Filmmaking is the work of Satan

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I just want to get your opinions. I am a junior in the filmmaking program at the University of Southern California.

The more I grow in my faith, the more blasphemy and sin offends my sensibilities. Well, it seems as if every new film that comes out has at least a nominal amount of expletives, violence, and sex. Most films are simply bad for your soul. At the worst, they inspire impure and violent thoughts. At their best, they present erroneous ideas that distract one from the spiritual life.

If one is really seeking silence and purity in order to hear God, mustn’t films be ruled out? I know that I can’t stand them. Even good films are, in a sense, evil. Take for instance the fact that millions of dollars are spent making films -if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Is this not a waste of money, no matter what the content? Has a film really changed your life? If so, was it really worth the incredible amount of money and man hours? Especially when many free things can change one’s life so much more dramatically. Example: a conversation with a stranger or friend, a helping hand, a hug, a mass, a rosary, a holy book. One can get more spiritual meat out of two masses or four rosaries than one can get in the time it takes to watch one film.

I see no use for film. Some say that films allow us to have compassion for our neighbors. Well, compassion means to “suffer with”. When we watch a film, we are not suffering with real humans; we are voyueristically wacthing fictional characters that we have no responsibility for. Shouldn’t we be taking the money it cost to buy that movie ticket and giving it to the homeless?

I despise filmmaking. I don’t read secular newspapers. I don’t watch television. I don’t spend much time (aside from what is neccesary for school) on the internet. It seems to be a total waste. I don’t like it at all. If anything, I see filmmaking as something that God permits…kind of like how he permits evil. And films like “The Passion of the Christ” are simply things like how “God can bring good even out of evil.”

The budget for “The Passion” was thirty million dollars. If the Vatican had thirty million dollars laying around, do you think they would give it to Mel Gibson to make another movie? If any of the saints had thirty million dollars, would they make a movie with it? I can’t justify it. I see any good that has come out of that film as good that God brought out of it in spite of the irresponsibility of filmmaking.

Certainly Catholic filmmakers who are already in the business and for whom it would be impractical to leave might have an excuse for making films. But other than that, I can’t justify it.

Great paintings cost very little to make, and have world-wide and timeless appeal. Great films cost extravagant amounts of money to make, and are only available to those with disposable income. Even then, few stand the test of time.

I really despise the film industry. Any thoughts?
 
jackpuffin said:
I really despise the film industry. Any thoughts?
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Here are my :twocents:

As I read your post, I must admit that it sounds very radical. I am all for standing up to Hollywood and their constant agenda to turn America into a secular society.

That being said, the film industry (just like newspapers, magazines, and the internet) is not, in itself, evil. It can be used for good. Yes, movies are expensive to make. However, I often wonder how many conversions movies such as The Passion of the Christ, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, or The Miracle of Our Lady at Fatima brought about. These movies may cause curiosity about Catholicism to stir in the minds of those watching. Isn’t this another form of evangelization? Pope John Paul II encouraged Catholics to make use of the new technologies constantly appearing in our world. These movies reach millions, and counter the constant flow of garbage from Hollywood.

Also, religious movies aren’t the only movies that affect society in a good way. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is very reflective of the Catholic faith. It represents the struggle of a few against the powerful forces of darkness, and mirrors our world today. When facing the struggles in my daily life, I sometimes think back to the perseverance displayed in that wonderful story.

Finally, you mentioned that we could spend our time much more productively than watching a movie. Although I agree that many people watch WAY too much TV, people really do need time to relax. Watching a good, classic movie is a fine way to wind down on the weekends. God doesn’t expect us to spend every waking moment of our lives studying theology. I recall St. Thomas Aquinas’ words: “It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.” We all need a break sometimes. 🙂

Pax Tecum!
 
Thank you for your thoughts! I must admit that I exagerated when I said that filmmaking was the work of Satan. Maybe it’s just not for me.

As far as relaxation goes, a walk in the park seems more relaxing than a movie…and it’s free! I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been reading too much about St. Francis. His extreme poverty did indeed cause a few “big wigs” in the Church to do a double take.

As this is my major in college though, you can imagine that all these issues have been troubling me. I should talk to a good priest about all this and see what he thinks.
 
I commend your practice of not indulging in the visual media, although that is something I don’t practice myself. It was a French director whose name I forgot, but he once said that all film is in one sense a form of pornography. I guess that like pornography most film provides a kind of escapism. There was a certain poster in these forums who thought, for example, that Mulholland Drive was somehow the Second Coming of Christ.

I think the problem of many movies is that they take themselves too seriously. As Samuel Goldwyn once said, “If you’re trying to deliver a message, try Western Union.” I liked the Passion of the Christ, but in the end it was just another film. I understand that some Orthodox were even troubled by the movie because they immediately thought of Jim Caviezel when they prayed. The way that film affects the way we visualize can be dangerous, even if the content is innocuous.

The book is better, anyway. 👍

You should read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Although it’s mainly about television (which is much worse than film) I think it applies as well.
 
jackpuffin said:
Great paintings cost very little to make, and have world-wide and timeless appeal. Great films cost extravagant amounts of money to make, and are only available to those with disposable income. Even then, few stand the test of time.

Any thoughts?
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Have you ever seen the Last Judgement of Michelangelo? Covers one entire wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. A great work certainly, a work for the ages.

The predominant colour in it is the vivid blue of the sky. Huge area of it. This blue was painted using an extremely expensive pigment made from ground-up lapis lazuli (semi-precious stone).

So no, paintings are not always inexpensive. Not to mention other equally harmless visual arts - sculpture, architecture and so on.

How much do you think the marble and gold and silver and stained glass used in St Peters basilica cost? Its creation spanned the reigns of several Popes who were quite ingenious and ruthless in some of their money-raising exploits, which were very necessary to finance its creation. The cost of its construction would absolutely comparable to the budgets of major Hollywood pictures.

And that is just one church (one of the home churches of Catholicism though it be). There are three other major (and nearly as costly) basilicas just in Rome.

Then think of all the Cathedrals built during the Middle Ages right across the towns and cities of Europe - Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral in England, Notre Dame, Chartres and Rheims in France, Cologne in Germany, Santiago de Compostela in Spain. You think they were done on the cheap? They too had marble, stained glass, gold and silver, so most certainly not.

So while a great painting can sometimes be done on the cheap - the art the Church has used to glorify itself and its God over the centuries is the opposite. Cost alone cannot be a consideration.

I don’t blame you for not liking the filmmaking machine of LA, but there are plenty of ways in which the craft itself can be used to edify, educate and to glorify God.

And, as Passion of the Christ showed, this can also be consistent with making a decent living out of it. Watch some Frank Capra next time you’re feeling pessimistic about the industry and see what it can be at its best.
 
Check out anything Walden entertainment makes. Very family-oriented there.
 
jackpuffin said:
As far as relaxation goes, a walk in the park seems more relaxing than a movie…and it’s free! I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been reading too much about St. Francis. His extreme poverty did indeed cause a few “big wigs” in the Church to do a double take.
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I agree…watching movies isn’t the most productive way to spend one’s time. However, it is certainly not sinful. If you feel compelled to give up TV, go for it! I think that’s an awesome idea. St. Francis is a wonderful saint to model your life after! 🙂
 
I admit that many of today’s films are mind- and soul-rotting trash.

Personally, I opt for older, and often foreign films, such as Robert Bresson’s Diary of A Country Priest (one of my all time favorites!). I recently saw The Song of Bernadette and Lilies of the Field. None of these films is the work of the devil! Granted, they are based on books, but the films are extraordinary works of art in and of themselves!

The problem is that in our society, the devil is what sells. Mel Gibson is one thing, but I’m afraid we shall never see an unknown Catholic filmmaker get any limelight, regardless of how brilliant, resourceful, creative, intelligent, or entertaining he or she may be. This is one of those cases where I would LOVE to be proven wrong, of course! 🙂
 
Remember, too, that sometimes movies can portray times, places, events, etc., that cannot be portrayed in real life or would be very hard/impossible to do. Seeing Ben Hur really brought on to me what it was actually like to be a slave in a Roman galley, for example; you can read about how they had them chained up like so and how fast they could go, but it’s nothing like seeing a couple score of sweating, stinking men pulling for their lives under the granite-voiced bellows of a Roman officer. It leaves an impression on you that is very hard to get from other forms of art, because when done properly it makes you feel like you’re really there.

Like everything else, it has power (vast power, in this case) to be abused; but when used properly it can give you a really vivid and accurate picture of what something/place/time was really like.
 
Even films that have no direct religious message can be helpful to us. After all, before film came along people read books for relaxation and amusement, neither of which are intrinsically wrong, but like all goods must be experienced in moderation.

One film that changed my life was the animated Ralph Bakshi version of Lord of the Rings. It prompted me to read the books, and the books helped in my conversion process that led me to the Catholic Church. So, I too feel you are overreacting here. Take a break from film, if you need to, but then come back to film with a better grasp on your own spirituality and you will see things with fresh eyes.
 
On the other hand, if you are majoring in film and have these strong feelings about it before even beginning a career, maybe you need to re-assess the path you are on in life.

We will always have decisions we regret in life as we don’t know everything about what we are deciding at the moments the decisions are made, but if you are having issues about it you should really reflect on this.

You obviously don’t want to put in the effort graduation will take only to find you despise your choice and toss your degree in the trash after school.

But again, to debate even my own proposal, seeing you are a Junior, you’ve done a lot of work and maybe you are just getting burned out and tired of being surrounded by one thing for the last 3 years – I know I got to that point in school at one time. The thing to do there is to work your tail off and get all your assignments done ahead of time so you can have a weekend or more to just do nothing and reflect on your life.

It never hurts to investigate further into the path you are on to confirm it is the best possible choice (I say “best possible” as opposed to “absolutely correct choice” since it is really tough to know if one’s path is absolutely correct.)

To some extent, I have some regrets about my career choice and am now in the “cage with the gold bars” as I have to support my family and to change now would jeopardize that and would be very tough to do-- so try to figure it out as best you can before you get too far down the road.

But as further encouragement to continue – Hollywood or the film industry could SERIOUSLY use some individuals such as yourself in it in order to make some better quality movies and avoid wasting millions on the garbarge they constantly churn out. I mean, seriously, do they really HAVE to make all the movies they do? So much trash and I agree in those cases that the money would be much better given to a good cause, but that is impossible to imagine ever happening so the next best thing would be just for them to try to make more meaningful and less degenerate films.

I ramble now, so I stop…🙂
 
Here are a couple of excellent articles about this topic - have a read and see what you think.

catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0411fea1.asp

decentfilms.com/sections/articles/2572

I’m interested in filmmaking too, and often think about the sheer cost of it as being one thing, above any other moral considerations, that might rule it out of being something which I’ll keep pursuing. Even to make a simple little amateur short on video is expensive, let alone a professional feature film with all that entails.

As for the question, “Can a film change a life?” I think the answer is yes - a good film, when joined with reflection and prayer, can change the viewer’s life in *some small way *at least. For me personally, I’ve always felt that one way that God speaks to me is through film, and art in general. Any film which prompts the viewer to think is immensely valuable.
 
While I do agree that there are too many awful and immoral movies being releaced anymore, I don’t agree that film making itself is evil. The Passion of the Christ brought about MANY converts. People who were complete sinners and would be considered beyond hope saw the movie and completely changed their lives.
A movie that truely touched me was Molokai: The Story of Fr. Damien. I would be very a upset with anyone who would call that movie evil. That movie inspired me to want to become a doctor and do missionary work.
I do see more and more decent movies coming out, and those movies surprisingly do well at the box office. Look at Lord of the Rings. Nothing immoral in those movies and people loved them. Like everything else society takes something good like movies and starts using them for bad purposes. And also like everything else you have to use your moral judgement to pick and choose which movies are morally accebtible to see.
 
The world could certainly use more filmmakers who tell the Truth.

I am currently reading A Landscape with Dragons by Micheal D. O’Brien. This book is about the infiltration of error into children’s entertainment culture. He talks a lot about literature, but also critiques popular films and television. He divides this culture into four rough categories:
  1. Material that is entirely good.
  2. Material that is fundamentally good but disordered in some detail.
  3. Material that appears good on the surface but is fundamentally disordered.
  4. Material that is blatantly evil, rotten to the core.
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He mentions that most new films and books only a few generations ago were generally of the first category, while today the industry has declined to the point of offering us a steady diet of the third category. Of course the fourth category is represented, more than we care to admit, but most of what comes into the mainstream for children is simply disordered.

All of us need to stand up and call evil by its name. We need to recognize the disordering of natural law and demand that it be fixed. Filmmakers who understand the difference between right and wrong will be in position to make a positive difference in the hearts and minds of a new generation.
 
I enjoyed many violent movies (like Matrix, V for Vendetta, Kill Bill etc…), will I go to hell for that?
 
Jackpuffin, are you familiar with ActOne? Barbara Nicolosi (check her blog here). Check these links out and see if that helps give you a new perspective. Hollywood need more people of faith not fewer. Read some of Barbara’s archives especially when she deals with burgeoning filmakers, writers and other in the biz. She’s pretty realistic and if someone’s expectains are off she doesn’t mince words.
 
Wow! After that diatribe against film I would recommend switching majors–tomorrow! You definitely aren’t just wavering; it sounds like you despise movies and their makers. Why would you continue on this career path?

I love a good movie. I agree that there is a lot of junk out there, but there are many thought provoking films that really can make a person grow. Some personal favorites of mine:

To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men (The Randy Quaid version)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Schindler’s List
Chariots of Fire
Fargo
Driving Miss Daisy
Doctor Zhivago
Farewell my Concubine
the Pianist

I could list hundreds more. I have read all of the books that these movies are based on, and no doubt, the book is almost always better than the film, but a film can visually transport you to a place.

There are also a lot of films that aren’t necessarily about big ideas, but that make me laugh. I love laughing. I feel so great after watching a really funny movie. For example, Planes, Trains and Automobiles makes me laugh even after I have seen it six times.
 
Whether you watch films or not is between you and God.

But many others do watch films. Movies and television, along with popular music, are major influences on U.S.A. culture and morals.

All Christians are called to be missionaries of Christ to people in our words or deeds and sometimes both.

A missionary needs to know the culture that they are working in and know the people that they are ministering to. If you are a Christian in the U.S., you need to understand films and other media and understand the people who watch films.

That doesn’t mean burying yourself in the theater for hours at a stretch. But it also doesn’t mean burying yourself in religious practices and ignoring films and their influence, unless God has called you to that.

Jesus told us to be salt of the earth. Salt is no good if it just stays in the saltshaker. It needs to be sprinkled around. A Christian in the filmmaking business WILL be salt, and influence an often evil industry toward good and God. Even if you are just a production assistant, God can use you in the business. You may not ever make a Passion of the Christ, but God will work through you.

If indeed filmmaking is your vocation, I urge you to do it will all your heard for the glory of God and ask Him to use you mightily to bring about His Kingdom on earth.

If filmmaking is NOT your vocation, I wish you Godspeed in whatever He calls you to.
 
Good grief that was one serious rant against films! Change majors immediately! Why make yourself and anyone who comes in contact with you in filmmaking miserable? My undergrad degree was Journalism (radio-TV-film) and I focused on gaining useful skills rather than the scummy parts of each industry. However, I knew that I was going to law school eventually, so working in an arena that deals with unpleasant people and events was in my future regardless. I think that as you get more life/work experience you will find that in this world you are going to have to deal with liars, cheats and otherwise unsavory people and situations in any career so at least find something that you find it personally satisfying to do regardless of coworkers, etc.
 
Bruised_Reed said:
Jackpuffin, are you familiar with ActOne? Barbara Nicolosi (check her blog here). Check these links out and see if that helps give you a new perspective. Hollywood need more people of faith not fewer. Read some of Barbara’s archives especially when she deals with burgeoning filmakers, writers and other in the biz. She’s pretty realistic and if someone’s expectains are off she doesn’t mince words.
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Thanks for those links - interesting stuff. I liked this bit, from the comments:

"If you want to appeal to the mass media consumers, start making hip 20 second bumpers for cell-phones.

If you want to create propaganda, go start a Christian ad agency and do some Christ-centric branding. I’m sure Nike with do backflips to corner the Passion-crowd. Just ask WWJD, and ignore the sweatshops.

If you want to make movies, go work in Bollywood. They make 13,000 a week.

If you want to convert the world through film, you’d have an easier time mixing crack in with the Holy Wine, and have to spend less on the sequels.

If you want to bring someone to Christ through film, good luck to ya. Film can barely sway people to buy popcorn at the concession stand, not talk on their cellphones during the movie, and clean up their trash when the credits roll. And that message’s got fancy graphics and a catchy song.

If you want to make cinema, then stop thinking about how many people you can brainwash and start working on your craft.

The goal of art is not to get the most people to see it, but to create it to bring the most glory to God, either by reflecting His goodness or illuminating the darkness. All other ambitions, particularly when coupled with the obscene amounts of money a “blockbuster”-type production costs, are vainglorious and border on Satanic."

(I’m not directing that at you jackpuffin, it’s just for general interest.)

What’s your signature from Reed?
 
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