movies: more than meets the eye?

Marc and I went to a thing called "Culture & Theology" at our church (www.thevillagechurch.net) last week and the topic was how to engage movies, since we are a culture of movie watchers. The speaker encouraged us to engage the movies we watch by asking questions about 3 different topics: Purpose, Spirituality, and Experience.

In terms of Purpose, what was the purpose of the movie? What question(s) is the movie asking me?

Questions about Spirituality might include What do the characters value? What does the film suggest is meaningful in life? What assumptions does it ask me to make about the world? Does the film illustrate or conflict with the gospel (or both)?

And then Experience questions could include Did you find the film worthwhile? How did it make you feel (for example, if it was an action flick, do you feel like you need to drive faster when you leave the theater)? What does it make you think about? Did anything resonate with you or remind you of some detail in your own history?

After outlining all that, the speaker had us watch a short film called "Most" and then we discussed some of these questions with the people around us and then as a whole group. I found the discussion really interesting and I certainly felt like I gained much more from the movie than I would have if I'd just watched it. A couple of the people around me said that they thought deeply about the movies they watch on a regular basis, but these questions were a very new idea to me. I guess that I just watch movies and then don't really think about them again, unless something in them resonates with my life or something scares me. I don't watch scary movies if I can avoid them in fact because they stay with me. Otherwise, movies are in and out for me. It makes a lot of sense to me that I need to work at engaging movies though, seeing the amount that I watch (a lot), and how I might be able to use an intelligent conversation about a movie with a friend to point to the gospel, or to some aspect of truth. I also would benefit from thinking about the movies I see in terms of affirming that which is truth in the movies, and rejecting that which isn't. Movies can easily sway our thinking and I don't want to unknowingly be swayed by what the world says is right that isn't.

All that said, three movies that we've seen recently are Once, Wall-E, and the Dark Knight. Putting these questions to these three movies makes for a whole new movie watching experience! Marc and I talked about Once in terms of the questions, and I enjoyed the discussion quite a bit. He had a lot of insight that I hadn't seen in the movie. I've only been thinking about Wall-E and Dark Knight...Wall-E is an easier one to analyze. Dark Knight...well, still thinking about that one. I recommend all three movies. Once is an Irish film about a couple of musicians - I loved the music. Wall-E has an amazing ability to make the audience (or at least me!) emotionally attach to a couple of robots whose entire vocabulary is either "Wall-E" or "Eva." Dark Knight is incredible - Heath Ledger is unrecognizable in the Joker, probably the best villain I've ever seen.