The Oscar for Best Picture in 1942 went to a film that in
the end comes down to war propaganda, complete with a plug for U.S. War Bonds.
As troubling as film as propaganda is, the last scene in the film raises even
more fundamental problems that the film glosses over. Tellingly, the scene
takes place in a bombed church in the fictional English village.
As the congregation is mourning its dead with the war far
from over, the Christian minister preaches righteous war, followed by refrains
of Onward Christian Soldier. The
problem of the religion of love extended even to one’s enemy, including turning
the other cheek, turned to the service of war is ignored, as is the consequent
problem of a religion that can be so contorted beyond recognition and yet still
standing. In other words, the hypocrisy of Christians being urged to fight
rather than love their enemies is missed, as is the problem of how a religion can
stand even when it is turned against its own principles. Additionally, the premise
of being able to know God’s mind, as in the preacher’s announcement that God is
on their side of the war, is also far from transparent as a problem.
In his writings, Nietzsche advocates treating truth as a
problem, rather than as an inviolable, or sacred given. The truth of God being
on our side in a war seems to be as a good candidate. For in a religion in
which God is love itself, the very notion of God on any side of a war can only be an oxymoron. Papering over it is the
business of presumption, or hubris, rather than anything holy.
To be sure, Mrs.
Miniver has its bright spots. Most notably, it depicts an idyllic family
that is seldom caught in modern cinema. Also, the film is laudable in that it
shows a greater good to which individuals are willing to sacrifice. As the
minister observes in that last scene, it is a people’s war; everyone is in it.
The common cause and related sacrifice all around do not, however, justify
projecting the cause onto God itself, especially if the substance of the deity
is love.
Rather than encouraging the “Christian solders” on, the minister could
have taken his congregation from its somber mood to transcend the banality of
the war into a sort of religious experience wherein God’s love as love is felt
among them. A hint of the possibility can be found in Vin, the eldest son and
an air-force flyer, walking over to his wife’s grandmother to comfort her. Like
the whispering wind passing by Elijah on the mountain, God is in Vin’s quiet
move over to the crying woman as they are singing a hymn, rather than with the “Christian
soldiers” as they fight on to fight the good fight. Film as propaganda is
inherently problematic because it misses so much.
