Thursday, March 24, 2011

Film. And Religion

It's one of the most interesting classes I've ever been through.

I look forward to and enjoy Wednesdays so much.

How often do you see things like this in a lecture?


Guess my lecturer's name. Give up? It's John.


Today they returned us the scripts for our mid-term test.

Looking at the erased pencil marks, it looks like my marker wanted to give me 8.5/10 for my essay, but the final penned mark was 7/10.

When I read her comments though, I laughed out loud.

"Good work. Work a little on writing."


It really was very funny.

Much like the way I wrote.


Her comment on the first page asked:

"Why do you write in pass tense?"


All through my essay, she was correcting my English.

I spelt serve as surve.


Haha.

So tragic it's funny.


-:-


Sociology of Religion lecture immediately after, on what is offensive to religions.

We watched 3 clips from Monty Python's "Life of Brian".


I laughed out loud.

We had just watched the whole movie for Film and Religion class last week!


Then as the clip began, everyone else laughed out loud.



I had the last laugh of course. I'm presenting on this film on Friday for the Film and Religion module, but the teacher has not done the lecture on it yet. Today my Sociology of Religion lecture covered what I need to make the presentation!


-:-


In the evening I watched Martin Scorsese's the highly controversial 3 hour long "Last Temptation of Christ". It's still banned in Singapore.

I found it surprisingly less disturbing than Jesus Christ Superstar.


Given the fact that the content is not for younger people (there is nudity, sex and violence), I would not recommend it to any non-christian or young christian- simply because it does not portray the Jesus story with any accuracy. If your impressions of Christianity are shaped by this movie, then your idea of the religion is warped.


But I don't think it is all bad. In fact, some mature Christians in the audience found it rather reverent in it's portrayal of Christ and insightful in a few areas. Let me explain a little.


First- It is not intended to be accurate. The movie starts with a disclaimer saying it is not based on the gospels, but instead an interpretation of a work of fiction by a modern writer. And the movie clearly starts in the first scene with dialogue totally unrelated to the bible.


So from the start, the Jesus we see in the film is not the Jesus we are familiar with, and this allows us to draw a clear line. This is not Jesus Christ. This is the actor who plays the green goblin in spider-man, playing an alternate Jesus. The actors don't even bother to hide their accent, which makes it even further from the Jesus we believe in and thus less disturbing. (People are most offended when you take a sacred symbol and treat it as profane, much like what happened with the Danish cartoon... So knowing that the movie is not even trying to make use of a symbol, we find it less offensive.)


We thus begin to feel for this character of Jesus differently. Unlike Jesus Christ Superstar that takes parts of the bible and adds music and stuff which scares me (sacred becoming profane), The Last Temptation of Christ uses more original material which I do not directly link to what I know (profane is still profane). It's like a self-contained narrative in an alternate world- so while watching, I really did not know if this version of Jesus would save mankind. Which made it exciting.


2nd, it is such an interesting interpretation of Jesus humanity! The bible focuses on much of what Jesus did, but not on what Jesus felt. This movie looks into that. Did Jesus know he was God all along, or was it revealed by God step by step? The answer is not crucial to the Christian faith, for we believe in the man for what he did for us, not what he felt for himself. So this is just a dramatization of his humanity, with all his struggles and pain.


One image struck me more than anything. Elsa, my Christian friend I made during this module also remembered this scene vividly: Jesus starts the movie as a carpenter working at home with a heavy heart. He knows not that he is the son of God in the movie at the beginning, but he is absolutely obedient to God. It's the time of the Roman occupation. He feels guilty about his trade. Why? Well... What do you think the Romans would want a humble carpenter to make for them?

That's right. Crosses for crucifixion.


He begins the movie leaning painfully on a cross he just made (emotional, not physical pain), measuring the arm span to see if it was just right to hang a person on. He feels the guilt of being a part of his own Jewish people's torture and death. But somehow he feels he needs to carry on. As hough God is telling him that there is a purpose behind all this, though he cannot see it yet.

Tragic irony to the max.



Not the Jesus I'm familiar with, but thought provoking none the less.

Still, dad prescribes a good read of the gospels now for me to make sure I'm not confused or unclear about what really is in them.

I agree.



Kinda miss the Jesus I know already.

1 comment:

  1. The 7th para after the embedded video (which starts with "So from the start, the Jesus we see in the film is not the Jesus we are familiar with") reminds me of what we learnt in TS about vefremdungseffekt (alientation) effect in brechtian theatre. Deliberate attempt to alienate the audience in order that they do not become too emotionally involved in the story and can examine what is going on from a more critical perspective.

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