The Captain may not be Fantastic, but good enough for me.

Captain Fantastic.  

The Captain is Ben Cash living deep in the American North West forest,  well off the grid, teaching his six children the skills of hunting, first aid, climbing, armed and unarmed combat along with vigorous daily exercises.   It this Captain a rightwing Survivalist or Evangelical?  No, he teaches his children to celebrate Naom Chomsky’s birth rather than Christ’s and provides a deep home education in philosophy, literature, science,  civil rights and left wing politics.  He encourages his children to argue their opinions and to hear each other’s arguments.  

Ben, played by Viggo Mortensen,  thinks he is saving their lives from the disaster of modern society,  and it seems that their mother agreed, at least before her hospitalization.      But when she dies the family suddenly have to deal with her parent’s more conventional ideas and those of society in general.   

So first of all we see the utopian ‘alternative’ lifestyle in an extreme form, with the family almost totally separated from society, entire unto themselves for food, education and entertainment,  living out a clear, if rigorous, vision.   But then they have to deal with the children’s grieving maternal grandparents, Jack and Abigail (played by Frank Langella and Ann Dowd).   They are rich retirees, living in a huge house on a golf-course, and Jack is severely critical of Ben’s life choices, seeing them as physically dangerous and emotionally abusive.   After the funeral Ben and Jack clash furiously.   The family’s response to this precipitates another crisis, one that forces Ben to reconsider his stance.   Will he now will retire alone, leaving all six children with their grandparents?     Or what?

Despite his mainstream success in the Lord of the Rings  and lead roles in Hildalgo, A History of Violence, Easter Promise, A Dangerous Method, and The Road Viggo Mortensen is, I think, unappreciated by  the Hollywood establishment (how he could not even be nominated for his role in The Road is beyond me)  but maybe that’s because he does not fit the Hollywood convention of a Star.   Here he is as persuasive as ever,  tough enough  and intelligent  enough to make the Captain credible.   I will also add, for those interested, that he appears full frontal naked in one scene.    And for those easily offended by language;  you will be.  

He is wonderfully supported by Frank Langella and the younger cast members playing the children; George MacKay, the English/Australian actor (who I last saw in How I Live Now) plays Bo, the eldest boy, working his way though the various dimensions of Marxism (he was a Trotskyite, now a Maoist)  but seeking to escape the Arcadian forest for Academia.     Rebellious 12 year old Rellian (Nicolas Hamilton),  Samantha Isler (Keilyr)  and Annalise Basso (Vespyr)  are convincing teenage twins, alongside the younger Shree Crooks (Zaja) and Charlie Shotwell (Nai).   All the children have been given unique names, reflecting their uniqueness as human beings.   

The children are taught the value of dialectics, and this movie is certainly dialectic.  The point of dialectics is that the clash between  a hypo-thesis and its anti-thesis  leads to a new thesis, in this case a new way of being.    By the end of the movie the dialectic is resolved.   Not hypo-thesis A or anti-thesis C but, we presume,  an acceptable B (or maybe D?)    We are not shown or told how the grandparents – or children -  come to agree with this resolution,  or define the essentials of living it out, and that is a shame, but I can see how detailed negotiation in the last reel would defuse the dramatic tension.  

The film may end with a rather conventional solution,  and not everyone will find it satisfying, but at the very least it comes about after an engaging, often amusing and sometimes rather moving argument and narrative,  one that visits the horrors of modern American (and increasingly the Western) lifestyle, with its waste, obesity, rampant consumerism and alienation from both the natural and philosophical realms, but also points out the isolationism, desocialisation, and ultimately dysfunctional nature of the extreme survivalist/back to nature impulse.   We do need to find a way to live ‘in this world’, even if we do not want to be ‘of this world’,  being properly dismayed by many aspects of it.      

I was, however,  disappointed by the way Ben teaches his children to utterly dismiss Christianity.   I think there are many informed reasons to criticize the Church, but Ben’s does not seem to be informed, chucking the essential Christian baby out with the polluted waters of the Church.      Ben’s children have been taught, however, that we should be defined by our actions rather than our words, and no matter how comforting it would be for Christians (such as myself) to separate the body of the Church into distinct parts and claim that we have nothing to do with the actions of the parts we see as deluded, ignorant, un-biblical, populist, right-wing, abusive, greedy for riches and power, theologically and intellectually corrupt, or even blasphemous (do add your own ecclesiastical bêtes noir) it is still hard to find a theology to support this consoling tactic.     At the end of the day I think The Church is The Church is The Church, no matter how much I dislike so much of it.   

The photography  is sumptuous.   Stéphane Fontaine previously shot  A Prophet (2009) and the amazing Rust and Bone (2012).  The soundtrack includes an original score is by Alex Somer, and music by Sigur Ros, Bob Dylan, Bach and Chopin and provides an intelligent and sometimes satirical commentary.   El Hilo de Ariada  was written by  Viggo Mortensen and George MacKay,  and the whole  family join together to sing throughout the film.

The good Doctor Kermode has also pointed out the relevance of the lyrics of Bernie Taupin and Elton John’s  song  Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and even though the writer says he made no such connection they really do fit (read them again when you have seen the film).   

Captain Fantastic, raised and regimented, hardly a hero

Just someone his mother might know

Are there chances in life for little dirt cowboys

Should I make my way out of my home in the woods

For there's weak winged young sparrows that starve in the winter

Broken young children on the wheels of the winners

And the sixty-eight summer festival wallflowers are thinning

For cheap easy meals, hardly a home on the range

Too hot for the band with a desperate desire for change

We've thrown in the towel too many times

I do encourage you to see this movie.  It certainly made me think and that is enough for me to give thanks for, even without the engaging performances in this film.    The Captain may not be truly fantastic, but  it is, I think, individual, thoughtful, moving and amusing.   

An A - Z of movies? Whyfor?

As a person, priest, preacher, teacher and trainer the movies have always been an important source of inspiration, illumination, entertainment and puzzlement to me.   Way back when I was a youth leader I used them with youth groups and when working with other leaders.   Some of my colleagues started to ask for advice.     What movies could they use when running residential events to entertain and yet also subtly contribute  to the content?    They knew I would not suggest ‘religious movies’  which their teenagers would quickly spot as propaganda.    So I began running informal workshops at regional and national youth leader training events and later for clergy.  I started providing lists.  In the 1980’s  computer print outs,   in the 90’s a booklet,  then an experiment with RW-DVDs, and at last a blog.     

I also found myself writing longer articles and sometimes study packs to put on the blog.   Writing these helped me explore in greater depth some of the theological and ethical dimensions of some movies.   Of course I do this mainly for my own satisfaction.   If I enjoy a film I want to know why.    I wonder what deep bells it has rung in my heart and soul.    If I dislike a movie I still want to question why.    So writing a shorter or longer introduction to it adds to my enjoyment.    

When I mention theology and ethics I do not mean I am approaching these movies as an academic, or even inspecting then for overt theological content.    I am an ‘incarnationalist’.  I will not divide creation into sacred  and secular.    I believe that divinity is built into everything.   Sometimes it is honoured, sometimes it is defaced.   I also believe that ‘quality’ is a virtue in and of itself.   

A ‘good’ film is a good film and that has nothing to do with its subject matter.   

Of course I celebrate movies that chime with my values, that lift my soul, that seem to reflect the best in humanity.   But a good movie can also explore the darkness, and by doing so honestly can illuminate it.   There are a few films listed I deplore, and I give my reasons. 

Anyway; here is the A – Z, in three blocks for easier access, followed by the articles they sometimes refer to.     I have taken out most - but not all - of the specific ‘teaching points’ and references to scenes in a movie that could illustrate a particular point,  as this is now for a much more general audience.  

You will notice that I do not have a ‘comments’ facility.    I really do not want to get into long discussions or arguments – especially having read the Comments on many other sites!  Sorry, but. 

I would really like to have a ‘search’ capacity to make things easier to find, but I simply don’t know how to do it.    Nor have I found a way to insert high quality pictures.     Any advise gratefully  received via my email; revbobvernon@hotmail.com.   And of course, even without a Comments button I would enjoy  thoughtful responses, corrections and suggestions.    Enjoy!

Please do not miss The BFG!

Upfront; I am not a Roald Dahl fan.  Some of his work strikes me as misogynist,  much of it seems to celebrate hatred and violence, and may even be anti-Semetic.    Of course his word play was brilliant, and he could see into the mind of childhood.   But children can have nasty minds too, and I think he sometimes celebrated that nastiness.

However.   

I do love The BFG.  It may not justify the rest of his output, but it is his most popular book, and richly deserves to be.

I also love many of Spielberg’s movies, from E.T. to Munich,  Tintin to Bridge of Spies,  Hook to Close Encounters, AI to Catch Me If You Can.  (Let’s just pause for a moment to consider his uniquely enormous genre and tonal range, adding your own poles-apart-examples if you like.)    

So; you will not be surprised to learn that I really enjoyed Spielberg’s film of The BFG.     

Of course I admire the technical brilliance  his team bring to the task, aided to an enormous extent by Mark Rylance’s performance as he provided the voice, the bodily movement and the facial expressions fed into the computer for digitization to create the on-screen BFG.   This seems to be almost ‘essence of Rylance’,  an amplification and distillation of his warmth, wisdom, humour, inventiveness, grace and humanity.     I have long thought that Andy Serkis should have an Oscar or BAFTA category created for his digital work, but now at last he has a rival. 

The storyline is thin, and the late lamented Melissa Mathison resisted – or was discouraged by the Dahl foundation from giving in to- the temptation to add to it.   The cast of characters is limited, and many of them are not really developed characters.    But there are two real in-depth people,  the eight year old orphan Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) and the BFG, and they are what the whole film is about.   The other - truly gigantic - giants, Human-Bean Eaters,  the magnificent fart jokes, even the dream-jars and the enchanting dream lake and tree so beautifully created by Janusz Kaminski, Spielberg’s go-to cinematographer, do not overwhelm the central relationship.    They pay detailed attention to each other.  They care for each other,  they tell each other stories.   At times they mother and father each other.     They befriend and protect each other.   They matter, to each other, and (if we will let them) to us.  As Mark Zoller Seitz says on the Roger Ebert site, this is a kind-souled movie about kind souls.   It is deeply humane, and that works for adults as much as for children.   

Please do not dismiss this as a children’s movie and miss seeing it.

Bridge of Spies revisited

Having see Bridge of Spies again I want to clarify two points.   If you have read my previous post on this film (Who's who on the Bridge of Spies, 5/12/15) you will know the true identity of  the spy ‘Rudolph Abel’.      Obviously the CIA/FBI were ignorant of this until after the fall of the Wall, and must have been somewhat embarrassed by the way they were fooled by the man they had caught.   Spielberg must have been aware of it, but maybe he was persuaded by the powers that be, or by his own patriotism, to hide this fact.    Nor is it referred to in the documentary ‘extra’ on the DVD.   However, early in the film Donovan is told that ‘Abel’ has a false British Accent, and asked if he is ‘keeping it up.’   Donovan says that he thinks it is real, and that ‘we think he might be British’.  Who ‘we’ are is not made clear, not is why this is thought to be the case.   So maybe Spielberg simply wanted to signal the truth, that ‘Abel’ was not Russian – in fact was not Abel.                                    

The film does not tell why this man was under surveillance either.   It was not due to his faulty ‘tradecraft’.    He was betrayed by his subordinate, an incompetent drunkard in danger of being shipped back to Moscow.   But this man did not know his boss’s  identity, so all he could do was set up a ‘dead-letter drop’ and tell the FBI where it was.   The FBI would not have followed their target from his home or work place.  They would not know where they were.  If they had they would have raided them straight away.    So they would have put the riverside bench under surveillance until their target arrived and then followed him home.     

I share Donovan’s admiration for this British born Russian spy, who did his duty well,  refused to betray his own cause and was prepared to serve 30 years in jail  - or be executed - in order to keep his secrets.  

I have now seen The Spielberg/Rylance BFG and loved it too.