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Title: Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film by Joel W. Martin, Conrad E., Jr. Ostwalt ISBN: 0-8133-8830-9 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: February, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $36.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Review of "Screening the Sacred"
Comment: Martin, Joel and Conrad Ostwalt Jr., Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.
In a general sense, Screening the Sacred, as indicated by the Library of Congress classification found on page iv, is a book about the religious aspects of motion pictures. More specifically, as the subtitle indicates, it is a book concerning religion, myth and ideology of popular American film.
The thesis of Screening the Sacred can be found on page 4 of the "Introduction" where Joel Martin writes that there needs to be a rethinking of "the relations of religion and film, of religious studies and film criticism, and of religion and contemporary culture" with the hopes that their anthology will convince, on one hand, "students of film that they should take religion seriously and, on the other, convince students of religion that they need to take popular films seriously."
As noted above, the book is subdivided into three thematic units, theological criticism, mythological criticism, and ideological criticism. At this point, I would like to explore the author's meaning and use of these approaches.
Theological criticism tends to analyze how religious texts and thinkers have talked about God and try to relate these representations to modern and postmodern realms. While primarily concerned with Judeo-Christian scriptures, theological criticism studies the "cathedrals" of classic religious concerns, sensibilities and themes and how they are expressed in films. The basic assumption behind such criticism is that certain films can be understood as an elaboration on or the questioning of a particular "cathedral."
The means by which to explore these "cathedrals" can occur in at least two ways. In the first, criticism draws on traditional concepts of good and evil, redemption, grace, home, forgiveness and uses them as windows to understanding. In the second, there is a reliance on allegorical interpretation where it is assumed that God has caused history to happen in a way that always points to Judeo-Christian traditions. In this type of interpretation, critics study and gloss for signs of the prophetic message.
Unlike the narrow scope of theological criticism, myth criticism employs a much broader definition of religion which asserts that religion manifests itself through cross-cultural forms, including myths, rituals, systems of purity and gods. Thus, it is possible to glean from any such film a culture's bedrock assumptions and aspirations. Myth critics, therefore, focus on our psychological quest for meaning and aspects of our world not normally accessible through the conscious mind. Or as Albanese might say, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Whereas meaning is an important focus of myth criticism, ideological critics study the relationship of religion and society, with the underlying notion that culture and art shape and are shaped by politics. These critics interpret film as a system of representations, and ask how films and film genres shape social subjects and reveal how the ideologies of social subjects shape films and their interpretations. To reach these ends, race, class, gender and the postmodern are some of the central interpretative categories explored. (Interestingly, while it may appear that this type of inquiry is rather weak in the analysis of religion--because religion no longer holds the power it once did to perform ideologically--the editors hope to call into question this assumption.)
The vehicle by which the authors explore the three themes of the book is through articles by different authors--approximately 3 to 4 per section. Articles run anywhere from 8 to 14 pages, with each author permitted liberal room for a complete listing of sources and needed additional notes.
Joel Martin and Conrad Ostwalt deserve praise for this book on three fronts. They have, as intended, produced a respectable academic book pertaining to religion and films, without embracing typical, emotional, Christian reactions. (I was particularly impressed that they had courage enough to include articles dealing with such sexually explicit films as Blue Velvet and Nine and a Half Weeks.) Second, the editors have a keen sense of what they wanted to do and obviously thought long and hard about the three themes they would explore. I liked very much how each theme was briefly discussed in the Introduction, and then in a short introduction leading into each section. It was also in those short introductions that the editors introduced the writers and a little about their philosophies--but not so much that it prejudices the reader from his/her own reactions to each article. Third, while I don't know how widely this book has been read by students of religion or film, the book, due to its well thought out and serious nature, should advance the primary goal the editors have of helping both groups of students rethink (or more likely the case, realize) the relationship between religion and film in their criticisms and writings.
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