The religious imagination is alive and well in the movies. Contrary
to those who criticize Hollywood, popular movies very often have
metaphorically represented God on the screen. From Clint Eastwood
as an avenging angel in Pale Rider and Nicolas Cage as a love-sick
angel in City of Angels, to Jessica Lange as an angel of death in
All That Jazz, and from George Burns as God in Oh God! to Audrey
Hepburn in Alwaysto pure white light in Fearless and Flatliners,
God is very much present in the movies. Images of angels and God
used by movie makers are explored here.This intelligent, insightful
volume is an exercise in urban anthropology. Religious imagination
is the subject and the movie house is its location. The authors
show that the religious imagination is irrepressible, and shows up
in our best-known example of popular cultures, movies. Contrary to
conservative opinion that suggests that Hollywood is
anti-religious, Greeley and Bergesen find just the opposite.
Ordinary movies, not explicitly about religion and not made by
particularly religious individuals often demonstrate some basic
religious theme, point, or message. God in the Movies does not
judge or approve, recommend or criticize; the authors simply alert
the reader to the great variety of metaphors for God, angels,
heaven, and hell, from beautiful women to white light at the end of
the tunnel to Groundhog Day. They are not concerned with explicitly
religious movies. This is not a study of Ben Huror The Last
Temptations of Christ, but rather of ordinary mass-release movies,
including Field of Dreams, Always, All That Jazz, Commandments,
Babette's Feast, Fearless, Breaking the Waves, Jacob's Ladder,
Flatliners, Ghost, Pale Rider, Star Wars, 2001, Dogma, and even
Japanimation, like Ghost in the Shell.The authors' vivid
explication of various cinematic metaphors for God is accompanied
by an analysis of what these movies tell about our sociological
attitudes toward life and death. They also discuss the social
conditions that give rise to various kinds of imagery and forms of
movies. In a real sense, this book is for both the professional
concerned with religion, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology,
media and cinema studies, and the layperson interested in how
popular movies also contain religious imagery.
General
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