Arts & Culture: September 2003 Archives

I think groups like Clowning for Christ are why many people have trouble taking Evangelicals seriously. Their mission statement:

We are a Christ Centered, Bible believing Ministry and our goal is to spread the Gospel through our unique clown performance in the foreign mission field as well as in local churches here in the United States. In addition to our performance ability we also teach a professional level of clowning to all Christian clowns as well as secular clowns.

You can't make up stuff like that. I thought of adapting Bible verses for CFC -- "He emptied himself, and took the form of a clown" -- but that verges on blasphemy.

The New York Times ran a respectful obituary of Elia Kazan, one of the men for whom the word "legendary" was coined. A success in Broadway and Hollywood, he is perhaps most known for ratting out members of his Communist cell from the 1930s during the McCarthy hearings two decades later.

That the Times did not mention those hearings until the seventh paragraph is an honorable decision, and indeed the long appreciation of his life places that episode in its proper context. If there was a case to be made against the McCarthy hearings, surely the most compelling is that constitution doesn't grant the Federal government authority over movie studios. It wasn't illegal to be a Communist, and being a director or screenwriter isn't a public office. Soviet spies in the State Department were a real threat to the government and people of the United States and they should have been prosecuted and jailed. You can't say the same thing about an actor who joined a Communist front group for a few months.

I will always remember Kazan for "On the Waterfront," another movie with strong Catholic overtones. After a half-century, everything about the movie is still spectacular. If you know him as a bloated caracature of himself, you'll see where Marlon Brando's reputation comes from. The score by Leonard Bernstein is still jarringly effective, as is Boris Kaufman's cinematography.

Brando's Terry Malloy, who faces down the mob-run union oppressing his fellow dockworkers, is the center of the movie. He undergoes a saint-like transformation from mediocrity ("I coulda been a contender") to reluctant hero. Kazan, a poor Greek immigrant, transparently sympathized with Malloy's struggle against forces more powerful than himself.

Two supporting roles contribute mightily to the movie's greatness. Eva Marie Saint, playing the Catholic-boarding-school-educated love interest Edie Doyle, ultimately inspires Terry to be a better man than he is. She hovers between her attraction to Terry and her aversion to his sometimes-uncouth ways (watch her reaction as she takes her first sip of beer.)

Karl Malden plays Father Barry, a priest you'd want for your own parish. His zeal for justice is awakened by the brutal murder of a parishioner cooperating with the authorities against the mob, and tries to mobilize the dockworkers against their corrupt bosses. In one scene, he knocks out a thug blocking his exit from a bar, and then drinks the man's shot of whiskey. I'd say we could use a few more Father Barrys these days.

When Kazan recieved a lifetime achievement Oscar, many people criticized the Academy, though nobody argued that he didn't merited it on artistic grounds. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. shot back, "If the Academy's occasion calls for apologies, let Mr. Kazan's denouncers apologize for the aid and comfort they gave to Stalinism." Damn right. May you rest in peace, Elia.

Postscript: In this 2001 interview, Kazan tries to explain why "Waterfront" is so popular. "Something of the drama of the ordinary man who has feelings of guilt, who's searching for redemption- it's not a big word in the Catholic religion...." Well, actually it's the word in the Catholic religion. There's no other reason for it to exist. Still a great movie, though.

Admitting the obvious, the Dixie Chicks say they aren't country musicians anymore. Good -- maybe the local country station will stop playing their music. They're one of the major reasons I don't tune in anymore, because I'm tired of hearing their pseudo-country stylings, especially "Goodbye Earl," a disturbing tale of first-degree murder. The theme: pre-meditated killing is fine, as long as your husband is a brutal jerk. If I wanted amoral music, there are plenty of other options out there.

Maybe they can have an official excommunication ceremony in Nashville, the Country Music Vatican. Instead of bell, book, and candle, they could have a steel guitar, a Hank Williams Sr. songbook, and a headlight from an old Ford F-150 pickup.

So be it.

Pete, you're wrong to talk bad about Canada's moral condition. Loudmouth Catholic public person Martin Sheen says it's in great shape. I'll quote this in its entirety, because it will doubtless disappear from Drudge soon:

American actor and activist Martin Sheen had kind words for Canada when he received an award for being a Christian role model, the CANADIAN PRESS reports.

"Every time I cross this border I feel like I've left the land of lunatics," Sheen said Saturday, adding he was "proud" of Canada for not entering the Iraq war.

"You are not armed and dangerous. You do not shoot each other. I always feel a bit more human when I come here."

Sheen, who has been outspoken recently in his opposition the U.S.-led war in Iraq, was in Windsor to receive the Christian Culture Gold Medal from Assumption University.

The university will offer a new scholarship in his name.

I have a plea for Mr. Sheen, if he's still up north: Stay there, Christian role model! Stay there and be more human! Come back and visit sometimes, but by all means, if you're beset by all the insanity of living in the USA, and you've found a better place, it's time to move. Maybe Martin and Pete can trade citizenship? Let's find a lawyer to arrange it.

I'd have a lot more tolerance for the man if he talked about the injustice of abortion instead of his boutique moral concerns like the School of the Americas, or running interference for Marxist thugs like the Sandinistas. He prattles on and on about the poor, but in this country at least, the "root cause" of most poverty is bad morals: infidelity leading to divorce, illegitimacy, drug and alcohol addictions, etc.

Similarly, it's fine that he's a pacifist, and I admire his willingness to get arrested for his beliefs (over 200 times!), but Sheen never seems to suffer any real consequences. Does getting arrested that way really help change people's minds? People would be impressed if he risked 5-to-10 in the Federal slammer for sabotaging a nuclear weapons lab, but if all he has to do is pay a fine, he can't expect anyone to take him too seriously.

The more I hear him, the more I realize that the drugged-up schizoid character he played in "Apocalypse Now" wasn't much of a stretch for him as an actor.

Sheen will probably decline voluntary exile, and return to the shootin' gallery that is America. After all, he has to pick up his "West Wing" paychecks on this side of the border.

"The Mission," Roland Joffe's harrowing, fictionalized account of the evangelization and betrayal of native South American tribesmen, is finally available on DVD. I have not bought it yet, but it will be high on my Christmas list this year. Warner released it as a two-disc set with lots of goodies, including a "making of" special that I am eager to see.

If you consider yourself a serious Catholic and have not seen this movie, you ought to schedule some time for it. "The Mission" has some of the most beautiful moments -- visually and emotionally -- ever put on film. Briefly, the story is about Father Gabriel, a Jesuit who brings the Gospel to the hostile natives who live in dangerous, inaccessible highlands above a waterfall. The slaver Mendoza also seeks out the natives, but to bring them back as chattel. When Mendoza finds out his brother has been sleeping with his mistress, he murders him.

Dying inside with guilt, Mendoza accepts Fr. Gabriel's offer of reconciliation and seeks the forgiveness of the natives. Instead of killing him, they accept him into their community.

Because of political machinations between European powers, the pope, and the Jesuits, the two men are ordered to withdraw from their mission (Mendoza joined the Jesuits to complete his abandonment of his former life.) They refuse their superior's direct order to leave, remaining with the natives as soldiers approach to force them from their land.

Robert de Niro, as Mendoza, is the tortured centerpiece of the movie, and his performance reminds one of the power of film acting. I've seen the movie at least five times, and I am still reduced to tears at the moment when he realizes the natives have forgiven him. Jeremy Irons's Fr. Gabriel is a convincing portrait of a genuine pacifist, a man who eschews violence but not because of physical cowardice (as the ending makes clear).

The only thing that detracts from the movie are the left-wing political references sprinkled throughout the movie, derived from Latin American Cold War politics in the 1980s. It was "topical" when it came out in 1986 because of the civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other Spanish-speaking nations. Than man's injustice to his fellow man is frequently manifest in politics, there can be no doubt; but in a movie like this, which derives its greatness from great themes of Western fiction -- death and life, freedom and slavery, sin and redemption, obedience and conscience -- transient politics intrude upon the work's integrity.

There are other flaws: at the end of the credits, when the cardinal looks at the audience with an accusatory stare, as if we are responsible for these murders, is too heavy-handed. Some lines (written by the incomparable Robert Bolt) fall flat, such as when Fr. Gabriel gives a brief speech whose theme is "God is love" -- a true statement, but a cliché as a sermon topic.

It occurs to me that you might be put off by these shortcomings, and I hesitate to write them in case it puts anyone off from seeing it (or seeing it again). You would miss other gorgeous scenes, like the crucified martyr falling down a raging waterfall, or Fr. Gabriel's "preaching" of the faith through music and icons.

You would also miss having yourself prodded by the central theme of "The Mission," which is that whether we fight with the sword or without it, faith must be strong enough to face down death, or it is unworthy of the name. At the heart of the film is the small, enduring belief that in a world smeared with ugliness and power-worship, beauty and goodness will ultimately triumph.