British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group

Study Day on

Religion, Film and Popular Culture

University of Kent, Canterbury

Saturday 19 November 2005

10:30am - 4:30pm.

Abstracts

Holy Other or Wholly Inadequate: Reflections on the Uncritical Appropriation of Cinematic Christ-Figures
Dr. Chris Deacy, University of Kent

The aim of this paper is to offer a critique of the increasing tendency among some theologians to examine the interface between theology and film by forging superficial correlations between the New Testament Jesus and so-called cinematic Christ-figures. While acknowledging that such an approach may have confessional value, I argue that the uncritical appropriation of filmic Christ-figures is theologically unsophisticated and has no efficacy in serious teaching or research. Even though one may be able to discern a parallel between, say, Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest or Steven Spielberg's E.T. and Jesus of Nazareth, the imposition of Christian symbolism on to such films rests on the false assumption that all of the facets of Christ's life and work can be fitted into a particular typology, such that a film either does, or does not, have the necessary definitional properties. It also neglects hearing what these films are saying in their own right if they are baptized as implicitly or unconsciously Christian films. Ultimately, what is overlooked in this over-zealous modern day quest is the role played by the interpreter in fostering the scripture-film relationship. I propose adopting a new approach to the theology-film field which entails not the pursuit of redundant thematic parallels but asking whether or not a two-fold dialogical relationship between theology and film and between Christ and Christ-figure can emerge. Rather than see the Biblical Jesus as primary, with the alleged Christ-figure little more than a cipher who makes Jesus relevant in the twenty-first century, the scholar should be paying critical attention to the possibility that the Christ-figure has intrinsic theological value by way of the potential he or she has to engender a rigorous and productive theological conversation.

Karunamayudu: Taking a Look at an Indian Jesus Film
Dwight Friesen, University of Edinburgh

This paper will discuss an all-Indian Jesus film that has been regularly showing on the subcontinent for over 25 years, focusing briefly on its production history and context, and its parallels and contrasts with Western Jesus films. In closing it will raise a question about how Indian audience reception of the film might be conceived.

Eric Rohmer: Film as Theology
Professor Keith Tester, University of Portsmouth

The films of Eric Rohmer are usually associated with the French New Wave, but they can be linked better to French Catholicism. Indeed, despite first impressions of urbane inconsequentiality, Rohmer's films are remarkably able to raise and explore questions about faith and grace in everyday life, and indeed in everyday film-watching. This paper seeks first of all to establish the meaning of realism for Rohmer. Themes from that discussion are pursued, and it is contended that Rohmer's is a realism of a very specific sort; it is a realism that is indebted to, and which reflects, a distinctive Catholic theology. It is argued that Rohmer's films stress the significance of theological grace to the processes and understandings of empirical life. The sociologist Kieran Flanagan has made the point that: 'Grace lies outside the realm of the social, but yet is embodied in it…Often manifestations of grace are noted within the social, in appearances, in roles that transmit unexpected insights, that just happen to be noticed'. But, Flanagan continues, 'such cultivation of sight, of seeing and believing, requires a cultural site for cultivation, where the spiritual eye is nurtured to see' (Flanagan, "The Enchantment of Sociology", 1996: 83). It is the thesis of this paper that the work of Eric Rohmer is precisely a site for the cultivation of sight to attend to the manifestations of grace. Through his own observation, Rohmer is inviting his audience to begin to see.

Religious Motifs, Popular Films, and the Society's Collective Quest
- a case study in contemporary Hong Kong cinema
YAM Chi-Keung, University of Edinburgh

Since the late 1970s, local films have been a major force in the popular culture in Hong Kong. Until the mid to late 1990s, Cantonese-speaking films from Hong Kong were not only dominant among the local popular media in its place of origin, but were also extremely well received among ethnic Chinese around the world and in many East and Southeast Asian societies. For at least two decades before the turn of the century, Hong Kong was the third largest film production centre in the world in terms of total productivity, and was the largest per capita. This exceptional phenomenon was concomitant with the city's juxtaposed era of political uncertainty, collective anxiety, and thriving economy. Yet it was also a time when religion hardly found its place in the thoroughly secular Hong Kong cinema and other forms of popular culture. Whilst the film industry in Hong Kong has dived rapidly since the end of the twentieth century, it has also produced a handful of all-time top grossing films in the history of local box office in the early years of the twenty first century. At the same time, the appeal to religious motifs in some of these films is seldom seen in the booming era of Hong Kong cinema. One of the most remarkable examples among these films is the Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002-2003). Through a methodology of combined textual and contextual study, this paper shows how this police and gangster story serves as a social parable of the Hong Kong society from the 1990s to the beginning of this century, during which time the city has experienced drastic realignment of power that accompanied the change of sovereignty, and a prolonged economic depression after the East Asian financial crisis, as well as continuous waves of internal socio-political crises. Moreover, my study also demonstrates how the trilogy's appeal to Buddhist motif ventilates the people's quest for transformation of identity and yearning for redemption. The phenomenal popularity of the trilogy is to be explained by its engagement with some of the most fundamental issues that are confronting the society and its people, apart from the commonsensical explanation of its popular cast and high production quality.