Moooviiiieee

I just finished watching Just Like Heaven, starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. It’s a romantic comedy about a woman who gets in an accident, and then the guy can see her spirit and they connect and all of that fun stuff. It’s a very basic movie, nothing special. Some nice shots of San Francisco (it looks like it could be a very pretty city) and some funny bits, but relatively predictable. I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you really want to see it, I wouldn’t try to talk you out of it either.
Afterwards, I watched the commentary, as is my wont, and I found parts of that feature to be almost depressing. It really revealed to me that movie making is in many ways a dying art because mediocrity and trickery are becoming the standard. I realise, of course, that I have never made a movie and I can understand why they do what they do how they do it, but it just leaves me feeling cheated and a bit uncomfortable.
The first thing they mentioned was a new method of changing shots in editing that has become possible in the past few years with all of the digital work that they can now do. There are a few tricks that they use here. One is, when there are two people together in a shot, taking the best take of person A and splitting the screen so that they can use the best take of actor B. So if Reese Witherspoon delivered her lines best in take two, and Mark Ruffalo’s best take was take five, then they split the screen between them and match the shot so that it looks like they filmed it together when really you are watching two different takes filmed at different times. Another option is taking the audio from take two and putting it into the mouth of the actor in take five, changing the pitch and speed so that it matches the lips. They talk about it and say that none of the actors has ever come and complained because they are making their performance better. But I hear what they have done and it just turns me off.
I wonder at what point will a movie be recorded with no sets, and no emotions, and no people, because it is easier to just fake the whole thing, even the people. Everything can be perfect and completely unreal. It’s losing its artiness. They talk about how important it is to cast the right people and have the best chemistry, and then they just take the bits and parts and ignore the whole. Is it really chemistry if the people on screen don’t actually spend any time together? It is like the technology has stopped being a tool to enhance and become the essence of the performance itself. I guess there is something about live performances that has been completely lost on screen. When something is live there is the possibility of mistakes, of something being a bit off, but that is life. And isn’t that movies and plays are supposed to be about? We don’t go to a movie to see how cool the effects are, we go to watch drama or comedy, to see people (or animals) living and struggling and relating life. Think about it – in how many movies or shows are the ‘bad guys’ shown as being overly clinical and lifeless and rigid and square while the ‘good guys’ are dirty and real and gritty and rounded. In the Star Wars movies the empire’s ships are all angles and very sparse inside, consisting of metal corridors in greys and blacks. The rebellion, though, has colour and variety and their ships are large and round. Movies are becoming square and technical.
That is my complaint on a technical level. I would rather see two people who aren’t necessarily doing their absolute best at the same time and know it is real before I would willingly see two actors who just had the best bits and parts pulled out to make the best thing. Life isn’t always perfect, and neither should movies.
The second worrisome element comes from two quotes that I actually wrote down. Okay, I’m lying, I just paraphrased them. But I am close. First the director (or producer) said: An audience can turn on a show and know everything about the characters in thirty seconds. So his solution was to just keep “stumbling forward” (his actual words), keeping a step ahead, always trying to have questions that will be answered and lead to new questions. But the fact that as soon as I saw about ten minutes of the movie I knew how it would end and that I wouldn’t be surprised by any of the details shows that he didn’t do it very well. The second thing was the scene near the end where he states that he loves the girl one of the commentators said “Too schmaltzy? No, the audience wants it.” and that is a direct quote. I will now deal with each quote separately. I was going to deal with them as a whole, but then I changed my mind. One of these days I’ll start editing what I write. Nah.
The first quote made me concerned for the movie makers and for the industry as a whole because he said it like it was a completely positive thing. Everything is great, people are getting so sophisticated that they know all of this stuff. But the way I see it, filmmakers are just pandering to the masses, and thus they go for the feel good formula that leaves people liking themselves without having to think. SPOILER ALERT! As soon as the guy is introduced, you know that he will fall in love with the woman and then they will almost lose each other and then they will end up together in the end. The other option, and the slightly more risky one, is that they will fall in love, but she is dead so she will leave at the end and he will find new love. Halfway through they find that she is just in a coma, so option one is the solution. At the end, she is taken off of life support and her spirit starts to fade and then her heart monitor goes with the “beeeeeeeeeeep” of a non-beating heart for a long moment and then her heart starts again and she starts breathing. The only ‘surprising’ part is that she doesn’t remember him until a few scenes later where they touch hands and then she remembers everything and end credits roll because they are in love and together.
There is nothing surprising about most movies. If you know the genre, you generally know the outcome, and it is usually a happy one. Sometimes a movie will surprise because the heroes won’t fall in love, or the protagonist dies unexpectedly, but not generally. There are filmmakers out there who can fiddle with the formula enough to make a good movie, and there are those who just do as they will and make interesting movies. And sometimes a movie doesn’t mess with the end formula, but is interesting enough on its own that it works anyway. The movie Stranger Than Fiction is an example. The ending is a bit of a ‘feel-good’, but it fits with the movie. They could have done it differently and it may have been better, or it may have been worse. It is hard to say.
The second quote is about the schmaltzy scene. It wasn’t out of place within the movie, but it was in general a bit over the top. But the fact that they didn’t care because the audience wants it made me wonder. Does the audience really want it, or have they just been told and conditioned to expect it, and are you just too scared to try anything away from that formula? I don’t know exactly, but I think that it is possible that if more movies took a stand and went for less schmaltz, then people would accept it and begin to expect better things.
Another thing they said that really made me start to scratch my head is when they talked about how much ‘on-camera’ stuff they tried to do, ‘just like Orson Welles’ (Citizen Kane)(I think) because that is what really makes a movie. This was just after talking about how much trickery they tried to do with the digital editing. They want their cake and to eat it too.
As I said, I am concerned for the art of movie making. It is an interesting medium that has plenty of potential that is so constantly misused because no one wants to think. I don’t know if I will ever be a ‘successful’ writer because I don’t want to pander. I don’t want to care if a person will ‘like’ what I write, but I do care if it will make them sit back and go ‘huh’ (not as a question, but as a statement).
Final note - Mark Ruffalo looks a bit and sounds a great deal like the lead actor from Scrubs (who also wrote, starred and possibly directed Garden State), and they have quite similar acting styles as well. It was a bit spooky at times.
All in all, go watch Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. That is a movie that makes you think. Probably you want to watch Hamlet first.

On a completely random note, I think my vote for possibly the worst movie title goes to the movie Blood and Chocolate. It’s not a great title in general, but I remember the first time I saw the preview. It is a movie about werewolves (and possibly vampires), kind of a cool action movie like Underworld. It got to the end of the preview and I was thinking that it might be fun. And then they said the title: Blood and Chocolate. I knew in that moment that I would never see that movie because there is no way that it could be good.

Stuff and Things

Throughout my life I have been aware of the spiritual world that exists around us. I think it is a pretty clear teaching that our world is more than just the physical realm which we experience on a daily basis. I have been witness to miracles that are inexplicable otherwise. I knew a girl in high school who received prayer for a bad back (it was twisted or bent somehow - there’s a name for it that I can’t remember at the moment) and her back was instantly straightened, completely healed. I have heard many other stories that are even more amazing, told to me by people whom I trust explicitly. I think that the existence of a spiritual realm is pretty obvious to those who are looking.
Along with the good miracles, there are also malevolent spirits. I wrote that sentence mostly to use the word malevolent. I like that word. These bad spirits are constantly trying to get us to believe their lies and to turn our back on our Creator. Usually they are pretty subtle, going about their business in a way that will leave them under the radar, invisible to most people. But sometimes, they manifest themselves more explicitly, and I can honestly say I’m not sure why.
In my experience, the spirits that have made themselves most visible have been the ones that were dealt with most severely. Think back to Jesus’ day - people would bring the demon possessed to him and he would cast them out. I’m sure there were people back then who needed healing and forgiveness who never went to see Jesus because they weren’t possessed, they were just biting into the lies that were being presented to them.
In my own life, I have seen these same spirits acting in people’s lives. In college I was on the outer fringes of a pair of possessions – one my freshmen year and one my brother’s freshmen year (I think that would be my second year)(even though we are three years apart)(I took a break). I wasn’t particularly close to either person so I don’t really know the specifics. I do remember my freshmen year, gathering in the hallway with basically the rest of the dorm to pray as someone was working at ridding the spirit. It was kind of creepy. I have also heard more stories from people I trust about similar experiences. There was a girl in a youth group who was possessed (if I’m remembering correctly) and though I was never quite terribly involved with that aspect of her life, I did know her a little and I heard about what was happening with her. Another guy who was in college while I was still in high school (he was a friend of a friend) who I had met a time or two was possessed, growing to almost superhuman size and strength under the influence of this spirit. There are other stories, but I can’t remember them at the moment. I did a few minutes ago, but not now. It’s not that important, really.
Personally, I had never really had an intensely spirit moment. The closest I had come was waking up in the middle of the night and feeling vaguely creeped out because it is pitch black and I have a particularly vivid imagination. Oddly enough, it only occurred to me last week that when I am feeling a bit nervous about the dark that I could have just turned on the lamp I have beside my bed and sleep with it on, thus no longer being in the dark. Seriously, the thought had never occurred to me before. Sometimes I would turn on a light for a bit, but then I would turn it off and I would be able to see nothing because my night vision is ruined, so it is even worse and scarier.
The observant among you may have noticed that I said I had never really had an intensely spiritual moment. The first ‘had’ implies that I have now had one. Such an assumption, however, is not necessarily correct. Not for any linguistic reason, but because I myself am not sure what I experienced. I haven’t really mentioned this to many people, maybe only one that I can think of. I don’t know why.
All right, let me set the scene – it was shortly before I left Canada to come to Germany. I went to bed one night, and I wish I had written this down somewhere because I can’t remember the exact details properly, and it may make a difference as to what exactly happened. I guess I will just tell what I do know for sure. So I was laying in bed, trying to sleep. I was on my side, my front facing the wall (my bed had one wall at the head and one wall on the right side) when I felt something behind me. What it felt like was as though someone had crawled into the bed behind me and was spooning with me. I couldn’t move, so all I did was just repeat ‘Jesus’ again and again, calling His name. Suddenly the weight behind me left and I moved, stretching out and rolling over, feeling like I could breath again. I had drooled onto the pillow.
The thing is, I don’t know if I was dreaming or not. There are things that I am just not sure about. I don’t remember if this happened as I was going to sleep, if I had woken up in the middle of the night, or if it was in the morning as I was waking up after a night’s sleep. It had a surreal quality that my dreams usually possess. The weight behind me wasn’t just like someone right behind me, but it halfway seemed like someone had crawled under the mattress and that was pushing up their form, so it was like they were under the mattress and the mattress was spooning with me. Could I not move because I was scared, or because I was asleep and that was how the dream was going, or because the spirit was preventing me from moving?
I believe that the spiritual world affects our physical world, so it very well could have been something actually happening. I was in a very low place spiritually at that point, so I may have been a bit more susceptible to such an experience. It very well may have been a harmful spirit coming up to do me harm. Or maybe I just had a vivid dream. I have had a few dreams in the past that have really stuck with me emotionally in an intense manner, so that is possible too. A third option is that it was a dream, and I was being attacked spiritually in my dream. I think that dreams can be a spiritual battleground, that God sometimes can speak through our dreams. I have some thoughts about that I will share (maybe)(if I remember) in a later BLOG. I am not convinced either way. It may have been a bad (very bad) dream, or it may have been a spiritual attack. Either way, it scared me. It terrified me. I can still feel the eerieness and fear of the moment when I think about it.
Interestingly enough, I have not had any of the spooky moments during the night since I got here. Even with the move to a new place and the stress of the job, I have not yet woken up during the middle of the night and had trouble sleeping because I was vaguely creeped out. This has also been the year I have started to experience God’s full freedom. Coincidence? Probably not.

Historocity

The city of Nurnberg (or Nuremberg) is a much more important city historically than I realised. There is one heck of an impressive castle there and I guess it had some significance in the middle ages time period, though I don’t know exactly what. There were quite a few huge cathedrals within blocks of each other, speaking to its importance. But that is not the history I explored (though I would like to go back and spend more time exploring the city and its history). When Adolph Hitler was in power, he picked five cities to be furhrerstadts, or Fuhrer cities. One was Berlin. Another was Nurnberg (I can’t remember the other five, though Munich may have been one). When I thought of Nazi Germany, I just assumed Berlin was the seat of power. I think now that Nurnberg was actually more important. From what I was able to gather, Nurnberg was quite supportive of Hitler and his movement in his early years. Once he was in power he held annual rallies there, so it must have been important to him.
In Nurnberg there is a museum called the War Documentation museum, or something like that. On Saturday afternoon at the high school retreat we had a few hours, so a group of us went to this museum. It was incredible. I was impressed with how honest everything was. Basically the museum traces the rise and fall of Hitler, from his first failed attempt at marching on the capital in an aborted coup to the end of the Nurnberg trials after WWII. I thought it was particularly interesting that the city in no way tries to defend itself. You never hear that Nurnberg was tricked by this master deceiver, that what happened isn’t as bad as it seemed, that that city of Nurnberg had nothing to do with it. Instead, it just lays out what happened and how it happened, and I think that does more to take away any guilt they may feel they have. The truth was Hitler was a brilliant strategist and propagandist, able to get people to follow him wherever he chose to lead.
I’m not going to go through the history of what happened, that is available in many places from people who know more than I do. I will say this, though - I would like to go back to that museum because it is not one that can be easily taken in in only one trip. Halfway through I could just feel my mind reeling at what I was seeing. I am really struggling to put this into words because I don’t know if there are proper words to describe it. As you go through the museum, listening to the different commentaries on the displays, looking at the photographs you are overwhelmed with the feeling of times. There was such a hopelessness in Germany back then and this evil little man came along and gave them something to hope for, but they were too worn down by events to realise that the hope he gave was completely based on hate.
I almost want to erase this post because there is almost no way I can properly describe it to you. Halfway through the museum I could feel my eyes become stuck wide open and my mind wanted to start vomiting and the information just kept coming. The scary thing is, the actual war itself isn’t even a major part of the museum. It is there, and it is mentioned, but it is not emphasised. And yet you are still left with a sense of horror at what happened.
As I mentioned earlier, Nurnberg was a very important place for Hitler. One of the things you learn as you go through is the plans that he had for the city. He wanted these huge buildings and fields and areas built, as testaments to power basically. Most of the plans were never completed, but a couple were at least started. The museum itself is housed in the unfinished remains of what I think was called the congress building or something like that. It is a huge horseshoe shaped edifice that was only half completed. I wish I could remember how high it was going to be, but it is very reminiscent of the Roman coliseum, and that is no accident. Behind it is the only thing that actually was finished - the parade ground (possibly called the Heliopolis Parade Grounds, or something like that). The other projects not completed were equally impressive and grandiose. Giant sculptures were commissioned (and some completed) that spoke to the power of the reich, and many of the structures were designed to have multiple giant banners waving in the wind, giving a sense of flying and the power of that.
Seriously, if you ever get a chance, come to Nurnberg and spend a good long afternoon walking around. I guess it is important to remember our past and learn from it.

CONTROVERSY ALERT: As I listened to the different presentations, I had an odd feeling come over me. I actually started to pity Hitler. Not because he lost the war, or for anything he did. But I couldn’t help but wonder what would lead a person to become so evil. There had to have been something in his life that was missing, and I can guess what that was. There can’t have been much, if any, love in his life. I’m not even talking God’s love, which would have saved the world so much heartache. But he must not have had any human love either. From a purely pragmatic point of view, if he had experienced love (I’m not talking romantic love) in his life, maybe he wouldn’t have felt the need to grasp for power quite so strenuously. I don’t know, maybe it was inevitable. But as I went through it made me think, are there people around me that I don’t show love to, people that may not become power hungry dictators but who will still spend their lives in hate and darkness? I don’t want that to be true of anyone. I guess that is just one more lesson that history can teach, if we are willing to listen.

Quickie

I had a thought yesterday relating to the retreat I was on last weekend. It added something to my life that had snuck away for a bit in the midst of all of the seriousness I have been dealing with this semester: fun. It was a six hour bus trip to reach Nurnberg, and six hours on the way back. That was twelve hours where I wasn’t ‘Darrell the RA with personal issues and hard choices looming’. Instead I was ‘Darrell the crazy guy at the back of the bus who is able to make people laugh because he is completely insane’. That Darrell has been hiding lately, but I think it is okay for him to come out again and hang out with the guys.
Thank you God for fun!

Twice in one week? Odsbodikins!

It snowed today, as good as it has all year. But it was just a tease. It had mostly melted, at least around our dorm, by the mid-afternoon. I don't know if I want it to snow in March, but if it does, it had better be a worthwhile snow. Y'arr.

Another Tuesday

This past weekend was the annual high school retreat here at BFA. All of the high school students go away for the weekend and a speaker and a worship band come in and, well, it is a bit like a mini youth conference. They need a large number of adults to go along as small group leaders and general supervisors, but it is by no means mandatory. I almost did not go, but at the last minute I decided that I would sign up, and I am quite glad that I did.
This year’s retreat was held in Nurnberg (or, as it is known in English, Nuremberg). The history buffs among you will know that this is the city that held the famous war trials after World War Two where they convicted many of the higher up Nazis of crimes against humanity. They were the first such trials in the world and were the blueprint for such trials as the recent one for Saddam Hussein. More on that in a later post.
The retreat itself was quite good in my opinion, though I heard some people say otherwise. I don’t have other retreats to compare it to so I can’t say whether it was better or worse than other years, but I thought it was a solid weekend. The speaker’s message revolved around the idea that we are God’s hands here on earth, His co-workers in this life. He spoke of the kingdom of God and how it is not just a future place in heaven to which we can look forward, but it is a present reality, here and now. It was Paul (we are saved not by works but by grace) meets James (faith without works is dead).
Part way through the weekend I heard a couple of the other adults talking about what the speaker had already said and they were not overly excited. They said that this idea of the church being here to do the good deeds on earth was one that was being brought up by many different speakers and churches and that it was not necessarily a bad idea but they felt that the works were being over-emphasised and that preaching the salvation message was as important or more important still. They seemed to be critical of what was being said in the sessions, and truth be told it bothered me a little what they were saying and how they were saying it. I got the sense that all they had heard the speaker say was that the church was here to do good things for people, to help the poor and downtrodden and that was our greatest mission. But one of the first things the speaker had said was talking about two different extremes of churches: one that does nothing but preach the salvation message, and one that does nothing but do good works. The first is good up to the point of conversion, but then it really has nothing for the new believer. The second is good for helping people, but doesn’t really do much to save them from their sin. And then he said there needed to be a middle ground, one he called (and I think he got this term from someone else) a confessional church. That is a church which is committed to turning to God in all cases, to seeking Him first and foremost and then obeying His word to His people. But these adults I heard speaking didn’t seem to remember that.
I only mention them because it frustrated me that the message which seemed so clear to me was completely missed by these guys. They are not bad men or ungodly or anything like that. Maybe this was just a new idea and they aren’t the sort of people to easily embrace the new or something, I don’t know. I guess I’m getting tired of Christians resisting change and burying their heads in the sand and just criticising and complaining about the new things they hear. On the other hand, I don’t think it is a good idea to blindly accept all new ideas and follow the latest trend (WWJD? He would buy the Prayer of Jabez Bible, obviously).
Maybe I was just feeling sensitive because the message that was being preached was following what has been on my mind lately as well. I sometimes feel that the church just isn’t right at the moment. That is the best way I can think of putting it. It is as though the emphasis is on the wrong thing completely. I feel like we have circled our wagons and are very good at focussing on the world inside our circle, but the only ones inside are those who are already part of our group. We seem to ignore the world around us. Our Christian books are for Christians. Our Christian music is for Christians. We look at the world around us and think “hey, everything is terrible. It is a good thing we are already saved.” It can’t be right.
So what the speaker was saying was that God expects us to be His hands here on earth, to be doing His works. But he never once said that the works were the goal. They are more of a result of a heart and mind that is turned towards God. He did not say that the good works we can do will curry favour with God. God does not desire sacrifice. His main idea was that we must, individually and corporately, turn to God in all things, confess to Him and to each other when we have sinned, and even when we haven’t sinned but we are feeling distant, which I thought was a cool point to make. There are times when we aren’t necessarily caught in un-confessed sin, but we are just feeling a bit disconnected from God. I think this is normal because we are human and we have, at the moment, imperfect minds and spirits. Our first instinct is to carry on and try to push through on our own until we can get better. But he said that it is better to turn to each other and share our hearts, and that is times when the Holy Spirit will really move in power.
He also raised the point that the disciples were just ordinary guys, no one special until they heard the call of Jesus and obeyed. That is what made them special, that is why we know the names of some ancient Galilean fishermen. And in our lives, we didn’t have to be great people to do works in the kingdom of God. In fact, rarely does God actually use the great. He seems to prefer the ordinary. He said that in our lives we may not be called (and probably won’t be) to appear to millions and to be famous, rich, and powerful. But we are called to the small moments of obedience, of doing the little, almost insignificant things in the world around us. God wants us to take care of this world that He created. It does not seem that His plan is to eventually get rid of it all so that we can live in the clouds. He speaks clearly of the new heaven and the new earth.
All in all it was a good conference for me at least. There were many moments where I just had to look up at God and smile ruefully because something that was said was completely and immediately directed at me. Maybe not me alone, probably not, but definitely something I needed to hear. Some of our guys mentioned that it wasn’t the greatest conference they had been to, but I think there were many students who were positively affected. Sometimes it is hard to gauge how effective these sorts of things are right away because many times high school students are too cool to let ideas into their hearts right away. But years later they may look back and think about what they have heard, and I think this might be one of those times.