Film and Theology

Stand In Awe: A Parable About Love, Youth, & Change

by Horace Columbus Neal II

Draft N: December 9, 2011 - It is finished.

This is a simple three-page short story that calls for a reflection on the core need of today's troubled youth. In 36... more This is a simple three-page short story that calls for a reflection on the core need of today's troubled youth. In 36 CE, a group of rowdy, Cushite-Hebrew youths go to see the Roman crucifixions, hoping to have some fun taunting the victims. Their encounter at one man's cross causes them to stand in awe. Notes and images follow the narrative to aid the readers' conceptualization of some of the story's themes. The story is thematically multilayered to facilitate productive discussions on a number of topics.

Dead Man Walking (1995)

by Matthew Rindge

Bible and Cinema: Fifty Key Films. Edited by Adele Reinhartz. New York: Routledge. Under contract. Expected in 2012.

Allegoric Religiosity in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Accattone: Surpassing Neorealismo & Toward A Spiritual Nature of Man

by MATTHEW BLANCHARD

© COPYRIGHT 2002 - 2011 Matthew D. Blanchard | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
A Film Analysis Assignment (100%/A+ Grade) for The Art of Italian Cinema:
An Advanced-Level English-Language Survey Course on Italian Cinema
Offered by Lorenzo de' Medici – Italian International Institute | Florence.
ORIGINAL DRAFT : Written by Matthew Blanchard on December 20, 2002
REVISED DRAFT : Readied for Publication by Author on August 02, 2011
**This Paper is Pending Publication = Draft Only!**

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s allegoric representation of the nihilistic religiosity of the anti-heroic actions and character... more Pier Paolo Pasolini’s allegoric representation of the nihilistic religiosity of the anti-heroic actions and character of the eponymous protagonist in Accattone (1961) fully distinguishes this particular filmmaker’s literary style from the more objective socio-cultural lense of the neorealismo genre and brings the film to a poetic level far superior to that of its predecessors. While Pasolini has chosen, with Accattone, to focus on subject matter typical of the Neorealist tradition in cinema, the manner in which the filmmaker incorporates the strikingly allegoric religiosity of his poetic style into a socio-cinematic analysis of the urban marginalization and disenfranchisement of his characters allows Pasolini to push well beyond the socio-historical boundaries of the neorealist gaze and to begin to interpret more fully the spiritual nature of Man.

Teaching the Bible and Film: Pedagogical Promises, Pitfalls, and Proposals

by Matthew Rindge

Teaching Theology and Religion 13 (2010): 140-55. With critical responses by Erin Runions and Richard Ascough.

La teologia dell'immagine di Amédée Ayfre. Fenomenologia, fonti del diritto e schermi cinematografici

by Enrico Cassini

Review of Mel Gibson's Passion: The Film, The Controversy, and Its Implications– (Edited by Zev Garber)

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

Religious Studies Review 32:4 (Oct 2006): 251-2.

Review of Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline– (Edited by Robert K. Johnston)

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

Religious Studies Review 34:4 (Dec 2008): 284.

Review of Cinema & Sentiment: Film's Challenge to Theology (–By Clive Marsh)

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

Religious Studies Review 32:3 (July 2006): 187.

Review of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth (–By Kim Paffenroth)

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

Religious Studies Review 34:4 (Dec 2008): 284.

Review of Mel Gibson's Bible: Religion, Popular Culture, and The Passion Of The Christ– (Edited by Timothy K. Beal and Tod Linafelt)

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

Religious Studies Review 32:4 (Oct 2006): 252.

Film as Religion

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

The Encyclopedia of Religion and Film. Ed. Eric Mazur. Westport, CT: ABC-CLIO, 2011. 187-92.

Can film function in the place of religion? Summarizes a variety of approaches to the topic of theology, religion, and... more Can film function in the place of religion? Summarizes a variety of approaches to the topic of theology, religion, and film.

The Erotic Fringe: Sexual Minorities and Religion in Contemporary American Literature and Film

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

Submitted for the PhD in Religious and Theological Studies at Boston University, 2008.

In the wake of the sexual revolution, the Christian Right has waged a religiously-based campaign for pre-1960s gender... more In the wake of the sexual revolution, the Christian Right has waged a religiously-based campaign for pre-1960s gender norms and against gay rights. This project treats works in which sexual minorities respond by constructing the erotic as a source of sacred experience, one superior to that offered by conservative Protestant Christianity and Mormonism: the novel The Fifth Sacred Thing (Starhawk, 1993), the cult film Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001), the play and film Angels in America (Tony Kushner, 1992/2003), and the graphic novel Blankets (Craig Thompson, 2003).

My method is historically contextualized close reading that also considers the formal advantages of hybrid media in communicating a controversial message. I introduce The Fifth Sacred Thing as part of an American tradition of sexually alternative millennial communalism. This communalism, however, is always in dialogue with an individualistic Emersonian religion of the self, as in Hedwig’s tale of Gnostic personal transformation. Hedwig (in the tradition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show [1975]) demonstrates this individual/communal dialectic in its fans’ media-centered group practices. Next, I turn to Angels as a failed queer utopian vision in which neither its political agenda nor its religious eroticism is fully realized. Finally, I examine individual liberation in Blankets, which demonstrates how strict, religiously-based sexual and gender roles can create closeted sexual minorities even among heterosexuals.

Against the Religious Right’s focus on the nuclear, blood family, these works privilege individual transformation, chosen families, and utopian communities liberated and then bound together by erotic experience. Engaging the power of religious rhetoric in American culture, they mark a rhetorical shift by sexual minorities to speak of sexual liberation not purely as a secular matter of civil rights and cultural norms, but rather as a sacred mission that promises individual and social transformation. The effectiveness of hybrid media in engaging audiences helps to explain the strong responses—ranging from censorship efforts to the founding of new spiritual communities—that readers and viewers have had to these works.

From Theological to Cinematic Criticism: Extricating the Study of Religion and Film from Theology

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

Religious Studies Review 30:4 (October 2004): 243-50.

Reviews texts on religion and film from 1982-2003 and advocates an approach to the subject that is not explicitly... more Reviews texts on religion and film from 1982-2003 and advocates an approach to the subject that is not explicitly confessional, but still takes religious content seriously in a way secular cultural studies criticism often does not.

Review of Alien Sex: The Body and Desire in Theology and Cinema (By Gerard Loughlin)

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 9 (Spring 2005)

In this dense theological study, Gerard Loughlin flies in the face of many mainstream Westerners’ assumptions by... more In this dense theological study, Gerard Loughlin flies in the face of many mainstream Westerners’ assumptions by asserting that sex and Christianity are not inherently opposed but are, in fact, a match made in heaven. Using popular film as a dialogue partner, Alien Sex develops a daring new Christian body theology that defends human sexuality—whether hetero- or homosexuality—as the sphere of life where we encounter the divine most powerfully.

Wrestling with Flesh, Wrestling with Spirit: The Painful Consequences of Dualism in The Last Temptation of Christ

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 8 (Fall 2004)

Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ presents an unorthodox,... more Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ presents an unorthodox, nonhierarchical dualism. This dualism has often been negatively interpreted by critics, leading them to condemn the film for misogyny, among other sins. Following Scorsese’s intentions for the film, this essay offers an alternative interpretation of Last Temptation’s conflict as one between competing virtues. In addition, it also positively evaluates the creators’ attempt to lift the story of Jesus out of traditional Christianity in order to offer it to a wider audience.

Between the Worlds: Liminality and Self-Sacrifice in Princess Mononoke

by Christine Hoff Kraemer

The Journal of Religion and Film 8:1 (April 2004)

In the Japanese animated film Princess Mononoke, nature and humankind are represented by two strong female leaders,... more In the Japanese animated film Princess Mononoke, nature and humankind are represented by two strong female leaders, each intending to protect her way of life by annihilating the other. Between the two comes Ashitaka, a foreign-born warrior prince whose deep compassion, empathy and insight leave him suspended between their worlds, and therefore in a position to stop the warfare. This liminality, the quality of being "betwixt and between," empowers Ashitaka to play the Christ-like roles of mediator, martyr, and finally, savior. The film functions cross-culturally to demonstrate that in both Japan and the West, liminality, or being on the threshold between two states, may be an enabling condition of holiness, particularly in the context of peacemaking.

Review of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

by Jason Staples

published in the Journal of Religion and Film, 15.1 (2011).

Shadowlands, Myth, and the Creation of Meaning in Inception

by Jason Staples

published in the Journal of Religion and Film, 2010.

You Can’t Stop What’s Comin’: Antiocular Critique of Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men

by Kevin R. Crawford

Paper submitted to the Religious Communication Association Division of the National Communication Association and presented at the annual conference, Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at the Spertus Center in Chicago, Illinois

The film No Country for Old Men (2007), when engaged in its broader frame of reference, symbolizes the apex of many... more The film No Country for Old Men (2007), when engaged in its broader frame of reference, symbolizes the apex of many modern struggles which have devolved into tragedy. Indeed, the Coens’ popular and critically acclaimed film succeeds in unmasking such universal concepts as ocularcentric spectacle through desire and violence – uncovering in that process many of the founding fictions of the Enlightenment, including its pretensions to, and promises of, truth, reason, individual liberty, and universal moral progress. Drawing upon the seminal work of Martin Jay’s Downcast Eyes this reading is guided by three rhetorical constructions: mirror-stage, body against the eye, and vision against itself as a method of clarifying the metaphor “No Country”. By means of Jay’s somaesthetics a new way of “seeing” opens for scholars of the cinema – including, and particularly, the way the film deconstructs our modern notion of the self. The film further lends itself as conduit of the mysteries of human non-rational experience, and may encourage a donning of the religious or “numinal” mind in ways we do not expect.