tabletalk

Sunday at the Movies

Our family just got back from the movies after seeing Amazing Grace. A friend recommended it and it was worth every penny. The story of William Wilberforce and his perisitent 46 year battle to abolish the slave trade throughout the British Empire in the late 18th and early 19th century is moving. Wilberforce, a friend of John Newton, the man who wrote the song Amazing Grace, is himself encountered by Grace. As a result he extends the Kingdom of God as a champion of justice and righteousness. Every disciple of Jesus should learn this story and its lessons. It's a great Sunday matinee.

The Da Vinci Opportunity

With the advent of the Da Vinci Code movie very close at hand, let me recommend a site that is better researched and thought out than any I could do. Though I intend to make my comments, Mark Roberts, Pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church has written a great series of articles called The Da Vinci Opportunity. Click on the link and it will take you to Mark's blog and there you can read the articles under the above name. One thing to note up front, is that the issues that are being raised around the book and film are not new. They are issues the church has handled for 2,000 years - and handled well. It is an opportunity for conversation and growing deeper in the knowledge of our faith. But it is not a time to be threatened.

(Just for your enjoyment I'll include a picture from Rosslyn Chapel, just outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. Some suggest the grail is hidden under its floor! Doubt it. But hey, my ancestors, the Sinclairs, were significant in the building of the chapel. We visited there last summer. Dan Brown has put Rosslyn on the map - it was jammed with tourists. We sat next to a woman on the bus who was almost hovering with excitement to reach this "holy" site.)

The picture is of one of the many stone carvings in the chapel. The Masons used the chapel as a showcase for their talent as well as an opportunity for their apprentices to perfect their craft.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Reflections on the Movie 2

A critical eye to the film that is not too critical (I hope). Why not too critical? Well, I don't think it deserves it. It was my wife's comment about it being a children's film that softened my critical eye and spirit. O to see through the eyes of children what they see in the film. We'll simply have to ask and not tell, eh?

Some observations about the film. First, the editors of the film moved significant dialogue from one scene to another, I assume to enhance the dialogue or the scene. A good for instance would be the line: "Aslan isn't safe, but he's good." As I remember the film it was delivered by Lucy towards the end of the film - (I'll need to see the film again to get the details right) but in the book it is when the children are in the Beaver's home that Mr. Beaver delivers the line just before they discover that Edmund has slipped out. In the movie it struck me that the filmmakers were trying to make a moral point, but in the book I believe Lewis is establishing the character of Aslan for the children so they might get a bigger picture of the one who has called them. It's a small point, but I think the film should have left certain things in their proper place.

As I thought, the film showed Edmund as being ashamed when the Witch claimed that there was a traitor in their midst. Edmund was viewed as fidgety and nervous. In the book he is quite calm, because his focus is on Aslan. In the film his focus is everywhere but on Aslan. Again, a small point. I don't think it helped the film to change this.

As for characters, the Professor was neutral to me. I found him neither compelling nor repelling. He was too comical for my tastes. I would have made him more thoughtful and distant than absent minded and looney. He came off looney to me.

I liked the use of the line "and death itself would begin to work backwards." Delivered in a good moment and made its impact.

Too much was made of the battle. This for Hollywood and moviegoers. More care could have attended the work of changing statues into persons. There is an interesting moment in the film where it appears that Lucy is marveling at the thought of having an elixir that can cure all those wounded, and she happily runs off to do so. In the book, Aslan endures her impatient and cross response to his urging that she leave her brother and attend to the injured. The line he delivers before she goes is - "Daughter of Eve," said Aslan in a graver voice, "others also are at the point of death. Must more people die for Edmund?"

The thaw, well - it was too much to have the children plunged into a river and miraculously appear on the shore and ice flows and whatever...There really was no need for this action. In some ways, Disney would have done well to stick even closer to the book at points, so as not to distract from the story. Sometimes creating action to hold attention does just the opposite. But, I'm no child.

These are all adult findings and musing. Nothing big. Nothing that would keep me from seeing the film again. Nothing that would keep me from recommending others see the film.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: A Reflection on the Movie

Let me begin the reflection with two parts. First is the movie-going side of things the second is the film itself. As to the movie-going we went at midnight, not with our church, but just others. We saw someone from our church there and lots of young men out in twos and threes and groups. We sat in front of a group of young men and a couple of young women. The guys spent the time leading up to the film talking about beer, Vegas, and whether their parents would disown them if they became film producers in the adult film industry. They debated the value of the money made over and against the possible disapproval of their parents. Needless to say it wasn't a church crowd.

As to the movie itself, my wife made the most important comment. She said that it was a true children's film. She's right. It was very much a children's movie. It didn't try to cross over with the humor or the visuals or the storyline. It was truly a children's story done in film. I think Lewis would have liked that. For the particulars of the film, let me give some things I liked and not get into the critique of it just yet.

I liked the four children. They were well cast and I enjoyed Lucy most of all. Though Edmund came off very well. He was sullen and withdrawn and irritated just as you might have pictured him being with his older siblings on his back. Peter and Susan were appropriately "older" and were developed well in the movie by the context of WWII and their role as being examples and protectors to their younger brother and sister.

The opening of the film set the stage well for why they were in the English countryside. Without belaboring the point, I think that the filmmakers did a good job of visually making you appreciate the predicament many families experienced in London during WWII. Remember, Lewis entertained children in Oxford during this time.

Lewis was skeptical to encourage a film of Narnia largely because he couldn't imagine the regal Aslan being played by two actors prancing around clumsily in a large lion costume. Had Lewis been able to imagine what technology is now capable of doing, he might have changed his mind. Aslan was truly kingly. Liam Neeson's voice was well chosen. My favorites? Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. These two were wonderfully imagined (though the additional dialoge was a little harsh toward Mrs. Beaver). The wolves were equally bad and menacing. The centaurs were better than the one in Harry Potter. We commented how much easier it is to make the evil creatures look and feel evil, than it is for the good ones to look and feel good. (Maybe there is a lesson in that? - there isn't such a great distance between the two as might be supposed or as we would like others to think?)

The Witch was deliciously cold and evil. Enticing a bit? Appropriately so, she could sound sweet and tempting but never hold the pose. I've always liked the fact that Lewis made his evil white - not black and it was cold, not flames that demonstrated evil's grip.

There were other things that I enjoyed in the film, but these are a good place to start. Any thoughts from your end?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Step 10

Be off to the movies as you should be!

I'm also off celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary. See you next week!

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Step 9

In writing this before I see the film I am making a confession. I anticipate that I will have trouble allowing the film to speak for itself. I want to practice what I have preached so far. It will be important to let the movie have its own place in the artistic realm as opposed to be merely a visual representation of the book.

For me I think it will be like going to another church and hearing another preacher and listening critically - not for God's word to me. This is the bind most preachers find themselves in, and I dare say, those who love Narnia, will find themselves in this bind. Listening critically and with an eye to error, instead of letting the film speak. It's what these blogs have ultimately tried to say. Let's give the film a chance, not to meet our demands as an evangelistic tool, nor as a faithful representation of a beloved story, but simply let it be. I hope it is good.

This my confession - may it not come to pass, but may I be able to receive the story in good faith by those who share it with me. I would hope to do that to other preachers and be given the same respect by those who hear me. I'm sure it is the desire to be right, which must make others wrong. It is born of sin not grace.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Step 8

"The White Witch? Who is she?"
"Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It's she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!"

This is one of Lewis's great lines and images in all of Narnia. Being held captive is like it being perpetually winter without any Christmas. Think of that? What comes to your mind? For me it the thought of no resolution. As though my life is held in the tension of a suspended chord with no resolve. I can't get back to a major key with my life. My life is cold without the possibility of a warm fire. I'm putting on and taking off cumbersome winter clothes, without the prospect of spring. No family and friends gathered, no services, no candles, no carols, no gifts, no feast, no roast beast (acknowledging dr. seuss). Cold upon cold, white upon white. Nothing distinct. No sharpness to the landscape except as a cold needle of ice.

It would be lilke hearing of the coming of this Narnian film and not being able to see it. Well, that would be an overstatement. For always winter and never Christmas is a horrible thought, not merely sad.

Maybe one way to enjoy the film and the book and the season is simply to see them as the breaking of the tension. Our Associate Pastor, Todd Holdridge, will speak to that this coming Sunday. The birth of Jesus is at the right time, the right time for the tension of the ages to be resolved. Life will move from being suspended to being resolved in the person and work of Christ.

Pray that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the beginning of a thaw in people's hearts. That it will warm their imaginations to being able to imagine a greater miracle, God with us. No one need see Aslan as Jesus. We want people to see Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. But when Christ is on the move, the grip of winter is lessened and thaw begins and spring will arrive.

When asked if he believed in miracles, Lewis responded that he did. All Christians do. For our faith is built on the greatest of miracles, God became and human being, died and rose again from the dead. Is there a greater miracle than this?

Even in California I can't imagine palm trees in winter with no Christmas. What a drab thought.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Step 7

It's Tuesday not Monday. Well, I took the day off. Lights are on the house, a door is painted, a new thermostat installed, a good days work, though it took a few hours to collect all the necessary materials. Step 10, to remind you, is to say - go see the movie, so I'm not behind.

Here are Lewis's last three observations of the unliterary reader. Lewis is trying here to give us an idea of how we can let a book simply be and not be used. It's interesting to note that Lewis doesn't equate literary with being "up" on the latest books, or literary in terms of academic degree. He does talk often about reading the right sorts of books as in this next observation.

3. Not only as regards the ear but also in every other way they are either quite unconscious of style or even prefer books which we should think badly written. Offer and unliterary twelve-year-old (not all twleve-year-olds are unliterary) Treasure Island instead of the Boys' Bloods about pirates which are his usual fare, or offer Wells's First Men in the Moon to a reader of the infimal sortsw of science fiction. You will often be disappointed. You give them, it would seem, just the sort of matter they want, but far better done: descriptions that really describe, dialogue that can produce some illusion, characters one can distinctly imagine. They peck about at it and presently lay the book aside. There is something in it that has put them off.

- My note. This was Lewis writing in the early 60's. How up to date these words are. My sense is that one of the challenges we have as adults, parents, and Christians, is to give children a love for words. But how can we if it is not in us? Well, we can expose children to good words. Many have tried to get me to read the Left Behind series. I have tried several times to see what it is about, but I get discouraged by the bad writing from the gitgo. (My other problem is the horrendous biblical interpretation in it.) The young people can't read Treasure Island, because they can't take the time with the words. How will they ever take time for the Word?

4. They enjoy narratives inwhich the verbal element is reduced to a minimum - 'strip' stories told in pictures, or films with the least possible dialogue.

- Two observations. First, maybe there is a renaissance in words with the popularity of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, and now Narnia. All these books are 'wordy'. Second, I hope for the film's sake that they narrate well. Lewis adds few visual connectors, mostly emotive ones.

5. They demand swift-moving narrative. Something must always be 'happening'. Their favourite terms of condemnation are 'slow', 'long-winded', and the like.

- Lewis's note: "It is not hard to see the common source of these characteristics. As the unmusical listener wants only the Tune, so the unliterary reader wants only the Event. The one ignores nearly all the sounds the orchestra is actually making; because he wants to hum the tune. The other ignores nearly all that the words before him are doing; he wants to know what happened next."

This is why, in reading Narnia, you pause at some of the descriptions Lewis makes about growing up, or feelings - they are part of the foundation that makes the text rich. There is something of a modern drivenness in his description. Always trying to find the Event. This is maybe why so many of our films today are so thin (maybe why George Lucas last three Star Wars were not as good as the first three) - they are merely props for the major Event - which is usually and technological pyrotechnics display in a battle. ( I hope the film doesn't make the battle scene in Narnia too big - Lewis didn't - but it would be so Hollywood.)

Enough for now.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Step 5

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kinngdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:3-5

Read and watch like a child, think like a child. Don't destroy a child's dream or fantasy.

A letter of C.S. Lewis to Marcia, date 22 February 1955:

I am so glad you like the Narnian books. After P. Caspian came The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Then The Silver Chair: Then The Horse and His Boy. These have all been published. Next autumn, will come The Magician's Nephew, and, the year after, The Last Battle (at least I think that will be the name, but I might change it) which will finish off the series. Peter gets back to Narnia in it. I am afraid Susan does not. Haven't you noticed in the two you have read that she is rather fond of being too grownup. I am sorry to say that side of her got stronger and she forgot about Narnia.
No. I didn't start with four real children in mind: I just made them up.
It is fun writing stories, isn't it! Like you I used to write lots at your age.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely
C.S. Lewis

There are some fantastical things to the gospel of Jesus Christ that it is helpful to be childlike to receive. In fact the whole thing is fantastic isn't it? Lewis is by no means a simpleton, but he gets Jesus' point in Matthew better than most. Maybe it is because he never abandoned imagination. Many of us are like Susan and "outgrow" the faith. But that would be to deny that child who is still part of our lives, waiting to be redeemed. It is Christians who have the luxury and calling to remember their whole life and bring it all to Jesus. So step five for me is to read like a child. Get lost in the fantasy.

There is a second part to this. Don't take away the childhood of your children, or others' children. Here is the biggest temptation - to tell your children what all the characters in Narnia mean. Why? We are so eager for our kids to "get it" or "grow up" that we can ruin the whole thing for them. What's wrong with believing in Aslan for awhile, without making a connection to Jesus? Are we afraid they won't "get it"? Have faith and patience. A child who loves Aslan, will recognize these same qualities she loves in the person of Jesus as she gets to know him - (this is the point at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader).

Please, please, please - don't force children to see Jesus in Aslan. Instead find out what they like and let them own it. Remember this is no allegory. The characters are who they are in the story. They don 't have to stand for anybody.

What's so wrong in believing in Santa Claus, by the way? Kids move beyond it, but why be in a hurry? Their hopes will be dashed soon enough without our help.

The Goblet of Fire at Midnight

Our family went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Let me say that it kept us all awake until we left for home at 2:40am. It warrants a PG13 rating because it could be scary for younger children. It certainly begins to take on the adolescent issues the characters are moving in to. The film moves quickly, is extravagant in its details, is witty and humorous, all while taking on some darker and more difficult themes, like the death of a student.
Favorite parts? Too many, and I'll go see it again. It will be worth it.
So I write this endorsement.

As a Christian, one of the things I look for in books and films and music is integrity -not piety. In this film as in the others and the books as well, there is integrity. Good is never confused with evil. The children, though wizards and witches, struggle with doing what is right and good. Their values are not up for grabs, though they may fail from time to time. Rowling continues to hold up friendship, sacrifice, thinking of others, kindness, goodness and the like. Dumbledore has the thoughtful remark that the difficult choice to be made will be between what is right and what is easy. I know so many Christians who espouse these virtues but right below the surface they are selfish, judgmental, stingy, and down right unkind to people who are not like them, who do not believe as they do. In this light, which is Christian and which is not?

There are more laughs in this movie than the others, the humor is more sophisticated. It's worth a ride on a Firebolt even at midnight.