Category Archives: Art

Mariposa

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tender-merciesFor this short reflection on the power of film images to convey meaningful theological messages, we will use as our primary example a film that has often passed by general notice—“Tender Mercies” [1983, screenplay by Horton Foote, directed by Bruce Beresford, starring Robert Duvall, supported by Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley, and Lenny von Dohlen].  The film did garner recognition from the film community, winning two Academy Awards, one for Best Actor for Robert Duvall, and one for Best Original Screenplay.  Despite the fact that the general public is not familiar with this title, individuals working in the area of “Faith and Film” have used it as a prime example of the successful exploration of theological themes on the big screen.  For example, Sr. Rose Pacatte, has included it in her three volume work that links contemporary film to the three year cycle of liturgical readings, “Lights, Camera, Action”.  Then there is the work by Roy Anker, “Catching Light,” that focuses on a more select series of 13 films with a substantial chapter on each. Somewhat unusual among American films, “Tender Mercies” does not condescend the simple faith of a Texas Baptist woman.

This is a great film to use as an introduction to film study because of its tightly focused structure. The Hollywood distractions and clutter have all been eliminated.  What remains is an austere, spare, and unrelenting examination of dissolution and recreation/ death and resurrection.  Every small detail, from the signage for the small motel run by the young widow and her small son—to the condition of the barren fields engulfing the three main characters is meant to reinforce the theme of the transformation of spirit.

The name of the motel (announced by a bright red sign) is the Mariposa Motel.  There are several times when the film director does a full frame close-up shot of this sign—with no supporting dialogue or comment from the film’s cast.  The sign is an embedded message that the viewer is meant to unlock.  With this in mind, when the word “mariposa” is translated into English, the director’s intent becomes clearer.  Mariposa is the butterfly that has emerged from the apparent death and darkness of the “cocoon” into the realm of freedom of movement in the light–thus referencing a significant Christian symbol of transformation.

A second way that the visuals reinforce this theme of coming to fruition is in the twin “garden scenes” that are part of both the opening and closing sequences of the film.  The spring garden denotes the fragile planting of a new lifestyle, whereas the fall garden bespeaks a coming to ripeness, a harvest of the spirit.  Interestingly, the whole film was shot in four weeks in November.  Both the spring and late summer time frames were created by movie magic (before the use of CG design) and the time span was meant to indicate and underline the process of the spiritual growth of the gardeners.  This is one film where the extra features such as the conversation with the film director lead to a much more intricate vision than what appears to be a very simple storyline.

Enjoy the adventure of the Mariposa.

MaryAnn Sheridan teaches world religions for Saint Joseph’s College Online.

Master of Suspense or Master of Mystery?

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VertigoAll Hallows Eve and All Saints often get me thinking about two things: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and a sermon preached by John Henry Newman at Oxford in 1832.

I can’t recount the elaborate plot of Vertigo here, and if you have deprived yourself of the pleasure of watching this masterpiece until now, I suggest you run—don’t walk—to your nearest library to borrow it. What’s that you say? You can stream it? All the better—sit down and watch it now, then come back and read my reflections on it.

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So, you’re back. I’ll bet you’re feeling as Scottie did when he was told of the possession of Gavin Elster’s wife by the ghost of her suicidal ancestor. You need a drink too, don’t you?

At the start, Vertigo seems to be a story about the living possessed by the spirit of the dead and an ex-policeman, a “hard-headed Scot,” who is hired as a private detective to solve the “mystery” of this possession. But unlike the usual formula of the detective story, in this film the mystery remains after the problem is solved. Scottie Ferguson, the protagonist in the film, follows a painful journey of self-discovery in which he must die to his old, pragmatic ego, the self that thinks that everything in life is explainable. “There’s an answer for everything,” he says. Scottie suffers from vertigo and wants to cure himself of this mundane fear of heights. He doesn’t believe Elster’s “mystery” when he first hears it, and of course on one level, that is correct—the story is a fraud. Elster sets up the interpretation that “the other dimension” possesses his wife. The rational Scottie doesn’t buy it. Yet, even though it’s a set-up, there is a deeper truth—a mystery—greater than what Elster or anyone else knows. It goes beyond Ferguson’s profane, purely pragmatic and rationalist mind.

Philosophers such as Gabriel Marcel have distinguished between problem and mystery. Problems have solutions that leave no mystery. What we sometimes call “mystery stories” are really whodunits that are merely problems to be solved. But mystery remains, not as a problem to be solved but as the holy mystery that is God, to be worshipped. Was Hitchcock a master of suspense or master of mystery? I think Vertigo show him to be dealing with mystery.

Scottie lives within a horizon that has been disenchanted. Like the fear of heights he didn’t know he had, the whole film is the challenge of his facing up to his own mystery. Elster’s fraud serves to bring out a side of the pragmatic Scottie that he’s been denying; as the hard-headed Scot, he wants to explain away his own mystery. He thinks he can conquer himself by sheer intellect and will: “if I could just find the key and put it all together.” In the end, we do not know whether he accepts the fact that reason does not evacuate life’s ultimate mystery. Whether he will die to his old self to become a new creation is left unanswered but what seems clear is that by the end of the film, Hitch has exposed Scottie’s pragmatic denial of mystery as self-destructive and vain. The film demythologizes an evil scheme but deepens the sense of mystery.

And that’s why I think of Newman when I see this movie. In the sermon “On Justice, as a Principle of Divine Governance” he argues that pagan superstition—the kind of thing that we associate with Halloween—should not be seen as demonic or evil but as the quite reasonable response to the human condition of those lacking the gospel. “They who are not superstitious without the Gospel,” Newman tells us, “will not be religious with it: and I would that even in us, who have the Gospel, there were more of superstition than there is; for much is it to be feared that our security about ourselves arises from defect in self-knowledge rather than in fulness of faith…” Scottie’s reductionist rationalism—just the opposite of superstition—is a “defect in self-knowledge.” He is a man who has lost control of himself—in love, then in depression, then in anger. For Newman, it is better to be superstitious than to imagine that we live in a disenchanted universe. Reason without faith in the holy mystery is a fearful self-deception.

David Hammond teaches theology for Saint Joseph’s College Online.