Monday, December 05, 2005
The Character Of God
I anticipate the Narnia movie this Friday like I have few films in my life. I am also afraid of it, because my love for the books is so strong and my vision of the stories so well formed and so personal - I wonder if personal dissapponitment is not inevitable. I have, like many others have not, avoided reading the books (I almost have the memorized anyway) so that my personal visions are not so deeply entrenched and I can take the movie on its own terms.
There sure is a lot being written about it though and one of the more interesting pieces was this one from the London Telegraph over the weekend by a Lewis biographer. He says a lot that is fascinating and I reccommend following the link, but I want to focus on this quote:
One is that film makers are learning how to tap into the key character attributes from the literaure and therefore invoke the whole character in the mind of the viewer without ever developing it in the film. I have read post after post after post of people that have been reading LWW in "preparation" for viewing the film. They are feeding this affect. Presuming the filmmakers find the same character touchpoints as these readers remember, as viewers they will see the whole character and not the limited version presented on the screen.
The other reason literature movies are getting better is because film as become the storytelling device of our time. When we read, we "make" the movie in our minds. We no longer deal in words, we deal in images, therefore, all a filmmaker really needs to do is tap those images.
Which brings me, finally, to my point. If Lewis was worried that a movie cannot communicate the complexity of his literary Christ analog -- how much more so is that true about the real and true God? After all, we are not to make images, but Christ was the Word. In our excitiment over this movie, it's still just a movie.
We look for ways to get to know God better. Thus we read, we watch, we learn. But how much can you know me from reading this blog. How much better to actually meet me? This movie is not a substitute for reading the books, and the books are not a substitute for reading the gospels, and reading Scripture is not a substitute for prayer. Embrace it all -- but more importantly, embrace God Himself.
So many people inside and outside of Christianity are going to attempt to say this movie is "the story." Those outside to condemn it and those inside to move the story forward. Both will be wrong. It is simply one telling of "the story" - a story so complex, so wonderful, so deep as to never be fully communicable save be supernatural means.
I want the Narnia movie to be the best movie I have ever seen. But more, I want to know God in His fullness. In all the discussion that is surrounding this movie, let's keep our lives about God, and remember -- it's just a movie.
There sure is a lot being written about it though and one of the more interesting pieces was this one from the London Telegraph over the weekend by a Lewis biographer. He says a lot that is fascinating and I reccommend following the link, but I want to focus on this quote:
Lewis was fearful of the book being made into a film. Above all, he feared it would make Aslan a kind of Disney creature, whereas in the book he wanted to create an animal that evoked awe, as well as conveying a sense of unutterable tenderness.One of the problems whenever literature is translated to film is that film cannot possibly develop a character as fully or as deeply as the written word. I think there are a couple of reasons literary films have worked better lately.
One is that film makers are learning how to tap into the key character attributes from the literaure and therefore invoke the whole character in the mind of the viewer without ever developing it in the film. I have read post after post after post of people that have been reading LWW in "preparation" for viewing the film. They are feeding this affect. Presuming the filmmakers find the same character touchpoints as these readers remember, as viewers they will see the whole character and not the limited version presented on the screen.
The other reason literature movies are getting better is because film as become the storytelling device of our time. When we read, we "make" the movie in our minds. We no longer deal in words, we deal in images, therefore, all a filmmaker really needs to do is tap those images.
Which brings me, finally, to my point. If Lewis was worried that a movie cannot communicate the complexity of his literary Christ analog -- how much more so is that true about the real and true God? After all, we are not to make images, but Christ was the Word. In our excitiment over this movie, it's still just a movie.
We look for ways to get to know God better. Thus we read, we watch, we learn. But how much can you know me from reading this blog. How much better to actually meet me? This movie is not a substitute for reading the books, and the books are not a substitute for reading the gospels, and reading Scripture is not a substitute for prayer. Embrace it all -- but more importantly, embrace God Himself.
So many people inside and outside of Christianity are going to attempt to say this movie is "the story." Those outside to condemn it and those inside to move the story forward. Both will be wrong. It is simply one telling of "the story" - a story so complex, so wonderful, so deep as to never be fully communicable save be supernatural means.
I want the Narnia movie to be the best movie I have ever seen. But more, I want to know God in His fullness. In all the discussion that is surrounding this movie, let's keep our lives about God, and remember -- it's just a movie.
