tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319748542024-03-07T19:31:33.931+00:00god is not elsewherein a god-breathed universe there can be no sacred-secular divide -
a fine excuse for theological ramblings on film, culture, politics
and anything else, for that mattergareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-43463995311035149022009-03-23T20:59:00.001+00:002009-03-23T21:00:59.006+00:00The Removal Van has Left the BuildingHey friends - This blog has moved to<br /><a href="http://www.godisnotelsewhere.wordpress.com"><br />www.godisnotelsewhere.wordpress.com</a><br /><br />Thanks for being with us...gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-11752776367279426812009-03-12T18:43:00.002+00:002009-03-12T18:45:28.797+00:00'Watchmen' Re-visited<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfjrI0b_-raCkNYN4vPntmlpMhI5zzO3HKF6_KzglVTkpMWF8tTLpjsdK7FiPlmvugrkKL52qn4jEUaBlgjm06BBeEyU4NwcSWqQig07Dxq6UEYJOMLZu_UGlCGglK1tlJKbu9/s1600-h/watchmen-figures-NYCC2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfjrI0b_-raCkNYN4vPntmlpMhI5zzO3HKF6_KzglVTkpMWF8tTLpjsdK7FiPlmvugrkKL52qn4jEUaBlgjm06BBeEyU4NwcSWqQig07Dxq6UEYJOMLZu_UGlCGglK1tlJKbu9/s400/watchmen-figures-NYCC2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312373867458121250" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fig.1: The Point of the Film</span> </div><br />Imagine a world in which a human being developed god-like powers and put them to military use. War might soon be a thing of the past - although a lot of people might die to prove it. Imagine this world also tolerating people who dress up in costumes to avenge crime, before, as worlds often do, turning its back on these vigilantes in search of another scapegoat on whom to project its hunger for violence. Imagine a world in which some people actually <em>thought</em> about the consequences of these things. <p>This is the world of ‘Watchmen’, one of the most serious and elegant graphic novels ever written. This is not the world of ‘Watchmen’, one of the most talked about movies ever made.</p> <p>In the moral universe of the novel, co-created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons as a meditation on power at the height of the Cold War, Richard Nixon is, in 1985, the apparently permanent President, celebrity and industry have struck a devil’s bargain with politics and militarism, the streets run dark red with the aftermath of the shattering of community bonds, and vigilantism is an inevitable outworking of society’s sickness. The costumed avengers, as they call themselves, have been banned from their activities, Nixon having made masks illegal (which gives you a sense of the knowing ironic tone of the book); most of them have retired, happy to be left alone, but quietly grieving a previous life so exciting that it can’t be compared to what they have now.</p> <p>One of them is the god-like being – Dr Manhattan – who is introduced to the world with the headline: ‘The Superman exists and he is American’ (Later a colleague clarifies the intent, revising his statement thus: ‘God exists, and he is American’. He offers words of comfort to anyone who feels terrified by such a sentiment, saying that their fear is merely an indication that they haven’t lost their minds entirely.) This telegraphs the heart of the book: when power is treated as right rather than privilege, when violence is assumed to be the path to peace, when people define themselves primarily as nations rather than a global community, and when sexuality is wrapped up with force, you get perpetual war.</p> <p>The book is utterly fascinating, bleak, and serious.</p> <p>The film gets the second part right. It’s bleak. Bleak as hell. And I mean that as literally as I can. In the moral universe of the ‘Watchmen’ movie all reflective thought is banished in favor of an astonishing visual setup – one of the most stunning-look films ever made turns out to be also one of the biggest missed opportunities. Is violence inherent to human nature? Do people always default to selfishness? Does fame depend on the exploitation of others? In what sense does the love of money lead inexorably to the destruction of community? These, and many other questions are left quietly alone; allowing the movie to indulge its (admittedly talented) director’s taste for showcase thuggery. You’ve never seen blood flow like you do in this movie.</p> <p>In spite of some good casting alongside the quite brilliant photography and art direction, the film is a far cry from the somber philosophical text on which it’s based. Moore has said that, among other things, he wanted to explore what ‘a Batman-type, driven, vengeance-fuelled psychopath would be like in the real world’. Clearly the authorial intent was to ask serious questions about how we allow violence to be done in our name. Yet the film presents this ‘Batman-type’ character in such a manner that at the first screening I saw, when he carried out an horrific act of violence, the audience <em>applauded</em>. I don’t think the film-makers were being ironic. When the story in the novel climaxes with a ‘kill a few to save a lot’ ending, we may be supposed to wonder if there might just be a better way to bring peace than to commit genocide. But the film doesn’t have enough heart to make us care about the future of humanity. It’s a color photocopy of the source novel – a clone without a soul. ‘Watchmen’ (the novel) aims to tell the truth about violence; but the film wants us to be excited by it. In a world with vengeance-fuelled superheroes running the show, people would be afraid to be afraid; but ‘Watchmen’ the movie made me feel afraid for how we often tell the story of human beings to each other these days. The book mourns how we so often see violence as a positive path. But the film celebrates it.</p><p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OnFYMFjsOiu-3Rn8DWBV746kvemuCEsjgyMAcFCEy54j0eV8QifCRkdeACai3yb9EWKw3VmS65AVB7toBqLzqH1ywAduwQNCHw4RSsGN9Vna3IZRuBMtOndqFZ73hLoo5eVA/s1600-h/3+rodin+thinker.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 261px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OnFYMFjsOiu-3Rn8DWBV746kvemuCEsjgyMAcFCEy54j0eV8QifCRkdeACai3yb9EWKw3VmS65AVB7toBqLzqH1ywAduwQNCHw4RSsGN9Vna3IZRuBMtOndqFZ73hLoo5eVA/s400/3+rodin+thinker.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312374046595109666" border="0" /></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fig.2: The Point of the Book</span><br /></p><p><br /></p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-82247070033220948832009-03-09T19:07:00.003+00:002009-03-10T02:47:36.402+00:00A Response to New Violence in Northern Ireland<p>UPDATE 10.45pm: It's been reported that a police officer has been shot dead in Craigavon. Whether this is connected to the murders in Antrim is unclear. But I feel even more strongly about everything I wrote earlier today. There has never been any justification for the use of violence to achieve political ends in Northern Ireland; and for at least the last decade there has been no intellectual logic to even <span style="font-style: italic;">pretending</span> such justification.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>On Saturday night, two young soldiers preparing to go to Afghanistan were murdered in Antrim, Northern Ireland. Four other people, including two men delivering pizzas, were injured. The people who carried out the attack — members of a group that split from the mainstream IRA in the late 1990s — claim they were doing so to bring about a free Ireland. They make the callous claim that the pizza delivery guys were collaborating with what they consider to be the British occupation forces in Ireland.</p> <p>It’s hard to know what to say in response, but let’s begin with a reminder of the political context.</p> <p>In short, from 1997 onwards, after 30 years of civil conflict in which our society saw illegal paramilitary groups and British security forces engage, nearly 4,000 people were killed, 43,000 physically injured: we negotiated with each other.</p> <p>The vast majority of Irish people, North and South, voted in a free referendum over 10 years ago to endorse the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. The government of the Irish Republic supports this agreement. So does the government of the U.K. And the European Parliament. And the U.S. government. And the United Nations.</p> <p>The agreement required serious and substantial compromise from each community; it was hard-won, and some of the costs of the agreement are still difficult to bear. It has brought about the release of all prisoners held for politically-motivated offenses; the reform of the police to the extent where a (U.S.) oversight commissioner pronounced it one of the most progressive police services in the world; the enactment of some of the most radical and humane equality and human rights legislation anywhere on the planet; and a power-sharing executive government whose very modus operandi includes neither Protestant/unionist nor Catholic/nationalist representatives from vetoing the other side.</p> <p>Every community in Northern Ireland has had to compromise, and every community has gained. Our past is a broken one; we’re trying to fix it. The people who murdered the soldiers and seriously injured PIZZA DELIVERY GUYS on Saturday are motivated by a mixture of historical falsehood and the human tendency to blood lust, along with whatever personal stories may have forced them into thinking that violence is an acceptable path. They are wrong. And anyone who tries to justify this kind of act betrays the best of what it means to be Irish. I am left with feelings of deep offense alongside the sorrow I feel for the loved ones of those who have died, been wounded, and the rest of the people of my home, Northern Ireland, whose traumatic memories of the past have now been re-stirred. Including my own.</p> <p>But angry rhetoric is not what we need right now. We need to assert something vital: that being northern Irish, or Irish, or simply human is never to be just ‘one thing.’ I am from Belfast, but you cannot easily put me in a political or religious box. Within the past two generations I have family ties to people from just about the widest demographic background possible in 20th century Ireland. Protestant. Catholic. Irish. British. Pro-state. Anti-state. Political. Apolitical. Bereaved. Suffering. Peacemaking. To those who would return to violence as a method for political action, I say: If you want to remove the British, you’d have to kill half of me. On the other hand, if you want to hurt the Irish, take the other half. If we’re honest, we may all find that our backgrounds grant us more in common with our supposed enemies than we usually think.</p> <p>I am close to people who lived to see their loved ones murdered. The killing was done by Irish ‘rebels’ who believed they were trying to start a revolution, and by pro-British ‘loyalists’ telling themselves that they were trying to stop one. That’s over now. Or it’s supposed to be.</p> <p>The people who killed two young men and shot four others on Saturday night may think they’re trying to get the revolution started again. They’re wrong. The revolution has already come. It came when our political representatives decided to forgo the right to revenge and negotiate a settlement in which nobody wins (except everybody) and nobody loses (except everybody). Because of this revolution, we can each have a stake in the future of our society; and the past can be addressed through nonviolent, non-punitive means. It has cost us a great deal. There can be no one who is totally satisfied with every aspect of the Northern Ireland peace process – I’ll gladly tell you what bothers <em>me</em> about it if you ask. But complaint, and much less revenge, won’t serve us – even as we are outraged at the weekend’s horror. For the larger truth is that while it has <em>always</em> been true that there has <em>never</em> been any justification for the use of violence for political ends in Ireland and Northern Ireland, today, and for at least the last decade, there can be no way of <em>even pretending</em> such a justification exists.</p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-68637784603115522882009-03-05T13:19:00.001+00:002009-03-05T13:22:21.752+00:00Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Hollywood Meets Tehran<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqXUHdmvwHRszynpNF9VzWSw8BlBZ1ofNgD9CoN4SHaYKip_y8xHgUi_AtuPDO2cz4gMsknCe7pBLCAOpSpEUxeesYu8n9mQeb1TTZeWDu6emM-0wcKJ29cIWQ1XZJPuTdQnot/s1600-h/megalblkpi034b.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqXUHdmvwHRszynpNF9VzWSw8BlBZ1ofNgD9CoN4SHaYKip_y8xHgUi_AtuPDO2cz4gMsknCe7pBLCAOpSpEUxeesYu8n9mQeb1TTZeWDu6emM-0wcKJ29cIWQ1XZJPuTdQnot/s320/megalblkpi034b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309693279377911522" border="0" /></a>When there’s an international crisis, I know I’d prefer to have Annette Bening and Alfre Woodard on my side – strong women with a reflective presence. I'm not kidding. So it’s good to see that they’ve gone one step further than just talking about peace or acting in movies that make people feel good about themselves. Right now, they’re actually in Iran, along with some other senior members of the Academy, as part of what might be considered one of the highest level cultural exchange programs since Ronnie and Mikhail went for a walk by the Ellioaa River. <p>You may think I’m joking, but I’m not: we’ve been so used over the past few years to being told that the way to be good citizens is to be suspicious of the rest of the world and go to the mall that the notion of an artistic exchange between Hollywood and Tehran seems nothing short of, well, nothing short of the kind of thing people who want to nurture the bonds that are formed through aesthetic experience would do.</p> <p>Hopefully – and presumably – the Academy people realise that the exchange should work both ways - Iranian film-makers have produced some of the most indelible and humane cinematic images of the past twenty years – Makhmalbaf’s ‘Blackboards’ nurturing the parallels between vagabond teachers and the birds that swoop above them on their treacherous journey through the mountains (see the astonishing image above for a taster of why there's almost nothing more evocative you could choose to watch tonight), another teacher in ‘09/11/01’ drawing a circle in the dust to represent the clock that allows her pupils to take a minute’s silence in honour of the dead in the Twin Towers, the various attempts by the protagonist to make and receive cell phone calls in a place where they don’t belong in Kiarostami’s ‘The Wind Will Carry Us’.</p> <p>Predictably, the nation’s cultural captains have used the visit as an opportunity to denounce what they see as the decadence of US movies – I suppose I can understand people taking offence at the portrayal of Iranian forebears as barbaric in ‘300’ – though I was offended by that film’s vision of <i>humanity itself</i> as nothing more than a warrior species, whose bloodlust is not just to be celebrated, but seen as the better part of strength. But those images did not begin (nor will they end) with '300' (despite the fact that the myth of redemptive violence may have first been written down in that part of the world - have a look at The Epic of Gilgamesh).</p> <p>And, come on, guys, if you’re going to be offended by the ‘Ayatollah’ character in ‘The Wrestler’ first spare a thought for spandex wearers, peroxide tinters, and stapler afficianados everywhere: the film is riffing on what got US wrestling fans riled in the 80s: are you seriously suggesting that having a guy dress up as an Iranian religious figure who gets his flag broken in a toy fight is less disturbing than burning an effigy of a US President? Could we not just agree that we’re all in this satire game together; and sometimes it goes too far?</p> <p>But this is all bluster when compared to what I’d most like to see come out of the LA tourists’ visit to Iran: just as there is more to US cinema than cutting and burning, there's more to Iranian culture than the images evoked by President Ahmadenijad's public pronouncements. There’s a profound humanity to cinematic work that has emerged from Iran – whatever else happens as a result of Hollywood plus Tehran, hopefully some more of it will be seen.</p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-90339823193198354332009-02-26T16:58:00.007+00:002009-02-26T17:39:46.433+00:00Radio discussion on theology and homosexualityInteresting story on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radioulster/sunday_sequence/">BBC Radio's Sunday Sequence</a> this week - two guys talking about being gay, 'ex-gay', 'ex-ex-gay' and generally challenging how the Christian churches have treated them. The discussion will be available to listen to on-line til this Sunday.<br /><br />Jeremy Marks, a man I've met and who is kind and gracious used to run a ministry called 'Courage', that believed it could offer gay Christians the opportunity to change their sexual orientation. Over time, he came to believe that this paradigm was unbiblical, bigoted, and contributed to the reasons why the rate of suicide attempts among young gay men is significantly higher than among men who aren't gay. In 2001 he made a public apology, and now offers <a href="http://www.courage.org.uk/">'Courage' as a space for 'gay and lesbian Christians who are seeking a safe place of friendship in which to reconcile their faith and sexuality and grow towards Christian maturity'</a>. It's a remarkable shift - and Jeremy Marks is a remarkable man.<br /><br />Michael Davidson, another man I've met, and who is also kind and gracious, has just established a ministry in Belfast called <a href="http://www.core-issues.org/">'CORE' that appears to run on the same terms that Courage used to - offering space for gay and lesbian Christians who consider their same-sex attraction 'unwanted</a>'.<br /><br />Jeremy and Michael discussed their differing perspectives on the BBC; and what was extraordinary was how generous they were with each other. I disagree with Michael's theological perspective on sexuality, and it needs to be said that 're-orientation therapy' has been subject to sustained criticism from psychologists and others; but his genuine desire to reduce the volume of this too often fractious debate, and to not condemn people who disagree with him is moving and offers a contrast to the way these questions are often handled.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-88361546703832344382009-02-23T01:26:00.004+00:002009-02-23T01:32:21.213+00:00Rewarding the faithful.I've said before that the main value of awards ceremonies is that they allow for the possibility that some good films will get a new audience; and everybody likes prizes. The decadence and indulgence that seems to accompany the show - who cares who designed your dress? why are you dating so-and-so? is it anyone's business - I can do without; but it's hard to care about the movies without caring about the movie industry. <br /><br />So, for anyone in the UK who's up late, anyone in the US who wants another commentary on the show on top of what they'll get on ABC, or in any other time zone with nothing better to do, Jett Loe and I will be live blogging the OSCARs over at www.thefilmtalk.comgareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-75711634687651407842009-02-17T23:33:00.002+00:002009-02-17T23:38:03.100+00:00What We Owe Jade GoodyTwo years ago, when the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Goody">UK reality TV star Jade Goody</a> was being scapegoated for all British racism, historic and contemporary, I wrote the following:<br /><br />“I wonder if our society will ever be ready to treat public figures as human beings. A 25 year old woman with a difficult family background, whose public persona, lest we forget, was carefully nurtured by the huge corporation responsible for ‘Big Brother’, made reference to the ethnicity of someone she was mocking on television, possibly because she is not mature enough to hide what others in the public eye might. She became therefore the target of violent threats, and eventually physically collapsed under the stress of being made to pay for the un-acknowledged guilt of a nation. There has been little or no serious discussion of the meaning of racism in our culture, nor what we might together do to address our own bigotry. One has to wonder if the hugely disproportionate reaction does not reveal more about repressed post-colonial self-loathing on the part of the British people, perhaps especially that held by its tabloid editors. If you have not have heard of her medical distress, it may be worth asking why some sections of the media were happy to report her public mistakes, but not her personal tragedy. We seem caught in a cultural paradox, where certain kinds of public vulnerability are not only welcome, but seen as a path to credibility; while other forms of honesty appear to prove Seamus Heaney’s adage that ‘whatever you say, say nothing.’”<br /><br />Now, with the announcement of her terminal cancer, there seems to be nothing left to report but her tragedy. There’s a sense, as the news of Jade’s sorrow is absorbed by the public (and the media mavens who made her first a figure of fun, then hatred), of a quiet guilt descending. The sort that a bully might feel after seeing the impact of their actions, realising the fact that no matter what they might have previously thought, the power dynamics in which they were involved have produced immutable proof of something ancient but almost always true: that two wrongs don’t make a right.<br /><br />I wonder if it’s too much to ask that we might see this woman, Jade Goody, as something more than a figure of fun, or of accusation, or even of pity. Could we instead ask ourselves if the dehumanization of our culture might finally have exhausted any right to sustain itself? That instead of trivializing her further, we might let our sister Jade Goody have some peace to be with her loved ones; and instead of using her illness as a reason to feel some kind of emotional catharsis, we might consider ourselves privileged to have the chance, the space, and the health to reflect on how we ourselves (and I mean to start with me) will respond to the questions of humiliation, finger-pointing, prejudice (not only the racism she was accused of, but the bigotry she faced because it was convenient to label her ‘stupid’), and the human brokenness that her sad story evokes?gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-23024376793581452009-02-03T18:29:00.004+00:002009-02-03T19:50:58.805+00:00Millard Fuller: The Practice of ProphecyMillard Fuller, co-founder with his wife Linda, of Habitat for Humanity, the housing charity that has built hundreds of thousands of homes for people who otherwise might not have the means to buy, has died at 74 years old.<br /><br />Obituaries and tributes elsewhere will detail his life and work; I had the privilege of meeting him and Linda once, and their graceful humility made the kind of impact that leaves you thinking simply, 'I wish I could be like that'.<br /><br />All I would wish to add to what will surely be detailed and worthy tributes is the following: Millard Fuller, through Habitat for Humanity and the Fuller Center did something that most of us would like to, but miss: he took an ancient teaching that everyone ostensibly agrees with - love thy neighbor - and actually put it into practice. And when I say practice, I mean he made a practical, easy-to-comprehend and live strategic response: he built houses with and for people who couldn't afford them, and made it possible for those marginalised and disenfranchised by our society's way of doing things to live with a greater measure of dignity. Prophetic statements are better fleshed out with prophetic acts. Millard Fuller's life shows us how.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-80334517314119324212009-01-28T16:08:00.003+00:002009-01-28T17:39:56.069+00:00Dealing with the PastToday is a huge day in my home of northern Ireland as it sees the latest development in the long-running peace process. The report of the <a href="http://www.cgpni.org/">Consultative Group on the Past </a>- established to recommend how we might find ways to deal with the legacy of nearly 4000 murders, 43 000 physical injuries, a divided society, and brokenness everywhere - has been published. The report includes suggesting, among many other things, establishing a Legacy commission to investigate violence and provide information, a bursary to address the effects of the conflict including addiction and suicide prevention, and calling on churches to take responsibility for their/our role in nurturing the social context in which the conflict could occur. <br /><br />It's a controversial report - very little in northern Irish public life isn't controversial - because it deals with the monumental pain of decades in which neighbors suspected neighbors, people were blown up in public places, and nobody could feel entirely safe. The suggestion that family members of people killed should receive an 'acknowledgement payment' has been particularly focused on in the media, because it makes no distinction between non-combatant civilians on the one hand and combatants in the police, army, and illegal paramilitary organisations like the IRA and their Loyalist counterparts on the other. There are good reasons for this, for victim hierarchies serve to continue our society's division; just as much as there are completely legitimate reasons for some to feel hurt by the suggestion that their pain is equal to that of the relatives of someone who killed another person before being killed themself.<br /><br />It's important reading for anyone with an interest in northern Ireland, as well as anyone who cares about questions of dealing with violence and trauma anywhere. Perhaps the most important element is the fact that the principles of restorative justice are implied in the consultative group's report; an attempt to transcend revenge and establish a way forward based on the understanding that justice and mercy go hand in hand - and that your security and mine depend on each other.<br /><br />The Consultative Group on the Past have given more serious attention to the question of trauma and societal healing than almost any other initiative anywhere in the world, and their report is a document of historic significance. I can't over-emphasise how important it may be for people to read, whether or not they have any connection with northern Ireland. We in northern Ireland were stunned by the ongoing, repeating and spiralling wounds of our recent past; and it has taken over a decade to get to the stage of even starting to negotiate our future together. This report builds on the case that burying the scars of violence and trauma do not heal them, any more than vengeance makes a victim feel better in the long term. It might offer some contributions to the questions of conflict and its aftermath that face us all; indeed, as my adopted country of the US emerges from a traumatic period in its own history some of the principles outlined in this report might be useful too.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-26462456335235485052009-01-24T17:48:00.001+00:002009-01-24T17:49:42.834+00:00The Best Disney Film You've Never Seen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtQ3P4u4CCCClbqQrWYdfdKQF16GJaIHnJDtE9cho5Ut4zXzQiIQq1fhlvVwiGJ-6Nlu4Oj49XJo5P4GfjO1zYmE2m_0SZgKxbLc0QPa4ru9D9Mr6bdbnMrmZev2hoX4b4D3R/s1600-h/extra3+sleeping+beautySLEEPING_BEAUTY_PLATINUM_EDITION-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 145px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtQ3P4u4CCCClbqQrWYdfdKQF16GJaIHnJDtE9cho5Ut4zXzQiIQq1fhlvVwiGJ-6Nlu4Oj49XJo5P4GfjO1zYmE2m_0SZgKxbLc0QPa4ru9D9Mr6bdbnMrmZev2hoX4b4D3R/s320/extra3+sleeping+beautySLEEPING_BEAUTY_PLATINUM_EDITION-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294918775237445794" border="0" /></a><br />I’m loving my Blu-ray player and, inspired by the fact that a number of film critics I like have named Disney’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ as one of the best releases of the past year, have been watching this fifty year old cartoon in ten minute bursts since the Netflix copy arrived on Monday. It’s twee and sentimental, but also happens to be visually astonishing. The backgrounds in particular are feats of the imagination that amaze; the wicked queen’s (if indeed she is a queen - I haven’t really been following the story) lair has the detail of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ while also reminding me of the production style Tim Burton used more recently in ‘Sweeney Todd’; and the character images are elegant and evocative - a comedy fat king, an embosoming fairy or three, a jutting-chinned handsome prince. Beyond that, the way the Blu-ray makes the film <em>look</em> is almost too good; I like a bit of grain in my old film transfers rather than feeling like I’m watching a robot painting in <a href="http://bobopoly.blogspot.com/2008/11/thx-1138-compositions-part-01.html">‘THX 1138′</a>, but I suppose that’s churlish when faced with the upgraded image available on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Two-Disc-Platinum-Standard-Blu-ray/dp/B0013ND30W">‘Sleeping Beauty’ blu-ray</a>. <p>Having said that, I’m not writing here to encourage you to watch a Disney fairytale cartoon with Freudian resonance, engaging as that may be. It’s the short film special feature included on the disc that blew me away. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051677/">‘Grand Canyon’</a>, a 25 minute live action film putting incredible photography - much of it aerial - of the canyon to the music of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferde_Grof%C3%A9">Ferde Grofé</a>. I remember seeing such nature documentaries when I was a kid, as the ‘B’ film before movies like ‘The Dark Crystal’; I remember being bored, the anticipation of the main event making patience impossible. I’m guessing that ‘Grand Canyon’ might have been one of the film I couldn’t wait to end; and like many things I wasted as a child, having watched it again the other night, I wish I hadn’t.</p> <p>Disney’s ‘Grand Canyon’, directed by <a href="http://legends.disney.go.com/legends/detail?key=James+Algar">James Algar</a> is, quite simply, my film of the week; maybe the month; maybe the year. The images evoke the stargate sequence of ‘2001′, making it one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen; the fact that the images are timeless - the Grand Canyon was here before any of us, and will still be here after we’ve gone (if indeed we ever do leave here - but we’ll get to the theology of the afterlife in a future episode ;-)) makes it one of the most disturbing. The lack of tricks available to film-makers in 1958 compared with today makes it a far more naturalistic short than might be made with a computer or IMAX; all to the good, as far as I’m concerned. It’s like a live action <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4qq30_fantasia_fun">‘Fantasia’</a>; and I’d guess that your feelings about ‘Fantasia’ will largely shape your response about ‘Grand Canyon’. <br /></p><p><br /></p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-71807426508525438412009-01-20T13:34:00.000+00:002009-01-20T13:35:50.311+00:00Sundance Festival 2: Mary and Max<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha49F_BfhnsV4hqiywGXNy4Nqc7i8JKexI4-jsbSlK0Mky5Mclg59tBtyLYmdA7ZTRidS98y_GG8bdZuntBRBXNukBUseJFGAiTRjgEqR8T43y0IbKVMD2rYk8Ytdbjvnr9P5I/s1600-h/1293-maxandmary1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 247px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha49F_BfhnsV4hqiywGXNy4Nqc7i8JKexI4-jsbSlK0Mky5Mclg59tBtyLYmdA7ZTRidS98y_GG8bdZuntBRBXNukBUseJFGAiTRjgEqR8T43y0IbKVMD2rYk8Ytdbjvnr9P5I/s320/1293-maxandmary1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293369130857415266" border="0" /></a><br /><p><br /></p><p>One of the surprises of this year’s festival is that the opening night film is a stop-motion animation about the penpal relationship between a lonely Australian girl and a profoundly overweight man with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome">Asperger’s Syndrome</a> living in New York. If <a href="http://www.maryandmax.com/">‘Mary and Max’</a> had been a live action drama starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette, featuring elegant images of the Manhattan skyline looking like you’ve never seen it before, intercut with a knowing reflection on human isolation and the things that can heal it, this would appear to be the perfect choice for the world’s best known independent film festival. The fact that it’s made of plasticine instead of live action makes it so much more interesting than so many other independent dramas; it was good to see it as the opening night film.</p> <p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978762/">‘Mary and Max’</a> is sensitive to Asperger’s syndrome and other special needs without being cloying; it’s honest about depression; it’s extremely funny in places without falling into the slapstick trap; the narration from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLoF8CUnTJQ">Barry Humphries </a>is perfectly balanced between sweet and harsh (and Hoffman/Collette both articulate what these characters might actually be like the real world); and, most of all, the animation - which took 57 weeks of days that each produced no more than a few seconds screen time is magnificent. Tonally think <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=877124040670507488&hl=en">‘Wallace and Gromit’</a> meets ‘Rain Man’ - with the emphasis on the rain. Director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0254178/">Adam Elliott</a> has made an exhilarating film that genuinely deserves a huge audience when it’s released.</p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-46013358719559638452009-01-18T06:56:00.002+00:002009-01-18T06:57:25.482+00:00Sundance Festival 1: Korean documentary 'Old Partner'/Irish short '6 Farms'<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuAZVY3DImHw0Z-PFym_BZQUWjOnQ4gvFzsVySDyNOlAUnhsIHiYQB3Gktju0dqzMN1Mkoq_oZ415ufBXB1YTvmgMZl76D_CMDh3j8wme3zcWEhj54Ge3vsEzYqWmPBhnSnPnS/s1600-h/header.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuAZVY3DImHw0Z-PFym_BZQUWjOnQ4gvFzsVySDyNOlAUnhsIHiYQB3Gktju0dqzMN1Mkoq_oZ415ufBXB1YTvmgMZl76D_CMDh3j8wme3zcWEhj54Ge3vsEzYqWmPBhnSnPnS/s320/header.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292524165092102130" border="0" /></a>My first night at Sundance and it’s freezing. Only on the outside. Am surrounded by people queuing up in front of volunteers with plastic badges hanging from chains round their necks. Some are wearing snazzy warm festival-branded fleeces. They all seem lovely. Film festivals, at times, can be little more than cattle markets or schmooze-zones, and I’m sure Sundance has its share of that - but tonight the audience seemed all about the movie. A Korean documentary about an elderly couple and their ox - I’m not kidding - called ‘Old Partner’ constituted my introductory screening, and I guess all I can say is that it’s as good a film about an elderly couple and their ox could expect to be. Delicate and harsh in the same sentence - as gorgeous images of nature compete with the reality that the husband and the dying ox are both winding down their lives, and neither of them is happy about it. ‘Old Partner’ was followed by a marvelous Irish short by Tony Donoghue, ‘6 Farms’ - a fantastic time lapse still photography piece about Tipperary agricultural traditions. It was like Aardman’s ‘Creature Comforts’ with more literal images. The photographic technique is so complex that this almost certainly is one of the longest short film shoots in history. <p>Tomorrow I’ve a revisionist Western (is there any other kind these days?), a stop-motion animated film about a penpal relationship between an 8 year old girl and a middle aged obese man with Aspergers, and a boxing documentary about Muhammad Ali that isn’t ‘When we were Kings’. Reports will appear here if the frostbite on my fingers thaws.</p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-39314468088544772062009-01-15T21:29:00.000+00:002009-01-15T21:31:11.365+00:00'The Wrestler'<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVoKK-S2bz3C-C5rxXGph2OS6PvpAAE5NA8cV8PeJAH1RMitl96iNHj2wpl7n69zG0LG0xmZ02JuA6sqLiZTstw3UO6bRd5h-uxM5UzcgJejnOJp01EK79Fflu1QXQ3BKxSRsB/s1600-h/wrestler-aronofsky-promo-05.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVoKK-S2bz3C-C5rxXGph2OS6PvpAAE5NA8cV8PeJAH1RMitl96iNHj2wpl7n69zG0LG0xmZ02JuA6sqLiZTstw3UO6bRd5h-uxM5UzcgJejnOJp01EK79Fflu1QXQ3BKxSRsB/s320/wrestler-aronofsky-promo-05.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291636119526047698" border="0" /></a>Mickey Rourke plays a version of himself and every other faded star. He’s great. <p>Marisa Tomei plays a version of the hooker with a heart of gold who’s been around since cinema began. She’s risky.</p> <p>Evan Rachel Wood plays the angry abandoned daughter archetype. She’s pretty good.</p> <p>And the wrestlers are great fun; unsurprisingly sweet-natured and kind to each other.</p> <p>But the film itself…</p> <p>Well…it’s not that it’s not very good - it’s a well-made, honest little drama of the kind that looked original in the early 90s (think Soderbergh and James Marsh at the beginning of their careers) but there’s nothing in this film that I haven’t seen before. Stories are stories are stories, I suppose; and there aren’t too many to go around, and I’m delighted to see anything that denies the quick fix cosmetic ease with which movie characters often resolve their problems - even ‘Changeling’, perhaps the bleakest story I saw at the cinema this past year, had to have a ‘happy’ ending of some kind. Am also, as listeners will know, a fan of Darren Aronofsky - ‘The Fountain’s one of my favourite films, and ‘Pi’ and ‘Requiem for a Dream’ are so effective at building a mood of dread that I don’t ever want to see them again. But ‘The Wrestler’ is a B-movie; I think what saves it is that that’s what it seems Aronofsky was <em>trying</em> to make.</p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-3259804162311602922009-01-11T15:00:00.007+00:002009-01-11T15:38:16.041+00:00'Gran Torino'<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg12qmrBhj5MYR7u_uQbE13ZwNvi3N5-455QEkQW3FAlpUgU2KFjV4X9b1lfuEmd-_jGPKgCbgxHNQ_VqIQSE4k9uhNUj6O_cRRGEeNmKBSsB6Zx1VQspb0wM9zwW5-RdnwucGH/s1600-h/clintcam.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 257px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg12qmrBhj5MYR7u_uQbE13ZwNvi3N5-455QEkQW3FAlpUgU2KFjV4X9b1lfuEmd-_jGPKgCbgxHNQ_VqIQSE4k9uhNUj6O_cRRGEeNmKBSsB6Zx1VQspb0wM9zwW5-RdnwucGH/s320/clintcam.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290059965176074098" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I heard a seventy-eight year old man sing, through a cracked voice, one of the most moving and gentle jazz melodies, as the iconic image of a fetishised sports car being driven into the sunset were projected. And, not for the first time in recent years, I was crying at the end of a Clint Eastwood film. 'Gran Torino', like 'Million Dollar Baby', 'Flags of our Fathers' & 'Letters from Iwo Jima', 'Mystic River', 'A Perfect World', and starting with 'Unforgiven' and 'Bird' twenty years ago, is a film about a man coming to terms with death, and being confronted with the futility of violence. I'm struggling for a word here, but I'll call it the 'joy' of watching this old man working at the peak of his directorial skill - simple set ups, scripts that sound like the way people talk in real life, often lots of unknown actors filling out the cast so the show becomes less of a celebrity-spotting exercise, sparing use of music (usually written by Eastwood himself) combining to produce not only one of the most prolific bodies of work in Hollywood history, but one of the most artful.<br /><br />Sure, he has made some awful movies - but, as Groucho might say, haven't we all? For every 'Firefox' there's a 'High Plains Drifter' (one of the most gripping - and violent - revenge fantasies I've ever seen, and an early example of Clint's antipathy toward the church) or a 'Bird' (the second best film about jazz ever made, and maybe the best biopic); for every 'Blood Work' there's a 'Bridges of Madison County' (trust me, how many films about love between men and women actually make you believe they're in love?) or an 'A Perfect World' (a film which the Coen Brothers surely relied on for developing the Tommy Lee Jones character, world-weary sherrif, in 'No Country for Old Men').<br /><br />'Gran Torino' might be the last film Clint Eastwood acts in. So it's a relief - and somewhat bittersweet - for me to report that I think it may be the best performance he's ever given; or at least the best from the twilight era of his life. There are moments in this film that speak to me about my own preoccupation (some would call it an obsession) with violence and non-violence, and I find myself astonished that these ideas come from man who, when he was my age, was playing characters who shot people dead in order to get a laugh. Agreeing with the philosophy outlined in a film is not, of course, enough of a reason to think it's a great movie. And perhaps if I watch it again in a week or a year or two I'll be disappointed (even on the first viewing there are some obvious wrong notes); but for now, I'll say this. The ghost of Dirty Harry is laid to rest. The brokenness of war veterans is honoured while the powers that be, who send young men to die for politics are utterly absent. This film knows that the future of humanity depends on people being able to live together in diversity, putting up with cultural difference, and defending vulnerable members of the community. But it also knows something that the Man with No Name and Dirty Harry didn't: violence begets violence; and only non-violence is powerful enough to neutralise its opposite. How 'Gran Torino' presents the terms of conflict, or how it ultimately addresses them, may not be a textbook example of Gandhian resistance, but it's a far cry from 'Go ahead, make my day'. On the first viewing at least, it's a heartbreaking, beautiful film. If it proves to be its director's last, while I'm greedy for more, I can't thinking of a more fitting swan song.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-33806740448234963072009-01-06T17:17:00.002+00:002009-01-06T17:17:57.592+00:00Chinatown<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidbecQU_JHE_oF6eUR-zbsQ8JD5pNgcKyzl_xaY41Qw9Z-uIsL40hcBz5VgyH080oD9ch-crJqxLCHF13BivS3cuBODqrKXsoHfEsxFSWSwgOoe34Vanw8VsCVlqunIzAlUkgy/s1600-h/ChinatownMovieStill1ParamountHE.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 222px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidbecQU_JHE_oF6eUR-zbsQ8JD5pNgcKyzl_xaY41Qw9Z-uIsL40hcBz5VgyH080oD9ch-crJqxLCHF13BivS3cuBODqrKXsoHfEsxFSWSwgOoe34Vanw8VsCVlqunIzAlUkgy/s320/ChinatownMovieStill1ParamountHE.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288231186909584194" border="0" /></a><br /><p><br /></p><p>‘Chinatown’ again last night.</p> <p>New(ish) TV. New Blu-Ray player (though couldn’t watch the ‘Chinatown’ disc on it - my copy’s region 2 and haven’t figured out how to de-code Sylvania; so watched it on my perfectly acceptable forty-two dollar Phillips multi-region machine). No RGB cable (it’s connecting the Blu-Ray player). No HDMI cable (guy in the shop offered it to me first at $80, then said the cheapest he could do was $50. Went home, clicked three times, got one on amazon marketplace for less than two bucks. Should arrive tomorrow.) So, Region 2 ‘Chinatown’ using one awful lead - picture quality therefore reminded me of ‘Grindhouse’. Didn’t want to be reminded of ‘Grindhouse’.</p> <p>‘Chinatown’. Probably for the tenth time. First time was a pan and scan late night ITV screening in about 1991. Second time was when I bought an early widescreen VHS copy, all gauzey - like when they put Vaseline on the lens to make an older actor look youthful, or to pretend that they’re dreaming. Got three or four viewings out of that tape. Then it was one of the first DVDs I ever owned. Now it’s the second generation UK DVD, apparently with a new transfer - though with one lead you can’t tell - but that’s my fault.</p> <p>Ten times with a film is enough to make you complacent; but when it’s ‘Chinatown’ you could go on watching forever. I see new things in it every time. What I saw last night?</p> <p>Politics.</p> <p>Sex.</p> <p>Violence.</p> <p>The American Dream.</p> <p>Cars.</p> <p>Ambition.</p> <p>Venetian blinds.</p> <p>Sunshine.</p> <p>Fish.</p> <p>Throw in a bit of religion and you’d have the Great American Novel. Which is not far off saying that you might have America.</p>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-15279506957159020092009-01-04T02:01:00.004+00:002009-01-05T13:21:06.496+00:00John<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekNY2kUGGKg8UlSQx1VgnbtLAGeSCFx_mbcq7oIAsM3fmjIMTjvljW4zlSgLFhl_L4S631b7gqhx0QJhPGMXiUwHMFCTxs5CDlkF2jWwaaB_1fQckTEqE_66usxBxAmQ90dG-/s1600-h/john-odon-web.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 229px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekNY2kUGGKg8UlSQx1VgnbtLAGeSCFx_mbcq7oIAsM3fmjIMTjvljW4zlSgLFhl_L4S631b7gqhx0QJhPGMXiUwHMFCTxs5CDlkF2jWwaaB_1fQckTEqE_66usxBxAmQ90dG-/s320/john-odon-web.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287253962515345250" border="0" /></a><br /><br />My friend John died a year ago today. I have been comforted, in the midst of grief, at the gift of knowing him; and I am re-posting below words that I wrote at the time, to bear witness to the love and life of this man.<br /><br />January 4th 2008: John O’Donohue was my friend. We had been getting to know each other for almost four years now – a lifetime in our transient world – the very world that John’s words sought to slow down. I felt that we had in some sense adopted each other as compadres on the spiritual journey – a 50-something former priest taking into his life a 30-something former evangelical; both of us bound by our common Irish heritage, love of cinema, and fondness for sipping what he insisted on referring to as ‘firewater’. We spent many hours talking on the phone, eating together, and engaging in two of our favourite pursuits: whiskey and talking about movies.<br /><br />He had a way with words that made you feel whole again – he created a space with language, both spoken and written, that felt like the home you never knew you were missing, but now never wanted to leave.<br /><br />His work on retrieving the earthiness of celtic spirituality and helping make sense of it in a postmodern world is so profound that its impact has not yet been fully felt, and it represents something rare in a consumerist, post-Britart culture: a work of art that will outlast its author.<br /><br />He managed also to write with the utmost seriousness and care for language, making his books the kind that you read slowly, savouring each page; meanwhile, his public talks were characterised by an indelicate Irish charm and the kind of wit that leads to laughter so deep it makes you feel like you belong.<br /><br />What many may not know is that in addition to his ministry in the Catholic priesthood, and latterly as a writer and speaker, he was a serious environmental activist, helping to spearhead a small group that successfully prevented the despoilment of the Burren, one of Ireland’s most stunning natural landscapes. He put his reputation on the line to save something worth preserving, even being prepared to go to prison to do so.<br /><br />In his activism, as well as his writing and speaking, and most of all, in his life, he wanted people to have shelter from the storms their lives would bring; when I once told him of my own struggles with serious depression and anxiety he clapped his hands together in a gesture of defiance and almost shouted at me: ‘May those feckin devils stay far from your door and NEVER TOUCH YOU AGAIN. You are worth far more than you think.’ His presence in my life made me believe it.<br /><br />John knew that we live in the intersection of the sacred and the profane, and he wanted to nudge us in the direction of understanding that holiness has more to do with being aware of the light around us than moral puritanism. In the introduction to his most recent book ‘Benedictus’, published only a couple of months ago, he writes of how in any given day, some of us humans will experience the shock of being told of the sudden death of a friend. John wanted us to be tender to the fact that the faces of strangers we meet every day all hide secrets that are both divine and tragic. We do not always know who among us is suffering some unnameable torment, nor who is rejoicing at the blessing of a lifetime.<br /><br />Last night, I became one of the people he wrote about – when I received an email (another manifestation of this world’s transience) informing me of his peaceful death, while asleep, on holiday in France. It is bewildering to note that a man who brought so much life around him is dead. But it is also vital to remember that he saw death as a path to freedom. He had spent so much time ministering with the dying – one of the greatest privileges of ministry, as far as he was concerned – that I felt he was, while totally committed to living life to the full, somehow also looking forward to his own death. Not in a morbid sense, but simply because he did believe that our own death is a step forward. He often said ‘when you enter into freedom, possibility comes to meet you’ – I imagine that he is, right now, experiencing a kind of freedom about which he would – at the very least - write some pretty marvellous poetry. It is hard to begrudge him his death when part of him was so ready for it.<br /><br />I wonder how he’d describe it. For those of us left behind, well, we miss him dearly, and are grateful for the spaces he opened in our lives. I find it almost impossible to believe that he is gone; but if he was right about his own future, we will meet again.<br /><br /><br />A BLESSING FOR EQUILIBRIUM.<br />BY JOHN O’DONOHUE, from ‘Benedictus – A Book of Blessings’<br /><br />Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,<br />May the music of laughter break through your soul.<br /><br />As the wind wants to make everything dance,<br />May your gravity be lightened by grace.<br /><br />Like the freedom of the monastery bell,<br />May clarity of mind make your eyes smile.<br /><br />As water takes whatever shape it is in,<br />So free may you be about who you become.<br /><br />As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,<br />May a sense of irony give you perspective.<br /><br />As time remains free of all that it frames,<br />May fear or worry never put you in chains.<br /><br />May your prayer of listening deepen enough<br />To hear in the distance the laughter of God.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-17633952660181753392009-01-02T15:21:00.004+00:002009-01-02T15:40:43.804+00:00Slumdog Millionaire & Frost/Nixon<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefMtJect5pygQ-8RcjlGZH_Zxw3AGOtA7ffiKl7aoIvQoeW4QmWw_GVxtGAOsP3k43l5P9rzWIKHvf8mDnwN1unabgOqz_jJL3zrYNZIGCrXSKlYk8q3QbCD_8MVX2kLpJz2V/s1600-h/92-IMG_8812.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefMtJect5pygQ-8RcjlGZH_Zxw3AGOtA7ffiKl7aoIvQoeW4QmWw_GVxtGAOsP3k43l5P9rzWIKHvf8mDnwN1unabgOqz_jJL3zrYNZIGCrXSKlYk8q3QbCD_8MVX2kLpJz2V/s320/92-IMG_8812.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286720503907295362" border="0" /></a><br />In the interests of being comprehensive, now that I've seen them, I can happily say that, for me, 'Slumdog Millionaire' is one of the year's best films, and 'Frost/Nixon' is not.<br /><br />'Slumdog' is an astonishing array of Bollywood parody/homage mingled with a story of childhood trauma that bears comparison with 'City of God' or 'Schindler's List' and one of the most interesting treatments of 'money doesn't conquer all but love might' I've ever seen. My first viewing was colonised by the fact that the movie has been marketed as a feelgood fantasy, when in fact it plumbs the depths of modern day child slavery, and features, about forty minutes in, one of the most distressing images I've ever seen in a film; the rest of the film could not recover. This was a good thing, an indicator of how powerful the first act had been. I returned a couple of days later, partly because I wanted to get the distressing parts of the film out of my system, partly because I knew it deserved a second look. Going in knowing the emotional terrain of the movie meant that I didn't spend most of its running time squirming; and ultimately I found it utterly exhilirating. Danny Boyle has fused the rapid fire editing chic of 'Trainspotting' with a Simon Beaufoy script about globalisation, poverty, how the largest city in the world swallows up the most vulnerable, and the power of a TV show to monopolise the public imagination. There's even a bit of comment about religious sectarianism, and a glance cast at Islam - I'm not sure this is entirely successful, as it's not clear on first viewing just what is being said - but this might be the point: Boyle and Beaufoy are <span style="font-style: italic;">just showing</span> us what Mumbai is like, not telling us what to think, except when it comes to how consumerism, at best, is its own reward; at worst, it kills people. 'Slumdog Millionaire' is a magnificent film.<br /><br />'Frost/Nixon', on the other hand, is a well-directed story that I have seen before. Lovely to watch the actors - Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in particular - do their thing, but I felt that there was less to this than the sum of its parts. Presidents are vulnerable human beings too; interviewers have mixed motives. But - and I'll go out on a limb here - I've always been a defender of Ron Howard, and will continue to say that he knows how to make entertaining movies. If someone could erase 'A Beautiful Mind' from the lexicon of film history I'd make that statement even stronger.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-58908354360129922692008-12-24T21:18:00.000+00:002008-12-24T21:19:25.147+00:00Films of the Year: The Top Ten<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyPeFf65vuOFf7IV33eMb6oni7EfCkALuhgR4o2N3qYfaGXT1Oc4xrZLCDk7w4xi6vQL39NtkAw_-5vHsL3Lg8Eni-9_d3nAm-K_OMZ-GQuAXcEbQEAGZ69Vfq9RT3aDARfU87/s1600-h/manOnWire.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyPeFf65vuOFf7IV33eMb6oni7EfCkALuhgR4o2N3qYfaGXT1Oc4xrZLCDk7w4xi6vQL39NtkAw_-5vHsL3Lg8Eni-9_d3nAm-K_OMZ-GQuAXcEbQEAGZ69Vfq9RT3aDARfU87/s320/manOnWire.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283469276261935682" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I’m always somewhat suspicious of “top 10″ lists, despite the fact that I’ve written one. Too often they become reasons for people not to see films that aren’t included, but I suppose I err on the side of offering the following list of the movies I liked most in the past year not because I have any special right to do so, but because I hope some of the films might get seen by people who might not otherwise check them out. That’s what I find most helpful about other people’s lists, so in the same spirit, here’s mine.<br /><br />10. My Winnipeg. A crazy poem about director Guy Maddin’s love for his home city; a dream-like interaction with the people and places that shaped and formed him that will inspire audiences to remember what gives them a firm place to stand; and a reminder that there is a conservative principle that deserves renewing — saving the sense of community we had as children is worth almost any cost.<br /><br />9. Shine a Light and U2-3D — two concert films. One is the most authentic recorded representation yet of a band that is far more than the sum of its parts, and who, under Bono’s spiritual authority, manages to do nothing less than lead a megachurch service in a Buenos Aires stadium. Their God is big and real, and among the broken; to be in the audience for this film is a surreal exhilaration. The other movie is Martin Scorsese’s depiction of the Rolling Stones playing—by their standards—a tiny venue, and revealing the secret of the band’s nearly 50-year history: They love what they do, and they keep doing it (and get paid pretty well, of course). It’s more than a film with music; when Mick Jagger’s gyrations are married to his lyrics, it’s clear that the question the Stones ask remains the same as always: how can men make sense of women? (Whether or not they have a good answer is, alas, not addressed.)<br /><br />8. Happy Go Lucky. Mike Leigh’s film whose central character is so full of joy that you expect in this cynical age that she will be revealed as profoundly broken, or to come to grief in the course of the plot. Instead, Leigh and his lead actor, Sally Hawkins, have faith in the potential of human beings to bring more light than heat, and to find happiness not through changed circumstances, but changed perspective.<br /><br />7. The Dark Knight. A coruscating and thrilling deconstruction of the war on terror, or George W. Bush’s retirement tribute video? The genius (or biggest failing) of this film is that it doesn’t decide for us. (And Heath Ledger’s Tom Waits impersonation isn’t too bad either.)<br /><br />6. Rachel Getting Married – a small film of huge emotional depth, as two families gather to celebrate a wedding, while things fall apart and come together on the inside. Jonathan Demme has a lightness of touch that makes even one of the most completely unrealistic multi-ethnic nuptials sequences in all of cinema seem compelling to the point where you want to be invited to attend. Roger Ebert said that this film evokes what the U.S. is becoming at its best — a diverse nation of people who know that their future lies in learning to deal with difference. He might be optimistic, but he might also be right.<br /><br />5. Milk. Sean Penn plays the first openly gay elected official in U.S. history, and Gus van Sant makes a brilliant film about the movement that brought him to office. But this is not just a gay rights movie — it’s a film about how social movements bring change and the cost to the individuals who lead them.<br /><br />4. Heartbeat Detector — a film hardly anyone has seen, as it only received a limited release in one city. Now that it’s available on DVD, hopefully more people will experience this French existential thriller, which takes a long hard look at labor and employment practices in the post-modern corporate world and finds parallels in the most horrifying of places. When destroying a person’s livelihood can be called “downsizing,” the principles of dehumanization associated with despotic regimes have found their way into our daily bread.<br /><br />3. Wall-E — not just the best animated film of the year, but the best film for the broadest audience. It’s a movie about the future with a sense of place comparable to Blade Runner and Lawrence of Arabia, and a moral vision of the present that deserves to be shouted from the rooftops: We are the makers of our own destiny, and time is running out to ensure that there is a planet for us to have a destiny on.<br /><br />2. The Visitor — the smallest film on this list, with perhaps the largest emotional scope. A college professor hangs out with a couple of undocumented immigrants in the most cosmopolitan city in the world, the shadow of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan loom large, while the meaning of community and the inflexibility of the law to exercise mercy are delicately portrayed. Richard Jenkins gives my favorite performance of the year. I hope the film’s reputation will last a long time.<br /><br />1. Man on Wire — a documentary that asks “What could be more sublime than risking your life walking on a tightrope strung between the Twin Towers?” What could be more necessary than to restore our vision of the towers from one of barbarism to the immensity of human achievement? Philippe Petit, the French circus performer who carried out this amazing feat in 1974, may be touched by the spirit of Icarus, but he also stands as an icon of what the world needs now: human beings able to look up from their lives, to stop being defined by what has been called “the narrow circle of self,” and, to coin a phrase, do something beautiful.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-87372797252877066982008-12-19T20:43:00.003+00:002008-12-19T20:47:04.270+00:00Films of the Year: The runners-up<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6BfR-g1Z68i3b7826d0-LOLvYiSv0TXiIZZr-LyEwjsustvsq2PObJSYsNVFehQRoP0KDqv4uVwq2b3NPKuiNcj9PdIfLNa8GtPTTgHhu3jWG8PdoXai37VIyz2PizP0NL24/s1600-h/synecdoche1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6BfR-g1Z68i3b7826d0-LOLvYiSv0TXiIZZr-LyEwjsustvsq2PObJSYsNVFehQRoP0KDqv4uVwq2b3NPKuiNcj9PdIfLNa8GtPTTgHhu3jWG8PdoXai37VIyz2PizP0NL24/s320/synecdoche1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281605352403324626" border="0" /></a><br />2008 Cinema Review: Joint Eleventh Place<br /><br />Looking back on the year’s movies, I’m struck by how many of my favorites featured the theme of family and community – perhaps this reflects only my current personal concerns, or maybe there’s a bigger invisible hand at work. For what it’s worth, here’s my list of six movies that I really loved, but which don’t quite make it onto the top ten of 2008. That best-of list will follow soon.*<br /><br /><br />‘Quantum of Solace’, a James Bond film notable for featuring the rare instance in which he learns the futility of revenge, and advocates against a multi-national corporation in favor of the right of poor people to have clean drinking water. I know most critics were ambivalent about this movie, but trust me – it’s tightly edited, well-written, and plays more like an advert for a militarized peace and justice movement than the war on terror.<br /><br />‘Surfwise’ – a rollicking documentary about a family so committed to living free that they unplugged themselves from the social grid and spent their lives in a motor home by a series of beaches. The patriarch is as gregarious as he is dictatorial, and the moral and psychological questions raised by his communitarian experiment deserve attention at any time, but perhaps especially in economic crisis.<br /><br />‘Synecdoche, New York’, a mind-blowing dog-chasing-its-tail of a film; an aesthetically extraordinary, both troubling and hilarious story about art and its creation, about family and its dysfunction, and humanity and its relationship with itself – a film that gets bigger the more I think about it.<br /><br />‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ – Another under-appreciated film; but look closely and you’ll see Steven Spielberg fusing wide-eyed wonderment with his darker side – this is a wildly entertaining movie about bruised people becoming a family, it has one of the wisest last lines spoken by a major character in any film, and in the nuclear test zone sequence features the most dramatic image Spielberg has ever created: the atomic bomb as the starting pistol for the second half of the twentieth century.<br /><br />Australia – In which Baz Lurhmann proves that he doesn’t care what other people think – he just wants to make movies on his terms. And what a movie he’s made: the creation myth of a huge country, seeking to atone for the shallow representation of Aboriginal people, and suggesting that only when you see the world through the eyes of a child can you be truly human.<br /><br />‘Son of Rambow’ – A delightful little movie which manages to be both a knowing representation of childhood, a critique of religious fundamentalism, and a love letter to cinema itself.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">* One of the most disappointing aspects of film distribution is how difficult it’s becoming to get to see movies that lack a huge budget. So, in the interests of being comprehensive, I’ve listed below films that I imagine might have made this list or the one to follow, but that I haven’t seen, either because they haven’t yet been released or screened for critics, or they just haven’t made it to my part of the country.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Elegy</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">IOUSA</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A Christmas Tale</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Doubt</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Frost/Nixon</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Reader</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Revolutionary Road</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Defiance</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I’ve Loved you so Long</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Wrestler</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Curious Case of Benjamin Button</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Slumdog Millionaire</span>gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-4213215753825561172008-12-15T15:13:00.005+00:002008-12-15T15:32:00.423+00:00Films of the Year (part 3) MORE DISAPPOINTMENTS<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjManxN-ROU-cItDUPYdDmg2NbsTvb6yDxG41HogDqXpK3DPC-RaRUAhs8fbRLogpRiFoo3U7DQ89LazUic8Ky5QpjBTbs3mIh9MiM7_jMll1-imu7-yKRiyId6LYnBBixaVJ5j/s1600-h/wanted-movie_poster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 216px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjManxN-ROU-cItDUPYdDmg2NbsTvb6yDxG41HogDqXpK3DPC-RaRUAhs8fbRLogpRiFoo3U7DQ89LazUic8Ky5QpjBTbs3mIh9MiM7_jMll1-imu7-yKRiyId6LYnBBixaVJ5j/s320/wanted-movie_poster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280037208013775298" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Continuing the film critic's privilege of somewhat pretentiously deciding which films didn't make the cut - not necessarily the <span style="font-style: italic;">worst</span> movies of the year, just the <span style="font-style: italic;">most disappointing.</span> While it takes almost as much effort to make a bad film as to make a good one, these 13 (see the previous post for the first 7) represent much less than the sum of their parts.<br /><br /><br />6: 10000 BC - Roland Emmerich makes disaster films. Some of them are fun ('The Day after Tomorrow'). Some of them are pretty bad ('Godzilla'). Some of them make you wish that the world would end if only so you could escape from the cinema.<br /><br />5: Sex and the City - a movie that exists to provide space for product placement and superficial emoting by characters who remind me of what some fear most about human relationships: that ultimately, we cannot choose to be anything other than alone in our own personal hell.*<br /><br />4: Eagle Eye - a film that wants to be 'North by Northwest' but ends up nothing more than a calling card for Shia la Boeuf (he's a talented kid, but I wish I hadn't fallen asleep and could believe the film was about more than it seems to be; it felt like I had paid for him to develop a the most well-made showreel in the history of the movies)<br /><br />3: 21 - the only movie I walked out of this year. Even though I was there alone, I actually began to feel embarrassed for myself after about ten minutes of this literally by-the-numbers coming of age/college sex dramedy.<br /><br />2: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor/Journey to the Center of the Earth - two Brendan Fraser films for the price of one (try 'Gods and Monsters' and 'Blast from the Past' for a far better evening's entertainment. They're listed here because they both, in their own small way (as John Geilgud might say) show contempt for the audience; one because it is a series of CGI effects strung together by nothing (and you can see the joins), the other because it was marketed as an exciting 3-D experience, but had nothing to offer the vast majority of audiences who had to settle for seeing it without the big glasses. The most short-changed I've felt at the movies this year.<br /><br />1: Wanted - Easily my choice for the film this year that I most want to forget. This may seem controversial, because the movie is made with a great deal of craft, and so may not therefore deserve the criticism. But for me, the quality of a film is also determined by its cultural and moral vision; in that regard, 'Wanted', with its appropriation of nihilism-inflected-sexviolence, endorsement of the idea that physical attack is a better way to use your time than almost anything else, and its appetite for ultimate destruction gets my vote as the most morally empty, offensive, and distressing movie released in 2008.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To optimists among us: better news to follow.</span><br /><br />*OK OK OK I know there's more to it than that, but there might also be less.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-20112788850575214422008-12-13T21:50:00.003+00:002008-12-13T22:27:42.487+00:00Films of the Year (part 2) DISAPPOINTMENTS<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5I9E5lDZoeXH4tgPzpf-penB6KIVpB60k5ClDuqno88GS3LSEmuYHxbCFqhWf9tS6Nplryuul6sYLIRKlKaDtR1Fw2D3O9Yuf4ORMj11ReClB8LFcFas_h-VEzPbABlwKv9J9/s1600-h/699-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5I9E5lDZoeXH4tgPzpf-penB6KIVpB60k5ClDuqno88GS3LSEmuYHxbCFqhWf9tS6Nplryuul6sYLIRKlKaDtR1Fw2D3O9Yuf4ORMj11ReClB8LFcFas_h-VEzPbABlwKv9J9/s320/699-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279404059189600338" border="0" /></a><br />I'm going to post my review of the year in several parts over the next week - and even though I now live in the United States, I'm still northern Irish at heart, so I'll start with the disappointments. Here's the first seven (of 13 - a number which seems appropriate):<br /><br /><br />13: Bolt - a computer-generated film whose end credits reveal beautiful pencil and paint images that could have made it a masterpiece. Instead, it looks like an elongated version of the half-finished special features on a Pixar DVD.<br /><br />12: Changeling - Clint Eastwood has an old-fashioned sense of storytelling, which makes for magnificent films when he wants to investigate parts we didn't know about before (the guilt of the ageing killer in 'Unforgiven', the two-wrongs-don't-make-a-right existentialism of 'Flags of our Fathers' and 'Letters from Iwo Jima', and the tragedy of being powerful over a small place in 'Mystic River'). But when all he has to give us is a terrible story about terrible events, the effect is like having your face squelched in mud for two hours.<br /><br />11: Vicki Cristina Barcelona - Woody Allen's decline was sadly not arrested by his apparent belief that his recent superficial scripts would be transformed into works of genius by making one of them in Spain.<br /><br />10: The Incredible Hulk - A film with a brilliant opening shot that just goes downhill; failing to recognise that the inner life of the Hulk is more interesting that genetically modified street battles, I'd rather watch the Ang Lee original instead - I mean it.<br /><br />9: Get Smart - So many good actors, so much money on sets and locations, so few jokes that weren't already in the trailer.<br /><br />8: The Day the Earth Stood Still - a decently put together but cliche-ridden remake.<br /><br />7: Speed Racer - My podcast co-host thought this large-scale computer arcade game (with characters, narrative, and structure as subtle and nuanced as that description would lead you to expect) was a masterpiece that will change cinema. He's probably right about the second part.<br /><br /><br />The rest of the list will follow soon....gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-40199561079014876342008-12-12T16:09:00.005+00:002008-12-12T16:28:42.869+00:00Films of the Year (part 1)It's nearly time for the end of year 'best of' movie list - and rest assured, I'll produce one in a week or so - still have to see 'Slumdog Millionaire', 'Revolutionary Road', 'Brad Pitt Tries For an Oscar Again', 'I've Loved You So Long', and 'Four Christmases' - so the list can't be completed just yet. But by way of a characteristic preview I can let you know that if you're a Roger Corman-trained guy best known for a cannibal movie, a French circus artiste with a taste for creative tightroping, or a college professor learning to play the djembe, you might have reason to be pleased with yourself. I'm off to see 'The Day The Earth Stood Still'. Will comment later.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-41422008446446066792008-11-19T13:53:00.005+00:002008-11-19T14:49:59.963+00:00A Question about Prop. 8The passing of Proposition 8 in California a couple of weeks ago makes gay marriage unconstitutional in that state; protests have begun and it's likely that the short term local defeat will lead to a movement that will eventually provoke a reversal at the national level. From my perspective, it should be untenable for a country that prides itself on liberty and justice for all to continue to refuse the right to legal protection and benefits to people who want to ratify their partnerships; especially when so much of the rest of the democratic world has seen that offering civil partnership legislation to same-sex couples is not a travesty of 'traditional values', nor will it undermine heterosexual marriage, but is actually best seen as an extension of the principles outlined by the founders of the United States - when people recognise injustice, what they are supposed to do is end it, not enshrine it in law. <br /><br />Meantime, the opposing factions in this culture war don't talk to each other very much, partly I suppose because they are afraid, partly because they don't know each other (or they don't think they know each other). One side sees the GLBT community as demons out to destroy family life; the other sees religious fundamentalists as their oppressors, out to take away their very right to a family life.<br /><br />So the question I want to ask is: what exactly do the proponents of Proposition 8 think there is to be gained from preventing loving couples having the right to share their tax burden, visit each other in hospital, and live in the same country? It's a serious question; and I have genuinely never quite understood the reasons offered by those opposed to gay marriage. I have some more detailed thoughts on this, and hope we can have a dialogue here about this; I'd be grateful if any readers would like to kickstart it by posting their responses to this question: How does gay marriage negatively affect anyone who is not gay?gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-60770012319833824922008-11-16T14:32:00.003+00:002008-11-16T14:43:59.630+00:00Ten Things That Have Been On My Mind This WeekGay marriage is the location of the next stage of the culture war – and equality will win.<br /><br />I think that Sarah Palin will not run for President. Or that the only way she <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> run will be if someone prophesies that she should.<br /><br />I miss Barack Obama; he's been off the TV most of the past week. Somebody Bring Him B(ar)ack! We need our <a href="http://www.nbc.com/The_West_Wing/">Bartlett </a>for Thanksgiving.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/eastwood.html">Clint Eastwood</a>’s films are very old-fashioned. This is not a criticism. It means that sometimes (‘Flags of our Fathers’ – young men being used as propaganda tools by the US Government, ‘Unforgiven’ – an old gunslinger regretting the past, ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ – the other side of a ‘noble’ war) he makes magnificent cinema, because when good craft is applied to simple stories that tell us something new, what’s not to like? On the other hand, sometimes (‘Changeling’ – serial killer in Los Angeles, ‘Space Cowboys’ – old guys having fun together, ‘Blood Work’ – another serial killer in Los Angeles) his films are monotonous, repetitive, and tell us nothing that we didn’t already know.<br /><br />Singing old songs by the Carpenters and Lionel Richie round a campfire on a freezing night does not keep you warm.<br /><br />You can’t take fingerprints from a cat.<br /><br />Even Stanley Kubrick made <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045758/">‘early, innocent’ movies.<br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.oliversacks.com/">Dr Oliver Sacks </a>is a lovable old guy whose attitude to giving a public lecture mirrors mine: bring a sheaf of notes, start well, and then completely disregard your plans in favour of telling stories instead.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/kieslowski.html">‘Three Colours Blue’ </a>remains one of the most thrilling films I’ve ever seen, and Kieslwoski’s notion of freedom is not unlike that presented in ‘Into the Wild’: part of the purpose of life is to call every thing by its right name; and happiness is only real when it is shared.<br /><br />Coincidences are unending.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31974854.post-62190789763925899662008-11-07T18:45:00.004+00:002008-11-07T18:54:19.764+00:00Some Theological Questions about War and Peace<span style="font-style: italic;">I've been asked to comment on a few things I said - about truth, war and peace, and taxes, in a class at Fuller Seminary a few weeks ago, and am happy to do so here. Let's start with war and peace.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In short, my questioner asked if my opposition to the use of violence is complete, and if events like the Second World War do not themselves justify violent response. I'm quoting my email response to my questioner with his permission:</span><br /><br />I'm grateful for the question, for the Second World War is of course a key example used in the discussion of non- and less-violent means of addressing conflict. I would never want to demean or trivialize the sacrifices made to prevent the evil intent of Hitler from achieving its ends; indeed, as is the case for so many of this generation, my grandparents directly participated in that sacrifice. But the question arises as to whether or not the cause of ending Hitler’s war justified the means used to end it; and whether there were other potential means that could have been used.<br /><br />The answer is, of course, complex. I will mention only a few of the relevant factors.<br /><br /><br />1. The war occurred for many reasons; chief among them was the rise of Hitler. This itself occurred for many reasons, chief among them being the humiliation of the German people, and the bankrupting of the German economy by the reparations imposed under the auspices of the League of Nations in the period following the First World War. Another reason for the rise of Hitler was that there was not a substantial enough internal resistance movement within Germany to prevent this. <br /><br />2. I mention this in the service of one conclusion: that if we wait until the day after Hitler invades Poland to ask ourselves what we are going to do about his aggression, we prove a simple fact: that human beings usually prefer to think in terms of reaction rather than prevention; and in terms of quick fix ‘easy’ solutions rather than long term ‘difficult’ ones. I don’t know what I would have done had I been in Neville Chamberlain’s shoes, or in those of the Chancellor of Germany deposed by Hitler in 1933. I can’t speak for them. But I am part of a historic church; and I consider that to mean that there are moral demands of church membership that, had I been a German Christian, would have been very difficult to meet. For instance, I think the German Catholic Church could have moved to excommunicate any church member who joined the Nazi party. At a time when church membership was considered with much greater seriousness than it usually is today, this might just have had the effect of helping inhibit the rise of Hitler, and therefore helped avoid the war. Such things have happened before and since, when cultural and social organizations have made participation in aggression or prejudice to be anathema, or at the very least, a social embarrassment. In Northern Ireland, many mothers inhibited their sons from joining paramilitary organizations because of the 'healthy shame' they instilled in their children; Christian youth work provided a profoundly important outlet for young people which in its absence might have led to their participation in violence. <br /><br />Now of course, just excommunicating a lot of German Catholics (or threatening to do so) would not have been enough on its own to prevent the rise of Hitler. But it would have been a start, and would also have allowed the German Catholic Church to have a clean conscience.<br /><br />3. Flash forward to 2003, when President Bush refused the request of US Methodist Bishops to meet with them on the eve of the Iraq war. Perhaps they should have excommunicated him. I'm serious. Not to punish. But to exercise the discipline of a church whose canons and by-laws presumably President Bush had signed up to; to tell him how far he was straying from the church’s understanding of the will of God; to attempt to compel him to consider his conscience. Again, this probably would not have been enough to change his mind. But the US Methodist church would have been behaving prophetically; and would have a clean conscience about doing everything it could to avert war.<br /><br /><br />4. In exploring whether or not the use of violence by the Allies was justified, it's helpful to ask when the Second World War ended. Did it end with Nazi surrender and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did it? Or did it end when Germany formed the European Community along with other neighbouring nations; and when Japanese efforts at reconciliation eventually included former US POWs embracing the people who had abused them, and when US Presidents shook the hands of Japanese emperors? If that’s when it ended, then the case that violence conflict only ever ends through non-violent means has been bolstered. <br /><br /><br />5. These, of course, are simple, and potentially simplistic headlines. They do not tell the whole story. So let me say a few more things:<br /><br />I do not advocate allowing tanks to roll over the vulnerable without the rest of us doing something about it.<br /><br />I merely believe that war is never simple; it never 'just begins' when it 'begins', nor does it 'end' when it 'ends'. There are thousands of examples of violent conflicts that could have been avoided by non-violent means. Here's a few:<br /><br />The Kosovo war in the late 1990s which might not have occurred had non-violent reconciliation movements been properly resourced in the 1980s.<br /><br />The Northern Ireland Troubles, which might not have occurred if the Protestant church leaders had taken seriously their call to serve the poor, and defended Catholics against discrimination, by joining the civil rights movement and helping ensure it engaged in strategic and comprehensive non-violent action.<br /><br />And there are thousands of examples of how fewer people suffered because the means employed to bring about change were non-violent. If memory serves, up to 7000 Indians died in Gandhi’s independence civil disobedience struggle. A huge, and horrifying number. These people died in the non-violent service of justice, peace, and freedom. But just imagine the number that would have been killed had Gandhi chosen the ‘quick fix’ violence option. I have heard it estimated that the death toll would be close to a million Indians. So let me be clear: I do not think that non-violence is easy, nor is it safe. Of course people suffer when they use non-violent means. There is a cost to every courageous act. But I believe the total suffering in the world is reduced when we use non-violence rather than violence. And I am not an ideological pacifist. We live in a broken and fallen world, and often are faced with a series of flawed options. I just think that the recourse to violence is far too often reached without serious thought, or the exhaustion of other, non- or less-violent means.<br /><br /><br />6. The Iraq war could have been avoided, and Saddam could have been removed from power without a war. The will did not exist to do such things as ending the sanctions against Iraq and therefore allowing the Iraqi people to become strong enough to overthrow their leader in the kind of non-violent revolution that occurred in both what is now the Czech Republic and Ukraine; nor asking the UN to establish a tribunal to try Saddam for crimes against humanity and having him arrested (and let’s face it, if Milosevic can be basically kidnapped and brought to the Hague, why could a team of Navy SEALS not have been sent into one of his palaces with the same ends in mind? Not that I advocate kidnapping, but as I said, we are faced with flawed options, and kidnapping one man is a far better option than killing tens of thousands of innocent people); and affirming what was then called the Roadmap to Peace in the Middle East, with rhetoric and resources, to show that the US was bona fide in its desire to see that long-standing conflict transformed into a non-violent one.<br /><br /><br />These are some scattered thoughts for now. Let me say this: I believe that we spend far too much time talking about violence, and not enough about reducing it. We invest far too much in what we call the defence industry, and not the peace industry. We do not understand that prevention is better than cure. And so while I understand the appeal of violence, I do not believe it fixes anything. At best, it can arrest a process that would lead to harming the vulnerable – but it cannot transform it into peace. The overwhelmingly pressing need in our generation is to give as much time and attention to thinking about non- and less-violent means of addressing conflict as we do to making killing look sexy.<br /><br />But that is not the final word – let’s keep talking.gareth higginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433334411253956639noreply@blogger.com2