11:53 AM
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1:28 PM
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Great sports movies, like Hoosiers, Brian's Song and Moneyball, always remember that the movie is not about "the big game." The movie is about the internal struggle of the main character which is complicated by the big game. Of the myriad things that made The Mighty Macs lame, the worst was the absence of any real internal conflict. There is no sin in the movie which means there is no tension or real stakes. Flannery O'Connor condemned this in Catholic art as an "overemphasis on innocence." We Catholics should know better because we know what is in the heart of men. Secondly, the movie was lacking in most of the things that make a movie great. There was no subtext, no imagery, no layering, no complexity of character, no theme, no surprises and then, some really lame dialogue. Finally, the movie was a terrible depiction of religious life utterly lacking in any real Catholic sensibility. See Ida Lupino's classic The Trouble with Angels for a wonderful portrayal of nuns as real, flesh and blood people. The big question of The MIghty Macs is why the filmmakers didn't get some help on the script. They had to know they were over their heads, right? I mean, they must have seen a good movie once or twice before?
2:40 PM
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Somebody wrote me recently that their project got rejected in Hollywood for improper formatting. The writer was irate that such a small thing would be used to reject his script. Here, for the general edification was my response....I wanted to express a brief defense on behalf of those of us who are sticklers about screenwriting grammar, aka formatting. Considered under a professional lens, formatting is not irrelevant. In the vast majority of projects, a correctly formatted page equals one minute of time on the screen. The margins for dialogue are shorter and allow for the actors to add expression. The longer margins allow the audience to get a good enough look at whatever is being described. Beyond timing, capitalizations are signposts to casting agents, line producers, directors and DP's for all their respective tasks.The best way to consider a screenplay is like unto an architectural drawing. People outside the profession do not appreciate all the industry standard norms for drawing, and would probably dismiss them. But they have their uses. Essential uses from a professional standpoint.Considering that these things are essentials, it could be a disservice to discourage your readers from giving them proper attention. Christians already have a bad rap in Hollywood for lack of professionalism. We don't want to add condescension to ignorance.People who haven't learned the industry standard for formatting are better off writing their story in a straight narrative fashion, as in a treatment. There are some expectations for a treatment, but few people in the business will quibble over them.
10:36 AM
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A Good Visual Image is Worth a Thousand Words
By Barbara Nicolosi
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” Mt. 13:44
Poetry is the most respectful of art forms. The whole reason for a poem is the acknowledgment that reality is too complex and mysterious to be reduced to the limits of wordy definitions. Poetry searches for metaphors to reveal facets of reality by likening them to other things. In the famous poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant” by John Godfrey Saxe, we laugh to hear that an elephant is alternately like a wall, and then, like a spear, and then like a snake, and a tree, a fan and a rope. The poem assures us that an elephant isn’t any of those things, but is something like all of them.
Poetry is also eminently respectful of the reader, because it has to have faith in his or her intelligence, sensitivity and imagination – basically in the reader’s humanity – to succeed. The poet is a riddler who crafts a picture puzzle and hopes that someone will be enticed to go through the difficult process of unraveling it. If they do, the labor they have expended will make the solution valuable to them. You know what I mean if you have ever been driving along on a country road, and then suddenly understood what Emily Dickinson meant when she wrote,
I had been hungry all the years-
My noon had come, to dine-
I, trembling, drew the table near
And touched the curious wine.
Suddenly, as C.S. Lewis said about the purpose of literature, you know you’re not alone.
Sadly, my sense of so much Christian literature is that it fails because it neither respects the mysteries underlying the human choices it describes, nor the humanity of the reader. Why is it that people of faith have so little faith in people?
Our Lord set the example for all Christian storytellers by extensively utilizing visual images. One has to presume that He could have given a clinically accurate description of His reality as the Second Person of the Trinity. And yet he chose to describe himself as “the Vine”, “the Good Shepherd,” “the Light of the World,” “the Bread of Life.” The Kingdom of heaven is presented to us not through geometrical and philosophical definitions, but as “a great net cast into the sea,” “or a vineyard,” or “a lost coin,” or “a treasure in a field.” Hence, following the example of the Master, Christian artists through the ages have tended to approach reality humbly through images that in their distortion or emphasis bring us wisdom infused with reverence. It was a good way to be.
So what happened to us? Why is so much contemporary Christian art and literature banal? Why do our works not only not cause the world to brood, but cause them to dismiss us? Part of the problem is that so little Christian work today has any powerful lyrical imagery. In so doing, we separate ourselves from storytellers like Homer and Dante and Hawthorne and Poe, all of whom were masters of visual paradox.
My sense is that many contemporary writers couldn’t even say what a lyrical image is or why it is important in a story. At it’s basic level, a lyrical image is sacramental in a story, giving the reader something to see in their mind’s eye that points to hidden realities. Imagery should come into play particularly to get an audience to brood over a project’s theme, but also can be very helpful in making a character’s motivations and choices more resonant.
In her story Good Country People, the great writer and Christian, Flannery O’Connor, created a character who was a PhD with a wooden leg.
“She believes in nothing but her own belief in nothing, and we perceive that there is a wooden part of her soul that corresponds to her wooden leg. Now of course this is never stated. The fiction writer states as little as possible. The reader makes this connection from things he is shown. He may not even know that he makes the connection, but the connection is there nevertheless and it has its effect on him.” (Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners)
The truth is, it is easier to tell people what you think, then to entice them to think on something, which is what a good visual image does. Coming up with a good visual image for a story requires a double portion of the intelligence, sensitivity and imagination that a reader will need to unravel it.
8:12 AM
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Here is a new piece I wrote for my friends at Crisis Magazine about the coming battle for euthanasia. Please click on the link, and send it on to other friends. This issue is critically important, and, as always, our side is staring off into the sunset missing the massing of the opposition.
"The evidence is undeniable: Somewhere in the middle of the Terri Schiavo tragedy, Hollywood and the cultural left climbed aboard the latest human-killing bandwagon and have since thrown the weight of their talent and creativity behind it. As with abortion, the forces of darkness are outmaneuvering the forces of good on what will certainly be the moral issue of the 21st century.
If we lose the fight on euthanasia, we lose our souls. By removing suffering and the meaning of suffering from our culture, we make the final step in denying and defying our creature-hood. Once again, the seductive lie of Eden will trip us up: “If you will do this thing, you shall be like God.”"
10:46 AM
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It's a great pleasure to invite you to the inaugural event of the Catholic Artists Society on Sunday, May 15th at 5pm at the Church of Our Saviour in Manhattan.
A Solemn High Mass of the Holy Spirit will be celebrated for members of our growing Catholic arts and media community. All artists, their families and friends of the arts are invited to attend. Following the mass, Fr. Joseph Koterski, SJ, from Fordham University, will give a talk on "Ignatian Prayer and the Work of the Artist". A reception will follow.
You can sign up for updates on this and future events at http://catholicartistssociety.posterous.com/
The Solemn extraordinary form Mass will be celebrated by Fr. George Rutler, pastor of Our Saviour’s. Fr. Michael Barone will be deacon and Fr. Joseph Koterski, SJ will act as sub-deacon. Sacred music will be provided by the Schola Cantorum of St. Mary Church (Norwalk, CT), under the direction of David J. Hughes. Guest organist Herve Duteil will provide additional music.
The Catholic Artists Society was initiated in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Address to Artists at the Sistine Chapel in November, 2009. Following the Holy Father’s call for artists to be “custodians of Beauty” and “heralds and witnesses of Hope for humanity” the society seeks to foster solidarity and fellowship amongst the faithful engaged in the creative professions, encouraging the ongoing artistic and spiritual development of all artists and media professionals, so that their work may more perfectly reflect God’s glory, enriching and ennobling men and women, our society and our culture.
We look forward to seeing you on the 15th. Please let me know if you plan to attend so we can get an idea of numbers for the reception. An invitation with details is attached.
Yours in Christ,
Kevin Collins
10:01 AM
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BN: My opinion is that we have nearly lost the ability to tell a good story. Part of this is the loss we are seeing in all the art forms, which I think has something to do with the loss of rigor and discipline that is the doorway to the beautiful. Also, I think a lot of the artistic impulses in our time have been drowned in Ritalin and Prozac. Finally, I think the urge to make something beautiful comes from a sense of gratitude and immortality. In our culture, both those values are ever more quaint.
When we consider the Church, nothing is clearer than that we seem to have proudly cast off the beautiful as an elitist throwback to a less enlightened time. In the Church, we spurn the beautiful in favor of egalitarianism, politics and utility. I have had priests tell me that they can’t afford to ensure beautiful music for the liturgy, or else that beautiful music is relative, or that beautiful music is less important than in making Doris and Stan, the untalented but warm-hearted music ministry folks, feel appreciated. After the terrible music, the next most egregiously bad practiced art from in the Church today is oratory. Too many of our pastors seem to take it as a point of pride that their homilies have nothing of the basics of a good speech about them. Far from making our hearts burn within us, most homilies today leave the faithful’s brains burning with indignation. I’m waiting for people to finally crest with all the banality and start shouting back at the pulpit.
In Hollywood, storytelling has been lost mainly due to the fact that movies are seen first as commercial products and second as whole, harmonious and radiant stories. There is no change to any part of a story that today’s studio wont make to please an egomaniacal actor or director. There is no part of a movie too sacred not to be cheapened by product placement. There is no overarching theme that can survive the endless tinkering of producers trying desperately to bring the project in on time and under budget. The only real future for good storytelling seems to be outside the studio system. It’s sad, but I think Hollywood’s days of having access to the imagination of the world are gone.