I wanted to ask what are some great films that gave you an insight into a religious worldview without smacking you over the head with it or pretending that it is the only way of finding inner-peace and way of going about acting morally?
I really loved the film Calvary, I would add to that The Revenant and To Kill a Priest.
'The Revenant' for a desirable relationship with nature where we learn to understand it in order to coexist and find strength.[2]
'To Kill a Priest' for the admirable collective will to publicly resist a murderous dictatorship they found in liberation theology.
And I'm looking forward to watching the film 'Silence' "that resolves itself into a single thought: if a believer is forced to recant, yet maintains a hidden impregnable core of secret faith, a hidden finger-cross, is that a defeat or not? God sees all, of course, including the way a public disavowal of faith has dissuaded hundreds or thousands from believing. Is the public theatre of faith more important than a secret bargain with a silent creator? It is a question kept on a knife-edge. Martin Scorsese’s powerful, emotional film takes its audience on a demanding journey with a great sadness at its end." [3]
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References:
1. Calvary: A religious movie for atheists.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160803035448/http://screenrobot.com:80/calvary-a-religious-movie-for-atheists/
2. The Revenant and the Spirituality of Man and NatureFollowing Darren Aronofsky's confused Noah, John Michael McDonagh's Calvary strikes miraculous middle ground for a religious movie.
I'm an atheist, though I'm loathe to use the word, referring to myself as an atheist seems like an admission that there's a god I'm choosing to ignore, that I'm some hipster who thinks a refusal to believe will go nicely with my vinyl collection and ill-advised body art. Atheist derives from the Greek word atheos, or godless, which makes people like me sound like chicken-killing heathens rather than what we are: people who believe in whats apparent rather than whats not, who believe that humankind created God the same way it created now-unfashionable deities like Bacchus or Wotan and not the other way around. But, for the sake of brevity, I suppose I'm an atheist.
As an atheist, Ive struggled with religious movies. I could never relate in the way that anybody can relate to, say, love stories.
As a result, Ive always struggled with religious movies. Its one of the very few sub-genres that can come across as eminently alien to people like me. Scorsese has always been one of my favourite filmmakers, but his religious symbolism, and especially the Catholic guilt felt by some of his lead characters, never made much sense to me. The meaning was lost, because I couldn't relate in the way that anybody can relate to love stories, for example. And films more overtly about faith, like Scorsese's own The Last Temptation of Christ, I outright don't understand.
Darren Aronofsky's recently released Noah, so eccentric a movie it might as well have just been called What?!, is only the first of what is apparently going to be a series of biblical blockbusters coming out of Hollywood. And if the Old Testament story of Noah wasn't unbelievable enough to someone like me, Aronofsky's Noah has such uncertain footing between appealing to those with faith and those without that it just comes across as some bizarre, confounding fantasy. I'm not too familiar with the story of Noah, but I'm almost positive scripture doesn't state that Noah and a gang of angelic stone monsters went to war with an army of bloodthirsty, cockney pirate-people.
Hear more on Noah: Its our take on the religious epic in the SR Filmcast
One standout scene in Noah sees the titular prophet tell the creationist story of how the Earth came to be, while Aronofsky simultaneously shows us images of a more scientifically verifiable history of our world, complete with the obligatory tadpole-to-monkey-to-person evolutionary steps. The director appears cautious to offend either Christians or The Godless Ones with his movie, but by offering two strongly opposing theories side-by-side, he ends up pleasing nobody. It makes the film an irrelevance Aronofsky's movie highlights the harshness of religious dogma (if youre a fan of infanticide, youll love Noah) at the same time as it panders to the neutral blockbuster crowd, through ludicrous battle sequences and vapid romantic subplots.
John Michael McDonaghs Calvary, on the other hand, is very different, he confirms to infidels like me that religion really does have a place in the modern world. This existential mystery, about a good Catholic priest threatened with murder in the confession box, respects the opinions of non-believers but firmly, quietly, retains its own Christian beliefs. It wholly recognises the age we live in, where people indifferent and even hateful towards the church brush shoulders with clergymen and their rapidly diminishing congregations. It gets that the world is losing faith. And yet, somewhat miraculously, Calvary confirms to infidels like me that religion really does have a place in the modern world.
Ostensibly a black comedy, Calvary is more often frightening than funny. Father Lavelle (a superb Brendan Gleeson) visits a former pupil-turned-cannibalistic serial killer (played to creepy effect by Gleesons real-life progeny, Domhnall) in prison, and asks what human flesh tastes like; he replies, icily, and with sickening relatability, like pheasant its very gamey. Later, the local doctor, in the form of old-reliable Aidan Gillen, relays the story of a procedure gone wrong, in which a young boy was put under a mishandled dose of anaesthetic for a routine operation and subsequently woke up blind, deaf, dumb and paralysed.
In the horror of a world like that our world Calvary doesn't treat some unseen force, one which it accepts not everyone can relate to, as the saviour. Instead, it is the good man at the heart of this wicked tale, a man driven by a moral code, who acts as the ultimate hero. Calvary makes the argument that the modern church lives not in the service of God, but in the service of people, and its a film that might even make sense of religion for atheists.
Ive not become born again after watching Calvary, but McDonaghs film succeeds where Noah didn't because it tolerates both believers and non-believers equally, and isn't as violently opposed one way or the other, in the way that, say, The Passion of the Christ was strictly for and PTA's cynical There Will Be Blood was vehemently against. It takes a long-overdue stand against loud, unglamorous media reports and counters that not all of religion is corrupted. Calvary is a stunning film, not least because it convincingly argues that there are still good people of faith out there, as it successfully speaks to both the religious and non-religious alike.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1fZsLoLeT8
3. Silence review: the last temptation of Liam Neeson in Scorsese's shattering epicNature is of prime importance in Alejandro Inarritu’s The Revenant, it's not merely the setting of the epic survival story but upon closer examination the natural world can be seen as a pivotal character in the film.
It's through Hue Glass’s relationship to the wilderness around him that he's able to embark on and survive his physical, emotional and spiritual journeys. The natural world is present in every shot of the film, usually comprising more of the frame than the actors within it, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s use of wide-angle lenses helped capture the expansive nature around the characters, allowing the locations to become more than mere scenery but a part of the story telling.
His use of mostly natural lighting also emphasizes the omnipresence and significance of nature for the men of The Revenant, whenever we see the men - the high trees in the distance are towering over them from all sides lurking behind and around them in an almost threatening manner - the wilderness crowds the fur trappers into the centre of the frame, engulfing them and at times obstructing them from the cameras view as if a reminder of nature's dominance a warning to abide by mother nature's rules.
The film continually reminds us of this in multiple shots that open with only the bare wilderness, a creek bubbling calmly, a forest of trees standing tall and still, all untouched and placid until the camera slowly pans downwards or upwards to find the men traveling within them.
These moments remind us nature came first and then man leaves, along with the extreme wide shots of landscapes in the film further established the immense scale and the all-encompassing force and power of nature.
The fur trappers and native tribes are only specs within the natural environment, but in order to survive they must learn to coexist with it, the placement of the camera also characterizes Glass’s relation to nature by echoing the evolution of his journey through it. Rarely shooting glass at eye level the camera often hovers slightly above or below him in extreme close-ups of his body and face the angle suggests glass is constantly seeking something out of his reach as the extreme close-ups dislocate him from the nature around him.
We see this sense of longing when the camera shows his POV as he looks upward through the treetops, but what is he looking for? We finally learned this in a flashback as glass looks up through the trees he remembers his wife's death and envisions her floating above him in the forest instead of looking upward to receive a message from God, Glass finds his wife uttering words of wisdom. Here his love for her becomes the physical manifestation of his faith as his upward perception of nature comes to symbolize a release from suffering, his goal to survive and exact revenge ultimately evolves into a spiritual pilgrimage.
Glass’s visions of his wife hovering above him are strong allusions to the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, most notably the levitating woman in the mirror, we can understand the images of levitation in both films as moments that represent the majestic and holy quality each woman holds in the eyes of the main male character. Glass’s love for his wife literally exalts her to a position above ground just as Aleksei in the mirror envisions his young mother floating in a dream sequence in in Inurito’s film Glass’s wife becomes the spiritual symbol of absolution, hope and strength.
But many of Glass’s visions also represent his internal struggle with cultural identity, unlike the other white fur trappers Glass is shown to have a deeper connection with nature, especially with the Pawnee tribe he once lived with, though in the eyes of Fitzgerald - Glass has betrayed his men by once killing a lieutenant - however glass shows that he holds some shame for his past, when he fails to stand up for his son Hawk and then angrily reprimands him in front of the other men it's clear glass is caught between two lives, the life of his Pawnee family in the past and the one of a fur trapper in the present.
This dichotomy is shown in Glass’s vision where he finds himself in front of a dilapidated church, the walls of the European church within the natural landscape reflect the duality of Glass’s cultural affiliations. The ruins mirroring the pain of his past. Here his identity as a westerner and his affinity with the Pawnee tribe merged in a dreamlike state filled with longing and grief.
This scene strongly recalls the final shot of Tarkovsky's film ‘Nostalgia’ in which Andre, a Russian writer, travels through Italy longing for his home country. Andre completes a journey across an empty pool with the lit candle, in the film's famous nine-minute scene, a testament to faith and perseverance that in ways reflects Glass’s own journey in ‘The Revenant.’ Afterwards Andre suddenly falls to his death and the last shot of the film finds him sitting in front of his Russian farmhouse as the camera slowly pulls back it's revealed Andre and his dacha are confined within the ruins of an old Italian Cathedral. Here Tarkovsky merges that of dreams and memory to show the unification of a man split by two countries, it captures the melancholic longing of nostalgia and the coexisting space of the past and present. Andre has reached a sense of spiritual resolution in his inner battle, though only in death, Glass is only just beginning his own.
The second Tarkovsky reference in ‘The Revenant’s church sequence provides a little more insight, the icon paintings on the church walls and the ringing bell above, strongly recall the Russian filmmakers Andrei Rublev. In the film's most memorable sequence, a young boy Briska attempts to cast the bell for a prince, though he has no idea how to, Briska does so on intuition and faith alone knowing that he'll be killed if he fails. The finished bell finally tolls loudly and triumphant, a powerful moment that stands as a testament to the young boys faith and an inspiration for the painter Andrei Rublev.
And Yuri too explores the power of faith in his dream sequence as well, though Glass embraces his son, the very next moment he's alone in the church hugging only a tree, the bell ringing above Glass’s head as he falls into the mud, similar to the overwhelmed Beriska. It’s a symbol of his continuing strength, a reminder of the hope that can follow loss. Glass may no longer have Hawk his last connection to the Pawnee people, but the one thing that does remain is the physical and spiritual presence of nature and how it can help him survive.
The dream sequence signifies a shift in Glass’s relationship to nature, one that moves away from the Westerners side of his identity, after awaking from the dream, Glass rescues a Cree woman from French fur trappers, then literally using the resources around him to survive, Glass climbs into the carcass of a dead horse, when he emerges the camera lingers on tranquil shots of the sun shining through trees around him, it's a shot largely reminiscent of Lopezkeys work with Terrence Malick, in which nature also has a spiritual element.
As he prepares to leave, the camera positions Glass in the background of the shot with a large branch emerging into the foreground, after laying his hand on the horse, Glass looks around and upwards as if giving thanks to the wilderness for saving his life, in this moment he's become more part of the natural scenery, no longer detached from it as implied by the disembodied close-ups earlier in the film.
Once glass has exacted his revenge, the killing of Fitzgerald begins to symbolize more than simply getting justice for his son. In defeating Fitzgerald Glass has also defeated the shame and the suffering of the past he's carried with him, once the Cree pass by silently acknowledging that he's not like the other ruthless fur trappers, Glass begins his ascent upwards, literally and metaphorically, he sees a vision of his wife ahead of him on the mountain and in turning away from him she grants him the emotional and spiritual absolution he's been seeking. In a final shot that again recalls nostalgia and the mirror, Glass slowly turns his gaze into the camera, no longer looking up at the view of the treetops with him, we finally meet his eyes as he finds peace in the flurry of the storm.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/10/silence-review-the-last-temptation-of-liam-neeson-in-scorseses-shattering-epic
The silence of God – or the deafness of man – is the theme of Martin Scorsese’s epic new film about an ordeal of belief and the mysterious, ambiguous heroism involved in humiliation and collaboration. It is about an apparent sacrifice in the service of the greater good, and a reckoning deferred to some unknowable future time. The possibility of reaching some kind of accommodation with the enemy, and not knowing if this is a disavowal of pride or a concession to the greatest sin of all, is a topic that Scorsese last touched upon in The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988, in which Jesus sees a future of peace and ordinary comfort.
Silence is a drama about Christian martyrdom, and like all such films, from Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc to Fred Zinnemann’s A Man for All Seasons, it must address an atheist counter-sensibility aware that the Catholic Inquisition itself saw no difficulty in putting perceived heretics to death, and that arguably their own martyrs are therefore ineligible for lenient humanist sympathy. In fact, in this movie there is a fierce debate about the opposition of Christianity and Buddhism, of Europe and Asia, and about the relativism of faith.
Martin Scorsese film recalls martyrdom of Japan's hidden Christians
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Silence is not without flaws. Perhaps the casting of its stars, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, could have been reversed, to place more emphasis on Driver as the stronger performer, though Garfield’s boyish screen personality becomes haunted and complex. There is something a little broad about the moments in which a priest sees visions of Christ in himself. Yet with ambition and reach, and often a real dramatic grandeur, Scorsese’s film has addressed the imperial crisis of Christian evangelists with stamina, seriousness and a gusto comparable to David Lean’s.
In 17th-century Lisbon, two fiercely committed missionary priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver), are told disturbing news by their confessor Valignano (Ciarán Hinds) concerning their much loved and admired mentor figure, Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Ferreira had journeyed to Japan many years before to challenge its brutal suppression of Christianity and to spread the word, but has now reportedly been forced to recant his faith under torture, and is living as a Buddhist with a Japanese wife and children. Astonished and outraged, the two young Jesuits refuse to believe it and demand to be allowed to travel to Japan to track him down and discover the truth.
Scorsese shows that their journey has something Conradian about it, and that Ferreira is a kind of Kurtz figure, albeit a Kurtz who has achieved nothing like a colonial kingdom. As the two men make their furtive landfall in Japan, they make tensely secret contact with fugitive believers who live in terror of being found out, and the priests entertain an orientalist stereotype of the supposed Japanese inscrutability: “Secrecy has made their faces into masks.”
Rodrigues and Garrpe seem like the proselytisers of the early Christian church, or even the apostles themselves. Driver’s gaunt and blazingly passionate face even makes him look a little like the traditional rendering of Jesus. But the examples of Judas the betrayer and Peter the denier are the ones that suggest themselves. Because everywhere, the authorities are crushing Christian communities, offering rewards for informers, and the priests’ mere presence brings their congregants into terrible danger. Suspected believers are ordered symbolically to trample a figure of Jesus underfoot: sometimes the inquisitor will be content with a relatively perfunctory step on the figure, but for more serious dissidents, spitting on the crucified Christ is needed. And there is the cruelty of torture and martyrdom: Christians can be lowered into a pit to bleed to death, or crucified in the surf for a quasi-drowning ordeal, or burned at the stake.
But Rodrigues is to come into contact with the sinuously calm, even almost charming Inquisitor Inoue and his interpreter (excellent performances from Issey Ogata and Tadanobu Asano), whose purpose is far more subtle: to show what torture looks like – rather as the Inquisition simply showed Galileo the instruments of cruelty – but then persuade the priest to renounce Christianity on rational grounds. Playing their strongest card, they produce poor, mortified Ferreira, who after years of threats and indoctrination has internalised his captors’ views, denying that the Catholic church was ever believed in that country, and claiming that the Japanese had simply followed a muddled, pantheistic sun-worship sect and mistook it for Christianity.
All the time, the priests are tormented by God’s silence, and the question of whether this is the same as absence, or if God’s refusal to intervene has become an unimaginable and intolerable cruelty. “How can I explain his silence to these people?” As the drama continues, the silence is broken for Rodrigues: but it is, ambiguously, a voice in his own head, giving him advice similar to that which he had himself given to cowering Japanese peasants early in the story.
Silence is a movie of great fervour that resolves itself into a single thought: if a believer is forced to recant, yet maintains a hidden impregnable core of secret faith, a hidden finger-cross, is that a defeat or not? God sees all, of course, including the way a public disavowal of faith has dissuaded hundreds or thousands from believing. Is the public theatre of faith more important than a secret bargain with a silent creator? It is a question kept on a knife-edge. Martin Scorsese’s powerful, emotional film takes its audience on a demanding journey with a great sadness at its end.
