Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a Division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007
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Sfgsbnjoh! Uifpmphz!boe!Gjmn Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 1 8/29/07 7:32:17 AM Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 2 8/29/07 7:32:17 AM Sfgsbnjoh! ! Uifpmphz!boe!Gjmn Ofx!Gpdvt! gps!bo!Fnfshjoh!Ejtdjqmjof Spcfsu!L/!Kpiotupo-!fejups K Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 3 8/29/07 7:32:17 AM © 2007 by Robert K. Johnston Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording— without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reframing theology and film : new focus for an emerging discipline cultural exegesis / Robert K. Johnston, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 10: 0-8010-3240-7 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-8010-3240-0 (pbk.) 1. Motion pictures—Religious aspects. I. Johnston, Robert K., 1945– II. Title. PN1995.5.R43 2007 261.5 7—dc22 2007026890 Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the Na- tional Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 4 8/29/07 7:32:18 AM Method is not a set of rules to be followed meticulously by a dolt. It is a framework for collaborative creativity. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology The surface meaning lies open before us and charms beginners. Yet the depth is amazing, my God, the depth is amazing. To concentrate on it is to experience awe. Augustine, Confessions Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 5 8/29/07 7:32:18 AM Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 6 8/29/07 7:32:18 AM Dpoufout Acknowledgments 9 Notes on the Contributors 11 Introduction: Reframing the Discussion 15 Robert K. Johnston Section 1: Moving beyond a “Literary” Paradigm 1. Seeing and Believing: Film Theory as a Window into a Visual Faith 29 Craig Detweiler 2. The Colors of Sound: Music and Meaning Making in Film 51 Barry Taylor Section 2: Broadening Our Film Selection 3. World Cinema: Opportunities for Dialogue with Religion and Theology 73 Gaye Williams Ortiz 4. Letters on Better Movies 88 Sara Anson Vaux Section 3: Extending Our Conversation Partners 5. Film and the Subjective Turn: How the Sociology of Religion Can Contribute to Theological Readings of Film 109 Gordon Lynch 6. Hollywood Chronicles: Toward an Intersection of Church History and Film History 126 Terry Lindvall 8 Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 7 8/29/07 7:32:18 AM Section 4: Engaging the Experience of the Viewer 7. On Dealing with What Films Actually Do to People: The Practice and Theory of Film Watching in Theology/Religion and Film Discussion 145 Clive Marsh 8. Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge and Watching Movies 162 Rebecca Ver Straten-McSparran 9. Películas—¿A Gaze from Reel to Real? Going to the Movies with Latinas in Los Angeles 179 Catherine M. Barsotti Section 5: Reconsidering the Normative 10. Theology and Film: Interreligious Dialogue and Theology 205 John Lyden 11. From Film Emotion to Normative Criticism 219 Mitch Avila 12. From Bultmann to Burton, Demythologizing the Big Fish: The Contribution of Modern Christian Theologians to the Theology- Film Conversation 238 Christopher Deacy Section 6: Making Better Use of Our Theological Traditions 13. Shaping Morals, Shifting Views: Have the Rating Systems Influenced How (Christian) America Sees Movies? 261 Rose Pacatte, FSP 14. Within the Image: Film as Icon 287 Gerard Loughlin 15. Transformative Viewing: Penetrating the Story’s Surface 304 Robert K. Johnston Movies Cited 323 General Index 330 9 Dpoufout Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 8 8/29/07 7:32:18 AM Jouspevdujpo;!! Sfgsbnjoh!uif!Ejtdvttjpo SPCF SU!L/!KPIOTUPO Theology and film as a field of inquiry is still in its infancy, less than three decades old—at least in its contemporary expression. Although there was theological reflection on film as early as Herbert Jump’s 1910 pamphlet “The Religious Possibilities of the Motion Picture,” and although in the late 1960s and early 1970s a few books were published that sought to establish a conversation between film and the church (e.g., Robert Konzel- man’s Marquee Ministry: The Movie Theater as Church and Community Forum [1971], William Jones’s Sunday Night at the Movies [1967], Neil Hurley’s Theology through Film [1970], and James Wall’s Church and Cinema [1971]), there was no sustained interest in the topic prior to the 1980s. At the time, the unavailability of most movies after their initial screening was perhaps reason enough for film to be largely ignored as an ongoing conversation partner for theology. But caution and even skepti- cism by some in the church no doubt also played a role. We can perhaps date the new era for theology and film studies as be- ginning in 1979. In that year George Atkinson revolutionized how one saw Hollywood movies by opening the first video rental store, making the ongoing viewing and re-viewing of movies a possibility. Although studios had for a few years been selling feature-length films on videocassette, their steep price meant that few bothered to buy them. Atkinson, however, saw a business opportunity, and with fifty films that he had purchased— The Sound of Music and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were two of them—he began renting films to eager customers. Technological and marketing advances followed at an escalating pace: the DVD with its extra features, Netflix, and the advent of movie downloads are three of the more significant. 26 Robert K. Johnston, editor, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. Used by permission. Johnston_ReframingFIlm_JC_slb.indd 15 8/29/07 7:32:19 AM The results have been staggering. Customers in the United States alone spent $45.7 billion on movies in 2005 and averaged seeing forty-five films. We in the West are a movie culture, and religious bodies and their theolo- gians have necessarily taken note. As I argued in Reel Spirituality, movies function as a primary source of power and meaning for people throughout the world. Along with the church, the synagogue, the mosque, and the temple, they often provide people stories through which they can understand their lives. There are, of course, places of worship that are vibrant and meaningful. But people both within the church and outside it recognize that movies are also providing primary stories around which we shape our lives. Presenting aspects of their daily lives both intimate and profound [real and imagined], movies exercise our moral and religious imagination.1 Film has become our Western culture’s major storytelling and myth- producing medium. As such it has begun to invite the best (and worst!) of our theological reflection. As those in the field of theology and film began their work, they were spurred on by “readings” of a significant number of film “texts” (the terms perhaps betray an overly dependent use of literary models in these early stages of theology and film analysis, as Joseph Kickasola helpfully points out2). These movies might give expression to theological themes found in their own faith tradition or sacred texts, or perhaps even more radically, might be the occasion for an experience with the divine itself. As movies give expression to questions of meaning or portray possible answers, they have been perceived as being of interest to those in biblical and/or theo- logical studies, as well as in religious studies more broadly. The fact that theology and film studies is still in a developmental phase must also be seen in relation to other realities within the academy, par- ticularly with regard to film itself. We forget that the granting of the first PhD in film studies is a recent event: it was probably the University of Southern California that, in the early 1960s, offered the first doctorate. According to the National Research Council, film studies itself is still con- sidered an emerging discipline, with one observer labeling it a discipline of “ambiguous provenance” (i.e., study in cinema takes place in departments of modern language, theater, and communication, as well as in programs in comparative literature and cinema and media studies).3 When a focus on theology is added to the emerging field of film studies, making for an interdisciplinary study, matters become further complicated 27 Jouspevdujpo;!Sfgsbnjoh!uif!Ejtdvttjpo! Robert K.