Grace and Danger; The Tree of Life's implicit Theology.

 

 I have brought this 2021 post to the top as some folk have raised questions concerning 'Suffering and the God of Love' to which I suggest some tentative approaches based on one of Terrence Malick's movies. 

 

In Terrence Malick’s  film The Tree of Life we learn of the death of a 19 year old boy, known as RL.   Most of the film in concerned with his elder brother, Jack, and the spiritual crisis he experiences on an anniversary of RL’s death.  But at the beginning of the film we are with his mother, and her immediate response to this tragedy.  She loves God,  and has been taught that ‘those who follow the way of Grace come to no harm.’   She believes that we have to choose between Grace and Nature,  nature ‘red in tooth and claw’.  But her teenage boy was full of Grace, and he has come to harm,  he is dead.

So the mother questions God, but God makes no verbal reply.   Instead Malick offers us a visually spectacular 15 minute sequence telling of the creation of the Universe, the formation of planets and the emergence and evolution of life.    Some find this section of the film incomprehensible, or irrelevant.    Having seen and discussed this film many times I offer this, my response to it,  putting these words into the mouth of the Creator. 

Your child has died.  He was 19 years old.  This is tragic.  Because you love your child you scream and grieve and weep and rage and question.     You question me, asking

Why?

Did I know?

Where was I?

What do you mean to me?

Let me answer you.

You conceived your child in love, carried him in hope, birthed him in joy and pain.    You were pregnant for nine months.    I waited nine billion years for life to be conceived on planet Earth.   And four billion years more before it could give birth to you, my children, made in my own image.    You too were conceived in love, carried in hope, birthed in joy and pain.  

Life itself is my Creation gift to you, and it takes time.   Just as your beloved child grew slowly, cell by cell within your womb, my universe also grew slowly.     I spoke and the Universe sprang into existence, and then particle by particle, photon by photon, atom by atom, element by element, grain by grain, it grew within my womb.  

My womb?     Where else?  There was and is nowhere outside me, beyond me, outwith me, so the only place my universe could be is within me.    That genesis created everything you see and know, and everything you cannot see and will never know.     

Gravity was in my left hand and randomness in my right,  and these tools brought order out of chaos,  and then life out of the inanimate.      I created my Universe to live and to bear life itself, and more – life that is in my own image, the image of love.     Giving, self-giving, compassionate, forgiving love.  Love that cares,  love that hurts and grieves.    Grieves because there is no creation without destruction and no life without death.   That is the story of this Universe.    

Every atom in your body was created in the furnace at the heart of some distant sun.    Hydrogen and helium, the only atoms in that first moment,  had to be remade there, fused together under unimaginable pressure to form oxygen, carbon,  nitrogen, iron, calcium and phosphorus,  potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine and magnesium.  You need all of these elements to simply be.    These suns burned for billions of years and then they had to die, burn out, explode and seed the interstellar space with these new atoms.    Atoms that gathered under gravity’s gentle push, gathered and clumped, formed dust clouds, then rocks, asteroids and planets.     

How many planets have to form before one can be a cradle for life?    The number would be meaningless to you, as would the trillion of minute actions and reactions needed for these earth-bound atoms to be combined and recombined, to mutate as randomness did its amazing work,  countering entropy by bringing order out of chaos, complexity out of simplicity, forming chemical compounds, amino acids, bacteria,  single and multi-celled beings;  all your ancestors.    Some think that evolution is not miraculous, but that is only because they want miracles to be instantaneous.    My Creation miracle took thirteen billion years, and turned hydrogen and light into love.   Is that not miraculous enough?

You were taught that you must choose between Grace and Nature.   That is a false dichotomy.    You thought that your child could escape the dangers of Nature by choosing Grace.    But Grace needs a natural form to inhabit.   Grace needs the cradle of Nature to find a home in.    And do not presume that you are the only living things capable of Grace. 

You are compassionate. You feel the pain of others.  The suffering of others stirs deep feelings, often of anger, in your hearts.   Of course you want a world where there is no suffering.  Sometimes when you see suffering you call it evil and are angry with me.   

How can a loving God allow such suffering?      So they blame me for allowing harmful as well as beneficent bacteria to evolve, or for allowing the movement of tectonic plates to cause earthquakes.   Some would like me to temporarily suspend the laws of gravity when falling objects hurt, or when falling hurts bodies.    Some people seem to want fire that does not burn, water than does not drown.      To eat without killing.   But do you think that if I could have created you, and your beloved children, without suffering and death being part of it, without Nature being as it is, without your Universe being as it is, I would not have done so?    

I also have to live, like you,  with the necessary randomness that makes life possible and unpredictable.    Randomness and gravity, my necessary creative tools,  mean that life is fraught with  danger.   Maybe that danger makes it precious.   Would I not have spared myself the waiting, the dying, the grieving, if I could?    

If you look at Nature and hate it, and me, if you blame me and fear me, reject me for the death and loss and destruction you see in the world,  then before you condemn me, consider this.   It has taken your kind half a million years to learn how to take atoms apart.    How long do you think it would take you to put them back together, to create them, to create enough to make your own Universe,  and to breath life and love into your creation?    How long would it take you to make a Universe in your own image, because you despise this one, made in mine?

You husband is an inventor, proud of the patents for his devices.   I am proud of my devices too.    Your eldest son is an architect.  He knows that form has to follow function.  

Function dictates form.      Otherwise building fall apart.     I am the architect of the Universe, and it also has a function.    Love is that function; to love and to be loved.   

This Universe has become aware, and has learnt to love.   It took thirteen thousand million years for you to learn this, in your tiny corner, but in all that time my Universe has not fallen apart.    It is well made.    And just as your child grew from its conception as a single cell, with no interference from you, save sustenance, my Universe grew from a single moment, just one event, and grew to what it is, with no interference from me, save sustenance.  As it is, it was from the beginning. 

O yes, I know some believe I could create this Universe and all living things in days, not billions of years,  and  make you out of mud in an instant.   They wonder why I did not make a Universe in which there was no suffering.   Maybe I could have done so.   It would be a different Universe.   And in such a Universe would you be truly human?   Would you have your capacity for costly love, for compassion, for Grace.   Would you be made in my image?   Would you be so intimately connected to the whole of creation?      And could I be truly incarnate?    At One with you?    

Your beloved son has died, and you grieve.  How many of my beloved have I seen die?     If you believe that I love, then you know that I grieve for your boy too, and for every living thing.     You live today in the shadow of his death.   Because I gave you the capacity to choose love and Grace I had to also give you the capacity to turn away from them.   So I too live in the shadow of death.   The death of the Cross, of the Holocaust, of Hiroshima, of the Gulags and the Killing Fields.    I live in the darkness cast by the fear that lives in the heart of every child, every woman, every man subjected to abuse, to violence, to hatred.     These are not my actions, but yours. 

You grieve for what you value.     So add this to the value of your boy.  In him his elder  brother, Jack, found me.   Found the love and trust and forgiveness and Grace – and the creativity – that are my image.   For RL, his brother, your child and mine, lived and lives in love.   All who live in love live in me.  And I live in them.    In all eternity.    

Because you love your child you grieve and weep and rage and question, asking 

Why?   

Because there is no other way.

Did I know?   

Yes.

Where was I?   

With you.  Within you.

What do you mean to me?   

Everything.

Matilda

 I was blown away last night by the new film version of Matilda – but maybe blown away a bit too far?  

First of all it is magnificently staged and performed. Lashana Lynch, who I saw playing tough as Captain Marvel in Doctor Strange; In the Multiverse of Madness and as Nomi in In No Time To Die, here plays very tender as Miss Honey.  Emma Thompson, who we know can play just about anything from Alison Porter in Look Back In Anger through Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Nanny McFee, Professor Trelawny, and P L Travers in Saving Mr Banks, here inhabits Miss Trunchbull, the fascistic Headteacher of Crunchem Hall magnificently.  Alisha Weir, the young Dublin born actress from Don’t Leave Home, is a fabulous Matilda and Stephen Graeme and Andrea Risborough are properly over the top as her despicable parents.  

Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly’s adaptation of Raol Dahl’s book into a stage musical has been lauded – and rewarded – for over ten years now, and Matthew Warchus, who directed the 2010 stage show, is back to direct this film and obviously relished the opportunity. Most of his work has been on stage, but you might remember his work on ‘Pride’. The huge cast of amazingly talented children dance and sing their hearts out and the movement from stage to screen is utterly wholehearted. Anyone who goes to the trouble of getting a giraffe on set for a 2 second shot certainly has my vote.  

But.  

Maybe, sometimes, a stage musical is best kept to the stage? I once saw Stephen Sondheim’s Musical Into the Woods on stage. I loved it. Ten years later I saw Rob Marshall’s filmed version, garlanded with a dozen international stars. It was very well done, but although I was entertained, I was never really moved. Spoiler alert; people die in that musical, and on stage I was affected by their fates. On screen I was unmoved, and that is not simply about the difference between stage and screen. I have seen West Side Story on both and been moved by both. 

I can well imagine that seeing Matilda on stage I would be really excited by its amazing verve, wit and physicality. Im would really like that. On screen I was properly impressed, but never excited. In fact at times I felt rather exhausted by it.  

So; no reason not to go and see this movie, and many really good reasons to go and see it. It is really very well done and I would recommend seeing it soon in a cinema rather than waiting for it on Netflix. It is far too big for a TV screen. Maybe you will enjoy it more than I did. I hope you do.  

But (so many 'buts') I also think the PG cert is questionable. Miss Trunchbull is properly scary, and some children might really need someone’s hand to hold. 

The Banshees of Inisherin.

I recently went to see The Banshees of Innisherin, Michael MacDonagh's latest movie, a black comedy beautifully set on a West Coast Ireland in 1923,  exploring the effects of isolation, loneliness, angst and anger with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell playing wonderfully and rather heartbreakingly together again.  As you know Gleeson, Farrell and MacDonagh made In Bruges in 2008.  That was the first time I ‘got’ Farrell, despite having seen him in Miami Vice, The Recruit, Minority Report, and Phone Booth, but not understanding what the fuss about him was all about. But in In Bruges I saw him playing a vulnerable and not very bright man, not the kind of role that ‘film stars’ -  and he was already a film star by then -  often accept, or do well. In The Banshees he shows the ability to be look confused and hurt and not understand why he is being hurt.  Gleeson is as impressive as ever playing a rather unsympathetic character going through – or not going through – an existential crisis.   I am not going to give plot spoilers, but this movies certainty raises a number of philosophic issues – among them what the good Doctor Mark Kermode calls ‘the vanity of despair’.   

 

We also have Barry Keoghan.  I have only seen him – or known I was seeing him - in some minor roles until The Killing of a Sacred Deer(with Farrell again),The Eternals, The Batman and Dunkirk. Here he is unforgettable - Best Supporting Actor? Plus Kerry Condon, who has a busy CV, including being the voice of Iron Man Tony Stark’s Digital Assistant in the Avenger’s movies and had a small role in MacDonagh’s Three Billboards. Again, terrific here.

 

I am sure there will be a lot of nominations for this film and its cast.  Beautifully shot, seemingly using natural light as much as possible (it is set in dimly cottages and the island’s only pub) and with a subtle soundtrack underlying a poignant, biting and funny script that sometimes sounds like Sam Beckett.

 

My only distraction was that it was partly filmed on Inishmore, just  off the West coast of Ireland, and visible from my front room,  – and also on Achill Island.   I recognised the Inishmore settings again and again, having spent a lot of time walking there over the years, so the moves to Achill were obvious and disrupting.   That is not a criticism of the movie of course.   MacDonagh has based a number of his stage plays on the Arran islands, The Cripple of Innismaan and the Lieutenant of Innishmore , plus The Beauty of Queen of Leenane set up the Galway coast. He wrote The Banshees some time ago for the stage but was not happy with it so it was never produced. Well it works very well on screen.

 

Carter Burwell provided the music.  He is a veteran American film composer, used by MacDonagh for In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and 3 Billboards; by the Coen Bros (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, True Grit, The Man Who Wasn’t There, The Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men etc);  by Todd Haynes for Carol, and Spike Jonze for Adaptation.  (The are just some of my favourite movies, nowhere near his whole oeuvre!)  MacDonagh was determined to use the Bulgarian song Polegnala e Todora by le Mystere des Voix Bulgaria choir for the opening sequence. 

 

The film was shot by the Brit Bill Davis, rather a change from his recent Marvel jobs on Eternals, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy etc, but he also shot Three Billboards and Seven Psychopaths for MacDonagh.   

 

Mark Tildesley was the production designer for The Banshees, and has also worked on  No Time to Die, Phantom Thread,  The Two Popes, T2 Trainspotting, both 28 Days and 28 Weeks later, and The Constant Gardener.   

 

When we look at artists and professionals such as these I think we have to be impressed by their sheer range.      Quantity and Quality.      

 

There are some films I know I want to watch again as soon as possible after my first viewing.      These include Pulp Fiction, The Dark Knight, Tree of Life, Joker and Arrival.  I am going back to the movie house to see The Banshees as soon as possible.    

Amsterdam; a rich and tasty stew.

 Amsterdam is David O. Russell's new movie.  With Christian Bale, Margo Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy,  Zoe Saldana, Rami Malek, Andrea Riseborough and many other stars in the cast (and a sly appearance by Taylor Swift),  one might say the cast is as over-stuffed as the plot.    

Christian Bale says that he and Russell have been talking about this project for over ten years and he has seen over a dozen of Russell’s draft scripts for it.   Dr. Mark Kermode thinks that at least three of them are crammed into the final effort.    Let me say upfront that I do not mind. 

It could certainly be described as a period rom-com political-thriller caper, built on the (apparently real) plot led by a cabal of millionaire American businessmen to depose President F.D. Roosevelt from the White House in 1933 and install a fascist regime.  This was to be fronted by a WWI military hero,  General Smedley Butler and Butler appeared to go along with the scheme, but only in order to discover its details and report them to the FBI.  No court cases followed. Well, they wouldn’t, would they? 

 

Amsterdam is beautifully lit, designed and costumed.  So it should be:  shot by Emmanuel Lubezki who has often collaborated with Terrence Malik and Alejandro Iñárritu;  designed by Judy Becker (as were Russell’s last three movies along with the immaculate Carol and Battle of the Sexes);  costumed by the veteran Albert Wolsky plus J. R. Hawbaker from American Hustle.    Amsterdam was edited by Jay Cassidy (as with American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook) with music from Daniel Pemberton (Trial of the Chicago 7).    I think they all add immensely to the richness of this movie.    And it is a rich and tasty stew.   

Of course the actors are terrific, especially the leading trio.   Christian Bale is obviously having enormous fun,  and that is so good to see.  John David Washington has found the gift of stillness - or inherited it from his father, and Margo Robbie is simply wonderful.  I am  also delighted to see Andrea Riseborough being given a role that suits her considerable talents - and yes, that means I do think she has accepted some unfortunate ones.   Russell has his own distinctive way of making a movie which some actors relish but others struggle with.   In some ways (only some) he follows Mike Leigh’s character development process.  Not all actors can cope with that, and the fact that Bale and De Niro keep coming back for more tells its own story.     

 

I have enjoyed Russell’s movies ever since 1999’s Three Kings, especially Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, and I enjoyed Amsterdam a lot.    It seems that some find it confusing or confused, but I say sit back and enjoy the ride.