I haven’t seen that one, but I always recommend Roberto Rosselini’s Flowers of St. Francis. Opening scene, he and his followers are in a driving rainstorm in which they give up the hut they built to someone else and go sit in the rain and rejoice over it. It’s a great example of walking-the-walk that would shame many contemporary christians. It’s a fascinating movie, not boring at all.
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Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Matthew is a remarkable film, never boring: GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST MATTHEW - YouTube
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As usual the caveat that this applies mainly to right wing evangelicals needs to be said. Not all Christians and all that.
Devout Christians have made excellent films. Hitchcock was a practicing Roman Catholic.
I’ve had evangelicals in my family (past tense – they have left that world thankfully). But evangelicals are for the most part humourless, judgmental (obviously), narrow (obviously) and care only about converting non-believers (including other Christians). My experience is the greatest joy they get is indirectly condemning someone to Hell. They get off on it.
Naturally, any film made in that spirit is going to be awful.
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Much was made of how intentionally offensive/edgy the movie was but honestly I was surprised by how Kevin Smith managed to convey an underlying respect for Christianity even as he poked fun at its absurdities in a movie filled with sex jokes and potty humor.
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I think you’re mistaking something. Christian Media doesn’t come out of, or target Christians in general. or even most Christians. Most Christians aren’t even aware of this shit.
It’s primarily coming out of Evangelical movements, and targeted at Evangelical movements. Offending or attacking other sects is often the point.
There’s smaller niches within a niche targeted at devout Catholics. But a lot of that is still coming out of the Evangelicals. And there’s a parallel Mormon thing, though that’s often times more Family Channel sitcom than Christian Book Label.
These people aren’t making bland films because they’re trying to make them broadly appealing or innocuous. These works often contain explicit attacks on the left, LGBTQ people, Catholics, the secular.
They’re shot through with misogyny, attacks on “urban” stuff.
It’s always struck me as his least intentionally edgy work. (ETA: out of the works that shoot for intentionally edgey, guy made Jersey Girl after all). Pretty much anything touching on religion in that was either already a serious runner in the broader culture, or pulled pretty directly from broader Catholic thought.
All the shit people got pissed about was stuff they either already knew about, or already believed.
So as goes hollow 90’s edgelording it’s kinda poop demon and Rufus smokes pot.
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Religious, funny and entertaining.
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Despite it very much being a Christian film, most people would not consider it to be such, because it’s critical of organized religion, and because it has a rubber poop monster…
Another one that was well done that most people wouldn’t consider Christian despite the religious themes… Silence was another film that very much deals with problematic aspects of faith:
Very much a religious film, but many people probably do not see it as such, despite being almost painfully pro-Catholic.
But were his films specifically religous films? Someone being a practicing Christian (of whatever kind) doesn’t necessarily make their work Christian.
Sinead O’Connor also did that once, when people showed up to protest her show after she ripped up the picture of the Pope…
I think because he cares about his faith?
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I didn’t know that about Smith before I watched Dogma but yes, he’s been fairly outspoken about his faith. He wrote a foreward for the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon comic series Preacher back in 1996, years before he made Dogma. (For those unfamiliar with the series, the protagonist of Preacher is literally on a quest to kill God for His crimes against humanity.) Smith’s foreward ends thusly:
And if this book offends the delicate sensibilities of some people due to their religious convictions - well that saddens me. Because as a man who has an unflappable, fervent, and devout faith in God, let me assure those who find this book spiritually questionable that I know - in my heart and soul - the Lord be mighty, just, loving, and righteous…
…and a huge fan of PREACHER.
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Weirdly, it kind of reminds me of the experiences of Michael Muhammad Knight? He was raised Catholic, converted to Islam as a teen, got into the pretty hardcore Wahhabist influenced strain, spent time at one of the Saudi sponsored Mosques in Pakistan which drove him to a crisis of faith… finally he ended up back home, where he married his love of punk rock with Islam, and also began to explore some of the American grown Islamic strains… But it was his embrace of both Islam and popular culture that ultimately gave him a path that made sense to him.
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In a related topic, there was a Reddit post recently that discussed why Christian rock music is so bland.
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That’s probably one of the problems of the average Christian film: They want you to know, in no uncertain terms, that there was a Lesson. And what that Lesson was. A good story teaches you the lesson without letting you know it’s doing it.
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I thought “The Last Sin Eater” was pretty good except for the fact they could not for the life of themselves dig up anyone who could talk with a Welsh accent.
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I dunno, I thought he did a good job in The Dark Knight
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The weird thing is that there are parts of Christianity that are like that, but they aren’t the Evangelical parts which are more like “Literally do as God says or you will burn in Hell for eternity!”
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I always said that the “Great Commission” (“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” -Matthew 28:19) was Jesus’ biggest mistake and doomed his followers to a religion of warfare.
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I don’t know, I had to bail halfway through that movie…
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Unless you are rich and powerful. In which case God has anointed you and anything you do is holy as fuck, and everyone should emulate you so they can be rewarded financially for being holy as fuck.
(really).
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Maybe we’re overthinking this. I suspect that despite the propagandizing nature of these films they’re not actually intended to convert anyone to Evangelical ways of thinking. They’re comfort food for the already converted. Preaching to the choir is not a bug but a feature. Most of us have favorite media that we watch over and over because they fit our views of the world and of ourselves. It makes us feel good. I think these Christian films reassure their audiences that the world works the way they believe it does and they themselves are just who they need to be.
No doubt many viewers believe the delusion that these films guide non-believers to the True Path. That’s part of the comforting story. They, the viewers, aren’t just selfishly practicing their faith but making the world a better place by sharing it with others through things like these movies.
All this is looking at it from the audience’s perspective. From the makers’ perspective it’s harder to tell. Modern American Evangelism is shot through with hucksters who know how to milk a cash cow. I conjecture that these folk produce most Christian films. They give the audience what they want and pay more attention to revenue than religion. That said, I’m sure some Christian filmmakers fleece the public and still convince themselves they’re doing God’s work.
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