Fireproof

So I saw Fireproof over the weekend (as did, apparently, quite a few people: the $500,000-budgeted film earned $6 million in its opening weekend and landed at #4). I previously had no intentions of seeing the film, until my colleague Peter Chattaway gave it a surprisingly positive (3/4 star) review for Christianity Today. Having seen the trailer earlier this summer and lamenting the maudlin quality of Christian film, I had very little hope that Fireproof would be good, and suspected that it wouldn’t even be particularly watchable.

Turns out Fireproof was watchable (certainly moreso than its predecessor, Facing the Giants, which I couldn’t watch with a straight face), though by no means was it good.

I didn’t laugh as much during Fireproof as I did during Facing the Giants, and I only felt the urge to look away from the screen a few times. There were oodles of uncomfortably saccharine moments and heavy-handed digressions of overacting, but it was a huge, huge improvement over Giants. This makes me happy, but it neither excuses Fireproof for its numerous failures nor justifies it as a successful film.

Fireproof takes a promising, nicely compact premise—a relationship falling apart and the fight by one man (Kirk Cameron) to keep it alive—and removes most subtlety and nuance from it. What is left is a melodramatic, Hallmark Hall of Fame film riddled with clichés and one too many Kodak moments. The filmmaking is clunky and features some truly ghastly montages and sequences of editing (a “he said/she said” comedic bit is particularly bad), replete with Third Day songs and heavily-accented Southern supporting actors.

The heavy-handedness of it all is truly unfortunate. The whole “fireman” metaphor is clever but ultimately overplayed. “Marriages are not fireproof,” says Cameron at one point. “Sometimes you get burned.” Do people really talk like this in normal life? Do we really string together movie-tagline clichés when speaking of our personal struggles?

I also didn’t get why there were so many sequences of firemen rescuing people: girl stuck in a car on a train track (with train approaching), girl caught in a burning house (rescued by Kirk “why do I get respect from everyone but my wife” Cameron), etc. These moments had nothing to do with the rest of the story. The same could be said for some other sequences such as an unfunny comedic soliloquy for one of the requisite funny-guy supporting players.

This is not to say there is nothing good to be found in Fireproof. There are definitely some tender moments (especially featuring the elder “mom and dad” characters) and an overall feel-good vibe. Kirk Cameron and the female lead (Erin Bethea) have occasional moments of humane acting, to be sure.

Ultimately, though, Fireproof left a bad taste in my mouth, and it goes beyond the clunky filmmaking. Several ideas—both explicit and implicit—in Fireproof felt a bit wrong-headed to me. The film seems to argue that marriages can only really survive when God is at the center (Kirk Cameron only can start loving his wife again after he converts to Christianity). Certainly I agree that a Christ-centered marriage is a good idea; but isn’t it a bit problematic to assume that just because one converts to Christianity, marriage somehow gets easier? And what about all the millions of successful, long-lasting marriages that have existed throughout time outside of a “Christ-focus?” And what about the statistics about Christians having just as many or more divorces than anyone else? Don’t get me wrong: I think it does a marriage great good to have Christ at the center. And for a movie that is being made by a church (Sherwood Baptist), I can’t really fault them from honing in on this. But, to be honest, the least truthful part of this movie was the “Christianity saved my marriage” part…

There are other problems I had with the film: it felt pretty sexist, occasionally racist (why are the black people in the film the only real authorities on divorce?), and a bit too afraid of going to dark places (the words “divorce” and “porn,” which are crucial to the plot, are rarely spoken of directly). For a film about a failing marriage, the PG glow is not really the best fit.

Alas, this is a film made by a church. A church! The cast and crew (minus Kirk Cameron) are members of the church, and if they want to make a film, they have every right to make it however they please. Congratulations to them for creating a film from the ground up—a film that is now the #4 film in the nation. Not an easy feat.

As a critic, though, I can’t give them a ringing endorsement because of these extra-filmic circumstances. The best I could say is that Fireproof is probably the “best film to ever be made by a church.” It’s not a good film, but it is a small step forward for Sherwood Films and a tiny step forward for Christian filmmaking in general. A tiny step.

Changing Culture: Through or in Spite of the Marketplace?

Here’s a question I’ve been pondering for a number of years: when you want to change culture, is it better to start from an analysis of what the culture/market wants, or is it better to start from a personal conviction or idea about what the culture should be like? That is: should we work within the interests of the culture—however misdirected or disordered they may be—or should we work to change the interests of the culture by offering something new?

It’s a dialectic that some people might reduce to elitism vs. populism; top-down vs. bottom-up change. But those binaries don’t really get at what I’m talking about… I’d consider myself neither an elitist nor a fan of top-down reform, but when it comes to culture, I’m increasingly skeptical about letting the audience be our guide. I don’t know… maybe that is elitist.

Ultimately, it’s about what you think about market sovereignty in the cultural industries.

The film industry, for example, has differing opinions about market sovereignty. On one hand, the big studios are totally responsive to the box office and the box office alone. If the people turn out to see Norbit in droves, Hollywood will make Norbit 2, no matter what they’d like to do. But on the other hand, there are loads of more artistic and independent-minded films being churned out every year with personal and political messages unconcerned with the approval of large swaths of the marketplace. There are companies like Plan B and Participant Productions that only make these “change people’s opinions” type films, to more or less tepid financial results.

Likewise in the music, television, and publishing industries. There are market-minded approaches (find the next Jonas Brothers, Lost, or Dan Brown before these interests wane!), but there are also personal/artistic approaches.

The question is this: can we change anything if we create some personal, challenging artistic product that only reaches a few hundred people of a certain niche? Or can we only ever effect change if we research and respond to the market trends, creating products that may not be our ideal but are nevertheless moving more units?

Ironically, this was a crucial question in my mind last weekend when I was at the GodBlog Convention in Las Vegas.

On my blog, I often find myself in conflict between what I really want to write about and what I think people want to read. To be quite frank, I find myself responding to the statistics detailing which types of posts post the highest numbers. But in the end, I wonder if I really want to be beholden to “the audience” in this way (especially since I’m doing this for free!).

The question remains unanswered in my mind, and it goes way beyond my own personal blog.

You see it in all aspects of society. In politics, for example. The two presidential candidates are almost completely defined by a response to what the populace is telling them they are concerned with. The media, on the other hand, is more oriented towards setting its own agenda; but even within media there is a wide discrepancy on this. On one hand there are people like Matt Drudge who determine “news” based on what is the most sensationalistic and scandalous (i.e. that which the public is most interested in); on the other there are things like C-SPAN’s BookNotes which hopes to improve the discourse around new literature and has little to no concern for what the audience wants.

Both are impacting culture, in different ways. But which will—at the end of the day—leave the culture better off?

I Joined Facebook... Sigh.

September 19 was a dark day for me... but one that I feared would come soon enough.

I joined Facebook.

This is after years and years of publicly campaigning against it in articles such as this and this... oh and this one as recently as January where I talked about "the irrevocable damage Facebook and its various counterparts have done to meaningful communication."

And now I am a part of the monster, feeding it like everyone else...

Laughable, I know. It will take a while for me to recover from this swift idealistic collapse. Now I know what Obama must feel like after talking so much about not running a negative campaign and then being forced to do it anyway.

Not that I was forced to do it, but believe me when I say that I had to join Facebook. Any professional journalist really cannot function without it these days, and my job at Biola magazine (especially some articles I'm writing now) necessitated some serious usage of Facebook.

I sickens me when technology wins, when I can no longer survive without it. This is like the cell phone: so many people held out and refused to get them five years ago, but now we'd all die without them. These are moments when Neil Postman's Technopoly seems more prescient than ever.

I joined Facebook with the hope that I could "hide" and only use it secretly for work purposes. Ha. That lasted about 30 minutes earlier today, quickly devolving into just another Facebook startup: "friends," friend-requests, profile-making, etc. I've really fallen fast, giving myself over to my sworn enemy with crude ease and jolting swiftness. At this rate of ideological turnaround I will be Facebook's biggest champion by this time next week. Heaven forbid.

Bevy of New Reviews

I have three new reviews up at CT Movies today--the most I've ever published on a given day. I reviewed Hounddog, Lakeview Terrace, and Appaloosa. Of the three, I'd recommend the latter two if you are looking for a new movie to see this weekend that isn't Ghost Town or The Duchess. Hounddog is, well... I gave it a generous 1 out of 4 stars. Here are some excerpts from the reviews:

Hounddog (1 star): "Films as committed to obscurity as Hounddog rarely work, and in efforts to achieve artistic mystery and subtlety they frequently come across as quite heavy-handed. Here, the heavy-handedness includes a plot that is utterly predictable, characters that are offensively stereotypical, and an overall palette that tries so hard to look Southern (sepia tones, lightning bugs, humidity, whiskey, black men with spiritual wisdom) that it winds up looking like not much at all."

Lakeview Terrace (2.5 stars): "Lakeview Terrace is like Crash in a cul-de-sac. It's a film about race; it's set in L.A.; it features a corrupt LAPD cop. Ultimately, it doesn't take itself quite as seriously as Crash does, however, and instead of using car crashes as a metaphor it uses another Southern California staple: out-of-control wildfires."

Appaloosa (2.5 stars): "As Virgil, Harris embodies a man who is in many ways a classic, John Wayne-esque western figure: grizzled and slightly brutish, but principled and with a heart of gold. He's uneducated, but wise in the ways of the world. He frequently must ask Everett for the proper vocabulary when he is trying to make a point—words like "obsolete" and "byproduct." Everett, meanwhile, is the quieter, double-barrel-shotgun-toting sidekick—an intelligent man who secretly wonders why we even have laws. Both are superb quick-draw gunmen, and both teeter precariously on the edge of using their talents for non-lawful purposes."

The New Christian Irony

If you are a Christian of a certain age (let’s say 21-50), and you grew up in the Christian church (especially in the 80s or early 90s), you probably love making fun of the evangelical subculture. I know I do. I love nothing more than laughing about and ironically consuming vintage Christian kitsch items. Whether it’s McGee and Me, DC Talk, Left Behind or any number of other bits of Jesus junk, I always enjoy reminiscing about it. In the same way that the rest of our generation ironically talks about Zach Morris or Labyrinth or those years when it was cool to roll up your jean shorts, Christians are finding great amusement in recalling the nonsensical oddities of the evangelical world.

One of the things Christian hipsters love to point out is just how sickeningly derivative evangelical culture is—that we always have to copy what the secular world is doing, usually a few months or years later (case in point: the new Christian version of Guitar Hero). These are also the Christian hipsters who take joy in looking ironically upon the maudlin kitsch that birthed them. It is the ultimate bit of irony, then, that Christians have coopted the irony industry to make out of it an evangelical alternative. For your consideration: larknews and stuffchristianslike:

Lark News: This is the Christian version of The Onion. It’s a fake news rag with infrequent but hilarious updates, with headlines like “Denominations reach non-compete agreement” and “Missionaries maintain obesity against long odds.” It’s a great source of laughs at the expense of our evangelical ridiculousness. The website also features a shop where you can buy snarky, make-fun-of-ourselves t-shirts.

Stuff Christians Like: This is the Christian version of Stuff White People Like—the runaway blog success that revels in smarmy self-loathing and the purging of white bourgeois guilt. The Christian version, which began on Jan 1, 2008 and features the same “countdown” format as its mainstream predecessor, includes such entries as “#31: Occasionally swearing,” “#393: Family Fish Bumper Stickers,” “#382: Perfectly Timing Your Communion Walk,” and “#93: Riding on the Cool Van in the Youth Group.”

Of course, there are many other examples of this sort of thing that I could mention. The Wittenberg Door, Relevant, and countless evangelical college humor magazines have been doing this stuff for years. But it seems that Christian irony is increasingly prevalent these days, maybe because all of us naïve children are grown up now and stunned by the crazy things we grew up in. Sometimes all we can do is laugh.

Have You Seen His Childhood?

On August 29, Michael Jackson celebrated his 50th birthday. It was a low key affair, with the King of Pop hanging out with his three kids, eating candy, giggling, “watching cartoons” and “just relaxing.” No Macaulay Culkin, no Elizabeth Taylor, no Chris Tucker. Just Michael and his kids (Prince Michael, Paris, and Prince Michael II). Just like a normal family.

It’s crazy to think that Michael, the kid who not so many years ago blew our minds with the insane dancing of “Thriller” and “Beat It” and repeatedly set records with album sales, is now a half century old (joining Madonna and Prince, who also turned 50 this year), living in relative obscurity somewhere in Bahrain (and recently Las Vegas), supposedly working on a new album. Will he ever return to the glory days again?

Probably not; not in this day and age when the new royals of pop are Disney Channel stars (Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, etc) or otherwise talentless prefab teen-pop confections. Being a superstar is not about talent anymore; it’s about being cross-marketable and cute. Michael Jackson was once adorable (back in the Jackson 5 days), but now he is a haunting, disturbingly post-human specter. I’ll be surprised if he ever has a hit record again.

It’s funny what happens to pop stars after they peak, after they grow up. We’ve already watched Britney loose her grip on reality after she left her teenybopper days behind; Lindsay Lohan is fast on her heals. These are the kids who were once the icons of sugar-pop, Disney kitsch. Now they are grown up and trying to remain relevant, often to little success (at least Britney seems to be on a semi-upswing… she’s readying a new single and staying out of the headlines).

Alas, it must be immensely disorienting for a person to reach such high levels of fame and fortune at such a young age. When you reach the top before you are 20, where do you go from there? Perhaps this is why aging popstars are always trying so hard to be edgy and new, to remain in the public consciousness. Did you see Christina Aguilera at the VMA’s? Her remix performance of “Genie in the Bottle” was kind of cool, but does anyone really care about her anymore, when there are new singers like Rihanna and Jordan Sparks to worry about? And can anyone really believe that the New Kids on the Block have reunited and attempted a comeback? Is there anything sadder than that?

Actually, I shouldn’t pity these people. I’m sure I’ll be like them one day, trying to remain cool and relevant even when I’m clearly out of touch. I already feel that way, actually. Neither I nor Michael Jackson will ever again be as cool as the Jonas Brothers are now…

Things I’ll Miss About Westwood

Today I am moving out of my apartment in Westwood and to a new place in Whittier—30 miles east of here (to be closer to my job at Biola University). It’s exciting to move but also bittersweet. I really enjoyed my two-year stint here while attending UCLA. Westwood is a really great section of Los Angeles, with loads of history and culture. I’d highly recommend living here if anyone ever gets a chance.

Here are just a few things I’ll miss about this place:

• Tons of great, unique restaurants and hardly any chains. There are chains galore where I am moving (not to knock chains or anything…).
• The fact that I was within a ten-minute walk of a bus that could take me most any place in L.A. (this is totally a rare luxury in Southern “we drive” California).
• Being ten minutes away from the Getty Center. It’s definitely my favorite place in L.A. I enjoyed going there to study in the gardens and get lost in the overwhelmingly zen peacefulness of that place.
• The diversity. There is every ethnicity and income range imaginable on a city block in Westwood. I can walk three blocks up my street and see ridiculously luxurious condos or walk a block and find a homeless person living in a bus shelter. Not that this is a good thing…
• Diddy Riese Cookies. The best little cookie shop in the world.
• Being able to walk to an AMC 15 complex in Century City and being a five-minute drive from L.A. nicest arts theater—Landmark Westside Pavilion. And having historic old Hollywood theaters just blocks away (like the Majestic Crest, pictured above). It’s movie heaven in Westwood!
• The cemetery in my neighborhood where Marilyn Monroe’s is buried (and Natalie Wood, Truman Capote, and countless other famous people).
• The enormous numbers of naturally occurring hipsters.
• The cool temperatures. Westwood is about 5 miles from the Pacific Ocean, which means we never really get too hot or too cold. Inland (where I’m moving), the temps are a bit more extreme.
• The huge, daunting, slightly creepy Mormon temple that loomed large in my backyard (literally).
• My insane landlady. She was a very scary person and reminded me a lot of Ma Fratelli, but, God bless her, I will miss the excitement of always fearing her wrath.

Ten Underrated Actors

It's been a long time since I made a list about actors, so I figured I'd do a list of ten underrated actors working today. Actually, maybe "under-known" is a better word. Have you heard of them? You should rent their movies if not. I'd be interested to hear about other underrated actors people feel deserve more acclaim...

Crispin Glover: See him now in Back to the Future, River's Edge, and Willard; see him soon in The Forlorn.

Michael Shannon: See him now in Bug or Shotgun Stories; see him soon in Revolutionary Road.

Laura Dern: See her now in Citizen Ruth and Inland Empire; see her soon in Tenderness.

Catherine Keener: See her now in Full Frontal and Into the Wild; see her soon in Synechdoche, New York.

Danny Huston: See him now in Birth and The Proposition; see him soon in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People.

Paul Schneider: See him now in All the Real Girls and Lars and the Real Girl; see him soon in This Must Be the Place.

Samantha Morton: See her now in Sweet and Lowdown and Mister Lonely; see her soon in Synechdoche, New York.

Jon Hamm: See him now on the AMC show, Mad Men; see him soon in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Chiwetel Ejiofor: See him now in Children of Men and Redbelt; see him soon in Tonight at Noon.

Rebecca Hall: See her now in The Prestige and Vicky Cristina Barcelona; see her soon in Frost/Nixon.

In Defense of Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I almost didn’t go see Vicky Cristina Barcelona because of a 1.5 star review I read by one of my favorite film critics, Jeffrey Overstreet. But the fact that it was a Woody Allen film with a high percentage on rottentomatoes ultimately led me to go see it this weekend. I’m so glad I did. Just seven months after he crafted one of the tightest and most underrated films of the year in Cassandra’s Dream (read my review here), Allen has done himself one better with this film, his best since Match Point.

I respect and accept Overstreet’s criticisms of the film, as being demeaning to its female characters and a celebration of self-destructive behavior. The film can certainly be read in this way, and certain tonal attributes do indicate that Allen is gleaning much pleasure out of watching his characters suffer under their own silly neuroses. But don’t all comedies take pleasure in the misfortunate of their characters? Sure, this is slightly closer to home than the fakeries of Tropic of Thunder, but it’s crafted with the same storytelling logic: point out the faults and fireworks of human nature (lust, narcissism, etc) and milk it for laughs. It’s exactly what Shakespeare did in his comedies. Don’t tell me that The Taming of the Shrew was any less cruel to its characters than Allen is to his.

Beyond that, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is just an amazingly well-made film. One doesn’t have to agree with all of its philosophical conclusions (and with Allen, one rarely does) to enjoy that it is remarkably sharp, erudite, and entertaining. I couldn’t help smiling at how utterly precise the film’s script was, nailing its characters (albeit bathed in unabashed stereotypes) with the punctual economy and poise of an experienced and world-weary storyteller. And the actors Allen picked work so, so well for the story. Newcomer Rebecca Hall is a stunner, Javier Bardem proves his worth playing a non-psychopath, and Penelope Cruz sizzles with unbridled and hilarious intensity.

And a word about Scarlett Johanssen. I don’t know why people pick on her acting so much. She was totally convincing in this role, playing the same sort of confused, naïve, hormonal youngster in search of herself that she played in Match Point and which serves as Allen’s muse. Yes, it’s a type, and no there is not a lot of nuance to it. But the majority of people don’t have a lot of nuance to them, and someone has to play them. If anything, Johanssen gives her character (Cristina) more depth than she deserves. She’s funny and tragic and remarkably beautiful, and I wouldn’t have had anyone else play the part.

I also don’t think it’s fair to hold this film up to Allen’s oeuvre and pronounce it lacking the “insights about faith or true love” that his best films supposedly have in spades. This is a gorgeous film, vibrant and alive and everything a film should be. But beyond it’s artistic merit I do think it adds to the thematic and, yes, spiritual explorations of Allen’s films. This is a film about individuals longing to be other than what they are… each character has lofty ambitions and dreams and is not satisfied in their current predicament (even while they are all middle or upper class with scant reasons to be dissatisfied). Whether it be a home in Bedford with a tennis court, an aspiration to have a more open and “European” soul, or a desire to eschew fidelity for a passionate dalliance with a Spaniard, this is a film that is fueled by the very human (but perhaps particularly American) desire for the unattainable. Allen is not sanctioning or vilifying such desires, he’s just acknowledging them—in the same way Beethoven acknowledges insatiable passion in his music or Picasso in his painting.

The artistic and truthful representation of passion and longing (even through the somewhat ironic and cynical lens of Woody Allen) is, I argue, innately spiritual. It may not be intentionally so, but Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a spiritually relevant movie. It’s a harsh and hilarious critique of just how self-indulgent and ridiculous we are in our bourgeois spiritual searches, but it is also an earnest lament for the fact that we can’t escape our prevailing discontent if we keep looking for it in the wrong places.

"Christian Film": Still Abysmal After All These Years

As someone who has lived, worked, and/or studied in the film industry for the last three years, it pains me to say it, but say it I must: the "Christian film" is no better today than it ever was. Of course, I would be the first to suggest that there shouldn't even be a Christian film industry, that "Christian" makes no sense as a generic modifier. But there IS a Christian film industry, and will be as long as there is a Christian subcultural marketplace; thus, the least we can do is make good films, right? Wrong. We make films like this.

Does anyone want to see that movie? The problem is not the concept; I would welcome a film that uplifts marriage and argues against divorce as the easy way out. The problem, of course, is the execution. This film--as evident from the trailer--features antiquated filmmaking techniques, cheap-looking sets and costumes, horrible acting, and a cheesy Christian music soundtrack. There is nothing aesthetically interesting going on in the trailer. It's painstakingly ordinary and grievously cliched. God help us if this is the best we can do.

We need to put a moratorium on making films like this until we can prioritize craft. We have to appreciate aesthetics as valid apart from didactic storytelling (aka preaching). Good can be done (dare I say: converts won) by an achingly beautiful cinematic image just as effectively as by the most clear-cut conversion scene. We must recognize the value of style as itself a crucial form of content.

But mostly we just need to strive for excellence and stop churning out bilge.

Do Humans Have Souls?

Many Christians consider this a settled question. Of course we have souls! … Right?

At the 2008 Oxbridge conference earlier this month, however, the question was very much open to debate. In fact, two of the plenary speakers gave talks that took polar opposite views on the matter.

The highly esteemed Richard Swinburne, Emeritus Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oxford, gave a rigorous argument for the existence of the soul as an entity of entirely difference substance than the body (substance dualism). Swinburne is about as dualist as you can get on the matter—even moreso than Descartes. I won’t go into Swinburne’s arguments (which were thorough and intriguing, if a little hard to follow), but it should be pointed out that outside of Christian philosophical circles, substance dualism is a rather marginalized position.

On the other end of the spectrum was Nancey Murphy, Christian philosopher at Fuller Theological Seminary. Murphy is a proponent of non-reductive physicalism, which is the notion that there is no separate mental realm or “soul,” apart from the physical, but that the mental cannot be reduced to merely physical properties. Murphy’s talk at Oxbridge was entitled “Why Christians Should be Nonreductive Physicalists.”

Essentially, Murphy’s main thesis is that humans are their bodies; there is no additional metaphysical element such as a mind or soul or spirit. She suggests that the perception that the bible teaches dualism is simply a result of bad translations. Whereas dualism is completely theoretical and has no scientific evidence, Murphy believes that there is ample evidence to prove that we are merely physical (rather than metaphysical) beings. In her book, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?, Murphy suggests that the cognitive neurosciences give us reason to think that the human capacities we attribute to the soul can be understood as "processes involving the brain, the rest of the nervous system and other bodily systems, all interacting with the socio-cultural world."

Of course, Murphy’s commitment to physical/material explanations of everything also means that she cannot accept the existence of angels or demons and is dubious about things like the “holy spirit” (in the metaphysical sense that Christians have conceived of it)… which maybe makes her a heretic. But apart from looking slightly goth, she doesn’t seem too heretical (she’s ordained in the Church of the Brethren)…

But does any of this abstract philosophizing make a difference on a practical, how-we-live-our-lives level? Perhaps. If Christians adopt physicalism (as Murphy hopes we do), we must put a greater emphasis on the significance of the body, and on the earthly reign of God, in which followers of Jesus participate by active love of neighbor and in struggle for justice and peace. If one adopts Swinburne’s hardcore dualism, our commitment to the body (which Swinburne is reluctant to say will even exist in heaven) is undercut and our motivation to redeem the physical all but made moot.

Alas, I will reserve judgment on the matter until I read books on both positions. I find the whole debate highly provocative and important to have… Though it does alarm me that Christians can be so utterly opposite on a matter so seemingly basic and vital to our faith. But in the spirit of healthy discourse, maybe the disparity should thrill me.

Why We’re Obsessed With Taking Crazy Risks

I saw an extraordinary film tonight, a British documentary called Man on Wire. It’s a sharply made film about Frenchman Philippe Petit’s notorious, unauthorized high-wire walk atop the World Trade Center towers on August 7, 1974. The film is a funny, tender, fascinating, thrilling examination of one strange man’s obsession with flirting with death and living on the edge (literally).

It’s an extreme example, no doubt, but the film’s beauty is that Petit’s story serves so well as an archetype for humanity in general: we are wired to seek risk, to challenge ourselves, to dare death.

As I watched the film and marveled at Petit’s precarious, balanced walking across wires suspended thousands of feet about Manhattan, I thought of last night’s women’s gymnastics final and the amazing performances on the balance beam. Am I the only one who finds the beam the most impressive of all gymnastics feats? Watching Nastia Liukin tumbling and flipping and twirling on this narrow beam was utterly breathtaking. How do these people do it? And more curiously: why?

Indeed, my thoughts after seeing Man On Wire and a week’s worth of Olympic sports centers upon the question of why humans are subjecting themselves to such extreme, risky, unnatural challenges. Why are people like Michael Phelps consuming (and burning) 12,000 calories a day so as to be able to swim fast back and forth in a 50 meter pool? Why are weight lifters risking gruesome joint dislocations to raise unholy loads of metal above their heads? (as in Hungarian Janos Baranyai’s unfortunate accident earlier this week). Is it because in our post-industrial, ultra-pampered, developed world we have so little else to channel our primitive needs to conquer and destroy? Or maybe we’re just bored and looking for something—even bodily harm or death—that will jolt us awake?

With the Olympics we could say: well, there is the end goal of a gold medal and Wheaties box… And I guess that is as good a thing as any to spend one’s life painstakingly seeking. But something tells me that most of these athletes do what they do not just to get some shiny medal or trophy. There is something deeper and more elemental to it—a uniquely human willingness to sacrifice oneself physically (and mentally) for something that doesn’t have anything to do with survival. It’s not like Phelps is swimming for his life; it’s not like Petit is risking death on the high wire in order to escape a burning building (an image all too easily called forth given the twin towers’ ultimate iconic legacy).

No, these men are doing insane things because it is a thrill to do so… to push the limits of their being and transcend regular existence. I think we all have this desire, actually. But is it a good desire? Or is it a desire (like pride, lust, etc) that we must carefully keep in check? I don't know, but it sure does make for thrilling entertainment.

Putting on a Front for the World

Much has been made of how important these Beijing Olympics are for China—not for their economy (which hardly needs a boost) or for their patriotic morale, but for their PR on the world stage. Quite simply, the Chinese have an image problem, and they’re fiercely committed to spinning themselves in a better light.

But spin is increasingly easy to detect, and China—God bless her—is not doing a very good job of rebranding itself as a country of freedom-loving citizens of a democratic world.Rather, China comes across as a top-down, control-obsessed behemoth willing to do whatever it takes to present its ideal image to the world. Take a few of the examples from the opening week of the Olympic games:

• Opening ceremony deceptions: First came the news that some of the more elaborate fireworks we saw on TV were merely CGI effects, then came the juicier scandal that the cute pigtailed girl in the red dress who serenaded the worldwide audience was lipsyncing "Ode to the Motherland” because the actual singing girl (performing from somewhere off stage) was deemed too ugly (crooked teeth!) to be the “face of China.”
• Mysteriously teensy Chinese gymnasts: Suspicions abound about the ages of two of team China’s most talented female gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan. Various recent press reports have placed the ages of the diminutive stars as low as 13 or 14, but the Chinese government has since submitted passports that “prove” their ages to be 16, making them eligible competitors. We can’t say for sure, but the obvious conclusion from this is that the government was more than willing to “adjust” the official ages of these young athletes whose participation in the gymnastics competition was integral to that ever-important gold medal.
• Suppression of protests: Don’t the Chinese know that the best thing they could do for themselves would be to allow very public protests to occur? An Olympic games is just not right without them. Everyone knows about the Chinese abuses of human rights, the Tibet debacle, etc. Thus, we all know that there should be throngs of protesters at these games. That there are not very many (at least visible to the outside observer) shows that China is up to its freedom-suppressing old tricks. Numerous reports have demonstrated that China will stop at nothing to keep news coverage of protests or dissenters from reaching the outside world.

Alas, the Chinese are not the smoothest operators when it comes to slyly manufacturing a skewed image of themselves. We can make fun of them for this, and be outraged, but the truth is they are not much different than any of us. Anyone with a Facebook page, blog, or Flickr account cannot really critique China for their heavy-handed image maintenance. We live in a day and age where the image or presentation of reality is more important than the reality itself (thank you Baudrillard), and China is just the largest and perhaps most clumsy offender.

All of this makes me reflect on reason #187 why The Dark Knight is the most relevant film of the decade thus far. It is all about this “truth distortion” spin zone—the civil importance of telling the public only so much truth and lying about certain things “for their sake.” Problem is, when you can see through these intricate PR spin maneuvers (as we can with China’s Olympics), the result is that we trust the spinner even less. Hopefully Batman will be a better spin doctor than Beijing is.

The Communion of Saints

Tragically, the 2008 Oxbridge conference is concluded, and on Sunday I'll be back home in the pseudo-reality that is Los Angeles. It's been a wonderful two weeks though, and as usual the greatness and brevity of it leaves me longing for much much more. It is during conferences like this (and I'm sure most of you can relate) that I can most feel the divine discontent that C.S. Lewis and Chesterton and Augustine and many others articulate--the feeling that we are made for another world, that earth "is but a shadow of Heaven" as Milton writes in Paradise Lost.

The feeling comes, I think, mostly because of the people I meet and interact with, whether a bartender I befriended at the Lamb and Flag in Oxford or an 85 year old man taking his first vacation after the death of his wife. Who are these people in the crowd from all over the globe who I worship with? What are their stories? Their faces are so beautifully indeterminate. It is the great tragedy (and yet, perhaps it isn't a tragedy at all) of an event like this that I can only get to know some people, and then only briefly before it is time to say goodbye. These are fleeting yet profound connections, and yet--to be sure--they are only connections, not community. Community is more long-term, more involved, more real, or so it would seem. And yet at times this week I think I've glimpsed pure, holy community in ways that are far, far too rare in our daily lives.

Last night was the closing service of the Oxbridge conference, a gorgeous Eucharist service in St. Mary the Virgin church in downtown Cambridge. The 300 conferees gathered here and took the Lord's Supper, and what a symbol of community it was. Communion is about communing, after all, both with each other as the body of Christ and with Christ himself, and with the saints of bygone eras.

Speaking of that... You cannot help but feel the presence of long-dead saints, and poets, here in Cambridge. Two nights ago a bunch of us went punting at midnight down the Cam River, drifting past the ancient colleges (Trinity, St. John's, King's, Queen's, Clare, etc) shrouded in darkness where so many minds have been formed and souls saved over the centuries. It made me think: at a conference on the theme of "The Self and the Search for Meaning," I wonder if it is not crucial to our understanding of ourselves to have an understanding of history--of precedent, of examples set forth by those who've trod these paths before.

But it's also about my Self in relation to others here and now--the unlikely meanings that crystallize in the vaporous space between two souls in communication, the fleeting encounters on boats at midnight or bars at 1am. I don't know if I'll see them again, or if I'll even remember them (or them me), but I do know that to commune with another person in the transcendent sense that Buber and Lewis mean (as more than mere mortals or objectified "it"s...) is to experience something of the future life, the full communion of saints which will occur after the dead in Christ rise, the world is restored, and all is put to rights.

Here at the Oxbridge conference we like to sing Doxology anthems, particular the one that goes Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow... But the lesser known (in Protestant circles, at least) "Gloria Patri" is particularly apt for what I'm writing about here: a simple and yet declarative articulation of our communion in Christ, throughout time and space: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and always shall be, world without end. Amen.

Such words are an immense comfort at times like this.

Talking Singularity at Cambridge

So the Cambridge week of the Oxbridge 2008 conference is underway (since Saturday), and it has been a marvelous experience thus far. The weather is cool and rainy (in a British sort of way) but the energy is high and all of our heads are spinning from the various lectures and stimuli being thrown at us.

A few highlights of Cambridge thus far include a stunning Evensong service at Ely Cathedral on Sunday, a dinner/dance at Chilford Hall (basically a barn-like structure in Kansas-like wheat fields), and some great lectures from the likes of Colleen Carroll Campbell, Bill Romanowski, and Nigel Cameron, the latter of which I found particularly provocative.

Cameron, Director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society and Research Professor of Bioethics and Associate Dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law in the Illinois Institute of Technology, gave a talk entitled "Stewarding the Self: A Human Future for Humans?" Essentially the talk asked the question, "what does it mean to be human?" in an age (the 21st century) when all efforts seem to be moving toward a reinvention of the human project itself. He talked about three ways in which the human as we know it is being redefined: 1) taking life (abortion, euthanasia, stem cells, etc), 2) making life (test tube babies, cloning, etc), and 3) faking life (cyborgs, chips in human brains, robots, etc).

It's interesting because just about a month ago I wrote a blog post about many of the things Cameron talked about. Actually, my review of Bigger, Stronger, Faster also fits into the discussion, as does my post about Iron Man. In each of these pieces I point out the increasing sense in our culture that the human being is becoming more machine-like... We conceive of our bodies not as carriers of a transcendent soul but as a material objects which can be manipulated, botoxed, pumped up, and enhanced in whatever way that pleases us. Cameron pointed out various technologies being developed that will make this sort of "faking life" all the more prevalent... such as BMI (Brain Machine Interface) which will allow our brains to work with embedded computer chips in them... so we can just think a webpage or some digital computation rather than go to the trouble of using a computer hardware external to our body.

He mentioned that the computing power in the world will likely increase by a factor of a million within a generation, which means we have no concept now of just what the future will look like. He pointed to a government study released in 2007 entitled "Nanotechnology: The Future is Coming Sooner Than You Think," which featured some pretty remarkable assessments from noted futurists and nanotech scholars about what the future might hold. For a government study, it's pretty sci-fi. Take this section which poses the potential of "The Singularity" happening within a generation or two (and for those unfamiliar with "The Singularity," read about it here)...

Every exponential curve eventually reaches a point where the growth rate becomes almost infinite. This point is often called the Singularity. If technology continues to advance at exponential rates, what happens after 2020? Technology is likely to continue, but at this stage some observers forecast a period at which scientific advances aggressively assume their own momentum and accelerate at unprecedented levels, enabling products that today seem like science fiction. Beyond the Singularity, human society is incomparably different from what it is today. Several assumptions seem to drive predictions of a Singularity. The first is that continued material demands and competitive pressures will continue to drive technology forward. Second, at some point artificial intelligence advances to a point where computers enhance and accelerate scientific discovery and technological change. In other words, intelligent machines start to produce discoveries that are too complex for humans. Finally, there is an assumption that solutions to most of today’s problems including material scarcity, human health, and environmental degradation can be solved by technology, if not by us, then by the computers we eventually develop.

Pretty crazy stuff, eh? Who knew the government actually thought that The Terminator was going to come true? As Cameron pointed out, it's as if the forecasts of Mary Shelley, Aldous Huxley, and C.S. Lewis (in The Abolition of Man) were all coming true. It means that Christians will need to address science and technology along with theology and postmodernism in the coming decades, raising questions that perhaps no one else will, such as: how do we reconcile a theology of suffering with a world that is trying its hardest, through technology, to rid us of all suffering?

Update from Oxford: Part 2

Things are going extremely well here at Oxbridge, as the Oxford portion of the conference comes to an end tomorrow (Cambridge starts on Sunday). A few highlights and thoughts from the last few days:

• Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God, spoke in a plenary address on Wednesday. If you haven't heard of him or read his book, you should check him out. He presents a convincing case for why evolution and Christian faith are NOT incompatible, and how an appreciation for science does not mean we have to check religion (or theism) at the door. Collins is also a great musician and led the whole group in singing hymns and Christian folk songs. How great it was to sing such songs as "Hallelujah, the Great Storm is Over" with one of the world's most preeminent geneticists. Oh, and during his address he showed a clip from when he was on the Colbert Report. Totally awesome.
• Thursday night, at Great St. Mary the Virgin church in Oxford (the ancient church where Thomas Cranmer was tried as a martyr), there was a fantastic "evening of poetry and song" which featured poetry recited by Dana Gioia (the current Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts), piano played by Paul Barnes (including amazing Liszt and Philip Glass pieces), and poems sung by mezzo-soprano Kate Butler. One of the highlights, however, was an emotional reading of the poem "As the Ruin Falls" by C.S. Lewis. Lewis, of course, was never hailed as a great poet, but this poem--which he wrote after the death of his beloved wife Joy Davidman--is achingly beautiful:

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through: I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek-- But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack. I see the chasm. And everything you are was making My heart into a bridge by which I might get back From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.

• Today's plenary address from Dana Gioia was absolutely wonderful. It was provocative and beautiful and challening, posing the rather large question: What is the human purpose of beauty? Of art? What are the existential purposes of art? Gioia proposed that art is crucial to existence because it shows us what is truly human; beauty synthesizes the unknowable truths and transcendent complexities of the world. It's not just about pretty decor but rather about seeing into the nature of reality and seeing the order of things, the terrifying and dizzying sublime of which art is uniquely capable of distilling. Gioia made statements like this, which doubtless ruffled some feathers: "Michelangelo, Mozart, and Dante have brought more souls to Christ than any minister." Of course he IS the head of an arts endowment, so of course he should say things like this. But I actually might agree with him. "Art," says Gioia, "awakes us to the full potential of humanity. It leads us to truth, the secrets of being." In this way you might see it as the ultimate evangelism--though I think Gioia would point out that we don't use art and beauty as much as it uses us. Beauty is not something we make, it's something we participate in. For Gioia (a very Catholic aesthetician), beauty is bound up in the world already in its materials and forms and presences. We only need to thoughtfully re-connect with it and frame it to become artists. As Psalm 19 reminds us, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Beauty is out there--we just have to find it and make it more manageable (whether on a canvas, in a sonnet or a story, etc).

More updates to come from Cambridge next week!