Throughout my life, I have always had a fascination for film, from childhood favorites to Oscar-worthy works of art. During the summer of 2012, between the end of high school and beginning of college, I began to become very opinionated in the area of film after watching the epic conclusion to The Dark Knight Trilogy (huge Batman fan!) to where I am now, a film reviewer and predictor for a number of websites including my own.
I have always had a passion for analyzing and finding certain messages in film that go far beyond the synopsis or major themes. After hearing from a number of friends that that the course “Faith & Film” was being offered last semester, I immediately dropped out of my elective course and registered for it, under the successful and mind-bending teachings of Torrey Honors Professor, Adam Johnson and Cinematic/Media Arts Professor, Jack Hafer. While I expected a connection of the Christian faith to film, it was far beyond what I had expected.
When it comes to finding faith in film, certain classics would be along the lines of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003), The Lion King (1994) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, andThe Wardrobe (2005). The reason why these and others are go-to films, is because they have very noticeable yet deep Christian parallels. The ring of Sauron symbolizes temptation, Aslan of Narnia represents Jesus Christ, Simba being defined by his father rather than his mistakes symbolizes how we are defined byGod and not our past, and so on. When it came to the Faith & Film course, however, a large number of these sophisticated and thought-provoking films had deep Christian parallels that I really did not come to expect.
It was not so much of certain characters representing Christian figures as more of finding connections to certain Christian Doctrine and basic beliefs. To add on, a number of these films were very sophisticated, from the plot execution to dialogue, such as The Cider House Rules (1999), To End All Wars (2001), and even The Incredibles (2004). When I first took a look at the list of films, I was surprised yet became very interested as to how the course would play out.
When I was a kid, The Incredibles was an animated movie that I watched repeatedly. I guess you could say it was due to the fact that they were superheroes, but as a child I never thought of it being any more than superheroes coming out of retirement to save the day from a new villain. In Faith & Film, my whole view of the film got flipped upside down. As an entire class, we made connections of how each main character’s powers represented their personalities and attitudes throughout the film.
For example, Violet’s invisibility powers symbolized just how invisible she was to her family and others, intentional or not, and Elasta Girls’ super-stretching abilities represented how she metaphorically stretches herself thin by trying to keep the family together and by trying to handle Bob’s mystery “business trip” leave on her own. If that was not enough, we connected how Mr. Incredible unintentionally created an enemy out of Buddy by rejecting him as a sidekick due to his pride, symbolized how we as Christians make enemies out of others by rejecting them due to our pride. Mind blowing yet very true. I pondered this for a few days afterwards and really thought how many of us make enemies simply because of how condemning we are or how we are more concerned about addressing the Gospel that we become less focused on people's emotions and beliefs.
In another film, we as a class also made connections to the hard-hitting 2008 film Revolutionary Road. The film's primary focus was on the marriage relationship and communication between Frank and April. On the outside, they appear as the perfect suburban couple with their two adorable children. Behind closed doors, their relationship is very shallow and superficial as its foundation is very weak.
Despite their income, their friends, and even their children, they have a weak marriage in the area of communication. To dodge their problems, April tries to persuade Frank to move the family to Paris and get away from the routine lifestyle of America, thinking that a new location and lifestyle will change everything for the better. As the film continues, the plans begin to fall apart while their problems are brought more into the light. Despite everything failing around them, April still believes in the idea of Paris to save her marriage. What we connected as a class was the importance of marriage and relationships according to the Scriptures and basic fundamentals such as communication, having a solid foundation, growing together through problems and disagreements. While something may change marriage for the better, like the belief April had in moving to Paris, ideas such as that only go so far and before you know it, it is back to square one.
Throughout the course, we saw a number of films that dealt with different areas of life as a Christian. We discussed and learned how fear plays into our lives according to Batman Begins (2005), we discussed and learned about having relationships with homosexuals according to Philadelphia (1993), we discussed and learned how pornography and unrealistic sex expectations damage relationships according to Men, Women, and Children (2014), and so much more. There was so much to take in and so much that was covered that it became my favorite course of the semester, not just because of the fact we got to watch films as homework on a weekly basis, but just by the fact that we could analyze, learn, and take in valuable and rich information that could be easily glossed over most of the time.
When I would tell people the films we’d watched for the course, many eyebrows were raised along with facial expressions of concern. I have been asked why Biola would allow such courses into a Christian school, and I believe it is because there is something to be found in these films that are worth reading into and studying for Christians.
For me personally, a number of PG-13 and R-rated films have made me think more about my faith than Christian films have because secular films have push boundaries in successful storytelling and character development, whereas Christian films focus so much on giving the Gospel message for the sake of evangelizing, they lose focus on having a compelling and engaging story with interesting characters.
This is not to call out or blame anyone in particular of the Christian film industry, but for me personally, Christian films have never made me think critically about my faith. Secular films on the other hand through their raw, believable, and mind-bending stories have made me think critically and have challenged me in the area of faith, whether it has been Pixar's fun and child-friendly films or sophisticated, mind-blowing films by Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino.
Whether these films were difficult or enjoyable to watch and analyze, I learned far more than I thought I would from the professors, my classmates, and myself on how God and parts of the Scriptures can be found in film.
