Amazon Review: "Watching Movies, Watching Stories"

My Amazon review of my friend Troy Kinney's new book Watching Movies, Watching Stories: An Interactive Guide for Engaging Culture Through Film.

Richard Klaus

5.0 out of 5 starsAn Enlightening and Interactive Guide to Movies!

November 10, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a fun and exciting book which repays huge dividends for its relatively 

small size (about 150 pages). Here are a few items to consider:

1. It is truly interactive. The judicious use of QR codes throughout the book to give 

examples from actual film clips is innovative. When Troy Kinney writes about 

the various elements of film (lighting, sound, camera, editing, etc.) he then provides

 a number of examples through the use of the QR codes. It's like having an expert 

film reviewer show you the elements of film in actual time. I found this use of QR 

codes to be effective and infectious--I kept turning the page wanting to see "just

a few more" snippets!

2. Troy Kinney ably works through the basic grammar of film-making. His 

discussions of camera angle, focus, and movement was educational. Again,

 through the effective use of QR codes the reader is able to not only read 

about these elements but to experience them. I particularly enjoyed the 

discussion about the use of the camera in "Rocky" during the famous ascent

 up the steps. There are actually two scenes in the movie with Rocky running

 up the steps and the placement of the camera tells its own story...but you'll 

have to read the book to get the full story!

3. Troy Kinney is always looking for integration in at least two areas. First, 

although he analyzes the individual elements of film he is keen to keep his

 eye (and our eye) on the final product--the whole story of any individual film.

 The importance of editing is discussed as well as the flow of the whole story. 

Troy Kinney guides the reader in understanding the major kinds of allusions 

found in many films and gives helpful counsel on how to watch for this element.

 Second, Troy Kinney is a Christian and he seeks to provide an integrated Christian

 worldview when watching films. From this perspective, he leads the reader into

 discussions of "messianic" themes in various movies. Troy Kinney is able to 

educate and inform so that Christian film-watchers can be confident in their 

abilities to analyze films correctly and confidently. There is no need for the 

fear that paralyzes much of contemporary Christianity when it comes to culture

 and Troy Kinney is an able guide to movie-watching in this regard.

What I Would Say to a Hollywood Executive

 * Covenant Eyes recently had a write-in contest.  They encouraged people to respond to the following (in 500 words or less)-“If you are at the Movieguide Gala sitting with one of the top 300 influencers of Hollywood, what would you say to that person?”  Below is my entry (which didn't win!):

“As a Christian could I mention a couple things to you?  The first thing I want to say is that we in the Christian community have not always done well in interacting with and responding to Hollywood.  I’m not an official spokesman or anything like that but I would offer my apologies for some of our behavior.  We haven’t always appreciated true artistic beauty.  Even when our moral instincts about certain movies have been correct we have not always responded in a reasoned and effective manner.  We serve and worship a God of infinite creativity but we, as His people, are sometimes close-minded and dull.  We are getting better, I think, at engaging with the cinematic media and some in the Christian community are even trying their hand at movie making but we have more work to do.

“Second, I hope that Hollywood will not pander to the Christian community.  There can be a temptation to think that Christians only enjoy Bible-centered stories or moralistic tales where everyone has a happy ending.  The irony is that movies attempting to capture a biblical narrative rarely work well.  The reason is that we see the Bible as God’s revelation to us and it functions in profoundly shaping ways in our communities.  There is both a theological and existential engagement with the text of Scripture among most Christians so our expectations are already very high when we go see a movie centered on a biblical story or character.  To be honest, we are often disappointed by the dissonance we experience when we see how Hollywood treats our sacred text.  Also, we need more than trite morality plays.  I say this not to demean you or your profession but, rather, to encourage you to challenge us, the Christian community.  Our recent forays into movie making are often of the moralistic-everything-ends-fine type.  We need to be challenged to something deeper. 

“If I had to put the challenge we need into words it might be adequately expressed this way: Give us that which is True, Good, and Beautiful.  There are movies that debase the viewer and there are movies that enliven and ennoble.  This doesn’t always mean that the ending is happy.  We need to see the truth of a broken world—the Bible doesn’t shy away from this reality.  This doesn’t mean there won’t be violence but there are movies that glorify and perpetuate violence and there are movies that, although they depict violence, render the viewer moved to morally stand opposed to injustice.  By “beautiful” I don’t mean only sunsets and daisies.  There can be a stark beauty in a barren landscape artfully filmed to produce in the viewer a sense of abandonment or aching breathlessness.  We need truth, goodness, and beauty.  I submit that all of humanity needs such virtues displayed and enacted in front of them.  Give us what we need—not simply what we want.”

The Genre of Horror

My wife was teaching a literature class and she was discussing Poe's work as an early example of horror.  Some of the students wondered why they needed to read this genre.  She asked me to speak for a few minutes on why we need this type of literature.  I read some in the work of Brian Godawa.  His essay "A Theology of Horror Movies" was originally published in Chalcedon Journal (May and June, 2002) and can be found online.  I also came across his piece An Apologetic of Horror after I shared with the students.

Part of what I tried to do was to show that the Bible itself contains images of horror.  I looked at the following passages: Jeremiah 9.20-22; Ezekiel 9.1-11 (esp. vv. 5-8); Ezekiel 16.1-43; Revelation 14.9-12, 14-20.  Many of these are set in the context of idolatry.  We grow comfortable with our God-dishonoring ways and the biblical portrait of the radical evil of rejecting the living God is needed.  There are also a number of texts speaking about cannibalism: Deuteronomy 28.53; 2 Kings 6.28-29; Jeremiah 19.9; Lamentations 2.20; 4.10; Ezekiel 5.10.  I also spoke of a few texts in Proverbs linking illicit sex with the images of destruction: Proverbs 7.1-27; 9.13-18.

Here a few quotations from Godawa's An Apologetic of Horror:

The prophet Daniel wrote horror literature, based on images and drama pitched by God to him in Babylon. Not only did God turn the blaspheming king Nebuchadnezzar into an insane wolfman to humble his idolatrous pride (Dan. 4), but He storyboarded horror epics for kings Belshazzar and Darius as allegories of the historical battle between good and evil to come. Huge hybrid carnivorous monsters come out of the sea like Godzilla, one of them with large fangs and ravishing claws to devour, crush, and trample over the earth (7:1–8) until it is slain and its flesh roasted in fire (7:11); there are blasphemous sacrileges causing horror (8:13), including an abomination of desolation (9:26–27); angels and demons engaging in spiritual warfare (10:13); rivers of fire (7:10); deep impact comets and meteors colliding with the earth, Armageddon style (8:10); wars, desolation, and complete destruction (9:26-27). The book of Daniel reads like God’s own horror film festival.

.... 

 The book of Revelation is an epic horror fantasy sequel to Daniel, complete with science fiction special effects, and spectacles of horror darker than anything in a David Cronenberg Grand Guignol theater of blood. In this apocalyptic prophecy we read of a huge demonic spectacle of genetically mutated monsters chasing and tormenting scream ing people (9:1–11); armies of bizarre beasts wreaking death and destruction on the masses (9:13–18); a demonic dragon chasing a woman with the intent to eat her child (12:3–4); a seven-headed amphibious Hydra with horns that blasphemes God and draws pagan idol worship from everyone on earth (13:1–10); massive famines (6:8); gross outbreaks of rotting sores covering people’s bodies (16:2); plagues of demonic insects torturing populations (9:1–11); fire-breathing Griffon-like creatures (9:17); supernatural warfare of angels and demons (12:7); the dragging of rotting corpses through the streets while people party over them (11:7–13); rivers and seas of blood (14:20; 16:3); a blaspheming harlot doing the deed with kings and merchants (17:1-5) who then turn on her, strip her naked, burn her with fire, and cannibalize her (17:16); more famines, pestilence, and plagues (18:8); and when the good guys win, there is a mighty feast of vultures scavenging the flesh of kings and commanders in victory (19:17–18). And I might add, this all gives glory to God in the highest. 

...

This is exactly the tactic God uses with his prophets under both Old and New Covenants. God uses horrific explicit images in order to put up a mirror to cultures of social injustice and spiritual defilement. God used gang rape of a harlot and dismemberment of her body as a metaphor of Israel’s spiritual apostasy (Ezek. 16, 23), and the resurrection of skeletal remains as a symbol for the restoration of his people within the covenant (Ezek. 37). Our holy, loving, kind, and good God also used the following horror images to visually depict cultural decay and social injustice: skinning bodies and cannibalism (Mic. 3:1–3); Frankenstein replacement of necrotic body parts (Ezek. 11:19); cannibalism (Ezek. 36:13–14; Ps. 27:2; Prov. 30:14; Jer. 19:9; Zech 11:9); vampirism (2 Sam. 23:17; Rev. 16:6); cannibals and vampires together (Ezek. 39:18–19); rotting flesh (Lam 3:4; 4:8; Ps. 31:9–10; 38:2–8; Ezek. 24:3, 33:10; Zech 14:12); buckets of blood across the land (Ezek. 9:9, 22:2–4); man-eating beasts devouring people and flesh (Ezek. 19:1-8; 22:25, 27; 29:3; Dan. 7:5; Jer. 50:17); crushing and trampling bodies and grinding faces (Amos 4:1; 8:4; Isa. 3:15); and bloody murdering hands (Isa. 1:15, 59:3; Mic. 7:2–3). Horror is a strongly biblical medium for God’s social commentary.

 

Cloud Atlas and One-ism

There is an interesting discussion of the new movie Cloud Atlas over at The New York Review of Books that delves into the intellectual foundations and inspirations for the movie's ideas.  Cloud Atlas is brought to us by the same guys that brought us The Matrix--well, sort of.  The Matrix was done by the Wachowski brothers--Larry and Andy.  One of the brothers has gone and got himself "de-duded" and is now transgendered Lana.  So they know get referred to as the Wachowski siblings.  Anyway, these siblings continue to push their version of monistic philosophy in their films.  They find inspiration in the writings of Ken Wilber.  For Christians wanting to engage the underlying philosophy they should read Peter Jones' One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference in which Wilber's philosophy comes in for brief  analysis.

Paul Verhoeven's Jesus Film--Get Ready!

Paul Verhoeven is well-known in the movie industry.  He is the director of Robocop (1987), Total Recall (1990), and Basic Instinct (1992).  Perhaps less well-known to movie-goers is his long time interest in historical Jesus studies.  He was a fellow of the Jesus Seminar--the only fellow on the list who did not hold a degree in biblical studies.  On the back cover of the Jesus Seminar's book The Gospel of Mark: Red Letter Edition (Polebridge Press, 1990) he writes:

I started reading the Gospels when I was twenty.  I'm fifty-two now, and all these years I've been trying to figure out who Jesus was: what really did do, what he really did say.  The publication of Red Letter Mark is a major event in the quest for the historical Jesus.  

Five years ago, I decided to make a movie about Jesus.  But not just any movie.  I determined to base my script on the words and deeds of Jesus that scholars accept as "authentic."  It is superfluous to make another movie about Jesus that dwells in the realms of mythology, fairy tale, and legend.  This is the reason I engaged the Jesus Seminar as my consultant. 

That was back in 1991.  Well it seems that his movie is going to finally be made.  The details can be found over at Deadline.com and The Playlist.  Verhoeven published a book on Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth) which will serve as the basis of his movie.

The movie is sure to cause controversy.  Verhoeven takes the view that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier named Pantera and that Jesus is the offspring from this forced union.  Of course, all the miracles of Jesus are denied although Jesus is presented as an exorcist casting out demons--psychosomatically induced cures, I'm guessing.  Verhoeven's Jesus is a thoroughly naturalistic figure without any sense of supernaturnalism.

What will be of interest is how the evangelical community responds to this movie.  In 1988 Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ was vilified by evangelicals and boycotts were the strategy of choice.  This simply ramped up the publicity for the film.  In 2003 Dan Brown published The Da Vinci Code which was followed by the movie in 2006.  This time the evangelical community more wisely responded to the errors.  A small cottage industry of books responding to and refuting the claims about Jesus and Christianity developed.  Among the better responses that I read were Ben Witherington's The Gospel Code (IVP, 2004) and Darrell Bock's Breaking the Da Vinci Code (Nelson, 2004).  This approach strengthened the church apologetically without creating an emotional environment of hysteria.  The church should be confident and informed about Jesus.  If the world wants to talk about Jesus--even if foolishly and blasphemously--the church should be ready to talk to this issue in a reasoned and effective manner.  The non-miraculous, naturalized "Jesuses" always fall flat in comparison to the real Jesus of history as found in the canonical gospels.

If Verhoeven's movie is done well--and all indications point this way--then Jesus will once again be a topic in the national conversation for a time.  We should prepare to respond well and thus honor the One who has the name above all names.

New Movie on Hell--"Hellbound?"

There's a new movie on hell coming out this Fall...

It's a documentary and includes such people as: Brian McLaren, Bob Larson, Justin Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, Mark Driscoll, Greg Boyd, Peter Kreeft, and Frank Schaeffer.  It also includes someone called "Oderus Urungus" who is billed as a vocalist from "Gwar"--he looks as weird as his name (he's the "guy" on the right; guy on the left is Dee Synder).

You can check out trailer for the movie and comments from director on the official website: Hellboundthemovie.