1 of 3

Editor's note: This is the second of a four-part series about what it means to make "good, Christian movies." In this part, the author examines what it means to make movies that are both honest and true in their depictions of humanity.

As the director of a film festival, I hear a lot of impassioned talk about movies with a message. In fact, I've figured that Christian filmmakers could be divided cleanly into two parties: those who want a religious message and those who don't. You have the courageous wardens of truth, supporting gospel-oriented flicks such as The Hiding Place and Left Behind. You have the brave renegades who fight for P. T. Anderson's Magnolia or Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11. You have the evangelists and the expressionists, the ten commandments and the beautiful lifers. To which I say: go for it.

If you want to advance a message in your film, however—to which I would quickly add that not all films need to have one to be good (What About Bob? comes to mind)—you'd be smart to keep it honest and truthful. For a film "with a message" without truth is by definition a falsehood (The English Patient), while a film "with a message" without honesty smacks of manipulation and quackery (The Girl Next Door). Tricky territory, this.

So what exactly does it look like for a filmmaker to profess a commitment to honesty and truth? Toddy Burton, a filmmaker at the University of Texas, points us in a good direction:

Reality is hilarious. Truth is hilarious. That's why people make fart jokes, because they're funny. Body functions are funny. Did you see Mean Girls? It's a teen comedy based on a non-fiction book about teen girls called, Queen Bees and Wannabees. The movie is hilarious and it's because it's all just based on the way people really are.

"The way people really are." Let's begin our investigation with this phrase.

The first thing to understand about filmmakers is that, like the rest of us, they're mostly trying to make sense of very basic things: "the way people really are," or really, really want to be. They're fascinated by human behavior: rock star losers, sex mamas, pinheads, bad Japanese dancers, trainspotters, raging bulls, old geezers riding lawn mowers across the country. And why not? We're the only creature on earth capable of questioning not only the circumstances of our existence but the reason for it, and we're fascinated by our own fascination.

So let me ask a stupid question: Is our collective life homogeneous? Are we all monolithic humanoids? No, thank God. In the film Donnie Darko, Donnie got it right in responding to a teacher who argued that every human motivation can be categorized into either fear or love: "You can't just lump everything into two categories. Life isn't that simple. People aren't that simple."

Our life is complex: splendid, appalling, romantic, boring, horrific and an ambivalent mess. In short, it is polymorphic, or as my mother might put it, there's a lot of life to go around.

My stupid question looks less stupid, then, when you discover how narrowly Christians behave in their movie tastes. Plenty of folks tend to be only interested in religious stuff—Jesus-stories, end-time prophecies, how-to-stay-a-virgin romantic comedies. But biblically, we're to be interested in everything, even as God is interested in everything. All of life merits comment, and by such comment is made meaningful. Under the gaze of the artist, life really does begin to make a little more sense. So if you're going to make a movie with a message, take advantage of the near infinite possibilities that surround you, like bacteria or turtles, or your uncle.

Now when filmmakers say, "I'm just being honest," what do they mean by honest? They probably mean something along the lines of: "I'm being candid, open, straightforward, without disguise, without delusion." In short, I'm being authentic about the way life really is. If the great, 19th century Scottish missionary David Livingstone, lionized by Protestants, was a lousy husband to his wife, Mary, then I'm not going to gloss it over with euphemistic tales of self-sacrifice and biblical submission. I'm going to show him to be the human being that he was, fallen and capable of great acts of selfishness, though never beyond the reach of divine grace. In this way only could he ever become a genuinely attractive example to the rest of us, not an in-credible, un-reachable demi-god.

next page... |  1 of 3 | last page

Related Elsewhere:

What Is a Good Christian Movie, Anyway? (Part 1)	Printer view
Is it a sermon in disguise? Is it honest? Is it "family-friendly"? Defining it is no easy task—but here's a good start.

---

In Defense of Mere Entertainment (Part 3)	Printer view
Would Mother Teresa have thrown her head back and laughed aloud at The Pink Panther? Likely so, says the author in this apologetic for films that are simply "fun for the sake of fun."

---

Violence, Profanity and Nudity: A Dialogue (Part 4)	Printer view
What is a Christian's responsibility when it comes to portraying The Big Three vices in film? There are no easy answers to the question.