It’s Friday afternoon, and even though we’re both tired from a long week, we are determined to find a sitter and see a movie. While we wait to hear if one of our regular babysitters is available, I look through the movie listings.
Frozen — Seen it.
American Hustle — Could be good, but not interested in a crime drama.
Her — Probably an amazing film, but I don’t want to contemplate modern life’s disordered view of love and technology on my date night, any more than I have to.
The Wolf of Wall Street — Again, could be good, but I’m really not interested in thinking about someone’s debauched lifestyle tonight.
The Legend of Hercules — Wish this movie was only a legend. I’ll pass and wait for I, Frankenstein.
Archorman 2 — Probably good for a few laughs, but that’s about it.
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smug Fans — Too long. And poorly reviewed.
Hunger Games: Catching Fire — Seen it.
Inside Llewyn Davis — I had to read some Paul Tripp I was so depressed after watching the trailer.
Grudge Match — Nope.
Nebraska — More Paul Tripp.
Walking with Dinosaurs — for kids and probably terrible.
We stayed home.
We were looking for a well-told story that was ultimately hopeful and maybe even lovely.
As I’ve grown older, become a parent, and witnessed more than a few tragedies close to home, I’ve found it harder and harder to find anything pleasant to watch. It’s not that I have elitist taste in films—I’m not the kind to insist on seeing the latest foreign or indie film. I appreciate arthouse films and deeply evocative portrayals of life’s grandeur and tragedy. I think Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of the greatest retellings of Dostoevsky and a profound exploration of modern secular existence. But I can only handle these films rarely and in just the right state of mind, or risk being consumed by their aesthetics and mood.
But if the alternative is a light-hearted comedy rump; a thinly written action film; or a saccharine, “family friendly” uplifting story; I’d rather stay home. It’s not worth my time. Poorly written stories don’t refresh my soul, they don’t inspire my imagination, and they don’t make me feel the richness of existing in God’s world.
Straightforward Story
For adults, sometimes it feels as though we must choose between aesthetically excellent films that will depress us and poorly written stories that will merely distract us. We long for a good movie to keep us interested, to draw us into the adventure or drama, to keep us laughing, or horrified, or titillated. Film is a spectacle whose purpose is to captivate us. Or we watch movies to be challenged philosophically, to feel life’s mysteries deeply, to question the world around us. All these things are good and worthy of pursuing. But I don’t want us to overlook the value of a good, well-told, popular story.
I have in mind films that tend to eschew dark subject matter and complex narratives and richly symbolic imagery for a more straightforward story. And yet, they do not slip into the shoddy storytelling and artistry of many of the more “entertainment”-styled films. I think of the better Pixar movies (WALL-E and Up), and Super-8, Young Frankenstein, the Marx Brothers, and more recently The World’s End (despite its gratuitous, coarse language). These films have a relatively simple plot and dialogue, but they have a richness of detail that sets them apart. The acting and script are well done. The pacing is just right. The music is appropriate, never invasive. The cinematography strives for something above rote camera angles and framing. These are simply beautiful films, even though they may not win best picture or rank among the top films of the year for critics.
A well-known example is Pixar’s Up. Yes, there are weak points, moments when the jokes get as thin as typical G-rated, animated films, but those are the exception. Most of the dialogue is clever and deeply moving. It portrays a vision of love and death that is so foreign to our modern sensibilities. Of course, the very beginning of the film which shows Carl and Ellie’s life together is poignant, truthful, and beautiful, but had the film stopped there, it wouldn’t be the kind of film I’m trying to describe—it wouldn’t be a well-made, hopeful film. Thankfully, the film doesn’t end there, and Carl and Russell come to form a loving relationship through their adventure and as they come to realize the other person’s needs. The movie concludes by affirming the goodness of human relationships, even in the face of death and decay. Up is a beautiful and pleasurable film.
These kinds of films have value beyond entertainment, and I don’t want us to miss this value. A good story can draw us into an imaginative world that our minds need to rest and play in. Peter Berger, in his monumental A Rumor of Angels, argues that play and laughter are “signals of transcendence,” or “proto-typical human experiences” that point to an order of being beyond our existence. For example, when we play, we enter an atemporal space. Time moves slowly if at all. We lose track of time as we get drawn into our imaginations and joy. Similarly, he argues that humor is a radical experience. It defies all the tragedies of existence. But we always choose to laugh anyway.
A good story draws us out of our moment-by-moment existence by inviting us to play in an alternate existence where order reigns. Characters are motivated by clear goals. Good triumphs. And we delight in the beauty of existence. That isn’t to say that everything in these worlds is ideal; bad things still happen to the characters, and they have to overcome them. But they do overcome them.
In a well-made comedy this experience of play is complemented by humor. Sometimes humor trivializes deeply tragic human experiences; we rightly reject this kind of humor as offensive. The “humor” in Bad Grandpa is an example. But other humor, in the right spirit, reorients us toward the truth of redemption. It can remind us that our daily “sufferings” are petty and ultimately don’t define our lives, that even our great sufferings don’t have the final say. Christ has undone death. Humor can thus remind us that as terrible as death and suffering can be, they are not the final word—there’s something truer at work. In a similar way, humor that mocks our fallenness (perhaps even our sin) may remind us that our condition, while serious, is not terminal in Christ.
We need these times. We need good stories about struggling to learn what it means to be in God’s world. We need time out of ordinary time to reorient our hope, that in Christ death does not have the final say, that our weaknesses are laughable even as they are real and tragic. Such stories revive us; they remind us of the mercies of God, his common grace. They remind us that despite feeling that our world is mired in chaos and violence, this isn’t the right and good state of things, and it won’t always be this way.
Well-made, light-hearted films are not as common or as popular as they ought to be, but they are perhaps more valuable than we realize.
Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?
In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
