The Movies and Me, cont.

            In the past month I’ve seen eight movies; read books and articles including Reel Spirituality, Christian Ethics: An Essential Guide, a section of the Catechism, the article on morality in The New Dictionary of Theology, and a good many movie reviews; begun to watch TV dramas with movie eyes; and posted seventeen entries on this blog, not counting “A Plan” and the glossary I deleted because all it was doing was stirring mud. Here are a few words on what I’ve learned:

            I didn’t expect an insight that has just this week come to the front of my mind—most movies are about men and the experience of being a man. From my list, only “Admission” was about a woman and a woman’s kind of dilemma. It asked the question, What if you were unexpectedly presented with the child you gave birth to and gave away eighteen years before? Coincidentally, there’s an article in yesterday’s Washington Post about another neglected population in the movies, middle-class African Americans. The gist of the article is that the studio system makes for very cautious behavior in the financing and distribution of movies. Hollywood goes for the tried and true.

            My consciousness was raised by “Call the Midwife,” a BBC series based on the memoirs of a midwife in 1950s London. This production is rare in its presentation of a feminine perspective on the kinds of challenges women face. But it comes with a patina of distance: it’s about the 1950s and the sexual mores of that time … an occupation (midwifery) that receives no attention in today’s media … desperately poor people … a foreign country.

            Another thing that has surprised me is my new—it’s more like recovered—attitude of openness to the movies. I’m grateful to Robert K. Johnston’s book for this. It has been freeing to get past actor-worshipping and thumbs-up-thumbs-down approaches to movies. I’ve found my way back to things I enjoy. The escapism, the soul-fulfillment of good stories, the multitudinous opportunities to ask, Now how did they do that?

            Day before yesterday I went to “The Place Beyond the Pines” and in the evening wrote a reflection, which I will post next week. It marked a turn for more serious-mindedness in my thinking about the movies or, I should say, a deepening of my study. I don’t know how to explain it, I feel kind of a fool for saying it, and I fear I’m going to have to live up to it in the next couple of months. Maybe it’s just a natural outcome of immersion. Yes, immersion. I’ve immersed myself in the movies. This is my experience and my motivation.

            In most of my posts I’ve tried to focus on one aspect of storytelling, filmmaking or theology. This is working; each day I see more in a movie or TV drama than I would have before. In fact, writing frequently about a study topic is a technique I’ve wanted to try for a long time, ever since reading William Zinnser’s On Writing Well.

.