The Theme of Movies That Matter - Series 5
Our Journey Into Friendship
The Context in which the films in Series 5 are set:
We have a dream that is expressed in the stories people tell, whether in films or novels, in poetry or in songs. It is a dream of the joy we find in our close relationships and in the love that creates and sustains these. The realization of our dream is the aim of the inner journey we are all invited to go on, especially in the second half of life.
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning
But laughter and the love of friends. (Hilaire Belloc)
There is a deep chasm between the limitations of our human dream and the unlimited one that Jesus invites us to realize, for example, in John chapter 17. To bridge this chasm we need to enter four kinds of mutually enriching experience we have of our dream. These four are found in our own story, in the stories people tell, in the story of God’s self-revelation in the Bible and in the wisdom we each have learned from these three. Unfortunately, this huge fund of wisdom we each possess is largely dormant.
To make use of this fund of wisdom we need to notice and articulate it through learning the art of reflection and to believe in it through learning the art of prayer. To learn these two most life-giving arts demands that we make space for them or that we give them the time, energy and resources they require. If we thus learn to believe in the love we receive in life, we create a healthy environment in which we find our joy and thus realise our dream.
In the films of this present series we ask ourselves the question, Is there a well-tried path into the realization of our dream that we might learn to follow. Jesus speaks of this as the path to life and he says that it consists in learning to get our whole person “heart, soul, mind and strength” involved in learning to be loved and loving within the main relationships of our lives. Luke 10:25-28
In the first film of the series, we saw how we love and relate best at four levels, by getting our whole body, soul, heart and mind involved. In the film Ordinary People we saw how Conrad was living with an image of himself as a "rotten kid" and that this was giving him hell in the form of a torrent of disruptive feelings that made him suicidal. Through telling his story he discovered that he was living with a distorted image of himself, with an illusion and that he could do something about remedying this and thus cut the roots of the feelings that were making his life very difficult.
In the second film called Three Colours Red we looked at the source of very positive images of ourselves we have access to from the first of three ages we all pass through as we learn to love and relate. These three are the age of affection, the age of passionate love and the age of friendship. In the film, Three Colours: Red we will look at how the affection of our parents normally lays the foundation of a positive image or of a healthy love of ourselves. This is what Jesus asks us to believe in when he invites us to "change our minds and hearts - or the way we see and feel about ourselves - so that we might believe the good news". (Mk 1:14-15).
In the film, Another Woman, we examined the second age of love and relationships that we pass through in life; the age of passionate love. Essentially this love makes us focus our whole person on the one we love. It is the great catalyst that takes us out of the self-preoccupation of adolescence and urges us to focus on our beloved the love of affection we have learned from our family and friends, to accept, to appreciate, to be concerned for and to acknowledge him or her.
In the next film, called Lantana, we will look at how we may or may not make our relationships last. Whether we do or not depends on how willing we are to wrestle with our weakness and waywardness as well as with all the potential that passionate love has for friendship.
5The Bucket List asks us questions like: How do we deepen the way we love and relate? If our children and our work form the basis of our relationship, what happens when the urgency of these is no longer there? Where does the inner journey we are all eventually invited to go on find a place in our relationships?
6 Intimate Strangers
Friendship is the goal of all our relationships and involves mutual communication. How deep this friendship is depends on how much of what we have and who we are willing to share.
Intimate Strangers
Intimate Strangers revolves around Anna who, after suffering from an abusive relationship, approaches a psychiatrist for advice. Determined not to leave anything out, Anna immediately begins an intimate retelling of her life story. Unfortunately, she has entered the wrong office. Both fascinated by her story and reluctant to embarrass her, William the shy tax lawyer gets caught up in Anna’s story with intriguing consequences.
C S Lewis on Friendship
Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure ( or burden ). The typical expression of opening friendship would be something like, What? You too? I thought I was the only one.. ... It is when two such persons discover, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision - it is then that friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude. C S Lewis
Lovers sit face to face
while friends sit side by side
gazing out at a shared vision
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies
Aristotle
Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a person speaks to a friend.
Exodus 33:11
I have called you friends
because I have told you everything
I have heard from my Father.
Jn 15:15
Friendship is a gift of self in self-disclosure – A Greely
An Invitation To Friendship
I will present you with parts of myself,
slowly, if you are patient and tender,
I will open drawers
that mostly stay closed
and bring out places and things,
sounds and smells, loves and frustrations
hopes and sadnesses
bits and pieces of three decades of life
that have eaten their way into my memory,
carved themselves into my heart
Altogether they are me.
If you regard them lightly
deny that they are important,
or worse, judge them,
I will quietly, slowly
begin to wrap them up
in small pieces of velvet,
like worn silver and gold jewellery,
tuck them away
in a small wooden chest of drawers
and close the lid.
John Wood
Jesus Appears as a Friend
Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. … Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?"… When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught." … Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.
The Bucket List
Edward and Carter, two terminally ill men from different walks of life meet in hospital. With their lives ebbing away, they decide to achieve as many things as they can on their "bucket lists" - things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Along the way they discover that you're never too old to learn life lessons. At one point on the journey Carter confronts a central issue of his life when he tells Edward:
“After Rachel left for college, there was a hole, I mean, no more homework, no more little leagues, recitals, school plays, kids crying, fights, skinned knees. And for the first time in forty years I looked at Virginia without all the noise, without all the distractions and I could not remember what it felt like when I could not walk down the street without holding her hand. I mean, she was the same woman I fell in love with, she had not changed. But somehow everything was different. We lost something along the way.”
The One Truth
I read and walked for miles along the beach at night, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me. Anna Quindlen
The poet thinks he has discovered that “one truth” in “the last of all our Odysseys”.
Dedicatory Ode
From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.
But I will sit by my fireside,
And put my hand before my eyes,
And trace, to fill my heart’s desire,
The last of all our Odysseys.
Hilaire Belloc
The one thing nesessary
In the following story Jesus tells us what he believes to be the one thing necessary in life.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Jesus’ dream for us
But now I am coming to you, and I speak these in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. … The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17: 13, 22-23)
It is in the midst of our messy world, in the dirt, that flowers still grow.
Flowers Still Grow There sung by John Foley
You’re worried, my son, about people hating
And how this world is run, how this world is run.
You say it ain’t true, it’s dirt we’re made of
Often return to, often return.
Don’t search too long for this gold that you seek
It’s too deep to dig for and your arms too weak.
Don’t you worry, my son, about the dirt in the soil
Flowers still grow there, flowers still grow.
That man long ago with his low-down birth
Found his glory planted in the earth.
So don’t search too long for this gold that you seek;
It’s too deep to dig for and your arms too weak.
Don’t you worry, my son, about people hating,
Love is still the lord, love is still lord.
What is urgent and what is important?
For many years now I have asked audiences the question: "If you were to do one thing you know would make a tremendous difference for good in your personal life, what would that one thing be?" I then ask them the same question with regards to their professional or work life. People come up with answers very easily. Deep inside they already know what they need to do.
Then I ask them to examine their answers and determine whether what they wrote down is urgent or important or both. "Urgent" comes from the outside, from environmental pressures and crises. "Important" comes from the inside, from their own deep value system.
Almost without exception the things people write down that would make a tremendous difference in their lives are important but not urgent. As we talk about it people come to realise that the reason they don't do these things is that they're not urgent. They're not pressing. And, unfortunately, most people are addicted to the urgent. In fact, if they are not being driven by the urgent, they feel guilty. They feel as if something is wrong.
But truly effective people in all walks of life focus on the important rather than on the merely urgent. Research shows that worldwide, the most successful executives focus on importance, and less effective executives focus on urgency. Sometimes the urgent is also important, but much of the time it is not.
Clearly, to focus on what is truly important is far more effective than a focus on what is merely urgent. It's true in all walks of life - including the family. Of course, parents are going to have to deal with crises and with putting out fires that are both important and urgent. But when they proactively choose to spend more time on things that are truly important but not necessarily urgent, it reduces the crises and the fires. Stephen Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
Lantana
The film Lantana takes it name from a shrub whose branches intertwine to form a very dense and complex undergrowth. This symbolises the tangled pattern of relationships the film focuses on. Central to these relationships is that of Leon and his wife Sonja. He is a detective whose life is complicated by an affair he is having with Joan as this has a deadening effect on his relationship with Sonja his wife and with his two sons. She, in an effort to understand what has happened to their marriage, goes to Valerie, a psychiatrist whose own marriage to John is also a troubled one as he is an academic who lives in his head and cannot respond to her emotionally.
For much of the film, Lantana, Leon is seeking happiness in the wrong places. He is seduced by the pleasure of his affair with Joan and by his aggressive desire to be in control in every situation he is in. This leaves him listless or with little energy for his relationships with his wife and two sons. It is only at the end of the film, when he has learned to value his relationship with his wife more than anything else, that we feel he is free again. This is because she has won back his heart and set him free from the dominance of trivial and fleeting attractions. In realising how intense, profound and enduring is the love of his wife for him Leon sees that, in relation to this love, all others are secondary. At the end of the film we are in no doubt that there is only one love that matters, only one he knows he cannot afford to lose. This realisation sets him free
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O no! it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
It is the star to every wand`ring bark,
Whose worth`s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love`s not Time`s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle`s come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom; -
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ nor no man ever loved.
Shakespeare
Full Moon – Mary Black
Everybody else has gone
But you're still here with me
All the world is sleeping by and by
Through the windowpane
The frosted light is streaming in
Full moon sailing high across the sky
Tonight is like the night when we first met
I always knew I never would forget you
Come and hold me close
I miss you more than I can say
I can't imagine how I pass the time
Wondering if you'll ever know
How much you mean to me
I never dreamed there'd be a change of mind
Oh lover, this is where I want to stay
Maybe it could always be this way
Gentle music, rock away the sadnesses in me
Rock away my lonely yesterdays
I recall you said to me a long, long time ago
"Don't you lose direction in the crowd, I think you could"
But when I did you found me and I didn't even know
Hardly even knew you were around, and understood
I was reaching out each moment to be free
You were all those things I'd never be
Gentle music, rock away the sadnesses in me
Rock away my lonely yesterdays
Like pennies on the ocean
'Til no trace of them I see
'Til moonlight shows no ripples on the waves
And then the clear reflection will remain
Perhaps the same reflection of that same full moon
Full moon, full moon, full moon...
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.[b]
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
would be utterly scorned.
Song of Songs 8.
Another Woman
The story of the film
In one of Woody Allen's films called Another Woman we have the unfolding of the story of a woman's attitude to her passion, her feelings and her sexuality. At the beginning of the story we meet her as a successful lecturer in philosophy. She is very intellectual and controlled. She appears to be devoid of passion and shows little feeling, apart from being embarrassed when her friends talk openly about their sex life. It is when she tries to move further into her intellectual ivory tower in getting away to write a book that her world of reserve is taken apart.
As she begins her book, she overhears a young woman in an adjoining apartment talking to her therapist. She is drawn into their conversation, as she finds it echoes her own experience. We watch her as she re-lives the memories that are aroused in her by what is happening next door. She gradually realises how stifling her feelings, for the sake of intellectual pursuits, has led her to a loss of intimacy and authentic relationships.
Through going back to the memory of someone who had fallen in love with her, she learns to believe again in the possibilities in her own life of feeling and passion. As a result she experiences a sense of peace for the first time in many years, and she finds that the creativity to write her book is released.
Incarnatio est maximum Dei donum
So God`s eternal bounty ever shined
The beams of being, moving, life, sense, mind,
And to all things himself communicated.
But see the violent diffusive pleasure
Of goodness, that left not till God had spent
Himself by giving us himself, his treasure,
In making man a God omnipotent.
How might this goodness draw our souls above,
Which drew down God with such attractive love.
(William Alabaster)
Falling in love
Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. Pedro Arrupe S J
The power of Falling in love
Romantic love is the single greatest energy system in the Western psyche. In our culture it has supplanted religion as the arena in which men and woman seek meaning transcendence, wholeness and ecstasy. (Robert Johnson, The Psychology of Romantic Love)
I’m A Believer: Neil Diamond
I thought love was only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else, but not for me
Love was out to get me
That's the way it seemed
Disappointment haunted all my dreams
Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I'm in love and I'm a believer
I couldn't leave her if I tried
I thought love was more or less a giving thing
Seems the more I gave, the less I got
What's the use in trying, all you get is pain
When I needed sunshine, I got rain
Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I'm in love and I'm a believer
I couldn't leave her if I tried
(instrumental)
Love was out to get me
That's the way it seemed
Disappointment haunted all my dreams
Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I'm in love and I'm a believer
I couldn't leave her if I tried
Saw her face, now I'm a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I'm in love, and I'm a believer
The story of a woman whose whole life was caught up in Jesus
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). 17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Three Colours Red
Three Colours: Red is about our insatiable human longing for affection and the various ways that the main characters in the film seek to satisfy this longing. This longing and the saddening results of our weak human nature's effort to satisfy it is symbolised by an advertising poster for which Valentine has been the modal. The poster, which appears at regular intervals throughout the film is a picture of her gazing longingly and with an air of sadness into the distance. It is also highly symbolic that the image of her is just a small part of of an overwhelming red background. Is this prevalence of red an expression of Valentine's belief that human nature is essentially good, caring and capable of the affection or of the fraternity which is the film's theme.
The seeds of affection may be minuscule
Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.”
Pervasive power of affection
Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” Lk 13:18-21,
The growth of affection is so gradual it is often not perceived
He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” Mk 4:26-29
Some of the following quotations may give us a flavour of the kind of love we call affection:
Living out of ones memory of being loved
The confidence that one has worth is normally picked up first from the attitudes of a mother or mother-surrogate towards the infant and is then cultivated in the family by loyalty to the infant. As the child grows the initial feeling is reinforced by persons outside the family in their appreciation for him and his potentialities. Later, the more mature human being seems to keep within his memories, to refer to in difficult times, the images of those people who have believed in him. (Rolla May)
The Divine Lover
Me, Lord? Canst thou mispend
One word, misplace one look on me?
Call`st me thy Love, thy Friend?
Can this poor soul the object be
Of these love-glances, those life-kindling eyes?
What? I the centre of thy arms` embraces?
Of all thy labour I the prize?
Love never mocks, Truth never lies.
Oh how I quake: Hope fear, fear hope displaces:
I would, but cannot hope: such wondrous love amazes.
Phineas Fletcher.
You are so beautiful to me
You are so beautiful to me
Can't you see
You're everything I hoped for
You're everything I need
You are so beautiful to me
Such Joy and happiness you bring
Such joy and happiness you bring
Like a dream, …
Heaven’s gift to me
You are so beautiful to me.
A song of Joe Cocker
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflet he Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18)
That best portion of a good man’s life; those little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love (W Wordsworth)
The courtesy of a woman to Jesus and his to her
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. … Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" 50Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." Lk 7:44
An affection recognized in solitude
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say. Thomas Merton
Ordinary People
The story the film tells
Teen-aged brothers and best friends Buck and Conrad Jarrett were involved in a boating accident which claimed Buck's life. Shortly thereafter, Conrad tried to commit suicide. After a four-month hospitalization, Conrad is back in his upper middle class suburban Chicago home with his parents, Calvin and Beth Jarrett. The Jarretts collectively are publicly trying to get on with their lives, Conrad who is back at high school in his senior year partaking in his old activities, such as the swim team and the choir. But things in the Jarrett household are not right. Although stating he is unsure why he decides to do so, Conrad restarts his psychiatric therapy outside of the hospital with a Dr. Berger. This therapy may be able to uncover the reasons for the Jarrett's collective unhappiness, and leads each to examine not only the overall family dynamic but the individual relationships with each of the other two.
Four levels at which we love and relate
There are four levels at which we love and relate. For example, if something happens, and we have strong positive or negative feelings about this, it is a sign that something significant is being said to us that echoes some conviction we have about our worth.
In the following poem, notice the sensate event recalled and then any line that strikes you. Notice too any feeling, however gentle, that this line arouses and then any deep-seated conviction that the line is putting you in touch with?
Friday
In memory of my mother
Just home from mass and she reaches
For her apron,
In the blink of an eye
Her weathered hands are coated in sticky dough
The table-top is dusted with flower and
She lifts the first shapeless mass
Out of the bowl and onto the table.
With age-old rings she cuts the shapes
Filling two baking trays in the process
And soon another batch of dough
Is forming and
Thrown out on the floured table
To be knocked into shape
Till in silent prayer
It is blessed with the sign of the cross
Soon the kitchen takes on a bakery smell
As one batch of scones emerges from the oven
Followed by another
And eventually the soda-bread, this is Friday.
Gearoid O’Brien
How these these four levels operate
If something happens, and we have strong positive or negative feelings about this, It is a sign that something significant is being said to us that echoes some conviction we have about our worth. It is up to us to notice whether this conviction we live with is true or an illusion.
In the film, Ordinary People, Conrad feels guilty about his brother’s death in a boating accident. As a result of feeling bad, he does not face his feelings and this consumes his energies while the problem is not resolved. He tries to commit suicide to escape his guilt and depression.
Conrad has been living with an illusion, the conviction that he is “a rotten kid”, guilty of his brother’s death. He glimpses this in the way his mother treats him and this generates negative feeling. He finds it difficult to live with himself.
Conrad’s father seeks clarity and gradually reaches a conviction about the real source of Conrad’s problem. Calvin’s hunch is confirmed and he is urged to act on it.
On the road to Emmaus two disciples are sad and despairing so Jesus encourages them to talk out the illusion that Jesus’ love, and relationship it has established for them, has disappeared from their lives. He sets about renewing the true vision of his love for them and the sense of their worth this gives them. He does this by revealing himself to them in the story of his love in the Word and in its climax in “the breaking of bread” (Mass). As a result, they become joyful and enthusiastic again.
Jesus is always available to deal with the illusions about our worth we tend to live with and with the feelings of sadness, guilt etc these illusions cause.
He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24)
