Refiner’s Fire: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?”: A Film Preview

A warning to men everywhere of medicine that murders.

In space somewhere between the front row and the screen a mother and two children, in silent and staccato movements, paint, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” They have come over a grassy knoll, floating ghostlike, traversing the ground in stop-action chunks of distance and time. Their faces and clothing are colored chalky white. They paint on an invisible canvas suspended between you and them. Behind the words they paint a white backdrop, obscuring themselves behind their work. The sign completed—crumbles. The hill behind is again visible. The mother and her children have vanished.

Thus begins a second Francis Schaeffer film series. Premiere showings and seminars, again using a companion book, will begin in Philadelphia on September 7 and initially are scheduled in 19 other cities. Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., have written the book, which director Franky Schaeffer V has adapted for the script of the five-episode film series. The surrealistic title sequence announces that this intends to be a media experience, not just another Christian movie.

Abortion, as symptomatic of eroding human worth, is the theme for the first of the 50-minute episodes. Koop, in his only dramatic role, launches the series with a mechanical response to a phone call. Appraised of a baby’s critical condition, he orders emergency medical procedures to save its life. Although the action never quite reaches the pitch of a Hollywood panic, it ushers the viewer into the muted clamor of an operating room. In tense reverence you settle back. Maybe this will be a better Christian movie.

On the screen, surgical preparations continue. The camera weaves through the maze of sophisticated equipment that will assist Koop in his effort to sustain the flickering life of one infant. Afterwards, standing in a medical jungle of tubes and wires, the world renowned surgeon wonders out loud about the irony of taking such extraordinary measures to save one deformed life when, in other hospitals only blocks away, other babies who are unwanted, unbelievably are allowed to starve, victims of designed neglect.

In a following sequence, Schaeffer talks about the dehumanizing consequences of a mechanistic, utilitarian view of man. The camera has found him lost in the midst of a smouldering junkyard. The scene shifts to a broken baby carriage lying in the mud.

There is another graphic scenario. The camera wanders above a seemingly endless expanse of hot, white sand strewn with hundreds of “dead” dolls, then draws back to show Koop standing on the shores of the Dead Sea. He is standing on a rise of salt surrounded by pools of brackish water. One doll lies face down, partly submerged. Koop contrasts the conservation quotas on spiders and whales with the medical profession’s open season on unwanted babies. The message is straight-forward, enhanced and supported by the strength of the graphics. The viewer cannot help but be moved. We live in a schizophrenic society concerned about the increasing rate of child abuse, while it licenses doctors to kill the unborn.

But the films have a schizophrenia of their own. At times Franky Schaeffer and company lapse into the security of an evangelical media tradition I call the preacher syndrome. Schaeffer occasionally interrupts the cinematic flow with lectures that stir painful memories of the first series, “How Should We Then Live?” The flat documentary-like narratives contrast with other imaginative, poignant images that “bring home” the message.

Many times the visual message is weakened because of the priority put on words. Schaeffer’s tightly reasoned and analytical arguments are not well suited to film. And he was apparently reluctant to simplify his language to accommodate the broader audience.

Film demands much more from a speaker than does a live appearance or even one on television. The audience is totally captive, enclosed in a tunnel. The only source of light and sound is the screen at the other end. Every nuance is scrutinized.

Evangelical comfort with language may warrant its heavy use when that is the only medium used (such as in the book, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Fleming H. Revell, 1979). However, there are several more sensory dimensions through which one can work the message in film. The existential potential must be appreciated to be pursued.

An example of language overkill clutters a sensitive scene in which a young boy and girl (Franky’s children) play mommy and daddy with a baby doll. I first saw the sequence on an editing table without sound. I could almost imagine the little girl’s words as I watched. In the final version, the young girl awkwardly recites an overwritten script of four- and five-syllable words. Here words detract from the impact.

One of the more effective examples in this series depicts society’s dehumanization of the aged. A parapalegic grandmother is discarded by her children in a nursing home—propped glassy-eyed and alone in front of a television set blaring forth quiz show banality—and forgotten. In the dramatization of this everyday occurrence, we have witnessed a visual parable with a felt impact beyond words.

By the end of episode three, human dignity has been regained. Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, death with dignity, and mercy killing have all been dismantled as viable social alternatives to life. The Judeo-Christian understanding of man has left humanism bankrupt.

The fourth and fifth films revert again to too much dependence on words, rather than making the powerful use of the visual image so splendidly employed in films one through three. The fifth film presents the gospel, using portions of Scripture for much of the script. In an effort to tie this film to the series, the camera wanders through a dark and ethereal setting of caged people, victims depicted in earlier films, lost somewhere in the abyss. There follows a sequence of Schaeffer’s Bible talks shot on the appropriate locations in the Holy Land. In one, he is the prophet speaking from Mount Sinai.

The films, in many respects, are a breakthrough for Christian cinematography. The music and lyrics were obviously given high priority. Schaeffer and Koop have written a strong, prophetic statement that should clarify the confusion among many Christians about the ethical issues involved. Humanists have been given notice of the impending moral chaos that faces a society divested of its Judeo-Christian foundations. Despite the distracting tendency to posit a preacher on the screen, these films present lucid arguments firmly establishing the biblical view of man as the cornerstone of the legal and medical professions in Western society. They vividly portray the cancerous consequences of humantistic relativism in these professions. But what makes these films mandatory viewing for Christians and others concerned about the degenerating status of all but the “perfect, planned, and privileged” is the way they sort through the relevant data in the light of Scripture and present the inevitable conclusions. They are solid ground on which Christians can take a stand.

I both laud and lament these films. They are that way—either very good or very bad (cinematically speaking). There is a confusion about who is in control. Are they a documentary series by Schaeffer and Koop, or a brilliant use of the medium of film by Franky? Room must be allowed for the stature of the writers. The message is their apologetic, but in many places they don’t allow it to become truly intregated with the medium they are employing—film. In outstanding spots it does. And that, for me, is the success of these films.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.