Deep Focus (Engaging Culture)

Film and Theology in Dialogue

Johnston, Robert K., Detweiler, Craig, Callaway, Kutter, Dyrness, William A., Johnston, Robert

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493416912
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Three media experts guide the Christian moviegoer into a theological conversation with movies in this up-to-date, readable introduction to Christian theology and film. Building on the success of Robert Johnston's Reel Spirituality, the leading textbook in the field for the past 17 years, Deep Focus helps film lovers not only watch movies critically and theologically but also see beneath the surface of their moving images. The book discusses a wide variety of classic and contemporary films and is illustrated with film stills from favorite movies.

notes

Introduction

1. George Nolfi, quoted in Dylan Callaghan, interview for Writers Guild of America, April 23, 2013.

2. Josh Rottenberg, “Jordan Peele on How ‘Get Out’ Defied the Odds to Become a Full-Blown Cultural Phenomenon,” Los Angeles Times, March 22, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-get-out-box-office-phenomenon-20170321-story.html.

3. Ross A. Lincoln, “‘Get Out’ Director Jordan Peele Explains ‘The Sunken Place,’” The Wrap, March 17, 2017, https://www.thewrap.com/get-out-director-jordan-peele-explains-the-sunken-place.

Chapter 1: The Power of Film

1. Rose Pacatte, FSP, conversation at the Luce consultation on theology and film, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, December 8, 2005.

2. Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (New York: Harper Entertainment, 1997), 12.

3. McKee, Story, 12.

4. See “Frequency of Going to the Movies in the US,” Statista, accessed August 4, 2017, https://www.statista.com/statistics/264396/frequency-of-going-to-the-movies-in-the-us; “Box Office Revenue in North America from 2001 to 2016 (in Billion US Dollars),” Statista, accessed August 4, 2017, https://www.statista.com/statistics/187061/north-american-box-office-gross-since-2001.

5. Mary McNamara, “The Bigger Picture: Going to the Movies Remains a Timeless Experience,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2017, https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/entertainment/2017/06/08/bigger-picture-going-movies-remains-timeless-experience/102616124.

6. Writing in the first edition of the New Yorker after 9/11, Anthony Lane pointed out that

you could argue that last Tuesday was an instant dismissal of the fantastic—that people gazed up into the sky and immediately told themselves that this was the real thing. Yet all the evidence suggests the contrary; it was the television commentators as well as those on the ground who resorted to a phrase book culled from cinema: “It was like a movie.” “It was like ‘Independence Day.’” “It was like ‘Die Hard.’” “No, ‘Die Hard 2.’” “‘Armageddon.’” And the exclamations from below, from the watchers of the skies caught on video, as they see the aircraft slice into the side of the tower: where have you heard those expressions most recently—the wows, the whoohs, the holy shits—if not in movie theatres, and even on your own blaspheming tongue? (Anthony Lane, “This Is Not a Movie,” New Yorker, September 24, 2001)

7. Of course, the downside of this phenomenon is that any preceding history is often lost, as if the whole of human history was birthed along with the advent of film technology. So while movies are the repository for our historical consciousness, they also reflect our historical amnesia.

8. Elizabeth Van Ness, “Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?,” New York Times, March 6, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/movies/is-a-cinema-studies-degree-the-new-mba.html.

9. David Thomson, The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 136.

10. Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 173. Not all responses by children to the movie Bambi are as positive. Stephen King, for example, recalls: “Yet 50 years later I can still remember the sense of dismay I felt when Bambi’s mother was killed, leaving the poor little feller alone. I was a single-parent child myself, and I spent many long nights after lights-out thinking about Bambi and wondering what would happen to me if something happened to my mother. I still remember the simple power of the film’s most potent line: ‘Man was in the forest.’” Stephen King, “Do Movies Matter? (Part 1),” Entertainment Weekly, November 14, 2003, 136.

11. Mark Olsen, “On ‘A League of Their Own’s’ 25th Anniversary, Geena Davis Still Isn’t Afraid to Say ‘Feminist,’” Los Angeles Times, July 4, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-geena-davis-a-league-of-their-own-25th-anniversary-interview-20170701-htmlstory.html.

12. Ted Baehr notes the same event but reports alternate figures—a drop from $9.5 million to $4.1 million. Ted Baehr, What Can We Watch Tonight? A Family Guide to Movies (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 15.

13. David Van Biema, “Life Is Sweet for Jack Dowd as Spielberg’s Hit Film Has E.T. Lovers Picking Up the (Reese’s) Pieces,” People, July 26, 1982, https://people.com/archive/life-is-sweet-for-jack-dowd-as-spielbergs-hit-film-has-e-t-lovers-picking-up-the-reeses-pieces-vol-18-no-4; Leslie Earnest, “Oakley Proves Sales Mission Possible,” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2000, http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/20/business/fi-55633; Steven S. Cuellar, “The ‘Sideways’ Effect: A Test for Changes in the Demand for Merlot and Pinot Noir Wines,” Wines & Vines, January 2009, https://www.winesandvines.com/features/article/61265/The-Sideways-Effect.

14. Nick Thompson, “When Do Moviegoers Become Pilgrims?,” The Conversation, July 31, 2017, https://theconversation.com/when-do-moviegoers-become-pilgrims-81016.

15. See Carol Pinchefsky, “The Impact (Economic and Otherwise) of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit on New Zealand,” Forbes, December 14, 2012, https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/12/14/the-impact-economic-and-otherwise-of-lord-of-the-ringsthe-hobbit-on-new-zealand/#40145ef331b6.

16. “Preventing Tobacco Use among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General,” US Department of Health and Human Services, 2012, https://www....

Table of contents

• cover
• series page
• title page
• copyright page
• dedication
• contents
• acknowledgments
• introduction
• coming attractions
• act i: film
• act ii: theology
• act iii: dialogue
• epilogue
• notes
• select bibliography of theology and film
• film index
• general index
• back cover