The Gospel According to Bing

     These last couple of weeks my wife and I have watched a few of the old Biblical epic movies, and have generally enjoyed them, with some qualifications.  In the meantime, I'd been asked to do a radio interview on sentimentality in the Catholic liturgy as practiced in America and Canada.  That's brought a question to mind, or maybe an observation.  I'm convinced that much of the greatest art in the world, in all genres, is religious in nature; I'd even go so far as to say that most of it is.  That shouldn't be too much of a surprise.  What, if not longing for the ultimate truth, could inspire a Dante to craft his symphonic poem of love?  Or, if Shakespeare had not been stirred to ponder the terrible question of man's fate in a universe that sometimes seems -- I say seems -- indifferent, he would not have written King Lear, and if he had not retained his hope in a redemption that reverses the world's vision of strength and weakness, he would not have made his king, in the end, wise, childlike, and unbearably human.

     At the same time, a lot of religious art is simply dreadful.  What makes it so?  I'm thinking now about those Biblical epics.  Some of them had the good sense to steer clear of attempting to portray the Son of God directly -- fearing that they might reduce him to the banal.  Instead, they show the majesty of Christ indirectly, by his effects upon the lives of ordinary and often woodenheaded people.  The movies (and the books) Barabbas, Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur, and The Robe fall into this category.  It's a good choice to make, but even so, the director of a Biblical epic is constantly beset by the temptation to fall back upon a choir of pious oohs and aahs, to rely upon a religiose cheap thrill, to call from the audience a phony tear or a nervous pose of seriousness.  Not even Ben-Hur escapes that danger (and The Robe, which really is not a bad movie, despite its historical absurdities, flirts with it constantly).  You have in Ben-Hur a couple of performances that I can't figure how anyone could improve upon -- Stephen Boyd as Messala, Jack Hawkins as Judah's adoptive Roman father.  You have a terrific score, the justly famous chariot race, William Wyler's intelligent direction, and sometimes, not very often, a call for an unearned tear.

     Still, I like all four of those movies, and think that Ben-Hur is genuinely great.  What saves them, what they absolutely cannot do without, is theological reflection.  That is, the directors have been humble enough to submit their minds to be taught by the meaning of the Christian message.  Each movie illuminates Christ, now and again, in an unusual way -- as when the Roman centurion in Ben-Hur is momentarily confounded by the brave and silent Jesus, who has just given Judah a drink of water, that element that will return in spate in the thunderstorm that washes the blood of the Crucified down into the pores of the earth.  Or when, in Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, which I also like, despite its Who's Who of actors, Jesus uses the parable of the Prodigal Son to convict the dissolute dinner guests at Matthew's house, and to reconcile that tax collector with the stubborn Peter, who stands outside in the role of the petulant elder brother.

     At all events, sentimentality -- which is but a parody of deep feeling -- is deadening.  Nowadays, in mass entertainment, it comes in the really noxious form of easy, "sentimental" cynicism, when a banal remark with the form of a sniggering comback is supposed to elicit the cheap thrill of superiority, an easy confirmation of despair and meaninglessness, as of rich kids slumming in the precincts of hell.   Yet I think there are connections to be drawn between that kind of sentimentality and the cloying, smothering sort that characterizes bad religous art, including the bad religious music we've discussed here before.

     How to explain?  We also watched a couple of movies by a director who, I think, is a great deal less cynical than he appears to be, as he is instead a fantastic storyteller with a heart for human shame, absurdity, and, occasionally, love and heroism -- Billy Wilder (we watched The Apartment and Witness for the Prosecution).  There's no sentimentality in Billy Wilder, but there sure is a lot of sentimentality in what passes for Christian pop, and that sentimentality is the kissing cousin, or maybe the drippy smooching cousin, of easy cynicism.  (By the way, I want to preserve a distinction between kitsch, which retains a bit of childlike innocence to it, and the self-indulgent sentimentality of our hymn writers, who do not even bother to affect innocence.)  So when Bob Hurd writes, "What are you doing tonight?  I'd really like to spend some time with you," referring to the Son of God as if he were a very nice teenage date, he's far less honest, and far less reverent, than Wilder is when he dares to show the hollowness of a man who wears decency like a well-tailored business suit (Fred MacMurray), to be taken off when convenient.  Wilder is sharp, incisive, dogged; he wants the truth.  But bad religious art, like bad art generally, flees from the truth.  Wilder may not see what you'd like him to see, but he strives to see, and to show you what he sees.  If he ever did a Biblical epic -- and I don't think he did -- it would be nothing but odd and angular theological reflection, the drama of sinful man encountering the Holy One of Israel.  Bad religious art, like political correctness, falls back upon the vague, the automatic, the thoughtless, the manipulated and predictable response.  It pastes a happy face upon the pew and calls it joy.  Gather us in, the nice and the naughty.

Comments

[Ethan C.]

Did someone say bad religious art? I found this tonight: your deceased pet in a picture with Jesus!

[Abigail]

I can't get myself to watch any movie that portrays Christ, because if it was badly done, it would be unbearable, but if it was well done, it would be even worse--I wouldn't know what to do with the emotion it evokes in me. I would be emotionally responding as if it were He, when I know it's not.

But it occurs to me that the problem must be with me, and not with the portrayal in art of Christ, because icons are an ancient tradition. Then again, the iconographer knows he's not free to portray Christ any old way, according to his own imagination; he uses some sacred image as his source, some image that has a connection to revelation.

Could the principles of iconography be used in a film? My first inclination is to say no, because a film uses an actor,* a real person as the image of Christ. But I have enough Christian sensibilities that what I've just typed brings me up short.

So, maybe an iconographic film of the life of Christ could be made. Maybe it should. I'm still not sure I could bring myself to watch it.

*of course it's possible that one could make an animated film about Christ using iconographic theology, but I really, really hope no one ever does

[Joe Long]

"Bad religious art, like political correctness, falls back upon the vague, the automatic, the thoughtless, the manipulated and predictable response. It pastes a happy face upon the pew and calls it joy."

I speculate that the difference often has to do with the starting point. Is a genuine religious or religiously-influenced story being told using artistic methods - or did someone in charge of a pack of artists-for-hire happen to notice that religious themes can sell?!

This too parallels political correctness - mercenary motives poorly concealed under bland pieties.

[pilgrim kate]

It would be nice if one's starting point contributed to good art:
sincere belief = good art
cynical opportunism = bad art

The correlation is much more complex as Esolen has indicated, and, perhaps perversely, great art sometimes emerges from unbelief, and we've all seen the bad art that can flow from heart-felt piety.

I've often been puzzled by this in the area of sacred/liturgical music. There is wonderful music that has been written by composers who were agnostics, and how they were not drawn to the faith in part by what they composed is a mystery. I can hope that, unbeknownst to others, they were.

[Joe Long]

Kate, I think that sincerity does usually show in the quality of the art...sincere struggle or doubt or even sincere cynicism, or of course sincere faith. (Like the old joke goes: "Sincerity is everything; once you can fake THAT, you've got it made.")

Necessary-but-not-sufficient, of course; very sincere people produce profoundly bad movies, novels, poems, and especially music, all the time. But if you start with the message - not the anticipated market demand - you're at least still in the running to create something worthwhile.

[Pedro]

Thank you for the thoughtful commentary. The topic of bad Christian art interests me, as the church I grew up in is awash in horribly bland "praise music" at the moment. I commend the following article on the subject by Frank Burch Brown, a professor at Christian Theological Seminary:

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1959

A sample:

"No doubt some of the worship services that now use popular and casual idioms were not awe-filled to begin with but awful: bland, stiff and stifled. Nevertheless, if the medium of religious practice and expression is not only predominantly casual in style but also artistically "flimsy" (a complaint lodged by Kathleen Norris), or perhaps even kitsch, then one must ask: What sort of God are worshipers envisioning as they sing or look or move? To what sort of life and growth do they suppose they are being called? The possibility that a relatively casual and unchallenging style might be all there is to a community’s worship life is bound to be deflating to those whose call to discipleship causes them to yearn for something more in aesthetic formation and development."

[Bill R]

"The possibility that a relatively casual and unchallenging style might be all there is to a community’s worship life is bound to be deflating to those whose call to discipleship causes them to yearn for something more in aesthetic formation and development."

Very well said. We know that the Jews of Christ's time longed for a Conquering Messiah. These days you'd think some Christians long for the Messiah as Film or Rock Star.

[Michael Prince]

Call me sentimental (hah!), but I still love the Catholic-themed movies directed by Leo McCarey -- including those Bing flicks. In fact, I was a bit disappointed that your post, despite its title, did not address them directly. I gather, though, that you would at the very least classify them as kitsch. And, putting aside my enjoyment of them, perhaps I would, too.

Maybe I'm just oddly nostalgic for an era (which I, by and large, did not live through, having been born in 1957)in which Catholicism was treated in a respectful manner in popular entertainment. I have a large collection of Jack Benny radio programs, and almost every Christmas, the Jewish Benny (who had the clout to have creative control of his program) brings the proceedings to a halt and asks the Catholic Dennis Day to sing "Ave Maria". Nobody makes a big deal about it -- it's just expected. That's the world I miss.

[Tony Esolen]

Michael,

I like those movies, too. Except -- I like the other actors better than I like Father O'Malley. A student of mine once pointed out to me that Christ is mentioned not once in Going My Way. He was right. On the other hand, Barry Fitzgerald is flat out brilliant. Leo McCarey also pulled a fast one on Fitzgerald, I'm told. In the last scene in the movie, Father Fitzgibbons is giving a farewell speech to the boys in the choir, while, unbeknownst to him, Bing and his former girlfriend have brought the old priest's elderly mother, whom he hasn't seen in 60 years, all the way from Ireland. Well, instead of an actress, they brought Fitzgerald's OWN mother, without telling him. The moment of recognition is priceless. I can't watch it without choking up.

But the theology behind Going My Way, to the extent that there is any, is dubious. The Bells of Saint Mary's, for its part, is great to watch, because anything with Ingrid Bergman is great to watch. She embodies Christian charity and sacrifice, without compromising her authority (as Father O'Malley seems to encourage her to do). But the really great Christian movie with Ingrid Bergman in it is The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. She and Robert Donat are tremendous.

[William Rush]

Tony, I agree with your choice of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. Christianity without syrup.
There are other movies which seem to me to be 'Christian', without being expicitly or even consciously so, e.g. Babette's Feast ( generosity and hospitality), Separate Tables ( acceptance and compassion),Brief Encounter (rejection of the temptation of adultery) etc.
Admiitedly, none of these are recent.

[Ethan C.]

William, you can add the films of Robert Bresson to the list of great Christian films, with some being explicit (Diary of a Country Priest) and others implicit (Au Hasard Bathasar, the best film ever about a donkey). I'd also add Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, if one can look endure its (necessarily) sordid plot elements. Watching that film gave me the clearest feeling I've ever had of the misery of sin and the miracle of grace.

I think Anderson's recent There Will Be Blood is filled with religious truth as well, though it's much more tragic than Magnolia. It's more of a study of damnation than salvation, but I think it's both honest and true in its moral judgments.

[nancy]

you are a fantastic writer, however i am glad you do not make your living as an art critic.

[nancy]

i would like to say i am sorry about my comment about you not being an art critic. i really did not mean it to be bad, in fact it does sound bad and i guess it really is. i do not understand your references to the movies but i and i guess i totally missed your point as well. perhaps i can try again.

[nancy]

i know for one thing that everywhere i turn there is editing, advertisements that are seducing and mind bending, tv shows that warp the heart, magazines that tell me what to think in a worldly you must have it way. it goes on and on...the very essense of living in the world but not of it. the battle the shield the rock reality of seeing the world and knowing that it is very much the opposite of what God wants for me. it is especially hard to see my children live in this. i often wonder how to make art in this view. but, i think that no matter what we try to make in this world, art or anything else, that it will not be able to define our Lord and God in a way that there are no words of anything available that can truly show that. and so even if one was of pure heart and true meaning in wanting to do this, it might be imposible to do it without God wanting to do it through the Holy Spirit. and so we are left with the worldly reality of people doing what they can to evoke a dead response with by dead means.