WHEN DEATH IS BORING

Don’t worry - there will not be any spoilers beyond the obvious in this post.

So recently I viewed another extremely popular movie and was left a bit empty at the end.  I enjoyed the movie even with some of its more than obvious flaws, and people are praising it for its handling of mercy and vengeance . . . but I think . . . eh.

Here is why:  My cousin once said to me, “The worst thing you can wish on anybody is that they learn.”  That is, what a terrible thing it is to discover that your actions that you formally thought of as justifiable or even good are suddenly revealed to you to be abhorrent.  It is like waking up the next day after tying one on and realizing that you had been an absolute jerk to everyone and thoroughly embarrassed yourself.  Now you have to live with it and clean the whole mess up.

Hollywood, for the most part, does not operate that way.  What is the ultimate payback?  Death to the bad character.  The evil one goes around creating havoc and destruction and then, at the end, usually at the hand of the good guy, the evil guy is destroyed in some gloriously colorful fashion, (usually to rise again after not being thoroughly killed, only to be killed again - not unlike Saint Sebastian.)  

The mentality in this thinking is rather medieval.  There was the practice of not permitting someone who has committed a rather heinous crime the sacrament of confession.  The thought was that, not only will they be punished in this life, they will be punished for ever in the next because they were never able to confess and receive absolution.  It was thought to be the ultimate of ultimate punishments though, as you and I know, the theology has more holes in it than a window screen.

In Hollywoodland, there are two rare exceptions to this mentality.  One is a superhero villain that must live because he needs to come back for a sequel.  The other is the even rarer case of someone coming to grips with either how evil they are and find they have to change, or have to face the consequences of their actions such as in the movie The Shawshank Redemption when the antagonist that *ahem* took advantage of the main character was beaten to a pulp because of what he did and would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair sipping his steak through a straw and knowing it was because of his own inappropriate (to say the least) actions.

So the bad guy gets blown up - lassered - shot - crushed - vivisectioned - WHATEVER - so what?  It’s just over.  There is no horror of realizing the depravity of their actions, there is no guilt, there is no consequences to be lived out, nor is there any chance of redemption (which is part of the reason we are generally opposed to the death penalty.)

I would like to propose that, except in certain cases, this “easy ending” to a movie is neither beautiful nor satisfying.  It is unimaginative and unedifying and the story teller does not give the viewer anything to use, process, or contemplate.  It points to nothing and in the end is selfish.  “We don’t have to share the world with that creep anymore.”  

THOSE WHO LIVE IN STONE HOUSES SHOULD NOT THROW GLASS ROCKS

BEFORE YOU GET ANGRY . . . 

Please let me explain.  

“Please stop talking in Church before Mass.”

“This is the Body of Christ.”

“Your sins are forgiven.”

NONE of these statements raised more eyebrows, caused more controversy, or or were met with more unbelief than when I said this in my homily:  “I HATED the new Star Wars movie.”

Now wait, wait, wait.  Please let me explain.

Most of the corniness and melodramatic acting I could put up with and, in fact, liked.  I didn’t mind (what I considered) giant holes or none-continuities in the story line.  I didn’t even mind the whole-sale trashing of the laws of physics NOT THE LEAST of which was putting AN ENTIRE SUN INSIDE A PLANET (*ahem*) and not even so much as altering one iota of gravitational pull.  (My Mother, God bless her soul, always complained that I over-analyzed movies.  She never met Fr. Pfeiffer!)  But really, I was Okay with that.

What was the laser blast that broke the X-fighter’s back was what a professor at the seminary used to call an, “unearned ending.”  I suppose because the heroine of the movie was a sad orphan on a horrible planet with a crumby job, we were supposed to be very excited that she saves the day and rises to prominence.  But really, what did she do to earn the role?  Was there a lengthy process of learning how to deal with the power that needed to be developed in her?  Where her boundaries tested?  Did she have to face hard knocks as she developed her knowledge, skills, and strength?  Was she even surprised?  I picture her ending up on French Canada lost with her friends and suddenly being able to speak French and thinking nothing of it.  “Wow, I can speak French!”

INSERT - BEST GOLDIE HAWN QUOTE EVER:  "I speak French! Do I know what I said? Yes I do. I must've learned in Paris"

She masters this awesome power, knows her way around, understands and can manipulate advanced machinery (the size of a planet) without even really thinking about it.  She can do all and knows all.  She is a demigod.  It would be like LeBran James playing basketball against a bunch of 8th graders and we are supposed to be all excited that he won.

Think of the life of Jesus Christ.  What if He, as God, didn’t come to be like us in all things but sin, but was also incapable of pain, could destroy His enemies by saying the word, had the strength of - well - God - so that carrying His Cross meant nothing nor could He feel pain  Then when we faced hardship and pain and someone would say, “Think of Christ,” we might respond, “Yeah, but He was God.  He didn’t feel pain, didn’t suffer doubt, and had the strength of a thousand giants.  Who cares?  If I had that going for me I could withstand all things too.”

The movie, for me, was the equivalent in the faith life of Bonhoeffer’s cheap grace - all of the benefits with none of the work.  It was a mediocre story well told, but it left me empty.  

(Maybe I’m just getting old.)

On a side note, having this discussion with some die hear Star Wars fans, I was told that something could come up in a later movie like she was fully trained but then had amnesia and was abandoned on this planet until this story picked up at which point it all came back to her.  We shall see.

THE SLAP THAT COST $250,000

Bluecoats is an organization that strives to take care of our emergency first responders who are injured in the line of duty.  I am lucky enough to be one of their chaplains.  Last night they had their annual banquet and yearly meeting.  They always have a great speaker and last night was no exception.

 

The speaker Mr. Joseph D. Pistone who served in the FBI for 27 years, 6 of which were spent undercover as a member of the Mafia.  His work led to hundreds of convictions the story of which is told in the critically acclaimed major motion picture, "Donnie Brasco" featuring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp.  Below is some outtakes from that movie.  You need not watch it but I wanted to make a comment about something that happens about 28 seconds into the clip.  He is shown slapping his wife.

 

During his talk last night he called special attention to this moment in the movie.  He desired to make absolutely clear that at no time in his life did he ever lay a hand on his wife.  The slap was completely fictional.  This was stressed in the most earnest of ways.

 

A little later someone asked how much of the movie did he have control over.  He responded that he was pretty lucky and that he had a bit of say so over the movie.  Joe was gone, however, the day that they shot the slap.  Becoming rather upset he shut down production for half a day.  "Eventually the director won out.  He was the "captain" of the ship as it were.  But I cost them about a quarter of a million shutting down the film for half a day."

 

Now as you can imagine, spending six years with the Mafia, Mr. Pistone probably did not lead a saintly life.  But what is it that led him to say, "This far and no further."  The attack on marriage, on his manhood, on his role as husband was more than he was willing to let go without challenge.  There is a lesson in there somewhere for all of our men.  How far are we willing to go.  I would personally be very flattered if anyone would want to make a movie of my life, pay me lots of money, and have Johnny Depp play me.  Would that trump my beliefs enough that I would bow easily to something that went against my core beliefs?  I desperately hope not.

WHY CATHOLICS AND STAR TREK DON'T MIX - YET

Have you every realized how much of the ritual of the Mass relies on gravity? Not gravitas – but physical gravity. This came to mind the other day when watching the new Star Trek movie. I was thinking that if this were a Catholic enterprise (pun intended) there would be a crucifix over the door to the bridge, a rosary hanging over the main screen, and a Sacred Heart Auto Club statuette on the railing. There would be a number of problems for a priest on board. For example, who would have jurisdiction for the Enterprise out in space? In some dioceses Ascension Thursday is on – well – Thursday. Other dioceses such as mine has Ascension Thursday Sunday. Catholic are obliged to follow the practice of whatever diocese they happen to be in. So would the Enterprise need to figure out over what exact spot on earth they to figure out what they are to do?

Well, they would have to have their own prelature most probably. A diocese of one congregation. The Diocese of the Final Frontier. But how do you make the Liturgical Calendar and the Star Date calendar collaborate? When instructed to have the Easter Vigil after sundown – how do you figure that out if there is no sun? Or if you happen to be in a solar system with several suns? This is perhaps why they did not have a priest as part of the story line. FAR too complicated.

But I digress. Back to gravity – something we have not come up with a great alternative for in space. It would be virtually impossible to have Mass as we now celebrate it. There would certainly have to be a Missale Romanum – Space Edition that a Pontifical Committee would probably spend the next 12 years trying to produce. Vestments would not work. These big – loose flowing gowns would just float and around. The lavabo would be tricky. How do you pour water over the priest’s hands if it would just come out in a glob and float around? It would be much the same thing for the wine being poured into the chalice. Corporals would be next to useless as the particles of the Eucharist would simply float, not fall to the table top to be captured by it. Sitting works if you are strapped down but what about kneeling and standing?

There is a reason astronauts don’t smoke. Well, maybe two reasons. One is that they tend to be health conscious people. The second is that there is smoke and can’t be good for the sensitive machinery and flames and oxygen tend not to mix very well – or perhaps too well. And it is not like you can just go out for a smoke. So what of candles? Don’t see it happening. Can you imagine wads of hot wax floating around? Then there are processions, incense, sprinkling rites, baptisms, distribution of the Precious Blood, and a host of other things that I have not more of my time thinking of.

It seems to me that if we want more Catholic astronauts these are some things we should consider addressing. I can’t imagine going on a five year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no man has gone before without Mass.

I’m just saying.

And finally: Just out of curiosity I typed "Mass in space" into Google and this is what I found.

SPE SALVE AT THE MOVIES

WARNING: If you have not seen the movie “Atonement” and plan on seeing it, you may want to skip this post.

So, as you might have guessed, I did see the movie. It left me feeling sad. Not boo-hoo sad, just dispirited sad. (I tend not to get too boo-hooy) None-the-less I had a hard time shaking it. Those of you who have seen it know that the main love interests are never granted their happy ending of “ever after.” With his dying thoughts the young soldier clings to the words, “come back to me,” and the idea of the house by the sea with the woman he loved. But as it was (this is your LAST chance to stop reading) they both died during the tragedies of war. Heavy hearted I walked away from the theater. That night I ruminated on the sadness and “utter destruction” of any redeeming shred of hope that might pervade. But in the end, the only hope came from a made-up story. Hardly satisfying. One had only to remember that it was a fiction of a fiction.

Surprisingly it was not until Monday that I was released from this spell. It was during a funeral of all things. I was preaching on hope and the Pope’s encyclical, “Spe Salve” when it dawned on me that the movie was exactly what this encyclical fights against. It perfectly exemplifies the horror of life without “the great hope that cannot be destroyed even by small-scale failures or by a breakdown in matters of historic importance.” These two particular characters never show a jot of a greater understanding of hope other than what they had in each other (and one of them aptly notes that he is not sure that the whole thing, held together with spit and promise, could stand based on one stunted, amorous night in the library.) In this, their only (shaky at best) hope for life is a total loss and “their passing away thought an affliction and their going forth from us utter destruction.” (Wisdom 3:1-6,9)

In an odd turn of events, the only ones that had any eternal hope are two of the worst of the antagonists! They are the only ones that presented even a jot of faith (in that they were married in a church and one of them seemed to give an expression that we might interpret as remorse) and thus are at least presented with the possibility of the Great Hope and chance of repentance.

In some book on hope somewhere upstairs in our library was written that even for the Christians that knew the smokestacks of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, there was still hope. One’s body could even be destroyed, but not Christian hope as it promised that life continues. As the rite for Christian burial states, “Lord, for your faithful people, life is changed, not ended!” But without God and that solid hope we have a glimpse of the meaninglessness of death (and subsequently life) where hope becomes only about fulfilling personal desires. “Let me put this very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope.” (para 23)

Consider the story of St. Josephine Bakhita from paragraph 3, “The example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time. I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope John Paul II. She was born around 1869—she herself did not know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life. Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying “masters” who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of “master”—in Venetian dialect, which she was now learning, she used the name “paron” for the living God, the God of Jesus Christ. Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron” above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her “at the Father's right hand”. Now she had “hope” —no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God. She understood what Paul meant when he reminded the Ephesians that previously they were without hope and without God in the world—without hope because without God. Hence, when she was about to be taken back to Sudan, Bakhita refused; she did not wish to be separated again from her “Paron”. On 9 January 1890, she was baptized and confirmed and received her first Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch of Venice. On 8 December 1896, in Verona, she took her vows in the Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and from that time onwards, besides her work in the sacristy and in the porter's lodge at the convent, she made several journeys round Italy in order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people. The hope born in her which had “redeemed” her she could not keep to herself; this hope had to reach many, to reach everybody.”

Without God her story would have been a stark and dismal as the above movie. Who would want it? “I have seen that all perfection has an end, but your command is boundless.” Psalm 119.

POP, POP CULTURE, AND POPCORN

Does viewing movies cause violent tendencies in those who watch them? I can answer this from personal experience and my answer is unreservedly yes.

I was working at the West Theatre (owned and operated by the Slovenian Community since 1942) when “E.T.” came to town. The West was an old time single screen theater and everything from collecting tickets to selling popcorn took place in that one auditorium. My job as assistant manager (which meant I was paid 25 cents more than everyone else) was to watch the movie and make sure the it remained clear and the sound was good, and to see to it that nobody was smoking or talking, and that, in general, everything ran smoothly, which it did most of the time, which made the job after seeing any movie two or three screening incredibly boring.

Well “E.T.” was so popular it ran for two weeks, which meant at least two screening every single day of the week and three on the weekend. Mercifully that little extra terrestrial left. But he came back again for three more weeks. This is where I can testify that movies cause violence. By the end of the run I was wishing that just once that ugly little thing would die a slow horrible death at the end of the movie.

All joking aside the issue of how we portray life in the movies, sexuality, about what it important and what makes us happy, and the amount a violence we see has an effect on our lives. It is like Scriptures that call us to task when we blame God when everything goes wrong in our lives and take all the credit when thing go right. Karen Hershenson brought this notion up in her book, “Hollywood vs America”. Here is an excerpt from an old article on the book;

“The book exposes what Medved contends are Hollywood’s "three big lies" — that movies and TV don’t influence, they just entertain; that they merely reflect what’s going on in society; and that producers are just being good business people."What has happened in Hollywood," he says, "is the lunatics have taken over the asylum."

"Medved recalls talking recently to a top studio executive who claimed "Lethal Weapon 3" — last year’s action blockbuster — "saved thousands of lives" with a four-second close-up of stars Danny Glover and Mel Gibson fastening their seatbelts. Never mind the exploding office buildings and 150-mph car
chases.”

It's one way or the other guys. You can't have it one way when you are blowing up people and another when you are putting on seatbelts. Either art influences or it does not. I happen to believe that art - even bad movies - has a great impact on our lives.

This whole notion came up the other day with a man whom I have a great deal of respect and he shared his observations.

“A few weeks ago, yet another all-too-familiar tragedy played itself out in the news. A young woman, eighteen years old and only recently graduated from high school was abducted from the parking lot of a shipping center in suburban Kansas City. Her body was found a few days later in a secluded area outside of town. She had been strangled, and a local man is in custody for the crime. No connection has been established between suspect and victim at this writing, and this appears to be yet another random tragedy.

“On the increasing-ominous web site My Space, the young man’s “profile” contained a number is disturbing entries including his desire to torture and kill. According to one article in the days following his arrest, a connection was made between the crime committed and a similar crime depicted in a movie.

“The charge that movies incite, or at least inspire – behavior is not new. It’s also pretty hard to debate on an empirical level. How many violent acts can be attributed to an urban gang film? I’m not sure; how many people suddenly went out to feed the birds after watching “Mary Poppins”?

“But consider this detail, which I have not seen in any article relating to this crime. The victim was employed at a movie theater. It is conceivable, as I allow my undisciplined imagination free reign, that this was not such a random action after all. Did the victim, on some occasion, meet the suspect perhaps serve him his popcorn or tell him to, “Enjoy the show?” Was she, in fact, targeted as an indirect result of her job?

“On a larger scale, what culpability does the movie industry – indeed this entire culture – share in this sad sequence of events? As our senses are assaulted and our nerves dulled by depictions of violence, do we even shake our heads and cluck our tongues anymore as we switch from CNN to HBO?

“Movies such as the “Saw” and “Hostel” franchise depict unspeakable acts of depravity committed in the name of entertainment. The egregiously flawed rating system in use by the movie industry restricts admission solely on the basis of age. While there can be no practical way to assess mental stability, the notion that “Saw” or Hostel is truly intended for “mature audiences” is ludicrous. No mature and reasonable individual would patronize such films.

“The week after the girl in Kansas City was killed, “Hostel 2” opened in theaters across the country. Hundreds of refreshments stand and box office clerks waited on thousands of complete strangers who paid to see brutality and carnage enacted on the screen. We can only imagine what twisted fantasies were indulged there in the darkness. Who knows what unspeakable plans were made on the way out the doors?”