Film and the Afterlife

David Rankin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429647314
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

This book explores how post-death existence is represented in popular film, looking at issues such as continuity, personal identity, and the nature of existence beyond the grave. Film often returns to the theme of dying, death and the afterlife, both directly and indirectly, because there are very few subjects as compelling and universal.

The book compares the representation of death, dying and the afterlife in films to scholarly surveys of attitudes towards life-after-death through the analysis of twenty films made between the end of World War II and now. It looks at the portrayals of stages between death and a final destination; spatio-temporal and personal continuity; the nature of afterlife existence in terms of embodiment, or not; and the contact between the worlds of the living and the dead.

This book offers a wide-ranging view on a compelling subject in film. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Religion and Film, Religion and Media, the Philosophy of Religion, and the Sociology of Religion, as well as Religion, Media and Film Studies more generally

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1 The stages of the afterlife

How many post-death stages? One, two or more?

Douglas Davies comments in his book The Theology of Death that:

[T]he history of Christian reflection on death has, for its greater part, often dwelt on the themes of heaven and hell as environments of the afterlife, often with deep interest in some transitional stage whether in ‘soul sleep’, a ‘spirit prison’, limbo or purgatory. This sense of destiny reflects the human drive to survive combined with a moral sense of human imperfection.¹

One of the issues related to the question of post-death existence which has exercised the minds of many people – and it is a particular issue for Christian and other religious traditions (see later) – has been that of whether there is only one life beyond physical death – or only one stage of post-death existence rather – or whether there are more than one, such as an intermediate, transitional one and only then a final disposition. It is also a theme to be found in a number of cinematic representations of the post-death experience. At least 15 of the 20 films explored in this present work posit the existence of a transitional state between life (and death) in this present existence and a final state of being (heaven or however named), what Susie Salmon, the major character in The Lovely Bones, calls the ‘in-between’. Indeed, it is for most of the films the primary setting of the story. It is a ‘space’, as we shall see, where unresolved matters are resolved, where the dead tidy up some of the confusion and mess they have left behind, for themselves but also, and perhaps even more often, for those they have left behind grieving their often unanticipated departures. Where they might go once they have resolved these matters, or had them resolved for them, we often do not see or hear about but it is almost invariably a place associated with bright light (at least six of our films do so). And of the films considered here, only A Matter of Life and Death, The Heavenly Kid, What Dreams May Come, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, The Lovely Bones, Charlie St Cloud and Hereafter actually speak explicitly of or depict such a final destination (and usually refer to it as ‘heaven’).

As indicated in the Introduction there is evidence of increasing and widespread acceptance of the existence of an afterlife – against what many commentators might be suggesting – and many scholarly surveys in the US, the UK and Australia, for example, back this up. Yet many of these surveys – which require either a simple yes-or-no answer and an effective ticking of the box to a series of direct questions – don’t really tell us what people are actually thinking. If someone were to ask – with a simple yes or no – whether I was happy, that simple yes or no would not tell my questioner much about what I was actually feeling. A maybe or a 65% yes (or 35% no) might give a better sense of that or perhaps an even better measure might be if we were allowed to offer a few thoughtful sentences on the matter, including some sense of what I might understand happiness to involve. Thus, in relation to the general matter of the stages of post-death existence and the more specific one of the existence of an intermediate or transitional stage between death and one’s ultimate ‘destination’, the fact that 53% of respondents in Lester’s 2001 survey of US college undergraduates believe that the transition from death to afterlife is ‘instantaneous’ in one study and 56% in a second, and that 56% and 63%, respectively, believe that the afterlife is the final destination (whatever that might mean) will tell us little unless it is compared with earlier surveys to give us a sense of the trends in beliefs in an afterlife.² That 49% of those surveyed in the second survey expressed a simple belief in Purgatory and that many in that survey identified as Roman Catholic might in fact tell us little indeed about the general young adult population.

Two other surveys, however – one in Australia and the other in the UK – which involved smaller numbers than Lester’s but extensive interviews over some time, in my view, give us a much better understanding of the afterlife beliefs of a particular demographic. In Singleton’s 2016 Australian report of his exploration of the matter of beliefs in an afterlife – where 52 persons over a broad demographic³ – only one of the 52, a 20-year-old Roman Catholic woman, spoke of a belief in the existence of a Purgatory or in any other intermediate, transitional space post-death.⁴ I sense that in many of the surveys on the afterlife carried out in the Western world, and this would include that carried out by Singleton, very few of the investigators would have asked a question about Purgatory or any other intermediate space and thus very few of their respondents would have felt the need to mention it. This is what makes Ellen Clark-King’s 2004 UK study of religious beliefs – including those to do with an afterlife – held by the women living on a Newcastle housing estate and worshipping at one of four local churches (eight Roman Catholic, six Anglo-Catholic, two Methodist and four evangelical Anglican) so interesting and useful for our purposes in this chapter.⁵ While the sample of folk interviewed – only 20 by my count, Clark-King does not actually give a figure – is a small, one I am confident, from my own pastoral experience in both the UK and Australia, that the views expressed by the women are reasonably representative of the wider population of Western churches in those countries at least. Clark-King did ask questions directly of her interviewees, among other questions, about heaven, hell and purgatory.⁶ Of those with whom she spoke it is clear that only those from the Catholic or Anglo-Catholic traditions were likely to express any sort of belief in an intermediate or transitional state (my words, not those of Clark-King or of the women interviewed), while the Methodists and the more evangelical Anglicans were not. Susan, from the Roman Catholic congregation, declared that”

[Purgatory] is just like a preparation place where you’re being purified. You kind of get purified on your journey here, but you still maybe need it [post-death], in different degrees.⁷

A number of the women, regardless of denominational affiliation, spoke of sensing the presence of their deceased loved ones around them – Anna, from the Anglo-Catholic congregation, said that ‘But it has happened, like odd things, and I feel like, you know, it’s my mum’ – and perceiving these presences in ‘strange smells, objects being mysteriously moved to new positions, the sound of bells ringing by themselves and the sound of laughter’.⁸ Edith, from the Anglo-Catholic congregation, described her house being cold – ‘icy cold’ – after the death of her mother.⁹ A number of the women spoke of visits by the spirits of their dead and Clark-King comments that ‘the veil between this world and the next seemed to be seen as permeable, able to be crossed by the beloved deceased as well as God and the saints’.¹⁰ She also comments that such retold experiences do not seem [to her] to suggest that the ‘women are trapped within a very early stage of the separation process that forms part of mourning’.¹¹ My own sense, from Clark-King’s reports of these conversations, is that the claimed experience of these women – told, it seems, in a quiet and reflective, almost matter-of-fact way – is that of a far more in number than merely those of the women on this early twenty-first century housing estate.

Although it is not my intention here to discuss these in any detail at all, it is also true that many contemporary novels – those written for adults, young adults and children alike – on the theme of the afterlife (see a list of such novels in the Introduction), have as a significant aspect of their storylines the existence of an intermediate or transitional space where the dead wait, often to sort things through before they move on to their final destination. In the novel The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud – which was made into our film Charlie St Cloud – the main character, Charlie, who works in a cemetery and is able to converse with the dead, says he has heard of a ‘middle ground’ where the spirits of the dead remain for a while until they are ready to move on to the next space in their journey.

Religious traditions and the intermediate state

In many, if not all, of the world’s major religious traditions can also be found claims of the existence of a transitional or intermediate phase in the afterlife experience, a space between death itself and a final location (paradise, heaven or however named). And within those same traditions – in the Christian and the Jewish in particular – there is much debate about this, with some arguing for an intermediate and others for an immediate translation after death to heaven or hell (or whatever). We look in more detail at these representations of an intermediate or transitional space once we have allowed the films themselves to share their own representations of these with us first.

Cinematic representations of the stages of a post-death existence

Conrad Ostwalt, in an essay on the theme of apocalyptic in film, declares, however, that ‘many contemporary films incorporate visions of an afterlife and even base the afterlife on an imposition of divine justice’.¹² He describes such films as ‘otherworldly and justice-centred’.¹³ He points to Deacy’s identification in a 2008 article to films like What Dreams May Come, Defending Your Life and Ghost (all dealt with this in this present work) as being, in Ostwalt’s own words, ‘rich with theological themes concerning life after death and justice and often perpetuat[ing] a dualistic vision of cosmic justice’.¹⁴ While it is true that there are perhaps elements of justice-making in What Dreams May Come – with Annie consigned to hell though not, we are told, for the sake of punishment but simply as a natural outcome of her not choosing for life in taking her own – but the remainder of the film is not about retributive justice at all but mainly about folk choosing and/or designing their own heavens. Thus, even the awful space through which Chris and his companion travel on their way to find Annie in hell is not suggested as a place of intentional punishment. Defending Your Life is hardly about punishment either unless the decision to keep a child back in his or her grade at school for another year is about punishment and not for the sake of his or her educational progress. The folk in that film sent back to Earth are returned only because it had been judged that they were not ready to move on to a more advanced level. In Ghost, while it may be true that some – like miscreants Carl and Willie – were sent immediately ‘downstairs’ as punishment for their wrongdoing and some, whose lives were more righteously lived, went instantly ‘upstairs’, others like Sam remained in the intermediate for a time simply to sort out their unresolved issues. It is true in fact that for many, if not for all of the films discussed in this book, as we see subsequently, the afterlife, and particularly the provision of an intermediate space, is not primarily, or even usually, about punishment but about resolution and restoration and the opportunity for change and transformation. We now look at the films and see what each makes of the immediate post-death experience.

The films

In A Matter of Life and Death (1946) the role of Conductor 71 – and of all the other celestial conductors/guides – is to lead the recently deceased to a centre or space dedicated to their training for ‘another world’. This presupposes an intermediate existence presumably intended as a preparatory space for learning how to exist in the afterlife. Such a space is not, of course, a major feature of the film’s storyline, which is primarily about whether Peter Carter should take his place with the other deceased or be permitted to remain as still alive on earth. The scene of the trial is set in heaven itself. Thus, even though the notion of such an intermediate space occupies a very small part of the storyline, it is of note that it is of importance that its purpose is training. The possibility is high that the story is one which happens only in Peter Carter’s head and is merely ‘triggered by the anaesthetic [he] is given while on the operating table where he is being treated for brain damage’, that the film is a ‘fable’, that ‘an entire environment has been created by the subjective imagination’.¹⁵ The closing credits to the film indeed, as we noted in the synopsis of the film offered in the Introduction, suggest this possibility very strongly. And yet, for our purposes, whether this scene of the afterlife comes from either Peter’s imagination or from the film-makers’ – or, as is likely, from both, and all these films under discussion are the products of someone’s imagination – it does reflect an understanding of the nature of the afterlife and, in this case, of the provision of a training space for the dead to be prepared for the ‘other world’.

In The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947) Captain Gregg does not appear to occupy a transitional space. It is clear that he is ‘hanging around’, as it were – a bit like Jamie i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The stages of the afterlife
• 2 Continuity and identity in the afterlife
• 3 The form and nature of existence in the afterlife
• 4 Contact between worlds?
• Conclusion
• Appendix A Book-to-film adaptations
• Appendix B The intermediate space in religious traditions
• Appendix C Continuity of personal identity into the afterlife
• Appendix D A mind only world?
• Index