Film - Think

In honor of the passing of Fr. Neuhaus, I have collected most of the few references to different films in his First Things column. He didn't talk about movies too much in the journal, and all of the actual film criticism and review was undertaken by other writers. But from time to time he would refer to a particular movie, and I would invariably chuckle or nod. Sometimes both. I just could never imagine the man actually sitting down to watch a movie, but the offhand incisiveness of these references suggests otherwise. Say what you want about the man's politics, but he had a remarkable facility with texts of all kinds.

On Borat:

I saw a couple of trailers for the film on television and admit that I laughed out loud before I wondered whether I should...

Others have noted that Borat, like Michael Moore with his assault-interview tactics, exploits people who are simply trying to be nice. The niceness so typical of Americans is a fair target for mockery, although, all in all, niceness is to be preferred to nastiness. The argument is, however, that Borat doesn’t so much mock the niceness of his victims as he portrays their niceness as dumbness and bigotry. And then there are those complaints by interviewees that Borat or the producers of the film actually lied to them about what they were being asked to take part in.

I have more than enough moral questions of moment to occupy my time, so I don’t think I’ll make a major project of Borat. But I have been persuaded not to add my $10to its box office success. In truth, it didn’t take that much persuading, since I haven’t gone out to a movie in a long time.

On One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest:

"The above is in no way intended to lend support to the enemies of Western Civilization who suggest that, in our kind of insane society, the asylum is the refuge of the sane. One thinks of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization or the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, based on the Ken Kesey novel of that title. Nor should we sentimentalize the tradition of the “holy fool,” in which fools, holy or not, were often left to die in their squalor. The question of how to deal with the intolerably strange is probably one of the truly intractable problems in a world that is far short of the promised Kingdom of God. The contribution of Thomas Szasz is in cautioning us against the delusion of thinking that we have solved the problem or are on the way to solving the problem by telling ourselves that the strangeness is one medical problem among others."

On Da Vinci Code:

"Critics of Grace Hill and others who are party to this game are understandably puzzled about why evangelical Christians are plugging a story that alleges that the gospel accounts of Jesus are fraudulent. Of course, the line is that you can’t criticize something without having seen it. Which is nonsense with respect to more conventional pornography, and with respect to the spiritual pornography that is The Da Vinci Code. In addition to the suspicion of anti-Catholicism, one might also “think low” and ask just how much Grace Hill Media is getting paid to do Sony’s dirty work. Most poignant, of course, are those evangelicals who think they are “engaging the culture” and have hit the big time when Hollywood gives them “a place at the table” to discuss the pros and cons of blasphemy against their Lord and Savior."

On The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe:

"In two months the big-budget movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will be released. The Disney people are putting on a full-court press with evangelical and Catholic leaders. It is reminiscent of the promotion of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Of course, Gibson was responding to massive and vicious attacks on his film, beginning many months before its release. I gather from a couple of people who have attended a screening of the Narnia film that it follows Lewis’ story very faithfully with no watering down of the Christian themes. If so, I see no reason to carp about Disney making big bucks out of it. It could be a further encouragement for Hollywood to turn away from productions of deadly dull decadence, or at least to recognize that there is money to be made also in films affirming religion and virtue. There are few studios that operate on the basis of altruism or zeal for the gospel. If Disney gets richer, God’s people are edified, and some pagans are converted, that’s not a bad outcome. As Michael Novak might say, such is the genius of capitalism."

On Les invasiones Barbares:

"No two times and no two places are entirely alike, and no time and place was very much like Quebec in the 1960s. As Father Raymond Leclerc says in the 2003 film Les Invasions Barbares: “You know, way back, everybody here was Catholic, just as in Spain or ­Ireland. And then, at a very specific moment—it was during the year 1966—in only a few months, the churches suddenly emptied out. A very strange ­phenomenon, one that nobody has ever been able to explain...

As a tour guide in the provincial parliament building explains to a tourist puzzled by the prominence of a crucifix, C’est l’histoire, madame—“Madam, that is history.” The official motto of Quebec, emblazoned on its license plates, is Je me souviens—“I remember.” Among the things they remember, along with the ­endless battles with English Canadians and the struggle to assert themselves as a “nation within a nation,” they remember when Quebec was Catholic. A few remember it fondly; most remember it in order, by remembering, to make sure it will not return."

I really wish the guy had taken on more of the First Things film assignments. Have any more, feel free to send them in.