It’s probably not the best etiquette to interrupt a conversation with my first post. But I wanted to have a brief discussion about the upcoming Oscars.

Whether you’re an avid movie watcher or just an occasional “kick up your feet” one Friday night a month kind of guy or gal, you can’t avoid the buzz being generated around this Sunday night’s Oscars. The Oscar is the highest reward given each year in the motion picture industry. The members of The Academy of Motion Pictures nominate and vote for all the films, actors, actresses, directors, scores, costumes, etc. you’ll see Sunday night. Well, I think it’s helpful for Christians to pause this week and assess what’s going on in this industry. It’s also helpful to set a standard for what we as Christians can say is a “good” movie.

But let’s remember a few basic principles. First, movies are a form of art, and with any form of art there is a certain standard, albeit rather subjective, for what is good, poor, and just plain bad. Even if it’s an overtly “Christian” movie with Christian content, unless it meets a quality standard assumed by the industry, then it can be bad. Dorthy Sayers wrote:

A bad play is a bad play, and though, like some bad statuary and abominable stained glass, it may assist the prayers of the faithful, it will do nothing to convince the world at large that the Christian religion is worthy of intelligent consideration. And I am not altogether sure even about the faithful: does bad art really do for them anything that good art would not do better? (Laura K. Simmons, Creed Without Chaos, quoting Sayers from “Playwrights Are No Evangelists”, 133)

Her quote is spot on. I believe the same can be said of movies. (Now Sayers was no movie critic, but she was a playwright; thus, she’s not far removed from a screenwriter.) Second, the movie industry is our modern day storyteller, and with every story there is a point to be made. Therefore, don’t assume there’s “no point” to a movie. Some even make the point that there is no point. It is here where I think we as Christians need to be mindful movie viewers and seek to understand and biblically analyze the point.

Also, the means of making the point matters so content matters. Remember a five-minute scene could have taken four hours to film and another two to edit. A movie crew doesn’t spend all that time for the fun of it and the money. Time is spent so all the emotion and context driving the point can have the it’s full impact on the audience. (Just watch the extras from Return of The King. There is a twenty-second scene, tops, when Sam, Mary, and Pippin are at the dock watching Frodo sail to the Grey Havens. That scene took over an hour to film.)

Now I could go on, but let me ask you other elders a question? What criteria would you encourage Christians to use for determining whether or not a movie is “good”? Another way of stating it is what biblical themes do you like to see in movies?

Posted in Culture |