By: Brian Godawa
I am a screenwriter. I’ve been at it for over twelve years, winning various screenwriting contest honors and script options along the way. I write stories that interest me, stories that move me, like the one I adapted for the feature film To End All Wars. What I have to say about the craft and industry of filmmaking comes from my experience as a writer in the business.
Any movie that gets made is the result of a collaboration of hundreds of people. And they are all responsible in differing degrees for the final result of the film: its look, its feel, its visual, audible and dramatic impact. From the set designer to the cinematographer to the actors to the key grips and gofers, a movie would not be what it is without everyone involved in the process. Dozens of these individuals affect the content, from the writer to the director to the producer to the executives overseeing the project. No doubt each of these persons have unique perspectives on what is important in a film, but all would agree that the story is king. If you don’t have a good story, you won’t have a good movie, no matter who is acting in it or lighting it or directing it or producing it. If the story doesn’t work, the movie doesn’t work.
It is this primary importance of the story that originally drew me to the movies. There’s just something about a good story that makes me sit up and listen: the captivation of narrative, the magnetism of drama, the curiosity of interesting characters and the meaning of it all.
Watching sympathetic heroes work through their experiences often has more impact on my life than a rigorously reasoned abstract argument. Watching Eric Liddell run for God in Chariots of Fire proves to me that living for God without compromise is worth far more than what the world provides. Reliving the dilemmas of Captain John Miller and his men in Saving Private Ryan reminds me to be grateful for those who sacrificed for the precious freedom I enjoy. Both of these movies (and others) force me to reevaluate my life so that I don’t squander it on self-seeking pettiness.
That’s why I got into movies and that’s why I write about them now. From the funniest comedy to the saddest tragedy, movies capture the imagination, but they also convey the values and worldviews that we hold dear (as well as some we detest). My goal is to help the viewer discern those ideas that drive the story to its destination and how they influence us to live our lives – to understand the story behind the story.
“Movies corrupt the values of society.”
“Too much sex and violence.”
“They’re worldly and a waste of time.”
Those are just a few of the refrains repeated by many of today’s culturally concerned Americans. Our cultural psyche has been damaged by Hollywood’s defiant decadence and its relentless pushing of the envelope of common decency. But such sentiments suffer from a diluted mixture of truth and error. Not only do they miss the positive values that do exist in many movies, but also those who would completely withdraw from culture because of its imperfection suffer a decreasing capacity to interact redemptively with that culture. They don’t understand the way people around them think because they are not familiar with the “language” those people are speaking or the culture they are consuming. A communication barrier results, and these cultural abstainers often end up in irrelevance and alienation from others. I call these artistic teetotalers cultural anorexics.
But another individual occupies the opposite end of the spectrum, and this one I call the cultural glutton. This is the person who consumes popular art too passively, without discrimination. Here are some of the expressions common to the cultural glutton:
“I just want to be entertained.”
“You shouldn’t take it so seriously.”
“It’s only a movie.”
Cultural gluttons prefer to avoid analyzing movies beyond their entertainment value. They just want to escape and have fun for two hours in another world. When challenged by cultural critics to discern the messages within the movies, these moviegoers balk at such criticism as being too analytical or “reading into things.” And many filmmakers mouth agreement with them.
“Movies are finally, centrally, crucially, primarily only about story.”
Conventional wisdom and popular idols notwithstanding, nothing could be more of a half-truth. While it is true that story is the foundation of movies, an examination of the craft and structure of storytelling reveals that the drawing power of movies in not simply that they are “good stories” in some indefinable sense but that these stories are about something.
I propose an amendment to Goldman’s thesis that would complete the thought more accurately: Movies may be about story, but those stories are finally, centrally, crucially, primarily, mostly about redemption.
Every religion and philosophy ultimately encompasses a worldview, a comprehensive web of beliefs through which we interpret our experiences – it is our view of the world. The simplest common denominator of all religious and philosophical worldviews is the belief that something is wrong with the world and there is some way to fix it.
We are all aware of the age-old question of whether art mirrors or influences society. Luminaries from both sides of the aisle have weighed in on the reflection/infection debate. And this debate will probably rage on till the Final Judgment. In his book Hollywood Versus America, film critic and Hollywood bogeyman Michael Medved argues that filmmakers intend to influence the public through the values and characters they portray in television and film. His thoroughly documented opus concludes that entertainment reinforces certain values over others, namely those that reflect the current fashion of the creative community.
He points out the hypocrisy of those in the dream business who proclaim that movies don’t influence belief or behavior while charging millions of dollars for advertising and product placements in movies and receiving awards and prestige for promoting trendy social agendas. His thesis is that since many movies do not reflect the dominant values of the American public, and often self-consciously deft financial interest, they can only be deliberate attempts by those involved to influence public opinion.
While it is true that some movies may be more influential than others, it is incumbent upon moviegoers to understand what they are consuming and the nature of their amusement. It is not the least bit ironic that the word amusement means without thought” (its original usage was “to delude or deceive”). Sadly, this is all too often what happens when the lights go down and the curtains go up. We suspend our disbelief and, along with it, our critical faculties.
By knowing something of the craft of storytelling, or its structure and nature, the average moviegoer might be less inclined to treat his or her viewing as mere entertainment and see it more for what it is: a means of communicating worldviews and values with a view toward redemption. This knowledge need not spoil the joy in entertainment or justify total withdrawal from culture. Rather, it can deepen one’s appreciation and sharpen one’s discernment. The goal of this education is to aid the reader in striking a balance between two extremes: cultural anorexia (rejecting all moviegoing because of any negative aspects) and cultural gluttony (consuming too many movies without discretion).
My goal in this book is to increase art appreciation. I want to inform the reader of the nature of storytelling and analyze how worldviews are communicated through most Hollywood movies, in order to aid the viewer’s ability to discern the ideas being communicated. As readers sharpen their understanding of movies, they will be more capable of discerning the good from the bad and avoid the extremes of cultural desertion (anorexia) and cultural immersion (gluttony).
Every story is informed by a worldview. And so every movie, being a dramatic story, is also informed by a worldview. There is no such thing as a neutral story in which events and characters are presented objectively apart from interpretation. Every choice an author makes, from what kinds of characters she creates to which events she included, is determined by the author’s worldview. A worldview even defines what a character or event is for the writer – and therefore for the audience. And the worldview of philosophy of a film is conveyed much in the same way as stories or old world convey the values and beliefs of ancient societies – through dramatic incarnation of those values. In a sense, movies are the new myths of American culture.
An example of mythological adaptation in our secular society can be found in comic book heroes. Speaking as long ago as 1963, famous anthropologist Mircea Eliade stated, “The characters of comic strips present the modern version of mythological or folklore Heros.” The proliferation of comic books being adapted into movies signals a contemporary hunger for hero worship, the desire for redemption through the salvific acts of deity. Witness Superman I-IV (1978 – 1987), Batman I-IV (1989 – 1997), Dick Tracy (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I-III (1990 – 1993), The Shadow (1994), Judge Dredd (1995), Barb Wire (1996), The Phantom (1996), Spawn (1997), Steel (1997), Blade (1998), Mystery Men (1999), X-Men (2000), and Spider-Man (2002). And that’s not even mentioning all the television adaptations, from Wonder Woman (1974) and Smallville (2001) to the myriad of children’s cartoon versions of many more comic book series. Witness also the many comic book hero movies currently in development at various studios as I write this book, including The Green Lantern, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Catwoman, The Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner, Daredevil, Captain America and Ghost Rider.
In all these comic book-based stories there is a projection of super powers onto individuals much in the same way that the gods were projections of pagan hope. Watching X-Men, for instance, with all its superheroes and supervillains in our contemporary world, brings to mind the pantheon of Greek gods from Mount Olympus battling it out over mortal human beings. Each god in the pantheon had a special power: Hermes, the messenger of the gods, could run with fleet-winged feet; Hephaestus was the god of fire. Likewise, each of the mutant X-Men has a power that enables him or her to battle evil or do evil: Mystique can changer her shape to appear to be something else; Storm can call forth the powers of nature; Magneto has powers of magnetism. The spiritual aspect of these abilities has been secularized, reinterpreted through evolutionary myth as the result of mutation, but the metaphor remains the same. As Francis Schaeffer has pointed out, the gods of Greece and Rome were actually “amplified humanity, not divinity.” Vogler puts it simply: “All stories consist of a few common structural elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams, and movies. They are know collectively as The Hero’s Journey.”
The Matrix (1999), the sci-fi phenomenon written and directed by the Wachowski brothers, is a mixing of Greek and Christian mythology similar to the Neo-Platonism of earlier centuries. The parallels are obvious: Neo (“new man,” “new Adam,” played by Keanu Reeves) is “the Chosen One” (Christ) who is prophesied to come and free the people from the deadly, controlling matrix that has enslaved all humans from birth, similar to the blind slavery of sin that everyone born into Adam has inherited. When people are awakened (enlightened) from their bondage, they appear like newborn babies from their life support pods, seeing the universal bondage all around them with new eyes, much like spiritual rebirth for the Christian.
| The Matrix | Christianity | Greek Religion |
| Morpheus: Declares “the One” | John the Baptist: Proclaims the Christ | Morpheus: God of dreams |
| Morpheus: A father to them | Father | |
| Neo | Son (“New Adam”) | Greek for “new man”/Anagram of “one” |
| Trinity | Holy Spirit | Goddess |
| Slaves to A.I. | Slaves to sin | Plato’s cave |
| Wake up in pod | Spiritual rebirth | Enlightenment |
| Cypher | Judas | |
| Oracle | Prophet | Oracle of Delphi (“Know thyself”) |
| The One | Christ | Plato’s philosopher king |
| Neo resurrected | Jesus resurrected | |
| Neo flies away | Jesus ascended into heaven | |
| Return of the One | The second coming | |
| Zion: The last human city | Zion: Promised Land/Body of Christ | |
| Nebuchadnezzar: Hovercraft | Nebuchadnezzar: King of Babylon (had dreams) |
One modern mythology is the naturalistic worldview. In this view primitive peoples create myths and religious symbols for natural phenomena they do not understand. Since naturalists believe there are no true spiritual realities, only natural phenomena, they assume that there must be a natural explanation behind every myth or religious belief. For instance, if a culture does not understand thunder, it reinterprets thunder to represent a deity in order to make sense of it. The goal of the naturalist, then, is to discover what natural experiences cultures had that drove them to create such mythology.
Movies like Stargate (1997), A.I. (2001), Cast Away (2001) and Planet of the Apes (2001) are strong examples of this demythologizing tendency. In chapter five of A.I. is discussed in detail within the context of evolution, and Cast Away is discussed within the context of fate.
Two of the most frustrating replies to hear when asking people what they thought of a movie are “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it,” accompanied by an inability to explain why. But with an elementary understanding of the structure of storytelling, an informed moviegoer can watch a film and enjoy the story while also engaging his or her critical faculties to understand what the movie is trying to say about the way in which we ought or ought not to live.
We have already established that stories do not exist in a vacuum of meaninglessness. Movies communicate prevailing myths and cultural values. And this cultural effect is far deeper than the excesses of sex and violence. It extends to the philosophy behind the film. The way we view the world and thing like right and wrong are embodied in the redemptive structure of storytelling itself.
It is not necessary that audiences are even consciously aware that a message or worldview is being communicated. The composition of a story leads a viewer through emotional and dramatic experiences to see things in the way the storytellers want the viewer to see. This is similar to the visual form, color and composition used by a painter to guide a viewer’s eyes and mind to see what the painter wants him to see.
Now let’s take a look at these structural elements, with movies to illustrate each one. We will examine two films that are similar in theme but opposite in their worldview as well as being opposite in genre: Amadeus, the 1984 Oscar-winning tragedy about the man who killed Mozart (in the movie, though not in reality); and The Truman Show, the 1998 Jim Carrey comedy vehicle about an innocent and naïve young man who discovers that his live is a TV show for the world.
The first element to consider when analyzing a movie is its theme. Every good movie has a theme. Some may call it “the moral of the story”; others may call it “the message”; but the theme is what the story is ultimately all about. You can state a theme propositionally as a premise that leads to a conclusion. It can usually be stated in terms of “x leads to y” or some other prescriptive equivalent, such as “Fear of differences in others leads to alienation” (Shrek) or “Greed leads to self-destruction” (Indecent Proposal and A Simple Plan).
Other examples of themes include the following. Traffic: In the war on drugs, no one gets away clean, not even the good guys. Babe: Biology can be transcended by personal choice (a pig proves that he can be a sheepdog). Fatal Attraction: Infidelity turns against itself. Dead Poets Society: Conformity kills the spirit, but individuality frees it. Terminator and Jurassic Park: Unfettered technology turns against humanity.
Existentialism accepts the Enlightenment notion of an eternally existing materialistic universe with no underlying meaning or purpose. While it does not deny the laws of nature, it sees these laws as order without purpose or meaning. This is what “the death of God” concept means – God does not “die” in the traditional sense, rather he ceases to be relevant because, without meaning behind the universe, the concept of God is unnecessary.
The universe may be uniform, but its uniformity appears to our human perspective as a product of chance. And chance ultimately defies any notion of destiny or a fixed purpose toward which things are headed. Within out human perspective, anything, in this sense, it ultimately possible.
With the advent of quantum physics, the notion of chance as the underlying reality of our mechanistic universe has become even more fashionable. Natural uniformity then becomes something that the mind imposes on a chaotic universe. Since this universe has no inherent meaning, we lead ourselves to despair if we try to find any meaning within it. The mechanical cause – and – effect universe does not fit our human desires and thus appears to us as absurd.
Forrest Gump (1994) and it predecessor Being There (1979) are both popular movies that communicate the idea of a chance world in which events occur without purpose. The use of mentally challenged men in both films is a metaphor for chance itself. They have no “intelligent design” to their lives and yet both of them become important figures in history without even realizing it.
In Being There Chance the gardener (a name chosen without coincidence) influences the president of the United States because Chance’s simple-minded regurgitations of television platitudes are misinterpreted by accident as profound mysteries of genius. Forrest Gump has basically the same effect, with a simple-minded Forrest changing American history without even knowing it in a virtual exploration of the dual opposites of chance and destiny.
Existentialism repudiates the abstract reasoning of traditional philosophy as superficial, preferring instead the concrete realm of experience. To the existentialist, reason, as the ultimate ordering system in a godless universe, is the most overused, overvalued tool. The modernists thought that through science, logic and careful rational reflection we would discover the underlying order to all things. But we cannot find such order or meaning in a chance universe. Reasoning only leads to despair (angst). We cannot find meaning through reason; we must create meaning through our own choices and experience.
This rejection of reason as a means of discovering truth in favor of “experience” results in an inward-looking heart-over-head outlook. Intuition (feelings) takes precedence over logic. And this is what Kierkegaard meant when he said that truth is subjectivity. Truth is not something outside of us that we discover through cold, impersonal propositions, but rather it is something we experience subjectively, inwardly, in a personal way. This inwardness is also referred to as “encountering” or “appropriating” a personal relationship with truth, as opposed to mere mental assent, and it is marked by the raw commitment of the will.
The idea of following your heart, instead of following your head or doing your duty, is the driving force of many a movie character’s self-revelations. It is a common and explicitly stated theme in such movies as A Time to Kill (1996), Jefferson in Paris (1997), Meet Joe Black (1998), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Mulan (1998), Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999), Crazy in Alabama (1999), Bicentennial Man (1999) and Hercules (1999).
The worldwide megablockbuster to end all blockbusters, Titanic, is a gigantic expression of this rejection of social norms in favor of personal intuition, or the heart-over-head approach. James Cameron uses the post-Victorian setting of the early twentieth century, with all its traditional propriety and alleged repression, to express a defiant existential romanticism.
In this book, I have introduced you to the basic structure of storytelling that is used in screenwriting with the intent of sharpening your skills in discerning the worldviews and philosophies that are communicated through Hollywood movies. I then applied those skills to various specific worldviews, including existentialism, postmodernism, monism, Christianity and others, in order to illustrate how trends in thinking and society are reflected in and influenced by movies. Though these principles of discernment are relevant for both adults and youth, many of the examples I have used are from movies that are R-rated or are more adult-oriented. In the same way that we allow alcohol in our culture only for adults who have reached a certain age of maturity, so I think discretion should be used in movies as to the maturity level necessary for a viewer. The discerning viewer can consult various previewing sites on the Web to determine the content and detail with which one is comfortable. It is important to remember that not all movies are worthy of our time or attention, because all stories are not created equal.
Just as God permits the adult consumption of wine and strong drink but not its abuse, so many movies are for mature viewers because of their content but should not be carelessly consumed without caution of self-reflection as the unwary cultural glutton does. As viewers, we must be sensitive to our own weaknesses and negative propensities. One person’s sense of exploitation may simply illustrate his own prudery, while another person’s tolerance may actually be her own indulgence in besetting sin. So we must be careful to draw personal lines that we will not cross, based upon what particular things affect us negatively when we are exposed to them in movies.
In the same way that alcoholics won’t take a sip of alcohol because they know their weakness toward drunkenness, so adult viewers ought to know their weaknesses and avoid watching those movies or parts of movies that will draw them down spiritually rather than exhort them morally. Statements like “The sex and violence don’t bother me” are not necessarily expressions of maturity. If a movie is exploitative with vice, it ought to bother the viewer and if it doesn’t, then that viewer is being deadened in his or her spiritually and humanity.
If my intentions for this book have been successful, you will walk away from the book with a more balanced appreciation for movies, both those you like and those you dislike. You will have the ability to appreciate the good and pinpoint what you think is bad. Movies, after all, are art, and therefore they are meant to stimulate thought and challenge preconceived notions.
Talking about movies seems problematic at times because people take their perceptions so personally. If we love a movie that someone else hates, we tend to think the other is a pessimist and may dislike us as will. If we hate a movie that someone else loves, we tend to think the other may be overly optimistic and blissfully ignorant. And in both cases we wonder how blind the other could be not to have seen what we have seen. Sometimes we even question that person’s character. How can we avoid this kind of communication barrier and engage in helpful dialogue about the movies we see?
