Patrol: I feel like, especially in my generation, there’s this backlash against Christian cheese.
Winter: Look, nobody starts out to make a bad movie. Everyone starts out with good intentions. People have differing skill sets to do that and different reasons and purposes.
I think that movies are better at entertaining people than transmitting content. And I think when we try to convince people of the truth of the Gospel, movies aren’t the way to do that. That’s where you can get in trouble. It would take tremendous skill to make a movie to do that. And I look at movies that just touch on it a little bit.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Ben-Hur. I just saw it—I watch it every Easter. It’s a powerful movie. And you never see Jesus’ face, you never hear him speak. The conversion process that happens for Judah Ben-Hur is after he stands at the cross and sees Jesus, he comes back to Esther, his then sort-of girlfriend, and says, “When he spoke, I felt the sword fall from my hand.”
And you know from that three-hour journey you’ve been on that that’s a big deal to him. And that’s his conversion; it happens off-screen. But you begin to see the results of that, it changes who he is and how he acts. Those are powerful, entertaining stories that make you question why. It would take a very, very skilled filmmaker that could figure out how to do that and be evangelistic without being cheesy. I can’t imagine at that moment what that movie would be. It’s better at asking questions. It’s better as an art form.
I’m not sure I agree with Winter when he says, “I think that movies are better at entertaining people than transmitting content.” The problem with movies such as Fireproof is not that they’re trying to force the form past its boundaries but that they don’t even have the fundamentals down. They don’t understand character. They can’t craft a plot. And the settings are cartoonish. No wonder the themes feel flat. It’s like C.S. said: “Every good book should be entertaining. A good book will be more; it must not be less. Entertainment … is like a qualifying examination.”
I don’t agree with that either. Entertainment is content, and whatever values the entertainment is based on come through in the movie. I remember how the end of Mrs. Doubtfire ruined the movie for me, because Robin Williams’ character should have been able to see that the philosophy he closes the story with is contradicted throughout the movie. The whole time he fights for his wife against a hot boyfriend, but in the end he says to his children sometimes people are better if they live apart. That’s content in a movie. The same could go for Spiderman. No matter what enjoyment you may have gotten from the story, the point you were somewhat hammered with is that we must be responsible with the power we have.
This goes for the Christian fiction genre as well. Christians are to make allowances for the weaknesses of others, but in the arts, we never seem to expect improvement and eventual mastery. In many ways we avoid conflict and hurt feelings by nodding, smiling and reminding ourselves not to damage anyone’s self esteem.
Interesting article at Acton.org. Cheesy Christian Movies and the Art of Narrative. There is an article referenced, “The Leaky Bucket, Why Conservatives Need to Learn the Art of Story” that is very good as well.
I read that Acton Institute commentary the other day. It was quite good. And, Phil, ditto on Doubtfire and Spiderman.