How’s that for a headline? (Update: Be sure to read on to the next post.)
Krista and I went to see The Dark Knight on Saturday. It was an impressive film; we really enjoyed it on a number of levels—the production values were exceptional, Heath Ledger’s performance was amazing, and the characterizations and plot offered plenty of food for thought. (BTW, is Batman really Bruce Wayne, or is Bruce Wayne really Batman?)
But to tell you the truth, by Sunday morning I had pretty much moved on.
Then, this morning, I read this commentary by Ray Ortlund:
Visually stimulating. Technologically impressive. Hollywood has fast-forwarded a gazillion years since my favorite films by Steve McQueen and John Wayne. But peel off the layers of glittering presentation, and what’s actually there? A ripping good yarn. I grant that. But not much else. In fact, it comes down to a lie of human idealization being passed off on the public because they’re supposed to be better off thinking the lie. That violates everything I believe. I learned nothing. I was not enriched in any way.
Immanuel Church cannot compete with Hollywood in terms of raw momentary impact. No church can. But that’s one of the great things about church. It can be real. It can be entry-level discovery, for anyone, of the Lovely One who will amaze us forever.
I’m weary with the world’s disappointing stimulants. I want more of Christ.
Ouch. But wait a second… is this hyperbole? Is this a John-Piper-Don’t-Waste-Your-Life, kick in the pants overstatement? Michael Spencer writes:
I’m not in John Piper mode here, but I want to send Rev. Ortlund the beverage of his choice at the BHT for saying something while he was saying something.
I have begun to suspect that we can’t see the entertainment idolatry in our own lives.
We’ve decided to talk about “how to relate Christ to movies” and so on, which I don’t deny is a worthwhile pursuit, and I believe the glory and truth of God shines through all kinds of cultural windows.
But there’s just a lot- a LOT- of garbage out there. A lot of lies. Distortion. A lot of very bad story telling. A lot of poorly executed entertainment. A lot of humor and excitement drummed up from the lowest common denominators: sex, violence, greed. A lot of wasted minutes, hours and days.
(As an aside, I’ll be teaching a class this fall in which I plan to use movie clips as conversation starters for the Gospel, so I’m glad he threw me a bone… but now I’ve got some more thinking to do!)
Anyway… answer for yourself: what do you make of this? Now answer again, but this time pretend you’re a radical, sold-out, dead-to-the-world follower of Christ. (Gotcha.) Is your answer any different?
[via JT]
These are all such general criticisms that can be aimed at any form of entertainment. What specifically about “Dark Knight” was worthy of such ire?
I found it to be exactly what was advertised—a movie version of a graphic novel (not a comic book). It was over-the-top in some places but that’s to be expected.
It was goofy in some places (Harvey Dent just getting up and walking out of the hospital having just suffered massive 3rd degree burns to his face). It was dark in a lot of places (Heath Ledger as the Joker was convincing as a psychpath). It was preachy (the whole spying with the cell phones deal. But it was also cinematically HUGE (saw it at IMAX). The aerial scenes were incredible and the chase scenes were as good as any I’ve seen (except for maybe the first Bourne movie).
Was it “The Godfather”? No. But it certainly was better than every other Batman movie and better than every Superman movie except the first one.
So that’s my answer as a “radical, sold-out, dead-to-the-world follower of Christ”. It’s a piece of art and is to be evaluated from that standpoint.
What is this guy expecting? Batman doesn’t proclaim the Gospel … big surprise … it’s still good story telling and movie making. (The point that there are plenty of bad movies doesn’t matter, it doesn’t apply to this film.)
Cheerios will never compare to what Christ accomplished and is accomplishing either but I don’t call them idolatrous. Do Cheerios proclaim the victory of Christ to all the nations? Do Cheerios encourage me to depend of God for all my needs? No … but I thank God for them, eat them, find some nourishment, and move on.
For what it’s worth, I appreciated the theme of how everything we do sends a message. Especially for such a post-modern, “no rules” world. The Joker was trying to send a message and the Gotham citizens sent him one right back.
No matter how loud or how subtle, how we live and how we die sends a message.
But the message of the movie is just a big lie, isn’t it?
Why waste our money and our time being entertained with this stuff? We’re always making excuses, saying we “can’t afford this” and we “don’t have time for that.” Don’t we have better things to do?
Doesn’t our preference for being entertained with lies show us where our treasure really is?
“Immanuel Church cannot compete with Hollywood in terms of raw momentary impact. No church can.”
Nor should they try to. Hollywood and the church are not in the same business. (Hollywood’s not confused on that point BTW, but it seems many in the church today are.)
If its well done and not offensive in ways that would preclude Christians from supporting it with their time and money, I see no problem in enjoying a good movie. We just need to keep it in perspective and not look to it to do something its not intended to do.
I am still digesting much of this, but I am not so naive so as to think that movie makers do not present or push a worldview through their films. Christian or nonchristian we all push ur worldview whether we are conscious of it or not. I do not think that art is inherently neutral. There are christian photgraphers who call themselves artists, but so does Hugh Heffner.
The moral value of art is assigned by the perceiver. That value assigned either honors God or it doesn’t. The art itself is not inherently idolatrous but if it causes us to be be idolaters. (The statue of David is the same content as Play Girl … different medium and different values assigned by viewers.)
“Doesn’t our preference for being entertained with lies show us where our treasure really is?”
I’d like to hear what some say the lie/world view of this movie are. (Keep in mind Narnia doesn’t proclaim the name of Jesus either.)
Clearly this story resonates with people. We’ve all been misunderstood. We’ve all tried to do the right thing and found ourselves between a rock and a hard place. We grow up being taught that lying is always absolutely wrong. Well, that’s not the whole truth either. Brad Paisley says it well.
Life is never as easy as “Defeat the Germans/Japanese and the world will be at peace.” We have to deal with the nitty gritty of lying to family & neighbors about hiding Jews, deciding to drop atomic bombs or firebombing thousands of civilians, being allies with Russia only to have that lead to the Cold War … not to mention the millions of moral dilemmas that occurred on the surface level.
Hugh wrote:
“But the message of the movie is just a big lie, isn’t it?”
What is the lie?
Is there a difference between a lie and fantasy?
The Greek word for “actor” is “hypocrite”. Does this mean that every time someone acts in a play they are telling a lie because they attempt to convince the audience that they are someone other than who they really are?
I think the big “L” word (Lie) is thrown about a bit too loosely.
@Ken: The lie is that we need to have hope in people. The Joker’s character is always cynical about people’s character, and is almost always wrong. By contrast, Batman is always optimistic about people’s character, and despite being proven right time after time, he is misunderstood and lives as an outcast.
Doesn’t that run completely against the Christian worldview regarding man’s sinfulness? Shouldn’t thoughtful Christians be denouncing this movie at least as strongly as something like The Golden Compass?
Or is a story built on a lie about the sinfulness of man less problematic than a story built on a lie about the church?
“The moral value of art is assigned by the perceiver. That value assigned either honors God or it doesn’t. The art itself is not inherently idolatrous…”
So there is a God-honoring way for me to use pornography?
@Larry: A work of art might be pornographic for one person but not for another. But once you call it “pornography,” you’ve assigned it a value and taken the subjective element out of the equation.
But assuming there is such a thing as an “objectively pornographic” work of art, then I’d say no, its use wouldn’t be God-honoring.
But just to keep this thing more or less on the tracks, let’s agree that Batman is not pornographic.
I agree that Batman is not porn, however, I don’t agree with your assignment of neutrality to art. That’s kind of like saying a book has no meaning until read and then the meaning is determined by the one who reads it.
As you say though, that’s getting off topic.
Guiroo, would you make the same complaint against Paul when he says “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear” in Ephesians 4:29? After all, words themselves are neither good nor bad, only the way they are interpreted.
Words express the speaker’s implicit intent to communicate. But doesn’t an artist (or filmmaker) have the same intent to communicate, but just more abstractly?
@ Larry: If you’re out of toilet paper perhaps. 😉
@ E.K. Farr: I didn’t address the responsibility of the creator — only the perceiver since we are the ones watching the film. The creator’s intent can definitely inform the viewers assigned value to the art, but it isn’t absolutely connected to the piece’s inherent moral value.
@ Hugh: I think Compass was more of an attack … thus the response. If we are to denounce Dark Knight on the basis of you suggest, we need to denounce every piece of fiction that doesn’t include some sort of allegory for God Himself saving man from himself — even Lord of the Rings. No more good guys and bad guys. Only bad guys and the God-figure that saves those he chooses to save.
Makes for a thin literature curriculum as stories deal with the every day experience of man having to choose right and wrong — not debating Pelagius on original sin.
I thought it was a good film, exciting, action-packed.
For all the shouts about lying, idolatry, etc, the movie did use lines of morality concerning good and evil. Thusly, it was borrowing from the Christian worldview, as there is no such thing as good and evil in the atheistic, secular, or materialistic worldview that permeates Hollywood. By depicting the Joker as evil and Batman as good (and Harvey Dent as just plain silly walking out of the hospital – I agree with Ken), Hollywood continues to unconciously proclaim the existence of the ultimate Law Giver.
Perhaps this is a different way to look at it.
Soli Deo Gloria
Allan
Modern film combines the disciplines of art and story-telling, and so our evaluation of modern film should be based on the principles of aesthetics, on the criteria of good literature, and on the truthfulness of the themes intended by the creators of the film. We should derive these principles and criteria from a biblical-theological framework. I fear, however, that our culture has created a category distinct from both art and story-telling which is called “entertainment.” The only principle generally used to evaluate “entertainment,” almost by definition, is whether or not the audience receives some form of gratification, i.e., whether or not the audience is entertained. I fear that too often this way of thinking creeps into our thought patterns. We go see movies for fun and relaxation, without questioning whether or not we should we allow ourselves to be entertained by what would not entertain God. I have not seen The Dark Knight, but I suspect that the themes intended by the authors communicate a mixture of truth and error. We can take pleasure in the truth, but we must abhor the error.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I plan to sneak in a yummy box of Cheerios next time I go to a movie to double my pleasure.