically. The reviews are valuable for anyone looking to better understand the theological approach to watching film or just for someone looking for some good films to add to their must see list. But they are not the real reason for the book; they are icing on the cake.

This edition, like the first, concludes with a look at the films of Peter Weir. This examination serves to demonstrate the various principles put forth in the book. Weir's films are diverse in terms of genre, but have certain common themes that wind through them in different way. Johnston's assessment of these films helps the reader to see the process of analyzing films from a theological point of view.

The two biggest additions to the book are the two new chapters. The first deals with the importance of image and music. It corrects one of the shortcomings of the first edition: that it was so strongly focused on the literary aspect of film. To be sure, narrative is almost always central to any film, but much of a film's power comes from the way that narrative is presented. This new chapter looks at the way image and music are used to heighten the storytelling aspect of film. It serves as a brief primer of filmmaking for those without such a background, covering procedures such as framing, editing, special effects.

The second new chapter is the most important improvement in the book. That chapter deals with the ways we respond to films ethically. Often discussions about ethics in film are limited to the amount of violence or sexuality. Johnston wants us to consider films as a way of finding a "common moral vocabulary" of moral discourse for important issues we face as a society. His examples in this chapter are the two films that won best picture Academy Awards for 2004, The Sea Inside (Best Foreign Language Film) and Million Dollar Baby (Best Picture). Both films dealt with issues around euthanasia. Johnston looks at the two films to ascertain their understanding of the issues and the way life and death are viewed in the two films. From there he shows the way these films can be useful in our approach to the difficult issues that are dealt with in these films. Whether one accepts euthanasia as moral or not, the discussion of the issues is important for our culture and films can be a catalyst for such dialogue.

Reel Spirituality is an important resource for anyone seeking to better understand the potential film has in theological reflection. For those who wish to find deeper meaning in films than a few hours of entertainment and for those who wish to find new ways of teaching theological concepts, Johnston's new edition of the book is an essential addition to your library.

The Pursuit of Happyness

At one point in The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner considers why Thomas Jefferson in writing the Declaration of Independence enumerated among our unalienable rights not happiness, but the pursuit of happiness. Perhaps, he surmises, happiness is not something in and of itself, but is only known in the pursuit.

The story (inspired by a true story) is about Chris and his son (his wife is there briefly, but soon leaves the family). Chris is bright, but has made some unfortunate choices along the way. He is getting by hand to mouth and sometimes not even that well. He sells an expensive and somewhat unnecessary medical device. Sales are few and far between -- which means no money. Just about the time he makes a little ground, something happens to knock him back down.

He briefly meets a stock broker and sees his very expensive car. He notices many people around him who look happy and they all have the look of money. Chris sets out to become a stock broker. The trick is that it involves an unpaid intern program -- 20 interns trying to impress the bosses so that they will be the one person hired. If every thing goes just right, Chris will have just enough to scrape by through the program. The film, of course, would not be very interesting if everything went right.

Chris is a hard worker. He struggles to be the best in the class. He takes care of his son, even when they are homeless. He travels the Bay Area on weekends to try to sell yet another of the bone scanners so he'll have a bit of income. All for a dream that can crash at anytime.

Through all this time, we continue to see Chris struggling in poverty and not finding happiness, only pursuing it. We also see many happy people, people who have jobs and money and all the accoutrements. All through the film, we seem to be told that happiness is tied to wealth and prosperity.

After taking the important test that will be a big part in the choice of who will get the job, Chris remembers back to high school when he would do well on a test and the joy that came from knowing he had done well and the kinds of opportunities that were open to him. It is at that point that the filmmakers drop their bomb. Happiness, Chris sees, is not in money, but in fulfillment. He still needs to be hired as a stockbroker, but he knows that the happiness is truly found in the pursuit and in the striving to be all that he can be instead of settling for what he has become.

That is a powerful point. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul includes joy among the fruits of the spirit. There is a spiritual component to happiness. Happiness is not the result of wealth or its trappings. Happiness comes from within us. It may not be easy to discover and bring to the surface, but it is available to us. It often involves coming to grips spiritually with all the problems that that block our lives from being fulfilled.

Ironically, and unfortunately, the filmmakers eventually undermine their own argument. After the story ends, they note on screen how much money Chris went on to make. It may be factual, but for this story, and especially for the moral they have worked so hard to give us, it is irrelevant.

That unfortunate note aside, this is still a feel good movie in which we see the love Chris has for his son and his dedication to achieving something better for his son and for himself. We know that we too can pursue happiness if we are willing to strive to fulfill our potential.

Absolute Wilson

Robert Wilson may be an artists' artist. That is, his avant-garde creativity is especially appealing to other creative people. His work may not be quite as approachable for the average person and doesn't really fit into a mass market art world. That is why you may not have heard of him or seen any of his work. Absolute Wilson gives us a chance to see glimpses of his work and, more importantly, meet an interesting man.

His works often have an amazing scope. He once directed a play in Iran that took place twenty-four hours a day for seven days. His planned play for the Los Angeles Olympics Arts Festival was to be twelve hours in six parts and involve several different nations. He has worked with dancers and with opera singers and with music as diverse as Philip Glass, David Byrne, and Tom Waits. Depending on your perspective, he might be called visionary or pretentious. But his work is certainly far from ordinary.

However, the person we meet in the film seems very much like someone you might meet on the street and like. There are things about him that one might even find admirable. He grew up as the son of the mayor of Waco, Texas. It was a restrictive setting for him. That restrictiveness took on a physical manifestation in a stutter. Eventually, a dance teacher told him to just slow down -- not just speaking, but everything. That slowing down gave him a new perspective on life -- and helped get rid of his stutter.

In the clips of his works that are included in the film, we see a bit of this slowing down. Body movement is an integral part of his plays. All of his works are built around the physical presence of those on stage.

He has a certain affinity for those who are outsiders. While in school he worked with hyperactive children by giving them movement therapy -- just getting them to move around in various ways. Later he took in a deaf and mute boy who had no way of communication. He also worked with an autistic child of a friend in ways to bring new life to the boy through art. The way he shares art with these children with various handicaps is not so much giving them art as therapy, but giving them the life that is inherent in art.

It is that idea of life found in art that is central to this film. It is not so much about the creative process as it is about how Wilson's life is bound in his art and the way he keeps finding new ways to express the life that comes out in his art. It is through his work and the work he facilitates in others that his life is seen. I'm not sure if the correct way of viewing the connection is that life is art or that art is life. Perhaps the answer to the choice is a simple "yes".

The ironic part of the film is that as you watch it, you know this is not the kind of film that Wilson would make himself. It is a very conventional documentary with interviews with talking heads (including one of The Talking Heads), film clips of his works, and vintage photos from his early life.

The Good German

From the vintage Warner Brothers logo at the beginning of the film, it's obvious that The Good German is trying to be retro. Black and white, overbearing mood-directing score heavy on strings, a slight tendency to overacting that falls just short of camp, everything about it seems designed to take us back to films of a previous generation. Director Steven Soderbergh obviously wants this film to be a Humphrey Bogart film.

For those not old enough to know about Bogie, he often played a tough guy, but with a soft spot. As Sam Spade or Philip Marlow or Rick Blaine, he seemed to care only about the case or himself, but in the end, he was always doing the right thing even if it cost him everything. The Good German is a film about doing the right thing.

The story revolves around Jake Geismer, a war correspondent sent to Berlin soon after the fall of Nazi Germany to cover the Potsdam Conference to divide up Germany. Before the war he had been the AP bureau chief in Berlin, so he has contacts there. One of those contacts is Lena Brandt, who worked as a stringer for him before the war. He also carried on an affair with her. They meet again, but soon she becomes the heart of a mystery involving murder, rocket scientists and Lena's husband who has been reported killed in the war. The Russians are involved. American intelligence is involved. And Jake is trying to do what he can to help his former lover (and maybe win her love again.)

The plot twists around like The Maltese Falcon. The love story between Jake and Lena has overtones of Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca (including the final scene). Like I said, this film wants to be a Bogie movie. Unfortunately George Clooney isn't Humphrey Bogart. He just doesn't carry the tough/tender dichotomy that Bogie pulled off so well. Cate Blanchett does a good job creating a Marlene Dietrich type character that is the opposite of a Bogart character, with the toughness hidden under the vulnerability.

The film finally comes down to a few people who try to do what is right -- to tell the truth, even if it is inconvenient to the powers that are fighting over the intellectual resources of the defeated Germany. In a Bogie movie, doing what is right would have been all that mattered in the end. In this film we wonder if anyone really cares about what is right -- or if they all just seek their own right.

It is of interest that all but one of the American characters in the film have German names (e.g., Geismer, Schaeffer, Muller, Teitel). As we wonder who the eponymous good German is, we are not limited to those who have survived the bombings and war, we are asked to think about all those who are seeking that self-defined right action and consider if there is an overarching morality that defines what is right. In this is the center of the kinds of moral discussion that need to take place in a world where spin and deception so often control the narrative of the issues our culture needs to face.

Bogie would have known.

The Secret Life of Words

... and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5, RSV)

In The Secret Life of Words we see a young woman who lives very much in her own world, even when she is in the midst of other people. Hanna works in a factory, but doesn't interact with the other workers; she just keeps doing her job. It helps that she's nearly deaf and often has her hearing aid turned off. She is a bit compulsive. She eats chicken, white rice, and apple every day. She uses a new bar of soap each day, throwing away an almost unused bar. She never misses a day for sickness or for vacation. But she's called in to the manager's office and told she has to take vacation. So she goes on a bus tour to the coast. There, while eating lunch, she overhears a man on a cell phone wondering where they can find a nurse to go out on an offshore oil rig to care for an injured man. Hanna volunteers.

There are only a handful of men on the rig, it may well be shut down after the accident that caused the injury (and killed one man). There she cares for Josef who was badly burned and has some broken bones. He is gregarious; she is withdrawn. But they spend a great deal of time together, so slowly they develop a certain rapport. Underneath that rapport, though, there is much they don't know about each other.

Much of the story revolves around isolation. Hanna is isolated by her deafness, Josef by his injuries and immobility, the oil rig is isolated. We see some of the ways the people on the rig deal with their isolation, but it never goes away. They may all be there because of a desire for isolation. Even when on the phone, Hanna never talks. She occasionally calls a therapist, but only listens while the therapist figures out who it is. She also listens to a message left on Josef's cell phone.

Who knows why people opt for such isolation? It goes far beyond wanting to have some quiet time. It is in some ways a total escape from life.

One of the men on the platform is there to count the waves that hit the platform and study the amount of stress it can withstand. The steel that the rig is made of may be strong, but not strong enough to constantly bear up against the constant onslaught of the ocean. Everything has its limits. Everyone has his or her limit. Life is very like the constant motion of the waves beating against the platform. Without ways of strengthening ourselves, we will all in time be beaten down.

In time we learn what it is that led Hanna to such isolation. Her whole life is lived to keep away a past she cannot deal with. Josef's isolation is not so much a choice as the result of his actions -- actions that he traces back to a wrong choice on his part.

But when these two people so isolated get beyond the walls they have built around them, they have a chance to find healing -- healing that can only come from someone with wounds of their own.

The concept of the wounded healer goes back as far as the Greek myth of Asclepius. The concept is seen in psychiatry and also in theology, where scholars look back to the Isaiah's Servant Songs (one of which is referenced above). The identity of that Servant has been debated, but many Christians see strong connections between that Servant and the ministry and sacrifice of Jesus. The cross becomes the means by which all people are reconciled to God. Through the suffering of Christ, we are healed.

So too do Hanna and Josef bring healing to each other, not in spite of their own deep wounds (both physical and emotional) but through their wounds and the identity they have with others who are wounded.

The identity of the Servant is not limited to Christ; it also is a very fitting way for us to see ourselves. We are all wounded. Some have more serious wounds than others, but we all have them. If we let our wounds isolate us from others, we will never find the healing we need. Nor will others find in us the healing we can bring to them. It is only through a community of wounded healers that we will ever be able to nurse the world back to health.

I caught this film during the one week it played in Los Angeles, making it eligible for various nominations. I don't know if it will get those nominations or any broader release. This is one of the films I may have to mourn never really getting a chance to be seen and appreciated.

The mission concludes

As the new year opens before us, the mission comes to a close.

Yesterday, being New Year's Eve, we stayed close to home. Jane had a dessert to make for the dinner we were going to, but after that we made a trip to the local theater to see The Pursuit of Happyness. It's a nice feel good movie. Then a brief trip to Barnes and Noble to exchange a couple of books. Then home to work on a couple reviews and to do some consideration of rankings for Darrel's Dozen so I can get it up in a timely fashion.

Saw the new year in playing Would You Rather and dominoes with friends. Jane won Would You Rather when we all gave her a pass on having to do a major booty shaking on one of the challenges.

This morning we went to Santa Monica for the last of the films before we go back to work. We saw The Good German. It's Soderbergh and Clooney doing a Bogie movie. The down side is that Clooney ain't Bogart. I liked it more than Jane did, but it's nothing major. Strangely, at the complex where we saw this, The Good Shepherd was playing at the next screen over. Between the two sat a very well behaved police dog -- The Good German Shepherd. After the movie we went to Le Pain Quoditien for lunch - very nice.

All good things must come to an end, and so does our vacation-mission. We really did very well at our task. We started with 15 movies on our list. We discarded one, saw 12 and have only Venus and We Are Marshall remaining on the list we had. And we managed to get some trips in to Pasadena, Hollywood and Santa Monica. We never thought we'd make it to them all, but we did damn well. Of course, there are other movies opening later this week, so our "to see" list will continue to grow -- life is good.

Pan's Labyrinth

WARNING: there are some spoilers in this review. I mark them with red warnings.

There was once a princess from the land of fairy tales who got lost and forgot who she was. If she doesn't find her way back, she'll be doomed to live in the world of people, grow old and die. Or so the legend says at the beginning of Pan's Labyrinth.

In 1944 Spain, Ofelia travels with her pregnant mother to her stepfather's house. He is a captain in Franco's army. He is bent on wiping out the last of the guerilla bands that continue to fight the long past civil war. Her mother pleads with her to accept this man as her father, but Ofelia refuses. We soon discover that the captain is a sadistic man who relishes the killing and torture he inflicts on the rebels.

After she arrives at the house, Ofelia meets a fairy (or is it only her imagination in looking at a large winged bug?) who leads her down a dark hole in the ancient labyrinth on the grounds. There she meets a faun who tells her she must accomplish three tasks to be restored to her place as princess. Her father is anxious to welcome her back.

Soon thereafter her mother's pregnancy confines her to bed so Ofelia is left on her own. In the meanwhile, the rebel forces are struggling to withstand the violence of Captain Vidal. Ofelia proves to be a brave girl, both in the fantasy realm and in the real world of Captain Vidal's house. But the tasks in both worlds may be too much for her.

The film revolves around the differences and similarities between the real and fantasy worlds. Both include violence and treachery. There are things to fear all around, but it is hard to know who one can trust in either world. The real world people in Ofelia's life think she is just acting out the fairy tales she is so fond of, but the viewer can see the connection and interaction between these two worlds.

It is important that Ofelia will not accept the Captain as her father; that would make her a part of his world, a world her mother may not approve of, but accepts for the security it provides. In the real world security is achieved through strength. In the fantasy world, security is the gift of grace. Even if one fails to do what was instructed, there is still the possibility of welcome.

This is a story about immortality. The Captain sees in the unborn son that his wife is carrying his own immortality. The son (it could be nothing else) will be an extension of his life and name. Through that son the Captain will live forever. He cares about nothing as much as that son, even though it is not yet born. Even when his wife's pregnancy gets complicated, he tells the doctor that if a choice must be made, to save the child even if the mother must die.

But we discover that that immortality is really a shallow pretense. In the end that son will not provide the immortality the Captain seeks. [SPOILERS] After the child is born and the rebels have the Captain surrounded, before they kill the Captain, they tell the Captain the child will never even hear his name. [END SPOILERS]

For Ofelia, on the other hand, there is a kind of immortality. Her immortality though, is not of this world, but of the fairy tale world that she belongs to.

It is as the legend tells us at the beginning, a matter of remembering who we are and to what world we belong. It is a matter of remembering whose child we are -- a child of this world, or the child of a father in a world that others may not see or understand.