While discussing the possibility of reviewing the recent film There Will Be Blood, we ventured off onto the topic of how religion and even more specifically, the ministry, is portrayed in films, past and present and whether this influences public attitudes about religion.

Historically, playing a Catholic Priest in a movie meant a automatic Academy Award nomination. Remember Spencer Tracy in Boy’s Town or Bing Crosby in Going My Way? These men were practically miracle workers but that all changed as stories of abuse started to surface.

When a priest counsels a young boy on today’s screen, many in the audience suspect that there are ulterior motives. 

Episcopal Priests, especially when played by Richard Burton,  don’t fare very well in movies. He played a pair of “fallen” priests  in The Sandpipers and  Night of the Iguana.

The 1941 best picture of the year, How Green Was My Valley portrayed the ministry in contrasting ways. Walter Pidgeon played a likable minister, likable because he doesn’t judge people, while the church deacon portrayed by Barry Fitzgerald is despicably judgemental.

Protestant ministers and evangelists, even in the 60’s fare even worse.  We’re of course reminded of Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry and Robert Mitchum who plays the homicidal preacher in Night of the Hunter.

A recent segment on the NPR series “In Character” interviewed divinity students at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where a group had recently watched the 1960 film Elmer Gantry. One student said “there’s an Elmer Gantry in every one of our hearts”.

Some said the character was flawed because he never had a genuine call to the pulpit. There was also dialogue about why people chose certain types of churches. Do they want to hear about prosperity and feeling good about themselves or do they want to hear the gospel and learn about salvation?

One of the most obvious antireligious or anti-fundamentalist film slants was the recent remake of the mystery thriller Cape Fear.  In the 1962 original, Robert Mitchum was the menacing villain seeking revenge against his former attorney.  In the 1991 version,  Robert DeNiro was decked out in all kinds of tattoos including a giant crucifix that covered his entire back, and while he wasn’t supposed to be a minister, his fundamentalist hell fire and brimstone speech led you to believe he was.

The Apostle, filmed in 1997 sent a mixed message. The flamboyant evangelist played by Robert Duvall kills a man who is having an affair with his wife and goes on the run.  But after settling into a backwater Louisiana town, he reestablishes himself as a local minister he did a lot of good for the community, rekindling a religious fervor, before finally being carted off in handcuffs.

In the 1960 film Inherit the Wind, a fictionalized account of the Scopes evolution trial, the town minister is portrayed as an unflinching zealot who publicly declares that a young boy who died is going to Hell because he wasn’t baptized.  Later, during the trial, the agnostic defense attorney uses Bible verses as an argument to defeat the fundamentalist prosecutor.  But then we find out the agnostic is spiritually more than he professes. 

In Leap of Faith, Steve Martin plays a charlatan evangelist who uses trick to appear as though he is healing people.  But then he is shaken when a true miracle occurs.
A few recent films like Keeping the Faith, The Preachers Wife actually portray the ministry in a positive light.
 
Greed, hypocrisy, pomposity, infidelity and often pure evil are now the taglines associated with many ministers in the movies. It is hard to tell the preachers from the politicians. We still believe that one can find theology in films and sometimes it may be where you least expect it.
 
The Reverend R.L in the 2006 film Black Snake Moan sums it up pretty well. “Ima tell you something and its just gonna be between you and me. I think folks carry on about heaven too much, like it’s some kind of all you can eat buffet up in the clouds and folks just do as they told so they can eat what they want behind some pearly gates. There’s sinning in my heart, there’s evil in the world but when I got no one, I talk to God. I ask for strength, I ask for forgiveness, not peace at the end of my days when I got no more life to live or no more good to do but today, right now… What’s your heaven?”

Jane’s comments: Our initial discussion revolved around only one film There Will Be Blood but with the exception of Daniel Day Lewis’s performance there was not a lot I wanted to recommend about the film. Then we started talking about the evil Eli Sunday who screamed at his father “Do you think God is going to come down here and save you for being stupid? He doesn’t save stupid people, Abel”.
 
I would welcome our readers input as to positive religious figures in films and we could go in that direction sometime. Waiting to hear from you. If one does not believe that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, wonder why I was thinking about this article when I heard the NPR segment?

Steve’s Comments: Apparently filmmakers are taking more of an antireligious slant today than in the past, but I can’t condemn films in general for the few with agendas. Our take on movies we review is the theology we find hidden under the surface and often right there in plain sight.  Even a heavy “R” film like Monsters Ball had it’s redeeming qualities, a retelling of the Good Samaritan story.  Hollywood may have an antireligious bias, but we have a say in it. Movies are a business and when films like The Passion of the Christ, Bruce Almighty, and The Bucket List score big box office numbers, movie moguls listen.