576
I prayed, at first, a little Girl,
Because they told me to --
But stopped, when qualified to guess
How prayer would feel -- to me --
If I believed God looked around,
Each time my Childish eye
Fixed full, and steady, on his own
In Childish honesty --
And told him what I'd like, today,
And parts of his far plan
That baffled me --
The mingled side
Of his Divinity --
And often since, in Danger,
I count the force 'twould be
To have a God so strong as that
To hold my life for me
Till I could take the Balance
That tips so frequent, now,
It takes me all the while to poise --
And then -- it doesn't stay --
Here's my re-arrangement and filling in of the poem to get at it's meaning:
576
I prayed, at first, (when I was) a child, because they told me to --
But stopped, when (my life experiences taught me) how prayer would feel to me (if I were God).
Imagine if the Being we call God, looked around each time my Childish eye (presumed to ) fix full, and steady, on his own, in Childish honesty -- and told him what I'd like, today, and parts of his far plan that baffled me --(you know, how his Divinity becomes obscured and gets a bad rap when it gets mixed up in the material world)
And often since, in Danger, I count the force 'twould be to have a God so strong as that to hold my life for me. (But I am a grown up now and know that God doesn't do that.... this is Emily suffering through her God problem.)
(And I have no idea what this last stanza means. Anybody help out?)
Till I could take the Balance that tips so frequent, now,
It takes me all the while to poise --
And then -- it doesn't stay --
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
No Dawn in Rescue
I really wanted to like Rescue Dawn, a movie now in theaters. I loved the director's Werner Hertzog's recent documentary Grizzly Man and was looking forward to seeing the same psychological insight brought to bear in the amazing true story of Vietnam P.O.W., Dieter Dengler. But, alas, Rescue Dawn was astoundingly uninsightful, as the incredible tumble of true story details crowds out any effort to actually create a story here.
A story is something that has meaning. It is communicating some kind of lesson about human life. The storyteller selects details that support that meaning. This is how stories are "better than real." The lessons of real life are mostly unknown to us because we have a perspective that is limited by time and access. Stories correct these problems and allow us to apprehend kharma.
Like pretty much every bio-pic about an extraordinary character, Rescue Dawn's main challenge was having too much story. It's interesting how most made up stories that come across my desk for the screen, end up not having enough story. But true stories almost always have too much to work with. So, in this project, the filmmakers were in such a rush to squeeze in all the cool memories that Dieter had about his nightmarish experience getting shot down, tortured, imprisoned and then escaping from the Viet Kong, that they don't have any time to make sense out of it all for us. When I was leaving the theater with my group of five female friends, all of whom work in the business, the most oft-repeated comment was of the "What was that about?" variety. We spent several minutes afterward trying to come up with some theme that could pull together all the events in the film. We came up with that Rescue Dawn is about how a human being can survive pretty much everything if only he has...what? But this was the problem. The filmmakers didn't seem to know.
Dieter's character lacks an arc. He doesn't change at all from the beginning of his horrific experiences to the end. He just survives. A story would have identified the thing that Dieter is living for that allows him to survive. Is it love, or patriotism, or faith in God, or friendship, or passion for life that allows Dieter to keep on struggling? The film makes a wave at each of these, but never takes a position on how Dieter needs to grow to survive. Is isn't enough to expect the viewer's to root to have a character's body saved. We want to know that his soul has been saved, and the lack of this is ultimately what makes Rescue Dawn fall flat.
Hence, the movie is a harrowing litany of the details of one man's life, that left me never feeling real empathy for him. In the mad rush of getting beaten and starved and chased and shot and starving and pulling slugs off his body and watching friends get killed, Dieter remains spiritually inaccessible to the audience. I mean spiritually here in the sense of human spirit, not religiously.
I find this a perplexing misstep from director Hertzog, because he managed to make such a profound statement about the human spirit's longing for meaning in Grizzly Man. That project summed up for me the thesis of Fr. Benedict Groeschel that, "If you don't give people the good God, they'll make themselves a bad one." Rescue Dawn has a hundred times as many dramatic events as Grizzly man, but not a tenth of the story.
The production elements are okay. Clearly, they didn't have enough budget to tell the story better. The paltry number of actors used in the prison camp, and the reliance on the jungle as the principle set made the low budget very obvious. The acting from Christian Bale and Steven Zahn (who lost forty pounds to play the role!) were as best as can be expected considering that they too didn't know the point of their character's adventures. The rest of the acting was uneven and, in the case of the Laotian cast, pretty bad. I recall being annoyed at the score at one point, finding it over the top.
From a writing standpoint, I thought the whole prison camp sequence was over-long and actually got boring for lack of information. It relied too heavily on the occasional moments of Viet Kong brutality to keep the pacing going. I thought the ending was unsatisfying, because, again, it just felt like the movie stopped, but didn't end, in the sense of telling me what the point of the whole journey had been.
Parents and the squeamish should know that there are disturbing - although mostly unbloody to keep the PG-13 rating - sequences of torture and of what men will try to eat when they are starving. Think living squirmy things. There is a lot of talk about bodily excretions and some vulgar language.
I can't recommend Rescue Dawn. It will fade fast and you won't have missed anything by missing it.
A story is something that has meaning. It is communicating some kind of lesson about human life. The storyteller selects details that support that meaning. This is how stories are "better than real." The lessons of real life are mostly unknown to us because we have a perspective that is limited by time and access. Stories correct these problems and allow us to apprehend kharma.
Like pretty much every bio-pic about an extraordinary character, Rescue Dawn's main challenge was having too much story. It's interesting how most made up stories that come across my desk for the screen, end up not having enough story. But true stories almost always have too much to work with. So, in this project, the filmmakers were in such a rush to squeeze in all the cool memories that Dieter had about his nightmarish experience getting shot down, tortured, imprisoned and then escaping from the Viet Kong, that they don't have any time to make sense out of it all for us. When I was leaving the theater with my group of five female friends, all of whom work in the business, the most oft-repeated comment was of the "What was that about?" variety. We spent several minutes afterward trying to come up with some theme that could pull together all the events in the film. We came up with that Rescue Dawn is about how a human being can survive pretty much everything if only he has...what? But this was the problem. The filmmakers didn't seem to know.
Dieter's character lacks an arc. He doesn't change at all from the beginning of his horrific experiences to the end. He just survives. A story would have identified the thing that Dieter is living for that allows him to survive. Is it love, or patriotism, or faith in God, or friendship, or passion for life that allows Dieter to keep on struggling? The film makes a wave at each of these, but never takes a position on how Dieter needs to grow to survive. Is isn't enough to expect the viewer's to root to have a character's body saved. We want to know that his soul has been saved, and the lack of this is ultimately what makes Rescue Dawn fall flat.
Hence, the movie is a harrowing litany of the details of one man's life, that left me never feeling real empathy for him. In the mad rush of getting beaten and starved and chased and shot and starving and pulling slugs off his body and watching friends get killed, Dieter remains spiritually inaccessible to the audience. I mean spiritually here in the sense of human spirit, not religiously.
I find this a perplexing misstep from director Hertzog, because he managed to make such a profound statement about the human spirit's longing for meaning in Grizzly Man. That project summed up for me the thesis of Fr. Benedict Groeschel that, "If you don't give people the good God, they'll make themselves a bad one." Rescue Dawn has a hundred times as many dramatic events as Grizzly man, but not a tenth of the story.
The production elements are okay. Clearly, they didn't have enough budget to tell the story better. The paltry number of actors used in the prison camp, and the reliance on the jungle as the principle set made the low budget very obvious. The acting from Christian Bale and Steven Zahn (who lost forty pounds to play the role!) were as best as can be expected considering that they too didn't know the point of their character's adventures. The rest of the acting was uneven and, in the case of the Laotian cast, pretty bad. I recall being annoyed at the score at one point, finding it over the top.
From a writing standpoint, I thought the whole prison camp sequence was over-long and actually got boring for lack of information. It relied too heavily on the occasional moments of Viet Kong brutality to keep the pacing going. I thought the ending was unsatisfying, because, again, it just felt like the movie stopped, but didn't end, in the sense of telling me what the point of the whole journey had been.
Parents and the squeamish should know that there are disturbing - although mostly unbloody to keep the PG-13 rating - sequences of torture and of what men will try to eat when they are starving. Think living squirmy things. There is a lot of talk about bodily excretions and some vulgar language.
I can't recommend Rescue Dawn. It will fade fast and you won't have missed anything by missing it.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The Real Magic of Harry
Christopher Close-up producer Tony Rossi has compiled a thoughtful piece about the real source of attraction in the Harry Potter saga for contemporary young people. Tony puts together the observations of writers nancy Brown and Mike Hayes to suggest that the reason harry is a hit is not because the stories are about the occult, but because they present a vision of community, and a sense of mystery, to today's young people who are starved for both.
Here's a snip.
I agree. Check it out.
Here's a snip.
Harry and friends band together anyway to learn spells that can help them fight “the Dark Arts.” Their secret meetings and common goal forge a bond between them that goes deeper than anything they’ve experienced before. Through commitment, trust and friendship, their spirit of community becomes a force to be reckoned with much like Tolkien’s “fellowship” in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
That fellowship and love for his family & friends is also what drives Harry to make the right choices. Harry is a complex hero who frequently struggles with the darkness inside himself especially in his final battle with Voldemort in “Order of the Phoenix.” It’s a struggle we all go through at various points in our lives. Do we follow the path of least resistance and give into our darker impulses? Or do we choose to follow “the better angels of our nature” even when it involves some form of sacrifice? When we in the non-fictional world have family, friends, and a God who loves and supports us, it gives us a better chance of choosing the right path.
I agree. Check it out.
Once More With Feeling...
Here is a copy of a letter I just sent to someone who sent me a screenplay to critique. I am putting it here because, it seems, some messages bear repeating. And repeating. And, uh, repeating.
------------------------------------
Dear __________________,
Yes, as I noted in my initial message to you, you should definitely get Chris Riley's book so that you can rewrite your project as a screenplay. I will tear up your check as my opinion is that my advice would not be helpful to you at this stage. If you seriously undertake a study of the screen art form, you are probably at least a year away (I'm being optimistic here) from having a script that would be ready to shop around.
You should find a small group of other screenwriters with whom you can meet regularly to advance your skills. You need to read books like Story, by McKee, screenplay (by Syd Field), Making a Good Script Great (by Linda Seger), and Playwrighting (by Louis Catron). A course or two (or more!) in screenwriting at a local college would help you tremendously. Check out Act One's website (www.actoneprogram.com) and other on-line resources for screenwriters.
Basically, what I am saying is that writing for movies is a serious and studied profession that takes years to master. You need teachers and mentors the way any artist would. Imagine if you just woke up, read a book, and then decided to declare yourself an architect. What kind of buildings would you be able to realistically create? Movies are multi-million dollar enterprises, that involve hundreds of professionally trained people, not unlike multi-million dollar construction projects. And the writer's screenplay is the essential lynchpin of the whole project. It tells everybody on the team what to do.
You note in your message that you have had "interest from a producer" on this project. What I actually think you might have is kindness from a producer, who wants to be encouraging to you. But, if you had real interest from the producer, the project would be optioned by now and locked down.
My feeling after years of experience in this industry is that no producer who really knows what they are doing would take on your project in its current manifestation. There is no way to figure out how long your piece would be or how much it would cost. No professional director or actor or cinematographer or production designer or casting director, etc. would read beyond the first few lines, because the project is so unprofessionally written. You do not have industry standard formatting. When one flips through the script, it seems to be all speeches and no choices/actions. There are no visual descriptions, discernible plot points, character arcs, or sub-plots. It reads as very preachy and what we call "on the nose" in Hollywood. You need to take your writing skill beyond this very beginner level.
Please do persevere with your aspirations. I just encourage you to roll up your sleeves and do what you are doing with seriousness, intelligence and sacrifice. I will keep you and your project in my prayers. Good luck and God bless -
Barbara
------------------------------------
Dear __________________,
Yes, as I noted in my initial message to you, you should definitely get Chris Riley's book so that you can rewrite your project as a screenplay. I will tear up your check as my opinion is that my advice would not be helpful to you at this stage. If you seriously undertake a study of the screen art form, you are probably at least a year away (I'm being optimistic here) from having a script that would be ready to shop around.
You should find a small group of other screenwriters with whom you can meet regularly to advance your skills. You need to read books like Story, by McKee, screenplay (by Syd Field), Making a Good Script Great (by Linda Seger), and Playwrighting (by Louis Catron). A course or two (or more!) in screenwriting at a local college would help you tremendously. Check out Act One's website (www.actoneprogram.com) and other on-line resources for screenwriters.
Basically, what I am saying is that writing for movies is a serious and studied profession that takes years to master. You need teachers and mentors the way any artist would. Imagine if you just woke up, read a book, and then decided to declare yourself an architect. What kind of buildings would you be able to realistically create? Movies are multi-million dollar enterprises, that involve hundreds of professionally trained people, not unlike multi-million dollar construction projects. And the writer's screenplay is the essential lynchpin of the whole project. It tells everybody on the team what to do.
You note in your message that you have had "interest from a producer" on this project. What I actually think you might have is kindness from a producer, who wants to be encouraging to you. But, if you had real interest from the producer, the project would be optioned by now and locked down.
My feeling after years of experience in this industry is that no producer who really knows what they are doing would take on your project in its current manifestation. There is no way to figure out how long your piece would be or how much it would cost. No professional director or actor or cinematographer or production designer or casting director, etc. would read beyond the first few lines, because the project is so unprofessionally written. You do not have industry standard formatting. When one flips through the script, it seems to be all speeches and no choices/actions. There are no visual descriptions, discernible plot points, character arcs, or sub-plots. It reads as very preachy and what we call "on the nose" in Hollywood. You need to take your writing skill beyond this very beginner level.
Please do persevere with your aspirations. I just encourage you to roll up your sleeves and do what you are doing with seriousness, intelligence and sacrifice. I will keep you and your project in my prayers. Good luck and God bless -
Barbara
Monday, July 16, 2007
Wicked good!
Don't have time to do a full review here - but I wanted to add my belated "thumbs up" to the pile of accolades for the musical Wicked. I saw it yesterday at the Pantages Theater here in Los Angeles and found my self marveling because it actually has a story to go with all the wonderful spectacle of it. The story is good. And the charcters too. And while the music didn't strike me as great, it is good enough to add to the overall entertainment experience.
I'll try to write more about it soon. Do catch it if you can.
I'll try to write more about it soon. Do catch it if you can.
Emily Monday
[NOTE FROM BARB: Probably my favorite.]
#664
Of all the Souls that stand create --
I have elected -- One --
When Sense from Spirit -- files away --
And Subterfuge -- is done --
When that which is -- and that which was --
Apart -- intrinsic -- stand --
And this brief Drama in the flesh --
Is shifted -- like a Sand --
When Figures show their royal Front --
And Mists -- are carved away,
Behold the Atom -- I preferred --
To all the lists of Clay!
#664
Of all the Souls that stand create --
I have elected -- One --
When Sense from Spirit -- files away --
And Subterfuge -- is done --
When that which is -- and that which was --
Apart -- intrinsic -- stand --
And this brief Drama in the flesh --
Is shifted -- like a Sand --
When Figures show their royal Front --
And Mists -- are carved away,
Behold the Atom -- I preferred --
To all the lists of Clay!
Phoenix Never Quite Rises
I have come to think of reviewing Harry Potter movies the way I ended up feeling about reviewing the last three Star Wars movies - with a sense of duty, but little enthusiasm. I have only read the first book in the Rowling series, and so I sense that I am watching completely different movies than the folks who are walking into the theaters with 2,000 pages of supplementary story information.
My experience of watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and really the last two movies in the franchise, is vague appreciation for the stunning visuals, but also narrative disinterest engendered by the certainty that these movies really aren't for me, as a non-reader of the books. The movies are visual tableaus of beloved imaginings for those who have read the books and walk into the theater already caring.
My experience watching Order of the Phoenix was like an acount of my sisters, Alison and Valerie, watching the NBC series Heroes. Here's the story in dialogue form as it was told to me.
Alison and Valerie stare at a television screen.
Alison: Who is that guy?
Valerie: I don't know.
A few minutes later...
Alison: Why did she just do that?
Valerie: I don't know.
Still, a few minutes later...
Alison: Wait a minute, how could that happen?
Valerie: I don't know.
A few more minutes later...
Alison: What does that mean?
Valerie: I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, I felt like Alison in my Thursday screening of Order of the Phoenix. Why Dementors in Muggleville? And why has the Ministry of Magic has gone all federal bureaucracy? And, why is Harry always moody? And who is she? And him? And him? And her?....... etc.
Having stipulated the above, here are some comments proceeding from my criticly duty to try and offer some kind of review of Order of the Phoenix.
The production value is, as with all the films, stunning and wonderful. There are beautifully realized fantasies over and over through the two hours (and then some...it felt long to me).
The acting is great, as always, with the cream of the British academy all dropping in for what are effectively cameos. The most notable of these were the two scenes that Emma Thompson gets in the film, in which she manages to still make an emotional impression.
So, what's it all about, Harry?
The theme that seemed to emerge in the last moments of the film is that evil can not be avoided, but must be engaged and overcome. A secondary theme is also present in which relationships of love and friendship are better than power and domination, and, we suspect, ultimately more powerful. As with all the movies, I did not see any evil or dangerous themes in the movie. I do not think that Harry Potter is in any sense subversive from a Christian standpoint, and as the above themes emerge as the story heads towards its climax, I can't see how the Harry haters are going to hold their turf. It has long been embarrassingly obvious that J.K. Rowling is no Philip Pullman, in that Rowling's narrative orientation is toward the good, true and beautiful.
The weakness in this latest movie was all in the script. There was just too much story from the book for the writer to service effectively. I was disappointed by the non-existent development of the supporting characters in the movie. Ron and, my favorite character, Hermione, might as well have not even been in this movie. Everybody but harry ends up being frozen in place in terms of growth.
People tell me that it was a remarkable accomplishment to squeeze as much as they did in to the movie here, but achievement or not, I was still confused and hence emotionally unengaged much of the time.
For those concerned about their kids, there is no sex, language, vulgarity or graphic violence in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I didn't find it particularly scary. It plays like Return of the Jedi in terms of the violence being various folks getting banged around and slightly fried by lazer beams.
I recommend the movie for those who like the Harry Potter series. For those who aren't followers of the books, the movies will not be harmful, and are entertaining for their effects and style. Whatever.
My experience of watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and really the last two movies in the franchise, is vague appreciation for the stunning visuals, but also narrative disinterest engendered by the certainty that these movies really aren't for me, as a non-reader of the books. The movies are visual tableaus of beloved imaginings for those who have read the books and walk into the theater already caring.
My experience watching Order of the Phoenix was like an acount of my sisters, Alison and Valerie, watching the NBC series Heroes. Here's the story in dialogue form as it was told to me.
Alison and Valerie stare at a television screen.
Alison: Who is that guy?
Valerie: I don't know.
A few minutes later...
Alison: Why did she just do that?
Valerie: I don't know.
Still, a few minutes later...
Alison: Wait a minute, how could that happen?
Valerie: I don't know.
A few more minutes later...
Alison: What does that mean?
Valerie: I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, I felt like Alison in my Thursday screening of Order of the Phoenix. Why Dementors in Muggleville? And why has the Ministry of Magic has gone all federal bureaucracy? And, why is Harry always moody? And who is she? And him? And him? And her?....... etc.
Having stipulated the above, here are some comments proceeding from my criticly duty to try and offer some kind of review of Order of the Phoenix.
The production value is, as with all the films, stunning and wonderful. There are beautifully realized fantasies over and over through the two hours (and then some...it felt long to me).
The acting is great, as always, with the cream of the British academy all dropping in for what are effectively cameos. The most notable of these were the two scenes that Emma Thompson gets in the film, in which she manages to still make an emotional impression.
So, what's it all about, Harry?
The theme that seemed to emerge in the last moments of the film is that evil can not be avoided, but must be engaged and overcome. A secondary theme is also present in which relationships of love and friendship are better than power and domination, and, we suspect, ultimately more powerful. As with all the movies, I did not see any evil or dangerous themes in the movie. I do not think that Harry Potter is in any sense subversive from a Christian standpoint, and as the above themes emerge as the story heads towards its climax, I can't see how the Harry haters are going to hold their turf. It has long been embarrassingly obvious that J.K. Rowling is no Philip Pullman, in that Rowling's narrative orientation is toward the good, true and beautiful.
The weakness in this latest movie was all in the script. There was just too much story from the book for the writer to service effectively. I was disappointed by the non-existent development of the supporting characters in the movie. Ron and, my favorite character, Hermione, might as well have not even been in this movie. Everybody but harry ends up being frozen in place in terms of growth.
People tell me that it was a remarkable accomplishment to squeeze as much as they did in to the movie here, but achievement or not, I was still confused and hence emotionally unengaged much of the time.
For those concerned about their kids, there is no sex, language, vulgarity or graphic violence in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I didn't find it particularly scary. It plays like Return of the Jedi in terms of the violence being various folks getting banged around and slightly fried by lazer beams.
I recommend the movie for those who like the Harry Potter series. For those who aren't followers of the books, the movies will not be harmful, and are entertaining for their effects and style. Whatever.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Not a Mighty Movie
I went to A Mighty Heart yesterday afternoon, and somewhere around the mid-point I fell asleep. I jolted awake, ashamed of myself for not feeling more at the story of an American murdered by terrorists, and momentarily distressed that I had missed something important. But the film was still plodding on unaware of me, as it meticulously reconstructed all the different Ahmeds and Mohammeds and Sarifs and Aris who had played a part in the kidnapping and beheading of journalist, Daniel Pearl.
The movie has a very restrained point of view, which doesn't work from a craft standpoint. It spends way too much time in the minutia of the disappearance and pursuit, especially because everybody in the theater knows that Pearl is going to be found dead eventually. The film spends way too little time demonstrating how either Daniel Pearl or his wife Marianne have "a mighty heart." Just being murdered by blood-thirsty Al Quaeda thugs or being related to someone who is murdered by blood-thirsty Al Quaeda thugs, doesn't make one mighty. It does make one a pawn in a larger game, but the film doesn't do much with that notion either.
I was waiting to see Daniel Pearl, or his wife, Marianne, reach out in some heroic way to the Muslim murderers, and in so doing, help those Muslims find their humanity. Presumably, if we treat blood-lusting monsters like people, they might be drawn into acting human. It's worth a shot, because even if we die naive, we might still go to heaven for the attempt (as long as the angels don't find us in contempt for stupidity...terrorism is so complicated).
Anyway, the film has a note at the end that it is dedicated to Pearl's son, Adam, who was born after his father was murdered. I found that confusing. There is very little about Daniel Pearl in the movie. Just a lot of quick flash backs as Marianne (played with a lot of pacing and staring by Angelina Jolie), remembers her husband in quiet moments here and there. I can't see wanting a son to watch a film that makes much of the vile human footnotes who participated in butchering his father.
There were other odd choices in the movie, that I think are the result of either political correctness or downright terror of the terrorists who are, after all, the providers of the tragic story here. For example, there is a scene in which the good guys from the Pakistani government, who are desperately searching for Pearl, torture a jihadist for information. I thought it was an odd choice, because the movie also makes the choice not to show any of the torture and beheading of Daniel Pearl by the bad guys.
I think by doing this, the movie was maybe trying to say that there are no real bad guys or good guys in the global war on terror. The prevailing "Hate Bush" culture has gotten so bad that everybody is saying insane things like the U.S. is just as bad as the guys who did 9/11, so who are we to judge the guys who beheaded Daniel Pearl? I mean, maybe they had a good reason, right? Maybe U.S. foreign policy forced them to cut off Pearl's head? And maybe all they had around was a butter-knife? Hey, isn't it really a kind of arrogance to say the jihadists are evil?
But no one sane in the audience really believes that, so why even try to make the case? Or in the case of the movie, not make any case, about goodness or evilness. I'm officially closing my mind on this one: People who cut off other peoples' heads with butter-knives or with anything else, own the 'We're Bad Guys" franchise.
I also think the choice was odd from another aspect. Why show a scene of a happening that is at best speculative - the torturing of a terrorist by the Pakistani government. But then NOT show a scene that is certain - the beheading of an innocent journalist. If they were trying to be respectful of Pearl, they ended up making a movie in which the only act of violence that ends up on the screen, is by the good guys. We don't see any jihadist violence in A Mighty Heart. Where's the fairness doctrine when you really need it?
There are an awful lot of people running in and across the screen in A Mighty Heart, but few of them take on any real meaning for the audience. I took this frenzied whizzing by of actors to be the film maker's way of giving us Marianne's disoriented POV in the two weeks between her husband's abduction and his murder. But it really doesn't add anything to the project as entertainment.
Note here that entertainment doesn't always have to be fun. But it does always have to be entertaining. That is, it has to get and hold a viewer's attention. A Mighty Heart seemed to think that I would care about the mystery of how Al Quaeda snatched Daniel Pearl. I didn't care about that. I wanted help to fathom what Pearl's death means to me, and to all of us. The film makers didn't say anything about that. Either because they don't know, or because terrorism has worked its paralyzing black-magic on them.
Jolie's performance was solid, especially given the fact that the script gives her little to do but dial phones and stare at counter-terrorism agents. There was a really great performance by the guy who plays the head of the Pakistani police. Dan Futterman had too little screen time as Daniel Pearl to say much of anything about his performance.
What interest there was for me in the film came from the B-roll of life in Pakistan. The word "fetid" comes to mind. Watching the pans of over-crowded, ugly, Arab ghettos reminded me of my recent visits to the Palestinian areas of Israel. The best argument against Islam is the way it leads Muslims to live. How do they not see it?
But in the end, A Mighty Heart fails because of lack of point of view. I don't think you can make a movie about an atrocious evil and hold back on point of view. Everything in the humanity of the audience rebels against it. Pass.
The movie has a very restrained point of view, which doesn't work from a craft standpoint. It spends way too much time in the minutia of the disappearance and pursuit, especially because everybody in the theater knows that Pearl is going to be found dead eventually. The film spends way too little time demonstrating how either Daniel Pearl or his wife Marianne have "a mighty heart." Just being murdered by blood-thirsty Al Quaeda thugs or being related to someone who is murdered by blood-thirsty Al Quaeda thugs, doesn't make one mighty. It does make one a pawn in a larger game, but the film doesn't do much with that notion either.
I was waiting to see Daniel Pearl, or his wife, Marianne, reach out in some heroic way to the Muslim murderers, and in so doing, help those Muslims find their humanity. Presumably, if we treat blood-lusting monsters like people, they might be drawn into acting human. It's worth a shot, because even if we die naive, we might still go to heaven for the attempt (as long as the angels don't find us in contempt for stupidity...terrorism is so complicated).
Anyway, the film has a note at the end that it is dedicated to Pearl's son, Adam, who was born after his father was murdered. I found that confusing. There is very little about Daniel Pearl in the movie. Just a lot of quick flash backs as Marianne (played with a lot of pacing and staring by Angelina Jolie), remembers her husband in quiet moments here and there. I can't see wanting a son to watch a film that makes much of the vile human footnotes who participated in butchering his father.
There were other odd choices in the movie, that I think are the result of either political correctness or downright terror of the terrorists who are, after all, the providers of the tragic story here. For example, there is a scene in which the good guys from the Pakistani government, who are desperately searching for Pearl, torture a jihadist for information. I thought it was an odd choice, because the movie also makes the choice not to show any of the torture and beheading of Daniel Pearl by the bad guys.
I think by doing this, the movie was maybe trying to say that there are no real bad guys or good guys in the global war on terror. The prevailing "Hate Bush" culture has gotten so bad that everybody is saying insane things like the U.S. is just as bad as the guys who did 9/11, so who are we to judge the guys who beheaded Daniel Pearl? I mean, maybe they had a good reason, right? Maybe U.S. foreign policy forced them to cut off Pearl's head? And maybe all they had around was a butter-knife? Hey, isn't it really a kind of arrogance to say the jihadists are evil?
But no one sane in the audience really believes that, so why even try to make the case? Or in the case of the movie, not make any case, about goodness or evilness. I'm officially closing my mind on this one: People who cut off other peoples' heads with butter-knives or with anything else, own the 'We're Bad Guys" franchise.
I also think the choice was odd from another aspect. Why show a scene of a happening that is at best speculative - the torturing of a terrorist by the Pakistani government. But then NOT show a scene that is certain - the beheading of an innocent journalist. If they were trying to be respectful of Pearl, they ended up making a movie in which the only act of violence that ends up on the screen, is by the good guys. We don't see any jihadist violence in A Mighty Heart. Where's the fairness doctrine when you really need it?
There are an awful lot of people running in and across the screen in A Mighty Heart, but few of them take on any real meaning for the audience. I took this frenzied whizzing by of actors to be the film maker's way of giving us Marianne's disoriented POV in the two weeks between her husband's abduction and his murder. But it really doesn't add anything to the project as entertainment.
Note here that entertainment doesn't always have to be fun. But it does always have to be entertaining. That is, it has to get and hold a viewer's attention. A Mighty Heart seemed to think that I would care about the mystery of how Al Quaeda snatched Daniel Pearl. I didn't care about that. I wanted help to fathom what Pearl's death means to me, and to all of us. The film makers didn't say anything about that. Either because they don't know, or because terrorism has worked its paralyzing black-magic on them.
Jolie's performance was solid, especially given the fact that the script gives her little to do but dial phones and stare at counter-terrorism agents. There was a really great performance by the guy who plays the head of the Pakistani police. Dan Futterman had too little screen time as Daniel Pearl to say much of anything about his performance.
What interest there was for me in the film came from the B-roll of life in Pakistan. The word "fetid" comes to mind. Watching the pans of over-crowded, ugly, Arab ghettos reminded me of my recent visits to the Palestinian areas of Israel. The best argument against Islam is the way it leads Muslims to live. How do they not see it?
But in the end, A Mighty Heart fails because of lack of point of view. I don't think you can make a movie about an atrocious evil and hold back on point of view. Everything in the humanity of the audience rebels against it. Pass.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
"Isn't it hard for you to kick against the goad?"
I did enough gloating for a year in my earlier post about the Pope's new Motu Proprio. So, I'm not going to gloat here about being right about the grinding and gnashing of teeth already coming from the G.H.C.W.L.A.L.T.F. (Grey-Haired Catholics Who Long Ago Lost Their Faith).
But, in truth, they're off. Here are a few choice snips from a GHPWLALHF (Grey-Haired Priest Who Long Ago Lost His Faith) twisting in the wind in a blog post he entitled, "Moto Proprio Madness". "Madness". The madness of the Vicar of Christ. I point it out just in case someone out there thought I was exaggerating about the disdain with which the GHCWLALTF have always treated the rest of us. In the name of the general good, of course.
I could go on, but what is the point? Just, please parse all the crap like the above that you are going to hear in the media once we get past tonights "The Planet is God" festivities.
But, in truth, they're off. Here are a few choice snips from a GHPWLALHF (Grey-Haired Priest Who Long Ago Lost His Faith) twisting in the wind in a blog post he entitled, "Moto Proprio Madness". "Madness". The madness of the Vicar of Christ. I point it out just in case someone out there thought I was exaggerating about the disdain with which the GHCWLALTF have always treated the rest of us. In the name of the general good, of course.
The new Motu Proprio reflects clearly the rather idiosyncratic opinions of Joseph Ratzinger, opinions that have always been controversial and divisive.... [NOTE FROM BARB: Please note the hackneyed GHCWLALTF tactic of define and dismiss, a.k.a. "We call you names, so then, we don't have to listen to you."]
...Here the aspiration of many bishops to offer a “creative liturgy” to their people, is discredited.... [NOTE FROM BARB: See, the creative part of the liturgy is Jesus changing the bread into Himself. All the GHC'sWLALTF efforts to be more "creative" than Jesus at the liturgy have been obscenely inappropriate. Like watching Ellen Degeneres do her dancing at the Moscow Ballet.]
There is no mention of inculturation, or of a return to biblical sources.... Nothing about the pain of the many faithful who have not been provided with creative, inculturated liturgy, but with sawdust texts, hopeless sermons, wretched music, etc. [NOTE FROM BARB: Is it really possible for a GHPWLALHF to duck responsibility for the "wretched music" in the Church today? Are you kidding me?! You guys were the ones who shoved down our throats the Music Ministry People waving their hands in the air and croaking, "To Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake Each MO-ment and Livvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve Each Mo-ment in Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeecae E-ter-nal-lyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....."??? You gotta own the bodies of your rebellion, buddy.]
Nothing about learning from the Anglicans, who do all these things so much better than we do. In short, both diagnosis and remedy seem very narrow.... [NOTE FROM BARB: More name calling. Now the Pope is "narrow." But the Anglicans are super smart and good!]
...The Anti-Defamation League has rightly condemned the restoration of the prayer for the conversion of the Jews.... [NOTE FROM BARB: Because we do not wish that all people come to believe in Jesus? What you really meant to say here was, "What can we expect from a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth? People who like the Tridentine mass are all anti-Semites." Define and dismiss 101.]
...there are indications that the Motu Proprio is designed to undercut episcopal authority... [NOTE FROM BARB: Oh, no! Not people questioning authority?!!.... I suppose it is too obvious to say that someone might consider this GHP'sWLALHF blog post to be designed to undercut Papal authority. No, that's too obvious. I won't say it.]
...The Rev Keith Pecklers, a Jesuit liturgical expert [NOTE FROM BARB THE GHCWLALTF EXPERT...That's all, just wanted to balance out any whiff of the argument from expert authority.], said: ‘The real issue here is not limited to liturgy but has wider implications for church life.’ He added that proponents of the old Mass ‘tend to oppose the laity's increased role in parish life... collaboration with other Christians and its dialogue with Jews and Muslims.’” [NOTE FROM BARB: Because people who resist the GHCWLALTF are fearful, bigotted and racist. Define and dismiss. But really, is this guy really claiming that allowing the Mass of Bl. John XXIII is going to foster clericalism and bigotry? What is it with this generation that they always demonize in the worst political extremes, anyone who disagrees with them? Enough already. Can't you all go and pray somewhere while you wait for death?]
...Some French bishops have expressed their resolve to remain firmly in charge of the liturgy of their dioceses, and have been immediately denounced by neocaths as contumacious. It is bad governance for a Pope to appear to ride roughshod over his own bishops and his most enlightened advisers. [NOTE FROM BARB: Oh, so that's what JPII meant when he asked the French bishops, "Eldest Daughter of the Church, What have you done with your baptism?" It was all a papal euphemism for "you Frenchies are my most enlightened advisors.]
...The Motu Proprio will be greeted by many, deplored by many, as a blow to the authority of Vatican II.... [NOTE FROM BARB: No doubt the same people who distorted and misrepresented Vatican II for their own GHCWLALTF ends.]
...Somehow the Tridentine Mass is supposed to have an aura of holiness that will spread to the Novus Ordo as well. This is weak and illogical thinking. [NOTE FROM BARB: No reason given. Just because the GHPWLALHF says so. Oh, and note that the Vicar of Christ (author of something like 60 theological texts, has a weak and illogical intellect.]
I could go on, but what is the point? Just, please parse all the crap like the above that you are going to hear in the media once we get past tonights "The Planet is God" festivities.
Not a Motu too soon...
"You said you want a revolution,
Well, you know..."
The long, cold winter of trying to be everybody else has ended. We've decided to try being Roman Catholic again.
Read it and weep, all ye liturgical innovators with your Barney music and your leotard ladies and your pita breads and your, "Hi everybody, I'm Fr. Joe, your presider! Welcome to our celebration!!!"
I'm calling to mind just now all the stern-faced, liberal ideologues of my whole ecclesial life - ruthlessly trampling on every aesthetic or reverent impulse in the name of - what the hell was it again? Oh yes - in the name of making me feel special. Got to get rid of all that damn stiff, formalism and tedious piety! Well, I imagine you are all feeling a bit moribund today. I know you've all been tedious for years. But we understand why you are going to be whining in the media for this one last time in the next few days. It must be incalculably hard having your mortality thrust inexorably in your face. The Church you thought you killed has resurrected before your eyes. It is going to live past you. You are officially now a sad footnote in the Church's two millennial story.
And Mom, this is going out to you, and all those like you who have been suffering long these many years. You stayed when it seemed like the Church had left you. You never stopped praying, while bearing the insult of so much liturgical absurdity. This is your day! Read it and laugh!
Viva la Papa!
P.S.
In: Smells and bells and lingua Latina, baby!
Out: Rubrics as suggestions.
So five minutes ago: The faith community as god.
Phrase to try and work into conversation this week: lex orandi needs to flow from lex credendi
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Apostolic Letter
In the form of “Motu Proprio”
SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
BENEDICT XVI
It has always been the care of the Supreme Pontiffs until the present time, that the Church of Christ offer worthy worship to the Divine Majesty “for the praise and glory of his name” and “for the good of all his Holy Church.”
As from time immemorial so in the future the principle shall be respected “according to which each particular Church must be in accord with the universal Church not only regarding the doctrine of the faith and sacramental signs, but also as to the usages universally handed down by apostolic and unbroken tradition. These are to be maintained not only so that errors may be avoided, but also so that the faith may be passed on in its integrity, since the Church's rule of prayer (lex orandi) corresponds to her rule of belief (lex credendi).”
Among Pontiffs who have displayed such care there excels the name of Saint Gregory the Great, who saw to the transmission to the new peoples of Europe both of the Catholic faith and of the treasures of worship and culture accumulated by the Romans in preceding centuries. He gave instructions for the form of the Sacred Liturgy of both the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the Divine Office as was celebrated in the City. He made the greatest efforts to foster monks and nuns, who militating under the Rule of St Benedict, in every place along with the proclamation of the Gospel by their life likewise exemplified that most salutary expression of the Rule “let nothing be given precedence over the work of God” (ch. 43). In this way the sacred liturgy according to the Roman manner made fertile not only the faith and piety but also the culture of many peoples. Moreover it is evident that the Latin Liturgy in its various forms has stimulated in the spiritual life very many Saints in every century of the Christian age and strengthened in the virtue of religion so many peoples and made fertile their piety.
However, in order that the Sacred Liturgy might more efficaciously absolve its task, several others among the Roman Pontiffs in the course of the centuries have brought to bear particular concern, among whom Saint Pius V is eminent, who with great pastoral zeal, at the exhortation of the Council of Trent, renewed the worship of the whole Church, ensuring the publishing of liturgical books amended and “restored according to the norm of the Fathers” and put them into use in the Latin Church.
It is clear that among the liturgical books of the Roman Rite the Roman Missal is eminent. It grew in the city of Rome and gradually down through the centuries took on forms which are very similar to those in vigor in recent generations.
“It was this same goal that as time passed the Roman Pontiffs pursued, adapting or establishing liturgical rites and books to new ages and then at the start of the present century undertaking a more ample restoration.” It was in this manner that our Predecessors Clement VIII, Urban VIII, St Pius X , Benedict XV, Pius XII and the Blessed John XXIII acted.
In more recent time, however, the Second Vatican Council expressed the desire that with due respect and reverence for divine worship it be restored and adapted to the needs of our age. Prompted by this desire, our Predecessor the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI in 1970 approved for the Latin Church liturgical books restored and partly renewed, and that throughout the world translated into many vernacular languages, have been welcomed by the Bishops and by the priests and faithful. John Paul II revised the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. Thus the Roman Pontiffs have acted so that “this liturgical edifice, so to speak, …might once again appear splendid in its dignity and harmony.”
However in some regions not a small number of the faithful have been and remain attached with such great love and affection to the previous liturgical forms, which had profoundly imbued their culture and spirit, that the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, prompted by pastoral concern for these faithful, in 1984 by means of a special Indult Quattuor abhinc annos, drawn up by the Congregation for Divine Worship, granted the faculty to use the Roman Missal published by John XXIII in 1962; while in 1988 John Paul II once again, by means of the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei, exhorted the Bishops to make wide and generous use of this faculty in favor of all the faithful requesting it.
Having pondered at length the pressing requests of these faithful to our Predecessor John Paul II, having also heard the Fathers of the Consistory of Cardinals held on 23 March 2006, having pondered all things, invoked the Holy Spirit and placed our confidence in the help of God, by this present Apostolic Letter we DECREE the following.
Art. 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is to be regarded as the ordinary expression of the law of prayer (lex orandi) of the Catholic Church of Latin Rite, while the Roman Missal promulgated by St Pius V and published again by Blessed John XXIII as the extraordinary expression of the law of prayer (lex orandi) and on account of its venerable and ancient use let it enjoy due honor. These two expressions of the law of prayer (lex orandi) of the Church in no way lead to a division in the law of prayer (lex orandi) of the Church, for they are two uses of the one Roman Rite.
Hence it is licit to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass in accordance with the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as the extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church. The conditions laid down by the previous documents Quattuor abhinc annos and Ecclesia Dei for the use of this Missal are replaced by what follows:
Art. 2. In Masses celebrated without the people, any priest of Latin rite, whether secular or religious, can use the Roman Missal published by Pope Blessed John XXIII in 1962 or the Roman Missal promulgated by the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI in 1970, on any day except in the Sacred Triduum. For celebration in accordance with one or the other Missal, a priest does not require any permission, neither from the Apostolic See nor his own Ordinary.
Art. 3. If Communities or Institutes of Consecrated Life or Societies of Apostolic Life of either pontifical or diocesan rite desire to have a celebration of Holy Mass in accordance with the edition of the Roman Missal promulgated in 1962 in the conventual or “community” celebration in their own oratories, this is allowed. If an individual community or the entire Institute or Society wants to have such celebrations often or habitually or permanently, the matter is to be decided by the Major Superiors according to the norm of law and the particular laws and statutes.
Art. 4. With due observance of law, even Christ’s faithful who spontaneously request it, may be admitted to celebrations of Holy Mass mentioned in art. 2 above.
Art. 5, § 1. In parishes where a group of faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably, let the pastor willingly accede to their requests for the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962. Let him see to it that the good of these faithful be harmoniously reconciled with ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the Bishop according to canon 392, avoiding discord and fostering the unity of the whole Church.
§ 2. Celebration according to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII can take place on weekdays, while on Sundays and on feast days there may be one such celebration.
§ 3. Let the pastor permit celebrations in this extraordinary form for faithful or priests who request it, even in particular circumstances such as weddings, funerals or occasional celebrations, for example pilgrimages.
§ 4. Priests using the Missal of Blessed John XXIII must be worthy and not impeded by law.
§ 5. In churches, which are neither parochial nor conventual, it is the Rector of the church who grants the above-mentioned permission.
Art. 6. In Masses celebrated with the people according to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII, the Readings can be proclaimed even in the vernacular, using editions that have received the recognitio of the Apostolic See.
Art. 7. Where some group of lay faithful, mentioned in art. 5§1 does not obtain what it requests from the pastor, it should inform the diocesan Bishop of the fact. The Bishop is earnestly requested to grant their desire. If he cannot provide for this kind of celebration, let the matter be referred to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.
Art. 8. A Bishop who desires to make provision for requests of lay faithful of this kind, but is for various reasons prevented from doing so, may refer the matter to the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, which should give him advice and help.
Art. 9, § 1. Likewise a pastor may, all things duly considered, grant permission to use the older ritual in administering the Sacraments of Baptism, Matrimony, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, as the good of souls may suggest.
§ 2. Ordinaries are granted the faculty to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation using the former Roman Pontifical, as the good of souls may suggest.
§ 3. It is lawful for clerics in holy orders to use even the Roman Breviary promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962.
Art 10. It is lawful for the local Ordinary, if he judges it opportune, to erect a personal parish according to the norm of canon 518 for celebrations according to the older form of the Roman rite or appoint a rector or chaplain, with due observance of the requirements of law.
Art. 11. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, erected in 1988 by John Paul II, continues to carry out its function. This Commission is to have the form, duties and norm for action that the Roman Pontiff may wish to assign to it.
Art. 12. The same Commission, in addition to the faculties it already enjoys, will exercise the authority of the Holy See by maintaining vigilance over the observance and application of these dispositions.
Whatever is decreed by Us by means of this Motu Proprio, we order to be firm and ratified and to be observed as of 14 September this year, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
Given at Rome, at St Peter’s, on 7 July in the Year of Our Lord 2007, the Third of Our Pontificate.
BENEDICT XVI
____________________
1. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third edition, 2002, n. 397
2. Pope John Paul II, Ap. Letter Vicesimus quintus annus, 4 December 1988, n. 3: AAS 81 (1989) p. 899.
3. Ibidem.
4. Pope St Pius X, Motu Proprio Abhinc duos annos, 23 October 1913: AAS 5 (1913) 449-450; cf. Pope John Paul II, Ap. Letter Vicesimus quintus annus, 4 December 1988, n. 3: AAS 81 (1989) p. 899
5. Cf. Pope John Paul II, Motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta, 2 July 1988, n. 6: AAS 80 (1988) p. 1498.
(This unofficial translation has been prepared by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for the Liturgy. Only the Latin original of the Apostolic Letter may be considered the official text.)
Well, you know..."
The long, cold winter of trying to be everybody else has ended. We've decided to try being Roman Catholic again.
Read it and weep, all ye liturgical innovators with your Barney music and your leotard ladies and your pita breads and your, "Hi everybody, I'm Fr. Joe, your presider! Welcome to our celebration!!!"
I'm calling to mind just now all the stern-faced, liberal ideologues of my whole ecclesial life - ruthlessly trampling on every aesthetic or reverent impulse in the name of - what the hell was it again? Oh yes - in the name of making me feel special. Got to get rid of all that damn stiff, formalism and tedious piety! Well, I imagine you are all feeling a bit moribund today. I know you've all been tedious for years. But we understand why you are going to be whining in the media for this one last time in the next few days. It must be incalculably hard having your mortality thrust inexorably in your face. The Church you thought you killed has resurrected before your eyes. It is going to live past you. You are officially now a sad footnote in the Church's two millennial story.
And Mom, this is going out to you, and all those like you who have been suffering long these many years. You stayed when it seemed like the Church had left you. You never stopped praying, while bearing the insult of so much liturgical absurdity. This is your day! Read it and laugh!
Viva la Papa!
P.S.
In: Smells and bells and lingua Latina, baby!
Out: Rubrics as suggestions.
So five minutes ago: The faith community as god.
Phrase to try and work into conversation this week: lex orandi needs to flow from lex credendi
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Apostolic Letter
In the form of “Motu Proprio”
SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
BENEDICT XVI
It has always been the care of the Supreme Pontiffs until the present time, that the Church of Christ offer worthy worship to the Divine Majesty “for the praise and glory of his name” and “for the good of all his Holy Church.”
As from time immemorial so in the future the principle shall be respected “according to which each particular Church must be in accord with the universal Church not only regarding the doctrine of the faith and sacramental signs, but also as to the usages universally handed down by apostolic and unbroken tradition. These are to be maintained not only so that errors may be avoided, but also so that the faith may be passed on in its integrity, since the Church's rule of prayer (lex orandi) corresponds to her rule of belief (lex credendi).”
Among Pontiffs who have displayed such care there excels the name of Saint Gregory the Great, who saw to the transmission to the new peoples of Europe both of the Catholic faith and of the treasures of worship and culture accumulated by the Romans in preceding centuries. He gave instructions for the form of the Sacred Liturgy of both the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the Divine Office as was celebrated in the City. He made the greatest efforts to foster monks and nuns, who militating under the Rule of St Benedict, in every place along with the proclamation of the Gospel by their life likewise exemplified that most salutary expression of the Rule “let nothing be given precedence over the work of God” (ch. 43). In this way the sacred liturgy according to the Roman manner made fertile not only the faith and piety but also the culture of many peoples. Moreover it is evident that the Latin Liturgy in its various forms has stimulated in the spiritual life very many Saints in every century of the Christian age and strengthened in the virtue of religion so many peoples and made fertile their piety.
However, in order that the Sacred Liturgy might more efficaciously absolve its task, several others among the Roman Pontiffs in the course of the centuries have brought to bear particular concern, among whom Saint Pius V is eminent, who with great pastoral zeal, at the exhortation of the Council of Trent, renewed the worship of the whole Church, ensuring the publishing of liturgical books amended and “restored according to the norm of the Fathers” and put them into use in the Latin Church.
It is clear that among the liturgical books of the Roman Rite the Roman Missal is eminent. It grew in the city of Rome and gradually down through the centuries took on forms which are very similar to those in vigor in recent generations.
“It was this same goal that as time passed the Roman Pontiffs pursued, adapting or establishing liturgical rites and books to new ages and then at the start of the present century undertaking a more ample restoration.” It was in this manner that our Predecessors Clement VIII, Urban VIII, St Pius X , Benedict XV, Pius XII and the Blessed John XXIII acted.
In more recent time, however, the Second Vatican Council expressed the desire that with due respect and reverence for divine worship it be restored and adapted to the needs of our age. Prompted by this desire, our Predecessor the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI in 1970 approved for the Latin Church liturgical books restored and partly renewed, and that throughout the world translated into many vernacular languages, have been welcomed by the Bishops and by the priests and faithful. John Paul II revised the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. Thus the Roman Pontiffs have acted so that “this liturgical edifice, so to speak, …might once again appear splendid in its dignity and harmony.”
However in some regions not a small number of the faithful have been and remain attached with such great love and affection to the previous liturgical forms, which had profoundly imbued their culture and spirit, that the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, prompted by pastoral concern for these faithful, in 1984 by means of a special Indult Quattuor abhinc annos, drawn up by the Congregation for Divine Worship, granted the faculty to use the Roman Missal published by John XXIII in 1962; while in 1988 John Paul II once again, by means of the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei, exhorted the Bishops to make wide and generous use of this faculty in favor of all the faithful requesting it.
Having pondered at length the pressing requests of these faithful to our Predecessor John Paul II, having also heard the Fathers of the Consistory of Cardinals held on 23 March 2006, having pondered all things, invoked the Holy Spirit and placed our confidence in the help of God, by this present Apostolic Letter we DECREE the following.
Art. 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is to be regarded as the ordinary expression of the law of prayer (lex orandi) of the Catholic Church of Latin Rite, while the Roman Missal promulgated by St Pius V and published again by Blessed John XXIII as the extraordinary expression of the law of prayer (lex orandi) and on account of its venerable and ancient use let it enjoy due honor. These two expressions of the law of prayer (lex orandi) of the Church in no way lead to a division in the law of prayer (lex orandi) of the Church, for they are two uses of the one Roman Rite.
Hence it is licit to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass in accordance with the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as the extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church. The conditions laid down by the previous documents Quattuor abhinc annos and Ecclesia Dei for the use of this Missal are replaced by what follows:
Art. 2. In Masses celebrated without the people, any priest of Latin rite, whether secular or religious, can use the Roman Missal published by Pope Blessed John XXIII in 1962 or the Roman Missal promulgated by the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI in 1970, on any day except in the Sacred Triduum. For celebration in accordance with one or the other Missal, a priest does not require any permission, neither from the Apostolic See nor his own Ordinary.
Art. 3. If Communities or Institutes of Consecrated Life or Societies of Apostolic Life of either pontifical or diocesan rite desire to have a celebration of Holy Mass in accordance with the edition of the Roman Missal promulgated in 1962 in the conventual or “community” celebration in their own oratories, this is allowed. If an individual community or the entire Institute or Society wants to have such celebrations often or habitually or permanently, the matter is to be decided by the Major Superiors according to the norm of law and the particular laws and statutes.
Art. 4. With due observance of law, even Christ’s faithful who spontaneously request it, may be admitted to celebrations of Holy Mass mentioned in art. 2 above.
Art. 5, § 1. In parishes where a group of faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably, let the pastor willingly accede to their requests for the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962. Let him see to it that the good of these faithful be harmoniously reconciled with ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the Bishop according to canon 392, avoiding discord and fostering the unity of the whole Church.
§ 2. Celebration according to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII can take place on weekdays, while on Sundays and on feast days there may be one such celebration.
§ 3. Let the pastor permit celebrations in this extraordinary form for faithful or priests who request it, even in particular circumstances such as weddings, funerals or occasional celebrations, for example pilgrimages.
§ 4. Priests using the Missal of Blessed John XXIII must be worthy and not impeded by law.
§ 5. In churches, which are neither parochial nor conventual, it is the Rector of the church who grants the above-mentioned permission.
Art. 6. In Masses celebrated with the people according to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII, the Readings can be proclaimed even in the vernacular, using editions that have received the recognitio of the Apostolic See.
Art. 7. Where some group of lay faithful, mentioned in art. 5§1 does not obtain what it requests from the pastor, it should inform the diocesan Bishop of the fact. The Bishop is earnestly requested to grant their desire. If he cannot provide for this kind of celebration, let the matter be referred to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.
Art. 8. A Bishop who desires to make provision for requests of lay faithful of this kind, but is for various reasons prevented from doing so, may refer the matter to the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, which should give him advice and help.
Art. 9, § 1. Likewise a pastor may, all things duly considered, grant permission to use the older ritual in administering the Sacraments of Baptism, Matrimony, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, as the good of souls may suggest.
§ 2. Ordinaries are granted the faculty to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation using the former Roman Pontifical, as the good of souls may suggest.
§ 3. It is lawful for clerics in holy orders to use even the Roman Breviary promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962.
Art 10. It is lawful for the local Ordinary, if he judges it opportune, to erect a personal parish according to the norm of canon 518 for celebrations according to the older form of the Roman rite or appoint a rector or chaplain, with due observance of the requirements of law.
Art. 11. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, erected in 1988 by John Paul II, continues to carry out its function. This Commission is to have the form, duties and norm for action that the Roman Pontiff may wish to assign to it.
Art. 12. The same Commission, in addition to the faculties it already enjoys, will exercise the authority of the Holy See by maintaining vigilance over the observance and application of these dispositions.
Whatever is decreed by Us by means of this Motu Proprio, we order to be firm and ratified and to be observed as of 14 September this year, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
Given at Rome, at St Peter’s, on 7 July in the Year of Our Lord 2007, the Third of Our Pontificate.
BENEDICT XVI
____________________
1. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third edition, 2002, n. 397
2. Pope John Paul II, Ap. Letter Vicesimus quintus annus, 4 December 1988, n. 3: AAS 81 (1989) p. 899.
3. Ibidem.
4. Pope St Pius X, Motu Proprio Abhinc duos annos, 23 October 1913: AAS 5 (1913) 449-450; cf. Pope John Paul II, Ap. Letter Vicesimus quintus annus, 4 December 1988, n. 3: AAS 81 (1989) p. 899
5. Cf. Pope John Paul II, Motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta, 2 July 1988, n. 6: AAS 80 (1988) p. 1498.
(This unofficial translation has been prepared by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for the Liturgy. Only the Latin original of the Apostolic Letter may be considered the official text.)
Thursday, July 05, 2007
New Online Catholic Newspaper
I checked out this site and found it very cool. It is like a Catholic Drudge. I'm adding it to my sidebar.
-------------------------
Pewsitter.com is a unique Catholic news web site that was launched earlier this year.
We are based in the U.S. and the preponderance of news on the site is from the U.S,
we do feature Catholic related news from around the world.
The news on the site comes from two sources. The main source is from the conventional secular and Catholic press. We scour the news every day and put on Pewsitter those stories about the Catholic Church, faith, religion and the important moral and spiritual struggles of the day.
The second news source is the Catholic lay faithful. The concept behind the site is to enlist an army of "pewsitters" to be the eyes and ears for Pewsitter - hence the name. By submitting newsworthy items to Pewsitter, the laity can help shape and influence the Church and be a powerful force for positive change.
Pewsitter's initial focus will be on the national and international news on its home page. Its mid term objective is it to feature the Catholic news of the day within each of the 189 Catholic dioceses throughout the U.S
We would very much appreciate your assistance in getting the word out about Pewsitter. Here are several ways in which you can help us:
1. Place a link to our site, from your site, in a prominent place
2. Send an email to any opt-in email lists that you might have, encouraging other
faithful Catholics to go to the site and to begin to use it.
3. Volunteer to assist us with this endeavor
4. Keep us in your prayers.
May God bless you.
Regards,
James Todd
Founder, Pewsitter.com
-------------------------
Pewsitter.com is a unique Catholic news web site that was launched earlier this year.
We are based in the U.S. and the preponderance of news on the site is from the U.S,
we do feature Catholic related news from around the world.
The news on the site comes from two sources. The main source is from the conventional secular and Catholic press. We scour the news every day and put on Pewsitter those stories about the Catholic Church, faith, religion and the important moral and spiritual struggles of the day.
The second news source is the Catholic lay faithful. The concept behind the site is to enlist an army of "pewsitters" to be the eyes and ears for Pewsitter - hence the name. By submitting newsworthy items to Pewsitter, the laity can help shape and influence the Church and be a powerful force for positive change.
Pewsitter's initial focus will be on the national and international news on its home page. Its mid term objective is it to feature the Catholic news of the day within each of the 189 Catholic dioceses throughout the U.S
We would very much appreciate your assistance in getting the word out about Pewsitter. Here are several ways in which you can help us:
1. Place a link to our site, from your site, in a prominent place
2. Send an email to any opt-in email lists that you might have, encouraging other
faithful Catholics to go to the site and to begin to use it.
3. Volunteer to assist us with this endeavor
4. Keep us in your prayers.
May God bless you.
Regards,
James Todd
Founder, Pewsitter.com
Parody as Prophecy
This is funny. I predict that it is not too far off of what we are going to see in the media this weekend.
My opinion on the Motu Proprio: I am so happy for my Mother and her friends. They have been longing for this for decades. Personally, in another decade or so, I think we will all be ecstatic to have access to the Mass at all. I don't think we'll be getting stuck on which Rite is better.
(Hat tip to Sarah.)
My opinion on the Motu Proprio: I am so happy for my Mother and her friends. They have been longing for this for decades. Personally, in another decade or so, I think we will all be ecstatic to have access to the Mass at all. I don't think we'll be getting stuck on which Rite is better.
(Hat tip to Sarah.)
News from Dappled Things
Dear Ms. Nicolosi,
It is a joy to share with you the news that Dappled Things Catholic literary magazine is now officially a printed journal! We have just released our SS. Peter & Paul 2007 issue, filled with the best prose, poetry and art by young Catholics that you can find, well, just about anywhere. We hope you will help us spread the word. To mark this important milestone we have prepared a veritable literary feast for our readers. This quarter's edition features a bouquet of prominent Catholic authors -- Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and Michael D. O'Brien among them -- discussing the works of literature that have most profoundly affected them. Fr. Neuhaus ponders the meaning of Catholic literature:
"A neglected aspect of the Catholic imagination, however, is the aversion to being carried away by flights of spiritual fancy. Put differently, there is an adamantine Catholic insistence that the connections be tied to the particulars of time and place. This is nicely illustrated in Evelyn Waugh's Helena."
Then there is "The Builders," a dazzling poem by a promising new author about the Spartan sacrifice at the Battle of Thermopylae:
"The gate was almost finished.
In those thirsty hours, a taut rack of earth we raised
With much labor. We packed the soil with shield-butts.
Waist deep in horse-flies, we stretched our lances—
Protean, slender bronze. Our cloaks were red and wet,
The air was old and saline by the end."
In "Happy Hills," a powerful short story by Jonathan McDonald, the meaning of motherhood faces the test of the modern world:
"Christine realized she was pregnant in late March of last year. Two mornings of vomiting and a pregnancy test taken over her lunch break confirmed it. She thought she could already feel the intruder glacially eroding her uterus. The tube looked like a cheap toothbrush, and she'd kept it under her counter at Kaki-Dans. She kept pulling it out every two minutes to confirm the two purple lines on the end. Positive. She'd turned twenty-one three weeks ago. There wouldn't be many legal consequences for the drunkenness, but manslaughter by alcohol-induced miscarriage might be harder to pull off. She'd probably just end up with a retard, even dumber than James."
St. Blog's favorite Matthew Alderman delights us with a meditati on on Botticelli's unattainable women:
"I just moved into this place, my first real apartment for my first real job. At the moment, I only possess five books—a strange sort of poverty. I'm waiting for the rest of them to get shipped up here, once I finally figure out where to put the bookcase. Four of the five I bought only two days ago, a ten-dollar, four-volume pocket-size set of the complete works of the painter Sandro Botticelli. I found them in a used bookstore in Cooperstown, wedged in at the end of a low passage amid faux nineteenth-century signage, baseball memorabilia, and Federalist bricks. And now I am contemplating, in the slow pale light of afternoon, all of Botticelli's women—Madonnas and saints, goddesses, aristocrats, and other men's mistresses."
There is also excellent new art and photography, and for those of you interested in the continuing saga of the motu proprio, you might want to drop in to our archives and read up on the eastward position of the priest -- Mass said ad orientem -- that is such an important part of the traditional rite.
And after you've had the chance to take it all in, please stop by our forums to share your thoughts with other readers!
In Christ,
Bernardo Aparicio
President, Dappled Things
It is a joy to share with you the news that Dappled Things Catholic literary magazine is now officially a printed journal! We have just released our SS. Peter & Paul 2007 issue, filled with the best prose, poetry and art by young Catholics that you can find, well, just about anywhere. We hope you will help us spread the word. To mark this important milestone we have prepared a veritable literary feast for our readers. This quarter's edition features a bouquet of prominent Catholic authors -- Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and Michael D. O'Brien among them -- discussing the works of literature that have most profoundly affected them. Fr. Neuhaus ponders the meaning of Catholic literature:
"A neglected aspect of the Catholic imagination, however, is the aversion to being carried away by flights of spiritual fancy. Put differently, there is an adamantine Catholic insistence that the connections be tied to the particulars of time and place. This is nicely illustrated in Evelyn Waugh's Helena."
Then there is "The Builders," a dazzling poem by a promising new author about the Spartan sacrifice at the Battle of Thermopylae:
"The gate was almost finished.
In those thirsty hours, a taut rack of earth we raised
With much labor. We packed the soil with shield-butts.
Waist deep in horse-flies, we stretched our lances—
Protean, slender bronze. Our cloaks were red and wet,
The air was old and saline by the end."
In "Happy Hills," a powerful short story by Jonathan McDonald, the meaning of motherhood faces the test of the modern world:
"Christine realized she was pregnant in late March of last year. Two mornings of vomiting and a pregnancy test taken over her lunch break confirmed it. She thought she could already feel the intruder glacially eroding her uterus. The tube looked like a cheap toothbrush, and she'd kept it under her counter at Kaki-Dans. She kept pulling it out every two minutes to confirm the two purple lines on the end. Positive. She'd turned twenty-one three weeks ago. There wouldn't be many legal consequences for the drunkenness, but manslaughter by alcohol-induced miscarriage might be harder to pull off. She'd probably just end up with a retard, even dumber than James."
St. Blog's favorite Matthew Alderman delights us with a meditati on on Botticelli's unattainable women:
"I just moved into this place, my first real apartment for my first real job. At the moment, I only possess five books—a strange sort of poverty. I'm waiting for the rest of them to get shipped up here, once I finally figure out where to put the bookcase. Four of the five I bought only two days ago, a ten-dollar, four-volume pocket-size set of the complete works of the painter Sandro Botticelli. I found them in a used bookstore in Cooperstown, wedged in at the end of a low passage amid faux nineteenth-century signage, baseball memorabilia, and Federalist bricks. And now I am contemplating, in the slow pale light of afternoon, all of Botticelli's women—Madonnas and saints, goddesses, aristocrats, and other men's mistresses."
There is also excellent new art and photography, and for those of you interested in the continuing saga of the motu proprio, you might want to drop in to our archives and read up on the eastward position of the priest -- Mass said ad orientem -- that is such an important part of the traditional rite.
And after you've had the chance to take it all in, please stop by our forums to share your thoughts with other readers!
In Christ,
Bernardo Aparicio
President, Dappled Things
Monday, June 25, 2007
This blog is rated...
This is for all those annoyed people out there who dismiss me as a G-rated square. The truth is, I'm an R-rated square.
(Hat tip to R.F.G..)
Reviving Emily Monday
As she wrote it....
420
You'll know it -- as you know 'tis Noon --
By Glory --
As you do the Sun --
By Glory --
As you will in Heaven --
Know God the Father -- and the Son.
By intuition, Mightiest Things
Assert themselves -- and not by terms --
"I'm Midnight" -- need the Midnight say --
"I'm Sunrise" -- Need the Majesty?
Omnipotence -- had not a Tongue --
His listp -- is Lightning -- and the Sun --
His Conversation -- with the Sea --
"How shall you know"?
Consult your Eye!
As I read it...
You'll know it -- as you know 'tis Noon --
By Glory (as you do the Sun)
By Glory (as you will in Heaven know God the Father -- and the Son).
Mightiest Things Assert themselves by Intuition and not by terms --
"I'm Midnight" -- need the Midnight say --
"I'm Sunrise" -- Need the Majesty?
Omnipotence -- has not a Tongue --
His lisp -- is Lightning.
And the Sun -- His Conversation --
"How shall you know with the Sea"?
Consult your Eye!
420
You'll know it -- as you know 'tis Noon --
By Glory --
As you do the Sun --
By Glory --
As you will in Heaven --
Know God the Father -- and the Son.
By intuition, Mightiest Things
Assert themselves -- and not by terms --
"I'm Midnight" -- need the Midnight say --
"I'm Sunrise" -- Need the Majesty?
Omnipotence -- had not a Tongue --
His listp -- is Lightning -- and the Sun --
His Conversation -- with the Sea --
"How shall you know"?
Consult your Eye!
As I read it...
You'll know it -- as you know 'tis Noon --
By Glory (as you do the Sun)
By Glory (as you will in Heaven know God the Father -- and the Son).
Mightiest Things Assert themselves by Intuition and not by terms --
"I'm Midnight" -- need the Midnight say --
"I'm Sunrise" -- Need the Majesty?
Omnipotence -- has not a Tongue --
His lisp -- is Lightning.
And the Sun -- His Conversation --
"How shall you know with the Sea"?
Consult your Eye!
A New Renaissance One Church at a Time
I spent yesterday making a mini-pilgrimage to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano which is about an hour's drive south of Los Angeles. I talked my friend Karen of television writing into coming, and my friend Bernadette of Magis into hanging out with us for the afternoon. I wanted Karen to see the new altarpiece that they have recently installed into the Basilica church. (Karen also has come pictures up at her blog.)
The altarpiece was created in Madrid, by one of the only companies that can still do this kind of artwork. (Apparently they have been passing down the skills in one family for 450 years.) The altarpiece, a bargain at $3 million, is forty feet high and 25 feet wide. It is part of a comprehensive beauty facelift in which the pastor has replaced the altar, pulpit, altarpiece and next week, the tabernacle. I love that this is happening somewhere in Christendom. Somebody is actually spending money to make a place of worship beautiful - you know, as opposed to "inclusive", "functional", "simplified" or "IMPORTANT" (ie. political as in lame acrhitectural statements that everybody hates).
The altarpiece in Capistrano gets its unearthly gleam from the fact that it is plated with 24.5 carat gold. We saw a lot of this kind of thing in Spain, but they were all covered with 500 years of soot and darkened candle wax. This thing in Capistrano makes a good case for a nice cleaning of half the churches of Europe. (Somebody, get on that, will you?)
Exquisite in its craft and detail, the altarpiece is the kind of thing I haven't seen commissioned in a Catholic Church for my whole artistically wretched post-Vatican II iconoclasm period life. Kudos go to the pastor of the Mission Basilica, providentially named Fr. Art. Fr. Art told us that the installation of the new altarpiece has transformed the parish. I understand why. You sit there during the liturgy and stare up and something in you moves towards belief.
Anybody who lives in So Cal, it's time to make a pilgrimage to the San Juan Capistrano Mission. If you don't live around here, plan on taking your next vacation somewhere close to Orange County. Go here for the Mission's web site and schedule of Masses.
Here are some shots from around the basilica.
The crucifix over the altar.
There are four saint statues on the altarpiece, that have significance to the Mission. St. Kateri Tekakwitha, called the Lily of the Mohawks for her works of charity after her conversion to Christianity, is also the first Native American saint.
St. Francis is there because all of the California missions - and consequently all the principal cities of the state - were established by Franciscan missionaries.
St. Joseph is there because every year, the Mission relives the miracle of the return of the swallows on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19.
And then there is St. Junipero Serra, the Franciscan who founded the principal missions. He walked more than 35,000 miles in his life up and down the coast and back to Mexico City several times to get the Spanish authorities to do the right thing by way of protecting the native peoples.
Of course, in the middle of the piece just under the Trinity there is a lovely image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Patroness of the Americas.
Here's a shot of the detail of the framing that covers the altarpiece. The grape vines are a Eucharistic symbol. The swallows are there because of the annual miracle of the swallows for which the Mission is famous.
The pulpit and altar. The altar was designed by the pastor, Fr. Art.
The only thing that seems to me to be a flaw in the Basilica is the brightly colored, but badly executed painted designs on all the walls. They tell me that the art is in the style of the early mission churches. But, it seems to me that the reason they put those ugly things on the walls back in the mission days, was because they didn't have any decent artists around baby California in the 17th century. The designs look weirdly Pennsylvania Dutch to me.
And the portraits are just badly done. They aren't a good match for the splendor of the altar piece, and hopefully, everybody will figure that out eventually.
But overall, the Basilica gets four stars. It's worth a pilgrimage.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Just In Case Your Prayerlife Needs Pumping Up
My friend Frederica Matthews-Greene has posted a stunning testament to a priest friend of hers who was a living martyr of the Romanian Pitesti experiments. Very powerful stuff on torture and the devil. (Hat tip to the Great and Powerful Eve).
The piece had me wondering how I will act when the moment comes. And I think it is coming. Sorry to put a damper on your day, but my compulsion as a historian's daughter is to gaze fixedly at the horizon for the Signs of the Times. My prayer for several years has been for final perseverance.I remember an old nun telling me once that "Final perseverance is the one greatest grace that should be the object of all our striving."
Part of me - the schleppy pathetic part - hates that I am "competing" with the example of people like Fr. Roman in the annals of Church persecution. We are such wimps today, I think. How do we live up to the example of those who really suffered for Jesus? I think most of us will just give in fast under the assumption that God, after all, gets our basic orientation, and wouldn't really want us to suffer, right? I mean, who cares what you say in a pinch? That is, when you're, um, being pinched?
The unbelievable evil of the Pitesti thing is that they made the prisoners torture each other. Demonic. Honestly, when I hear Christopher Hitchens say he doesn't believe in God, I just want to hold him in the shoulders, look him in the eye and say, "Okay. But surely you have to believe in Satan? You can't be that cynical about human nature, seeing you share it. Can you?!"
Anyway, here's a snip of Frederica's piece.
Again, somebody tell me why we never see the stories of the Gulag on the big screen? Or the little screen?!
Rats. Go read the whole thing here
The piece had me wondering how I will act when the moment comes. And I think it is coming. Sorry to put a damper on your day, but my compulsion as a historian's daughter is to gaze fixedly at the horizon for the Signs of the Times. My prayer for several years has been for final perseverance.I remember an old nun telling me once that "Final perseverance is the one greatest grace that should be the object of all our striving."
Part of me - the schleppy pathetic part - hates that I am "competing" with the example of people like Fr. Roman in the annals of Church persecution. We are such wimps today, I think. How do we live up to the example of those who really suffered for Jesus? I think most of us will just give in fast under the assumption that God, after all, gets our basic orientation, and wouldn't really want us to suffer, right? I mean, who cares what you say in a pinch? That is, when you're, um, being pinched?
The unbelievable evil of the Pitesti thing is that they made the prisoners torture each other. Demonic. Honestly, when I hear Christopher Hitchens say he doesn't believe in God, I just want to hold him in the shoulders, look him in the eye and say, "Okay. But surely you have to believe in Satan? You can't be that cynical about human nature, seeing you share it. Can you?!"
Anyway, here's a snip of Frederica's piece.
The plan at the prison in the Romanian city of Pitesti was to take promising young men, 18 to 25 years old, and utterly break them down—then rebuild them into the ideal “Communist man.” In the book Christ is Calling You! (St. Herman Press, 1997) Fr. George explained to an interviewer that the Pitesti experiment involved several distinct steps.
Incoming prisoners would be handed over to a team of guards and experienced prisoners, who would beat them and kill one or two, whoever appeared to be a leader. Then the “unmaskings” began, in which prisoners were required under torture to renounce everything they believed. Fr. George recalled being compelled to say, for example, “I lied when I said ‘I believe in God.’ I lied when I said, ‘I love my mother and my father.’” This was extremely painful, as it was designed to be. The intention was to undermine the prisoner’s memory and personality, to infiltrate his consciousness with lies until he came to believe them.
A few months ago I was able to talk with another survivor of Pitesti, Fr. Roman Braga, when I visited the Michigan convent where he now is in residence. The Communists had arrested Fr. Roman on an inventive charge: he was accused of trying to overthrow the government by discussing the writings of St. Basil the Great, St. John Climacus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. He spent his first year in solitary confinement, and in the dark, narrow cell could not tell one season from another, nor could he look out the small, high window and see a horizon. “You had to go somewhere; you had to find an inner perspective,” he said, “because otherwise you would truly go crazy.”
Fr. Roman told me that religious beliefs were particularly mocked. Tormenters would set obscene lyrics to the tunes of familiar hymns, and celebrate parody liturgies designed to break believers’ hearts. His sole clue that Christmas or Pascha (Easter) might be near would be the appearance of their themes in the torturers’ arsenal.
One way guards particularly taunted Christians was by telling them that Christ and Mary Magdalene had had a sexual relationship. Fr. Roman noted, laughing, that in Romania this constituted torture, but in America people line up to pay for it in movies and books (“Here in the land of so-called freedom—I am not so sure you are free.”)
Neither man would describe what they’d endured. “It is secret, intimate,” Fr. Roman said, “I saw saints fall, and I saw the simple rise and become saints.” Fr. George admitted that he gave way under torture. When a victim is out of his mind with pain, he doesn’t know what he is saying. Fr. George told his interviewer, “It was a spiritual fight, between good spirits and evil spirits. And we failed on the field of battle; we failed, many of us, because it was beyond our ability to resist … The limit of the human soul’s resistance was tried there by the devil.”
This emotional and spiritual damage was even worse than the physical pain. Fr. George went on, “When you were tortured, after one or two hours of suffering, the pain would not be so strong. But after denying God and knowing yourself to be a blasphemer—that was the pain that lasted … We forgive the torturers. But it is very difficult to forgive ourselves.” At night a wash of tears would come, and with it, returning prayer. “You knew very well that the next day you would again say something against God. But a few moments in the night, when you started to cry and to pray to God to forgive you and help you, was very good.”
Again, somebody tell me why we never see the stories of the Gulag on the big screen? Or the little screen?!
Rats. Go read the whole thing here
Thursday, June 21, 2007
More on Moore
This post started out as me following up on the challenge by a commenter to post the news that Michael Moore is denying charges in the upcoming documentary about him which asserts that he fabricated all the essential details in his first film "Roger and Me."
So, I started looking for the news story of Moore's denial to link to. But on the way I found this:
Anyway, here's a recap of the original Moore post about the two Toronto documentarians who started out to make a valentine to their idol, Michael Moore. But then...
And here is a recent story from the AP in which Moore calls the Canadian documentarians (expletive) liars:
We report. You decide.
So, I started looking for the news story of Moore's denial to link to. But on the way I found this:
A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million US, saying Moore misrepresented him in the film Fahrenheit 9/11.
Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, Mass., says Moore twisted excerpts from an interview he gave to NBC's Nightly News to portray him as anti-war.
Former National Guard Sgt. Peter Damon says filmmaker Michael Moore's portrayal of him as anti-war has caused "loss of reputation" and "personal humiliation."
"The work creates a substantially fictionalized and falsified implication as a wounded serviceman who was left behind when Plaintiff was not left behind but supported, financially and emotionally, by the active assistance of the President, the United States and his family, friends, acquaintances and community," Damon says in the lawsuit, according to the Associated Press.
He is claiming damages because of "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation," the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week says.
Damon claims that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from the interview. The clip, which shows him talking about an "excruciating type of pain," referred to pain from his injuries, rather than a complaint against the war effort, he says....
Moore did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday. (CBC)
Anyway, here's a recap of the original Moore post about the two Toronto documentarians who started out to make a valentine to their idol, Michael Moore. But then...
"It was a slow reveal, really," Melnyk says. "We go into things and start to research them as we go along and start to do interviews with people, and we started to realize: 'Oh my God, there are some cheats in these films.' Obviously, the biggest one being that Michael actually did talk to Roger Smith twice during the making of 'Roger and Me.'
"That one really, really bothered me. Because, OK, if you're willing to lie about the entire premise of the film, then what is sacrosanct? There must have been other smaller cheats along the way. So that was a shocker."
Moore, for his part, hasn't commented on "Manufacturing Dissent," suggesting recently to a New York film website, www.thereeler.com, that he'd never heard of it - even though, as shown in the documentary, Melnyk approached him at various public events over two years to plead for an interview.
"There are a lot of films made about me ... there's probably nine or 10 of them out there," he told a reporter for the website.
Such apparent disingenuousness is par for the course for Moore, according to those who spoke on camera to Melnyk and Caine. Indeed, the couple say the dishonesty about Roger Smith wasn't the only false note in "Roger and Me" - an entire segment featuring an ABC news reporter telling viewers how a disgruntled autoworker had driven off with the network's satellite truck was a fake. (CBC)
And here is a recent story from the AP in which Moore calls the Canadian documentarians (expletive) liars:
BELLAIRE, Mich. - Filmmaker Michael Moore gave people in the rural county where he lives an early look at his new film “Sicko” on Saturday, and had some harsh words for critics of the documentary that launched his career.
“Manufacturing Dissent,” a film that accuses Moore of dishonesty in the making of his politically charged documentaries, alleges that he interviewed then-General Motors Corp. Chairman Roger Smith, the elusive subject of Moore’s 1989 debut “Roger & Me,” but left the footage on the cutting room floor.
“Anybody who says that is a (expletive) liar,” Moore told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday after a showing of “Sicko,” his take on U.S. medicine, in the northern Michigan village of Bellaire....
Moore, who said he hadn’t seen “Manufacturing Dissent,” acknowledged having had “a good five minutes of back-and forth” with Smith about a company tax abatement at a 1987 shareholders’ meeting, as reported by Premiere magazine in 1990. But that was before he began working on “Roger & Me” and had nothing to do with the film, Moore said.
A clip of the meeting appears in “Manufacturing Dissent,” released in March. Filmmakers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk also interviewed an activist who said he saw Moore interview Smith in 1988 in New York.
Caine and Melnyk say that undercuts the central theme of “Roger & Me” — Moore’s fruitless effort to interview Smith about the effects of GM plant closings in Flint, Moore’s hometown. Moore, however, said the film wasn’t primarily about interviewing Smith, but getting him to observe the economic devastation in Flint.
We report. You decide.
At the theaters...
I am not sure I am going to have time to write full reviews, but briefly, I want to recommend Evan Almighty as pure, broad, over the top, comedy fun with some nice theology alongside.
I also want to warn you off Ocean's Whatever NUmber We Are Up To Now as it is a complete waste of time. Beautiful actors preening themselves and winking to themselves, "All those people out there really want to be as rich and cool as us." Dumb.
I also want to warn you off Ocean's Whatever NUmber We Are Up To Now as it is a complete waste of time. Beautiful actors preening themselves and winking to themselves, "All those people out there really want to be as rich and cool as us." Dumb.
Je Regrette La Vie En Rose
The only really good thing about La Vie En Rose, the biopic of Edith Piaf now in theaters, is the music. Piaf's voice echoes off the screen and mesmerizes so effectively that you understand the momentum that carried this production forward. The last number in the movie "Je Non Regrette Rien" is still playing in my head, despite the fact that the film never convinced me that Piaf could possibly not have had numerous regrets for her sad mess of a life which is documented in the film.
The narrative here is more than regrettable. And it isn't the usual show-offy European mess, in which one has a sense of the Director trying to stand out in your mind with weird images and stylistic closeups. In this film, I really had the sense that the filmmakers were trying their damnedest to write a biopic that would do justice to their larger than life subject, but they were just not up to the task.
This piece is impossibly episodic, with incoherent bits of Piaf's life, played with three different actresses, being intercut in no particular order. The moments are played as highly melodramatic, proceeding unsympathetically from the character of Piaf herself who is all screams and shrieks and unmotivated bad treatment of the people around her. I disagree with the reviews I am reading that claim that the central performance, of Marion Cotillard, is wonderful. I found the make up and costuming the real wonder here as Cotillard is aged so seamlessly, that I thought there were actually four actresses playing the character. The performance to me was over the top, without any moments of nuance that would have drawn me into sympathy with Piaf. I was watching my own lack of sympathy during the screening, wondering, "Have I become so hard-hearted that this woman's plight is not touching me at all?" But no, I am not hard-hearted. The problem is the storytelling, and the acting which was at the level of caricature much of the time. But she really looked good though in the sense of looking and moving like Piaf.
Here's a note about biopics. Most beginning writers (and the principal writer Of La Vie En Rose is a first timer) make the mistake of trying to tell a whole person's life in two hours. You can't do it. In this sense, La Vie is a clinic in the biggest mistake people make in biopics, namely, the failure to make tough choices. What you must do to make a biopic intelligible and entertaining, is pick one phase or theme in a subject's life that somehow gives a sense of all the rest of their life. That means you have to choose to leave a lot of cool stuff out.
La Vie, by contrast, starts with Piaf at five, and then jumps us around from her mother abandoning her to a brief scene of her father in WWI to her father suddenly back and picking her up from a woman we learn is her grandmother. Then, we see her dumped in a brothel and contract blindness, and then meet some friendly prostitutes, and then get snatched back by her father and brought into a circus, and then suddenly she is fifteen and singing on the street with a new friend who becomes a major character, but not before Edith's alcoholic mother shows up begging for money before Edith is discovered by a club owner who gets murdered with Edith's underworld connections which we have just learned that she has, leading Edith to be investigated for the murder, before Edith is really discovered by a guy named Raymond who teaches her how to sing professionally while she is shacked up with a guy who fathers her child which dies two years later of meningitis, and we haven't really gotten to her singing career yet.....do you see what I mean? And that isn't even to the midpoint of the movie.
Way too many events, not enough real moments. Way too many people running by, not enough characters.
But IRONICALLY, another big complaint I had with the film is that it leaves out one big huge HUGE part of Edith's life that I actually wanted to see. World War frickin' Two is skipped over without a mention. Here we are in Paris in 1939, and then suddenly, we are in New York in 1952! HUH!!!??? After the screening, I did some googling on Piaf and discovered that she bravely used the access of her celebrity to save countless lives as a member of the Resistance. I find it to be a stunningly bad choice of the filmmakers to leave all this out of this film. But the idea of "What did she do in WWII?" was diestracting me all through the second part of the movie. Like telling a story set in NYC on September 12, 2001 - without mentioning 9-11. It's hard not to think it is devious.
The film works very hard to show Piaf as being an unrelieved narcissist. It makes the case that she really isn't to blame for being a mess of a human being, but then proceeds to stare at her drunkenness, her rages, her adulteries and her drug use with unabashed voyeurism. The heroics of Piaf's Resistance work really mess with this picture, eh? So they had to be left out presumeably. Some day I am going to write a book about truthtelling in biopic/historical pieces, but for now, know that when you sit down to write a person's life, you owe some fidelity to the essential truth of the person.
On second thought, I don't think they meant to leave out the one good thing Piaf ever managed to do. I don't think the writers here were skilled enough to be aware that even a historical biopic needs a point of view. They left out WWII becaus ethey just didn't have time to go through it all. They thought it was enough to stuff in as many events from Piaf's life as they could without a lot of thought as to what the project was about thematically. It wasn't. Such a project ends up being unsatisfying as documentary, and equally unsatisfying as narrative.
Having said all that, I did retreat quickly in the first act from my expectations that this would be an entertaining movie, to trying to enjoy the visions from the story of 20th century Paris that it recreates. I also spent a lot of time brooding over the mystery of artistic talent. Done much better (because it was conscious!) in Amadeus, this movie is a reflection on how awful personally a person of unbelievable talent can be. And also how the very gifts that are given through the artist to the world, often corrupt the artist herself. (ref. JPII Letter to Artists) But all of these thoughts still didn't make this movie seem less tedious, plodding and repetitive.
Pass on La Vie En Rose. Do go out and buy an album of Piaf's music, however. Her gift still works.
The narrative here is more than regrettable. And it isn't the usual show-offy European mess, in which one has a sense of the Director trying to stand out in your mind with weird images and stylistic closeups. In this film, I really had the sense that the filmmakers were trying their damnedest to write a biopic that would do justice to their larger than life subject, but they were just not up to the task.
This piece is impossibly episodic, with incoherent bits of Piaf's life, played with three different actresses, being intercut in no particular order. The moments are played as highly melodramatic, proceeding unsympathetically from the character of Piaf herself who is all screams and shrieks and unmotivated bad treatment of the people around her. I disagree with the reviews I am reading that claim that the central performance, of Marion Cotillard, is wonderful. I found the make up and costuming the real wonder here as Cotillard is aged so seamlessly, that I thought there were actually four actresses playing the character. The performance to me was over the top, without any moments of nuance that would have drawn me into sympathy with Piaf. I was watching my own lack of sympathy during the screening, wondering, "Have I become so hard-hearted that this woman's plight is not touching me at all?" But no, I am not hard-hearted. The problem is the storytelling, and the acting which was at the level of caricature much of the time. But she really looked good though in the sense of looking and moving like Piaf.
Here's a note about biopics. Most beginning writers (and the principal writer Of La Vie En Rose is a first timer) make the mistake of trying to tell a whole person's life in two hours. You can't do it. In this sense, La Vie is a clinic in the biggest mistake people make in biopics, namely, the failure to make tough choices. What you must do to make a biopic intelligible and entertaining, is pick one phase or theme in a subject's life that somehow gives a sense of all the rest of their life. That means you have to choose to leave a lot of cool stuff out.
La Vie, by contrast, starts with Piaf at five, and then jumps us around from her mother abandoning her to a brief scene of her father in WWI to her father suddenly back and picking her up from a woman we learn is her grandmother. Then, we see her dumped in a brothel and contract blindness, and then meet some friendly prostitutes, and then get snatched back by her father and brought into a circus, and then suddenly she is fifteen and singing on the street with a new friend who becomes a major character, but not before Edith's alcoholic mother shows up begging for money before Edith is discovered by a club owner who gets murdered with Edith's underworld connections which we have just learned that she has, leading Edith to be investigated for the murder, before Edith is really discovered by a guy named Raymond who teaches her how to sing professionally while she is shacked up with a guy who fathers her child which dies two years later of meningitis, and we haven't really gotten to her singing career yet.....do you see what I mean? And that isn't even to the midpoint of the movie.
Way too many events, not enough real moments. Way too many people running by, not enough characters.
But IRONICALLY, another big complaint I had with the film is that it leaves out one big huge HUGE part of Edith's life that I actually wanted to see. World War frickin' Two is skipped over without a mention. Here we are in Paris in 1939, and then suddenly, we are in New York in 1952! HUH!!!??? After the screening, I did some googling on Piaf and discovered that she bravely used the access of her celebrity to save countless lives as a member of the Resistance. I find it to be a stunningly bad choice of the filmmakers to leave all this out of this film. But the idea of "What did she do in WWII?" was diestracting me all through the second part of the movie. Like telling a story set in NYC on September 12, 2001 - without mentioning 9-11. It's hard not to think it is devious.
The film works very hard to show Piaf as being an unrelieved narcissist. It makes the case that she really isn't to blame for being a mess of a human being, but then proceeds to stare at her drunkenness, her rages, her adulteries and her drug use with unabashed voyeurism. The heroics of Piaf's Resistance work really mess with this picture, eh? So they had to be left out presumeably. Some day I am going to write a book about truthtelling in biopic/historical pieces, but for now, know that when you sit down to write a person's life, you owe some fidelity to the essential truth of the person.
On second thought, I don't think they meant to leave out the one good thing Piaf ever managed to do. I don't think the writers here were skilled enough to be aware that even a historical biopic needs a point of view. They left out WWII becaus ethey just didn't have time to go through it all. They thought it was enough to stuff in as many events from Piaf's life as they could without a lot of thought as to what the project was about thematically. It wasn't. Such a project ends up being unsatisfying as documentary, and equally unsatisfying as narrative.
Having said all that, I did retreat quickly in the first act from my expectations that this would be an entertaining movie, to trying to enjoy the visions from the story of 20th century Paris that it recreates. I also spent a lot of time brooding over the mystery of artistic talent. Done much better (because it was conscious!) in Amadeus, this movie is a reflection on how awful personally a person of unbelievable talent can be. And also how the very gifts that are given through the artist to the world, often corrupt the artist herself. (ref. JPII Letter to Artists) But all of these thoughts still didn't make this movie seem less tedious, plodding and repetitive.
Pass on La Vie En Rose. Do go out and buy an album of Piaf's music, however. Her gift still works.
Frederica's Podcast
My friend (is that the right word for someone you hold in reverential awe?) Frederica Matthews Greene has recently started podcasting on a site called Ancient Radio. Frederica, an Orthodox believer, has the charm and serenity that is the mark of wisdom. In my moments of doubt, it is knowing that people like Frederica believe it all that allows me to keep on walking. You'll thank me for the link to her reflections.
Frederica was out here last week for a conference at Pepperdine on sacred music, affording me the rare and wonderful opportunity to pick her up for a too brief lunch. A few minutes into the lunch, Frederica pulled out her cool, state of the art podcast recorder, turned it on and said basically, "Talk." Very smooth! Anyway, so we talked for a few minutes, just enough time for me to alienate every Christian out there who has made a movie in recent years. I didn't listen to it past the first few sentences as I can never stand how nasal I sound when I hear recordings of myself. Sigh. Anyway, it is here if you want to hear another take on my schtick.
Frederica was out here last week for a conference at Pepperdine on sacred music, affording me the rare and wonderful opportunity to pick her up for a too brief lunch. A few minutes into the lunch, Frederica pulled out her cool, state of the art podcast recorder, turned it on and said basically, "Talk." Very smooth! Anyway, so we talked for a few minutes, just enough time for me to alienate every Christian out there who has made a movie in recent years. I didn't listen to it past the first few sentences as I can never stand how nasal I sound when I hear recordings of myself. Sigh. Anyway, it is here if you want to hear another take on my schtick.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Attention: Act One Writing Program Alumni
Dear Writing Program Alumni,
I'm pleased to announce that applications for the 2007/2008 Act Two
Writing Program are now available. The program will provide six
months of advanced training in feature film writing for alumni of the
Act One Writing Program. Applications can be found online at
www.actoneprogram.com/acttwo.htm. Details are below.
Program dates: September 2007 through February 2008
Application deadline: August 6, 2007
Opening retreat: September 14-16, 2007 (lunchtime Friday through
Sunday afternoon, in Idyllwild, CA)
Program description: The Act Two Writing Program provides advanced
training in feature film writing to graduates of the Act One Writing
Program. The program is designed to replicate the studio development
process, with faculty members acting as producers to guide students
through the selection of a promising story and the development and
writing of a feature screenplay. The curriculum includes an opening
retreat and closing party, ten small group development and notes
meetings spread over six months, and four classroom lectures on
advanced screenwriting topics. Writers should expect a rigorous
writing experience that results in completion of the best screenplay
they've ever written and a specific plan for what they will do with
the script next.
Project selection: Writers will propose multiple story ideas and will
work with faculty members to arrive at mutually agreeable projects.
What about writing for television?: This year, the Act Two Writing
Program will focus exclusively on feature film writing. Advanced
training in television writing for Act One alumni will take place
through our successful and thriving TV Spring Training and Fall
Classic programs.
When and where will the groups meet?: Small writing groups will meet
at a time and place to be determined by faculty members in
consultation with members of their groups. Some groups will meet on
weekday evenings, while others may meet during weekdays or on
weekends. We will work with all students to place them in groups
meeting at a time that works with their schedules, and writers will be
expected to attend all sessions.
Application process: Along with the application form attached to this
e-mail, submit two copies of a completed screenplay, personal
statement, 10 loglines, and up to three one-page project proposals;
you may propose a rewrite of an existing script; teams may apply with
a single script that represents their joint efforts.
Application fee : $40
Cost: $1195
If you have questions, please contact me by e-mail at
chris@actoneprogram.com or by phone at (323) 464-0815. You may also
contact Jack Gilbert at the same phone number, or by e-mail at
jack@actoneprogram.com.
Best,
Chris Riley
Director, Writing Program
Act One, Inc.
I'm pleased to announce that applications for the 2007/2008 Act Two
Writing Program are now available. The program will provide six
months of advanced training in feature film writing for alumni of the
Act One Writing Program. Applications can be found online at
www.actoneprogram.com/acttwo.htm. Details are below.
Program dates: September 2007 through February 2008
Application deadline: August 6, 2007
Opening retreat: September 14-16, 2007 (lunchtime Friday through
Sunday afternoon, in Idyllwild, CA)
Program description: The Act Two Writing Program provides advanced
training in feature film writing to graduates of the Act One Writing
Program. The program is designed to replicate the studio development
process, with faculty members acting as producers to guide students
through the selection of a promising story and the development and
writing of a feature screenplay. The curriculum includes an opening
retreat and closing party, ten small group development and notes
meetings spread over six months, and four classroom lectures on
advanced screenwriting topics. Writers should expect a rigorous
writing experience that results in completion of the best screenplay
they've ever written and a specific plan for what they will do with
the script next.
Project selection: Writers will propose multiple story ideas and will
work with faculty members to arrive at mutually agreeable projects.
What about writing for television?: This year, the Act Two Writing
Program will focus exclusively on feature film writing. Advanced
training in television writing for Act One alumni will take place
through our successful and thriving TV Spring Training and Fall
Classic programs.
When and where will the groups meet?: Small writing groups will meet
at a time and place to be determined by faculty members in
consultation with members of their groups. Some groups will meet on
weekday evenings, while others may meet during weekdays or on
weekends. We will work with all students to place them in groups
meeting at a time that works with their schedules, and writers will be
expected to attend all sessions.
Application process: Along with the application form attached to this
e-mail, submit two copies of a completed screenplay, personal
statement, 10 loglines, and up to three one-page project proposals;
you may propose a rewrite of an existing script; teams may apply with
a single script that represents their joint efforts.
Application fee : $40
Cost: $1195
If you have questions, please contact me by e-mail at
chris@actoneprogram.com or by phone at (323) 464-0815. You may also
contact Jack Gilbert at the same phone number, or by e-mail at
jack@actoneprogram.com.
Best,
Chris Riley
Director, Writing Program
Act One, Inc.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Script Consulting Service
My friend and associate at Origin Entertainment, (and Act One Alumna!), Vicki Peterson, has formally started a service to read and critique scripts for writers at all levels. I have been using Vicki for over a year now to read and evaluate projects, and she is one of the best that I've worked with. She is very pastoral with writers, helping them to say better what they have to say, as opposed to trying to make every project in her own image and tastes.
Go here for more info about how to enlist Vicki to get your script to the next level.
Go here for more info about how to enlist Vicki to get your script to the next level.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
You Tube sleeze
Here's an email message I got today.
Sigh.
I post this for you parents out there whose kids are surfing You Tube, so that you know that they are being relentlessly, aggressively assaulted with violating and even pornographic material. Even if they are just looking for "nice" You Tube things.
Does anybody know if there is a way people can block these pop ups? Does anybody know how we can assail the Overlords at You Tube to stop propositioning surfers with smut? A focussed campaign here would be a good idea if somebody feel God is calling them to take it on.
Have you seen the new change to YouTube? It seems that now, when you click on a video clip to watch it, there's a new thing that happens when you hover your cursor over the screen. Small thumbnails of "related" videos pop up. Of course, only some are related; others are just an attempt to porn up your world.
Let me give you an example. I keep a blog for my son's Catholic high school. Since we're small, I manage to keep everyone informed of deadlines, meetings, practices, etc. plus anything that young Catholics might be interested in...clips of the Fransican Friars of the Renewal, those funny clips that those oh-so-creative seminarians put together, and sometimes non-religious stuff...from the National Spelling Bee, some astronomy stuff, etc. So I had that neat clip of the Sisters of Life posted. And sure enough, there are lots of little "related" videos that pop up now...and one of them "just happens" to be "bisexual sisters". Needless to say, I hadda go through my entire blog, pulling all YouTube videos off.
Here's where I thought you might have an answer: Do you have ideas about alternative video sights that wouldn't promote porn/sleazy pop culture? I saw that there's GodTube and GospelTube, but not only are there explicitly anti-Catholic clips there, it's mostly religious stuff, no academic/artistic/etc. videos.
I'm sorry for bothering you, but I know you're someone who cares about what passes for culture "out there"...and maybe you knew of an alternative site or even know someone who wants to start a clean version of YouTube.
Sigh.
I post this for you parents out there whose kids are surfing You Tube, so that you know that they are being relentlessly, aggressively assaulted with violating and even pornographic material. Even if they are just looking for "nice" You Tube things.
Does anybody know if there is a way people can block these pop ups? Does anybody know how we can assail the Overlords at You Tube to stop propositioning surfers with smut? A focussed campaign here would be a good idea if somebody feel God is calling them to take it on.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Once Won't Be Enough
Hey! I finally saw a good movie this year! And it's sad that I'm kind of in shock because it is such an odd feeling these days to see a really good movie. But the sadder thing is that most of you who read this blog won't get the chance to see this rare good movie, because it has a teeny weeny little distribution, meaning it will play in NYC and L.A. and that's probably it. So, keep an eye out for the DVD. It will be worth a rental.
Once is one of those dramas in which not a lot happens exteriorly, but something huge happens in the soul of the main character. This makes the project, in my book, a very good dramatic film. I really enjoyed it in a way that I rarely enjoy movies anymore because it had such solid craft. My only criticisms came down to matters of taste. It has remarkable creative control, and a profound humanity at its core that has you leave the theater wanting to be kind, and wanting to commit yourself to whatever creative passion you have.
Once is less of a traditional narrative and more of a kind of rock opera...although the music in the film isn't rock as much as poetic pop crooning. But still, with the movie completely built around the sound track, the movie manages to pack in more of a story - and a profound one - than 90% of the movies that are out there right now. It tells the story of a poor street singer in Ireland, whose day jobs is to fix vacuum cleaners. We never learn his name, but we learn everything essential about him from his music. He meets a Czeck immigrant girl who is an accomplished pianist, but who cleans houses to pay the bills. They make a connection through music, and the relationship and music then heal them and allow them to do what they have to do in life.
How much did I enjoy it? Well, I walked right out of the Arclight theater at Sunset and Vine, and into the Borders bookstore acorss the street, and I bought a CD of Glen Hansard's music.
The movie is about art and music and the connection it makes between people. It is about the relationship between friendship and creativity. It is about music as a legitimate escape, and something that can fortify us in our mundane lives. It is poignant, hopeful, humane, and has a sense of mystery at it's core that makes it compelling.
And there is a wonderfully heroic character in this film. The lead female - whose name we never learn in the film - does her duty over and over. There were a few moments in which I sat there thinking, "Ah, heres where the two lonely people connected by music fornicate." But they don't. Ever. Even though they want to. The girl looks at the guy and says, "It would be nice," but then she shakes her head sadly, the loud subtext coming across, "That isn't who I am." It was very cool.
The movie is an exemplar of Gen X dramas in which the story doesn't end in a happy ending, but rather in a firm resolution to tough out life and face up to one's responsibilities. In this aspect it reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Lost in Translation.
And talk about one of the greatest last shots ever in a movie. It's topflight and really shows that the director knew what this project was about.
So, why is it rated R? Well, there are a spate of "F" words as adjectives and adverbs in the film, as in, "effing guitar case" and "you're effing kidding me", but there are really only a few of these. I hate that the film is rated R, because a lot of folks who would otherwise love it won't go for this reason.
Once gets my rare, highly coveted "two thumbs up" award. Go see it twice.
Once is one of those dramas in which not a lot happens exteriorly, but something huge happens in the soul of the main character. This makes the project, in my book, a very good dramatic film. I really enjoyed it in a way that I rarely enjoy movies anymore because it had such solid craft. My only criticisms came down to matters of taste. It has remarkable creative control, and a profound humanity at its core that has you leave the theater wanting to be kind, and wanting to commit yourself to whatever creative passion you have.
Once is less of a traditional narrative and more of a kind of rock opera...although the music in the film isn't rock as much as poetic pop crooning. But still, with the movie completely built around the sound track, the movie manages to pack in more of a story - and a profound one - than 90% of the movies that are out there right now. It tells the story of a poor street singer in Ireland, whose day jobs is to fix vacuum cleaners. We never learn his name, but we learn everything essential about him from his music. He meets a Czeck immigrant girl who is an accomplished pianist, but who cleans houses to pay the bills. They make a connection through music, and the relationship and music then heal them and allow them to do what they have to do in life.
How much did I enjoy it? Well, I walked right out of the Arclight theater at Sunset and Vine, and into the Borders bookstore acorss the street, and I bought a CD of Glen Hansard's music.
The movie is about art and music and the connection it makes between people. It is about the relationship between friendship and creativity. It is about music as a legitimate escape, and something that can fortify us in our mundane lives. It is poignant, hopeful, humane, and has a sense of mystery at it's core that makes it compelling.
And there is a wonderfully heroic character in this film. The lead female - whose name we never learn in the film - does her duty over and over. There were a few moments in which I sat there thinking, "Ah, heres where the two lonely people connected by music fornicate." But they don't. Ever. Even though they want to. The girl looks at the guy and says, "It would be nice," but then she shakes her head sadly, the loud subtext coming across, "That isn't who I am." It was very cool.
The movie is an exemplar of Gen X dramas in which the story doesn't end in a happy ending, but rather in a firm resolution to tough out life and face up to one's responsibilities. In this aspect it reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Lost in Translation.
And talk about one of the greatest last shots ever in a movie. It's topflight and really shows that the director knew what this project was about.
So, why is it rated R? Well, there are a spate of "F" words as adjectives and adverbs in the film, as in, "effing guitar case" and "you're effing kidding me", but there are really only a few of these. I hate that the film is rated R, because a lot of folks who would otherwise love it won't go for this reason.
Once gets my rare, highly coveted "two thumbs up" award. Go see it twice.
"Somebody Save Me from Me"
I've exchanged a few emails with a NY friend about Company, the Tony nominated revival musical that apparently is all the rage on Broadway right now. It's Sondheim, heralded as a key artistic voice of the Baby Boom Generation, (kudos to researcher, Kit) a revisiting of the original 1970's version. I haven't seen the play (I was six when it had it's first largely unsuccessful run), but I've read with interest the lyrics of all its songs, mainly because I always like to see what all the buzz is about, whenever there is cultural buzz about something.
Company is all about modern people being very busy and surrounded by people, and yet being profoundly lonely. Here, for example, are the lyrics to the song that comes at the end of the play, that is supposed to be a breakthrough for the main character, Robert.
Being Alive
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Somebody, hold me too close,
Somebody, hurt me too deep,
Somebody, sit in my chair
And ruin my sleep
And make me aware
Of being alive,
Being alive.
Somebody, need me too much,
Somebody, know me too well,
Somebody, pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support
For being alive,
Make me alive.
Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone is alone, not alive.
Somebody, crowd me with love,
Somebody, force me to care,
Somebody, make me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive
Being alive,
Being alive,
Being alive!
Sigh. A lovely use of language, and yet there is still that echo behind the words of the narcissistic refrain that defines the Boomers, the sad whimper of which might end up going nowhere except with them to the grave. The subtext here seems to be, "It's not fair no one loves me. Somebody make me happy!" Or, the subtext of that subtext, "God, you have screwed up again!"
First of all, the obvious thing that seems to be missing to the person singing this song is, "There's a reason nobody loves you. It's because you haven't really loved anybody." Is it really that difficult to figure out what the twilight year legacy would be of a lifetime of "looking out for number one"? Did nobody stop to figure that Botox and tennis weekends weren't going to be able to love them back someday? I always figured it was a trade-off that they were making. But now, the generation that raised its kids according to the creed 'real love means you never have to say your sorry,' wants to have the security of love and caring as they approach death. I am not angry here, really. Just amazed.
On the plus side, it is a good thing that the successful revival of this piece right now seems to indicate that the Boomer Generation is ready to accept that all of the revolutions of the last half a century have basically resulted in such a profound alienation that it feels like death to live. And another huge step forward for the Boomers singing this song is the recognition that love and discomfort kind of go together. So, not having fun all the time is actually a key to finding a life-giving love. Huge! Huge.
If directed to human beings, this song is a frightening and destructive kind of idolatry. No human being can completely free you from your ultimate alienation, because we were designed to be filled only by our relationship with God. If the Somebody in this song is God, then this becomes a stirring and evocative prayer, in line with the psalms that mankind has been singing to I AM WHO AM for thousands of years.
The only thing is there needs to be another verse in this song, and I don't know if Sondheim's generation has enough time left to start singing it. If they do, inspite of all their meanderings and flailings around, they will make it. The last verse needs to be something like this:
Somebody soften my heart,
Somebody forgive me my sins,
Somebody shatter my pride,
And teach me to pray,
And help me to die,
So I can really discover what it means
To be alive.
What you really want to say to the poor soul who is singing for "Somebody" to give their life meaning is, "Dearest, you need to worship God."
For now, I take Sondheim's cry and raise him one Litany of Humility by Cardinal Merry del Val:
Litanty of Humility
Music by the Wisdom of the Ages; Lyrics by Cardinal Merry del Val
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved. Deliver me Jesus
From the desire of being extolled. Deliver me Jesus
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…
Amen.
Company is all about modern people being very busy and surrounded by people, and yet being profoundly lonely. Here, for example, are the lyrics to the song that comes at the end of the play, that is supposed to be a breakthrough for the main character, Robert.
Being Alive
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Somebody, hold me too close,
Somebody, hurt me too deep,
Somebody, sit in my chair
And ruin my sleep
And make me aware
Of being alive,
Being alive.
Somebody, need me too much,
Somebody, know me too well,
Somebody, pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support
For being alive,
Make me alive.
Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone is alone, not alive.
Somebody, crowd me with love,
Somebody, force me to care,
Somebody, make me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive
Being alive,
Being alive,
Being alive!
Sigh. A lovely use of language, and yet there is still that echo behind the words of the narcissistic refrain that defines the Boomers, the sad whimper of which might end up going nowhere except with them to the grave. The subtext here seems to be, "It's not fair no one loves me. Somebody make me happy!" Or, the subtext of that subtext, "God, you have screwed up again!"
First of all, the obvious thing that seems to be missing to the person singing this song is, "There's a reason nobody loves you. It's because you haven't really loved anybody." Is it really that difficult to figure out what the twilight year legacy would be of a lifetime of "looking out for number one"? Did nobody stop to figure that Botox and tennis weekends weren't going to be able to love them back someday? I always figured it was a trade-off that they were making. But now, the generation that raised its kids according to the creed 'real love means you never have to say your sorry,' wants to have the security of love and caring as they approach death. I am not angry here, really. Just amazed.
On the plus side, it is a good thing that the successful revival of this piece right now seems to indicate that the Boomer Generation is ready to accept that all of the revolutions of the last half a century have basically resulted in such a profound alienation that it feels like death to live. And another huge step forward for the Boomers singing this song is the recognition that love and discomfort kind of go together. So, not having fun all the time is actually a key to finding a life-giving love. Huge! Huge.
If directed to human beings, this song is a frightening and destructive kind of idolatry. No human being can completely free you from your ultimate alienation, because we were designed to be filled only by our relationship with God. If the Somebody in this song is God, then this becomes a stirring and evocative prayer, in line with the psalms that mankind has been singing to I AM WHO AM for thousands of years.
The only thing is there needs to be another verse in this song, and I don't know if Sondheim's generation has enough time left to start singing it. If they do, inspite of all their meanderings and flailings around, they will make it. The last verse needs to be something like this:
Somebody soften my heart,
Somebody forgive me my sins,
Somebody shatter my pride,
And teach me to pray,
And help me to die,
So I can really discover what it means
To be alive.
What you really want to say to the poor soul who is singing for "Somebody" to give their life meaning is, "Dearest, you need to worship God."
For now, I take Sondheim's cry and raise him one Litany of Humility by Cardinal Merry del Val:
Litanty of Humility
Music by the Wisdom of the Ages; Lyrics by Cardinal Merry del Val
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved. Deliver me Jesus
From the desire of being extolled. Deliver me Jesus
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…
Amen.
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