“The best way to see religion is as humanity’s response to the puzzle of its own existence.”
- Richard Holloway, Waiting for the Last Bus: Reflections on Life and Death
A few days into lockdown, I heard a tapping on my window which began gently then became more rapid. Okay, I thought, first a plague, now hailstones – the order’s a bit off but biblically apocalyptic nonetheless. So far we’ve avoided the locusts but have had to contend with Krakatoa kicking off, and a raging forest fire dangerously close to the abandoned Chernobyl plant. These are confusing and uncertain times, and I’m rather envious of religious people who have their faith and the perceived certainty of the words of God. Which is all a rather florid way of saying that I’ve been watching a lot of films about religion and faith since all of this started. I’m not entirely sure what that means. I’m fairly certain that I’m not about to give myself over to God in the face of the devastating, epoch shifting Covid-19 pandemic in a sort of pre-deathbed conversion.
So maybe there’s something spiteful in my viewing choices? I’ve certainly watched a couple of films that portray members of the clergy doubting their own faith, finding themselves powerless to help their flock. Oh good, they haven’t got a clue either, I think. For example, Ingmar Bergman’s 1963 film Winter Light finds Gunnar Björnstrand’s Swedish pastor unable to provide words of comfort in the face of a potential nuclear holocaust. As the film plays out, we discover that Pastor Ericsson has been lost for years, his dwindling congregation and failed parishioner are mere side-effects of his loss of faith. Bergman provides us with no clear answers as to whether Pastor Ericsson’s journey will bring him back to God, or indeed if that’s what he actually needs. It’s a quiet, deeply affecting story simultaneously about the presence and absence of faith. Additionally, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed (2017) is a muscular retooling of Bergman’s film, replacing nuclear anxiety with ecological unease and it’s an absolute cracker too.
In a similar vein, Antonia Bird’s Priest (1994) questions the dubious morality of the confession booth and the absolving of sin. A Roman-Catholic priest is horrified to hear that a 14 year old parishioner is being sexually abused by her father. Crippled by his own faith and fury, he has to decide whether or not to act, whilst struggling with his own homosexuality. Written by the legendary British screenwriter Jimmy McGovern, the film is a scabrous and incisive takedown of a religion that seems more protective towards paedophiles than two men who love each other. Unsurprisingly, it’s often a harrowing watch, occasionally leavened by wry humour, flights of absurdity and glimmers of hope and humanity.
More spiteful still, I watched the tackily titled yet emotionally wrenching Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018) a two part television documentary which charts the rise and devastating fall of the People’s Temple and their charismatic, narcissistic leader Jim Jones. The horrific events of Jonestown, relayed by the traumatised victims, are a stark warning of the seductive power of absolute certainty. Jones provided a utopian vision of society at a violent and turbulent time of racial tensions, political assassinations and the Vietnam War. Utopian though Jones’ multicultural community appears, the methods he uses to protect it are brutal and authoritarian – the absolute extreme end of religious doctrine. Despite the trashy title, Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle returns the humanity to the situation and portrays it as what it was; a horrendous tragedy that is offensively cheapened by acerbic asides not to drink the Kool-Aid entering our cultural lexicon.
Jim Jones was a self-obsessed charlatan, masquerading as a savior for souls troubled by the turbulent 60s and 70s. An aberration, exemplified by Frederick Wiseman’s documentary Essene (1972), made around the same time as Jones was in the ascension. It follows the day to day activities of a Benedictine monastery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the monks have similar concerns to the congregation of the people’s temple. In one scene, a group discussion about their lives before the monastery, the monks converse about societal uncertainty, violence and of no longer feeling safe in the city. Individual work and group worship are the balm that the monastery offers these troubled souls. Whilst he occasionally shoots the sermons and prayers, Wiseman is more interested in the institutional structures, personal relationships and petty disagreements. As an observational documentarian he never overtly judges his subjects nor does he seek to trash religion. Above all else you leave Essene with a secular and humane portrait of a community.
At a time of lockdown and self-isolation, community is more important than ever. Last week, former workmates and I lost a very dear friend and colleague to the Coronavirus. It was a sudden, upsetting loss which we’re all still dealing with. The support from each other and the amazing support shown to Les by Alex and Ellie at the end of his life was incredibly heartening and provided a great deal of comfort.
As a small tribute to our friend Les, I watched his “favourite film of all” – Powell & Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947) stunningly shot in Technicolour by award winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff. It’s a gripping tale of isolation, spiritual duty and sexual repression in a nunnery located high on a Himalayan mountaintop. Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron are superb as the dueling nuns, their tensions frayed by the altitude, a culture clash with the natives and David Farrar’s low-buttoned shirt and short khaki shorts. The tension between the pair expertly builds towards a vertigo-inducing climax at the bell tower.
Ten years later, Deborah Kerr would go on to play another Nun battling her primal urges in John Huston’s Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957). In that, she has to decide between God and a grizzled but incredibly charming Robert Mitchum (a tough choice) whilst under siege from the Japanese in the Pacific. Black Narcissus is the better film, but both are well worth watching for their examination of the tensions caused by the Church’s narrow parameters for sexual relations.
Jean-Pierre Melville’s Léon Morin, Priest (1961) flips the roles as the titular priest arrives in a small French town during the Nazi occupation. With all the men either dead or fighting in the resistance, Morin becomes the object of desire for the womenfolk, in particular the bisexual widow Barny with whom he forms a profound relationship. What follows is an exploration of faith and desire which is thought provoking, often sharply funny and eventually ripped off by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Paul Belmondo manage to convey far more with subtle movements or glances than overt looks to camera. They are a delight to watch. So much so, that much like with Andrew Scott’s Hot Priest 2.0, you’re dying for Morin to briefly turn his back on God and get his leg over. Of course, it’s more complex than that, and not a decision to be taken lightly or rashly.
What would Jesus do? Well, in the words of the Reverend Richard Coles; “probably not what you expect him to.” Take Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) for example, adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel. The film presents a far more nuanced portrayal of Jesus as a man with doubts, sexual desires whilst carrying an unimaginable burden as the son of God. Screenwriter Paul Schrader’s adaptation of the novel successfully reconciles the “all things to all men” into a consistent and relatable protagonist played with a great degree of agony and ecstasy by a transcendent Willem Dafoe. Similarly, Martin Scorsese’s broadly realist approach as a director grounds the more magical elements and allows us a degree of plausible deniability. After all, Last Temptation isn’t a fantastical Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic. Jesus Christ is the perfect Martin Scorsese protagonist – flawed and corruptible in his rise to becoming a religious figurehead. It’s a hell of a story (no pun intended), told with Scorsese’s trademark grit, alongside a good deal of poetry and beauty.
Don’t we all need a bit of poetry and beauty in the face of the current global situation? In his profoundly moving book on life and death, the former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway talks of the popularity of churches in December and of the continuing struggle between the poetry of religion and the perception of the bible as immutable testimony.
“It is poetry that draws people into church at the end of December to gaze again at ‘the recurrent dream of a Christmas card’. The paradox is that it is the people who think religion is prose who keep it alive for the people who can only use it as poetry.”
In truth however, I’m still not sure what it is that’s drawing me to films about religion. It’s not out of spite, there’s a solidarity with those clergy who are confused by troubled times. I have a good bunch of supportive friends around the World so I don’t think it’s out of a need for community. Maybe I’m looking for some kind of guidance as how to live my life when all structure and reason has been blown out of the water by closures and furlough schemes. And if that is what I’m looking for, then I think the satirist and novelist Jarett Kobek perfectly boils down the message of Jesus Christ in his scathing recent novel Only Americans Burn in Hell:
“And what he said, the core message, delivered in that hick accent, was this; stop being a total fucking dick.”
I can get behind that, right now I think we can all get behind that.
Seeking Films for the End of the World 