Bell, Book and Candle

If ever there were a mistaken title for a movie, Bell, Book and Candle must rank in the upper tier, for the spells in the bewitching comedy hinge on a cat and a bowl rather than bell, book, and candle. Magic can be thought of as the making use of concrete objects, combined with words, to engage a supernatural sort of causation meant to manipulate sentient or insentient beings/objects for one’s own purposes.  The film, Bell, Book and Candle (1958), is not only a love story and a comedy, but also the presentation of a story-world in which witches and warlocks engage in contending spells for selfish reasons. That story-world in turn can be viewed as presenting a religion, which can be compared and contrasted with others. Most crucially as far as religion is concerned, the supernatural element that is observable in the story-world points to the existence of a realm that lies beyond the world of our daily lives and thus renders the film’s story-world different. Put another way, the unique type of causation, which appears only as coincidence to the characters who are not in on the existences of witches and warlocks in the story-world, transcends appearance because the “laws” of the causation operate hidden from view, as if in another realm. I contend that it is precisely such transcendence not only in terms of belief, but also praxis, that distinguishes the domain of religion as unique and thus distinct from other domains, including those of science (e.g., biology, astronomy), history, and even ethics.

The film’s plot, in short, revolves around a spell-induced romance between Shepherd Henderson and Gillian Holroyd. He is “a human being,” an odd label that witches and warlocks in the film apply to others as if witches and warlocks were not also human beings. Gillian is a witch. Gillian’s relatives, Queenie and Nicky, are like Gillian, at least through most of the film. Interestingly, Elsa Lanchester, who plays Queenie, would go on to be in the hit television series, Bewitched. In that series, a witch is married to a “human being.” Unlike in that series (which I watched as a child and thus had in the back of my mind as I watched the film), the film contains descriptors of witchcraft, which I submit can be regarded as a religion due to the transcendent element in the supernatural causation. Implicitly, the film provides viewers of other religions with a comparative-religion mindset.

One lesson in comparative religion is that fear may naturally grip a person of one religion when exposed to another. This point is made visually in the film when Shepherd looks into Gillian’s store window from the sidewalk and sees the intense greenish fire towering up out of a bowl as a spell is being enacted. Unaware of the existence of witchcraft, Shepherd leaps to the conclusion, in fear, that the store is on fire (he lives above the store, so naturally he has more an a passing concern). The supernatural element is scary to him because it is different and he does not understand it, so he references it to something that is familiar to him (i.e., a fire in a store). I submit that we tend to do this when we come in contact with another religion than our own. In watching the movie, viewers do not make Shepherd’s assumption because the presence of witchcraft in the story-world is conveyed up front, so we are vicariously inside the religion of witchcraft and so we laugh at the comedy rather than are afraid as if it were a horror movie. Even so, in watching Shepherd’s fear, the viewers are “taught” a lesson of comparative religion in how people of one religion naturally react to seeing another. Furthermore, the viewers can take the secrecy of Gillian and her relatives when Shepherd enters the store because there’s a fire as also being a very human tendency of co-religionists in holding some information back from outsiders. We are indeed a territorial species, and this goes for religion too.

The film also furnishes the film-viewers with an admittedly negatively-biased list of the attributes of witches and warlocks, such as that they cannot cry or blush, they float in water, and cannot love (though they can lust). As an exercise in comparative religion, angels in Christianity can be contrasted in that they definitely can love (and cannot lust). Angels don’t float, cry, or blush because unlike witches and warlocks, angels do not have corporeal bodies. The distinction on love is the most significant because whether or not a person can love others colors one's very existence. 

Spells, in the admittedly biased view assumed by the film, which, after all, was released in 1958, are made for selfish reasons. Gillian admits admits this to Shepherd, and she adds, moreover, “I have lived selfishly.” Left out are spells that are meant to help other people. With spells coming solely out of selfishness, Gillian tells Shepherd, “we end up in a world of separateness.” Unlike “humans,” witches and warlocks as they are in the film are thus not likely to marry, for a relationship of give and take based on mutual love, and thus other-regardedness, would “mean giving up a way of thinking and even a whole existence” that is built on self-centeredness. That existence is depicted in dramatic terms when Gillian and her brother, Nicky, threaten each other with spells in order to manipulate the other for their own selfish interests. 

People who belong to Wiccan covens in the twenty-first century would balk at the claim that their religion is founded on selfishness and manipulation. Such people might claim that the film unfairly depicts Wiccan as Satanist, or at least with attributes that are antithetical to Christianity, whose primary orientation, at least in theory, is to neighbor-love rather than to placing self-love above God. It is interesting that Gillian is usually dressed in black until she ceases to be a witch, and that Nicky refers to her by saying, “Well, speak of the devil.” 

The film's depiction of witches renders them (and warlocks) as being antithetical to Christians. Portraying such a stark dichotomy surely made it easier for the viewers in the 1950s and 1960s to distinguish the religion of witchcraft from the Christianity that was so dominant then in American culture. Furthrmore, beyond listing some of the attributes of a witch that are so obviously different that those of angels (except for Lucifer), making the foundation of selfishness explicit in what is paradigmatically a witch's “whole existence” helps the viewers to go beyond the particular characters to view witchcraft as part of a religion That is to say, the witches and warlock in the film can be understood as being in a religion that is distinct, and thus can readily be compared and contrasted with others. That prejudice against witches and warlocks in the 1950s could be useful in making contrasts in a way that makes it easier for movie audiences to think in terms of comparative religion by going to a movie does not render the project ethical. Also, the effort to distinguish a religion from others too much can backfire in that things in common can be brushed under the rug, or missed, in the process.

For example, applying religious faith to spells is completely unique to witchcraft. The notion of a spell-using words and certain material objects to trigger causation that operates in another, transcendent realm, can be applied to the consecration by Christian priests of bread and wine into having the essence of Christ’s real presence (which is based in another realm) in what is called transubstantiation and consubstantiation in Christian theology. The expression commonly used in magic, hocus-pocus, is what Medieval Christian laity used to say when, in not knowing Latin, they would repeat the words of consecrating priests, hoc est corpus, which translates as “This is the body (of Christ).” This declaration in liturgical ritual, evinces the spoken word being applied to a material object (i.e., bread) to transform that object's essence according to whatever laws pertain to a transcendent-based, supernatural (i.e., not based on a law of nature) sort of causation. The filmmakers could have gone further in making this commonality explicit. Queenie, for example, could say to Shepherd, “Why is it so strange to you that witches conjure spells; your priests do the same in transforming bread into the body of your Jesus.” That would probably have been too much for Christian viewers to swallow when the film was released, but I contend that the film (and the medium of film more generally) would have been more valuable as a contribution to opening up the academic field of comparative religion to the public (i.e., academic laity) had the screenwriter and director empowered the dialogue to go further. 

As for the negative bias towards spells and the entire existence of witches and warlocks, subjecting it to debate in the dialogue may have been beyond the ken of the filmmakers then. A more intellectually stimulating film would have resulted had Wiccan advocates been consulted. To be sure, that spells may be inherently manipulatory is a legitimate claim not to be dismissed by going too far in the other direction, but holding a society's religious biases up to audiences as being at least debatable is a positive role that filmmakers can assume, with better, more thought-provoking films resulting. This gets at what is precisely my thesis concerning film: that the medium has untapped potential to stimulate philosophical (and theological) reasoning by people who have not necessarily taken courses in philosophy and theology. 

Robin Williams: Comedic Creativity and Dramatic Depth from Severe Depression?

A month or two before Robin Williams' untimely and unfortunate suicide,  I read a piece whose author posited the possibility that much of the best writing has been penned by authors struggling with the disease known as major depression. I suppose the explanation would be that creativity is a way to break out of the dullness of the ordinary, to stimulate the mind out of its malaise. It is as if the suffering are reaching upwards, as if out of a sense of desperation known only to the unconscious. At the same time, the tendency of depression to dive deep within, to find or sink to a more meaningful, subterranean basis can easily translate into providing a narrative with depth. The combination of creativity and depth may be the hallmark of excellent story-telling, as well as the ravaging disease to which Robin Williams succumbed. In his acting, he was incredibly creative in his comedy even as he was fully capable of deep emotions in dramatic roles. In fact, behind the creative comedic façade may lie just such emotions, and in the dramatic we might catch the edges of a quick smirk that says, "Hey, don't take all this so seriously, even though I do. I can't help it."

Casablanca: What Makes a Film into a Classic?

Like books and songs, many movies have been made that cannot escape their particular time. In writing my academic book, for example, I aspired to speak beyond those living to generations not yet born because my aim was the production of knowledge beyond mere artifacts of the world in which I live. I knew that the verdict on whether the text passes that crucial test could only come long after my own death. Among films, even though Casablanca is a film immersed in, and thus reflecting its time—the context in 1942 being of course World War II—the film transcends all that to resonate in the following century. In his oral commentary, Rudy Behlmer argues that the film “transcends time.” He goes on to provide us with a list of the usual suspects behind what lies behind the making of a classic.

Firstly, the interplay of the characters still resonates, in that it means something to people outside of that context and is thus still able to illicit emotional responses. In this sense, the film still lives. For example, being torn between two lovers is hardly a dated concept, as the experience renews itself in each generation. Rick’s dejected mood following being betrayed while in love is also something that resonates with many people, and undoubtedly in generations to come. Unfortunately, even a corrupt public official, personified as Louis in the film, is all too familiar to us today, whereas Laslo’s willingness to sacrifice for a higher purpose is largely lost in all the tussle of the business-oriented, consumerist cultures today. Yet the salience of the ideals—sacrifice and renunciation in fighting the good fight against the bad guys—still resonate because ideals themselves are timeless.

Secondly, although Laslo and Louis may be too cliché, Bogart’s character (Rick) is both complex and dynamic (i.e., follows a character arc). As Behlmer puts it, “he is not a bad guy . . . He was an idealist, lost it, and then regained it.” Additionally, Elsa is not some stereotypical love object, and she undergoes changes as well. She becomes caught in the emotional struggle of loving two men in different ways or for different reasons. Rick too is conflicted, most notably whether to send Elsa on with her husband. In fact, as Roger Ebert points out in his oral commentary, the German-expressionistic lighting being associated with the two characters on screen sends a message of emotional turmoil to the viewer’s subconscious. Both this multi-layered approach and internal emotional conflict itself help the film resonate with viewers in any era.

Lastly, the build-up of suspense, owing in part to the difficulty a first-time viewer has in predicting the ending, points to the plot itself as contributing to the film having become a classic. Weaving together strands from melodrama (i.e., plot-driven), drama (i.e., character-driven), comedy, and suspense-thriller helps the film itself avoid stereotyping and provides it with a certain multivalency—a term that Margaret Mead applies to symbol. Perhaps having a multidimensionality renders a film more interesting, and in this respect too makes it more likely that a film will survive into succeeding eras.

In Socrates’s dialogues, both narrative and dialogue of course are salient. In reading them, I noticed that very little that only an ancient Greek would be familiar with is in the texts. The orientation being philosophical, timeless ideas are major players, and, in The Apology at least, the narrative of an innocent man being put on trial and sentenced to death still resonates. In fact, early Christian theologians such as Jerome and Tertullian wrote of Socrates as anticipating Christianity as a “Christ figure.” In fact, the notion of the immortality of the soul comes from Socrates’s Meno (pre-bodily existence being necessary for us to be able to recall knowledge not taught). In short, avoiding things that people in other epochs could not know and privileging ideals and principles that transcend a particular time and place may be vital ingredients to making a film into a classic.