Crisis of Faith

There are plenty of movies like Silence, The Last Temptation of Christ and Noah that tackle characters experiencing a Crisis of Faith. They work because they address something most of us will face in our lifetime, whether or not you are religious. We all face cliff-edges in our life, and can either stay where we are, or take a Leap of Faith.

Characters like Noah (Russell Crowe), Jesus (Willem Dafoe) and Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) find that an event comes along with makes them question everything they thought they knew- in this case, their relationship with their God.

However, these examples are either fictional, biblical or historical. In the last few years, a brilliant TV series has shown a man of God in the modern world. This man faces constant Crisis of Faith, but when he overcomes his doubts, he is a better person for doing so.

Rev.

This BBC sitcom starring Tom Hollander depicts the Reverend Adam Smallbone (Hollander), married to an ambitious and talented solicitor, Alex (Olivia Colman). Despite reluctance from Alex, they leave their cushy country parish in a well-to-do area to go and run a parish in one of London’s poorest areas.

His best friend is an alcoholic homeless parishioner he shares beer and cigarette breaks with. His family is harassed by a clueless drug addict who is always trying to scam them.

Adam faces constant threats of his church closing down, a faith school that has little to do with its parish, and the bureaucracy of the Church of England. Adam, not only experiences challenges on a daily basis that make him feel as though his church is irrelevant.  The strain it puts on his marriage and the kinds of tragedies he witnesses within inner-city London make him also question whether he truly believes in God.

We always hear him talking to God throughout the show’s quieter moments, but he’s always wondering if God is listening to him.

Empathy

Rev. works so well because our lead character, who preaches the word of God, is just as flawed as the rest of us are, regardless of our faith. Everyone who believes in some sort of God places their love and trust in this faith. It is only natural they would doubt themselves, and feel all sorts of emotions if something terrible happens. If their faith is not rewarded when they feel they need intervention, they can feel abandoned.

Despite preaching the word of God, Adam struggles on a daily basis as he attempts to hold together his marriage, his community, and his church. At one point, he seriously considers abandoning his faith forever. If you want to know whether or not he takes the Leap of Faith required to keep everything he holds dear, you’ll have to watch the show!

Leap of Faith

I often talk about Characters having to take a Leap of Faith detailed more thoroughly in my Character Map eBook and available in my online store. It takes courage to overcome the leap in the face of our fears. Characters will go on a journey throughout a novel, or a film, or a TV series, to discover what they want vs. what they really need. And if they have the courage to live an authentic life. By the end of their journey, they face a choice– to live in fear or to live in faith.

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Faith, Belief, and Religion

Taking a respite from the usual format for Types Tuesday, as I found this brilliant video essay and just had to share it.

Faith and Belief are unique to every person, whether they are religious, spiritual, agnostic or atheist. It is a universal struggle, whoever you are, and it is something so nuanced that it can make for excellent drama, and create rich, empathetic conflicts for your Characters. It makes for such interesting and engaging stories.

Video Essay

I’ll discuss this in a little more detail on Thursday, but for now, I hope this video essay, by 21st Century Cinephile on Youtube, gives you something to think about:

Arranged is the story of Rochel, an observant Orthodox Jewish woman, and Nasira, a devout Muslim woman.  The two form an unlikely friendship at the public school where they both teach fourth graders.  The women realize they have more in common with each other than with the other young female teachers who gossip about shopping, partying, drinking and the various boyfriends that hop in out of their beds.

The principal of the school recognizes the two friends as among the best teachers in the school but she is frustrated with their “backward” ways and modest rather dowdy attire.  She assumes Nasira is forced to wear a veil by her father. Nasira’s eloquent explanation of her choice to follow her religious beliefs is confident and graceful.  Her personal beliefs  inform her own understanding of feminine modesty.  She doesn’t feel constrained, angry or bitter about her headcovering.

Both Nasira and Rochel are of a marriageable age and their families are involved in planning arranged marriages.  Although this concept is often linked with forced marriages and child brides, that’s not the case here.  Rather it is family involvement in finding a suitable spouse and forging a union with another family. Each girl has and uses her veto power over choices that don’t suit her, adding to parental concern, impatience and exasperation.  Each girl longs for her own home and family but neither is willing to be coerced.

The central role of family, commitment and children are at the heart of Arranged.  It is a Power of Idealism film in that the girls struggle with maintaining the own values and personal identity while also respecting and finding their place in their cultures and family traditions.  The Individual vs. Society is at the core of these kind of films.

The film is not just an idealized portrait of these women.  It is based on the real life account of an Orthodox Jewish woman, a teacher in the New York public schools, and her experiences getting to know the Pakistani-American Muslim mother of one of her pupils. In a review by Jennifer S. Bryson for Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, an online publication of the Witherspoon Institute sums the film up this way:

Shared values provide a bridge for Nasira and Rochel. They are women with humble self-dignity in a world not disposed to support integrity (chastity) or family. What these women learn is that kindness begets friendship, and genuine friendship can handle differences. They don’t have to deny their difference to get along. The bridge they build proves to be stronger than cross-currents around them. Friendship, and healthy relationships, ensue and grow.  (Traditions are kept alive and their families flourish).

I too am a woman of faith and I struggle mightily with my relationship with the Catholic Church.  I am a social policy liberal and believe social justice to be at the core of the Gospel teachings.  I get so angry, frustrated and saddened by my church’s terrible failings and all too-easy hypocrisy.  The church falls short in so many many ways in living up to what the Gospel demands– but then so do I.

I do love the tradition, historic cultural significance, sense of timelessness, majesty  and beauty of the church.  A Catholic background, as conflicted as it is, has influenced many important writers.  I guess I am most comfortable as a Catholic in the diverse literary sensibilities of C.S. Lewis, Graham Greene, Flannery O’Conner, J.R.R. Tolkien, Thomas Merton, Robert Altman, Evelyn Waugh, Honoré de Balzac, Francis Ford Coppola, Joseph Cambell, Dorothy Day, Clare Boothe Luce, Cormac McCarthy, Edith Sitwell, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Jules Verne, Anthony Burgess, Pedro Almodovar, Paul Haggis and Alfred Hitchcock.  I align myself with those struggling with the “hard questions” in life.  I believe that the courage to ask those questions is the very essence of faith.

After returning from my most recent trip to Europe, I went to the eye doctor.  I thought I had a bit of a muscle tone problem and it would be mendable with a small nip and tuck– and while I was under the knife– maybe I would just do a few other small tweaks as well.  Win win.

Instead, I was diagnosed with Horner’s Syndrome.  I was informed there are four possible causes of Horner’s– shingles (which I did have but in the wrong place to be a factor) brain tumor, brain aneurism or lung cancer.  Each option was more horrific than the next.  It took a month (over 30 days) of waiting to get the MIR appointments and neurology appointments that I needed to hear the answer.

The good news was I was given the all clear on all fronts.  The doctors said that sometimes the reason for Horner’s is not discoverable.  But it is a neurological weakening of the eye lid muscles. I can get the nip and tuck when my insurance company approves, so perhaps this is a tweakable situation yet.

Cut to– Yesterday, on Ash Wednesday, the Lenten season started.  Ash Wednesday is a day to remember “you are dust and unto dust you shall return” (a quote from the book of Genesis).   The fleeting nature of life is something that hits uncomfortably close to home given my recent reprieve.

Lent is a period of time (40 days) of reflection, discernment and renewal.  It ends on the glorious miracle of Easter Sunday–  If you believe in the Resurrection.  Or it ends with the more secular egg hunt and Easter basket goodies, if you are a general holiday celebrator.  The egg is a long-time pagan symbol of new life so we still are tapping into the renewal thing with Easter eggs.

Every religion or cultural tradition has a period of annual inward looking, contemplation and sense of starting over or symbolic rebrith.  It’s important at times to stop, whatever our belief system, and ask– what are we doing? Are we just living by rote or routine?  And “is this what I want out of my life or am I who I want to be”?

One of the reasons people “give things up” during Lent is to take themselves out of their comfort zones.  People often choose giving up chocolate, smoking, sweets, drinking, mindless television-watching, etc. to break those habits (for a time) that are self-indulgent, self-destructive or that keep us in an anesthetized state.  Lent is supposed to move us out of the rote and routine of our lives and challenge us to look at ourselves anew.

So what does all this have to do with Rango (the first full-length ILM animated movie)?  Give me a moment to set things up before I move in for the personal payoff.

Rango is the story of a chameleon who, during a car accident, falls out of a family vehicle and escapes when his glass habitat shatters on the asphalt.   He is stranded in the desert somewhere between Nowhere and Las Vegas.

Although the film has much to recommend it– wonderfully detailed animation, unusual and odd character choices (moth-eaten, flea-bitten, broken-down and patched up every one), a fully realized visual world and inventive set pieces that are fast, furious and funny– these great elements just don’t add up to much. On first viewing there is so much visual cleverness, so many movie send-ups and western spoofs going on it’s easy not to notice the story is a mess and the characters are very poorly defined.

Here’s how Lisa Schwarzbaum put it in Entertainment Weekly

Rango takes a long time finding a story line to stick with. First the lizard, liberated from domestication by humans, gets a crash course in outdoor life skills. (In the desert, blend in!) He staggers into a dusty town called Dirt and decides to reinvent himself as a gunslinging hero. (In town, stand out!) After being rewarded for inadvertent acts of bravery as town sheriff, he decides that being a hero is too hard. Then he changes his mind and sticks to his, er, gun. (Actually, a single bullet)

This isn’t a movie that will hold up well after repeated viewing.  Rango, the character, can’t seem to make up his mind whether he is a Power of Ambition character (boasting, bragging and pretending to be something he’s not because he feels like a fraud or a fake inside) or a Power of Idealism character (a unique and extraordinary creature who is trying to figure out how he can maintain his individuality AND be part of or fit into a community AND be true to his special destiny.)

Everything and the kitchen sink is thrown into the movie– parts of Chinatown are graphed onto High Noon with side excursions into The Man with No Name.  But nothing adds up, makes sense or has a deeper emotional meaning, relevance or resonance.

Beans, the female lead iguana, tells us she is worried about losing her daddy’s farm but we never see the land or her personal connection to it.  Someone is dumping water but we never find out why or for what specific purpose, unlike in Chinatown.  The actual answer to the problem in the film is not water dumping but a shut off water valve that someone closed.  There is no narrative coherence anywhere.  There is lots of action and very little heart.

Here is how Ty Burr puts it, writing The Boston Globe:

Just as often, though, everyone mills around waiting for the story to go somewhere. “Rango’’ wants to send up every sagebrush cliche it can, but the screenplay just piles those cliches on top of each other and waits for alchemy to happen. The director is Gore Verbinski, the mastermind of the “Pirates of the Caribbean’’ franchise, and like those movies, “Rango’’ is a highly watchable but somewhat frustrating mix of sloppy plotting, rascally attitude, and Big Action.

It’s a fun movie and a noisy one, but not the great work of family-friendly gonzo this particular crew could have created with just a little more focus. Back to your workstations, boys, and let’s see what else you’ve got.

(E)veryone mills around waiting for the story to go somewhere. “Rango’’ wants to send up every sagebrush cliche it can, but the screenplay just piles those cliches on top of each other and waits for alchemy to happen.

The director is Gore Verbinski, the mastermind of the “Pirates of the Caribbean’’ franchise, and like those movies, “Rango’’ is a highly watchable but somewhat frustrating mix of sloppy plotting, rascally attitude, and Big Action. (IMO those movies go nowhere either)

It’s a fun movie and a noisy one, but not the great work of family-friendly gonzo (filmmaking that) this particular crew could have created with just a little more focus. Back to your workstations, boys, and let’s see what else you’ve got.

Okay so here’s the personal Lenten observation part.

Like this film, my life is filled with a steady stream of creative and inventive action sequences.  I have a bunch of projects and lots of other things going at full blast.

What are they adding up to?  Do they have a strong narrative through-line that is clearly defining who I want to be and how I want to live my life?  Is my focus clear enough or am I just addicted to the frantic activity?   Do I just mill around between action sequences waiting for the story to go somewhere?  What is all this activity in service of.  Food for thought for 40 days.

So what am I going to do about it?  I’ve decided to watch 40 films in 40 days and write about them from a personal standpoint as I puzzle through how I want to be reborn on Easter morning.  It will be a journey of looking at my life through the lens of movies– some contemporary and some old school– I hope you will join me.

Rather than just write about Character Types and story construction I want to look at my own life and how I am constructing my own story.  Do you ever want to take a step back and ask yourself– just what is most important and how do my choices define me?  Do you ever wonder what your frantic activity adds up to in the end?

Okay, I know this just sounds like piling on more activity but I am also committed to quitting work at 5PM for 40 days and giving myself time to think about the larger narrative arc of the time (hopefully lots and lots) that I have left.  I am going to do a better job of prioritizing and putting the larger purpose of my life first.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this and about the questions you struggle with in your own life as you move from project to project.  Comment here or on my ETB FaceBook Page.   #40movies40days