Once

Once in a while, a film comes along that holds a power over me I can’t quite describe. Such films tend to deeply influence me as a filmmaker. I think of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, Todd Field’s In the Bed Room, Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (that’s the original, not the Soderbergh remake, which I admittedly haven’t had the heart to watch yet). These are films that unexpectedly floored me. Some grew on me slowly, and I kept coming back to them and re-watching them because scenes kept getting stuck in my head and playing there in the background of my mind. That was the case with The Thin Red Line, one of the few remakes that is simply astounding, and completely overshadows the original. In other cases, I walked into something I knew nothing of, as is the case with In the Bedroom and Solaris. These films, and many others not mentioned here, reached inside and touched aspects of my personality, my spirituality, that have affected me ever since.

Epistemology of the Reel -- Part Two

Experience, Emotions, and Learning.

I may be justified in believing that there is a tree in front of me by virtue of the fact that I am currently having a certain kind of sense experience, but this will be true only in “favorable circumstances.” If I am confronted with a complicated arrangement of mirrors, I may not be justified in believing that there is an oak tree in front of me, even though it looks for all the world as if there is. Again, it may look for all the world as if water is running uphill, but the general improbability of this greatly diminishes the justification the corresponding belief receives from that experience. (1)

As William P. Alston indicates in the quote above, most often we are perfectly justified in claiming that what we are seeing is indeed something of real substance before us. Yet, this is what Alston qualifies as a favorable circumstance. In other words, there is no reason to believe that I am hallucinating, dreaming, that the objects I see are holograms, and so forth. Favorable circumstances are just part of every-day-life. We seldom (unless you’re a philosopher working too much in metaphysics and epistemology) give much thought to the physical reality of the world we live in. When I reach out my hand for my mug of coffee, I fully expect that my fingers will grip the handle and I will be able to pick it up and bring it to my lips. I do not even think about whether my mug is real or not. (2)

Epistemology of the Reel -- Part One

"Movies cannot be dismissed as mere entertainment and diversion. Rather, they are life stories that both interpret us and are being interpreted by us."

- Robert K. Johnston.(1)

What is Epistemology?

In the quest for knowledge, humanity has developed several approaches to the question: “What can we know?” This field of study in philosophy is know as epistemology, and focuses on understanding how we think and know. As such, philosophers have long presented various theories of knowledge. The mind is ever searching, seeking what it might be able to latch on to as a solid foundation for the reality we deal with day after day. In these philosophical views of knowledge and beliefs, most of the dialogue centers on the cognitive activity of the mind. Laws of logic are used in the discussion of knowledge. Rightfully so, I argue. I am one who holds to the Law of Noncontradiction as a self-evident truth. In other words, once I have recognized and understood what the Law of Noncontradiction states, I cannot help but to know it is true.(2) Knowledge is very commonly looked at as a matter of the mind, and with good reason. We know with our minds, we reflect on the world we live in with our thoughts, and we recall past events with our memory. All of these are phenomena that take place in the mind. It is issues as these that are usual topics of epistemology (an awful lot of thinking about thinking).

Hollywood: The Neglected Mission Field.

(Note: This article was first published in Missionary Church national publication, then called Emphasis Magazine, in the summer of 2002. It appears here with it's original source notation and bibliography. I felt it might be good to address some of these issues on this blog early on. - MJW)

Millions of Americans attend movie theaters every week. Film has become an almost unavoidable aspect of the North American culture. Millions of dollars are invested in the making of a single motion picture. Year after year, Christians across the country complain amongst themselves of how the film industry is becoming more and more blatantly sinful. Yet, I raise this question: By complaining within the Christian subculture, what has been accomplished to reverse the corruption of Hollywood?

Children of Legend

Cultural Nightmares.


Last Friday night, sitting in the theater, watching I Am Legend, an idea struck me about three-quarters of the way into the film. I suddenly felt this incredible urge to draw some thematic comparisons between the film I was then watching, and another film, Children of Men. That urge gave birth to this blog. I should point out that I don’t think cinematically and artistically I Am Legend is of the same quality as Children of Men. Alfonso Cuaron’s directing and Emmanuel Lubezki’s camera work in Children are worthy of a whole entry of their own, which I’m sure I will get around to at some point. Back to the matters at hand: I had low expectations for I Am Legend, and as such was more or less pleasantly surprised with the film.

An Introduction.

"The kind of seeing we experience in the cinema is emotional seeing--the seeing of emotions with emotions. Eye and heart are locked inextricably together, just as they are in dreams. This is not disinterested, clinical seeing, but seeing charged with feeling."

- Colin McGinn, The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact, pg 105.

Why Blog About Film?

I've been asking myself that question lately. I've had this urge to write, to set down in words thoughts and conversations about the medium of film. This is an experiment truly geared at expanding my own understanding of cinema, philosophy, theology, and culture. I'm not here with answers, I'm actually here with questions. The exercise of writing is a sort of mental weight lifting that helps sharpen one's intellect and better equips one to understand the world around him or her. That's why I'm blogging about film.