Hollywood often uses Christians and the church as shorthand for hypocrisy, coldness of character, or closed-mindedness. This is such an old practice that some believers are convinced that the film industry is “at war” with Christianity, even though this is a true depiction of some churches.
In the following paragraphs I will look at a number of films in which the church is a part of the plot. Some of these are indeed negative, but many are positive. I will deal more with images of the church than of individual church leaders because more has been written on the latter, individuals such as Elmer Gantry (negative) or A Man Called Peter (positive) and a host of amiable Catholic priests (very positive).
Indeed, most films in which Christianity is a factor focus upon an individual with scant reference to the church itself: in the delightful film about a Methodist preacher and his family, One Foot in Heaven, the church is more of a backdrop against which the pastor has to struggle to get them to fix up the rundown parsonage. In the more recent Changling, we see only the congregation listening to its anti-crime crusading Presbyterian minister, Gustaf Breigleb, castigate the corrupt Los Angeles Police Department. Thus in the following films the focus is more on the congregation.
We see more of the congregation in How Green Was My Valley and Breaking the Waves, both shown in a negative light. Whereas the pastor, Mr. Gruffydd, played by Walter Pigeon, is a kind and compassionate man, he ultimately is forced to leave the church because of the moral narrow-mindedness of its deacons. Set in a mining village in Wales near the beginning of the 20th century, where the church and the pub were the center of social life, on one Sunday the deacons call forth a young woman caught up in a sexual affair – yes, only the woman. The man is not called forth and condemned. Publicly shamed, she is cast out of the fellowship. The minister accepts this, but eventually can stomach no more, his last sermon being a blistering denunciation of the church’s harsh narrow mindedness.
The same mindset prevails in the small Calvinist Scottish church in Breaking the Waves. A delusional simple-minded young woman named Bess McNeill wrestles with her conscience when her bed-ridden husband Jan, so paralyzed from the neck down in an oil rig accident that he is now impotent, tells her that she should fulfill her sexual needs with another man.
As Bess complies and dutifully reports back to him, she comes to believe that her trysts with other men, especially when they abuse her, are ordained by God and are helping Jan to get better. Her sister and her doctor understand Bess, but not so the church elders who see things in black and white terms. The plot is much more complex than I can go into here, but Bess is thrust out of the church’s fellowship. However, following her death there is a climactic scene in which we hear the church bells ringing, raising the question of God’s compassion, faith, and miracles in a profound way. Filmmaker Lars von Trier makes it plain that he believes God works more outside of, rather than within or through, the church.
In Blue Like Jazz, we begin with a negative image of the church but wind up with a positive one. Based on Donald Miller’s New York Times best selling memoir, it begins with 19 year-old Don being very active in the youth ministry of his Baptist church in Texas. However, when the youth pastor turns out to be a hypocrite, the disillusioned Don drops out and accepts his atheist father’s offer to send him to the most liberal college in America, Reed College, located in the Pacific Northwest.
There he is surrounded by those who question everything and celebrate a hedonistic life style. Then he meets Penny, who belongs to an open-minded church where the people practice their faith by engaging in an anti-poverty ministry. The film’s intriguing title is based on Don’s observation, “I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve… I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened.” Don arrives at a faith which does not have to have every troubling question resolved. Indeed, that faith is a journey into the unknown future yet confident that God and fellow believers are life-long companions on that journey.
In The Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith stars as real life Chris Gardner, a divorced would-be salesman with a son. The two of them are forced to live on the streets of San Francisco. Chris’s big hope is that his non-paying internship at Dean Witter will garner him a job at the end of the year. However, in the meantime he must find shelter at night as best he can.
This is where the real-life Glide Memorial Methodist Church comes in, offering food and shelter to street people like Chris and his son. The catch is that Chris must arrive with his son by 5 PM each night, there being far more people seeking shelter than there are berths. In several scenes we see Chris and his little son bedding down or eating a meal at the church. And in one powerful scene we see them sitting in the congregation listening to the pastor Cecil Williams (played by the legendary social activist minister himself) preaching a confidence-building sermon, with the choir joining in with an anthem about climbing mountains that stand in our paths.
Like the above film, the church also is shown in just a few brief scenes in Tender Mercies, but they are crucial to the rejuvenation of the alcoholic washed-up country-western singer Mack Sledge, played so convincingly by Robert Duvall that he won a Best Actor Oscar. Falling in love with Rosa Lee, a young widow-mother who owns a motel and gas station in rural Texas, Mack attends church with her and her son Sonny.
When she introduces Mack to the pastor, Reverend Hotchkiss, the minister, upon learning that Mack has not been baptized, says that they will have to work on that. He obviously keeps his word, for in a delightful scene in which we see the mother singing in the choir, the curtains of the baptistery are opened, and Sonny is baptized. Then they are closed and re-opened, and there is Mack, who is also baptized. On the way home in their pick-up truck Mack and Sonny talk about the change promised by the baptismal service, with Mack each time replying, “Not yet,” to Sonny’s questions.
As the film unreels we see that Mack’s understanding of conversion as a process, rather than an instant event, is right on. He is a new man, but still subject to anguish and doubt as a terribly tragic event engulfs him. At the climax he is full of pain and yet, thanks to Rosa Lee, Sonny, and his church, still hanging on to his faith.
German filmmaker Wim Wenders’ Land of Plenty is his take on the dark, suspicious mood of many Americans following the horrific 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. Set in Los Angeles just prior to the second anniversary of the attack, it focuses upon Paul, a Vietnam veteran mentally damaged by the war, and young adult Lana, returning to America on a mission entrusted to her by her deceased mother, to find her Uncle Paul and deliver a letter of reconciliation to him. The church is an inner-city mission presided over by family friend Henry, and it is here that Lana stays and helps by serving in the soup kitchen.
The film shows the great contrast between Paul, who, regarding himself as a special secret agent, has invested all of his money and time in a van outfitted with surveillance equipment which he uses while following and eavesdropping on “towel heads” and any other foreign looking person deemed suspicious. His attitude and mission are well summed up in his words recorded on his surveillance tape, “They’re trying to destroy our country. They’re trying to infect us. I’m not going to let them.”
Against his paranoia is set Lana’s trusting faith and love, and the acceptance of all persons at the mission. We hear portions of two of Henry’s sermons of love, in one of which he assures the homeless that they are exactly the kind of people that Jesus hung out with. Especially touching is the food line scene in which a spiritually wounded man gruffly rebuffs Lana’s attempt to befriend him by saying, “And you don’t know my name!” She sets him back when, seeing he has forgotten something, calls out his name. For Lana and Henry, the church is a place where all are welcome and each person, no matter how poor, is given the dignity of being addressed by their name.
The film moves toward a powerful climax in which Lana and her mother’s love begin the healing process for Paul, the two of them even driving to Manhattan to visit the 9/11 site. There are so many insightful moments of love and grace in this film that every person of faith ought to watch and discuss it.
The final part of this series will post on Wednesday.
Edward McNulty is a Presbyteian minister with a D.Mim. in art, film & theology. He is the author of three books from Westminster/John Knox Press:
Praying the Movies, available via Amazon, which includes meditations on Star Wars, Schindler’s List, Pulp Fiction and 29 scenes from 29 more films.
Praying the Movies II: More Daily Meditations from Classic Films, which includes McNulty’s reflections on Gandhi, It’s a Wonderful Life, Harry Potter, O Brother, Where Art Thou? And 28 more.
Faith and Film: A Guidebook for Leaders, which includes a section on film & theology and how to set up and lead a film group, plus discussion guides for Amistad, Erin Brockovich, the Matrix, Shawshank Redemption, and 23 more.
Currently his exploration of 8 different versions of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables can be found at the online religious journal Read the Spirit
Ed’s own website is Visual Parables, where you can see issues of his bi-monthly film journal of that name.