Theology for the Masses

Travis Gilmore May 1st, 2008

I wanted to write a post on how some movies can provide spiritual edification for us, despite their origins from Hollywood. Like any great art, God has provided us with the medium of film which carries with it beauty, catharsis, sublimity, and powerful emotional realizations that would be difficult to replicate in other mediums of art.

Right now, I am re-watching There Will Be Blood, the masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson, and, in my humble opinion, the best film of last year. For those who have not seen this movie, Daniel Day-Lewis gives a perfect performance as Daniel Plainview, an oil-man at the turn of the century who wants nothing more than wealth and power, and who descends into madness getting exactly that. The film has been called “Biblical” by many critics, and rightly so. There is a feel to this movie that is both epic, and yet very personal; and it is this “personal side” of the movie that kept me in much tension, and left me extremely moved in the end. Throughout the movie, you are asking yourself, “Who is this guy?”, “What is he going to do?”, and “What won’t he do?” I think that the brilliance of this film is that these questions should be asked of ourselves. We are truly no better than Daniel Plainview, for the sinful nature that drives his choices and ambitions is the same nature the drives all of us. For example, consider this dialogue between Plainview and his brother Henry:

Plainview: Are you an angry man, Henry?
Henry Brands: About what?
Plainview: Are you envious? Do you get envious?
Henry Brands: I don’t think so. No.
Plainview: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Henry Brands: That part of me is gone… working and not succeeding- all my failures has left me… I just don’t… care.
Plainview: Well, if it’s in me, it’s in you. (emphasis mine) There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.
Henry Brands: What will you do about your boy?
Plainview: I don’t know. Maybe it will change. Does your sound come back to you? I don’t know. Maybe no one knows that. A doctor might not know that.
Henry Brands: Where is his mother?
Plainview: I don’t want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I’ve built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry… to have you here gives me a second breath. I can’t keep doing this on my own with these… people.
[laughs] (courtesy of IMBD)

Even Plainview knows that this nature is pervasive throughout all people; none of us is exempted. Even though Henry is done with “that part of him,” “that part of him” is not done with him, and Plainview knows this. For me, there is the Gospel here. Though many do not know Christ and the grace that He bestows, many know Man and the awfulness that Man is capable of. This should lead us to a humility about ourselves, and a fervor to further the Good News of Jesus Christ.

What do you guys think? Do you know of movies that has made you feel that way? For those that have seen TWBB, did you see this too in the film?

• Uncategorized
• Comments(1)