Spoiler Alert: These essays are ideally to be read after viewing the respective films.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Hail, Caesar!

For anyone interested in filmmaking, a film that features the internal operations of a film studio—especially one during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood—is likely to be captivating. After all, as Eddie Mannix, the studio executive in Hail, Caesar! (2016), says, the “vast masses of humanity look to pictures for information and uplift and, yes, entertainment.” This film provides all three for its audience on what film-making was like in the studio system. With regards to the Christian theology, however, the result is mixed.  The film makes the point that theological information best comes out indirectly from dramatic dialogue rather than discussion on theology itself. In other words, inserting a theological lecture into a film’s narrative is less effective than an impassioned speech by which entertainment and uplift can carry the information.


Mannix’s meeting scene with clerics is harried and thus difficult for the viewer (and Mannix) to digest, but Baird Whitlock’s emotional speech on a studio set as the Crucifixion scene is being filmed conveys religious ideas in an entertaining manner. The speech centers on what is so special about the person being crucified. The information is carried on Whitlock’s emotive warmth, and thus the acting of George Clooney who plays the character. In contrast, emotion is sparing in Mannix’s meeting with a rabbi, Catholic priest, Greek Orthodox priest, and Protestant minister. Instead, the scene is energized by fast-moving theological points, but this is unfortunately of little use to the viewers as demonstrated by Mannix’s confused reactions as the clerics debate. This is ironic because the scene’s role in the film narrative is to make the point that Capital Studio’s management takes the informational role the film being made seriously. Whereas Mannix just wants to know if any of the clerics are disturbed by the Jesus portrayed in Mannix’s film, the inclusion of the clerics’ discussion of theology begs the question: can’t film do any better in expressly handling theological concepts through dialogue? The viewer has not yet seen the scene of Whitlock’s emotional speech at the Crucifixion, but that scene does not address whether theological dialogue is viable in film. After watching Mannix’s meeting, the viewer likely answers, not well. The example may not be a good one, however.

How good is the medium of film in portraying Jesus Christ and the story that encapsulates him? I contend that this is precisely the question that Hail, Caesar! (2016) attempts to answer, but falls short. The scene of Mannix’s meeting not only relegates theological dialogue as being beyond the reach of viewers, but also assumes quite explicitly that the best portrayal of Jesus is that which is the least controversial. Because Whitlock’s reverential articulation of Jesus is appreciated universally on the movie set on which the film within the film is being shot, the message is that impassioned meaning itself is enduring; it is also the least likely to offend. Does not the strategy of coming up with a portrayal that does not offend anyone run the risk of being drab? Is such a portrayal merely a copy of the default, which may contain problems? Moreover, does the inclusion of something controversial take away from the uplift and entertainment value?

Even though avoiding anything controversial fit the 1950s—the time when the film takes place—especially in American society, and thus Hollywood, viewers watching the film in 2016 likely perceived the strategy to be antiquated and even suboptimal. Some viewers may have seen controversial films on Jesus such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) for trivializing the story with pop music, Jesus of Nazareth (1977) for emphasizing Jesus’ human characteristics at the expense of his divine Sonship, The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) for its moral stances and conflicted Jesus, and The Passion of the Christ (2004) for taking Jesus’s suffering beyond that in the New Testament. By 2016, the assumptions that explicitly theological dialogue is inherently beyond the grasp of viewers; such dialogue itself is too controversial; and films should rely instead on impassioned speeches could be reckoned as nonsense. Surely the controversy of King of Kings (1961) over the decision to show Jesus’ face would be deemed anything but controversial in retrospect. Hail Caesar! may be making the same point regarding the conformist era of the 1950s.

Perhaps the disappointment of Hippie idealism and the ensuing criticism of American government and society beginning in the late 1960s had accustomed Americans to viewing controversy as acceptable, and even finding it to be entertaining and uplifting in terms of ideational freedom (i.e., thinking outside the box). Studios may have been absorbed the cultural criticism in producing films like Jesus Christ Superstar that were certainly outside the box relative to the earlier films such as King of Kings. It could even be said that the medium was ushering in a new wave of historical theological criticism after that of the nineteenth-century Germans such as Feuerbach and Nietzsche. Put another way, perhaps their thought had finally percolated through or resonated with American society after 1968 such that studios could take chances precisely that are anathema to Mannix in Hail Caesar! and therefore 1950s Americana.
Of course, entertainment and uplift could not suffer; they were no longer assumed to be mutually exclusive with religious controversy.  Entertainment had been a mainstay of film since even before the medium partook of narrative. Fifty seconds of an oncoming train in Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896), for example, thrilled audiences. Sound would only have added to the fright. Both uplift and sadness or fear can be entertaining. In its de facto insistence on happy endings, Hollywood has neglected this point. Relatedly, an insistence on avoiding controversy out of fear that it would detract from the entertainment-value of a film neglects the possibility that controversy could add entertainment-value while providing thought-provoking information. Even thinking about abstract ideas after viewing a film can be entertaining for some people because those ideas came out of a narrative.

Generally speaking, the information/knowledge element is most salient in documentaries, but even fictional narrative is capable of carrying heavy weight in this regard. In regard to the religious content of Judaism and Christianity, Mannix says, “The Bible of course is terrific, but for millions of people, pictures will be their reference point to the story.” He predicts that film would even become the story’s embodiment. In other words, he predicts that from his time in the 1950s, film would come to supersede even the Bible itself because of the film medium’s greater potential to provide information, uplift, and entertainment. One of my reasons for studying film is indeed the medium’s hegemony and thus role in transmitting abstract ideas and even theories.

While I do not doubt the medium’s tremendous potential to present an experience in the story-world by means of visuals and sound, whereas a book is only text that must be read, Mannix omits the pleasure that can be afforded only by the human imagination without visuals and sound to constrict the imagination to a story world presented by film. Especially in the multi-layered genre of mythology (i.e., religious narrative), imagination can be stretched in a myriad ways and on many levels, given the scope for interpretation in myth.

On the other hand, even though film constrains imagination to within the contours of a story world, the mind’s ability to suspend disbelief allows for immersion into such a world, resulting in greater understanding as well as uplift and entertainment. A viewer can “enter” a film’s audio-visual story world cognitively, perceptually, and emotionally such that a sense of experiencing can be had. Experiencing the Biblical world can enable a viewer to better understand Jesus’ dialogues because they are in their contexts. To the extent that the ancient world historically can inform our understanding of the Biblical world, film can make use of historians and anthropologists in order to improve on how that world is being portrayed. To be sure, the Biblical world is distinct from history, and our knowledge of the ancient past is limited. Film carries with it the risk that viewers might take a portrayal as the world that a historical Jesus would have known rather than that of a faith narrative. The use of abstract dialogue does not suffer from this problem because the ideas being exchanged transcend the dialogue’s context. So the assumption that narrative-specific impassioned speeches are superior to such dialogue is flawed. Of course, this assumption in Hail, Caesar! supports the problematic assumption that controversy must at all means be avoided in order to maximize the entertainment value and uplift, which in turn relate to profitability.

I turn now to a scene analysis of Mannix’s meeting with the clerics in order to make several points, including that the scene is a bad example of how a religious film can effectively use abstract dialogue. The studio executive wants expert feedback both from within Christianity and outside of it to make sure that no viewers whatsoever will take offence to the Jesus being portrayed in Mannix’s movie—the film within the film. When Mannix first asks his guests whether they have any theological objections to the movie being made, the Greek Orthodox priest complains that the chariots in one scene go too fast. Even a cleric has difficulty turning to religious dialogue! The message to the viewer can only be that such dialogue is neither natural nor befitting a film-viewing. This point supports the film’s solution by means of an impassioned speech even if the implications regarding the use of abstract dialogue in film are wrong.
At the studio executive’s urging, the clerics finally focus on the task at hand. “The nature of Jesus is not as simplistic as your picture would have it,” the Catholic priest says. He is speaking theologically. “It is not as simple as God is Christ or Christ is God,” he explains. The portrayal should go further. It should show that Jesus is “the Son of God who takes the sins of the world upon himself so we may enter the Kingdom of God.” Indeed, the Jesus of the Gospels announces that his mission to preach the mysteries of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, the screenwriter did not have the priest say anything about that kingdom (e.g., how to get in it). Instead, the priest’s focus, consistent with the history of theology, is left at Christ’s identity (i.e., Christology) in salvation (i.e., Soteriology) even though the less abstract teachings of Jesus on how to enter his Father’s kingdom, such as benevolence even to detractors and enemies, would be more easily comprehended by viewers.

After the priest’s abstract theological point, the clerics rapid-fire contending points so fast and without sufficient explanation to Mannix (who seems clueless even though he goes to confession daily) that the viewers are clearly not deemed able to follow a theological discussion. Yet the film makes a straw-man’s argument by presenting the dialogue at such a fast pace that little could be gained from the ideas expressed.

The Protestant minister says that Jesus is part God. The rabbi counters that the historical Jesus was a man. Mannix, a Roman Catholic, asks, “So God is split?” to which the Catholic priest answers, “Yes and no.” The Greek priest says, “Unity in division” and the Protestant minister adds, “And division in unity.” Such word games do not advance a viewer’s comprehension of the dialogue. As if standing in for the viewer, Mannix loses his concentration and admits, “I don’t follow that.” The best line of the movie comes when the rabbi replies, “You don’t follow it for a very simple reason; these men are screwballs.”

From the Jewish standpoint, the Christian clerics have gotten themselves tied up in knots because they are claiming something that a human being is both fully human and fully divine. Aside from a historical Jesus, the god-man character in faith narratives goes against the Jewish belief that a chasm separates human beings from God. The belief that God has an incarnate human form (i.e., a human body) smacks Jews as a case of self-idolatry.  As confirmed at the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.), Christian theology upholds that Jesus has two natures in himself—the divine and the human (except for sin). The two natures stay distinct in Jesus, so the divine is of the same substance (consubstantial) with the other two manifestations (or “persons”) of the Trinity; the human nature is unaffected by the divine except for the former being without sin. This is necessary so Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the Cross can be for other people rather than to pay the price of his own sin.

For the viewers, an analogy would have served better than the abstractions in the dialogue. Oil and water in a cup, for example, would have been more easily understood. The screenwriters fare better when the theological discussion turns to God (i.e., the Godhead). The Catholic priest claims that the Jews worship a god who has no love. “God loves Jews,” the rabbi retorts. Reacting to the unloving way in which Yahweh treats other people, the Protestant minister insists that God loves everyone. Yahweh’s statement that vengeance is His does not square with God being love. In his writings, Nietzsche argues that this incongruity discredits the conception of Yahweh in the Bible. It is the discredited conception that Nietzsche refers to in writing, “God is dead.” Fortunately, as St. Denis points out in his writings, God transcends human conceptions of God. The screenwriter could have had the Rabbi make this point, and moreover, that the Christian clerics are too obsessed with theological distinctions that assume the validity of the operative conception wherein a vice belongs to God, which is perfect goodness (omnibenevolent).   

As if channeling Augustine to refute the rabbi, the Catholic priest says, “God is love.” Calvin’s writings contain the same point, which can be construed as the core of Christianity. Whereas Augustine’s theological love (caritas) is human love raised to the highest good (i.e., God), Calvin’s is the divine self-emptying (agape) love. Whether or not human nature, even Eros, is part of Christian theological love, it manifests as universal benevolence (benevolentia universalis). In the film, the rabbi could have asked the other clerics whether humans are capable of self-emptying divine love (i.e., agape), and how the god of love handles the evil people, given that God is all-powerful (omnipotent). The clerics could have pointed very concretely to how a person can enter the Kingdom of God.

Instead, the Greek priest gets existential, insisting that the basis of God is love is, “God is who He is.” The screenwriter missed an opportunity for the rabbi to say, God is I Am. The implication is that theological love is divine existence, which transcends existence within Creation. God’s nature and very existence as love may thus be wholly other than human conceptions and experiences of love and existence. St. Denis made this point in the sixth century, and yet, as David Hume pointed out in the eighteenth century, the human brain is naturally inclined to view the unknown by attributing human characteristics to it.

The theological dialogue in the meeting scene could have brought the viewers to the point of appreciating God’s wholly otherness as transcending even the polished theological distinctions that we make. However, Mannix, who goes to confession daily, personifies the assumption that even religious viewers would get lost in theological dialogue in a film even though the rushed dialogue is rigged to support this assumption. The studio executive, for whom profitability is important, states up front in the meeting that he just wants to know whether the portrayal of Jesus in the film being made offends “any reasonable American regardless of faith or creed. I want to know if the theological elements are up to snuff.” Given the rabbi’s statements, however, the portrayal of Jesus as a god-man would be controversial at least to Jews. So Mannix really means to Christians. That’s all Mannix wants from the meeting, so to him even the theological bantering is a distraction. In fact, it could invite controversy for the film, Hail Caesar!, even though the film within the film is not controversial. On this meta-level, the religious dialogue is written as comedic perhaps for this reason, though by 2016 avoiding controversy would not likely be a concern. To be sure, even then for a cleric to suggest that divine mystery goes beyond the Christian understanding of Jesus being of two distinct natures would invite controversy. St. Denis’ claim that God transcends even our conception of the Trinity would certainly be controversial even in the early twenty-first century.   

Regarding the 1950s film within the film, Mannix asks at the end of the meeting scene, “Is our depiction of Jesus fair?” Without questioning Mannix's underlying assumption that fairness means non-controversial, the Protestant minister, answers, “There’s nothing to offend a reasonable man.” By implication, to present anything that offends a reasonable person would be unjust even if controversy would likely occur from presenting advances in theological understanding, including alternative views, which alter or question the default.  A reasonable person is almost defined as one who holds the orthodox (i.e., doctrinal) belief on Jesus’ identity (i.e., Christology). By implication, it is fair if an unreasonable man—a person who has a “deviant” Christological belief—is offended. Such fairness, it turns out, is not so fair; it is at the very least biased in favor of the tyranny of the status quo both as it applied to theological interpretation and the wider heavily-conformist American society in the 1950s.

Mannix represents the position that theology can and should be filtered through the lenses of business. That of the sacred that reaches the viewers must survive the cutting board of the profane. Because the Catholic priest says that the portrayal of Jesus in the film being made in Hail Caesar! is too simplistic, perhaps the message is that only simplified theology survives. While this point applies well to 1950s Hollywood cinema, the plethora of controversial films on Jesus since the utopian convention-defying days of the late 1960s in America suggests that controversial films can indeed be profitable, at least if a wider society is no longer so conformist. Indeed, societal judgments on what is controversial have varied over time. 

 Even theologians’ views of profit-seeking have changed through the centuries of Christianity. Until the Commercial revolution, the dominant view was that salvation and money are mutually exclusive.[1] The rich man cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Willowing down theology to suit profitability would have been deemed anathema. With greater importance being attributed to Christian virtues actualized by profit-seeking followed by the belief that God rewards Christians monetarily for having true belief (i.e., that Jesus saves souls), Christian clerics in the twentieth century could be more accommodating of studio executives. The end of reaching a large audience, for instance, could have been believed to justify unprofitable scraps of theology on the cutting-room floor. The historical uncoupling of greed from wealth and profit-seeking, having been accomplished by the end of the Italian Renaissance, made permissible such an accommodation. Indeed, if God is believed to reward faithful Christians monetarily, as is held in the Prosperity Gospel, then a profit-seeking studio executive would be seen as being favored by God in using profit as the litmus-test for theology. 

 Although in the film's period of the 1950s any explicit questioning and criticism of the operative assumptions in Hail, Caesar! would likely have been squashed like bugs, the screenwriter could have included such material (even the squashing) so the viewers in 2016 could have a better understanding of just how narrow, and even arbitrary, the film's historical assumptions are. Therefore, both in terms of theology and the related societal context, the screenwriter could have delivered more to both inform and entertain, with the uplift including what naturally comes from putting a theology and social reality (i.e., of the 1950s) in a broader, contextual macro- or meta-perspective.