Movies Road Trips!
By TED PARKS
Los Angeles
Amid photos of the glitzy icons of
the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles -- pictures of the likes of Woody
Allen and Stanley Kubrick -- a prayer revealed the focus of the eight feature
films about to be screened.
Los Angeles archdiocese communications specialist Fr. Anthony
Scannell prayed that viewers eyes would open to the mysterious ways
the spirit hitchhikes with us. Scannells words were a segue to
Roadtrip! Moving with the Spirit, the theme of the seventh-annual
City of the Angels Film Festival held here Nov. 10-12.
An exploration of the spiritual dimensions of Hollywood and
international film, the festival constructively engages an entertainment medium
some would dismiss as modern cultures Great Satan. City of the Angels
combines an insider appreciation of Hollywood art with a passionate commitment
to the movies ability to illuminate human spirituality.
The years festival explored the road-trip genre with eight
films: Run, Lola, Run, The Searchers, Central
Station, Paris, Texas, The Wages of Fear,
The Grapes of Wrath, The Gods Must Be Crazy and
Badlands.
Festival chairperson the Rev. Scott Young said the road-trip genre
spans thematic poles from the outlaw on the run to the saint
on a pilgrimage. But both the extremes allow glimpses of the divine.
People flee to find some freedom, Young said. Their journeys
of escape are interrupted, he explained, by an encounter ... with
the spiritual.
Such was Youngs spin on the 1998 film Run, Lola,
Run, screened on opening night. Reminiscent of famed Japanese director
Akira Kurosawas 1950 Rashomon, German director-writer Tom
Twyker tells the same story over and over. Protagonist Lola scurries to try to
save her lover Manni, who loses a bag of money and is about to give account for
his bumbled courier job to his gangster bosses.
To the relentless pounding of its techno-pop sound track, the film
replays Lolas desperate attempts to rescue Manni with differences in
timing and outcome each time. During the first version, Lola ends up helping
Manni with a store heist to regain the lost loot, but dies in the process. On
the second attempt, its Manni who dies. On try No. 3, Lola prays.
And she gets an answer. Entering a casino with the clock clicking
the minutes to Mannis pay-up time, Lola wins the money she needs to save
her lover. We then discover Manni himself has recovered the lost funds, so the
young lovers now can enjoy the windfall of Lolas lucky bust.
Where, in the split-screen postmodern images of Lolas
frantic attempts for live-in Manni, do people of faith see their own
journey?
City of the Angels co-chair and executive producer Cecilia
González-Andrieu singled out Run, Lola, Run as full of
theological images. Impressive for González-Andrieu was
Lolas cry for help before the big casino win. Her turn toward what seemed
God was as close to a mystical prayer as you get, said
González-Andrieu.
Though not stopping her run, Lola seems to be saying,
Im emptying myself enough that you can fill me, that you can lead
me, believes González-Andrieu. It was almost
Benedictine.
Lola is learning from thinking of what
the
possibilities are each time the story repeats, González-Andrieu
said. And film itself offers the chance to profit from other peoples
journeys, even those as morally fuzzy as Lolas. Faith is how do you
make a decision at this particular moment, said González-Andrieu.
Faith is to be lived, she added, and film lets you kind of
live through an experience and examine yourself.
The organizers and sponsors of City of the Angels lend an
ecumenical breadth to the festivals search for cinematic spirituality.
The 14 members of the 2000 festival coalition include prominent evangelical
groups such as Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., as well as the
Los Angeles archdiocese.
The Rev. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller, values the
Catholic-evangelical connection. One of the things that we have lacked
is credibility in the film business, Mouw said of evangelicals,
often dismissed by Hollywood because of their critical stance. There are
many evangelicals and Roman Catholics who are very serious about bringing their
faith to bear on the industry, he said.
Mouw was instrumental in the genesis of the festival, which also
grew out of Cardinal Roger Mahonys 1992 pastoral letter, Film
Makers, Film Viewers: Their Challenges and Opportunities, Young wrote in
his introductory essay to the festival program.
The screening of the 1956 John Ford classic, The
Searchers, demonstrated how City of the Angels unique readings of
film could detect the voice of the prophet in such a venerable icon of Western
bravado as John Wayne, who plays lead character Ethan Edwards.
Returning to Texas after the Civil War, Edwards embarks on a
five-year search for his young niece, Debbie, captured by Comanche Indians at
the storys start. Debbies growing into womanhood in the tribe
taints her for Edwards, who decides to kill her. But, despite the hatred,
Edwards spares his niece in the end.
We know that Ethan is a racist, said screenwriter John
Hancock during a panel discussion following the screening. But
theres a part of us thats hoping for redemption.
Hancock added that delaying Edwards transformation to the
very end would scare away todays politically correct filmmakers. It is
the ambiguity, however, that paves the way for the characters profound
moral journey, the panel commented.
You dont just have the good guys and the bad guys,
youve got a blurring of those things, said panelist William
Romanowsky, professor of communications arts and sciences at Calvin College in
Grand Rapids, Mich. As the Rev. James Wall of the mainline Protestant
Christian Century pointed out in his introduction to the movie, the film
is about the protagonist Edwards search for his own life
understanding.
Closing the festival, the 1998 Brazilian film Central
Station dotted its characters journey with explicit religious
images, including a candlelight procession. The film tells the story of a
Brazilian boy, Josué, and the professional letter-writer, Dora, he
encounters in the Rio de Janeiro train station where the action begins.
After a bus kills the boys mother, Dora reluctantly
accompanies Josué on a protracted search for the estranged father, whom
the boys mother had paid Dora to write on her behalf.
This is one film that
theres no possibility we
could be erring on the side of reading too much theology, said
González-Andrieu, participating on the festivals closing panel.
Its so profoundly religious.
Panelist Michael Mata, assistant professor of urban ministry at
Claremont School of Theology, added, its a very spiritual landscape
were looking at.
Nominated for the 1999 Oscar for Foreign Language film, the
movies emotional and spiritual impact wasnt lost on Kelly Giles, a
Los Angeles immigration attorney who watched the film. An orphan himself, Giles
said, he saw in the movie not only a universal longing for the
father in earthly terms, but as a reflection of a universal longing
for heavenly father.
In the words of González-Andrieu, We bring people
to this experience of art and theology one person at a time.
Ted Parks writes from Malibu, Calif. He may be reached at
tparks5560@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, December 8,
2000
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