Religion in Contemporary European Cinema

Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 Religion in Contemporary European Cinema The religious landscape in Europe is changing dramatically. While the authority of institutional religion has weakened, a growing number of people now desire individualized religious and spiritual experiences, fi nding the self-complacency of secularism unfulfi lling. The “crisis of religion” is itself a form of religious life. A sense of complex, subterraneous interaction between religious, heterodox, secular and atheistic experiences has thus emerged, which makes the phenomenon all the more fascinating to study, and this is what Religion in Contemporary European Cinema does. The book explores the mutual infl uences, structural analogies and shared dilemmas, as well as the historical roots of such a “post-secular constellation” as seen through the lens of European cinema. Bringing together scholars from fi lm theory and political science, ethics and philosophy of religion, philosophy of fi lm and theology, this volume casts new light on the relationship between the religious and secular experience after the death of the death of God. Costica Bradatan is Associate Professor in the Honors College at Texas Tech University, US Camil Ungureanu is Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy at Universi- tat Pompeu Fabra, Spain Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 Routledge Studies in Religion and Film Edited by Robert Johnston and Jolyon Mitchell 1 World Cinema, Theology, and the Human Humanity in Deep Focus Antonio Sison 2 American Theology, Superhero Comics, and Cinema The Marvel of Stan Lee and the Revolution of a Genre Anthony R. Mills 3 Religion in Contemporary European Cinema The Postsecular Constellation Edited by Costica Bradatan and Camil Ungureanu Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 Religion in Contemporary European Cinema The Postsecular Constellation Edited by Costica Bradatan and Camil Ungureanu Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Religion in contemporary European cinema : the postsecular constellation / edited by Costica Bradatan ; Camil Ungureanu. pages cm. — (Routledge studies in religion and film ; 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Religion in motion pictures. 2. Motion pictures—Religious aspects. 3. Motion pictures—Europe—History and criticism. I. Bradatan, Costica, editor of compilation. II. Ungureanu, Camil, editor of compilation. PN1995.9.R4R3975 2014 791.43′682—dc23 2013040161 ISBN: 978-0-415-73376-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-83287-6 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 Contents Introduction: Dealing (Visibly) in “Things Not Seen” 1 COSTICA BRADATAN 1 Deconstructing Christianity in Contemporary European Cinema: Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam and Jean-Luc Nancy’s Dis-Enclosure 11 CATHERINE WHEATLEY 2 “Casting Fire Onto the Earth”: The Holy Fool in Russian Cinema 27 ALINA BIRZACHE 3 The New Aesthetics of Muslim Spirituality in Turkey: Yusuf’s Trilogy by Semih Kaplanoğlu 44 ASUMAN SUNER 4 Pasolini: Religion and Sacrifice 61 GEOFFREY NOWELL-SMITH 5 Entangled in God’s Story. A Reading of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Blind Chance 74 COSTICA BRADATAN 6 The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Sound and Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 the Neighbor in Kieślowski, Haneke, Martel 91 PAUL COATES 7 Bruno Dumont’s Cinema: Nihilism and the Disintegration of the Christian Imaginary 110 JOHN CARUANA 8 Religion Against Religion in Lars von Trier 126 CAMIL UNGUREANU vi Contents 9 The Banalities of Evil: Polanski, Kubrick, and the Reinvention of Horror 145 NATHAN ABRAMS 10 Postsecular Ethics: The Case of Iñárritu’s Biutiful 166 ROBERT SINNERBRINK 11 Understanding Religion and Film in “Postsecular” Russia 186 JOLYON MITCHELL Final Remarks: What Is the Use of Postsecularism? Conceptual Clarifications and Two Illustrations 199 CAMIL UNGUREANU List of Contributors 219 Index 223 Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 Introduction Dealing (Visibly) in “Things Not Seen” 1 Costica Bradatan “Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimport- ant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; “eternal values,” “immortality,” and “masterpiece” were terms not applicable to his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a world fl ourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my fi lms to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon’s head, an angel, a devil—or perhaps a saint— out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts. Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.” (Ingmar Bergman) 2 MATTERS OF FAITH When La Vie et La Passion du Christ (Pathé, Dir. Lucien Nonguet and Ferdi- nand Zecca, 1903) was about to be shown in Russia, the Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod objected to the screening. This was no small matter; the Russian Church’s power and infl uence in society at the time could hardly be overesti- mated. A censored version of the fi lm was eventually allowed, but police were Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 11:40 06 November 2017 present at the screening to make sure that those in attendance took off their hats as a sign of reverence. 3 This is a highly revealing gesture. For in their muddled way, the offi cials of the Russian Orthodox Church admitted that the new art form could perform a certain liturgical function. By asking viewers to take off their hats during the screening, which was exactly what people were supposed to be doing in a church during service, they granted fi lm the religious status that arts such as painting, sculpture or music had enjoyed for millennia. Barely in existence as an art form, fi lm was already seen as something that could be used for praising God’s glory. On the other hand, from a more pragmatic stand- point, cinema could not afford not to access the enormous repertoire of myths, 2 Costica Bradatan archetypes and symbols that came with religion; they were excellent, time-tested story-telling devices and sophisticated narrative-generating machines. Thus, from its inception, fi lm became intrinsically linked to the sacred. In an article published in 1951, André Bazin could say that cinema “has always been interested in God” and that the “ The Gospel and The Acts of the Apostles were the fi rst best-sellers on the screen.” He refers, for example, to Quo Vadis? (1951; dir. Mervyn LeRoy) as an “immense catechism-in- pictures.” 4 Out of a superior impulse to celebrate God in moving images or out of a more pragmatic need to appeal to large audiences, cinema emerges as an art form that engages with the sacred in complex, subtle and multifari- ous ways. Indeed, it is not at all surprising that such an academic subfi eld as “fi lm and religion” came into existence; what is surprising is that it took it so long to happen (during the last few decades of the twentieth century). Yet the relationship between cinema and religion is not only of a “repre- sentational” nature in the sense that fi lm functions as a vehicle for religious topics, notions or symbols; fi lm—in particular, of the “art house” variety— does more than “illustrate” religion in some outward, mechanical fashion. Film and religion share a set of more fundamental, ontological suppositions. For what after all makes fi lm possible, what turns some lump of matter—the reel of celluloid—into a unique event in the life of the mind is, ultimately, an act of faith. To bridge the gap between the little we actually see on screen and what it stands for—the whole world that’s not seen but is there somewhere— faith is needed. And I mean “faith” here not in some narrow, confessional sense but as an elementary act of the human subject that engages in a process of self-overcoming. Phenomenologically, it is only through such an act that you can transcend the sheer succession of frames you see on screen and inhabit the complex universe that it opens up. The process is echoed in the Paulinian defi nition of faith: Saint Paul speaks of faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb.11:1) The language of faith has pervaded fi lm scholarship for quite a while.

Load more