Daring to Study---and Preach--- Avatar (2009)

There’s plenty not to like about James Cameron’s sensational new film. On the eve of the film’s release in Italy, the Vatican called it “simplistic” and full of “pseudo-doctines…that turn ecology into the religion of the millenium.” See one report of that here.

A New York Times reviewer said the same thing a few weeks earlier, calling the film a “long apologia for pantheism…”

A couple of young men with whom I’d chatted last week said the film was great for the technical effects but not so good as a story, since that has been told and retold many times already. “This film,” one said, “will be remembered for the technology.”

An Onion film review called it “supremely goofy.”

Yet people continue to go see it, and the film is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from viewers not only in the U.S. but around the world. A recent article spoke of the film’s popularity in places like Russia and Brazil.

I loved it. There were several points where I responded with deep feelings: in the exquisitely beautiful scenes of the graceful, floating tree seeds, for example, and in the horror of metal gunships spewing destructive power upon a pristine Eden-like land. There is little escaping the emotional and physical power of 3-D visual effects joined with full surround sound. At one point I ducked as an object seemed to be flying right at me! At times I wondered how bugs got into the theater on a cold winter’s day, when in reality (virtual reality, that is), they were actually in the movie.

Avatar is a work of art. Unlike many films (I think of the popular The Hangover[2009]), there is a whole curriculum waiting to be drawn out of this film. With so many people seeing it and so many commenting on it, the film is a ready-made study piece. It can be an exciting way to enliven 1) youth and adult education 2) a sermon series and 3) efforts to practice talking together about the media we experience.

As the film's musical theme “I See You” declares, when we look at another living being or at life itself, when we truly look to see, we enter into a sacred relationship. There is much that this film invites. As Tillich reminded the church, intentional theological reflection begins with a relationship with life that then stimulates questions.

At its best, when the church engages the questions honored and provoked by art, it serves as a bridge between culture and biblical theology. We encourage a depth of inquiry by raising questions; we encourage dialogue by encouraging the drawing of comparisons and contrasts between a work of art and the biblical witness; we notice a prophetic socio-political critique and perceive an incarnational embrace of story as parable; we model a way of living,thinking, and being that honors the world, the arts, culture, and history while being faithful to the meta-narrative of biblical tradition.

Part II of my reflections will focus on the mythical/ biblical references I find in the film. While most critics have uncovered the obvious mythical references, most of these same critics are illiterate when it comes to biblical material. They miss the irony of a line from the corporate executive ordering the destruction of the Home Tree and its sacred seeds when he blurts, “it’s just a sacred fern for Christ’s sake!”

James Cameron is more aware than we think when it comes to biblical theology. Those who only see a “theology of pantheism” have completely missed Cameron’s deep—and amusing—theology of grace, with full reference to the ancient/modern Augustinian-Pelagian debate.

Next Up: Biblical narratives in Avatar, plus questions to pursue

Cameron's "Avatar" (2009) and Dali's "The Burning Giraffe"(1937)

A few hours after watching "Avatar" (review to follow in a day or so) I went to a favorite Costa Rican Cafe for supper. I was seated at a small table near the door that faced a wall. As I waited to order, I noticed directly in front of me a Salvador Dali print with two long figures in the foreground and off in the background a smaller figure. It was of an animal on fire.

This strange and striking image took me back to "Avatar," in which is a short scene of a running horse on fire. It was a picture of pure horror resulting from the cruelties inflicted upon the living beings in the film's Pandora. Was James Cameron making a reference to Salvador Dali?

In the foreground of the Dali print are two long, blue women. The women of Pandora in "Avatar" are long and blue. Dali called his women in the print before me "tail bone woman" and the Pandora creatures did have tails! Coincidence? The collective unconscious at work in the artistic imagination?

Dali used the image of the burning giraffe in his 1930 film, "L'Age d' Or" (The Golden Age) and again in his 1937 "The Invention of Monsters." He apparently saw this as a premonition of World War II, and his burning giraffe is an image of “the masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster.” See my source and a look at the print here. The "monsters" of war in "Avatar" are steel helicopters, the large mother ship-plane, and the massive robotic "soldiers" piloted by individuals inside these walking structures.

Cameron's Colonel Quaritch embodies this "masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster" in the film. This makes him, too, an "avatar" of sorts.

I've been unable as of yet to locate any confirmation by Cameron of this reference to Dali's work. It may be I am stretching this a bit much, but the parallels are very striking.

The juxtaposition of the Dali image with the scene of the burning horse in the film would be an excellent starting point for a discussion or sermon about some of the issues raised in film. An additional image suggestion would be Picasso's "Guernica" from the same time period, and the terrified horse in the center of the painting.

"Sherlock Holmes" For Lent

The late Doug Adams of Pacific School of Religion advised those wanting to preach and teach with film to use what their people are watching. This was "incarnational theology" by preaching these parables that were already a part of a congregation's awareness.

Last week I saw "Sherlock Holmes" and was aware that it was the #2 most seen film in the US (I'll see "Avatar" this week and comment on it soon!). I did not go to see it with any intention of looking for how to preach it, however. Years ago I read the Sherlock Holmes stories after they were given as a Christmas gift. I'd watched Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the old movies. I'd even gone to the Sherlock Holmes Pub in San Francisco back in the 1970's, and paid homage to 221B Baker Street in London in the 1990's.

The big surprise with this latest cinematic rendering of adventures of Holmes and Watson was that "Sherlock Holmes" (2009) was full of theological references. As much as I've found these in films over the last decades, I don't know why I'd be surprised...but my expectation was that I was going just to see a fun film on a cold afternoon.

I came away from it realizing that it fits perfectly with the Lenten text of the third temptation of Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4:8-9. More on that in a bit.

Holmes tells us "the little details are far more important" and it is in the little details where the theology finds its home. Interestingly Holmes uses the term "theology" in a quick reference as the plot unwinds, "I've reconciled thousands of years of theological disparity..." and that would take more parsing than I could put together as the action unfolded quickly. Perhaps a second viewing...or your own analysis....will help draw out the full meaning of what he was saying.

For this particular reflection I'll use Lord Blackwood's line to Holmes from his jail cell early in the film: "You and I are bound together on a journey that will twist the very fabric of nature..." Let's look at some of these twists:

1) The first twist is our first glimpse of Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong): he resembles Basil Rathbone! The bad guy in this film resembles Sherlock Holmes in the old movies. Evil masquerades as good, which is indeed a twist.

2) Lord Blackwood intends to twist nature with his quest for power, "...to create a new future--a future ruled by us." It's the age-old lust for power. Theologically this is a twisting, or a distorting, of the original goodness of God's creation in Genesis 1. The distortion (sin) is a human yearning for power (see the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11) and the age-old creation of domination systems like Pharaoh's Egypt (see Exodus) and Caesar's Rome (see the New Testament socio-political background of Palestine in the first century). That many miss this distortion of power of domination systems as part of the "originating sin" only speaks to our wide acceptance of them as "the way it is."

3)In the movie, Lord Blackwood reads from Revelation 1:18 and twists the words referring to Christ to apply to himself and his quest: "...I died, and behold I am alive for evermore; and I have the keys of Death and Hades." Part of his scheme is to cheat death and become all-powerful.

4)Another scriptural twist in the film is the reference to Revelation 4:7 and "the four living creatures" which become symbols, and for Holmes, clues for the development of Lord Blackwood's evil plan: the lion, the ox, the face of a man, and a flying eagle. New Testament theologians understand that these symbols become associated with each of the four Gospel writers: Matthew=angel; Mark=lion; Luke=ox; John=eagle. Blackwood is twisting the "good news of the Gospels" by associating each symbol with his murderous plots.

5) Blackwood gathers his "disciples" in a church-like structure and has a mock-communion ceremony, giving them a common chalice and telling them to "drink your allegiance here..." It was Doug Adams who has pointed out how the Latin "sacramentum" was the oath of allegiance to the emperor, and to take communion was denying the emperor his worship and instead a commitment to the cause of Christ. Blackwood twists the "sacrament" towards his own version of "a future ruled by us."

6) Another "twist" to the film is that as Blackwood begins to fall in a final fight with Holmes, he cries out, "For God's sake Holmes, cut me loose!" Ultimately the bad guy who has been all about twisting the fabric of nature, scripture, and human power, acknowledges "God" when the chips are down.

7) Little detail: did you catch how Holmes' dog is named "Gladstone"? Without making too much of the names, this "Gladstone" (solid, good news) is in stark contrast to "Blackwood" (not so solid bringer of bad news).

8) Other religious backdrop: Holmes mentions something about "these times of religious fervor" and at several moments in the film there are people demonstrating with signs reading something about "Satan." I'd need to isolate those scenes more to draw their significance, as they were very quick scenes. Yet the theological reference is there, playing off the other scenes.

9) Towards the end, isn't Blackstone wearing a coat reminiscent of the one worn by Max Schreck in "Nosferatu," an early vampire film from the silent era?

Preaching "Sherlock Holmes" in Lent might involve using the Matthew text of the temptation of Christ (the devil offers to give Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them...if you will fall down and worship me...") and the flawed human drive for power, dominion, and world domination.

As each of the temptations addresses specific earthly issues (bread from stones=economic power; jumping off the "pinnacle of the temple" and living=religious power; kingdoms=political power) this film offers an entry into the realm of the distorted, twisted human drive "to create a new future-a future ruled by us" where humans are at the center, their systems of domination provide the rule of force and protection of greed, and the word of God is pushed aside.