Bad Movies

Have you ever notice that, when we talk about a movie being bad, we actually mean one of two things? Some movies are bad because of their content: they may be purposely anti-Christian (I think of the underlying attitudes toward Christianity in the Beowulf cartoon movie that came out a few years ago) or filled with objectionable material (sex, drugs, foul language, gory violence), or have such bad ideas that what would otherwise have been a good movie gets ruined (for example, the recent film Penelope which starts out as a well made fairy-tale and ends up as a sermon on how self-love is the most important love in the world). But we also use the word bad when we mean a movie that was poorly made, poorly acted, unbelievable or just plain boring.

The second kind of bad is clearly different from the first kind of bad, but how? Well let’s start by acknowledging that we know it when we see it. And the paradox is that we have seen it most often in the past few decades in Christian movies. Left Behind was bad (and there have been a dozen end times movies which you’ve either never heard of which you saw on a shelf at Blockbuster and shook your head at, or which you actually decided to give a try only to be thoroughly disappointed—in my case it was the movie Gone). Facing the Giants was bad. Three was almost good but a little weak as was Hangman’s Curse and even The Nativity Story. Christian movies have bad acting, overly sentimental plots, and, if they are poorly funded, poor visual and sound quality: bad images, cheap film stock, and no attention paid to costumes, sets, lighting or other elements of atmosphere. Such bad movies fail to capture our imaginations and therefore our hearts. They fail to respond realistically to the problems and pains of reality and therefore don’t speak truth. And they fail to be beautiful and therefore don’t show us a glimpse of the glory of God. In Philippians 4:8 Paul tells us to let our minds “dwell” on a number of things including what is “true” and what is “lovely.” When bad Christian films fail to show us what’s lovely, any attempt they make to also show truth is all but lost (first because we don’t want to see the movie in the first place, nor watch it again if we do see it; second because the truth fails to stay with us—such movies are utterly forgettable).

Good Movies

Good Christian films do exist—good in content, truth value, beauty, engagement, and impact. Chariots of Fire, The Mission, Shadowlands, To End All Wars, The Passion of the Christ, Simon Birch, Les Miserables, Amistad, The Apostle, Signs, Bruce Almighty, Amazing Grace, Luther and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are excellent movies with significant Christian themes. Last February I saw two movies which show the contrast I’m talking about. One of them was Fireproof. Though better than its producers’ predecessor Facing the Giants, it was still poorly done. The acting was mediocre, the dialog was awkward and artificial, and the movie as a whole was too much sermonizing and too little story telling. This is the great mistake of Christian film makers: thinking that movies ought to be made in order to teach truth.

Why is this a mistake? Imagine a young man who wants to be a missionary doctor. He intends to teach the truth of the gospel by a plan of healing people’s bodies in order to gain access to their hearts and souls. Now imagine our young missionary is so completely interested in spreading the gospel that he doesn’t work hard at first becoming a good doctor. Let us suppose that, with a little bit of training and a lot of funding from equally zealous Christians, he manages to get out to a third world country and call himself a doctor whether he has a medical license or not. In the field he tries his best as a doctor, but he just isn’t very good at it and the consequences are dire. Of course he won’t have any success in reaching people for Christ when he has failed them first at what he claimed to be—a physician.

Now this illustration is partially ridiculous because the hero of the story wouldn’t be allowed to be a doctor without proper schooling and certification (nor would he lie about it). But this is exactly what goes on in Christian film making all the time: people zealous to spread the gospel, who don’t know enough about making movies (funded by other people who also don’t know what they’re doing), essentially lie to us by producing celluloid sermons instead of real films. But before a film can teach truth it must first be what films are: stories that enlighten, engage, show beauty, entertain, capture our imaginations, and put us through an experience rather than trying to teach us lessons.

The other movie I saw last February (out on DVD from the year before) is an excellent example of a good movie which also speaks Christian truth. If you haven’t seen Henry Poole is Here, I highly recommend it. It’s the story of a dying man who moves back to his old neighborhood to die alone, in an empty house, in his depression. But then his devout Catholic neighbor, Esperanza (whose name means hope), notices a stain on a recently stuccoed wall in Henry’s backyard—a stain that looks like the face of Jesus and on which one of the eyes appears to be shedding tears of blood. Henry finds himself unable to left alone when people start coming to the wall to be healed. Patience, the grocery checkout girl whose glasses are a quarter inch thick touches the wall and finds perfect vision restored to her. And the doe eyed little girl next door, who stopped speaking when her father abandoned her, touches the wall, gently hugs her mother who is kneeling nearby, and begins to mouth words which become gentle whispers and then soft speech: “Mama…can you hear me?” It is one of the most beautiful scenes in film I have ever seen. The acting, the sound track, the set design, even the very faces chosen for the various roles in the movie contribute to an experience of beauty which surely reveals truth. I urge you to watch the movie and learn whether Henry has enough faith to touch the wall himself and be healed.