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The rise and fall and rise of "What movie had the greatest impact on you, in a religious sense, when you were younger?" A colleague and I were asked that question recently by a reporter. Jimmy is a Baby Boomer in his ‘50s. I am the quintessential Gen-Xer at 32. Jimmy responded, "Ben Hur." I said, "Planet of the Apes." If there is a clearer example of the fault line between moderns and postmoderns, somebody send me an email. Ask your parents about "religious" movies and they will spout off titles such as Quo Vadis or The Ten Commandments. Ask a Gen-Xer about religious films and the list may include Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and a half-dozen X Files episodes. A Millennial might say Seven or The Matrix. What makes the difference? In years past, formal religious training -- Sunday school, catechism and the like -- could be counted on to shape the spiritual sensibilities of the young. That’s no longer guaranteed, or even likely. For Americans coming of age in a postmodern world, religious training occurs at the hands of popular culture and personal experience. That makes film and other mass media the primary sources of popular theology and mythology today. They help define what we value and how we conceptualize God. Film is proving a very effective tutor, by the way, whether or not you like the message. Films raise important questions about life, questions the church too often is unwilling to ask. The church’s silence forces many of us into dialogue with popular culture in search of answers. All this doesn’t mean we’re not learning about Jesus through popular culture. He’s a fixture in Hollywood, although you might not always recognize his various mutations. Can’t find him in the credits? Here’s why. Cardboard Jesus Like my friend Jimmy, many people associate Hollywood’s spiritual agenda with what the film industry calls "the religious epic," those big-budget biblical dramas with the big-name actors. Baby Boomers were raised on these. As church attendance soared after World War II, so did the popularity of the religious epics of the 1950s, which were a reflection of post-war optimism. The epics were the top-grossing films of the era because everyone was eager to see movies promoting ethics and values. One of the most famous and influential movies of this era was King of Kings (1961). It was a remake of the 1927 Cecil B. DeMille movie of the same name, which was the first film to depict Jesus on screen. Earlier movies showed Jesus only as a shadowy figure or kept him off-screen altogether. Critics lambasted the 1961 film mostly for its main character. Hoping to broaden generational appeal, the studio had cast a teen idol in the title role, and credibility was instantly tossed. Four years later came The Greatest Story Ever Told. Again, the main target of criticism was Jesus. The Swedish actor Max Von Sydow was ridiculed for presenting a Jesus who acted like a robot: no emotion. Despite the popularity of the religious epics, Jesus never really made it as a movie icon. So Hollywood took another route. Rebel with a cause The cultural upheaval of the late 1960s demanded a new kind of Jesus. The most interesting musicians and film characters of the time were rebels. So eventually Jesus had to become the dissenter. Cool Hand Luke (1967) marked a crucial transition and a defining moment in the way movies presented Jesus. Screenwriters discovered that it is not only possible but also quite effective to take the bare elements of the Jesus story and place them in a present-day setting. Paul Newman plays Luke Jackson, a man sentenced to hard labor for destroying parking meters. In prison, Luke recruits "disciples" and tries to make hard time more endurable, even fun -- doing things like wagering on whether he can eat 50 boiled eggs at once. Of course, conflict with the prison establishment is inevitable for this rebel. When he turns the arduous task of repaving a highway into a joyous game, the guards begin to fear his influence. From that moment on, the establishment knows there is a troublemaker in their midst, and they plot to ruin Luke. Cool Hand Luke even concludes with two scenes that recall Jesus’ Gethsemane and crucifixion. Pursued by the prison guards, Luke stands in an abandoned chapel and asks God, "Is this the way it has to be?" Then he is gunned down unjustly by the guards’ fearsome leader who hides behind his ever-present sunglasses -- the spiritually blind "man with no eyes." A "post-resurrection" scene follows in which Luke’s disciples reflect on their experiences with him. The Cool Hand Luke formula was later duplicated with critical success in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Dead Poets Society (1989). Both films have a "Judas" and a resurrection scene that vindicates the martyred non-conformist. Unlikely redeemer What made this shift from the Jesus of King of Kings to the Jesus of Dead Poets Society inevitable? Adapting Jesus is nothing new. It happened in art. In the Greek-influenced early Christian communities, Jesus looked like Apollo. For medievals, he was the stern warrior. Renaissance painters unveiled a softer Italian Jesus. In today’s medium of film, Jesus is the unlikely redeemer -- in the classroom of Dead Poets or in the home of an abused child as in Sling Blade. Karl Childress (Billy Bob Thornton) is released from an Arkansas mental hospital after serving 25 years for the murder of his mother and her teenaged lover. Returning to his hometown, he meets a young boy named Frank who lost his father to suicide. An odd but redemptive friendship develops between Karl and Frank and his mother. Karl moves into the family’s garage, much to the displeasure of Doyle, the mother’s abusive boyfriend. Doyle terrorizes the boy and Karl, whom he constantly refers to as "that retard." Like Jesus, who dined with "tax collectors and sinners," Karl makes enemies by eating with the town’s outcasts -- two homosexual men and a mentally handicapped woman. Doyle, Sling Blade’s Pharisee, is appalled and refuses to share a table with those outsiders. Karl determines to protect the boy from Doyle’s abuse. Although he tells Frank that killing another person "will send you to Hades," he does exactly that. After a baptism scene and a "farewell discourse," Karl kills Doyle -- an act intended to liberate Frank and his mother from Doyle’s abuse. In doing so, he forfeits his soul for Frank. Messianic consciousness? Does the messianic plot in contemporary film represent a conscious effort by screenwriters to give us a Jesus for our generation? Or is the Jesus plot submerged in the filmmaker’s mind as some repressed memory, unconsciously incarnating itself in an "original" story? George Lucas said, "Religious and mythic elements creep into your writing because you write about what you like." For instance, Lucas’ famous "Luke, I am your father" scene from The Empire Strikes Back parallels Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the gospels. Moving Jesus from ancient Palestine to rural Arkansas works for today’s audiences. Showy presentations of the gospel don’t gel with postmoderns, so don’t expect the biblical epics to make a comeback anytime soon. Most postmoderns can’t identify with a Jesus who sounds like Hamlet. But they can identify with a Karl Childress or a Luke Jackson. These "subdivine" characters come across as believable to a postmodern audience whose mantra is "be real." Who plays Jesus? Filmmakers who would attempt to bring back the biblical epic would face other obstacles as well. To be commercially viable, most movies need a big star like Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise. But you wouldn’t cast either one as Jesus. Filmmakers also wrestle with how to handle Jesus’ divinity. Most of the biblical spectaculars chose to emphasize a "high Christology," since a clearly divine Jesus will offend fewer people. The result was a Jesus who never laughed or struggled with doubt. A more human Jesus -- a "low Christology" as in 1973’s Jesus Christ, Superstar -- is more believable and approachable but is certain to offend the faithful. That’s what happened in 1989, when acclaimed director Martin Scorcese created a very human Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ. Scorcese’s Jesus constantly tussles with uncertainty. He expresses anger because God’s plan for him is ambiguous. He struggles to reconcile his personal longings for a normal, Jewish life with his divine mission. The final sequence in the film features a demon’s vision of what life would be like for Jesus if he abandoned the cross. The possibilities are enticing -- Marriage? A family? -- but Jesus ultimately rejects the offer and carries out his sacrifice. Scorcese, who trained as a Jesuit priest, intended the film to generate discussion. But when early drafts of the script made their way into the evangelical media, the film was branded heretical even before its release. Protests against the film were so boisterous that theater managers across the country were terrified to show it. Last Temptation probably made most studios paranoid about doing "low Christology" period movies. But placing the Jesus story in alternative settings (Cool Hand Luke, Dead Poets, Sling Blade) enables filmmakers to give audiences a more identifiably human Jesus figure without strings attached. Such films carry their own problems, of course. The messianic figures in films like Sling Blade and The Matrix are far from sinless. They get angry. They kill. They question their calling. But that is the limitation, and the advantage, of an adaptation. In the biblical epic, Jesus apparently cannot do any of those things without violating religious sensibilities. Postmodern messiahs What’s next for film messiahs? I wonder what movies yet to be made will influence the spiritual development of the next generation. Movie messiahs of the past two decades, for all their rebelliousness and self-sacrifice, have reflected a fairly consistent a modernist worldview. The Jesus figure may exert a profound moral influence but is shorn of the supernatural powers so integral to the biblical Jesus. That may change. The Green Mile may be the first postmodern messiah movie. Postmoderns are willing to look outside the realms of reason and science for answers. In The Green Mile, John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) is a messianic figure who possesses supernatural power. Coffey (initials J.C.) fits the criteria for the unlikely redeemer: a condemned prisoner and victim of discrimination who weeps over the existence of evil and pain. But never before has this type of movie character actually possessed the ability to cast out demons, raise the dead and judge what lies in a person’s heart. An agonizing death awaits John Coffey, but he accepts it as necessary, while onlookers shake their heads and mock him. Messianic movies like The Green Mile are ready-made for postmoderns, for whom visual images have replaced words as the most powerful channel of truth. By employing these visual metaphors, films have become mediators of the sacred in our society. Our consecrated stories go with us into the theater. The Messianic plot speaks to us because it uses these sacred metaphors. But messianic movies also force us to deconstruct our greeting-card Jesus. They do not pander to our saccharin stereotypes. And that can be very unsettling. To paraphrase author Leonard Sweet, metaphors "make the familiar strange." They break open "our structures of expectation" and "make us receptive to new and fresh insights." Sounds a lot like Jesus to me. - Matt McEver is pastor of New Century Baptist Fellowship in Gainesville, Ga. (mmcever@mindspring.com) 10 cinematic saviors By Rod McClendon The irreverent Monty Python comedy, Life of Brian, follows the travails of Brian Cohen, an unlucky fellow who is constantly defending himself against others' assertions that he is the promised one. "I am not the Messiah!" he shouts at a group of followers. One of them shouts back, "I say you are Lord, and I should know. I've followed a few." If you're looking for messiah figures in the movies, you also can follow a few. The Green Mile clearly demonstrates that messianic types can come in all shapes and sizes. And the cinematic saviors below suggest you can also find a Jesus figure in every film genre. Prison drama The Green Mile (1999) Honorable mention: Cool Hand Luke (1967) Crime story On the Waterfront (1954)"I'm not looking to get crucified," Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) says as he contemplates taking on the corrupt bosses of NYC's union docks. But with a socially activist priest preparing his way, Malloy brings salvation to the workers and suffers a vicious beating for exposing the racketeering. His long, staggering walk back to the warehouse parallels Christ's passion at Calvary. Honorable mention: Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) War Platoon (1986)A Vietnam infantryman experiences what he terms the "battle for the possession of my soul" in a conflict between dueling sergeants Barnes and Elias. The brutal Barnes eventually causes the death of the more peace-loving Elias. Christ imagery is invoked in Elias' death scene. As the men are being airlifted from the scene, we see Elias (Willem Dafoe) stretching out his hands as if to say he has died for his men. Or perhaps Dafoe is just auditioning for his eventual title role in The Last Temptation of Christ. Honorable mention: Apocalypse Now (1979) Fantasy E.T. - The Extraterrestrial (1982) Honorable mention: Edward Scissorhands (1990) Science fiction The Matrix (1999)The Internet rages with debates over whether the symbolism in this one is Christian, Buddhist or a form of Gnosticism. Nevertheless, the symbols are omnipresent in this tale of a liberator named Neo (an anagram of the "One"?) who joins with Morpheus and Trinity to rescue an enslaved humanity from cyber-prison. Honorable mention: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Comedy/Romance Life is Beautiful (1997)This small gem of a movie transcends its genre by labeling itself a fable, a narrative intended to enforce a useful truth. Roberto Begnigni plays the clown as he woos and wins his wife during the film's first half. Then as the movie shifts tone, he miraculously demonstrates the importance of being who you were created to be, even in the midst of a nightmare. A father becomes a messiah for his own son (admittedly a limited atonement) as he shields him from the horrors of a concentration camp. Honorable mention: City Lights (1931) Western High Noon (1952)Saviors are never in short supply in the wide-screen West. But the rugged individualism that permeates these films rarely translates into a life sacrificed. That's true of this classic western as well. But Sheriff Will Kane (Gary Cooper) does at least offer up his life. The ungrateful town he single-handedly saves never seems to get the "Fear not" message. Consequently, their inaction raises Kane to messiah status because he is definitely "rejected by his own." Honorable mention: Dances with Wolves (1990) Action/Adventure The Road Warrior (1982)Today's action/adventure is yesterday's Western with special effects added. The same bootstrap theology guides the genre. This superior sequel to Mad Max features a young, relatively unknown Mel Gibson in a post-apocalypse post-Western. As a lone wanderer who comes to the aid of a community in need, Gibson portrays Max with a passion that suggests Moses, except this Exodus uses more explosives. Honorable mention: Terminator 2: Judgment Day Cult filmsThe Ninth Configuration (1979) Honorable mention: Blade Runner (1982) Book adaptations One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)The rebellious Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) becomes inspiration to an insane asylum. Director Milos Forman actually tones down the messiah overtones present in Ken Kesey's book. But one can still see the parable of a life-giving teacher pitted against a pharisaic opponent. Nurse Ratched, exquisitely portrayed by Louise Fletcher, was truly a cross no one would want to bear, or a bear no one would want to cross. Honorable mention - Billy Budd (1962) - Rod McClendon is a free-lance songwriter, humorist and media center director who lives in Greenville, S.C. (rod222@aol.com)
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