Oppenheimer

An artificial sun rose on an otherwise dark night when the nuclear-bomb test named Trinity ushered in the era wherein our species’ aggressive instinct could render homo sapiens extinct. Given the salience of that instinctual urge—for we are related to the chimpanzee species—the wise (i.e., sapiens) species can be its own undoing. For it took a lot of intelligence in sub-atomic physics to invent the nuclear bomb, yet very little smarts went into deciding to use it against Japan, an enemy that would have lost anyway, in order to save American lives from having to invade the mainland (as if conventional bombs could not have reduced the casualties). Even less thought was put into the need to contain the proliferation of nuclear bombs. Expediency without heeding long-term risk is not a virtue. Kant wrote that even if our species were to institute a world federation, presumably having nation-states that would be semi-sovereign as a check against global totalitarianism, peace would merely be possible, rather than probable. This does not speak well of human nature, and this in turn renders the Trinity test something less than redeeming. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” In the film, Oppenheimer (2023), Robert Oppenheimer reads from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, as a woman is on top of him in sexual intercourse. The irony of him being an instrument of mass destruction as director of the Manhattan Project and yet being engaged in potentially reproducing life with a woman is doubtlessly the point of that scene. Hindus who leap to the conclusion that Nolan is insulting their religion miss this point. Had the director included a scene in which Oppenheimer is praying, for example for the Jews in Nazi Germany at the time, a quote from the film, Gettysburg (1993) would have been similarly fitting. In that film, Col. Chamberlain of the Union army remarks, “What a piece of work is man . . . in action how like an angel!” Sgt. Kilrain replies, “Well, if he’s an angel, all right then . . . But he damn well must be a killer angel.” In the nuclear age, killer angel takes on added significance. The question is perhaps whether we have left angel behind as our species’ intelligence outdoes our species, whether in terms of nuclear war or rendering a climate unsuitable for us.

Even though Christopher Nolan, the director of Oppenheimer, said that he had been unconcerned with whether people leave the theaters with something to think about, such as the ethical and political implications of nuclear weapons, including whether Truman should have used two such bombs against Japan; rather, the viewers are to be engaged emotionally in dramatic tension between the characters in the film. I consider this stance to be short-sighted, as it does not take advantage of the potential that the medium of motion pictures has to stimulate philosophical thinking, such as in ethics, philosophy of religion, and political philosophy. This benefit of films is why I write essays on films.  Even in spite of Nolan’s intention, Oppenheimer is a good example of the salience of ethics and political thought in film.

Although Nolan overdoes too many and too brief visuals of quantum mechanics from Robert Oppenheimer’s imagination, no doubt because he used the giant-screen “IMAX” film, and jumps around too much from scene to scene in Oppenheimer’s life, the emotional engagement of viewers in the dramatic tension between characters, especially between Oppenheimer and his antagonist Lewis Strauss, is formidable. Especially given the salience of Oppenheimer’s emotional wrestling with the ethical and political significance of the bomb, it is easy for viewers to hate Strauss, and Nolan satisfies our instinctual urge for justice by providing scenes in which Strauss is denied Senate confirmation to serve on Eisenhower’s cabinet and Oppenheimer’s “contribution” to the U.S. in World War II and his hacked reputation are recognized as President Johnson gives the protagonist an award. In being able to stimulate strong feelings of anger and relief in the viewers, Nolan is a master story-teller. Nevertheless, the film offers so much more. Nolan has outdone himself, even if it was not his intent.

The debate on whether President Truman should have used nuclear weapons against Japan is well-known in both Japan and the United States. The film would have been deficient had Nolan excluded that question. Because Truman comes off as dismissive and rude in his meeting with Oppenheimer, I suspect that Nolan wanted the film to have a pessimistic attitude on Truman’s decision, especially given the air-time given to Oppenheimer’s concerns. His motive in getting involved in the Manhattan Project is originally informed by his Jewish identity and geared to stopping the Nazis. The Japanese come off as an ordinary military foe relative to the Germans, so Oppenheimer naturally concludes that the rationale for the bomb has passed by the time of the Trinity detonation. Even in the nuclear age, “regular” wars, such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and Russia’s war against Ukraine, have been fought without resort to nuclear weapons. Once Germany had been defeated and the horrific, mass-scale atrocities stopped, World War II could have been viewed as reverting to a “regular” war. If so, the use of extraordinary weapons could have been viewed differently—as expedient.

Indeed, even the value of saving American lives (admittedly at the cost of many Japanese civilians) pales relative to being the first country to use a nuclear bomb and, the “genie being out of the bottle,” risking an arms race to the bottom. I am the destroyer of worlds is not a scriptural passage to be taken lightly. As evinced by that line, the film raises fundamental ethical and political questions beyond that of Truman’s decision.

By the 21^st century, Israel, a small country surrounded by Islamic countries, had already acquired nuclear weapons, and in 2022, the president of Russia repeatedly threatened the West that he might use such weapons against Ukraine. The world took notice at Putin’s attempt to normalize the use of the atomic bomb in a regular war, but even so, the warning of a shot which would be heard around the world in its dire significance of portended ruin did not stir any political discussion between world leaders, at least publicly, on the more urgent need for global safeguards.

In Oppenheimer, Robert Oppenheimer’s concern is valid that, given human nature, large-scale nuclear war is almost inevitable at some point unless nuclear powers agree to mutually give up the bomb. Even in this respect, Oppenheimer—both the character and the movie—are too optimistic, for an international power to enforce the treaties would be necessary, again, given human nature. Among combatants in a war, the first casualty is truth-telling. If our species is indeed the wise, or sapiens, species of the homo genus, then it should be capable of not only uncovering quantum mechanics, but also self-regulating our most sordid and destructive instincts. We are animals, after all. If we are angels with a biological instinctual urge capable of sensing the presence of divinity, then alright, it must also be said that our death instinct can now also be fulfilled.   

Man from Earth

Although dramatic tension is a crucial element of a narrative, the main point is not necessarily in the resolution of the tension. Dramatic tension may be used as a means by retaining viewer-interest through a film whose main points are made along the way. Such points can transcend plot and be even more important than the resolution of the narrative. Man from Earth (2007) is a case in point.

In the film, John, an anthropology professor, has just resigned from his teaching position. The entire film takes place during the send-off party at his house just before he is to move away. As the discussion ensues, John admits to his university guests that he is actually a 14,000 year-old caveman. Because he looks about 35 or 40, he explains that once he reached a certain age, he stopped aging due to a biological abnormality (i.e., a genetic mutation). That his anthropological and biological lenses cover even religious matters makes his religious interpretations interesting and even useful to the viewer. I am assuming here that coming in contact with a different perspective can enrich a person’s understanding of a phenomenon. It is in this sense that the film provides valuable information to the viewer and is entertaining even beyond viewing the film. Indeed, a method for interpreting the faith narratives of Christianity, and religion in general, can be extracted and applied outside of the film.

John’s distinctive religious method for interpretation (i.e., hermeneutic), rather than how the narrative’s tension is resolved is the key element of the film. The denouement of the plot hinges on whether John really is who he claims to be in the film’s story world. As he ratchets up his successive claims, the dramatic tension increases. This keeps the viewer engaged, but this does not mean that this narrative device, or such tactics in general, is the film’s main point. Because the viewer knows the story world is fictional, whether or not John is who he claims to be in it is of minor importance, whereas whether his method for interpreting Jesus is relevant beyond the film itself and thus its story world.

Indeed, measures intended to keep the viewer’s attention through a film beg the question: why should the viewer pay attention? The answer surely cannot be: in order to encounter the measures. To be sure, the means of something can also be the end. Kant wrote that rational beings should be treated not just as means, but also as ends in themselves. It is thus admittedly possible that a narrative’s self-sustaining devices can contain the main point of the narrative; but it is also possible that a film’s main point is not the plot. Even mystery films can use the “who done it” question as a means to hold the viewer’s attention so another, more important, point can be delivered.

In Murder on the Orient Express (pick your version), for example, the question of who commits the murder on the train sustains the viewer’s attention so the previous narrative of the Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping can be told. The solution to the murder only makes sense on the basis of that narrative of the earlier event. In other words, the narrative of the train depends on the more fundamental narrative. The question of whether the murder on the train is just or unjust depends on the baby’s kidnapping and murder having been unjust.

In Man from Earth, John claims to have studied under the Buddha. Five-hundred years later, he taught Buddhism in the Near East context. The dramatic tension regarding whether John’s claims are true (in the story world) become particularly intense when he says that he is known to the world in that teaching capacity as Jesus. Boom! John instantly encounters an angry reaction from Edith, who is a devout Christian. At this point, the viewer might be tempted to eclipse the film’s narrative as well as the hermeneutical method being presented by thinking about whether the historical Jesus could have really been a man who taught Buddhism. A reader of the Bible similarly eclipses the biblical narrative by going beyond the faith narrative to ask what the historical Jesus did. Moreover, the historical critical method in the nineteenth century, such as by David Strauss, took the point off the biblical narrative, which holds its own kind of religious truth and meaning.

Staying within the story world of The Man from Earth, the viewer can concentrate on John’s account itself. After watching the movie, such a viewer could then apply the account as a method for interpreting the New Testament. Eclipsing the film’s narrative in which John’s account is given is thus counter-productive. Even focusing on whether John’s claims are accurate in the narrative can take a viewer way from the task of ingesting the substance of John’s account. That is, the astute viewer focuses on John’s description of what he did and taught as Jesus rather than on what Jesus taught and did historically and in the faith narratives, both of which reside outside of the film’s story world. It is to this description that I now turn.

John claims that when he was known as Jesus, he did not perform miracles; rather, he healed using natural remedies from South Asia. I am resisting the temptation here to think about whether natural remedies could have, historically speaking, brought Lazarus back to life. Such a question eclipses not only the film narrative, but also the biblical narrative. Instead, I am returning to John’s account just as a viewer of the film should do.

John claims that he was not resurrected; he was crucified, but the nails and crown were subsequently added as religious art. While on the Cross, he used Buddhist meditation to slow his body functions such that he would appear to be dead. Rather than being resurrected, he left the tomb to escape to Central Asia, where he was no longer known as Jesus.

It should come as no surprise that John denies being the Son of God. Even that label would not be uniquely applied to him if he were God incarnate born of a virgin. Hercules, the son of Zeus and a mortal woman who is a virgin in the Greek faith narrative, is the only begotten, a savior, the good shepherd, the prince of peace, and divinely wise. After he dies, he joins Zeus on Mount Olympus. Although I am tempted to consider how this information on Hercules reflects on my assumptions regarding the uniqueness of how Jesus is described in the Gospels, I am postponing going in this direction so I can stay with John’s claims in the film’s narrative. An uninterrupted account aids in the comprehension.

Philosophically, according to John, Christian teachings are “Buddhism with a Hebrew accent.” Kindness, tolerance, love, and brotherhood (as well as compassion), for example are highly valued by both the Buddha and Christ. The Kingdom of God is here in this world; the meaning is that goodness is right here, as wel live our lives, or at least it should be. In Buddhist terms, “I am what I am becoming.” This, John instructs, is “what the Buddha brought in” to what is commonly thought to be Christian. Goodness is possible in this life because original sin does not exist.

Lastly, there is no Creator; energy and matter have always been around. Here I am resisting the temptation to conflate cosmology with astronomy. This view also is consistent with Buddhist teachings, which a Christian might take as atheist precisely because a Creator is denied. Yet John insists that Jesus’ preaching not only is consistent with Buddhism, but also comes from that religion. Jesus of the Gospels is a Buddhist preacher who puts the teachings in a Hebrew context. He brings a “ruthless realism” to the Hebrews. In short, he is a Buddhist missionary.

Reacting to historical Christianity, John claims that it unwittingly incorporated idolatry in the veneration of “cookies and wine.” He laments, “That’s not what I had in mind.” Moreover, religions do wrong in purging the enjoyment of life as if this were sinful. Again, I’m tempted to stray by noticing that Nietzsche makes the same criticism of Christianity and especially its life-deprived priests, but I will stay the course just as the movie viewers should. John adds that anthropology has provided solid evidence for the contention that religions have castigated the enjoyment of life, whether by preferring a life to come or labeling enjoyment in this life as sinful. Augustine, for instance, insists that it is sinful to enjoy sexual intercourse even when the sole purpose is to reproduce. John is also critical of religion in its assumption that the simple path to virtue needs a supernatural justification, such as that the value of the virtues in the Sermon on the Mount depend on Jesus being the incarnate Son of God, crucified and resurrected.

Having completed my description of John’s claims without having gotten in the way, I can now reflect on the uneclipsed contents of John’s claims. The questions of whether they are valid in the film’s story world, which keeps the viewer engaged in the narrative, and have validity historically are not useful for analyzing the coherence of John’s claims as a hermeneutical method for interpreting Christianity’s faith narratives. That is, neither the film’s story nor historical events get us to the story-world of a faith narrative; so, John’s claims, if taken together as an interpretation (and method for further interpretation) of the Gospels, should be analyzed with respect to the faith narratives.

Some of John’s claims are also applicable to religion as a phenomenon (i.e., phenomenology of religion). For example, the salience of virtues in John’s perspective on Jesus’ preaching begs the question of whether John’s perspective is religious as distinct from ethical. Humanists can easily subscribe to virtue ethics while eschewing religion. Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century European philosopher, makes the point that religious truth transcends ethics, and thus virtue. Ethically, Abraham almost murders his son Isaac. In religious terms, Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son. Abraham’s religious duty to obey a divine command is absurd to other people because they do not have access to the command so as to believe that it is valid. Even to Abraham, whose only offspring is Isaac, it is absurd that Yahweh would make such a command, given the deity’s promise that Abraham’s descendants will multiply. Kierkegaard’s main point is that the religious level is incomprehensible, and even absurd, from the vantage-point of the ethical level. Only the latter is universally accessible; anyone could say that ethically, Abraham would be guilty of murder, but only Abraham can say that Yahweh commanded the sacrifice. Religion and ethics are thus distinct. In the film, John may be seeking to impose the ethical level on what is typically taken to be the religious level.

On the other hand, ethics plays a salient role in Judaism and Christianity, given five of the Ten Commandments and the importance of compassion in Jesus’ preaching. Even in terms of entering the Kingdom of God, Jesus stresses the ethic of turning the other cheek and doing good even to one’s enemies. Such ethics are valid on the religious level because they have religious significance in reuniting our species with God. If an ethics-focus in Christianity does not need the supernatural trappings to succeed in people entering the kingdom, then such a focus could include humanists/atheists without compromising either the humanists’ beliefs or Jesus’ mission to preach on the mysteries of the Kingdom of God (including how to get in). Whether or not such trappings are necessary as matters of true belief, the ethics of turning the other cheek and helping one’s detractors have intrinsic value—assent to which being an alternative litmus test for whether a person is indeed a Christian. Yet such a litmus test could be criticized as ethical only, and thus not fit for use on the religious level; but what if a focus on the supernatural beliefs detracts Christians from ingesting and acting on the basis of Jesus’ ethic of universal benevolence? Such doctrinal Christians would be nominal Christians whereas authentic Christians (including anonymous Christians) could include humanists. In other words, the gulf between theists and humanists could be bridged while Jesus’ mission is closer to being accomplished. This is not to say that the religion would be reduced to ethics; were such the case generally, Abraham could only be an attempted murderer. The linchpin may be that by valuing and acting on Jesus’ ethic, a follower—even if a humanist—has a spiritual experience because the ethic is so far removed from the ways of the world and human nature. Such a person might have an “other-worldly” sense of being in a spiritual state without assenting to the supernatural belief that another world exists.

Nevertheless, Jesus’ ethic is  founded on the theological level. Universal benevolence, Augustine wrote, is based on theological love manifesting through human nature (i.e., caritas). For Jean Calvin, that love is self-emptying (i.e., agape) without the taint of a person’s self-interest. God is love, and that love is found in universal benevolence. A humanist can value selfless love without believing that God is self-emptying love. Helping detractors and enemies can be viewed as a particular kind of love, which is selfless. So here too, the theological level may be more open than is typically supposed. Whereas for Abraham opening up the religious level would mean that ethics trumps that level, here the theological buttresses the ethical because the two are in sync. Selfless love issues out in universal benevolence, especially when it is most difficult. Love transcends ethics yet it does not necessarily depend on supernatural trappings. This is a way of reconciling theism with humanism. This could be gained from analyzing John’s claims without bringing in the film’s story world or empirical history.

In conclusion, a viewer can better grasp the deep substance in a film’s narrative and even transcend that story ironically by not breaking the suspension of disbelief by going outside the story and its deep content that can later be extracted from the story and otherwise applied. That is, ethical, philosophical, and theological content can have value apart from the film narrative, as in analyzing how the ethical and religious levels relate for human beings. Therefore, film as a medium can deliver informational and even entertainment results beyond the particular film being viewed. Moreover, deep substance need not be a stranger to screenwriters and movie audiences. Substantial principles and lessons derived from films can be valued even apart from the vehicle (i.e., the films). From this wider perspective, film narrative itself is of subordinate value; as a means, narrative, including its dramatic tension, can succumb to its extractible content, which the viewer can hold on to even long after viewing a film. So too in religion, a narrative (i.e., myth) can be transcended with the aim of the particular religion ironically being more fully realized. Paradox may point to or reside in truth, but awareness of this point is not necessary for a person to instantiate truth.

Silence

I think perhaps the title of the film, Silence (2016) ought to have been “The last Priest” because the main character, Rodrigues, is the last remaining Roman Catholic priest in Japan. His inner struggle is the core of the narrative, and of the theological/ethical dilemma to be resolved. The movie is set in Japan in 1640-1641. A Buddhist inquisitor, Mokichi, is torturing and killing Christians, who must step on a stove carving of Jesus as proof of committing apostasy (i.e., renouncing their faith). Taking it as proof, Father Rodrigues torments over whether to apostasy in order to save the Japanese Christians whom Mokichi is having killed serially until the priest renounces his faith. I submit that the assumption of proof rests on dubious grounds, so Rodrigues is actually faced with a false dichotomy.

When Fathers Garupe and Rodrigues arrive in Japan, Mokichi is already torturing and killing priests as well as lay Christians. As a Buddhist priest, he is a hyprocrite, for Buddha’s main object was to end suffering. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path are geared to the cessation of suffering. To be sure, Mokichi assumes that the peaceful ends justify his hypocritical means, but the amount of the film devoted to the suffering tells the audience that Mokichi is fine with inflicting suffering on an ongoing basis. The Buddha would have hardly recognized his follower. Jesus’ line to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” would likely apply.

By the time Rodrigues is captured, the inquisitor has decided that his old strategy of killing priests had not worked. So the last priest in Japan is spared, though not of undergoing the agony of severe suffering. Mokichi tells Rodrigues that the suffering of the Japanese Christians will end only when the last priest puts a foot on the stone carving of Jesus. The Buddhist priest is misleading in telling the Catholic priest, “You are responsible for their suffering.”

I fault Rodrigues for uncritically believing that he is not only causing the deaths, but also would lose his faith by being disloyal to Jesus merely by stepping on a stone carving. Mokichi is responsible for the torture and deaths because he orders it. Furthermore, stepping on a stone that has a carving that looks vaguely like Jesus does not count as the renounciation of a faith, unless, perhaps, that stone is treated as an idol, which is apostacy. All of the Christians in the film erroneously treat the carved engraving as an idol because they assume that by touching it in a culturally-derogatorily way, their own faiths will somehow be lost. A person can step on a stone and still retain beliefs and values, especially if they are valued as intensely as Rodrigues does in the film.

Rodrigues places a very high value on imitating Christ, especially in regard to the Passion story in the New Testament. It is almost as if the young priest wants to die because then he would be imitating Jesus. In watching the film, I had the sense that Rodrigues is even prodding Mokichi to resort back to killing priests so the last priest would feel the satisfaction of following Christ, going even as far as assuming an identity with Jesus. While drinking at a stream, Rodrigues’s reflection, which are through the priest's point of view, goes quickly back and forth between a picture of Jesus’ face to his own. It is then that Rodrigues is captured. It is also from about that point that he looks like Jesus (i.e., long hair and a beard). 

The identity does not hold, even in how Rodrigues would want to die if murdered. Jesus chose to die to redeem humanity from its distance from the Father due to prior sins. Humanity would not be redeemed from Rodrigues voluntarily or involuntarily being a martyr. The assumed for identity would thus constitute self-idolatry.

Furthermore, Rodrigues seems to reduce following Christ to dying as he does in the New Testament. Baptizing, preaching, hearing confessions are other ways, as are valuing and practicing self-giving love (i.e., agape). This sort of love can be practiced by universal benevolence, or neighbor love, rather than only or even primarily in being willing to give up one’s life for one’s faith.

Rodrigues does not have to give up his life; the Buddhist priest tells him as much. I would add, however, that Rodrigues does not have to give up his faith by stepping on a stone. The faith is in his heart, not on his foot or in the stone. That is to say, the stone does not have to be, and should not be, treated as if it were an idol having a religious significance. Rodrigues need not go through his internal turmoil as Mokichi continues to torture and kill Christians until Rodrigues relents and steps on the stone. In fact, common sense as well as Jesus’ teaching and example in preempting the suffering of others (e.g., the prostitute) should easily occur to a priest or any disciple for that matter. Step on the stone and people won’t suffer and die—doesn’t seem like a difficult choice as long as the Christian values Jesus’ teachings and lived-out (rather than dying) example. It is not necessary that Christians suffer; it is not something that Jesus demands, for he willingly suffers to take away the taint of sin.

Therefore, in being all too willing to die for his faith, Rodrigues overstates his own value in that regard, and is too willing to end his life too early. This is a criticism that Nietzsche makes of Jesus, but in that case the question of Jesus’ young age at death is relevant in the extent to which Christ vicariously sacrifices himself on the Cross—a sufficient sacrifice being necessary to appease the Father, who is offended by sin. Nietzsche seems to deemphasize this vicarious satisfaction in favor of the good Jesus does while alive on Earth. Ironically, in putting such an emphasis in faith with identifying with Jesus in dying, Rodrigues misses the opportunity to pay more attention to what Jesus preaches and does in his ministry as a basis for faith. In other words, valuing and attempting to practice universal benevolence, including to one’s detractors and enemies, can be a solid basis—more so than a stone—of faith. Not even the last priest can save humanity from its sins by dying in imitation of Christ.     

Boy Erased

The film, Boy Erased (2018), is a drama that deals in a serious  way with the question of whether homosexuality is a choice, and thus whether conversion therapy is effective or an ideological ruse under the subterfuge of psychology and religion. Directed and adapted to the screen by Joel Edgerton, he could have dived deeper in writing the screenplay by making explicit the contending assumptions and ideas. Surprisingly, nowhere in the film do any of the biblically-oriented religionists quote the applicable verses in the Old Testament or in Paul's letters, or engage in a theological debate. The film could have gone further intellectually than the relatively superficial emphasis on the dramatic narrative.

The story centers around the post coming-out tension between Jared Eamons and his parents Nancy and Rev. Marshall Eamons. They are biblically-oriented, socially conservative Christians. That Marshall is the pastor of a church tells us just how important religion is to that family. Nancy and Marshall send Jared to a conversion-therapy day-program run by Victor Sykes. Jared is under pressure to lie in order to avoid having to move into one of the bunk houses on the church premises for a year. This is not, however, to say that Victor is an ordained clergyman; neither is he educated or even trained in therapy or even counseling, as Nancy finds out when she finally comes to remove Jared from the program. She tells her son that he will be coming home with her in spite of Marshall’s decision that the boy could no longer live in the house as long as he is gay. The assumption here is that a gay person could become heterosexual.

That Victor has no credentials either in religion or psychology is something that Nancy suspects after looking over Jared’s materials from the program (Jared and his mother stay at a hotel during the day-program). The lack of credentials as a clergy or in Christian counseling or therapy is not made much of in the film. The matter of clergyless congregations, such as Quaker unprogrammed Meetings, is thus not attended to. Specifically, the assumption typically under the rubric of the priesthood of the people dismisses or otherwise ignores the theological and ministerial knowledge (and practice) gained at divinity schools and seminaries. To be sure, clergy atop a church hierarchy can exploit their esoteric knowledge by ignoring that of the laity. Hence, some congregations have clergy whereas others do not.

I visited a Bahai place of worship a few times in 2019 because I had not studied that religion in my formal education. Believing that anyone can have access to the knowledge contained in the scriptures, the members of the Bahai religion eschew a clergy in principle and practice. I detected a real bias against people who have advanced knowledge. In fact, some of the members and even an associated non-member displayed an instinctual-like aversion to me after I had informed them of my academic credentials, including a ministry degree. In a discussion group, for instance, when I was introducing myself, the group leader (not a Bahai member, though a regular) interrupted me with the false claim that the group was representative of the Bahai faith. I suspect he was trying to discredit me, perhaps from a fervent belief in ideological egalitarianism which denies the value of expertise. 

I returned to the group a few more times, as I was able to learn quite a bit from the Bahai members about their religion. The same man was presiding. After I had just spoken, a woman asked me a specialized question directed to me (i.e., related to the expert knowledge I had just imparted). The group's leader interrupted me as I was beginning to answer the woman, aggressively insisting, "The question is for the group!" I saw in this response a stubborn refusal to recognize my expertise in religion. That he thought some non-scholars could answer the question just because they were laity demonstrated to me the cognitive-warping impact of ideology, including prejudice. I left the group immediately; I had seen enough. I understood why the religion refused to have clergy.

A week later, a Bahai member who had been at the group called me to try to convince me to come back to the group. Enforcing my scholar-identity, I said I would be glad to come back and give a talk or lead a discussion group. The member bristled, as if I were claiming too much for myself. This told me that he (and others) were disinclined to recognize me as a scholar (i.e., having expert knowledge) to such an extent that they had ignored my stated reason for being there and instead thought I was there because I was interesting in becoming a member. In actuality, the members who eschewed my credentials impiously presumed too much for themselves.

In the late 1960's, students at some universities in the United States held teach-ins because those students presumed that a professor was not necessary for knowledge to be learned. I have run into (usually young) people who declared to me that they are self-educated, as if this were equivalent to a college education. Even students getting a doctorate entirely online (one of whom didn't know what a thesis statement is!) tend to believe that they are getting a doctorate without even having to go to seminars. 

A similar issue concerns nurse practitioners who are becoming interchangeable with physicians at some medical clinics. Such nurses who specialize in psychiatry represent themselves as psychiatrists, while counselors over-reach onto doing therapy with impunity. Although saving costs has no doubt been driving this trend, I have been stunned to hear more than one nurse tell me that the training of a nurse practioner is the same as a physician’s own. Once I made a check-up appointment with a physician only to find myself with the nurse-practitioner, who of course insisted that she had had the same training. In general terms, dismissing credentials--typically those that the person does not have--can be viewed as the democratization of a vocation. This is, I submit, a case of decadence particularly severe in American society. 

In the film, that Victor gets away with having no credentials in either religion or psychology is stunning; this implies that he arrogantly assumes that he does not need the requisite education and training. Furthermore, it shows how much an ideology can stretch religion beyond its domain, such that therapy can legitimately be done without education and training in psychology. A disrespect of the encroached-upon domains goes with the over-reach. This could have been made explicit in the film.

Although Nancy objects to Victor's lack of credentials, she does not call him out on having encroached on another domain. "Being a biblical Christian does not enable you to do therapy," she could have said as she is shouting at him in the parking lot (and she is not the first to do so). Viewers could have received the idea that religion may have the proclivity to encroach excessively onto other domains, even without the need to undergo entrance exams at the borders.

Fortunately, the viewers do get to learn about and even assess the therapy program from seeing it from the perspective of the boys and girls in it. To be sure, more could be grasped with access to Victor and his staff away from the kids! Why does the staffer become so aggressive toward Jared when he grabs his phone in the office? Does Victor and his staff realize on some level that they are mistreating the kids, as when Victor invites one boy's family to spank the boy with a bible to rid him of the demon? That boy goes on to commit suicide. 

Nevertheless, some viewers may pick up on the fallacious logic that claims that because a person is not born a physician, it must therefore be a choice to become one. That is, Victor conflates vocations with instinctual urges. A participant objecting would mean that more viewers would grasp the fallaciousness of the argument. Also, as Victor accuses Jared of lying about having stayed over at a friend’s house without doing more than holding hands in bed, Jared could be made to say something like, “Hey, you didn’t believe me when I told you I’m not angry at my dad, and now you want me to lie about what I’ve done. I bet you’ve never studied psychology! You’re a fraud!” If saying this is unrealistic because Jared fears being sent to one of the facility's bunk houses for a year, the lines could come from another boy. 

In short, I’m suggesting that film is better as a medium when it is written like a music composition of more than a few levels that the mere dramatic can provide. In terms of homosexuality, more of a theological basis could have been in the script. Is being gay a sin? Is it caused by a demon inside the gay person? What is the religious basis for the claim that homosexuality is a choice? Quoting the relevant Old Testament passages as well as Paul would have brought this perspective out at a deeper level than is in the film and helped to distinguish this basis from a basis in psychology. This does not mean that the latter has necessarily viewed homosexuality in positive terms. The APA considered homosexuality to be a mental illness until 1973. Interestingly, Victor pushes the religious (demon) explanation rather than the mental-illness angle even though he is claiming to do therapy. 

The relationship between religion and psychology is difficult to discern, in large part because of how different the two underlying paradigms are. Pointing to a demon as a cause is much different than pointing to a medical cause. Relating the two seems almost impossible, yet this was not always the case. The ancient Hebrews, for instance, regarded the medically ill as sinful. Sin involves the absence of God. To Aquinas and Leibniz, this meant something less than from full being. It makes no sense to say that a person with a mental illness has a deficiency of being. Whether mental illness results in an absence of, rather than relationship with God is a difficult question. In his text, People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck theorizes that malignant narcissism is actually a defense mechanism surrounding a sense of emptiness inside. Such emptiness might resonate with a feeling of being apart from God. Does evil lie in the felt-emptiness inside or in the narcissistic attitude and conduct? Felt-emptiness inside is not necessarily the same thing of the lack of being that Aquinas and Leibniz associated with sin. Relating two very different paradigms, including basic assumptions and tenets, is fraught with difficulty even if the two overlap a bit. 

Unfortunately, the film does not go much into theology, including on whether homosexuality should be taken as a sin (and as distinct to a mental illness). Instead, homosexuality is likened to, or categorized with) alcoholism, violence in the home, and mental illnesses. Looking at the Biblical text itself, homosexuality is a sin. However, some Christians argue that the biblical claim is culturally and time-specific, meaning that the view of homosexuality in Israel millentia ago is reflected in the text. But does it even make sense to invalidate something that is part of Scripture? I submit that good arguments exist on both sides. Unfortunately, the film does not make this tension explicit. When Jared's father has two other ministers come over to discuss Jared, a discussion involving Nancy could have delved into the theological level. Nancy's first misgivings would be evident so her confrontation with Victor in the church parking-lot would be more believable.

The film does best with the dramatic levels centered on Jared’s inner struggles and that which exists between him and his father. The ending of the film is on those two trying to reconcile; that Jared would remain gay is almost treated as an aside. Nancy’s turnabout in coming to the aid of her son after he calls for her to pick him up is also salient toward the end of the film, but another opportunity to go deeper is missed because she does not tell Jared (and the viewer) what she found so objectionable about the therapy. Was it just Victor’s lack of credentials, or the basic assumption of gays being able to rid themselves of the instinctual urges?

The medium of film, even with its confining duration of a few hours, can go beyond the emotional levels of the dramatic or comedic to evince ideational tensions and even the underlying assumptions tussling for supremacy. Just as an antagonist tries to conquer a protagonist, ideas and principles, whether philosophical or theological, jest with each other. In fact, Nietzsche claims that an instinctual urge is the content of an idea. Ideas tussle for supremacy in the unconscious; the idea that comes to the conscious surface is the most powerful. Film can reflect this multi-level structure even to the point of including less powerful ideas that the viewers are not aware of, yet are influenced by. This should not be used, however, to shirk the ideational level of a film, especially when the story contains a salient controversial theme or aspect.  

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015) centers most of the dramatic tension on the hotel’s manager, Sonny Kapoor. In the first film, the tension is more evened out among the hotel customers and Sonny’s bid to make the run-down hotel a viable operation. The hurdles faced by the retirees in the first film are more gritty, or realistic, than are the challenges in the sequel. Indeed, the second film can come across to the viewer as excessively glitzy, especially at the end when the customers, Sonny, and his family and friends are on a dance floor positioned as if performing for an audience sitting out in front. It is unlikely, for instance, that Sonny could dance so well, particularly as he delayed practice to the disappointment of his fiancé, Sunaina. That film becomes a performance, and this can stretch a viewer’s suspension of disbelief because the screenwriter of both films, Ol Parker, stretches the characters too far beyond themselves. That they, along with Sunny and his wife and their families and friends go into a performance mode can remind the viewer that he or she is watching a performance—that the movie itself is a performance. So much for the suspension of disbelief, a psychological wonder that allows the human mind to forget that it is watching a movie and thus be able to “enter” the story-world.

The problems faced by the hotel customers in the first film included locating a lover of long ago without any remaining prospects of a life together (Graham Dashwood), getting a job (Evelyn Greenslade), being in a bad marriage (Douglas and Jean Ainslie), getting a hip replacement (Muriel Donnelly), and staving off boredom (Norman Cousins). Sonny Kapoor struggles with making the rundown hotel work. These “ordinary life” problems contrast with most (but not all) of the problems that the characters face in the sequel.

The second film centers on Sonny’s quest to engage an American corporate partner to put up funds to buy a second hotel (even as Sonny’s real engagement with Sunaina suffers). In fact, the film begins with Sonny, accompanied by Muriel Donnelly, in southern California to visit a prospective partner in a sleek corporate office. It is as if Sonny had made the first hotel into a smooth-functioning operation. Guy Chambers, a hotel inspector played by Richard Gere, squashes any such illusion fancied by Sonny. In fact, adding Gere, who often played smooth romantic leads, makes the film too star-studded, or glitzy rather than realistic. Gere looks utterly out of place at the hotel; that Sonny treats him like royalty does not help matters. At any rate, Sonny secures Guy’s support not just for another rundown hotel, but, rather, for the highbrow Viceroy’s Club. The purchase is completed incredibly fast, such that it is done in time for Sonny’s and Sunaina’s wedding reception—nevermind that the engagement had been rocky, especially as Sonny turned his attention to pleasing Guy so to gain his financial recommendation so the corporation would agree to become partners. Also at the glittery (and staged) reception, Evelyn’s hesitancy in dating Douglas evaporates as he delivers a (staged) speech. The problem with Douglas’ divorce is apparently solved. Norman Cousins and Carol Parr talk about Carol’s having cheated on Norman, so they are fine. Any hint of ordinary is gone as the customers (except for Muriel, whose sadness in facing death is the outlier) join pretty-boy Guy and the united families (and friends) of Sonny and Sunaina are suddenly performing a dance number positioned as if they were on a theater stage.

Because the dramatic tension in the first film is based on hardship, the tensions in the second film involving the same characters may not feel real in the sense of being contained within suspended disbelief. Graham Dashwood’s arduous attempts to get information from local government bureaucrats and the man struggling with his ailing heart as he plays cricket with some local boys are far indeed from the Sonny’s over-the-top efforts to please Guy Chambers. Given Sonny’s immaturity, it is astonishing that he is right that Guy is a hotel inspector (though Sonny does not realize that the ill-treated hotel customer, Jodi, is also a hotel inspector).

In short, the sequel loses touch with its basis, the characters and their worlds in the first movie. This is particularly odd because Ol Parker wrote both screenplays! I submit that the sequel may even be a different genre than the first. The sequel ends as if it were Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018), another sequel about a small hotel. With singing in nearly every scene, the performances are not an over-stretch. The movie is not meant to be realistic. 

Fortunately, Mamma Mia! (2008), the film that that sequel follows, has the same format, so that the sequel is not realistic is not a problem. In fact, this demonstrates that the screenwriter of the sequel, who happens to be Ol Parker (the same screenwriter of the Marigold Hotel movies), was capable of carrying forward a story without stretching it too far. In fact, Parker did not write Mamma Mia! So his faithfulness to that movie in writing the sequel is all the more impressive, and this leaves the question of his lack of fidelity in writing The Second Best Exotic Hotel even more perplexing because he knew how to extend a story without stretching it too far.

By the way, both sequels have what may be Parker’s signature point: pure happiness without some sadness is not possible in life, so a film that is too saccharine can buck the suspension of disbelief. In Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, some sadness is present because Donna has died and she is missed. The film even includes Donna’s ghost, as if to drive home the point that even the happiness of a wedding contains some sadness. In The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Muriel Donnally knows she will die soon; this can be inferred from her reaction coming out of the examination room at a clinic. Maggie Smith marvelously underplays Donnally’s reaction, which actually adds to its significance. In acting, sometimes less is more. Donnally returns to her room during the wedding reception, presumably for medical reasons and also to write Sonny a letter because she is leaving early the next morning to return home to Britain presumably because she knows she is dying. Again, Parker inserts sadness in a wedding scenario. I contend that this is no accident; he is making a statement. Unfortunately, the performance mode at the wedding reception can undercut the suspension of disbelief concerning Donnally’s dramatic plight. If the other hotel customers are really performers, then so too is Maggie Smith.

In conclusion, screenwriting a sequel best includes both a lot of study of the original firm and the willingness be constrained so as to retain a mooring. Of course, a screenwriter and director may prefer to have a free hand in putting together a sequel, but the cost may be glitches in the suspension of disbelief, by which a viewer becomes engrossed in a story-world rather than being conscious of watching a movie. 

Proof

If you are not careful, you could come away from the film, Proof (2005) as a scientist, for the scientific method enjoys a starring role, albeit mostly in subtle undertones rather than in stark instructional flourishes in Technicolor. Essentially, the message is that confirming proof eludes the human mind and its scientific method. Yet interestingly, the film also captures genius, even if its source cannot be proven.

The film centers around Catherine, the daughter (played by Gwyeth Paltrow) of a brilliant math professor, Robert (played by Anthony Hopkins), who went insane and died; the story takes place just after his death. The dramatic tension is both in terms of relationships and questions of fact. Concerning the former, tension is most salient between Catherine and her visiting sister, Claire. Tension also builds between Catherine and her love-interest, Hal. In flashbacks, we feel tension also between Catherine and her father. Last but certainly not least, Catherine herself is riveted with inner tension, which comes to a major decision whether to go to New York to live with Claire taking care of her or to remain in Chicago to pursue Hal and mathematical notoriety and further advancement. In short, Catherine’s inner conflict lies in whether to buy into the paradigm in which she is deemed crazy or the alternative “story line” in which her apparent craziness is actually a natural reaction to having had to deal with her messed up father and sister.

In terms of questions of fact to be resolved, Hal and Claire seek proof establishing the authorship of the breakthrough mathematical proof written in a notebook locked in Robert’s desk. The handwriting seems to be Robert’s, but it is possible that Catherine’s own resembles his as the two worked closely together on mathematics. Also, it is not clear whether Robert was sufficiently sane to reason through such a momentous proof. Proof is therefore paramount, yet as Hal admits, the author cannot be proved. The film ends with him telling Catherine that in going through the mathematical proof together, the most he could do is prove that she could not have written it. This is none other than the scientific method in action!

In science, alternative hypotheses (i.e., propositions) are eliminated. The elimination can be known with certainty—that is, proved to be false. This is all that science portends; it cannot prove the hypothesis that the scientist asserts. In shooting down alternative explanations, the hypothesis is left standing, but this does not prove it. In trying to figure out who ate the cookies left out on a kitchen counter to cool off, we can eliminate the cat, sister Susie, fat brother Scott and even fat brother Jeff. This does not mean that Skip ate the cookies. That Skip has actually lost weight and is athletic would suggest that he is not the culprit, but this too is not proof. It is possible that the dog Skip (named after the brother) jumped up on the counter and chomped up the chocolate mistakenly taking it for another dog’s poop (this does not mean that the brother known as Skip has the same habit!). In short, eliminating alternative suspects does not prove that Skip is the culprit. Even so, science says we can have greater confidence that Skip is our man. Yet is such confidence warranted? We could be overlooking another alternative entirely. Suppose we are completely unaware that a friend occasionally stops by. The only person who knows is the mother, and she isn’t talking. She would gladly let her son Skip take the rap so she could go on leading a double life.

In the film, eliminating possibilities that Catherine could not have written the proof does not mean that she wrote it. It is possible that both she and her father could have written it. Yet the viewer is left with a distinct answer—that Catherine is indeed the author. In fact, we get to see the very instant in which she had the major insight, while she was reaching in her refrigerator. Seeing genius for what it is—a break-through of ideas past those that had been log-jammed or stymied—is perhaps much more revealing, not to mention satisfying, than whether Catherine actually wrote the proof. The flashback itself functions as proof, though even here this devise is shaky due to the salience of mental illness in the film. In other words, the viewer’s assumption that the flashbacks are meant to reveal what actually happened may be faulty, and thus hardly able to support proof. I submit, therefore, that the film is really about how limited the human mind is. Philosophically, the theme is on the epistemological limits of the human brain. We think we know a lot more than we do. 

Tired Characterization and Narrative: The Dowager Countess in “Quartet”

I’m on a quest. Not of the Biblical variety, as I do not intend to take on The Screenwriter’s Bible. Nor does my aspiration fall under the treasure-hunt genre, for I am no Harrison Ford or Johnny Depp. My lofty goal is to fashion a narrative that is at once readily comprehensible and novel rather than formulaic. Whether from having lived past forty or some objective fact in an industry whose story-telling groves have become as deep as those in a well-trodden Roman road, I am instinctively drawn to break out of a rather dogmatically constraining aperture of story-telling. Simply put, the world may soon become bored with familiar storylines. The key to freedom from ennui may well be the achievement of a deep awareness of the extant contours of the modern story so often percolating out of Hollywood. In this essay, I examine Quartet, a 2012 film about four retired opera singers living in a stately yet nearly bankrupt home for retired musicians.

Maggie Smith plays Jean Horton, a singer whose fame eclipses that of the other singers in the house. This permits the character to take on the scent of a more notable character, the Dowager Countess, which Smith was playing in the popular television series, Downton Abbey (which in its fourth season began to suffer as well from recycled plot-themes). At one point in Quartet, Smith’s character says in exasperation to an on-coming house-maid in a hallway, “One way or the other, dear.” The likeness in diction and tone to the great lines that Smith delivers in Downton Abbey would not be lost on any viewers of the series. While leveraging on an actor’s more popular character may titillate an audience and thus earn some points at the box office, the very same viewers may also get the impression of tired dialogue and characterization. I take it as an article of faith that strong narrative requires its own characters, rather than those clothed with the well-worn garments of characters from other stories.

Similarly, the dramatic conflict in a story risks not being taken serious if it comes across as too formulaic. In Quartet, Tom Courtenay plays Reginald Paget, a member of the quartet who had been briefly married to the cheating Horton. His turn-about from a desire to leave the home when Horton moved occurs at break-neck speed and is woefully predictable. As formulaic as this “relationship” tension is, the denoument of the related “task” obstacle is even more predictable. The attentive viewer cannot help but realize early on that the film would largely reduce to whether Horton agrees to join the other three singers in the quartet. Incredibly, with so much riding on Horton’s resistance, the audience gets precious little payback as the film ends as the quartet’s members are being introduced on stage. 

From this case study, I wonder—je me demande—whether the element of dramatic tension in films hasn’t become too monolithic. Moreover, can the element be overdone in a narrative? In early films such as Frankenstein (1931), the dramatic tension is overcome relatively quickly once the conflict takes over the story. Today, the fighting can go on and on, as if it were an end in itself. I suspect that the “big question” in Quartet is distended in its significance in order to carry along a story that banks on Maggie Smith’s aristocratic character in Downton Abbey.  Whether in extending that narrative beyond its natural lifespan or in exporting the Dowager Countess into other narratives that themselves follow all too worn groves, the art of film and story-telling more broadly suffer. Perhaps the overriding question here is whether the conformity is artificial or in some way an actual constraint.