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Welcome to Lights, Camera… Faith!
These reflections on the readings of the Liturgy of the Word for Sunday take the story found in a popular movie and creates a dialogue between the movie and the Gospel reading of that Sunday of Lent. The film and its themes can help illuminate the Gospel, sometimes paralleling it, at other times providing a contrast. Conversely, the Gospel story can help us to find deeper levels of meaning in the movie, thus enriching both our liturgical and everyday lives. Each Sunday we will post a new movie and Gospel reflection. If you like this retreat, why don’t you try reading Lights, Camera…Faith! A Movie Lover’s Guide to Scripture.
Most of the movies used here have been released during the last fifteen years and are available on video or DVD. Again, it is recommended that a movie be seen before using it in a group. The nature of some movies may suggest working with a film clip, since not every movie is suitable for wide audiences. Some themes demand greater maturity than that of adolescents; there may be certain movie sequences that are too strong or explicit regarding language, sexuality, or violence for some audiences. Checking with a publication that provides this type of information will be useful, although such guidelines often differ in their opinions.*
Easter Sunday
Second Sunday of Easter
Third Sunday of Easter
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Easter Sunday
Acts 10:34a, 37–43; Colossians 3:1–4; John 20:1–9
Fearless
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, Rosie Perez, Tom Hulce, John Turturro, Benicio Del Toro
Writer: Rafael Yglesias
Director: Peter Weir
Sharing Risen Life
Synopsis
Architect Max Klein emerges from an airplane crash carrying a baby and leading a young boy by the hand. He is a hero and called a “Good Samaritan” because he led people to safety from the wreckage. He feels numb but elated and begins to review his life. He is able to eat fruit he used to have violent reactions to. Back home, he feels distanced from his wife and son. A post-trauma psychiatrist annoys him and he clashes with a smart, money-chasing lawyer.
The psychiatrist asks Max to visit a young mother, Carla, who is still in shock because her two-year-old son “Bubble” died in the crash. He goes to a church with her, discusses God’s will, and is overwhelmed by a profound love for her. They become friends. This further puzzles his wife, a ballet teacher. He secludes himself in his study and draws and collects paintings of his near-death experience.
At night he dreams of the crash and remembers seeing a light and losing all fear. He recalls leaving the side of his business partner to go and sit with a boy who is traveling unaccompanied. During the day, the lawyer’s schemes to get money for his partner’s family exasperate Max. Meanwhile, his marriage is suffering and Max and his wife speak of separating. One day at work, Max goes screaming to the roof of the building and “dances” with how far he can go to the edge without falling. He is fearless.
Max and Carla go shopping for Christmas gifts for Bubble and his father, even though they are dead. When Carla breaks down and tells him she thinks it is her fault that Bubble died because she could not hold on to him during the crash, he simulates the speed and force of the accident’s impact by crashing his car into a wall. Carla is unhurt, but Max is seriously injured. He asks his wife to save him. He almost dies when he eats a strawberry that he is allergic to, and she revives him. Now they can start a new life together.
Commentary
Rafael Yglesias, who wrote the novel of the same title, wrote the screenplay for Fearless. Direction is by Peter Weir, whose films include Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, Dead Poets Society, and The Truman Show. Fearless is a fine vehicle for Jeff Bridges as Max Klein, the survivor of an air crash, and for Rosie Perez, who received an Oscar nomination for her role as the distraught mother, Carla. Isabella Rossellini is the bewildered wife, while John Turturro and Tom Hulce are effective as the psychiatrist and the lawyer.
Fearless is unusual because it does not fit into mainstream romanticized Hollywood entertainment. Instead, it is a thoughtful film that deals with harsh situations that make us uncomfortable and fearful. The film tries to imagine and explore the reality of suffering, pain, and the arbitrariness of accidents and death in our contemporary age. The movie continues its unusual path because it also contemplates the role of religious faith and God’s presence in a world where bad things happen to good people who seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Dialogue with the Gospel
Focus: When Max has a near-death experience and a resurrection, he becomes fearless. The women find Jesus’ tomb empty and run to tell Peter and disciples. What is it to have a new life and to share it with those are still fearful?
Fearless is a contemporary parable about a man who has had a near-death experience and who feels that he has risen from the dead.
Today’s Gospel is the beginning of John’s account of Jesus’ Resurrection and post-resurrection appearances. More gripping stories about Jesus’ rising from the dead will follow when we hear about Jesus’ encounter with Thomas and their breakfast at the Sea of Galilee . Here, it is the familiar narrative about the disciples who believe that Jesus is dead and have no inkling that he would rise. The women, on the other hand, make the effort to go to the tomb; it is because of their words that the Apostles take action. Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb and are amazed. They believe even though they do not understand.
When people learn that Max Klein has survived the plane crash, they are amazed and bewildered. The psychiatrist who specializes in post-traumatic stress wants to help him and enlists his aid to help others; the lawyer wants to get maximum compensation for damages; people who followed the sound of his voice to safety are grateful. His son and the young boy he saved see Max as a hero.
Max has literally seen “the light.” He has also lost his fears and anxieties, and is now calm and seemingly peaceful so that he can now assist others in their suffering. Like the “Good Samaritan,” he has led people to new life and safety. He can now do more for others because he has indeed “risen.” He is overwhelmed with a kind of love for Carla because he now knows the “sincerity and truth” of the meaning of death.
But his risen or new life still bewilders him. He overcomes allergies and phobias of the past, risks falling from a tall building, and contemplates his near-death experience through art. He can discuss God with Carla, go with her to church, and comfort her. Then, by almost dying again, he enables Carla to accept the fact that she is not responsible for her son’s death. But Max is not Jesus. His resurrection to new life is not complete. He has to surrender to the reality of his love for his wife and allow her to save him so that he can fully live again. Although he was spared actual death, Max still needs salvation, which ultimately comes to us through the risen Jesus that we celebrate today.
Key Scenes and Themes
The experience of the crash; Max’s fears, his response to his partner Gordon, his seeing the light and growing calm; assisting the boy and leading people to the light, carrying the child to safety, the Good Samaritan; Max’s option to die or to live, wanting his wife to save him, her love and his coming back, his rising again.
Max’s incomplete resurrection; his nightmares about the crash; his alienation from his wife and son; the pictures of tunnels and light in his study; the challenge of the psychiatrist and the lawyer who wants him to lie for others.
The support group and the reactions of those who resented it, those who were helped, the mother who wanted information about her son; Carla and her isolation, going with Max to church and praying; Max driving into the wall so she can learn that she did not kill her child.
For Reflection and Conversation
1. Corn stalks have become Hollywood shorthand for the supernatural. Films such as Field of Dreams, X-Files, and Signs all feature cornfields, because they help to create a sense of being lost or being in some kind of transformed state. What function does the field of corn serve in Fearless? What about the roadways that were so long and so different from each other? Recall other recurring symbols (the art, the scrapbook, the religious statuary, the prayers, the Volvo, the strawberries) as well as the music and talk about how these elements contributed to what the film meant to you or how it made you feel. Did you like Fearless? Why or why not?
2. The last line of today’s Gospel says, “… and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the scriptures that he had to rise again.” Although Peter and the other disciple did not yet understand, they saw and believed. During a conversation that Max and Carla have about God, she said, “He hurt me so much. He hurt me forever. But I still believe in him.” Max responds that it’s not so much that you choose to believe but because we choose not to believe in nothing. How do Max and Carla experience and express faith? Has there been anything in your life that lets you identify with Max, Carla, the wife, or, the children in the film? Is this a film about fear or faith, hope and/or love?
3. Post-traumatic stress disorder was identified and officially named by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980. It means that a person suffers an “extreme reaction to extreme stress.” Studies indicate that from up 14 percent of all people experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress at one time or another in their lives. Some of these are anxiety, nightmares, numbness, flashbacks, irritability, depression, etc. There are various remedies such as psychotherapy and medication. Locate the part of the film about the meeting of the survivors with the psychiatrist. What did you think of how he led the people through the session? Did he empathize with their suffering? Did Carla and Max suffer from this syndrome? How did their faith in God and humanity help them through it? How were the various characters salvation for each other? Would you call this a religious film? Why or why not?
Prayer
On this Easter day, Lord, when we have risen with you, show us how to share your risen life with those who are still searching for new life. Amen.
Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:12 –16; Revelation 1:9–11a, 12–13, 17–19; John 20:19–31
Wit
Cast: Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Atkins, Audra McDonald, Jonathan M. Woodward, Harold Pinter
Writers: Emma Thompson, Mike Nichols
Director: Mike Nichols
Death Be Not Proud
Synopsis
Professor Vivian Bearing has been diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. She is forty-eight and unmarried. At the hospital, research expert Dr. Kelekian recommends an eight-month course of chemotherapy at the maximum dosage. He tells her that it is an experimental procedure. Because Vivian believes she has a strong spirit, she agrees to the treatment.
Vivian’s field of research was the seventeenth-century Metaphysical poets, particularly John Donne, who wrote about the themes of death and immortality. Her favorite poem is the sonnet “Death Be Not Proud,” especially the comma in the last line which signifies a gentle pause between life and eternal life.
The interminable tests and side effects take their toll on Vivian, who finds herself focused more and more on the present and on her ailing body. The chemotherapy does not bring about the hoped-for cure. However, Dr. Kelekian and his young assistant, Jason Posner, who attended one of Vivian’s courses on Donne at the university, are pleased with the results of their research.
During her illness Vivian remembers her childhood discovery of words with her father and her discussions with her tutor, Evelyn Ashford. Vivian also recalls how strict she was with her own students and how she delivered her lectures. She begins to realize that she had despised kindness but now desires it. She discovers compassion through her gentle ward nurse, Susie. Just before Vivian dies, Evelyn visits her. She lies beside her, reads her a children’s book, and kisses her before she departs. Vivian dies. Jason tries to revive her but Susie prevails because Vivian has asked not to be resuscitated. With her picture on screen, we hear her recite, “Death be not proud...” from Donne’s Holy Sonnets.
Commentary
Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson adapted Margaret Edson’s thoughtful play for this successful HBO film. Wit is one of the most powerful screen depictions of terminal illness and death ever made. Emma Thompson’s performance as the academic Vivian Bearing is superb. Her confiding directly in the audience, making clever jokes, and offering wry ironic comments is a device that lets the audience share intimately in her illness and in her treatment, which is cold, clinical, and yet sometimes kind.
Christopher Lloyd plays the doctor who is ultimately more interested in research than in his patients. Jonathan M. Woodward as Jason serves as a mirror image of both Dr. Kelekian and Vivian because of his dedication to knowledge.
Audra McDonald as Susie brings human kindness to the movie. Eileen Atkins also brings final warmth and love as Professor Ashford. Playwright Harold Pinter has a brief scene as Vivian’s father.
Dialogue with the Gospel
Focus: Locked into a room after Jesus’ crucifixion and death, the disciples were full of fear. Experiencing the wounds of the risen Jesus helped Thomas believe. Wit shows us human fears, the agony of dying, overcoming death, and the image of God’s saving love.
Today’s readings highlight the joy of the resurrection as well as the curing of the sick and of “those disturbed by unclean spirits” in Acts. The vision of John in the first reading is a mystical vision of eternal life. The climax is Thomas’s response to the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”
By reflecting on Wit for this Sunday, we are invited to go back to the days before Easter, as the disciples might have done, to the experience of Jesus’ passion and death. The Gospel highlights how the disciples were terrified after the crucifixion. In a very real sense, they were experiencing their own loss as well as the bleak loneliness that Jesus must have felt at his death.
Wit , though obviously a Holy Week kind of film, reminds us of Jesus’ agony and prolonged death. Our very familiarity with the passion story and its images may lead us to sometimes miss the deeper experience of Jesus’ suffering. In Wit, we are allowed to walk Vivian’s via crucis with her. We can feel her anguish, humiliation, and fear. The disciples’ fear in the present is tied to their recent memory of Jesus’ passion and death. Wit helps us appreciate what the disciples were going through after Jesus’ death. This is so especially for Thomas, who could not bring himself to believe the testimony of those who had seen Jesus risen and alive again. Because we have journeyed with Vivian to her final moment, we feel the loss and we grieve for a wonderful woman who has suffered terribly and has died too soon.
By its use of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets,Wit moves us to go beyond the limits of our everyday existence to ponder eternal life and immortality. Jason tells Susie that Vivian lectured on Donne’s themes of sin, forgiveness, and salvation, which Jason attributed to Donne’s “salvation anxiety.” The screenplay dwells on the tenth sonnet, “Death Be Not Proud.” After Vivian’s death, we hear her voice-over, reading the sonnet and pausing at the comma in the line of the poem before finishing it: “And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.” This pause represents the seemingly unsurmountable barrier between this life and the next. We know, however, like Vivian and the disciples, that we can move from life to eternal life. For Jesus, for disciples, and for us, this is the resurrection.
Key Scenes and Themes
Vivian’s diagnosis and the doctor’s explaining that she will undergo the most aggressive form of chemotherapy; her courage in handling the tests, the poking and prodding, the humiliation of the intimate examinations, the side effects of hair loss and nausea, the collapse of her immune system, the isolation; the final awareness that she will not be cured, the options for resuscitation; a long experience of pain and agony; her protracted death.
The Metaphysical poets and themes of mortality and immortality, the seemingly unsurmountable barrier between this life and eternal life; John Donne’s Holy Sonnets and the themes of forgiveness, the assurance of salvation, and that death can be conquered; Sonnet 10: “Death be not proud.”
The academic world; Vivian’s speaking about understanding poetry in the abstract; Dr. Kelekian and Jason and their love for research and their neglect of “bedside manner”; Susie helping Vivian to realize that kindness is important, their sharing stories and simple pleasures like the popsicle; Evelyn’s visit, reading the story and kissing Vivian; the storybook, the poem, and the final image of Vivian.
For Reflection and Conversation
1. As Christians and believers, we live a paradox. We strive to live as long as we can, to choose life, to support it, and to never cause harm to another. Yet, as the sayings go, we live to die, to live well is to die well, to live a holy life is to prepare for a holy death. We celebrate the martyrs but we do not seek out martyrdom; we learn to accept suffering and pain as Vivian did because it is a sign of life. How do we, as believers, reconcile living and dying? How did Vivian and the other characters reconcile life and death? How can we best explain this paradox to a society that often has such difficulty understanding that to choose life is to prepare well for death and eternity?
2. Human dignity is a theme that recurs many times in the films chosen for Lights, Camera…Faith! A Movie Lectionary. Which characters understand human dignity in the film? How do they express this in their words and actions? Talk about the end of the film when Jason calls for a “Code Blue.” Suzy screams, “She’s a DNR!” (“Do not resuscitate”) and Jason screams back, “She’s research!” Re-read today’s scriptures and focus on the various kinds of relationships in them. What are the links between the readings, the dignity of the human person, and the film (empathy, care, concern, kindness, gentleness, peace, presence, etc.—and the lack thereof)? How does Wit compare with other films about sick people and the medical establishment such as Patch Adams , The Doctor, Regarding Henry, John Q., etc.?
3. Although it does not start out that way, Wit is a religious film. Why is this so? How do the images of light and the music help create religious meaning? Watch the film’s last moments when Evelyn Ashford visits Vivian until the end when Dr. Ashford leaves. She speaks to Vivian as a dear friend, and tells her, “Don’t be afraid.” She then lays down beside Vivian, embraces her, and reads to her from The Runaway Bunny, a story about a little rabbit that keeps telling its mother he’s going to run away and turn into another animal; the mother bunny says she will become that animal, too, and find her little bunny. Dr. Ashford proclaims, “What a wonderful allegory of the soul! Wherever it hides, God will find it!” What does this mean? How is the presence of Dr. Ashford and her reading the story like a double metaphor? Who might she represent to Vivian and to the audience? (Their names are also of interest: Vivian = life and Evelyn = Eve, the mother of all the living.)
Prayer
“And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.” Be with us, Lord, to strengthen our faith in your resurrection. Amen.
Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:27–32, 40b–41; Revelation 5:11–14; John 21:1–14
Gods and Generals
Cast: Jeff Daniels, Robert Duvall, Stephen Lang, C. Thomas Howell, Mira Sorvino, Kevin Conway, Chris Connor, Bruce Boxleitner, Mark Nichols, Kali Rocha, Donzaleigh Abernathy
Writer: Ronald F. Maxwell
Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
A Higher Authority
Synopsis
Union General Robert E. Lee is relieved of his command in Texas and ordered to Washington . He meets with Francis Blair, a close acquaintance of President Abraham Lincoln, who offers Lee the position of Major General in the U.S. Army to quell the rebellion in the southern states. Lincoln has decided that self-determination and secession are not options for slave-holding states. Lee declines the commission, stating that though he is opposed to secession, his loyalty lies with the State of Virginia . It is April 15, 1861 . Two days later, following the lead of ten other states, Virginia secedes from the Union .
Thomas Jackson, a professor of philosophy and instructor of artillery at the Virginia Military Academy , joins the Confederate army. He is soon given the rank of Brigadier General. He meditates on the scriptures and prays for God’s grace and guidance. He takes leave of his precious young wife, Mary Anna.
It is July 21, 1861 . Jackson prepares his troops for the first major engagement of the Civil War, the Battle of Bull Run near Manassas , Virginia , at which Jackson is given the name “Stonewall” because his leadership qualities match his physical bearing. The Confederacy wins the battle. The Beale home becomes a hospital first for the Union and then for the Confederates. Jackson befriends the little girl of the family. Martha, their loyal house slave, prays to God for freedom. Irish immigrants, who have fled their homeland because of famine and oppression, fight on both sides of the war.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is a professor at Maine ’s Bowdoin College . Although a husband and father of young children, he answers the call to arms in June 1862. He joins the Union army and is named a Lieutenant Colonel. He speaks to his wife about God and duty in brief, rational terms.
Soon, the two armies meet at the Battle of Fredericksburg and, though Chamberlain led Maine ’s troops in a valiant last attack, the Confederacy wins once again. Mary Anna comes to visit Jackson and they conceive a child.
Almost a year later, in May 1863, the two armies engage once again at Chancellorsville , Virginia . Jackson is wounded by his own troops and his arm is amputated. The Confederacy wins this battle as well, but Jackson dies ten days later of pneumonia. General Lee is crestfallen at the news. The Battle of Gettysburg is two months away.
Commentary
Gods and Generals is based on Jeff Shaara’s 1996 novel of the same title. His father, Michael Shaara, wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels, on which director Ronald F. Maxwell based his first film of the Civil War, Gettysburg (1993). Jeff Shaara wrote The Last Full Measure in 1998 to complete the story of the Civil War and Maxwell plans to produce this film as well in the near future.
Stephen Lang as “Stonewall” Jackson gives a strong and credible performance. Jeff Daniels ably and consistently reprises his character of Joshua Chamberlain from Gettysburg , and Robert Duvall, taking Martin Sheen’s place as Robert E. Lee, is excellent. The original score by Bob Dylan and others is both sweeping and moving. Mira Sorvino is well cast in her too brief role as Chamberlain’s wife.
The underlying premise of Gods and Generals is that all the players in the Civil War, whether generals, families, soldiers, or slaves, all prayed to the same God for political—and national—victory and deliverance. Unfortunately, the film does not, nor can it, deal with all the dimensions and questions that this premise evokes.
Dialogue with the Gospel
Focus: Today, we are invited to consider the meaning, consequences, and responsibilities of power, religious and secular. Peter discovers that Gospel leadership is not powerful domination, but is rather love and service unto death. Jackson, too, learns the difficult lesson of what true leadership requires.
In our relationship with God, we experience both God’s closeness and “otherworldliness.” This is particularly true of Jesus, who shared our human experience with us. As our risen Lord, he is now at the right hand of the Father, the Lamb of God worshipped in today’s reading from Revelation.
The Gospel also reminds us that Jesus, though he is the risen Lamb, wants to remain near us. What better instance of simple homeliness is there than cooking an intimate breakfast for friends?
Unfortunately, our lives are not always so simple. Try as we might to do the right thing, we fail. The story of Peter and his threefold denial of Jesus reminds us of failure’s possibility. Today, Peter is given the opportunity to confess his belief in Jesus and once again receives his commission to lead. Peter’s leadership means dedicated service, suffering (as shown in the reading from Acts), and surrendering to death. These are the true demands of discipleship.
This is the kind of discipleship and leadership asked of Thomas Jackson. He is a devout and prayerful man, with his own strengths and weaknesses. He is a good man—in his relationship with his wife, in his encounters with the Beales, and with Martha. He faithfully takes up his duties and, while courageous and victorious, is like Peter in the Gospel, who will later face an unwanted, even ignominious death. Like Peter, Jackson will be helpless in his death, re-living in his own life the passion of Jesus.
After today’s passage the Gospel continues with Jesus’ telling Peter that he is not to be concerned what happens to the beloved disciple. Peter, Thomas Jackson, and each of us, must accept Jesus’ invitation to profess our love and single-mindedly respond to his command, “Follow me.”
Key Scenes and Themes
Blair’s meeting with Robert E. Lee to offer him the commission in the Union army; Lee’s refusal to accept and his reasons, his loyalty to Virginia, his prayer; Thomas Jackson teaching the cadets, his decision to join the Confederate army, his wife, his relationship to God and Scripture, his faith and prayer; Joshua Chamberlain at home with his wife in Maine, his decision to join the Union army, his faith and prayer.
The people in Manassas , the town, the families preparing for the invasion of the Union army; the Beale family and Jackson ’s interaction with them; the visit of Mary Anna with the baby; the slave Martha and her family; her prayer.
The three battles, the victories and losses, the Irish regiments fighting on both sides; the dead, the friendly fire, and Jackson’s injury; the debates among the Union generals and bad decisions that result in so many deaths; Jackson’s death; General Lee’s response.
For Reflection and Conversation
1. The American Civil War was a war between brothers, as many families had soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Ostensibly, the Civil War portrayed in Gods and Generals (and in Gettysburg ) was fought over slavery. In actuality, the war was based in economic need and the relentless expansion of the United States across the North American continent. The eleven southern states formed the Confederacy to protect the rights of states versus the rights of the central, federal government. The institution of slavery, because it did not fit into the emerging overall economic system of the country, was a divisive issue, but not the only one. Given all this, how was slavery a moral issue beyond any political or economic consideration? How are the effects of slavery still affecting our culture today? How are slavery and racism linked? What are the historical roots of racism in our culture and what is a Christian response to racism of any kind?
2. Gods and Generals shows many of the characters, especially General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, praying to God for help and victory. Stephen Lang, who portrays Jackson in the film, said, “ Jackson was a man of absolute heroic stature. He was both complex and contradictory—an Old Testament warrior with New Testament faith.” If soldiers, slaves, and everyone else engaged in the Civil War prayed to the same God, what does this say about religious faith and God’s presence in our lives? How is it that good people who are willing to fight each other for freedom of self-determination can believe in and pray to the same God? How do current world events reflect this paradox—that at least half the world believes in the same one, true God (Christians, Jews, and Muslims), yet we cannot get along? How can interreligious dialogue further peace? What role does justice play in peacemaking?
3. All three readings today are about power. Notice how the characters in the readings from Acts, the writer of Revelation, and Jesus and his disciples (especially Peter) understand the dynamic between secular and religious authority and power. The responsorial psalm refrain says, “I will praise you Lord, for you have rescued me.” With what focus might each of the characters in Gods and Generals have prayed this psalm? What does it mean for us as we face the challenge of integrating faith and citizenship in a county and in a world that still neglect and deny basic human rights? How did Gods and Generals make you feel about war as a solution to problems? What other solution does the film (and Christian teaching) offer to resolve conflict?
Prayer
Lord, though we have failed you, you still ask us to profess our love for you. Help us to take responsibility and be faithful in our commitment to whatever you ask us to do. Amen.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 13:14 , 43–52; Revelation 7:9, 14b–17; John 10:27 –30
The Grapes of Wrath
Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin, Russell Simpson, Ward Bond
Writer: Nunnally Johnson
Director: John Ford
“We’re the People!”
Synopsis
When Tom Joad is released from an Oklahoma state prison, he rejoins his family, who are trying to eke out a living in the Mid-western dust bowl during the Depression. He meets a former preacher named Casy and confides that he killed a man in a drunken brawl.
A friend, Muley, explains that the banks have foreclosed and everybody has to get out. Ma, Granpa, and the others are preparing to set out for California because they have seen flyers advertising for workers. They have lost all their possessions that cannot be put in the truck.
Granpa dies on the way. Gas station attendants and others who watch the family pass look down on them as poor “Okies” and less than human. The camp they move into is ugly; the children already there are hungry. Ma’s response is to feed them all. They learn that there are too many migrants for all the jobs advertised on the flyers. They discover that the foremen are really con men who promise work but then withhold wages as payment for rent and force the workers to pay high prices at the company store. The Joads experience the conflict between workers and scab laborers who break the union lines.
The family is in trouble. They find jobs but are beaten down with high prices and low pay for their work. They live in a camp with guards. Tom goes for a walk one night and finds Casy. In the dark, violent scuffles break out between the strikers and the “tin sheriffs.” Casy is killed and Tom kills his attacker in turn. The family has to move on. They find a well-organized Department of Agriculture camp where people are respected and allowed to run things for themselves. Police come looking for Tom and he is forced to go on the run, hoping to help fix social ills. Tom kisses his mother goodbye and the Joads move on to another camp.
Commentary
John Steinbeck’s portrait of the people has become a literary classic and made Steinbeck a Nobel Prize winner. In the aftermath of the Depression, the book touched a chord in the American heart. Its place in between the economic depression in the United States and the rise of totalitarianism in Europe with Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini, offered filmgoers a look at socialism. It was a portrait of poverty and oppression, not outside the United States , but within. To make a movie of this novel in 1940 was a huge box-office risk.
Director John Ford was already an established filmmaker with a vision of American society and its past as well as a master of his craft, especially Westerns. He was awarded his second Oscar for Best Director for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940. He had already won an Oscar for The Informer in 1935 and had just made his classic western, Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums along the Mohawk in 1939. He was to win another Best Film Oscar in 1941 for How Green Was My Valley, and a fourth in 1952 for The Quiet Man .
Henry Fonda gives the performance of a lifetime, although he was not recognized by the academy until forty years later when he won an Oscar for On Golden Pond. Jane Darwell won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The cast consists of many character actors who were regulars in John Ford’s movies. The screenplay was by Nunnally Johnson, who wrote dozens of scripts in his lifetime, including Tobacco Road, also directed by John Ford.
Dialogue with the Gospel
Focus: Jesus the Good Shepherd knows his own, leads them with kindness, and offers them hope. Tom Joad is an American “everyman.” Despite his poverty, he was able to offer moral leadership to his oppressed family and neighbors.
During the liturgies of the Easter season, the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is offered as a model of leadership. While Tom Joad is no saint, he tries to do his best. His family and his neighbors and friends listen to his voice and follow him. He tries to give them some sense of life in the world in which they are struggling to exist. In a sense, he has been entrusted with a life-giving mission, just like Jesus the Good Shepherd.
The first and second readings can throw light on the experiences of the Joad family and of the others on the road who search for a place to put down their roots. The onlookers despise them as they pass by. Paul and Barnabas in the Acts of the Apostles go on their missionary journey, sometimes being listened to, other times being ridiculed and subjected to violence. Some women stir up persecution against them and they are expelled. Paul and Barnabas shake the dust from their feet in protest. The Joads’ experience is of dust that they cannot shake off. The Joads are people of faith and Ma is a woman of courage. In a way, the Joads place their hopes in readings like that from Revelation today, “and God will wipe every tear from their eye.” They are, finally, “the ones who have survived the time of great distress.”
Tom Joad’s final speech in the movie is a defiant plea for tolerance and a challenge to respect the marginalized—those who often feel that they are like sheep without a shepherd. Before leaving the family, Tom Joad tells his mother what his life’s work will be: “I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be everywhere, wherever you can look. Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh and they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise, even in the houses they build, I’ll be there.” His words express the justice of God’s kingdom, toward which Jesus the Good Shepherd leads us.
Key Scenes and Themes
Tom Joad released from prison, riding on the fender of the car, defiant; confessing to Casy, learning of the bank’s foreclosure, going home; his relationship with Ma, his father, Granpa, and the rest of the family; their dependence on him.
The hard journey in the old truck, their few possessions, Granpa dying and his funeral; crossing the river and the sense of achievement in getting to California; the hardships endured on the way, in the camps, the being swindled, the hard labor, the tension between the workers.
Tom’s supporting the family; the fight, his killing the man, having to move on; the family settled in the Department of Agriculture camp and the possibility for a future; Tom on the run and the family moving on in hope.
For Reflection and Conversation
1. John Steinbeck’s novel and John Ford’s film present many themes for us to consider. What are some of the themes presented by the film (man’s inhumanity to man, the generative power of goodness, the place of the family in the world and in the American dream, the legitimacy of wrath in the face of injustice, the central role of women in a man’s world, etc.)? Why do you think the presence of these themes have made film critics consider The Grapes of Wrath a parable or morality tale? What is the moral of the story? Is it as valid for today’s globalized world as it was in 1940? Why or why not?
2. In the Movie Lectionary for Cycle A, the eyebrow-raising Erin Brockovich (Erin Brockovich) was the Good Shepherd-figure of leadership in the community at large against a gigantic utilities company. In Cycle B, a fictitious seminarian, Mark Dolson (Mass Appeal), is the model for authentic leadership in the Christian community struggling to make sense of the Church and the call to follow Jesus more closely in a time of change. In Cycle C, we have another fictitious figure, Tom Joad, who embodies the courage of Brockovich in the face of grave social ills, and the almost biblical authenticity and idealism of Dolson, so that he can give hope and courage to those who follow him. Does Tom Joad have something to say to the faith community today in the United States or in other “first-world” countries? If so, what do you think he would say? Why?
3. This classic black-and-white film uses lighting to create much of its emotional meaning. There is also a lot of preaching or “moralizing.” There is talk of the universal human family, of clarity of vision, of water. How did the film work for you? How did it make you feel? What did you think of Casy’s remarks at the beginning of the film, Ma’s speech about the differences between men and women, and, finally, Tom’s vision of himself as an advocate of justice? Was the film really universal in that it represented the perspectives of men, women and children everywhere, regardless of creed, culture, age, gender, or social class? Why or why not? What did Rose of Sharon’s pregnancy mean and how did it function as a symbol in the film? What did it mean for the future?
Prayer
Lord, you had compassion on those who were like sheep without a shepherd. May your people, your flock, hear your voice, follow you, and find a new life with you. Amen.
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