"Birdman" Review

I finally watched the Oscar-winning Birdman, and to be frank, I was much underwhelmed. I expect a movie awarded as the “Best Picture” of the year to be something impressive, moving, or thought-provoking, but Birdman wasn’t really any of those things for me. It wasn’t horrible, but I certainly think some of the other nominees were better.

So, here is why I think Birdman won the award for “Best Picture.” It won because it reflects the narcissism, insecurities, and disjointedness of Hollywood itself. Although the film centers on a washed up actor on Broadway, its core is just as much about Hollywood. In that sense, an Academy vote for Birdman is really a vote for themselves.

In fact, it is interesting to see how frequently films about film-making and Hollywood end up either being nominated for “Best Picture” or winning the award in recent years: The Artist (2011), Hugo (2011), Argo (2012), and Birdman (2014). Three of the past four winners have been films about Hollywood. It seems as if the academy is not really interested in what is truly the “Best Picture,” but in what film best reflects their own values and culture.

That seems to be the case with Birdman. Certainly the struggles of Riggan in the film are very real for many actors (perhaps even Michael Keaton himself whose own career is eerily similar to Riggan’s). Just like many ordinary people in mid-life, actors and those in Hollywood encounter the questions of meaning, significance, and success. It may even be worse for them because of the dangers of celebrity and fame.

But here’s my problem, I don’t really care. Perhaps the most engaging part of the film is Riggan’s daughter’s (Emma Stone) rant against her father about the pointlessness of his current endeavors. 

  “Let’s face it, dad. You are not doing this for the sake of art. You are doing this because you want to feel relevant again. Well guess what, there’s an entire world out there where people fight to be relevant every single day, and you act like it doesn’t exist. Things are happening in a place that you ignore, in a place that, by the way, has already forgotten about you…You’re doing this because you’re scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don’t matter. And you know what, you’re right—you don’t. It’s not important, ok. You’re not important. Get used to it!”

 I felt drawn to this monologue because it rings true. The reality is that actors and celebrities are no more important than any nameless person on the streets. So, I don’t really care for the struggles of Riggan in the movie. His self-loathing does not elicit sympathy, not when there are real people with real struggles in the world. So, you’re an actor who’s discovering you’re human…Get used to it. You really aren’t important in the grand scheme of things. Your inner-conflict does not deserve any more sympathy or applause than anyone else’s.

And yet, the whole point of the Academy seems to be to deny this truth. In the end, all the Academy really seems to be is a group that gathers together to celebrate themselves, tout their own accomplishments, flaunt their wealth, and give each other fancy awards for doing something just about anyone in America can do—fake it. So whether a film celebrates actors (like Argo did), or critiques the excesses of fame (like Birdman), any such film acts like a mirror. And in the egocentric world of the Academy, the award, of course, is going to go to the reflection in the mirror.

This is not to say that Birdman was without artistic merit. The seamless, one-shot style in which the movie was filmed was unique. There were also some very touching and thought-provoking scenes. However, to say that it was the “Best Picture” seems an over-statement.

Perhaps the excessive amount of language in the film contributes to my cynicism. I don’t know about you, but there seems something disingenuous about throwing around the f-bomb and s-word over 150 times in a movie and calling that “acting.” It really just sounds like angry, nonsensical babbling to me (imagine if we substituted every version of “fuck” in the movie with a version of “poop”—poop, poopin, poop you, etc.) Far from offering an intense exploration of the human experience, that excessive amount of profanity just seems like you really have nothing to say.

Which is about where I ended up with Birdman. It tackles a number of themes—fame/celebrity, love/admiration, blockbuster/art, age/relevance—but in the end I felt it really did not have much to say to me. I have little sympathy for a character who complains about problems that seem so out of touch with the real world. In the end, it just really made me feel sorry for actors and those in Hollywood who have all the glitz and glitter but are so often lacking substance and meaning. These are things fame cannot buy. But, me feeling sorry for actors does not equate an award for Best Picture.

And so, the Academy’s decision to award Birdman that accolade just feeds into the cynical narrative that Hollywood is out of touch and self-absorbed—“Yes we do matter, because we say so.” Well, that’s great. Now the rest of us will continue along our ordinary lives until the next time we are beckoned to the worship service for Oscar.

Noah movie review blog (or novel...)

I finally saw “Noah” in theaters this weekend. I know there have been countless articles and blog posts about the movie already, but here are a few my thoughts. [Spoiler alert]

First, one of my hopes going into this movie was that seeing an interpretation of the story that relies heavily on extra-biblical sources might “break open” our own interpretation of the Noah story and help us see new aspects of it we may have missed before. Here are some ways in which I felt the movie succeeded.

1. I was reminded of the theme in Genesis 1-11 that cities are bad.

In the movie, the line of Cain develops industrialized cities and civilizations. This is portrayed negatively in the film as these cities end up destroying God’s good creation. Interestingly enough, in Gen. 1-11 we also find cities portrayed negatively. In the genealogies of Cain and Seth (Gen. 4-5) the only cities mentioned are in the fallen line of Cain. In fact, the first comment about Cain besides the fact that he gained a son is that he “built a city” (4:17). Likewise, in the post-flood world, the only cities mentioned are in connection with the fallen line of Ham. Eventually, the evil city-building finds its climax in the story of the Tower of Babel (“Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower” in 11:4). God deals with this sin by “scattering” the people.

This common theme should force us to look closer at the biblical text. Why does Gen. 1-11 depict cities as a challenge to God? The movie claims that such industrialization destroys the good earth. While this may be true today, it probably was not the main issue for the writer of Genesis. This is a import from our modern culture. Rather, in Genesis the problem is that God twice commands humans to “multiply” and “fill the earth”—once after Creation and once after the flood. Gathering in cities rather than scattering across the earth is direct disobedience of this command. In Genesis, cities are not inherently evil, but only evil in so far as they are built in opposition to the decrees of God.

2. Which brings us to the matter of ecology

Many Christians have critiqued the movie because the director depicts Noah as an ancient environmentalist. I agree insofar as saying that the strong emphasis on environmental issues has been imported into the text from our modern world. However, at least the writers and director are conscious of this imposition. Many Christian movies about the Bible have been made with little knowledge or awareness that their storytelling is also an interpretation influenced by their cultural biases.

That being said, perhaps we need an ecological reading of Genesis 1-11. American Christians have been far too dualistic in the past when it comes to thinking about the earth. Faulty thinking about the afterlife has taught many of us that we simply go to heaven when we die, so ecological endeavors are pointless. This world is going to burn after all, right? But if we remember that the Bible teaches resurrection—an affirmation of God’s good creation—then suddenly we must be more conscious of our earthly actions. God created the world and called it “good.” Why would he throw His masterpiece into the trash in the end?

Hopefully this movie refocuses our attention on Gen. 2:15 where God commands the man to “cultivate and protect” the garden. Creation does not exist simply for our own benefit. We are co-creators tasked with overseeing and being good stewards of God’s created world.

Maybe Noah will also help us expand our vision of salvation. God’s salvation through Jesus is not just about “saving souls.” It is about redeeming all of God’s good creation. Paul says in Romans that all creation “groans” and “waits for the sons of God to be revealed” (Rom 8:18-25). Paul says all the earth (animals and plants included) has been cursed because of our sin. Therefore, God’s ultimate plan for salvation includes redeeming and restoring that good creation. In that light, Russell Crowe’s Noah doesn’t sound all that unbiblical.

3. This is a dark story

Perhaps another reason many Christians got up in arms about the film was that this is not a “safe for the whole family” story. We sometimes have a bad knack of taming down the rough patches in the Bible. I remember watching an atheist rant on a YouTube video about a baby’s bible. He pointed out that key biblical stories, like Noah, David/Goliath, and the Crucifixion, completely omitted the ugly parts. For example, few children’s Bibles talk about (or illustrate) why Noah got to go on a fun wooden cruise with zoo animals.

Now, I’m not for destroying the innocence of children too quickly (another theme of the movie ironically), but I do think this same thinking affects us as adults. Have we as adult Christians truly pondered the dark places of the Bible? Or, are we still stuck in Kindergarten Sunday School mode? Do we think of rainbows and zoo animals when we hear Noah’s name, or do we think of the devastation of the world and the massive loss of human life that was the result of sin?

This new movie forces us to come face to face with the ugliness of sin and the tragedy it causes in the biblical story. One of the most haunting images of the film was a picture of the final surviving humans clinging to the last dry land of a mountain. Noah’s family hears the victims crying out, and then we see them, futilely clawing past each other like zombies to escape their fate. It reminded me that this too is in the story of Noah. While the text may not spell it out, have we seriously considered the line “All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind” (7:21)?

4. Christians critiqued Noah’s character for the wrong reason

In reading the critical reviews of the film, one thing that kept coming up over and over again was Noah’s “homicidal” character. How could any film-maker portray Noah as a person ready to kill his own granddaughter? More on this in the next point. However, by the end of the film, Noah shows mercy and chooses love. With that in mind, I think Christian critics completely missed another way they could have attacked the movie’s depiction of Noah (probably because many critics hadn’t even seen the movie when they started throwing accusations).

Toward the end of the film we get an interpretation of Noah’s drunken nakedness (which is in the Bible by the way). In the biblical text, Ham sees Noah’s nakedness, but does not cover his father. Instead, he tells his brothers who in turn cover Noah (just as in the movie). It is at this point that the film diverges from the text. In the movie Noah is grieved over Ham’s actions, but still offers a blessing for Ham in the final scene. This has the effect of us ending with a “good” Noah in the film. No longer is Noah a homicidal maniac, but a good patriarch. Meanwhile, in the Bible there is a total break between Ham and Noah. In the Bible, Noah curses Ham and his descendants. There is no ooey-gooey family love here. If the movie’s portrayal of the biblical Noah is to be critiqued, we should really critique it on its sugar-coating of the family dynamics at the end. But, like us Christians, we can easily turn family into an idol that comes before faithfulness.

5. IS humanity worth saving?

One final area many Christians were dissatisfied with was the cinematic Noah’s willingness to let humanity die out. Some Christian critics pointed to Gen. 1 to remind us that humans were made in God’s image. We are more valuable than animals, so of course the ark was to save humans, not creation. As above, perhaps we do think a little too highly of ourselves when it comes to salvation. Nonetheless, this question—Is humanity worth saving?—is a central theme of the movie. And, I think it is a good (and perhaps biblical) theme.

One of my friends pointed out to me that Noah’s “offering” to God and the rainbow scene are misplaced in the film. The order of Noah’s drunkenness and the offering/rainbow scene are reversed in the movie from its biblical order. In the Bible, the last major detail we hear about Noah is his wine debacle. This scene serves almost as a second Fall for the second creation. If you thought humans had escaped sin, you were wrong. And very quickly, sin once again escalates as we read genealogies of Israel’s enemies and hear the story of Babel. Even restarting humanity was not enough to get humans on the right track. By the time we arrive at Genesis 11, the reader should be asking, “Is there any hope? How can the cycle of sin and death ever be broken?”

This is essentially the question Noah wrestles with in the movie. He understands very correctly that evil runs through all of us. Too often we want to say with Noah’s wife that we are good people. The evil ones are “them.” But as Crowe’s Noah points out in the film, all of us are tainted by sin. None of us is good. (Isn’t this the starting point of our understanding of the Gospel.) Therefore, I can sympathize with Noah as he contemplates cutting off humanity’s future. If humans can’t escape sin and evil, maybe they should just die off to fulfill God’s command to “protect” creation (Gen. 2:15).

Yet, the film pushes us between alternate extremes. While Noah stresses human sinfulness (which is true), others including Tubal-Cain emphasize humanity as the valued “image of God” (which is also true). And both are in Genesis. Genesis 1 stresses that humans are the pinnacle of creation and are to “rule over” creation. But, then Genesis 2 places humans alongside the rest of the created order and also calls us to “protect” the garden of God. The beauty of the film is that is forces us to consider both sides and struggle to find the healthy middle ground between mercy and justice and between creation abuse and creation worship.

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I know this is a very long post and that I probably should have made at least two posts, but I need to type this while it is still fresh in my mind. So, if you’ve read this far, bear with me for two more quick points.

Another theme I loved concerned the silence of God. In one provocative scene, the villain Tubal-Cain cries out to the Creator asking him to speak. He desires God to end the silence, but there is no answer. A little later in the film, Noah pleads to God to help him decide what to do about his pregnant daughter-in-law. But instead of an answer, the sky clouds up more and Noah is met with silence.

This theme resonated with me because I have often had to deal with the silence of God. There have been times in my life when, like Tubal-Cain, I have shouted out, “Why don’t you answer?!” The film makes me ask about how to respond when it seems like God does not. This is a tough question worthy of another post, but I think a good question we Christians should take more seriously.

Second, at the end of the movie I couldn’t help but think how our current evangelical obsession with biblical literalism has caused us to miss some amazing opportunities. Once the credits began to roll, I heard one man in front of me (presumably a Christian) remark to his wife, “Well that was funny wasn’t it?” My first reaction was to wonder if we had even watched the same movie. Yes, a movie filled with violence, slavery, murder, contemplated infanticide, strained parent-child relations, and the death of thousands is “funny.” While I shed a few tears, all he could say at the end was that it was “funny.”

Of course, I knew what he was implying—the movie was not “biblically accurate.” It was “funny” to him because this Noah was nothing like the Noah he envisions when he reads Genesis. This is the attitude I think that drove almost all of the negative Christian reviews. My reply to that is simply, “Yes, it is ‘biblically inaccurate,’ but let’s get over it.”

Does a story have to be exactly what is contained in the Bible for it to carry truth? Even then, when it comes to the extra-biblical material, how do we really even know it couldn’t have been similar to the Bible’s contention? While the movie did contain some really off-the-wall moments (rock giants, anyone?) I have also heard some pretty off-the-wall ideas from conservative Christians when it comes to Genesis (such as a “firmament” of water surrounding the earth and peculiar views of the Nephilim that go way beyond anything the Bible says). The bottom line is there is much about the world of Gen. 1-11 we simply don’t know and never will.

With that being said, we need to view this movie as a work of art, not an attempt to recreate a historical account of how the Noah story actually might have happened. If we can get beyond the biblical “inaccuracies” (while not ignoring them) and really dig into the themes, we may find that this movie contains some powerful truths and questions for us to ponder as Bible-believing Christians.

Along that line, maybe we need to view the movie as a Midrash of the flood narrative. In ancient Judaism, rabbis would often take familiar Old Testament stories and add new twists or details in order to deliver a new theological point. (For an interesting look at how this movie employs some actual Jewish Midrash, check out this article.) What do these new (and yes, extra-biblical) details in the movie reveal about us as people and about our culture? What truths and questions do the themes push us toward? Does the movie allow us to rediscover truths in Genesis that we have overlooked for too long?

In the end, I don’t believe this movie is an attack on Christians or even on the Bible. There will certainly biblically illiterate people who will think this is all in the Bible, and we should gently point them to the actual story. But for the rest of us, maybe we can step back and learn something from a movie that was very intentionally and artfully constructed. Or, if you can’t do that, at least go see it to make fun of some rock giants.

*If you aren’t sick of reading yet, you may also check out this article containing an interview with one of the writers.

"Son of God" movie

Many of us have probably seen previews for or heard news about the upcoming film "Son of God," due to release Feb. 28. As the title clearly implies, it is a movie chronicling the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The movie employs scenes from "The Bible" miniseries that aired last year and will include deleted and additional footage. If you haven't heard anything about the film, check out one of the trailers below:

 

Thinking about this release reminded me of a project I did my senior year of college. In this project I explored the interplay between the biblical Gospels, "Jesus films," and culture. My underlying thesis was that any film, TV show, etc. depicting Jesus better reflects the producing culture than it does the actual, historical Jesus. For the project I studied the films The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and Jesus (TV movie, 2000). 

What I concluded by the end was that each film clearly reflects the cultural times, trends, and tendencies of its era. For example, the Jesus of Greatest Story is a Jesus for the 1960's. This Jesus is stoic and removed from earthly life (a "heavenly" being if you will); the type of Jesus "needed" to combat the revolutionary movements of the 60's. This film's Jesus is also depicted as a hero in the style of an American Western, a popular film genre of the era. Meanwhile, Jesus offers a more "modern" Jesus fitting with the culture of the early 2000's. This new and improved Jesus is an "earthy" Jesus trying to discover his identity. He even briefly considers a romantic relationship. If it weren't for the ancient garb, 2000's Jesus could easily be mistaken for any young millennial searching for their identity and meaning in a complex world.

 

Now that we face a new Jesus film, I am fascinated by what kind of Jesus will be depicted and how he will reflect our culture in 2014. When the film comes out I hope to analyze it for myself, but first I'd like to explain how I went about studying each Jesus film so you can join me in better understanding our cultural Jesuses from the Jesus presented in our Scriptures.

To study each film, I applied a method of biblical interpretation called "redaction criticism." This method compares biblical texts with their source materials and notes how the author "redacts," or changes, the original text. Changes might include additions, deletions, or word and stylistic alterations. For example, it is commonly assumed that Mark was the first Gospel written and that Matthew and Luke both used material from Mark as well as from other sources in compiling their gospels. We can compare the passages in Matthew or Luke that clearly borrow from Mark and observe how Matthew/Luke make changes. From there we develop theories on possible theological or artistic motivations for making those changes.

For instance, compare Matt. 16:13-23 and Mark 8:27-33. Both stories are almost identical (even word for word) with the exception of a few places where Matthew changes the story. Two changes stand out. First, whereas Mark 8:33 says that Jesus "rebuked" Peter (same word for rebuking demons), Matthew 16:23 changes "rebuke" to the weaker verb "said." It's just a statement, not a rebuke of a demon. Second, Matthew adds an entire section of praise for Peter from Jesus in 16:17-19. In Mark's version, Peter says "You are the Messiah" and immediately gets "rebuked" (the first of 2 times). In Matthew, Peter receives praise from Jesus and only gets "told" off later when he tries to convince Jesus not to die.

Biblical scholars note these changes (along with many similar changes in Matthew's Gospel) and conclude that Matthew tends to portray the disciples as constantly improving in their faith. Meanwhile, Mark holds a negative view of the disciples, observing their faith shrinking and increasing thickness with each chapter. The reason for this is because Matthew and Mark are emphasizing different aspects of discipleship to best convey different messages for different audiences.

I suggest we can treat Jesus films as a "cultural text" and apply the same method. In the case of such films, we know the primary source material--the biblical Gospels. However, no film uses the Gospels as its only source. Jesus films also borrow from pop culture, Christian (and cultural) tradition, and the director's imagination/experience. Even films with dialogue taken only from the Gospels (such as The Gospel of John) still use other sources in what they visually depict on screen.

So, as we watch any Jesus film, we need to note what is borrowed from the biblical Gospels, what is added to the Gospel narratives, and what is left out. These places in the dialogue and plot that differ from the biblical narratives are crucial for understanding the cultural Jesus being presented in the movie. When we note these changes, we need to ask, "Why present Jesus in that manner? Why make that change?" Even noting camera angles and music can tell us about what kind of Jesus we are seeing on screen.

I'll explain more of how this can work in my next post and will maybe even throw out of few ideas based on the trailer. Until then, let me know what you think about approaching Jesus films in this way.