CONTACT: Albert J. Bergesen, Professor of Sociology, 520-621-3303, [email protected]
Jessica Lange as angel? Sure, but Clint Eastwood? Audrey Hepburn as God? How about location shots of Hell in Punxsutawney, Penn.?
Who says God isn't a force in the cinema?
Religious groups often scorn the American film industry for its anti-religious bias. But two prominent sociologists say that God and references to God actually abound in film, and often appear when you least expect it.
Forget the films that deal directly with God and the life of Christ _ "The Ten Commandments," "The Last Temptation of Christ," "The Robe" and a host of others. God makes cameo appearances in genres ranging from action western to quirky comedy, say Albert J. Bergesen and the Rev. Andrew M. Greeley at the University of Arizona.
Their new book, "God and the Movies" (Transaction Press), samples the variety of images of God that film makers incorporate in their works. Most are metaphoric. Some are a stretch. However the authors are less concerned with reviewing films than how films reflect attitudes about society.
The book evolved from a class the two authors teach at the University of Arizona, where Greeley occasionally teaches. Bergesen and Greeley are both avid movie fans and they gleefully make their case for the use of film as a way of offering an occasional parable via popular culture rather than direct religious instruction.
The 1985 Clint Eastwood western, "Pale Rider," is such a vehicle. "Not all religious imagery on the silver screen is graceful and sacramental," says Bergesen.
Eastwood plays a mysterious preacher who protects defenseless homesteading miners from a rapacious mining company run by evil men who bully and kill to get their way. Eastwood's minister is either God or an avenging angel who protects the homesteaders by thumping thecompany's goons, and ultimately, confronting and killing a group of hired gunmen and their leader (the devil?) before riding away at the end of the film.
The authors suggest God takes on other images, such as a voice in "Field of Dreams," a white light in "Flatliners," a flirt in "All That Jazz," a Christ-like self-sacrificing lottery winner in "Babette's Feast" and a cartwheeling rock star in "Dogma." Other imagery includes the Force in the "Star Wars" series, and Bill Murray's TV weatherman who is trapped in a day and in a town that won't go away until he finds salvation in "Groundhog Day."
"God in the Movies" references just some of the creative ability of films to offer instruction on the meaning of life from a viewpoint reflective of why Christians celebrate this time of year, and not because it signals the start of the holiday film season.
Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert also offers some insight in his preface to the book.
Bergesen says he and Greeley will next teach the class, which has become one of the most popular in the UA sociology department, in the spring 2002 semester. Bergesen will teach it solo during this summer's presession between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of the regular summer session at the UA.
Albert J. Bergesen is professor of sociology at the University of Arizona in Tucson who writes extensively on the sociology of art and culture. Andrew M. Greeley is a Catholic priest, novelist, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Arizona and a sociologist with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
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