{"id":5206,"date":"2013-02-05T21:59:32","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T02:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5206"},"modified":"2013-02-05T21:59:32","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T02:59:32","slug":"paperman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5206","title":{"rendered":"&quot;Paperman&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aTLySbGoMX0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve seen this short film already.<\/strong> <i>Paperman<\/i> is a black-and-white, almost silent production done by Disney animators using only traditional (non-computer) animation techniques. Everybody loves it, and with good reason.<\/p>\n<p>I have to admit that, being me, I had a mixed reaction at first. Then I realized I was wrong. I want to explain why, because it has to do with the nature of Story.<\/p>\n<p><i>(Spoilers below. Do not read until you\u2019ve watched the film through.)<\/i><\/p>\n<p>My initial, self-oriented response was to say, \u201cLife isn\u2019t like that. The Universe does not step in to make your dreams come true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then I saw that I\u2019d missed the point. The point is that when the Universe took a hand in this couple\u2019s story, it was only after the young man had done everything he could from his own end. He\u2019d made his boss mad, and may have sacrificed his job, for the girl. It\u2019s a little like the merchant in Jesus\u2019 parable, who sold all he had in order to purchase the Pearl of Great Price.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re writing a story, you can permit a <i>Deus Ex Machina<\/i> (I\u2019ve written about this before), but only after you\u2019ve let the character suffer and fail a whole lot. If the audience feels he\u2019s tried his best, and not gotten the reward he deserves, then you can bring the Cosmic Hand in to set things right at the end. If you handle it carefully.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a narrative principle only, by the way. It\u2019s not theological, or only partly theological. Christianity does not teach that you gain God\u2019s acceptance through trying your hardest, followed by God\u2019s pleased intervention to finish the job for you. In Christianity it\u2019s all grace from first to last.<\/p>\n<p>Still, from the experiential point of view, the two things are hard to tell apart. The moment of grace is when the merchant falls in love with the Pearl, when the young man falls in love with the girl. All their efforts afterward are not actually their own accomplishments but entirely the work of God\u2019s grace within, doing business as Love.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a mystery.<\/p>\n<p>Everything is.<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve seen this short film already. Paperman is a black-and-white, almost silent production done by Disney animators using only traditional (non-computer) animation techniques. Everybody loves it, and with good reason. I have to admit that, being me, I had a mixed reaction at first. Then I realized I was wrong. I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5206\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&quot;Paperman&quot;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-writing"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}