https://tacit.livejournal.com/684980.html

A couple of days ago, I saw a question on Quora asking why Christian movies always suck. Thing is, Christian movies don’t (necessarily) suck. American Evangelical propaganda movies tend to suck, but there are some extraordinary Christian movies out there, and I say this as an atheist.

I refer, of course, to Knives Out 3: Wake Up Dead Man, which is a brilliant, entertaining, and very Christian movie—probably the best Christian movie of the last two decades.

“But Franklin!” I hear you say. “Wake Up Dead Man has an atheist protagonist! The antagonist is a corrupt religious preacher who builds a dysfunctional cult of personality around himself! This is in no way a Christian movie!”

Ah, but watch this scene, where our atheist protagonist, Benoit Blank, first meets another major character, Father Jud Duplenticy, who is sent out to the corrupt priest’s parrish:

The entire movie has some absolutely marvelous dialogue, but this scene in particular stands out. When Blank enters, and Father Jud asks him what he thinks of the church, he has something pretty scathing to say:

Well, the architecture, that interests me. I feel the grandeur, the mystery, the intended emotional effect. And it’s like someone has shown a story to me that I do not believe. That is built upon the empty promise of a child's fairy tale, filled with malevolence and misogyny and homophobia. And it’s justified untold acts of violence and cruelty while all the while, and still, hiding its own shameful acts. So like an ornery mule kicking back, I want to pick it apart and pop its perfidious bubble of belief and get to a truth I can swallow without choking. Telling the truth can be a bitter herb. I suspect you can't always be honest with your parishioners.

Not a very Christian bit of dialogue, right?

Ah, but wait. Here's Father Jud’s reply:

You can always be honest by not telling the unhonest thing. You're right, it's storytelling. This church isn't medieval. We're in the middle of New York. It has more in common with Disneyland than Notre Dame. And the rites, the rituals, the costumes, all of it, you're right, it's storytelling. I guess the question is, do these stories convince us of a lie, or do they resonate with something deep inside us that is profoundly true, that we can't express any other way except storytelling?

I, as an atheist, found Father Jud’s answer quite moving.

But it goes so much further than that. This scene is a masterclass of cinematic storytelling, of show rather than tell. You could teach an entire course in composition and visual design just from this one scene. Let’s go through it, shall we?

At the start of the scene, Benoit Blanc, our atheist, walks into the church. The door is behind him; the aisle down through the center of the church is shrouded in darkness. He, as he says at the scene’s start, “worships at the altar of the rational.”

He’s confident, self-assured, secure in his position.

Father Jud stands facing him, literally rather than figuratively standing in the light.

Father Jud approaches Benoit, asking him questions about himself, listening to his reply, meeting Benoit where he is.

Benoit walks past him. At this point, the two of them, atheist and reverent priest, have traded places.

“How does all this make you feel?” Jud says. At this point, Jud and Benoit have traded places, and you’ll see some astonishingly good face acting on Daniel Craig’s part.

Craig (Benoit Blank) asks him, “truthfully?” “Sure,” Jud replies, giving him permission to be frank. Benoit launches into his tirade: “I feel the grandeur, the mystery, the intended emotional effect. And it’s like someone has shown a story to me that I do not believe. That is built upon the empty promise of a child's fairy tale, filled with malevolence and misogyny and homophobia.”

While he speaks, pay attention to what happens around him. The formerly bright part of the church grows dark. The saturation is reduced, leaching the color from the scene. His words spin a veil of darkness that fills the space around him.

More incredible face acting from Craig as his words become more biting, more angry: “And it’s justified untold acts of violence and cruelty while all the while, and still, hiding its own shameful acts,” every word delivered like a bullet from a gun.

As he speaks, there’s some amazingly clever camera work. Benoit in the foreground, Father Jud in the background, the camera moves around so that Benoit, again literally and not figuratively, eclipses the pious priest, completely removing him from view. Benoit is not talking to Father Jud. He’s not even facing Father Jud. He’s talking to us.

It’s subtle but oh so well done, and it is absolutely intentional.

At the end, Benoit, realizing he’s said probably more than he intended to, and with more venom, offers to leave. Father Jud tells him, no, stay, I told you to be honest.

At this point, the entire church is shrouded in darkness. Father Jud isn’s standing in the light anymore. He and Blanc are cloaked in shadow, the darkness of Benoit’s words given physical form.

What is happening here? Father Jud has literally, not figuratively but literally, joined Benoit Blank in the darkness. He’s met Benoit where he is. He hasn’t stood above him, talking down to him. He is there, on the same footing, in the same place as Blanc. He pauses for a moment, and then he begins to speak.

What is the first thing he says? “You’re right.” He reiterates Benoit’s opening thesis: It is storytelling. The church itself, its physical form, is a story, and a false one, an illusion of a Medieval church built in modern times, as much an ancient cathedral as Cindarella’s castle is a real fortification.

Watch what happens as he speaks:

The light returns, shining from above him, almost passing through him. And when he’s finished...

...the atheist stands illuminated, bathed in the light of his words.

Father Jud doesn’t preach at the atheist detective from some higher plane. He meets Blanc where he is, he stands with him, he acknowledges the parts of Blanc’s argument that he believes are true, and then he offers a new way to interpret Blanc’s central thesis—all without condescention, judgment, or self-righteousness.

I am not a believer, but this scene still gave me chills. It’s immensely powerful. It resonates. It vibrates. This is masterful visual storytelling.

The reason people don’t recognize Wake Up Dead Man as a Christian movie is that too many of us have been conditioned by Christian™ movies, movies made by and for low-information, insecure American Protestant Evangelicals.

These movies are like the Chick tracts I used to collect back when I collected religious propaganda. They’re cartoons for the uneducated, caricatures in which every atheist is a slavering buffoon, every religious person clever and righteous, told to an audience so insecure in its faith that no atheist can ever be allowed to make any point and no religious character can ever be permitted the slightest doubt or fault.

American Evangelicals are a weird breed, convincing themselves they’re the persecuted ones at the same time they deliver a venomous mix of hatred and bile to all those who are not like themselves. They believe, they actually believe, that university professors demand their students sign statements renouncing Christianity in order to get a passing grade, then go home and drool over all the people they’ve deconverted that day.

By their standards, Wake Up Dead Man is not A Christian movie, because Christian movies have to look a certain way, a way that seems written by a drooling eight-year-old who’s never read more than three Bible verses for a Sunday School class.

There’s another scene that drives this point home even more. Benoit Blanc and Father Jud are hot on the heels of the murderer, a murderer they believe they will be able to identify if they can get one key piece of information from the church secretary, Louise. They’re this close to finding the killer. And, well...

...Louise reveals that her mother is in hospice, dying of brain cancer, and she fought with her mother, and her mother refuses to speak to her.

This scene broke me.

Father Jud is working with Detective Blanc to uncover a murderer, a high-stakes mission, but when faced with someone suffering right now, someone he has the power to help right now, he stops what he’s doing to care for her.

This is the absolute best of Christianity, the thing Christianity promises but all too often fails to deliver. It’s not highlighted, it’s not the centerpiece of the movie, it’s not delivered in a “look how good we Christians are, let’s rub it in the face of the callous evil atheists,” it’s just a thing that happens, because of Father Jud is who he is: a flawed but sincere exemplar of loving kindness, not a Christian™ (or an atheist) caricature of Christianity.

A Christian™ movie will never, can never deliver a scene like this.

Benoit Blanc ends the movie as he started, an atheist. There’s no scene in this movie like there is in every Christian™ movie where the atheist character falls to his knees and accepts Jesus Christ™ as his Lord and Savior™. That’s not the point.

The religious figures in the movie are not perfect. One of them is the film’s primary antagonist. That’s also not the point.

The point is, this movie delivers a blueprint, a template of the best that Christianity has to offer: kindness, humility, calm and patient virtue. It is without question a Christian movie, deliberately so, a Christian movie built and delivered with warmth and compassion. A Christian movie even atheists can enjoy.

That makes it far more effective than any Christian™ movie can ever be.

https://tacit.livejournal.com/684980.html