I'm in New York hanging with some very cool Christian media professionals. Also here is the brilliant Eric Metaxas who I've been emailing back and forth for a couple years now. Eric (did I mention he's brilliant?) has written a FABULOUS parody of the whole Da Vinci Code insanity. He gave me his permission to reprint it here. Thanks, Eric. Rock on!
___________________________
Screwtape on The DaVinci Code
by Eric Metaxas
My dear Wormwood,
I trust this finds you as miserable and coarse as ever. I am pleased to take a respite from our usual tutorial and venture into something a bit broader, but vastly instructive for our larger purposes. To wit: I shall today croak a paean of praise to a particular work of middlebrow non-fiction. The genre has been particularly good to us, Wormwood! Do you remember The Passover Plot? Or that excellent hoax by Erich von Daniken, In Search of Ancient Astronauts? You may s now, but in its day even that harebrained rant proved helpful to our cause. As did most of the books on The Bermuda Triangle and “UFO’s”. And don’t get me started on Out on a Limb! Oh, but Wormwood. Those books were mere types and shadows of the one that has in these last days transported me to ecstasies of embarrassing intensity. It is a type of “romantic thriller” (penned by someone under the unwitting tutelage of an old crony of mine from the Sixth Circle); it is titled The DaVinci Code.
I surmised it should be well worth the trouble of familiarising you with it, inasmuch as it contains such a precariously towering heap of our very best non-thinking that it is quite dizzying! It has the genuine potential to mislead, confuse, and vex millions! Indeed the mystical sleight-of-hand involved in shoehorning so many cubic yards of gasbag clichees, shopworn half-truths and straightfaced howlers into a single volume simply beggars belief; and if I didn’t know that the author had had unwitting “help” from my former colleague, the venerable Gallstone, I simply shouldn’t believe it could have been done at all!
Now, Wormwood, before you object to my calling this book “non-fiction”-- since it is technically classified as “fiction”-- let me say that it is essentially non-fiction, at least as far as our purposes are concerned. That’s because it’s principle delight for our side is that in the tacky plastic shell of some below-average “fiction” the book parades as “fact” a veritable phalanx of practical propaganda and disinformation that would make our dear Herr Goebbels (Circle Eight, third spiderhole on the right) jade green with envy! Souls by the boatload are blithely believing almost all of the deliciously corrosive non-facts that are congealed everywhere in it, like flies in bad aspic, and it is that precisely which most recommends this glorious effort as worthy of our dedicated and especial study.
But where to begin in describing to you its myriad delights? First, a brief synopsis of the plot: a museum curator is murdered by a fanatical albino Christian bigot (nice opening, no?); the curator’s granddaughter and an American “symbologist” (don’t ask me, I haven’t the time) try to find the real killer and are launched on a wildly implausible and fantastically cryptical search for the proverbial Holy Grail, all the while chased by angry gendarmes and the aforementioned unhinged albino. In the process they (and the lucky reader) discover that: the Church is murderous and evil; the Bible is a hoax; Jesus is not divine, but merely a married mortal and an earnest proto-feminist (!); there is no such thing as Truth; and oh, yes... is the truest kind of prayer. Can you stand it? A virtuoso performance, no? It’s as if the author’s somehow squeezed all of hell into a walnut shell. And oh, yes, one more historical “fact”: Leonardo DaVinci’s homosexuality was “flamboyant”! Do tell.
But that’s just the irresistible plot, Wormwood. It’s the author’s technique in so many other areas that is particularly worth our attention. For example, there is the manner in which the book seduces its reader with naked flattery, holding out the carrot -- or should I say apple -- of “inside knowledge.” Make note of this, Wormwood; it worked wonders for us in Eden and works for us still. The author trots out the ageless fiddle-faddle about a parallel “reality” beside the “official” one everyone’s been sold. You know, the moth-eaten, bedraggled idea that all of history is a grand “conspiracy” conducted by some hidden elites! But wait, the lucky reader is to be let in on it all, and for the mere price of purchasing this book! He’ll learn the “real” story behind the “official” story that all the other saps have been buying for lo! these many centuries. Heady stuff, eh, Wormwood? Transparent as it might seem to us, this temptation has always been been too great for the humans to bear. They ache to be part of that “inside” group that knows what’s “really” going on, and they fall for it every time. It’s not so different from their craving for gossip or “dirt”; only better, since there isn’t the pesky nuisance of guilt to deal with. They cannot help themselves; they simply swallow it without a thought. That’s the key, Wormwood, for if actual thinking can be prevented, the humans are under our control.
There’s something about a crackpot conspiracy that makes my brown scales twinkle, Wormwood. There’s nothing like a grand conspiracy to twist truth round and round -- until the shape of the thing one ends up with is unrecognizable from that with which one began. I remember when I was young, in an immature display of rakish pique I bewitched an inept sausagemaker such that the next time he applied himself to the sausagemaker’s art he became almost instantly entangled in the entrails with which he was working. That image reoccurs to me now as I recall this great book, Wormwood. You see, this book is that hopelessly intestine-entangled sausagemaker writ large, I tell you! The reader will become snarled in the vile, greasy entrails of its thousand half-truths and will die before he extricates himself! What could be better?
But don’t let’s digress. I was speaking of the employment of flattery. Understand, Wormwood, that the successful devil -- and this devilishly clever author -- well knows his audience, and then tells that audience precisely what it wants to hear. As long as what one puts out is vaguely plausible, they’ll buy it by the yard, and at retail prices! Trust me, Wormwood, these gullible dullards are even likely to thank you for the privelege of being your customer!
I particularly admire the writer’s way of tapping into the widespread disaffection and resentment so many modern women feel toward men. This emotional woundedness is a veritable Mother Lode (pun intended) of destructive possibilities, and it is as profitably mined here as ever it has been. The author winds up his female readers by informing them that they’ve been getting the short end of the stick ever since Eve was kicked out of the garden for her assertive sassiness! History has cheated them! The Church has oppressed them and they deserve better! And he supports this wall of custard with a thousand most excellent pseudo-facts!
Really, Wormwood, the author’s pretense of taking the feminine side of things is extraordinary. For he has cleverly substituted the au courant idea of femininity for the thing itself. According to this version of things we must only know one thing about women, and that is, first and foremost, that they are hideously oppressed. Once alerted to this central fact of their identity throughout all of history, and especially of “Church” history, they’ll believe they needn’t bother about much else.
Revealed to the readers is the “fact” that in the interests of keeping power in the hands of men the Church murdered five million women in the middle ages! Don’t laugh, Wormwood. This author delivers this screaming absurdity with a deadpan that would make Buster Keaton envious. Never mind that it isn’t close to being even one percent true by any conceivable historical standard. The point is that it sounds true, at least to the ever-expanding herd of sheep who are grazing madly upon this ripping, dreamy, peachy excuse for a book! It sounds true and therefore it must be true! Every woman who has been wounded by a man will be vulnerable to this excellent strategem. Whenever and wherever possible, Wormwood, fan this outrage vigorously.
The ersatz “her-story” of the Church’s vicious oppression of women is seasoned with great steaming lumps of balderdash about Nature and “Mother Earth.” It’s a briliant connection. Men and women alike invariably eat it up with a spoon because it gives them a heady sense of being somehow “spiritual” without the annoying necessity of adopting all of those patriarchal “rules”! Never mind, Wormwood, that in this Nature goddess silliness they are worshipping deities that don’t exist! The only thing that matters is that they are not worshiping the deity that does! How we accomplish that doesn’t matter a fig! And if we can give them a sense of their own superiority, a recognition of their sober respect for Mother Earth and against all senseless violence, and against all war and for peace and harmony and tolerance and recycling, well, all the better!
I ought to mention, too, that what passes in this book for perhaps the main “argument” in favor of those pagan goddess religions is that they predate Christianity. Behold the genius of this, Wormwood! It suggests that because pagan goddess worship is older than Christianity it is somehow more pure, closer to the source of “true” spirituality. But where is the logic in this, Wormwood? A horse predates a motorcar, but who would prefer it? Monarchy predates democracy! A joey predates an elderly ‘roo! What of it?? Brilliant!
Before I go on, let me say that I have seen some execrable parodies of this book, my very least favorite being Bring in Da Vinci, Bring in Da Funk, a filthy piece of cant not to be read under any circumstances -- and I mean it, Wormwood. Don’t give me any humbug about how it will help you see how the Enemy thinks and therefore aid you in defeating him. The fact is, my callow dunderhead, that some things have the ability to corrupt the cynical likes even of you. You might well take these corruptions at face value and start having qualms about working against our enemy above, so ixnay on at-thay ook-bay, et it gay? I’m ot-nay oking-jay!
Now then, another extremely admirable facet of this book is the author’s intimate knowledge of his audience’s skyscraping ignorance, which he exploits to devastating effect. One must ever endeavor to capitalize upon ignorance, Wormwood. This is one of the chiefest weapons in our arsenal, and let me observe -- and not without some glee -- that the ignorance of contemporary Western Society in matters of history and theology both, is of an absolutely unprecedented greatness. Never before have so many known so little about so much of great importance.
Ask your average fellow in the street the slightest detail of a daft sitcom of forty years ago and he will move heaven and earth to to supply you with the answer, and then will likely prate on with other similarly inane details -- as if knowing who lived at 1313 Mockingbird Lane was his very passport to the Elysian Fields. Ha! But ask him to tell you about the Nicean Council, or ask him what are the Synoptic Gospels and you will suddenly find yourself in the presence of a weatherbeaten cigar store Injun! But then go ahead and ask him who played drums for The Monkees, or the name of that blasted itinerant peddlar on Green Acres and you will think yourself in the presence of a very Voltaire! Our television executives Down Under have been awfully successful!
As I say, this book exploits the ignorance of its readership with an exemplary elan. One particularly daring example claims that the Crusades were principally concerned with gathering and destroying information! This is bold and laughable twaddle, but it fits so nicely into ye olde conspiracy theory -- that the powerful religious hypocrites want to keep the “truth” out of the hands of their powerless subjects. And what do readers of this book know of the Crusades?
Then there’s that double whopper with cheese, about how the Emperor Constantine “invented” Christianity in the fourth century! Never mind that people had been believing it for all those years before it was “invented”. And in the same masterstroke the author undermines the authority of the Bible by declaring that what it contains arrived on a strictly “political” vote. All of those wonderful “Gospels” that didn’t fit with the “patriarchal” version of things were cruelly -- always “cruelly” -- suppressed and rejected; the oppressive messages it now contains were slipped in to fit Constantine’s political agenda! Who among this book’s readers will know that for three centuries most of those same Gospels were already considered a part of the scriptural canon? Who among his doughheaded readers even knows the meaning of the word “canonical”! My nostrils flare in admiration.
And at the creamy center of the story is the swaggeringly wild idea that Mary Magdalene (whom, incidentally, a cousin of mine once possessed briefly, only to be rudely evicted) would have married Our Chief Enemy! Oh, fatuosity! But again, it shrewdly plays into what the reader so wants to believe: that Jesus was not divine, and that all the demands that go along with his divinity may be conveniently ignored. And, perhaps most cunningly, it does not dismiss Jesus entirely, but patronizingly reduces him into a toothless sage, a veritable “nice guy.” Naturaly the author has added that requisite whiff of subversive sexuality. And oh, yes, hold onto your horns, Wormwood: Mary Magdalene is the Holy Grail! You see, her womb... oh, never mind! It’s just too rich!
As singularly brilliant as our colleague is in what concerns us most, the writing is -- alas and alack! -- scandalously slipshod and often pure giggle-fodder. I mean, the detail of a hulking albino ascetic! Named Silas! Silas! I’m wheezing with laughter this minute! Honestly, it’s too much! I’m almost surprised the author simply make him a drooling simpleton named Benji! “Must kill!” The unintentionally comic monkeyshines of this character almost spoiled my appreciation of the work. But again, it’s decidedly not the fictional elements, however ghastly, that matter here, Wormwood! Most readers won’t notice the thick prose or wafer-thin characters anyway. For many of them, paperback “romances” are like mother’s milk! What does matter is passing along cunning and doubt-sowing falsehoods as smoothly as possible. The rest is merely the narrative butter, as it were, that helps the nasty gobbets slide down the gullet all the more easily. But really, Wormwood -- an albino ascetic! Why didn’t he toss in a vicious freckled humpback? Or some cheerful peasants with goiters? I must stop.
Well, Wormwood, there we are. If you can slither past the Early Reader prose and the overcaffeinated, goggle-eyed plot I think you’ll find that you’ve a veritable textbook on your hands, one that will reward you again and again as you stagger forward and downward in mastering the grand and ignorable art of leading souls, one by one, toward a fathomlessly bleak eternity. Cheers.
Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
**
Eric Metaxas is the author of the much acclaimed Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask), of which Ann. B. Davis (Alice of the Brady Bunch) has said "I'm absolutely smitten with this book!" and which Eric himself calls "Perhaps the best Easter present imaginable! For anyone!! Have you tried amazon.com? My goodness, what are you waiting for??
Friday, April 07, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Pt. IV - Wichita Interview
Q: Talk about your own creative experience. For instance, I know you’ve written before that Eucharistic adoration is a great cure for writer’s block.
BRN: Indeed. This is another reason I think that the Church needs to put itself in artists’ faces. We have an answer for them in our proximity to the sacred which is the font of inspiration. Right now, to get inspired an artist goes into his room, shuts the door and tries to get focused. But again, they are looking inside of their own guts, which is an unenlightened place. It’s another thing to sit in Eucharistic adoration with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You’re looking at your history and psychology, but you are not doing it in isolation. You’re getting God’s perspective.
I have a weird thing in my personal creative life that I always only seem to get the answer to any problem when I'm sitting in church. It's God’s way of making sure I never leave the Church from a purely pragmatic standpoint. Honestly, I have this weird experience where the best solutions to creative problems come to me at Mass or during meditation at church–not even at home when I’m praying.
Q: You’re not even necessarily thinking about the problem when the answer comes to you.
BRN: No. I'll be sitting there paying attention and all of a sudden I'll get the answer to something that I've been puzzling over outside in my work. It's even funnier when I get sudden answers to things that I didn't even realize were problems in my work!
I bring a notebook into church all the time. I always have one in my purse. It’s kind of like God is saying to me, “Just so you know, anything cool you ever manage to come up with really comes from me.” That’s good for me....Ask my family!
This points to one of those stimbling blocks that artists have to learn to watch or it sidetracks us. When we come up with something really cool in our creative isolation, it’s a holy thing to say “Now, that’s really cool!” It’s another thing to say “I’m cool.” You have to be careful. We artists are always on the verge of arrogance - walking around peering down at all the other people on the planet thinking, “How can I bear to be with these simians? I am a giant of understanding and depth.”
Q: You talk a lot about how community can save artists from this kind of temptation.
BRN:
I think about it more and more – almost exclusively lately. What is the relationship between community and creativity? It is in my mind all the time as the executive director of Act One which, according to our mission statement seeks to foster truly creative community for disciples of Christ.
The arts are a genius-driven arena. Basically, the Church should be busy readying all kinds of these systems ready for the next genius. That means we are going to have to work with a lot of people who are not geniuses, but one of them might be.
Having said that, we want to create a community that would be there to take the genius to the next level of holiness and skill as an artist for all of us. What kind of community is that? It is going to be a mix of the pragmatic and the ethereal - a place of psychology, prayer and patience. On some days we are very chastening to our students. I will literally say to them, “What is this slop you gave me to read? What were you thinking? Do you want me to read a first draft that is full of sloppiness? What are you doing here with your life!?” On some days I have to be that way, and on the inside I’m thinking “I hope I’m not hurting them too much.”
On other days we can see they are really in need of more affirmation. So we say things like, “I think you have an amazing potential here. I think you have a real voice, and I see touches of brilliance in some of your stuff.” Sometimes you have to say that too. Some days, my students just need me to say, “Okay, we are going to loan you the money for your car payment this month because you need a car.” And that might be enough for them.
So when we talk about the Church being the patron of the arts, it’s all of the above. And then it’s prayer. Honestly, every day when that part of the Mass comes up, “Pray for the Church around the world,” I pray for my students, that they will have the grace and inspiration to persevere, to work hard, that doors open in front of them and they have luck and opportunity and everything they need. That is also part of being a patron of the arts.
Q: You’ve said before that your experience in some of your own writing has taught you that sometimes it is necessary to handle religion in a very straightforward manner, whereas previously you had often assumed it was better handled in a roundabout way. Can you expand on that?
BRN: I have come full circle on this question. It is really a huge issue that has many ramifications for consideration. As with most other things, most voices in the Church oversimplify it.
I used to be part of a constituency in Hollywood that has been telling Christians we need to stop writing overtly Christian stuff because it is our subculture and that it will make drama that is unintelligible to the masses. We used to say that overt Christian stuff is uncommercial.
Well, then The Passion of the Christ comes along. You can’t get more overt and in-house than The Passion. To paraphrase St. Paul, it was foolishness to the critics at the New York Times and a scandal to Daily Variety.
So, I had to step back and say that sometimes we need to be overt.
What times are those? I think there is definitely a need for sacred art. There is a need for us to tell our stories in an overt way. With my St. Josemaria Escriva movie, what I was more worried about was writing a saint’s story that would be intelligible to the secular mind.
It’s been done before. You have movies with Hollywood distribution like The Song of Bernadette or A Man for All Seasons, The Mission or even Ghandi, that are overt stories. I found that downplaying the role of religious faith in the story to make it mainstream actually turned the saint into a social worker. But then, his ultimate choices do not make sense because there was nothing to die for.
Plato is right. He said that the only thing that does not make sense is dying for something because we do not know. Of course, he willingly died.
But that was my problem. Can you write a mainstream movie about a saint? It seemed to me that in parts, I had to just say to the audience, “Go with me here. There is another character in this saint’s life that you don’t know. You can’t perceive Him, but the saint lives in His presence.” God has to be an unseen but absolutely present character in a saint’s movie. Because that person is present to them, there may be choices that do not otherwise make sense. It has been said that Christians should live as though their lives would not make any sense if Jesus was not in the universe. I think it is the same thing with an overtly Christian story. The movie should not make sense if God isn’t real. That is the tricky thing.
But there is nothing more uncinematic than watching someone pray or read the bible. How many of those shots can you do before it gets very boring? And yet, I found some Christians who read the early drafts pressuring me for more of that: “Can’t you put a homily in it? Can’t you have more shots of him praying?”
Well, these things are not fun for the audience. They are not compelling, it is not dramatic, there is no pulse to it. It is just us being nervous. It was a very challenging thing. I know I succeeded in some parts through the use of intercutting. Again, using the whole pallet of the cinema, what can a movie do to communicate? It can cut from this picture to that picture and there is a lot of power in the juxtaposition of images.
That is different than what most Christians think. How do most Christians try to get their point across when they write a movie? Dialogue, which is the least effective. Conversations are the worst thing to do in a saint movie. It is the paradoxical choices that the character makes and then it is the intercutting, the juxtaposition of images that suggest “We’re looking at this, but it means that.” And it’s very, very hard.
Because I am kind of out there, if this movie gets made–it looks like it will–I am going to get nailed to the wall by some Christians because it is not going to be perfect. I have it coming. I've been hard on everybody else! Something else to look forward to!
I am hoping it is a step in the right direction. I know enough about movie writing to know that I am not one of those artistic geniuses we are all waiting for. I am good. Someone is going to be better.
But I can tell you, this movie is nothing like Therese or Left Behind. It is trying to do something else. It is trying to be a movie, not a radio show.
Q: What’s it called?
BRN: The Work is its working title.
Q: Aren’t you collaborating on something?
BRN:I’m collaborating with Benedict Fitzgerald, who is sort of Flannery O’Conner’s Godchild.
Q: Do you want to talk about any of that stuff in the pipeline?
BRN: It is so tricky to talk about stuff because you don’t want to spook things. There are two things I am negotiating to write now. I’ll tell you what I would love to write. I would love to write A Severe Mercy. I would love to do With God in Russia. I would love to do One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I really feel like we haven’t seen them. The Gulag was 70 years of persecution of the Church and of faith, and there are amazing stories there, stories that we do not even know yet from the gulag years, and I want to tell some of those stories. I love With God in Russia because it has the American angle that we need. But somebody has to pay me to write those.
I am writing a book now. It started as spirituality for writers. I am not a theologian, so it is basically just a practitioner talking about the church and the artist. How did we get where we are? I can’t do much on that because I am not an art historian, but I can say what the attitudes in the Church are towards the arts, how we need to get past them to grow, what the artists need from the Church and what the Church needs from the arts. The second half of the book is specific spiritual challenges that come with the artists’ territory that the Church needs to help them turn–as Fr. Benedict Groeschel would say–from stumbling blocks into stepping stones. Isolation, creativity, insufficiency, rejection, collaboration, success, instability are all particular realities that come from the artists’ experience doing art.
BRN: Indeed. This is another reason I think that the Church needs to put itself in artists’ faces. We have an answer for them in our proximity to the sacred which is the font of inspiration. Right now, to get inspired an artist goes into his room, shuts the door and tries to get focused. But again, they are looking inside of their own guts, which is an unenlightened place. It’s another thing to sit in Eucharistic adoration with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You’re looking at your history and psychology, but you are not doing it in isolation. You’re getting God’s perspective.
I have a weird thing in my personal creative life that I always only seem to get the answer to any problem when I'm sitting in church. It's God’s way of making sure I never leave the Church from a purely pragmatic standpoint. Honestly, I have this weird experience where the best solutions to creative problems come to me at Mass or during meditation at church–not even at home when I’m praying.
Q: You’re not even necessarily thinking about the problem when the answer comes to you.
BRN: No. I'll be sitting there paying attention and all of a sudden I'll get the answer to something that I've been puzzling over outside in my work. It's even funnier when I get sudden answers to things that I didn't even realize were problems in my work!
I bring a notebook into church all the time. I always have one in my purse. It’s kind of like God is saying to me, “Just so you know, anything cool you ever manage to come up with really comes from me.” That’s good for me....Ask my family!
This points to one of those stimbling blocks that artists have to learn to watch or it sidetracks us. When we come up with something really cool in our creative isolation, it’s a holy thing to say “Now, that’s really cool!” It’s another thing to say “I’m cool.” You have to be careful. We artists are always on the verge of arrogance - walking around peering down at all the other people on the planet thinking, “How can I bear to be with these simians? I am a giant of understanding and depth.”
Q: You talk a lot about how community can save artists from this kind of temptation.
BRN:
I think about it more and more – almost exclusively lately. What is the relationship between community and creativity? It is in my mind all the time as the executive director of Act One which, according to our mission statement seeks to foster truly creative community for disciples of Christ.
The arts are a genius-driven arena. Basically, the Church should be busy readying all kinds of these systems ready for the next genius. That means we are going to have to work with a lot of people who are not geniuses, but one of them might be.
Having said that, we want to create a community that would be there to take the genius to the next level of holiness and skill as an artist for all of us. What kind of community is that? It is going to be a mix of the pragmatic and the ethereal - a place of psychology, prayer and patience. On some days we are very chastening to our students. I will literally say to them, “What is this slop you gave me to read? What were you thinking? Do you want me to read a first draft that is full of sloppiness? What are you doing here with your life!?” On some days I have to be that way, and on the inside I’m thinking “I hope I’m not hurting them too much.”
On other days we can see they are really in need of more affirmation. So we say things like, “I think you have an amazing potential here. I think you have a real voice, and I see touches of brilliance in some of your stuff.” Sometimes you have to say that too. Some days, my students just need me to say, “Okay, we are going to loan you the money for your car payment this month because you need a car.” And that might be enough for them.
So when we talk about the Church being the patron of the arts, it’s all of the above. And then it’s prayer. Honestly, every day when that part of the Mass comes up, “Pray for the Church around the world,” I pray for my students, that they will have the grace and inspiration to persevere, to work hard, that doors open in front of them and they have luck and opportunity and everything they need. That is also part of being a patron of the arts.
Q: You’ve said before that your experience in some of your own writing has taught you that sometimes it is necessary to handle religion in a very straightforward manner, whereas previously you had often assumed it was better handled in a roundabout way. Can you expand on that?
BRN: I have come full circle on this question. It is really a huge issue that has many ramifications for consideration. As with most other things, most voices in the Church oversimplify it.
I used to be part of a constituency in Hollywood that has been telling Christians we need to stop writing overtly Christian stuff because it is our subculture and that it will make drama that is unintelligible to the masses. We used to say that overt Christian stuff is uncommercial.
Well, then The Passion of the Christ comes along. You can’t get more overt and in-house than The Passion. To paraphrase St. Paul, it was foolishness to the critics at the New York Times and a scandal to Daily Variety.
So, I had to step back and say that sometimes we need to be overt.
What times are those? I think there is definitely a need for sacred art. There is a need for us to tell our stories in an overt way. With my St. Josemaria Escriva movie, what I was more worried about was writing a saint’s story that would be intelligible to the secular mind.
It’s been done before. You have movies with Hollywood distribution like The Song of Bernadette or A Man for All Seasons, The Mission or even Ghandi, that are overt stories. I found that downplaying the role of religious faith in the story to make it mainstream actually turned the saint into a social worker. But then, his ultimate choices do not make sense because there was nothing to die for.
Plato is right. He said that the only thing that does not make sense is dying for something because we do not know. Of course, he willingly died.
But that was my problem. Can you write a mainstream movie about a saint? It seemed to me that in parts, I had to just say to the audience, “Go with me here. There is another character in this saint’s life that you don’t know. You can’t perceive Him, but the saint lives in His presence.” God has to be an unseen but absolutely present character in a saint’s movie. Because that person is present to them, there may be choices that do not otherwise make sense. It has been said that Christians should live as though their lives would not make any sense if Jesus was not in the universe. I think it is the same thing with an overtly Christian story. The movie should not make sense if God isn’t real. That is the tricky thing.
But there is nothing more uncinematic than watching someone pray or read the bible. How many of those shots can you do before it gets very boring? And yet, I found some Christians who read the early drafts pressuring me for more of that: “Can’t you put a homily in it? Can’t you have more shots of him praying?”
Well, these things are not fun for the audience. They are not compelling, it is not dramatic, there is no pulse to it. It is just us being nervous. It was a very challenging thing. I know I succeeded in some parts through the use of intercutting. Again, using the whole pallet of the cinema, what can a movie do to communicate? It can cut from this picture to that picture and there is a lot of power in the juxtaposition of images.
That is different than what most Christians think. How do most Christians try to get their point across when they write a movie? Dialogue, which is the least effective. Conversations are the worst thing to do in a saint movie. It is the paradoxical choices that the character makes and then it is the intercutting, the juxtaposition of images that suggest “We’re looking at this, but it means that.” And it’s very, very hard.
Because I am kind of out there, if this movie gets made–it looks like it will–I am going to get nailed to the wall by some Christians because it is not going to be perfect. I have it coming. I've been hard on everybody else! Something else to look forward to!
I am hoping it is a step in the right direction. I know enough about movie writing to know that I am not one of those artistic geniuses we are all waiting for. I am good. Someone is going to be better.
But I can tell you, this movie is nothing like Therese or Left Behind. It is trying to do something else. It is trying to be a movie, not a radio show.
Q: What’s it called?
BRN: The Work is its working title.
Q: Aren’t you collaborating on something?
BRN:I’m collaborating with Benedict Fitzgerald, who is sort of Flannery O’Conner’s Godchild.
Q: Do you want to talk about any of that stuff in the pipeline?
BRN: It is so tricky to talk about stuff because you don’t want to spook things. There are two things I am negotiating to write now. I’ll tell you what I would love to write. I would love to write A Severe Mercy. I would love to do With God in Russia. I would love to do One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I really feel like we haven’t seen them. The Gulag was 70 years of persecution of the Church and of faith, and there are amazing stories there, stories that we do not even know yet from the gulag years, and I want to tell some of those stories. I love With God in Russia because it has the American angle that we need. But somebody has to pay me to write those.
I am writing a book now. It started as spirituality for writers. I am not a theologian, so it is basically just a practitioner talking about the church and the artist. How did we get where we are? I can’t do much on that because I am not an art historian, but I can say what the attitudes in the Church are towards the arts, how we need to get past them to grow, what the artists need from the Church and what the Church needs from the arts. The second half of the book is specific spiritual challenges that come with the artists’ territory that the Church needs to help them turn–as Fr. Benedict Groeschel would say–from stumbling blocks into stepping stones. Isolation, creativity, insufficiency, rejection, collaboration, success, instability are all particular realities that come from the artists’ experience doing art.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Act One Newsletter
ACT ONE UPDATE (4/04/06)
In this issue:
ACT ONE SPONSORS DA VINCI CODE EVENT APRIL 11 / SEE BARBARA NICOLOSI IN ARIZONA, INDIANA / ACT ONE SPONSORS FORUM ON MARRIAGE AND INTIMACY IN HOLLYWOOD / SHORT FILM PROJECT UNDERWAY / NEW INTERNSHIP FOR EXECUTIVE PROGRAM / ACT ONE BOOK IN STORES NOW
_______________________
ACT ONE CO-SPONSORS DA VINCI CODE EVENT APRIL 11
"Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction?"
April 11, 7:00-9:30 PM
featuring:
Mark Shea
Josh McDowell
Craig Detweiler
Craig Smith
Hollywood Presbyterian Church (sanctuary)
1760 North Gower Street
Hollywood, CA 90028
for more information, visit http://inter-mission.net/events_la.html
Is Jesus really God?
Did Mary Magdalene birth his child?
Is The Da Vinci Code book/movie a dangerous challenge to the Christian faith, a ripe opportunity or both?
Are you prepared to answer these questions and more?
With over 42 million copies in print, The Da Vinci Code is a runaway bestseller, but are the so-called facts in this book truth...or are they fiction?
The novel is written as fact, but on Tuesday, April 11, international authors and speakers JOSH MCDOWELL, MARK SHEA, CRAIG DETWEILER AND CRAIG SMITH explain the truth behind this popular story.
Inter-Mission, Mastermedia International and Act One are inviting entertainment professionals, as well as the general public for this rare opportunity.
_______________________
SEE BARBARA NICOLOSI IN ARIZONA AND INDIANA!
Act One founder Barbara Nicolosi will be speaking at several upcoming events:
"Why Does God Care about Hollywood? The Role of Entertainment in Human Life"
Thursday, April 27
Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture
155 DeBartolo Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556
7:30 pm
http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/events/HollywoodLectures.shtml
Keynote Speaker at the Christianity and the Arts conference
April 28th - 29th
Church For The Nations
11640 N 19th Ave
Phoenix, AZ 85029
Cost: $15
to register: http://www.cftn.com/arts.html
_______________________
ACT ONE SPONSORS FORUM ON MARRIAGE AND INTIMACY IN HOLLYWOOD
"it's who you sleep with that matters..."
A conversation with Christians about marriage and intimacy in Hollywood
April 22, 9:30-12:00
www.hollywoodconnect.com
brought to you by Hollywood Connect, Inter-Mission, Act One & Hollywood Prayer Network
_______________________
SHORT FILM PROJECT UNDERWAY
Act One is pleased to announce that producers for the Peter Glenville Short Film Project have been selected. Anna Littles (Writing Program, L.A. 2002) will produce PIE 'N' BURGER, from a screenplay written by Clare Sera (Writing Program, L.A., 1999). Monica Jimenez-Grillo and Thomas Deason (both from the Executive Program, L.A. 2005) will produce THE PHILANTHROPISTS, from a screenplay written by Douglas McKelvey (Writing Program, Washington, D.C., 2004).
Named after the late director/filmmaker, Peter Glenville who was known for a number of highly acclaimed films including “Becket” and “The Comedians,” the Peter Glenville Short Film Program’s primary goal is to give a group of Act One alumni the opportunity to be involved in the production process from concept to distribution. The secondary goal is to produce two laudable, well-produced short films, which will be entered into film festival competitions around the world.
_______________________
NEW INTERNSHIP FOR EXECUTIVE PROGRAM
The Executive Program is pleased to announce that Guy Walks Into A Bar (Elf) has joined the list of top Hollywood entities accepting interns from our program this summer.
_______________________
ACT ONE BOOK IN STORES NOW
A new book written by the faculty and staff of Act One is now available for purchase at online and neighborhood bookstores.
Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film & Culture presents a fascinating look at the much-maligned film and television industries through the eyes of Christian writers, producers, and executives living out their faith behind TV shows, on movie sets, and in studio offices.
Writers include Scott Derrickson (Writer, Director, The Exorcism of Emily Rose), Ralph Winter (Producer, X-Men 2, Fantastic 4), Barbara Hall (Creator, Joan of Arcadia), and Dean Batali (Executive Producer, That '70s Show).
Available now at www.amazon.com.
_______________________
In this issue:
ACT ONE SPONSORS DA VINCI CODE EVENT APRIL 11 / SEE BARBARA NICOLOSI IN ARIZONA, INDIANA / ACT ONE SPONSORS FORUM ON MARRIAGE AND INTIMACY IN HOLLYWOOD / SHORT FILM PROJECT UNDERWAY / NEW INTERNSHIP FOR EXECUTIVE PROGRAM / ACT ONE BOOK IN STORES NOW
_______________________
ACT ONE CO-SPONSORS DA VINCI CODE EVENT APRIL 11
"Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction?"
April 11, 7:00-9:30 PM
featuring:
Mark Shea
Josh McDowell
Craig Detweiler
Craig Smith
Hollywood Presbyterian Church (sanctuary)
1760 North Gower Street
Hollywood, CA 90028
for more information, visit http://inter-mission.net/events_la.html
Is Jesus really God?
Did Mary Magdalene birth his child?
Is The Da Vinci Code book/movie a dangerous challenge to the Christian faith, a ripe opportunity or both?
Are you prepared to answer these questions and more?
With over 42 million copies in print, The Da Vinci Code is a runaway bestseller, but are the so-called facts in this book truth...or are they fiction?
The novel is written as fact, but on Tuesday, April 11, international authors and speakers JOSH MCDOWELL, MARK SHEA, CRAIG DETWEILER AND CRAIG SMITH explain the truth behind this popular story.
Inter-Mission, Mastermedia International and Act One are inviting entertainment professionals, as well as the general public for this rare opportunity.
_______________________
SEE BARBARA NICOLOSI IN ARIZONA AND INDIANA!
Act One founder Barbara Nicolosi will be speaking at several upcoming events:
"Why Does God Care about Hollywood? The Role of Entertainment in Human Life"
Thursday, April 27
Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture
155 DeBartolo Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556
7:30 pm
http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/events/HollywoodLectures.shtml
Keynote Speaker at the Christianity and the Arts conference
April 28th - 29th
Church For The Nations
11640 N 19th Ave
Phoenix, AZ 85029
Cost: $15
to register: http://www.cftn.com/arts.html
_______________________
ACT ONE SPONSORS FORUM ON MARRIAGE AND INTIMACY IN HOLLYWOOD
"it's who you sleep with that matters..."
A conversation with Christians about marriage and intimacy in Hollywood
April 22, 9:30-12:00
www.hollywoodconnect.com
brought to you by Hollywood Connect, Inter-Mission, Act One & Hollywood Prayer Network
_______________________
SHORT FILM PROJECT UNDERWAY
Act One is pleased to announce that producers for the Peter Glenville Short Film Project have been selected. Anna Littles (Writing Program, L.A. 2002) will produce PIE 'N' BURGER, from a screenplay written by Clare Sera (Writing Program, L.A., 1999). Monica Jimenez-Grillo and Thomas Deason (both from the Executive Program, L.A. 2005) will produce THE PHILANTHROPISTS, from a screenplay written by Douglas McKelvey (Writing Program, Washington, D.C., 2004).
Named after the late director/filmmaker, Peter Glenville who was known for a number of highly acclaimed films including “Becket” and “The Comedians,” the Peter Glenville Short Film Program’s primary goal is to give a group of Act One alumni the opportunity to be involved in the production process from concept to distribution. The secondary goal is to produce two laudable, well-produced short films, which will be entered into film festival competitions around the world.
_______________________
NEW INTERNSHIP FOR EXECUTIVE PROGRAM
The Executive Program is pleased to announce that Guy Walks Into A Bar (Elf) has joined the list of top Hollywood entities accepting interns from our program this summer.
_______________________
ACT ONE BOOK IN STORES NOW
A new book written by the faculty and staff of Act One is now available for purchase at online and neighborhood bookstores.
Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film & Culture presents a fascinating look at the much-maligned film and television industries through the eyes of Christian writers, producers, and executives living out their faith behind TV shows, on movie sets, and in studio offices.
Writers include Scott Derrickson (Writer, Director, The Exorcism of Emily Rose), Ralph Winter (Producer, X-Men 2, Fantastic 4), Barbara Hall (Creator, Joan of Arcadia), and Dean Batali (Executive Producer, That '70s Show).
Available now at www.amazon.com.
_______________________
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Pt. III - Wichita Interview
Q: Aside from formatting and style, what are the most prevalent shortcomings in scripts by Christians?
BRN: The biggest shortfall I find in beginning writers - Christians and pagans - is the failure to understand and harness the real power in the screen art form. Anyone who wants to write great movies has to plumb the depths of the multilevel nature of cinema and then begin to exploit the levels to create paradox.
The real power to help and heal the audience in a work of art is in paradox. We really want to haunt the audience in the way, for example, that Flannery O’Conner’s stories are haunting. She’s the one who created that phrase, saying that in order to make a story a work, she had to find a “haunting moment.” This refers to a moment in a story that is at once completely true and completely shocking. I have really brooded over this a lot, and it is clear to me that a work of art stays with an audience, and leads them into rumination, in so far as it incorporates paradox.
So, what happens in a movie is that the audience walks into the theater distracted, munching their popcorn, burping and scratching. Then, they encounter the movie, and suddenly they find themselves at the end with a new and irritating/pressing question: “Rats! I have a question now that keeps coming back to me!”
Too many Christians think we are supposed to use the arts to give people the answers. We’re not. We’re supposed to use the arts to lead them into a question. And that is just one stage in their personal journey of divine revelation. Once they have a new question, they will be on a search - consciously or subconsciously. They are going to read, they are going to meet people, God is going to send other things in their life. They are not going to get dunked in the baptismal font and raised to the altar from a movie. That’s too much. But the arts can definitely send people delving.
If you understand that, then you understand presenting an artful paradox is enough. We used to say in the convent, “Humble tasks are still necessary ones.” I think the arts task is very humble in getting people to a place of discomfort, what Plato called the stinging fly around the thoroughbred, getting it so angry that it runs. That is enough.
Of course, the purpose of the art is not this. There is no purpose! That's why it is art. But there are goods that come from the arts, and leading peole to wrestle with the Truth is one of those goods.
So, the first mistake beginning screenwriters make is the failure to even understand what the art form is. That is, the power to combine he different levels of meaning in a movie to create paradox that will lead people to ask questions.
The second mistake that keeps many writers from greatness is the inability to create visual imagery that is truly metaphorical and resonant. For example, I just worked on a screenplay set in the Spanish Civil War. It struck me so much that the whole age was defined by this climate of polarization and hatred, very much like our own. Spain had its secular Left and its religious Right just completely excoriating each other, and getting to the point in their cultural dialogue in which both sides are basically saying “You can’t talk to these people, there’s nothing you can say to them. They’re not even people.”
That’s the kind of thing I’m hearing in our nation today. After Bush’s election, someone passed on to me a message from a TV writers' Internet forum which stated, “We have to conclude that the Christians are not really human beings the way we are.” I’m not joking. It’s really a post I read that was posted to a group of TV writers. And no one disagreed. The gist of the discussion following the message was, “Yeah, those Christian red-staters are a different kind of being from us good people.”
Anyway, writing this movie on the Spanish Civil War, I was trying to find visual metaphors that would be in the background of the scenes in which hatred was particularly active in the story. So I came up with seven or eight things hatred is like and backgrounded my scenes with those. One scene begins with a shot of weeds climbing all through this fence, tangling, completely choking. Another scene takes place with this terrible cacophony of noise going on, where both characters are so scared of each other, but they are screaming and neither can hear each other. See,these are both metaphors of hatred: it is like a weed, it chokes. It is like cacophony, it prevents you from even hearing the other person. I came up with five or six others and these are in the background of the scenes.
This kind of writing takes a lot of patience - for experimenting.
Q: And reflection.
BRN: Yes, you really have to brood over it. My mother used to say, "Anything that doesn't you cost you anything, probably isn't worth anything." This is true in storytelling on the screen. The amazing things most often show up in the rewriting.
Very often, I hear myself saying to writers, “What is the theme of your work?” And they’ll say something like, “Well Joe marries Mary.” But see, that’s not a theme. That’s a story. That is what happens - not what it means.
So, what’s the theme? It starts to show up in the second or third draft, when the writer stands back and asks, "What am I getting at here? What is this storying trying to say about life?" Our students, because most are coming from Evangelical backgrounds and so haven’t had philosophy, don’t tend to even know what theme is. They associate it with "the moral of the story." But that’s not quite what theme is, it isn’t the moral of the story - it's the meaning of the story.
A good theme can be argued. An example of a good theme is, “Man is immortal.” One person says, “I don’t agree with that,” another says, “I do.” So, as a writer, I stand back from my story and see that that theme underlies the story as a presupposition. If you don’t buy into my worldview – in this case, the premise that man is immortal – the story doesn’t make sense because the hero is going to make choices that wouldn’t make sense if we don’t have another life waiting for us. So you have to try on my theme, my worldview when you watch my movie.
A good example of immortality as theme can be seen in A Man For All Seasons. If man doesn’t live forever, that movie makes no sense at all. The audience will have to say “Well, Thomas More believes he lives forever," at least. They have to try on the theme in order to identify with the character's choices. No one watches A Man For All Seasons and says “What a fool! He’s got nothing waiting for him after he loses his head. He should have just signed the divorce statement.” No one says that.
A good theme in a work of art is a point of view by the artist about the meaning of things. Good themes are always couched in universals. So, a bad theme is, “Broccoli is good for you.” It isn't big enough. It isn't worth traveling the journey of the art to come out with broccoli. A good theme is, “In the end, the truth always comes out.” And some people will disagree with that. But the movie becomes a demonstration of that universal.
Theme - as presupposition - should be so imbued in the text that no one ever comes out and says it in the movie. For example, in my Spanish Civil War movie, the theme probably ended up being, “When God gives you a mission, He doesn’t give you a map.” Another way to say it in a more universal sense is “Just because you know your destiny doesn’t mean you know how to get there.” I don't ever say it in the movie, but it's there underneath everything that happens. I hope it emerges from the story.
Basically, I’m hoping people will watch it and then as they are going through their daily lives find themselves with the conviction, “It is okay sometimes to know what I’m supposed to do, but not how I am supposed to do it.” And this will give them some courage to persevere doing what they are supposed to do. “I know where I need to get. And it looks like I should cheat on my boss, or steal this thing, or give up on my faith, or whatever, because it seems like the most expedient way to get what I need to get. but no, sometimes heroism means hovering in faith.” I hope my movie, in dealing with that theme, will give people some room to say “Wow, I’ve felt that.”
BRN: The biggest shortfall I find in beginning writers - Christians and pagans - is the failure to understand and harness the real power in the screen art form. Anyone who wants to write great movies has to plumb the depths of the multilevel nature of cinema and then begin to exploit the levels to create paradox.
The real power to help and heal the audience in a work of art is in paradox. We really want to haunt the audience in the way, for example, that Flannery O’Conner’s stories are haunting. She’s the one who created that phrase, saying that in order to make a story a work, she had to find a “haunting moment.” This refers to a moment in a story that is at once completely true and completely shocking. I have really brooded over this a lot, and it is clear to me that a work of art stays with an audience, and leads them into rumination, in so far as it incorporates paradox.
So, what happens in a movie is that the audience walks into the theater distracted, munching their popcorn, burping and scratching. Then, they encounter the movie, and suddenly they find themselves at the end with a new and irritating/pressing question: “Rats! I have a question now that keeps coming back to me!”
Too many Christians think we are supposed to use the arts to give people the answers. We’re not. We’re supposed to use the arts to lead them into a question. And that is just one stage in their personal journey of divine revelation. Once they have a new question, they will be on a search - consciously or subconsciously. They are going to read, they are going to meet people, God is going to send other things in their life. They are not going to get dunked in the baptismal font and raised to the altar from a movie. That’s too much. But the arts can definitely send people delving.
If you understand that, then you understand presenting an artful paradox is enough. We used to say in the convent, “Humble tasks are still necessary ones.” I think the arts task is very humble in getting people to a place of discomfort, what Plato called the stinging fly around the thoroughbred, getting it so angry that it runs. That is enough.
Of course, the purpose of the art is not this. There is no purpose! That's why it is art. But there are goods that come from the arts, and leading peole to wrestle with the Truth is one of those goods.
So, the first mistake beginning screenwriters make is the failure to even understand what the art form is. That is, the power to combine he different levels of meaning in a movie to create paradox that will lead people to ask questions.
The second mistake that keeps many writers from greatness is the inability to create visual imagery that is truly metaphorical and resonant. For example, I just worked on a screenplay set in the Spanish Civil War. It struck me so much that the whole age was defined by this climate of polarization and hatred, very much like our own. Spain had its secular Left and its religious Right just completely excoriating each other, and getting to the point in their cultural dialogue in which both sides are basically saying “You can’t talk to these people, there’s nothing you can say to them. They’re not even people.”
That’s the kind of thing I’m hearing in our nation today. After Bush’s election, someone passed on to me a message from a TV writers' Internet forum which stated, “We have to conclude that the Christians are not really human beings the way we are.” I’m not joking. It’s really a post I read that was posted to a group of TV writers. And no one disagreed. The gist of the discussion following the message was, “Yeah, those Christian red-staters are a different kind of being from us good people.”
Anyway, writing this movie on the Spanish Civil War, I was trying to find visual metaphors that would be in the background of the scenes in which hatred was particularly active in the story. So I came up with seven or eight things hatred is like and backgrounded my scenes with those. One scene begins with a shot of weeds climbing all through this fence, tangling, completely choking. Another scene takes place with this terrible cacophony of noise going on, where both characters are so scared of each other, but they are screaming and neither can hear each other. See,these are both metaphors of hatred: it is like a weed, it chokes. It is like cacophony, it prevents you from even hearing the other person. I came up with five or six others and these are in the background of the scenes.
This kind of writing takes a lot of patience - for experimenting.
Q: And reflection.
BRN: Yes, you really have to brood over it. My mother used to say, "Anything that doesn't you cost you anything, probably isn't worth anything." This is true in storytelling on the screen. The amazing things most often show up in the rewriting.
Very often, I hear myself saying to writers, “What is the theme of your work?” And they’ll say something like, “Well Joe marries Mary.” But see, that’s not a theme. That’s a story. That is what happens - not what it means.
So, what’s the theme? It starts to show up in the second or third draft, when the writer stands back and asks, "What am I getting at here? What is this storying trying to say about life?" Our students, because most are coming from Evangelical backgrounds and so haven’t had philosophy, don’t tend to even know what theme is. They associate it with "the moral of the story." But that’s not quite what theme is, it isn’t the moral of the story - it's the meaning of the story.
A good theme can be argued. An example of a good theme is, “Man is immortal.” One person says, “I don’t agree with that,” another says, “I do.” So, as a writer, I stand back from my story and see that that theme underlies the story as a presupposition. If you don’t buy into my worldview – in this case, the premise that man is immortal – the story doesn’t make sense because the hero is going to make choices that wouldn’t make sense if we don’t have another life waiting for us. So you have to try on my theme, my worldview when you watch my movie.
A good example of immortality as theme can be seen in A Man For All Seasons. If man doesn’t live forever, that movie makes no sense at all. The audience will have to say “Well, Thomas More believes he lives forever," at least. They have to try on the theme in order to identify with the character's choices. No one watches A Man For All Seasons and says “What a fool! He’s got nothing waiting for him after he loses his head. He should have just signed the divorce statement.” No one says that.
A good theme in a work of art is a point of view by the artist about the meaning of things. Good themes are always couched in universals. So, a bad theme is, “Broccoli is good for you.” It isn't big enough. It isn't worth traveling the journey of the art to come out with broccoli. A good theme is, “In the end, the truth always comes out.” And some people will disagree with that. But the movie becomes a demonstration of that universal.
Theme - as presupposition - should be so imbued in the text that no one ever comes out and says it in the movie. For example, in my Spanish Civil War movie, the theme probably ended up being, “When God gives you a mission, He doesn’t give you a map.” Another way to say it in a more universal sense is “Just because you know your destiny doesn’t mean you know how to get there.” I don't ever say it in the movie, but it's there underneath everything that happens. I hope it emerges from the story.
Basically, I’m hoping people will watch it and then as they are going through their daily lives find themselves with the conviction, “It is okay sometimes to know what I’m supposed to do, but not how I am supposed to do it.” And this will give them some courage to persevere doing what they are supposed to do. “I know where I need to get. And it looks like I should cheat on my boss, or steal this thing, or give up on my faith, or whatever, because it seems like the most expedient way to get what I need to get. but no, sometimes heroism means hovering in faith.” I hope my movie, in dealing with that theme, will give people some room to say “Wow, I’ve felt that.”
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Da Vinci Code Night at Inter-Mission, L.A.
[Note from Barb: Remember, May 19th, the whole Church goes Over the Hedge!
The Da Vinci COde: Fact or Fiction?
TUESDAY, APRIL 11 from 7:00-9:30 PM
HOLLYWOOD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (Sanctuary) (Map)
1760 N. Gower Street
Hollywood, CA 90028
JOSH MCDOWELL (www.davinciquest.org)
Josh was challenged by a group of Christian students and professors to examine the claims of Christianity while a student. During his journey to discredit the resurrection of Christ, Josh discovered compelling historical evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. He's received degrees from Wheaton College and Talbot Theological Seminary. Josh is an international author and speaker. He has authored and coauthored more than 100 books and workbooks with more than 42 million in print worldwide. Josh's most popular works are The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Beyond Belief to Convictions and his latest releases The Last Christian Generation and The Da Vinci Code--A Quest for Answers.
CRAIG SMITH (www.shepherdproject.com)
Founder and president of Shepherd Project Ministries, an organization dedicated to equipping Christians to seize strategic intersections of faith and culture. Craig speaks around the world at a wide range of events from youth retreats to theological conferences and teaches Theology and New Testament Studies at Denver Theological Seminary. He is the author of Deciphering The Da Vinci Code, The Kingdom For The Kingless and numerous articles ranging from biblical interpretation to Christian living.
MARK P. SHEA (www.mark-shea.com)
In addition to being co-author of the smash bestseller A Guide to the Passion: 100 Questions About The Passion of the Christ, Mark is also the author of The Da Vinci Deception: 100 Questions About the Facts and Fiction of The Da Vinci Code (Ascension), Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did (Basilica). Mark also appears frequently on radio and TV and is a regular guest eachTuesday on "Heart, Mind, and Strength", is Senior Content Editor for www.CatholicExchange.com and co-authors, with Dr. Scott Hahn.
CRAIG DETWEILER (www.biolamedia.com)
Craig Detweiler is a screenwriter and author of the book, A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture. He directs the Film/TV/Radio program at Biola University. His recent projects include a production rewrite for MEET ME IN MIAMI, a romantic comedy starring Latino pop idols, Carlos Ponce and Eduardo Verastegui and PURPLE STATE OF MIND, a documentary about the red state/blue state tension in America.
MODERATED BY: Rev. Doug Millham
***Donations are appreciated to help defray costs of the event.
***Resource materials from panelists will be made available for purchase.
***Childcare provided for ages 0-6 years old for $5/child. Reservations required: 323-462-8460 x333
***Questions: Call 323-462-8460 x113
The Da Vinci COde: Fact or Fiction?
TUESDAY, APRIL 11 from 7:00-9:30 PM
HOLLYWOOD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (Sanctuary) (Map)
1760 N. Gower Street
Hollywood, CA 90028
JOSH MCDOWELL (www.davinciquest.org)
Josh was challenged by a group of Christian students and professors to examine the claims of Christianity while a student. During his journey to discredit the resurrection of Christ, Josh discovered compelling historical evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. He's received degrees from Wheaton College and Talbot Theological Seminary. Josh is an international author and speaker. He has authored and coauthored more than 100 books and workbooks with more than 42 million in print worldwide. Josh's most popular works are The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Beyond Belief to Convictions and his latest releases The Last Christian Generation and The Da Vinci Code--A Quest for Answers.
CRAIG SMITH (www.shepherdproject.com)
Founder and president of Shepherd Project Ministries, an organization dedicated to equipping Christians to seize strategic intersections of faith and culture. Craig speaks around the world at a wide range of events from youth retreats to theological conferences and teaches Theology and New Testament Studies at Denver Theological Seminary. He is the author of Deciphering The Da Vinci Code, The Kingdom For The Kingless and numerous articles ranging from biblical interpretation to Christian living.
MARK P. SHEA (www.mark-shea.com)
In addition to being co-author of the smash bestseller A Guide to the Passion: 100 Questions About The Passion of the Christ, Mark is also the author of The Da Vinci Deception: 100 Questions About the Facts and Fiction of The Da Vinci Code (Ascension), Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did (Basilica). Mark also appears frequently on radio and TV and is a regular guest eachTuesday on "Heart, Mind, and Strength", is Senior Content Editor for www.CatholicExchange.com and co-authors, with Dr. Scott Hahn.
CRAIG DETWEILER (www.biolamedia.com)
Craig Detweiler is a screenwriter and author of the book, A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture. He directs the Film/TV/Radio program at Biola University. His recent projects include a production rewrite for MEET ME IN MIAMI, a romantic comedy starring Latino pop idols, Carlos Ponce and Eduardo Verastegui and PURPLE STATE OF MIND, a documentary about the red state/blue state tension in America.
MODERATED BY: Rev. Doug Millham
***Donations are appreciated to help defray costs of the event.
***Resource materials from panelists will be made available for purchase.
***Childcare provided for ages 0-6 years old for $5/child. Reservations required: 323-462-8460 x333
***Questions: Call 323-462-8460 x113
Monday, March 20, 2006
Pt. Wichita Interview
Q: Why is it important for Christians to get their rear-ends to the theater on the opening weekend of a worthwhile film?
BRN: Right now, opening weekend is the measuring stick for all of the future investment in a project by the industry. By Sunday morning industry watchers can pretty much tell you how many more prints of the film they are going to strike and distribute, and whether the theater run is going to be expanded to include more theaters, and how much money they will be spending on supporting media and p.r. They have also decided by Sunday morning of opening weekend about how how many copies of the DVD will be struck, and how much money they will spend to promote it.
Let’s say a film opens on 500 screens and does really well opening weekend. They will then expand it to 1,000 in the next few weeks, which means now they have to support it with wider spray of ads - more TV and newspaper - so the whole promotional thing kicks in even bigger and becomes more of a cultural phenomenon.
After a movie’s opening weekend, they know how many weeks it is going to be in the theaters, they can predict the global box office. By Sunday morning in America, they can tell you pretty much the kind of money a movie will make in Brazil on its DVD sales. There is a formula and they’re amazingly right most of the time.
So, going to a movie on opening weekend is like voting. If you are going to have an impact on this industry, you are going to have to be much more aware of how you are voting at the box office.
Which reminds me, with The Da Vinci Code, (scheduled for May 19, 2006) we want everybody to turn out to see another movie to skew the box office away from the blasphemy movie as a signal to the industry. There is a fun little animated family movie by Dreamworks called Over the Hedge. We want everybody in the business to wake up Monday morning and see that this little silly movie won the weekend - or at least ate a chunk of the tally from DVC.
If we take all of our kids and ourselves intentionally to Over the Hedge, and we let the industry know we are going to see this other movie on purpose as a way to register our vote, we can make a much more impressive statement that if we all just stay away from the theaters that weekend. But if we just ignore The Da Vinci Code and let your kids go, then you are voting for that kind of movie to be made. If the "Jesus is a fraud and the Church is a corporate criminal movie" is a huge hit, we will see 10-12 clones of it before too long. Why? Because that is the kind of movie Hollywood wants to make anyway, and hit status will give them economic affirmation as well.
Disney did not green light the second movie of the Narnia franchise until it was clear the movie was going to make a quarter of a billion dollars because it is not the kind of movie the creative elites in Hollywood want to make. But now they almost can’t NOT make another Narnia film, because now it’s probably going to pass $300 million in the United States alone. How can they not make the sequel? But with DVC, if it’s half a hit, we will see a spate of knockoffs.
------------------
Q: You’re a devotee of Flannery O’Conner, who often depicted violent and otherwise objectionable material. Can you talk about why a Christian writer would do that?
BRN: The thing missing in that question is how Flannery used those things. She definitely used violence, but she didn’t use gore. I find that Christian writers haven’t thought this through enough.
Flannery O’Conner had an instinctive Theology of the Body thing going on. She saw violence as being the radical effect of sin, and she had a reverence for the human person. When you read “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” which is the story of a serial killer killing a family of five, we don’t read about the bullet tearing through and exposing the blood, with brain matter on the ground and the person choking on their own vomit. That kind of obsessive staring at gore in entertainment really turns human beings into mere props - like chairs that get smashed up in a bar scene. Just wreck 'em and throw 'em away.
Christians still have a sense of privacy about sexuality on screen, but, curiously, violence doesn't seem to trip our triggers. Watching a human being shot should have the same impact on a believer as looking at people having sex. There is something sacred there. We don’t gape at it because it’s sacred and we have no business violating another human person's privacy for our entertainment - yes, even if they give their permission! They have no right to give their permission to be violated. (We're in such a weird moment of humanhistory!) A person being completely violated in their physical nature is not something we gaze at curiously and eat popcorn while we are doing it.
At the same time, Flannery said that when you have God in your life you are healthy, and the healthier that you are, the more you are going to be aware of the sickness all around you. She said it takes a healthy person to recognize a freak. So therefore, Christian arts projects today should be stuffed with freaks! What else can we do with the euthanizers down the hall waiting for grandma, and the weird scientists wanting to experiment on little humans, and barbarians coming over the walls in every sense!? Entertainment has to be better than real to be engaging for an audience. When "the real" is a freak show....
The other problem I find with young writers has to do with the failure to create real comedy. I think it is safe to say comedy is almost dead is a genre. For comedy to work, you have to have purity. The audience has to start with some sense of normalcy and purity for something to else to register as a joke.
For example, I was at a real live freak show not long ago with a woman who is a studio writer. Her daughter was playing in a soccer game. This woman was divorced and remarried. So, sitting at the game was my the woman and her ex-husband in the center - because they are the "parents of note", even though they don't live together. Next to the woman is her new husband cradling their new baby. Next to husband number two is his fifteen year old - really bored son from his previous marriage. Meanwhile, on the other side next to the ex-husband is his new wife with their new baby. And next to her is Debbie, with whom the father lived for three years after the initial divorce, and before he married the new one. In the three years of co-habitation, Debbie bonded with the little girl out there kicking the ball around, because she was there from 8-11, so Debbie was another pseudo mother figure. But wait, Debbie’s new boyfriend is also there. And then also in the line is the nanny, who has been the only real constant in the little girl’s life.
I’m sitting there, and all these people are all healthy and chatting and meanwhile, they are all kind of fervently there for the little girl so they can show that they are really invested in her, and they have so screwed up her life. She is a mess. I’m saying to myself, “What is comedy for this kid?” Her life is a circus. It’s an absolute feak show that can only have one predictable result as a child-raising strategy - nightmare! But anyway, in terms of the child's ability to appreciate comedy, exactly what is going to make her laugh? Real perverted, twisted stuff. And that is in fact the case.
And so I think the loss of purity has everything to do with the destruction of comedy. There is no sense of surprise anymore. When I was at Sundance, I was struck by how every comedy that I saw was essentially sneering: “Look at that idiot. What a loser! How stupid is that!” This is not the stuff that Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett did. Think of the great people who have made us laugh throughout the history of the industry. It was not built on finger pointing at some idiot and kind of separating yourself from him with a sense of superiority.
Chaplain said his comedy was supposed to make the audience humble. He called it the laughter of the gaps, where the audience would become aware of who we really are versus who we want to appear to be. And so the audience would laugh gently at the Little Tramp, relate to him and his pretensions, and come away with a sense of “aren’t we funny? aren’t we ridiculous?” That is different from “You’re an idiot, you’re screwing up my world.”
Q: Do any recent films come to mind that convey truth beyond a PG rating?
BRN:Yes. Pretty much any one that is beloved by anybody probably reading this thing. Recently, I would say In America. This was a film that Christians didn’t see that they should have. It was made for adults. There was a sex scene in it, but it wasn’t graphic or erotic.
Q: It was husband and wife.
BRN: Which arguably should make it more sacred - but the way it was shotdefinitely perserved the privacy of the act. And it was so pro-life! The conception of this child was tied to the sacrifice of prayer that this neighbor artist is making at the same time for the family, which has experienced such trauma. This movie was fantastic.
Another example of something I loved was In the Bedroom. I thought it was very Flannery O’Conneresque, and all about grace being offered. I’ve had Christians say “How can you recommend that movie? At the end, the two murderers get away with it.” No they don’t get away with anything. They are insane at the end of the movie. No one wants to be them.
I think The Straight Story, a few years ago was a great film. It was a David Lynch movie about a brother going on this journey of reconciliation to his brother - a beautiful film that is one of the most powerful films about reconciliation that I’ve ever seen. Again, we didn’t go see it.
On a lighter, just general entertainment level, how about Return To Me, that Bonnie Hunt did, a lovely delightful film about family, faith and friendship. It was a romantic comedy with nothing geeky or weird about it, just a really good romantic comedy. What do you get out of romantic comedy in these serious times? You get a gentle sense of God in the universe and can laugh together without in any sense being degraded or demeaned. This is a good thing.
That list of good films even in just the last few years would be very, very, long. The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, October Sky, Hotel Rwanda, Narnia, Passion, Spider Man, X-Men, Corpse Bride, Millions - I could go on. In just the last five years there have been some amazing movies made that too often are not successful financially because Christians are out of the habit of looking for them.
I also think it would ruin our paradigm if we had to go see a movie that came out of Hollywood that was good, because how do we think of them now? The mass media making something good? They’re supposed to be evil!
BRN: Right now, opening weekend is the measuring stick for all of the future investment in a project by the industry. By Sunday morning industry watchers can pretty much tell you how many more prints of the film they are going to strike and distribute, and whether the theater run is going to be expanded to include more theaters, and how much money they will be spending on supporting media and p.r. They have also decided by Sunday morning of opening weekend about how how many copies of the DVD will be struck, and how much money they will spend to promote it.
Let’s say a film opens on 500 screens and does really well opening weekend. They will then expand it to 1,000 in the next few weeks, which means now they have to support it with wider spray of ads - more TV and newspaper - so the whole promotional thing kicks in even bigger and becomes more of a cultural phenomenon.
After a movie’s opening weekend, they know how many weeks it is going to be in the theaters, they can predict the global box office. By Sunday morning in America, they can tell you pretty much the kind of money a movie will make in Brazil on its DVD sales. There is a formula and they’re amazingly right most of the time.
So, going to a movie on opening weekend is like voting. If you are going to have an impact on this industry, you are going to have to be much more aware of how you are voting at the box office.
Which reminds me, with The Da Vinci Code, (scheduled for May 19, 2006) we want everybody to turn out to see another movie to skew the box office away from the blasphemy movie as a signal to the industry. There is a fun little animated family movie by Dreamworks called Over the Hedge. We want everybody in the business to wake up Monday morning and see that this little silly movie won the weekend - or at least ate a chunk of the tally from DVC.
If we take all of our kids and ourselves intentionally to Over the Hedge, and we let the industry know we are going to see this other movie on purpose as a way to register our vote, we can make a much more impressive statement that if we all just stay away from the theaters that weekend. But if we just ignore The Da Vinci Code and let your kids go, then you are voting for that kind of movie to be made. If the "Jesus is a fraud and the Church is a corporate criminal movie" is a huge hit, we will see 10-12 clones of it before too long. Why? Because that is the kind of movie Hollywood wants to make anyway, and hit status will give them economic affirmation as well.
Disney did not green light the second movie of the Narnia franchise until it was clear the movie was going to make a quarter of a billion dollars because it is not the kind of movie the creative elites in Hollywood want to make. But now they almost can’t NOT make another Narnia film, because now it’s probably going to pass $300 million in the United States alone. How can they not make the sequel? But with DVC, if it’s half a hit, we will see a spate of knockoffs.
------------------
Q: You’re a devotee of Flannery O’Conner, who often depicted violent and otherwise objectionable material. Can you talk about why a Christian writer would do that?
BRN: The thing missing in that question is how Flannery used those things. She definitely used violence, but she didn’t use gore. I find that Christian writers haven’t thought this through enough.
Flannery O’Conner had an instinctive Theology of the Body thing going on. She saw violence as being the radical effect of sin, and she had a reverence for the human person. When you read “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” which is the story of a serial killer killing a family of five, we don’t read about the bullet tearing through and exposing the blood, with brain matter on the ground and the person choking on their own vomit. That kind of obsessive staring at gore in entertainment really turns human beings into mere props - like chairs that get smashed up in a bar scene. Just wreck 'em and throw 'em away.
Christians still have a sense of privacy about sexuality on screen, but, curiously, violence doesn't seem to trip our triggers. Watching a human being shot should have the same impact on a believer as looking at people having sex. There is something sacred there. We don’t gape at it because it’s sacred and we have no business violating another human person's privacy for our entertainment - yes, even if they give their permission! They have no right to give their permission to be violated. (We're in such a weird moment of humanhistory!) A person being completely violated in their physical nature is not something we gaze at curiously and eat popcorn while we are doing it.
At the same time, Flannery said that when you have God in your life you are healthy, and the healthier that you are, the more you are going to be aware of the sickness all around you. She said it takes a healthy person to recognize a freak. So therefore, Christian arts projects today should be stuffed with freaks! What else can we do with the euthanizers down the hall waiting for grandma, and the weird scientists wanting to experiment on little humans, and barbarians coming over the walls in every sense!? Entertainment has to be better than real to be engaging for an audience. When "the real" is a freak show....
The other problem I find with young writers has to do with the failure to create real comedy. I think it is safe to say comedy is almost dead is a genre. For comedy to work, you have to have purity. The audience has to start with some sense of normalcy and purity for something to else to register as a joke.
For example, I was at a real live freak show not long ago with a woman who is a studio writer. Her daughter was playing in a soccer game. This woman was divorced and remarried. So, sitting at the game was my the woman and her ex-husband in the center - because they are the "parents of note", even though they don't live together. Next to the woman is her new husband cradling their new baby. Next to husband number two is his fifteen year old - really bored son from his previous marriage. Meanwhile, on the other side next to the ex-husband is his new wife with their new baby. And next to her is Debbie, with whom the father lived for three years after the initial divorce, and before he married the new one. In the three years of co-habitation, Debbie bonded with the little girl out there kicking the ball around, because she was there from 8-11, so Debbie was another pseudo mother figure. But wait, Debbie’s new boyfriend is also there. And then also in the line is the nanny, who has been the only real constant in the little girl’s life.
I’m sitting there, and all these people are all healthy and chatting and meanwhile, they are all kind of fervently there for the little girl so they can show that they are really invested in her, and they have so screwed up her life. She is a mess. I’m saying to myself, “What is comedy for this kid?” Her life is a circus. It’s an absolute feak show that can only have one predictable result as a child-raising strategy - nightmare! But anyway, in terms of the child's ability to appreciate comedy, exactly what is going to make her laugh? Real perverted, twisted stuff. And that is in fact the case.
And so I think the loss of purity has everything to do with the destruction of comedy. There is no sense of surprise anymore. When I was at Sundance, I was struck by how every comedy that I saw was essentially sneering: “Look at that idiot. What a loser! How stupid is that!” This is not the stuff that Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett did. Think of the great people who have made us laugh throughout the history of the industry. It was not built on finger pointing at some idiot and kind of separating yourself from him with a sense of superiority.
Chaplain said his comedy was supposed to make the audience humble. He called it the laughter of the gaps, where the audience would become aware of who we really are versus who we want to appear to be. And so the audience would laugh gently at the Little Tramp, relate to him and his pretensions, and come away with a sense of “aren’t we funny? aren’t we ridiculous?” That is different from “You’re an idiot, you’re screwing up my world.”
Q: Do any recent films come to mind that convey truth beyond a PG rating?
BRN:Yes. Pretty much any one that is beloved by anybody probably reading this thing. Recently, I would say In America. This was a film that Christians didn’t see that they should have. It was made for adults. There was a sex scene in it, but it wasn’t graphic or erotic.
Q: It was husband and wife.
BRN: Which arguably should make it more sacred - but the way it was shotdefinitely perserved the privacy of the act. And it was so pro-life! The conception of this child was tied to the sacrifice of prayer that this neighbor artist is making at the same time for the family, which has experienced such trauma. This movie was fantastic.
Another example of something I loved was In the Bedroom. I thought it was very Flannery O’Conneresque, and all about grace being offered. I’ve had Christians say “How can you recommend that movie? At the end, the two murderers get away with it.” No they don’t get away with anything. They are insane at the end of the movie. No one wants to be them.
I think The Straight Story, a few years ago was a great film. It was a David Lynch movie about a brother going on this journey of reconciliation to his brother - a beautiful film that is one of the most powerful films about reconciliation that I’ve ever seen. Again, we didn’t go see it.
On a lighter, just general entertainment level, how about Return To Me, that Bonnie Hunt did, a lovely delightful film about family, faith and friendship. It was a romantic comedy with nothing geeky or weird about it, just a really good romantic comedy. What do you get out of romantic comedy in these serious times? You get a gentle sense of God in the universe and can laugh together without in any sense being degraded or demeaned. This is a good thing.
That list of good films even in just the last few years would be very, very, long. The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, October Sky, Hotel Rwanda, Narnia, Passion, Spider Man, X-Men, Corpse Bride, Millions - I could go on. In just the last five years there have been some amazing movies made that too often are not successful financially because Christians are out of the habit of looking for them.
I also think it would ruin our paradigm if we had to go see a movie that came out of Hollywood that was good, because how do we think of them now? The mass media making something good? They’re supposed to be evil!
Friday, March 17, 2006
 | You scored as D'Artagnan. You are D'Artagnan, the brash Gascon who embodies the high ideals of the Musketeer. You are sometime your own worst enemy, but your motives are pure and your character is unimpeachable. You are destined for great things and passionate (though often ill-fated) love.
Which Dumas character are you? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com |
Pt. I - The Really Long Wichita Interview
I was in Wichita recently for some talks and press interviews. One young writer, the enterprising Del Torkelson, set up his tape recorder and then proceeded to ask me to articulate pretty much every thought I've ever had in my head! Seriously, it ended up being like 7,500 words. He used some of it in an article, and thenforwarded me the rest of it.
I thought I would excerpt it here over the next few days (or weeks...or months!) just so that Del's hard work does not go for nought! And also,in the event that I get suddenly hit by a truck, this archive will make my doctor of the Church process go that much easier. Ahem.
Anyway, so here's the first installment of the Wichita interview.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q:So, one of your constant themes is that the gulf between the arts and the church is only a recent development, that our time is an anomaly. Isn’t one of the reasons you’re doing what you’re doing with Act One because at a previous job you were so consistently disappointed by the quality of the screenplays submitted by Christian writers?
BRN: Well, submitted by everyone. The good news is, there is just as much banal work - a lack of artistry and craft - on the secular side, but there are more of them, so they have the luxury of being lousy.
Q: Sheer numbers?
BRN: Yeah. We Christians do not have the luxury of being lousy. If we are really only going to have a substantial creative impact on five films a year they cannot be sloppy and stupid.
But yes, the incentive for me to be part of starting Act One came out of a tremendous sense of frustration with the work of Christians that I was reading in the production company. The product being sent to the industry by believers was marked by a complete lack of professional understanding of the technical needs of the industry in a screenplay.
I remember a guy who wrote a movie about drug-running by the CIA in Central or South America. I opened the script and it was typed in the wrong font. He had pasted articles all over it. It had handwritten corrections and was just a mess. So I sent him a format guide with a little cover letter: “Persevere, we need good people,” whatever. So, somehow, he got me on the phone and started screaming at me that if I cared about social justice I would have looked at his script despite its "small technical flaws." I told him I did way more for him than what most of Hollywood would do - just throw it out. That experience said to me that not only are we Christians technically insufficient as artists, but we’re arrogant.
You don't get extra credit for being an ass.
Q: What are the worst misconceptions Christians have about Hollywood and visa versa?
BRN: The worst misconception Christians have about Hollywood is that it is basically a monolithic, antireligious legion of people that hate Christians and the Church. It’s just not true. Nine out of 10 people in Hollywood may be liberal Democrats, but their agenda is not politics. It’s art - creativity and entertainment. They want you to laugh much more than they care about how you vote.
The problem is, the 10 percent left in the business - the ones who do have an anti-religious bias - tend to also be the people with the most power. Is there is a single head of a studio or network or top agency that is not a fervent secular humanist? I don’t know a single one. Certainly few of the most powerful folks in entertainment go to church or temple with any regularity. The secular humanist philosophy is very homogenous in the top levels of the business. And these are the folks who can ultimately say thumbs up or thumbs down to a project going ahead.
So, what do we do about that? We work our way up, we persevere and we get some clout and influence the way that anybody gets influence in Hollywood: money and talent. Then we will have the powerful chairs and you will start seeing a lot more of the things we want green lit–and things not being green lit that should never be made.
The misconception that people in Hollywood have about the Church is the same–that we are monolithic and fit a certain caricature as fetus-loving, Bush-supporting, homosexual hating, uncreative fascists who have no use for science or reason. Right after the re-election of George W. Bush, there was a sci-fi writer giving a talk in a bookstore in northern California and she was raging against the Christian Right that had put George Bush in office. Her speech was transcribed and got circulated to a lot of Hollywood writers. At one point in her diatribe she said, “Christians can never understand what we (literary people) are doing here because they have no sense of art or beauty. Christians could never make anything beautiful because they are so full of fear and anger.”
I was thinking to myself while reading this, “What about every Christian writer for the last 1,000 years? What about Dante, Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, just to name a few.” In fact, when I said that in another interview, a mainstream journalist said to me, “Come on, you’re not claiming Dickens was a Christian writer.” I said “Yes! I am! He was!” Anyway, it is so telling that this woman would basically castigate an entire religious tradition as being made up of people that are full of hate and fear.
Both sides have been very comfortable with caricaturing each other.
Q: What’s a good example of a film making a profound impact on you or someone you know?
BRN: Once when I was 24 and still in the convent, I was stationed out in Los Angeles. I found myself totally at odds with a sister with whom I was living. We practically hated each other. It was pure personality. We just could not synch. We ended up going to a screening of this movie, Romero that Fr. Bud Kieser had made about Archbishop Oscar Romero. The movie's portrayal of man’s inhumanity to man was unflinching and horrific.
There was one particular scene in which the El Salvadoran government is basically torturing his priests to get the Archbishop to do what they want. The movie does not show the torture, it shows Romero alone in his cell up against a gray wall and we are hearing the priests being tortured and it’s on the Archbishop’s face. He can’t compromise, because it would sell out the people of El Salvador and the Gospel. At the same time, his priests are being tortured.
It was so devastating–the struggle, the man, and how evil we can be–that the next thing I knew, that sister and I were holding hands in the theater and we were friends from that day on. There was something about that experience together that got us past all our little garbage and stupid little things of personality separating us. The movie cut through our idiocy and helped us see that the main thing should be the main thing, that we are united in Christ and that we both want the same things. That was a unity that the movie awoke us to.
That was such a powerful experience for me. It was because of that film that I went to film school and then wrote Fr. Kieser a letter, which led to my first job in Hollywood. I was hired by him to work on his Dorothy Day movie, Entertaining Angels. I’ve had many other experiences like that with movies and television, but that was the most visceral.
Q: What about a film making a profound impact for the worse?
There are many. I remember one young man who saw the movie Saved, for example, who then said to me, “That movie opened up to me how the Christian Church is just a pack of hypocrites and liars.” Now, I heard some p.r. folks in the business describe Saved as being just a light comedy poking harmless fun at Evangelicals. But the kids who watched it were left thinking, “I don’t want to be one of those hypocritical/stupid religious people and I don’t want to be associated with any trappings that even look like that.”
Saved is an example of a whole genre of movies that are out there right now. The Sundance Film Festival was packed with them. They are not healthy satire in the sense in which humor can gently lead us to a humble awareness of the gap between who we are and who we think we are. There can be such a thing as good political satire if it skewers both sides. That is what satire ought to do. It ought to show the hypocrisy of both sides. The problem with Saved was that it made religion very political/culture-warish, and then only skewered the people that believed in Jesus, but not the secularist students.
To show the hypocrisy of the liberal/pagan kids who mouth equality and social justice but live basically as self-absorbed narcissists - there is a lot of skewering you could do there. I know, I teach undergrads! But the movie unfairly only skewered one side, which is why I think it was an evil satire.
I thought I would excerpt it here over the next few days (or weeks...or months!) just so that Del's hard work does not go for nought! And also,in the event that I get suddenly hit by a truck, this archive will make my doctor of the Church process go that much easier. Ahem.
Anyway, so here's the first installment of the Wichita interview.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q:So, one of your constant themes is that the gulf between the arts and the church is only a recent development, that our time is an anomaly. Isn’t one of the reasons you’re doing what you’re doing with Act One because at a previous job you were so consistently disappointed by the quality of the screenplays submitted by Christian writers?
BRN: Well, submitted by everyone. The good news is, there is just as much banal work - a lack of artistry and craft - on the secular side, but there are more of them, so they have the luxury of being lousy.
Q: Sheer numbers?
BRN: Yeah. We Christians do not have the luxury of being lousy. If we are really only going to have a substantial creative impact on five films a year they cannot be sloppy and stupid.
But yes, the incentive for me to be part of starting Act One came out of a tremendous sense of frustration with the work of Christians that I was reading in the production company. The product being sent to the industry by believers was marked by a complete lack of professional understanding of the technical needs of the industry in a screenplay.
I remember a guy who wrote a movie about drug-running by the CIA in Central or South America. I opened the script and it was typed in the wrong font. He had pasted articles all over it. It had handwritten corrections and was just a mess. So I sent him a format guide with a little cover letter: “Persevere, we need good people,” whatever. So, somehow, he got me on the phone and started screaming at me that if I cared about social justice I would have looked at his script despite its "small technical flaws." I told him I did way more for him than what most of Hollywood would do - just throw it out. That experience said to me that not only are we Christians technically insufficient as artists, but we’re arrogant.
You don't get extra credit for being an ass.
Q: What are the worst misconceptions Christians have about Hollywood and visa versa?
BRN: The worst misconception Christians have about Hollywood is that it is basically a monolithic, antireligious legion of people that hate Christians and the Church. It’s just not true. Nine out of 10 people in Hollywood may be liberal Democrats, but their agenda is not politics. It’s art - creativity and entertainment. They want you to laugh much more than they care about how you vote.
The problem is, the 10 percent left in the business - the ones who do have an anti-religious bias - tend to also be the people with the most power. Is there is a single head of a studio or network or top agency that is not a fervent secular humanist? I don’t know a single one. Certainly few of the most powerful folks in entertainment go to church or temple with any regularity. The secular humanist philosophy is very homogenous in the top levels of the business. And these are the folks who can ultimately say thumbs up or thumbs down to a project going ahead.
So, what do we do about that? We work our way up, we persevere and we get some clout and influence the way that anybody gets influence in Hollywood: money and talent. Then we will have the powerful chairs and you will start seeing a lot more of the things we want green lit–and things not being green lit that should never be made.
The misconception that people in Hollywood have about the Church is the same–that we are monolithic and fit a certain caricature as fetus-loving, Bush-supporting, homosexual hating, uncreative fascists who have no use for science or reason. Right after the re-election of George W. Bush, there was a sci-fi writer giving a talk in a bookstore in northern California and she was raging against the Christian Right that had put George Bush in office. Her speech was transcribed and got circulated to a lot of Hollywood writers. At one point in her diatribe she said, “Christians can never understand what we (literary people) are doing here because they have no sense of art or beauty. Christians could never make anything beautiful because they are so full of fear and anger.”
I was thinking to myself while reading this, “What about every Christian writer for the last 1,000 years? What about Dante, Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, just to name a few.” In fact, when I said that in another interview, a mainstream journalist said to me, “Come on, you’re not claiming Dickens was a Christian writer.” I said “Yes! I am! He was!” Anyway, it is so telling that this woman would basically castigate an entire religious tradition as being made up of people that are full of hate and fear.
Both sides have been very comfortable with caricaturing each other.
Q: What’s a good example of a film making a profound impact on you or someone you know?
BRN: Once when I was 24 and still in the convent, I was stationed out in Los Angeles. I found myself totally at odds with a sister with whom I was living. We practically hated each other. It was pure personality. We just could not synch. We ended up going to a screening of this movie, Romero that Fr. Bud Kieser had made about Archbishop Oscar Romero. The movie's portrayal of man’s inhumanity to man was unflinching and horrific.
There was one particular scene in which the El Salvadoran government is basically torturing his priests to get the Archbishop to do what they want. The movie does not show the torture, it shows Romero alone in his cell up against a gray wall and we are hearing the priests being tortured and it’s on the Archbishop’s face. He can’t compromise, because it would sell out the people of El Salvador and the Gospel. At the same time, his priests are being tortured.
It was so devastating–the struggle, the man, and how evil we can be–that the next thing I knew, that sister and I were holding hands in the theater and we were friends from that day on. There was something about that experience together that got us past all our little garbage and stupid little things of personality separating us. The movie cut through our idiocy and helped us see that the main thing should be the main thing, that we are united in Christ and that we both want the same things. That was a unity that the movie awoke us to.
That was such a powerful experience for me. It was because of that film that I went to film school and then wrote Fr. Kieser a letter, which led to my first job in Hollywood. I was hired by him to work on his Dorothy Day movie, Entertaining Angels. I’ve had many other experiences like that with movies and television, but that was the most visceral.
Q: What about a film making a profound impact for the worse?
There are many. I remember one young man who saw the movie Saved, for example, who then said to me, “That movie opened up to me how the Christian Church is just a pack of hypocrites and liars.” Now, I heard some p.r. folks in the business describe Saved as being just a light comedy poking harmless fun at Evangelicals. But the kids who watched it were left thinking, “I don’t want to be one of those hypocritical/stupid religious people and I don’t want to be associated with any trappings that even look like that.”
Saved is an example of a whole genre of movies that are out there right now. The Sundance Film Festival was packed with them. They are not healthy satire in the sense in which humor can gently lead us to a humble awareness of the gap between who we are and who we think we are. There can be such a thing as good political satire if it skewers both sides. That is what satire ought to do. It ought to show the hypocrisy of both sides. The problem with Saved was that it made religion very political/culture-warish, and then only skewered the people that believed in Jesus, but not the secularist students.
To show the hypocrisy of the liberal/pagan kids who mouth equality and social justice but live basically as self-absorbed narcissists - there is a lot of skewering you could do there. I know, I teach undergrads! But the movie unfairly only skewered one side, which is why I think it was an evil satire.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
DVC "Othercott" Reminder - Spread the Word!
WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAY 19TH?
May 19th is the date the Da Vinci Code movie opens. A movie based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor.
What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I'm going to offer you the usual choices -- and a new one.
Here are the usual suspects:
A) We can ignore the movie. ........
The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot box closes on the Sunday of opening weekend. If you stay home, you have lost your chance to make your vote heard. You have thrown your vote away, and from Hollywood's point of view, you don't count. By staying home, you do nothing to shape the decision-making process regarding what movies will make it to the big screen.
B) We can protest. ........
The problem with this option: It doesn't work. Any publicity is good publicity. Protests not only fuel the box office, they make all Christians look like idiots. And again, protests and boycotts do nothing to help shape the decisions being made right now about what movies Hollywood will make in the next few years. (Or they convince Hollywood to make *more* movies that will provoke Christians to protest, which will drive the box office up.)
C) We can discuss the movie. We can be rational and be ready with study guides and workshops and point-by-point refutations of the lies promulgated by the movie. ........
The problem with this option: No one's listening. They think they know what we're going to say already. We'll lose most of these discussions anyway, no matter how prepared we are, because the power of story always trumps the power of facts (why do you think Jesus taught in parables?!). And once again: rational discussion of history does nothing to affect Hollywood's choices regarding what movies to make.
But there's a fourth choice.
On May 19th, you should go to the movies.
Just go to another movie.
Save the date now. May 19th, or May 20th. No later than Sunday, May 21st -- that's the day the ballot box closes. You'll get a vote, the only vote Hollywood recognizes: The power of cold hard cash laid down on a box office window on opening weekend.
Use your vote. Don't throw it away. Vote for a movie other than DVC. If enough people do it, the powers that be will notice. They won't have a choice.
The major studio movie scheduled for release against DVC is the DreamWorks animated feature Over the Hedge. The trailers look fun, and you can take your kids. And your friends. And their friends. In fact, let's all go see it.
Let's rock the box office in a way no one expects -- without protests, without boycotts, without arguments, without rancor. Let's show up at the box office ballot box and cast our votes. And buy some popcorn, too.
May 19th. Mark your calendars now: Over the Hedge's opening weekend. Buy a ticket.
And spread the word. Forward this e-mail to all the Christians in your address book. Post it on your blogs. Talk about it to your churches. And let's all go to the movies.
May 19th is the date the Da Vinci Code movie opens. A movie based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor.
What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I'm going to offer you the usual choices -- and a new one.
Here are the usual suspects:
A) We can ignore the movie. ........
The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot box closes on the Sunday of opening weekend. If you stay home, you have lost your chance to make your vote heard. You have thrown your vote away, and from Hollywood's point of view, you don't count. By staying home, you do nothing to shape the decision-making process regarding what movies will make it to the big screen.
B) We can protest. ........
The problem with this option: It doesn't work. Any publicity is good publicity. Protests not only fuel the box office, they make all Christians look like idiots. And again, protests and boycotts do nothing to help shape the decisions being made right now about what movies Hollywood will make in the next few years. (Or they convince Hollywood to make *more* movies that will provoke Christians to protest, which will drive the box office up.)
C) We can discuss the movie. We can be rational and be ready with study guides and workshops and point-by-point refutations of the lies promulgated by the movie. ........
The problem with this option: No one's listening. They think they know what we're going to say already. We'll lose most of these discussions anyway, no matter how prepared we are, because the power of story always trumps the power of facts (why do you think Jesus taught in parables?!). And once again: rational discussion of history does nothing to affect Hollywood's choices regarding what movies to make.
But there's a fourth choice.
On May 19th, you should go to the movies.
Just go to another movie.
Save the date now. May 19th, or May 20th. No later than Sunday, May 21st -- that's the day the ballot box closes. You'll get a vote, the only vote Hollywood recognizes: The power of cold hard cash laid down on a box office window on opening weekend.
Use your vote. Don't throw it away. Vote for a movie other than DVC. If enough people do it, the powers that be will notice. They won't have a choice.
The major studio movie scheduled for release against DVC is the DreamWorks animated feature Over the Hedge. The trailers look fun, and you can take your kids. And your friends. And their friends. In fact, let's all go see it.
Let's rock the box office in a way no one expects -- without protests, without boycotts, without arguments, without rancor. Let's show up at the box office ballot box and cast our votes. And buy some popcorn, too.
May 19th. Mark your calendars now: Over the Hedge's opening weekend. Buy a ticket.
And spread the word. Forward this e-mail to all the Christians in your address book. Post it on your blogs. Talk about it to your churches. And let's all go to the movies.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Devotions for Dog Lovers
A few friends of mine have just come out with a book about dogs as gift of God. I'm much more of a cat person, (!!!) but I love my friends and I found the book kind of cute. Check it out on Amazon here.
Here is their press release...
TRICKS DOGS CAN USE TO TRAIN THEIR HUMANS
A top canine expert on “people behavior” claims dogs can teach even old humans new tricks, because "they’ve got a paw up on training techniques." Notes long-time canine human's best friend, Morgan Wells, “Human trainers just teach short commands. We canines communicate complex concepts: true friends are forever; don’t growl, trust; we are useful, whatever our age. We can even help the two-foots get to know their Master better.” To bless a dog's pet humans and help them grow, and get extra treats and snuggles too, he urges dogs to try these tips.
1. When you’re hungry, don’t stare at your food bowl. Gaze at your food bowl-fillers. This will help your humans look to their food bowl-Filler too.
2. Keep woofing when you think there’s danger, even if your people don’t take the hint. If you’re right and they get robbed, at least they can’t blame you. They’ll learn to heed your warning barks…and God’s…more closely next time.
3. Learn the names of your toys. Fetch them on command, and lay them at your masters’ feet. It will help them obey and lay things at God’s feet when He asks them.
4. Treat your humans like rock stars, especially when they see extra wrinkles, more white hair, and a bigger “spare tire” staring at them in their mirror. If you love them for who they are inside, it reminds them God does, too.
5. Buy a book called FOUR PAWS FROM HEAVEN: DEVOTIONS FOR DOG LOVERS (M. R. Wells, Kris Young & Connie Fleishauer, Harvest House Publishers). It has tons more training secrets. Morgan's best friend and six other canine experts wrote it through their people. Most booksellers don’t take kibble in payment, so you’ll have to use your master’s credit card. Just input the number online or by phone with your nose. Then lie by the door till the book is delivered—because if your humans see it first, they’ll grab it and read it and pass it to friends—and you’ll never get your paws on it.
Here is their press release...
TRICKS DOGS CAN USE TO TRAIN THEIR HUMANS
A top canine expert on “people behavior” claims dogs can teach even old humans new tricks, because "they’ve got a paw up on training techniques." Notes long-time canine human's best friend, Morgan Wells, “Human trainers just teach short commands. We canines communicate complex concepts: true friends are forever; don’t growl, trust; we are useful, whatever our age. We can even help the two-foots get to know their Master better.” To bless a dog's pet humans and help them grow, and get extra treats and snuggles too, he urges dogs to try these tips.
1. When you’re hungry, don’t stare at your food bowl. Gaze at your food bowl-fillers. This will help your humans look to their food bowl-Filler too.
2. Keep woofing when you think there’s danger, even if your people don’t take the hint. If you’re right and they get robbed, at least they can’t blame you. They’ll learn to heed your warning barks…and God’s…more closely next time.
3. Learn the names of your toys. Fetch them on command, and lay them at your masters’ feet. It will help them obey and lay things at God’s feet when He asks them.
4. Treat your humans like rock stars, especially when they see extra wrinkles, more white hair, and a bigger “spare tire” staring at them in their mirror. If you love them for who they are inside, it reminds them God does, too.
5. Buy a book called FOUR PAWS FROM HEAVEN: DEVOTIONS FOR DOG LOVERS (M. R. Wells, Kris Young & Connie Fleishauer, Harvest House Publishers). It has tons more training secrets. Morgan's best friend and six other canine experts wrote it through their people. Most booksellers don’t take kibble in payment, so you’ll have to use your master’s credit card. Just input the number online or by phone with your nose. Then lie by the door till the book is delivered—because if your humans see it first, they’ll grab it and read it and pass it to friends—and you’ll never get your paws on it.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Catholics Respond to The Da Vinci Code
Dear Friends,
My co-worker Lisa sat with her husband, Tim, at the theatre. They were out on one of their "date nights" to see the new film, Firewall. As the spots for upcoming movie releases began to roll, they were about to be stunned. The preview for The Da Vinci Code came on, and moviegoers were treated to a fast-paced, heart-pumping two minutes of excitement and suspense. The preview, which included scenes of a murder and an Opus Dei "monk" whipping and cutting himself, ended with the phrase, "Seek the Truth."
But what came next was totally unexpected: A rousing applause from perhaps 200 people in the audience. A few people even stood up. I'm not sure about you, but I've never seen anyone stand up and applaud a movie preview.
This is not good news.
An estimated one in three adult Americans have read The Da Vinci Code, according to Outreach Magazine (March/April, 2006). More than 40 million copies have sold in 44 languages. It's been on the New York Times Best Seller List for nearly three years. Untold damage has been done to the faith of millions.
Lindy Lowry, editor of Outreach, conducted "man on the street" interviews outside of a local Barnes & Noble store. Sarah, a 21-year-old college student, responded that she was now confirmed in her belief that Jesus was just a man and that Christians were "full of it." Sarah is not alone. Not long ago, two family members spoke to me within a few weeks of each other about serious concerns and questions they had about the book's claims.
These corrosive seeds have been planted in the minds of millions.
Catholics Must Respond
As always, evangelical Protestants have taken serious steps to respond to the May 19th release of The Da Vinci Code movie. They're running national video conferences, conducting massive mailings to churches, and they've written a dozen books (compared to just a few from Catholics). Yet, The Da Vinci Code is about the Catholic Church! We Catholics need to respond.
| This is why I'm writing you about the Da Vinci Outreach initiative (www.DaVinciOutreach.com). A growing coalition of Catholic groups, including Catholic Exchange, Ascension Press, the Catholic League, Human Life International, and others have joined together to respond. |
We have prepared free materials to equip you and/or your parish to respond to this major cultural event that is going to slam us in full force in the months ahead. The Da Vinci Code will be the cultural conversation in April, May, and June of this year. You can help your family, friends, and parishioners get prepared-with relative ease.
The DaVinciOutreach.com website features FREE, ready-made resources, including:
- Parish Action Plan
- "Homily Helps"
- Parish Discussion Guides
- Youth Group Guide
- Posters, flyers, bulletin announcements
- Speakers Bureau
- A Da Vinci "Blog" where you can read comments from leading Catholic commentators.
- ...and more!
The Perfect "Give-Away" Book
| As with A Guide to the Passion, we've created another invaluable resource that is perfect for "giving away" to family, friends, and parishioners. The Da Vinci Deception features 100 questions and answers on all the major themes, issues, and errors in The Da Vinci Code. And, best of all, you can get them for as little as $2 each, a super-low price for this 130-page book. |
Be sure to visit www.DaVinciOutreach.com today to see the many resources available to you, your family, and your parish. We have everything you need to effectively respond to The Da Vinci Code, and defend Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church.
Program Director, Da Vinci Outreach
President, Ascension Press
Monday, March 13, 2006
See Barb in DC! See Barb in Seattle!
I will be traveling again in a couple weeks, giving four speeches in fourdays. I believe that all of these talks will be open to the public.
In metro Washington, DC area:
Wednesday, March 29, 7pm - McLean Bible Church, McLean, VA
Topic: "Greetings From the Church in Hollywood! What Have We Learned? Where Do We Need to Go?"
Thursday, March 30, Mt. Saint Mary's, Emmitsburg, MD
Topic: "Creating Community that will be Creative in the Church"
Info here.
Friday, March 31, 1pm-2:30 pm, Domincian House of Studies, Washington, DC
Topic: "Why Patron of the Arts? Beauty and the Church"
In Seattle:
Saturday, April 1, 7pm, Benefit Gala for Taproot Theatre (location somewhere up there)
Topic: "The Prophetic and Priestly Role of the Artist"
In metro Washington, DC area:
Wednesday, March 29, 7pm - McLean Bible Church, McLean, VA
Topic: "Greetings From the Church in Hollywood! What Have We Learned? Where Do We Need to Go?"
Thursday, March 30, Mt. Saint Mary's, Emmitsburg, MD
Topic: "Creating Community that will be Creative in the Church"
Info here.
Friday, March 31, 1pm-2:30 pm, Domincian House of Studies, Washington, DC
Topic: "Why Patron of the Arts? Beauty and the Church"
In Seattle:
Saturday, April 1, 7pm, Benefit Gala for Taproot Theatre (location somewhere up there)
Topic: "The Prophetic and Priestly Role of the Artist"
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Checking In...
Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately. Life has intervened repeatedly. There have been so many things I wanted to talk about but I only have time for a few notes here....
....So, now, I have a reddish, inch-or-so long scar on my wrist from my recent surgery. I noticed the other day that I also have a similar looking scar on the top of my left foot from a battle with a lava lamp back in college. So, one of my friends concludes that I have "catty corner stigmata." Ahem.
...A cool director whose work I really like loved my Josemaria Escriva/ Spanish Civil War screenplay. He would like to direct it tomorrow! Barb is excited. Please keep project in your prayers.
...I was surprised by how much I liked Capote. It is a classic actor's piece. All about going in close and making a mole-hill out of every freckle, in a good way. It is unfair to dismiss the film as either a pro-gay or anti-capital punishment screed. It is neither. It is much more about the creative temperament.
...I also send kudos across town to Alcon Entertainment for the very enjoyable 16 Blocks. It isn't a perfect film, but it is a solid thriller and includes an engaging redemption journey. Good ol' Bruce! Parents can absolutely let their teens go to this one without trepidation. There is no sex, only a couple of instances of violence, and only one very defensible instance of vulgar language. I give it 16 thumbs up.
...I found the Oscars weird and dull, but not disgusting and embarrassing. Okay, well I did find Clooney's speech ("WE REALLY ARE IMPORTANT! We ARE! WE ARE!") and the clips of civil rights movies ("Yes! We ARE important! We ARE!!!!") a bit pathetic, but I thought Jon Stewart really did a good job by placing himself in the perspective of the mainstream audience instead of in the industry. It was a happy thing in the end to have a host from outside the studio swirl. I thought Stewart's posturing was amusing in a way of which he is certainly unaware. His subtext was glaringly, "I'm SO not one of these idiots. I have a CABLE show!" Ah, there is no narcissist like a show narcissist.
..I knew Crash would win. I predicted it on a few radio shows far in advance. (This goes under the sub-heading, "If I don't Tell You How Humble I Am, You'll Never Know.")
...Please note my cool new side bar buttons. These are in response to the hoards of you who are always, relentlessly, indefatiguably pestering me as to how you can buy our book and donate to Act One. Now you can just click. Go ahead, try it.
....So, now, I have a reddish, inch-or-so long scar on my wrist from my recent surgery. I noticed the other day that I also have a similar looking scar on the top of my left foot from a battle with a lava lamp back in college. So, one of my friends concludes that I have "catty corner stigmata." Ahem.
...A cool director whose work I really like loved my Josemaria Escriva/ Spanish Civil War screenplay. He would like to direct it tomorrow! Barb is excited. Please keep project in your prayers.
...I was surprised by how much I liked Capote. It is a classic actor's piece. All about going in close and making a mole-hill out of every freckle, in a good way. It is unfair to dismiss the film as either a pro-gay or anti-capital punishment screed. It is neither. It is much more about the creative temperament.
...I also send kudos across town to Alcon Entertainment for the very enjoyable 16 Blocks. It isn't a perfect film, but it is a solid thriller and includes an engaging redemption journey. Good ol' Bruce! Parents can absolutely let their teens go to this one without trepidation. There is no sex, only a couple of instances of violence, and only one very defensible instance of vulgar language. I give it 16 thumbs up.
...I found the Oscars weird and dull, but not disgusting and embarrassing. Okay, well I did find Clooney's speech ("WE REALLY ARE IMPORTANT! We ARE! WE ARE!") and the clips of civil rights movies ("Yes! We ARE important! We ARE!!!!") a bit pathetic, but I thought Jon Stewart really did a good job by placing himself in the perspective of the mainstream audience instead of in the industry. It was a happy thing in the end to have a host from outside the studio swirl. I thought Stewart's posturing was amusing in a way of which he is certainly unaware. His subtext was glaringly, "I'm SO not one of these idiots. I have a CABLE show!" Ah, there is no narcissist like a show narcissist.
..I knew Crash would win. I predicted it on a few radio shows far in advance. (This goes under the sub-heading, "If I don't Tell You How Humble I Am, You'll Never Know.")
...Please note my cool new side bar buttons. These are in response to the hoards of you who are always, relentlessly, indefatiguably pestering me as to how you can buy our book and donate to Act One. Now you can just click. Go ahead, try it.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
"Create a clean heart in me, O God. Renew in me a right spirit." Ps 51
Happy Lent. (Although my mother used to say, "If you like Lent, you're doing it wrong.")
Tonight, Fr. Willy Raymond will be celebrating a Mass at 7pm at Family Theater for our Hollywood RCIA program. Afterwards, we will have a discussion about conscience and sin.
In the spirit of the day, no drinks or food. (sigh) Just a great way to start this most spiritually vital season.
All are invited.
Every year I ask God to send me an intention to keep me motivated in my Lenten fasts and almsgiving. This year, I am offering my ridiculous little sacrifices for three-year old Kathleen Quinn, my friends' daughter. Kathleen is undergoing a grueling course of treatment for leukemia. Please do join me in praying for Kathleen, and her whole family.
Tonight, Fr. Willy Raymond will be celebrating a Mass at 7pm at Family Theater for our Hollywood RCIA program. Afterwards, we will have a discussion about conscience and sin.
In the spirit of the day, no drinks or food. (sigh) Just a great way to start this most spiritually vital season.
All are invited.
Every year I ask God to send me an intention to keep me motivated in my Lenten fasts and almsgiving. This year, I am offering my ridiculous little sacrifices for three-year old Kathleen Quinn, my friends' daughter. Kathleen is undergoing a grueling course of treatment for leukemia. Please do join me in praying for Kathleen, and her whole family.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Things to Do in L.A. when your right hand is wrapped up
Jean-Luc Picard. You command your ship with an
iron fist and the children love you. Bah!!!
Humbug!! KIDS!!! >_<
Which Star Trek Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Thursday, February 23, 2006
ugh....vicodin, pj's and the olympics
that just about covers my life since monday. i had surgery on my hand - my b-day too! - and now have only left hand capsability. which jmeans no caps.
i have learned that vicodin makes me itch...and also that marlena's ex-husbands never really die, they just get played by other actors...i've also picked up a real thing for curling...but i'm hoping that'd just the drugs.
ugh...yhat was exhaudting.
bandages off next wednedsay. not much till then.
God bless -
i have learned that vicodin makes me itch...and also that marlena's ex-husbands never really die, they just get played by other actors...i've also picked up a real thing for curling...but i'm hoping that'd just the drugs.
ugh...yhat was exhaudting.
bandages off next wednedsay. not much till then.
God bless -
Saturday, February 18, 2006
See Barb in MI
[Note from Barb: My talk is from 12:50pm - 1:30pm. I am talking on the Church and the arts. Then, I'm on some kind of panel.]
Holy Trinity Apostolate presents,
A One-Day Lenten Symposium - "God Is Love"
March 4, 2006, 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Sts. Cyril & Methodius Slovak Catholic Church
41223 Ryan Rd.
Sterling Heights, MI, 48314
9.00 am Mass: celebrated by The Most Reverend John M. Quinn
Speakers: Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk; Fr. Francis Mary Stone, MFVA; Barbara R. Nicolosi; Fr. Pablo Straub, CSSR; Fr. Val Rykowski; Teresa Tomeo
Registration fee: $38/person, $15/student (includes lunch), no refunds; Download registration forms here.
Send check no later than 3/1/06 payable to Holy Trinity Apostolate, P.O. Box 7095, Sterling Heights, MI 48311-7095
Contacts: Pat (586) 264-3789, Shirley (313) 277-8905, Alma (248) 689-2843; info1@holytrinityapostolate.com
Holy Trinity Apostolate presents,
A One-Day Lenten Symposium - "God Is Love"
March 4, 2006, 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Sts. Cyril & Methodius Slovak Catholic Church
41223 Ryan Rd.
Sterling Heights, MI, 48314
9.00 am Mass: celebrated by The Most Reverend John M. Quinn
Speakers: Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk; Fr. Francis Mary Stone, MFVA; Barbara R. Nicolosi; Fr. Pablo Straub, CSSR; Fr. Val Rykowski; Teresa Tomeo
Registration fee: $38/person, $15/student (includes lunch), no refunds; Download registration forms here.
Send check no later than 3/1/06 payable to Holy Trinity Apostolate, P.O. Box 7095, Sterling Heights, MI 48311-7095
Contacts: Pat (586) 264-3789, Shirley (313) 277-8905, Alma (248) 689-2843; info1@holytrinityapostolate.com
Sunday, February 12, 2006
ACT ONE Screenwriting Weekend - New York City!
ACT ONE SCREENWRITING WEEKEND - NEW YORK CITY
March 31-April 1, 2006
Presented by Act One, Inc., Lamb's Theatre, and Manhattan Initiative
Act One Screenwriting Weekends are two-day workshops on writing for mainstream TV and film.
* 11 hours of instruction over two days
* Taught by Hollywood pros from the Act One faculty. (See below.)
* Covers the craft and business of writing for mainstream film and TV, as well as spiritual and ethical issues writers face
* An intensive, condensed version of the Summer Program curriculum
* Perfect for beginners and intermediates; great review for pros
Our instructors are faculty members of the prestigious Act One: Writing for Hollywood screenwriter training program. They bring the experience and know-how of Hollywood insiders and the unique perspective of Christians who work in the world's entertainment capital.
Learn how to choose the right story and why Christians often fail to tell their stories effectively. Master industry-standard script format and explore the power of TV and film to shape audience attitudes and speak powerfully to the human heart. Find out if a Hollywood career could be right for you.
WHEN:
March 31-April 1, 2006
Friday, 7:00 - 10:00 pm
Saturday, 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
WHERE:
Lamb's Theatre (Times Square)
130 W 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
INSTRUCTORS:
THOM PARHAM
SHERYL ANDERSON
COST:
$175
(Includes Saturday breakfast and lunch)
REGISTER: https://my.updateu.com/registration/register.asp?intOrgID=9286&intEventID=1820005&intOccID=45000206&
March 31-April 1, 2006
Presented by Act One, Inc., Lamb's Theatre, and Manhattan Initiative
Act One Screenwriting Weekends are two-day workshops on writing for mainstream TV and film.
* 11 hours of instruction over two days
* Taught by Hollywood pros from the Act One faculty. (See below.)
* Covers the craft and business of writing for mainstream film and TV, as well as spiritual and ethical issues writers face
* An intensive, condensed version of the Summer Program curriculum
* Perfect for beginners and intermediates; great review for pros
Our instructors are faculty members of the prestigious Act One: Writing for Hollywood screenwriter training program. They bring the experience and know-how of Hollywood insiders and the unique perspective of Christians who work in the world's entertainment capital.
Learn how to choose the right story and why Christians often fail to tell their stories effectively. Master industry-standard script format and explore the power of TV and film to shape audience attitudes and speak powerfully to the human heart. Find out if a Hollywood career could be right for you.
WHEN:
March 31-April 1, 2006
Friday, 7:00 - 10:00 pm
Saturday, 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
WHERE:
Lamb's Theatre (Times Square)
130 W 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
INSTRUCTORS:
THOM PARHAM
SHERYL ANDERSON
COST:
$175
(Includes Saturday breakfast and lunch)
REGISTER: https://my.updateu.com/registration/register.asp?intOrgID=9286&intEventID=1820005&intOccID=45000206&
"Well, if it was a cartoon, THAT would be different!"
"[There will be] no placating. "It would be ludicrous to take on this subject and then try to take the edges off. We're doing this movie because we like the book." (Director Ron Howard on whether any consideration was given to Christian sensibilities in the making of The Da Vinci Code. From MTV.com)
Saturday, February 11, 2006
MAY 19 - Every Christian Goes to the Movies!
I just read a ludicrous statement by some Christian pastor, calling for all Christians to go to see The Da Vinci Code when it opens. His statement was something to the effect of "Every Christian needs to see this film!" I beg to differ.
No. We don't need to see this film. We all know what is in it. (Especially me, as I have read the screenplay.) It is a movie which begins from the point that Jesus was a fraud. He was not only not Divine, he was less than a man, who didn't die and rise to save humanity, but rather settled down in Nazareth suburbia and fathered children. Oh yes, and the Christian Church which made up all the salvific Messiah stuff about Him is a sham association of meglomaniacal conspirators whose unifying principles are in the oppression of women.
I have, thus far, been campaigning for a kind of non-campaign as regards The Da Vinci Code. I was thinking that we should all just agree to ignore it, and put our efforts into praying for the people who hate Jesus and us, His disciples, so much that they would make this film. I was reluctant to throw any free p.r. at the project by speaking about it publically, as that is all that the studio wants here. The people promoting the movie want - with every fiber of their obscenely well-compensated beings - that we make this film an event.
The almost irresistible hook for us all is that we supposedly need to see The Da Vinci Code, so that we can then tell all the other people what is wrong with it. All these Christians are being hooked in to write and speak about the film in the name of "dialogue." "How could you criticize something that you haven't seen?" And, "Everybody is going to be talking about this film! We won't be able to talk back if we haven't seen it."
Folks, there is no dialogue here. The dialogue which might have happened involved Sony and Imagine making changes in the story, that would have reflected some kind of fidelity to history or fairness. They didn't make those changes. Basically because they wanted to bash Christians. (Quick, someone assure me that Time and Newsweek and the NY Times, et al. will NOT be running reviews or ads for The Da Vinci Code because it is such an offensive caricature of the central figure of a major world religion!) Secondly, I don't agree that "everybody" is going to see this film. I found the script somewhere between idiotic and way too cute. I didn't find it half as clever as National Treasure....and that wasn't exactly a work of cinematic genius. As 80% of America is Christian, if they don't get us in, the movie basically tanks. And most of us probably weren't going to be going -- until we were told "Every Christian must!!!" All in the name of "dialogue."
(Note from The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word 'dialogue.' I don't think you know what that word means." Dialogue is based on equal playing field. In this case, the "Jesus was a fraud" side gets a major studio film costing $150 million. Our side gets a little website and a discussion guide.)
Further, we absolutely do not need to see the film to talk about Jesus. No more than we need to see porn to talk about human sexuality. Or to read Mein Kempf to decide whether we can have an opinion about gassing Jews. Besides, it would be dignifying a really inane story. Da Vinci Code is so ridiculous in its premises, that it is giving it a false gravity to even take it seriously enough so as to argue about it. ["And tomorrow, the Christians will be offering a hermenutic of moral praxis as can be gleaned from next week's episode of WWF Smackdown. Ahem."] Yeah, let's all find a starting point for dialogue in the notion that a secret coterie of albino monks has been mythmaking about Jesus' Divinity for 2,000 years. No, you go first.
Now, Christians being coaxed into writing anti-DVC pieces on a stupid web site (like, well, this one) are meekly accepting that they are being given "a seat at the table" in some grand cultural discussion. Duped! There is no seat folks. There is no discussion. What there is, is a few p.r. folks in Hollywood taking mondo big bucks from Sony Pictures, to deliver legions of well-meaning Christians into subsidizing a movie that makes their own Savior out to be a sham.
The masses who will see this film will not be coming to the web site. They will go in to the theaters, eat handfuls of popcorn, and then come out marveling that millions of people for 2,000 years could have been so duped by a lie. They won't go to any web site. They won't be coming to any Christian forum.
I love how we Christians have moved from all agreeing that DVC is evil, to now arguing about what cultural engagement means. Ha! Fabulous! It is a plot twist worthy of Da Vinci Code (if, you know, it were a really clever book with good plot points...)
ANYWAY.... here's what I think we should do. I am hereby announcing my personal "How to Respond to Da Vinci Code Strategy." And the answer is to go to the movies on May 19, 2006. Every Christian who loves Jesus, your mission, if you will accept it is to buy movie tickets. We need to bring our kids, our church groups, our youth ministry clubs, our seniors groups - and buy tickets for the homeless for after we feed them. And we all need to go to see THIS!
Let's make this little movie the biggest release of the year. Let's have DVC positively dwarfed in the weekend box-office, because all of us dutifully marched off to register our vote for the other movie opening that weekend. It's brilliant, mais oui?
Over the Hedge! Over the Hedge! More screens for Over the Hedge!"
And let us pray for Sony Pictures.
No. We don't need to see this film. We all know what is in it. (Especially me, as I have read the screenplay.) It is a movie which begins from the point that Jesus was a fraud. He was not only not Divine, he was less than a man, who didn't die and rise to save humanity, but rather settled down in Nazareth suburbia and fathered children. Oh yes, and the Christian Church which made up all the salvific Messiah stuff about Him is a sham association of meglomaniacal conspirators whose unifying principles are in the oppression of women.
I have, thus far, been campaigning for a kind of non-campaign as regards The Da Vinci Code. I was thinking that we should all just agree to ignore it, and put our efforts into praying for the people who hate Jesus and us, His disciples, so much that they would make this film. I was reluctant to throw any free p.r. at the project by speaking about it publically, as that is all that the studio wants here. The people promoting the movie want - with every fiber of their obscenely well-compensated beings - that we make this film an event.
The almost irresistible hook for us all is that we supposedly need to see The Da Vinci Code, so that we can then tell all the other people what is wrong with it. All these Christians are being hooked in to write and speak about the film in the name of "dialogue." "How could you criticize something that you haven't seen?" And, "Everybody is going to be talking about this film! We won't be able to talk back if we haven't seen it."
Folks, there is no dialogue here. The dialogue which might have happened involved Sony and Imagine making changes in the story, that would have reflected some kind of fidelity to history or fairness. They didn't make those changes. Basically because they wanted to bash Christians. (Quick, someone assure me that Time and Newsweek and the NY Times, et al. will NOT be running reviews or ads for The Da Vinci Code because it is such an offensive caricature of the central figure of a major world religion!) Secondly, I don't agree that "everybody" is going to see this film. I found the script somewhere between idiotic and way too cute. I didn't find it half as clever as National Treasure....and that wasn't exactly a work of cinematic genius. As 80% of America is Christian, if they don't get us in, the movie basically tanks. And most of us probably weren't going to be going -- until we were told "Every Christian must!!!" All in the name of "dialogue."
(Note from The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word 'dialogue.' I don't think you know what that word means." Dialogue is based on equal playing field. In this case, the "Jesus was a fraud" side gets a major studio film costing $150 million. Our side gets a little website and a discussion guide.)
Further, we absolutely do not need to see the film to talk about Jesus. No more than we need to see porn to talk about human sexuality. Or to read Mein Kempf to decide whether we can have an opinion about gassing Jews. Besides, it would be dignifying a really inane story. Da Vinci Code is so ridiculous in its premises, that it is giving it a false gravity to even take it seriously enough so as to argue about it. ["And tomorrow, the Christians will be offering a hermenutic of moral praxis as can be gleaned from next week's episode of WWF Smackdown. Ahem."] Yeah, let's all find a starting point for dialogue in the notion that a secret coterie of albino monks has been mythmaking about Jesus' Divinity for 2,000 years. No, you go first.
Now, Christians being coaxed into writing anti-DVC pieces on a stupid web site (like, well, this one) are meekly accepting that they are being given "a seat at the table" in some grand cultural discussion. Duped! There is no seat folks. There is no discussion. What there is, is a few p.r. folks in Hollywood taking mondo big bucks from Sony Pictures, to deliver legions of well-meaning Christians into subsidizing a movie that makes their own Savior out to be a sham.
The masses who will see this film will not be coming to the web site. They will go in to the theaters, eat handfuls of popcorn, and then come out marveling that millions of people for 2,000 years could have been so duped by a lie. They won't go to any web site. They won't be coming to any Christian forum.
I love how we Christians have moved from all agreeing that DVC is evil, to now arguing about what cultural engagement means. Ha! Fabulous! It is a plot twist worthy of Da Vinci Code (if, you know, it were a really clever book with good plot points...)
ANYWAY.... here's what I think we should do. I am hereby announcing my personal "How to Respond to Da Vinci Code Strategy." And the answer is to go to the movies on May 19, 2006. Every Christian who loves Jesus, your mission, if you will accept it is to buy movie tickets. We need to bring our kids, our church groups, our youth ministry clubs, our seniors groups - and buy tickets for the homeless for after we feed them. And we all need to go to see THIS!
Let's make this little movie the biggest release of the year. Let's have DVC positively dwarfed in the weekend box-office, because all of us dutifully marched off to register our vote for the other movie opening that weekend. It's brilliant, mais oui?
Over the Hedge! Over the Hedge! More screens for Over the Hedge!"
And let us pray for Sony Pictures.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Executive Program now accepting applications !
We are very pleased to announce that the Act One | Executive Program is expanding to serve twice the number of students in 2006! And in a new partnership with
The 2005 Executive Program has been proclaimed a phenomenal success by students, faculty, and employers. Ten of the fifteen students from this inaugural year are now working in strategic positions within the industry. These faithful future-
This year, the program will run from June 10th to August 23rd. The application deadline is March 10th.
Act One’s rigorous 12-week Executive Program prepares and mentors talented
What the Executive Program offers:
* A full-time internship at a Hollywood network, studio, production company, agency, or law firm.
* Over 100 hours of classroom instruction taught by industry veterans
* Excellent access to instructors, with only 25-30 students per class
* Practical assignments reviewed by industry pros
* Access to Act One Writing for Hollywood classes running in July & August
* Networking opportunities
* Admission to the Act One alumni community
* Access to alumni events, programs, & advanced training workshops
* A strong spiritual foundation for working in the entertainment industry
Please have a look at our website for new promotional materials that include: endorsements, success stories, the 2006 brochure, proposed curriculum and faculty, as well as a downloadable application form.
“Making an impact in the
“Act One is the only program I know of where students can interact with proven
“I have been a part of programs at UCLA, USC, and numerous other industry seminars and by far, the Act One Executive Program has the greatest breadth of inspired teachers, students, and guest lecturers. The Act One Program was one of the highlights of my life.” - Todd Burns, Class of 2005
Read about the Act One | Executive Program in Details Magazine!
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
See Barb Speak. See Barb in Wichita. See Barb in Detroit.
FEBRUARY 13 – Monday 7pm
Book Signing Open to public
Eighth Day Books
2838 E. Douglas
Wichita, KS 67214
316.683.9446
MARCH 4 – Saturday
Speech - "Hollywood, The Arts and the Church"
Holy Trinity Apostolate
Sterling Heights, MI
586.264.3789
Register Online: www.holytrinityapostolate.com
Book Signing Open to public
Eighth Day Books
2838 E. Douglas
Wichita, KS 67214
316.683.9446
MARCH 4 – Saturday
Speech - "Hollywood, The Arts and the Church"
Holy Trinity Apostolate
Sterling Heights, MI
586.264.3789
Register Online: www.holytrinityapostolate.com
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