Oliver Stone, coming off the successes of Platoon, Wall Street and Born on the Fourth of July wrote and directed JFK. Upon its release it was controversial for reasons that shall be explained, but for thematic reasons does well at answering the question: what exactly had America become post-World War II?

Despite its title, the film is not about the president who was famously assassinated in 1963. The movie itself is about the curious circumstances surrounding his death and the one man, Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), trying to prove that the circumstances were, in fact, peculiar.

The tone and tenor of the film are established within the first ten minutes beginning with a replaying of Eisenhower’s address to the nation upon his departure from the Office of the President. Famously in this speech, Eisenhower, warned the American people of a managerial, industrial apparatus with the sole purpose of creating weapons so powerful we can destroy ourselves with them; “The Military-Industrial Complex,” as it was termed by Eisenhower.

Kennedy was consistent in his opposition to this apparatus in public and private. Kennedy, in public addresses, had indicated a new tone for the country, a less apocalyptic tone, especially after his Cuban missile standoff with the Soviet Union. Kennedy had understood that the only reason such a situation could have ever occurred was because the United States (and the Soviet Union) had an entire class racing to a literal finish line: what Wendell Berry had termed, “the world-ending fire.”

Kennedy’s rejection of this apparatus, complex and class earned him a suspect reputation among the military-intelligence power brokers in Washington and viewed him as soft on the Soviet Union. Throughout this part of the film, Kennedy is delivering an address, likely to a college, rejecting this mentality and honing in on a vision oriented toward posterity, our own human mortality and children. The film cuts shortly after this to footage from the Zapruder tape and news coverage after Kennedy’s assassination. Immediately, Jim Garrison, a district attorney in New Orleans, and his office get to work as Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin, was from New Orleans. The only lead his office and the FBI had turned out to be a dead end. By this point, Lyndon Johnson had begun further planning for the war in Vietnam, the conflict that became emblematic of the military-industrial apparatus.

Everyone up to this point in the film, expresses their doubts around the curious circumstances of John Kennedy’s assasination, Garrison included. Garrison chats it with a liquored-up Senator (Walter Matthau); he exclaims: “One pristine bullet, that dog don’t hunt!” He is commenting on the validity of the Warren Commission, the committee formed to investigate the Kennedy Assassination. Upon hearing this Garrison begins to find inconsistencies and illegalities within the report.

Garrison, for most of the film, is piecing and weaving together different threads of the events, the circumstances and possibly a case so as to bring to trial men he thinks are partially responsible for the assassination of Kennedy. As he is piecing everything together, many potential witnesses refuse to testify or die under suspect circumstances. But the most important scene of the film, narratively and thematically is the conversation between Jim Garrison and Mr. X (Donald Sutherland), which occurs roughly two thirds into the film. The conversation details the extremely suspicious activities of the military-industrial-intelligence apparatus in the weeks and days leading up to the Kennedy Assassination.

In the aftermath of the Second World War and beyond, the intelligence wing of the American government had funded a number of operations that sought to contain communism at home and abroad. This came to be known as Black Ops. This is how Mr. X describes the pre and post-Kennedy assassination activities of the military bureaucracy, with the killing itself being one of them.

On the surface, one can accede to the position that the Kennedy assassination was a black operation. But much deeper than this and what this scene is emblematic of is the final entrenchment of a technological, managerial and bureaucratic system that had been built and has persisted into the 21st century. Its only purpose is to function according to the law of production, so long as the product is clean the people will be happy. As Donald Sutherland’s character aptly notes the “most basic organizing principle for any society, Mr Garrison, is war.”

War in this sense is closer to what we would call annihilation. Annihilation, namely, of your opponent. Kennedy’s assassination is this principle internally applied. The precise destruction of one’s enemy can only be the industrial production of weapons or the effect of industrial production upon weaponry. That Kennedy posed such a threat to the dismantling of this apparatus is why he had to go, is the logic the managerial state will use as a last defense.

Such a system should be at any degree, be inimical to any self-understanding catholic politics. Any historically aware catholic political thought will know that the Church is the inheritor and executor of the Roman political and juridical legacy, which is concerned primarily with virtue. The Church is above all, also, concerned with the harmonization among opposites and difference but the Roman Empire, the Church and later the Holy Roman Empire would settle these things concretely and justly without the total annihilation of their enemies.

To conclude, what Catholics can take from this film, is not necessarily fear but the distinct possibility that this how government functions, not according to laws but according to the cold logic of destruction.

Totalitarianism is evil. Plain and simple.

Whether it’s communism or fascism, it is incompatible with Catholicism. The opposition to totalitarianism goes as far back as Ancient Greece and has endured to this day, although the line of who’s on whose side has been drastically blurred. The modern-day Western “anti-fascist” fancies himself as a “freedom fighter” when, in reality, he is fighting for newer and much more oppressive overlords. While the true roots of antifascism act as a sort of crossroads for both “right and left” politics (if one believes in such a thing), it is undeniable that left-leaning politics and socialists were much more extreme and devoted adherents to this ideology, especially in post WWII Europe. This brings us to Costa-Gavras’s revolutionary political thriller Z, which, while it is a little left-leaning, is a true and authentic anti-fascist film worth seeing regardless of political affiliation.

Z is based on real events, and it pulls no punches, throwing accusations and villainizing those it sees as evil. Within the first 2 minutes, after being introduced to the cast, Z opens up with perhaps the most provocative opening ever made by a political film. Costa tears off the gloves and states up front in a freeze frame, “Any similarities to real persons or events are not coincidental. It is INTENTIONAL” (Intentional is really spelled in all caps).

Z focuses on the real-life murder of Greek politician Gregorius Lambrakis and the government collusion that led to it. This assassination led to chaos and a loss of faith in government and the Royal Court, which was subsequently taken over in a military coup that favored the assassins. Costa does change names, but the circumstances and events all remain the same. The film’s title is the zeta in the Greek word Zi (he lives), which was the symbol of protest in Greece after his assassination that was graffitied all over in solidarity.

The government in real life and in Z was right-wing. The film does not condemn anyone who is right, but merely condemns those who go about in the political sphere in extreme ways. It condemns corruption, murder, and about every other Shady act that a government can do. It reminds me of the astonishing documentary The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer, which very clearly shows that the lengths that some governments will go to fight communism or socialism have them becoming the very monsters that they are trying to save people from. Instead of winning on the ideas and in the Public Square, they resort to totalitarian tactics and become just as bad as the enemy.

Z gives the audience a look at the lengths an establishment will go to to maintain order. It is a living organism that will do anything to survive and continue. It will adapt, acquire, and remove any part of itself that dares threaten its own survival, and will stop at nothing or no one to do so. We see small pieces of it scattered throughout American politics, but never have we seen it in all its ugliness as Z shows Greece’s establishment.

Z’s power ultimately lies in its craftsmanship. Despite using mostly professional actors, including the legendary Yves Montand (Wages of Fear, Le Cercle Rouge, Grand Prix) as Z, this film feels about as real as real can get. It fits in the same vein as The Battle of Algiers, where the line between reality and film seems so blurred that it feels like a documentary. Every character feels real, and every scenario feels unscripted. Editor Françoise Bonnot put together one of the most incredibly edited films of the 1960s, and perhaps the 20th century. Her editing genius, combined with a wild score by Míkis Theodorakis, truly makes Z the most pulse-pounding political thriller of the 20th century. From the very first shot, it is evident to the audience that the gas pedal was all the way to the floor and will never be lifted up. The editing and pacing never feel nauseating, keeping the inertia up until the very end.

The film fundamentally understands what true oppression is and how to effectively bring it into the light. Unlike contemporary films such as One Battle After Another that merely LARP an oppression fetish, Z was made in a time and place of astounding corruption. This understanding of Oppression is a bipartisan issue that has existed as long as government has. The left-leanings of this film are definitely not lost in the shuffle. They do not come out as strong necessarily as something like Battleship Potemkin, but nevertheless they are present. It is a shame as a Catholic to watch the death of another Christian monarchy in Europe, yet understandable given the circumstances and the manner in which they conducted themselves.

Costa-Gavras’s masterful thriller saw massive underground success upon release. It was frequently shown at Black Panther Party meetings with unanimous positive consensus. The film has continued to gain respect and accolades for members of both sides of the aisle, including a resounding endorsement from critic Armond White. This bipartisan support for Z is a testament to the universality of its messaging and how film can have a political stance in which the audience can disagree with the film’s beliefs, yet sympathize with its themes. This creative tact is something modern mainstream Hollywood films desperately lack and perhaps lies at the core of why Hollywood feels so disconnected from the rest of the world.

Z is ultimately a film as revolutionary as the revolution that it tries to inspire in its audience. It stands as a testament to the power of filmmaking and to what it looks like when everything in a film works perfectly together. As problematic as Gavras is as a person, the quality and impact of his magnum opus is undeniable and something that needs to be seen by all. Such an intense and quality piece of art is something that must be handled and approached with care. My prayer for the future of this film is that people can extrapolate the importance of fighting true injustice and oppression from it; instead of feeling justified in fighting their enemies with more intense violence.

There have, of course, been political films since the earliest days of cinema. Man is a political animal and has always used art to express his views on the world and what is wrong with it in his eyes. D. W. Griffith used sweeping epic in Birth of a Nation to express his racialist view of the American project; Frank Capra’s more buoyant, optimistic, idealistic America shines through in comedy and drama such as You Can’t Take it With You, Meet John Doe, or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (#10). Film was used by both sides to great effect in World War II as a propaganda tool, shaping public opinion and arousing support for the war effort.

However, with the heating up of the Cold War, a new genre of film began to take shape in American cinema: the political thriller.1 The 1950s, 60s, and 70s were decades of great paranoia in American life. On the one hand, the country had never been so prosperous, powerful, and patriotic. On the other hand, the specters of Communist infiltration or nuclear annihilation loomed large in the public consciousness. American power was at its zenith, but also always on the brink of utter destruction by nefarious forces from the East. High profile discoveries of Soviet infiltrators such as the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss proved that this fear was not simply baseless paranoia; there were indeed Communists among us, passing secrets to the Soviets and working to undermine the American way of life. This cultural milieu was the perfect breeding ground for a new genre of film.

In 1962, John Frankenheimer pretty nearly perfected the new genre with The Manchurian Candidate. The film manages to package nearly all the fear and emotion of the Kennedy administration into one two-hour package. This film was released at the very height of the Cold War, right in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. It’s not a conservative or right-wing film; John Frankenheimer was very close with the Kennedys and the film’s McCarthy-like Sen. Iselin is as unlikable as the Communists. However, it plays directly on the fear of Communist willingness to use emerging technological advances to infiltrate American society and destroy our way of life. It’s a tight, well-constructed thriller that draws the viewer right into the paranoia and terror of the Cold War, and deserves its reputation as a political classic.

In my endeavor to avoid spoilers, I can give only a brief sketch of the plot and engage with its themes, but there is so much that could be discussed about the brilliance of Frankenheimer’s direction in The Manchurian Candidate. The film follows two men, Capt. Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) and Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Lawrence Harvey), who were captured by Communists while fighting in the Korean War and brainwashed to accomplish a Soviet mission back in America. They are not dyed-in-the-wool communists following this brainwashing; they are only under Soviet control when certain hypnotic triggers are performed to accomplish certain missions. Marco is plagued by dreams, subconscious memories of the brainwashing which fill him with horror. In these dreams, he sees Shaw brutally murder two other members of their unit under Soviet hypnosis. Marco, an Army intelligence officer, makes it his mission to uncover the truth of these dreams and if possible foil the Soviet plans for Raymond Shaw.

The film is masterfully constructed, with the tension slowly ratcheted up as we see the depths of Soviet control over Shaw’s mind and the lengths he will go under hypnosis to achieve his mission. The film is astonishingly brutal, and Frankenheimer is unafraid to shock his audience with Communist cruelty. He also plays the characters against each other beautifully, sometimes aloof and unlikable, sometimes incredibly sympathetic just in time for the Soviets to torture them. The cinematography and lighting takes its cues from classic noir, with deep shadows, excellent composition, and well-timed dutch angles contributing to the unsettling feeling of the film. However, it also feels extremely modern at times, with the focus softening in certain shots to create a sense of fuzziness and disorientation. The brainwashing scene is one of the most disorienting and terrifying scenes of this era of film, with a constantly revolving camera, actors and characters being swapped with each other as the subconscious fluctuates between seeing a ladies’ garden party and a Communist Party meeting, and brutality juxtaposed with nonchalant indifference. Frankenheimer’s meticulous construction of this film makes it an absolute masterpiece.

The performances are also excellent, with perhaps Sinatra’s best acting performance of his career as the dogged Capt. Marco and Harvey’s oft-robotic Shaw riding the line between unlikable and sympathetic. Supporting turns from Janet Leigh and Leslie Parrish as love interests keep the film from being too dour, but even these relationships are in jeopardy as the film rushes towards its conclusion. I would also be remiss if I did not mention Angela Lansbury’s superb role as Shaw’s controlling mother, playing against type in a magnificent way. Shaw’s relationship with his mother is openly compared to Orestes and Clytemnestra, one of the reasons Shaw was so suggestible to Soviet hypnosis. For this character to work, she has to be utterly vile and Lansbury accomplishes this in a chilling performance.

Overall, The Manchurian Candidate is a window into the American psyche of the early 1960s. Its sense of paranoia, its dread of Soviet evil, and its patriotic sensibilities all contribute to a gripping thriller that was perfectly attuned to its audience. Even now, nearly 65 years later, it has the power to shock, thrill, and disturb a modern audience. It’s a powerful film which has inspired many imitators over the years but in my view none surpasses it in style or substance. It is well worth a watch2 and will provoke much thought and discussion between cinephiles and history buffs. I wish I could delve a bit deeper into the characters and themes, but that would ruin the experience, so I will leave you simply with this final thought:

Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful man I've ever known in my life.

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At no point in my life have I ever wanted to be in politics. The layers of subterfuge, intrigue, and the insurmountable mechanizations of governmental bureaucracy provide little appeal. It is, however, a reality we all feel the effects of daily as ordinary citizens. While many do courageously enter this arena, faith in established institutions continues to erode. Events over the past decade have caused a warranted sense of unease and distrust. But suspicion in government is hardly a new sentiment, as is nothing under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Faced with such events as the Red Scare, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and Vietnam, previous generations turned to film, giving the highly effective thriller genre a political twist.

The political thriller is best defined by a central conflict that is political in nature, rather than merely using politics as a backdrop. Typical characteristics revolve around the notion of paranoia, namely the conspiratorial nature of governments and crimes against their citizenry, often with plots of assassination and other clandestine activity around cover-ups. Academic and screenwriter Pablo Castrillo identifies three further elements of the genre, noting that such films often revolve around an everyman protagonist who is out of his element when confronting forces far more powerful than he, an investigation to uncover the truth, and a backdrop situated among actual historical events or, in the very least, one that is plausible.1

The power of the genre lies in its immediacy. Films with settings alien to everyday life often require more audience legwork to connect how the message might impact their own lives. Political thriller films thrive on a pervasive sense of imbalance within a backdrop that corresponds to the audience’s reality, triggering an acute feeling of fragility. When well executed, the genre can be widely entertaining. But more importantly, it can invite audiences to not place all their faith in human institutions and ask, what if not everything we are told by these institutions is true? Director Costa-Gavras used his seminal film Z (1969) as a scintillating critique of a Greek dictatorship’s corrupt practices, including challenging the narrative around the assassination of a renowned democratic politician. Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) sought to question the official government narrative surrounding the Kennedy assassination. Using a gripping narrative structure, these films can elicit a thoughtful consideration of such events, all while remaining within the realm of dramatization.

The antagonists of the political thriller are those grounded in reality, that is, those tied to real historical entities or pervading anxieties of the era. Films in the 1920s and 1930s established the genre’s narrative vocabulary, with early iterations depicting anarchists and local European agents as boogeymen. Fritz Lang’s 1928 Spione follows a Russian spy seducing an Eastern European colonel into betraying his government. With the onset of the Second World War, the obvious enemy became the Nazis, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940) reflecting the anxieties of a world on the brink of war, following a reporter attempting to expose an international spy ring intent on upsetting the fragile pre-war balance. The Cold War saw the true proliferation of the genre, focusing on the threat of communist infiltration and the backlash of McCarthyist paranoia. From this backdrop emerged the first full-fledged political thriller in film history, The Manchurian Candidate (1962). In a dizzying labyrinth of paranoia and fear, the film sowed the seeds of what would become a genre hallmark, mistrust and pessimism within a framework of invisible governmental power structures. This was the first film to properly explore a conspiracy within the American government, suggesting that this institution may have been infiltrated or corrupted.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a series of cataclysmic political events that provided ample inspiration for the budding genre. The assassinations of Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., along with Vietnam and Watergate, ushered in the golden age of the genre, where feelings of paranoia transformed into a full-on perception of a systemic conspiracy. These gritty films utilized documentary-style techniques, relying on a dark, grainy aesthetic to immerse the viewer in a world very much their own. Notable entries include The Parallax View (1974), involving an investigation into the assassination of a U.S. senator by a shadowy organization, and ultimately, All the President’s Men (1976), which followed historical events closely with a journalist’s uncovering of the Watergate conspiracy.

The following decades saw the genre achieve a more mainstream status, while broadening its focus to include corporate influence, intelligence agencies, terrorism, and media manipulation. In the Line of Fire (1991) and Enemy of the State (1998) blend big-budget action with familiar genre tropes, focusing on shadow agencies and terrorism. With the close of the Cold War and the boom of the late ‘80s, political thrillers tended to place their anxiety elsewhere, focusing on terrorism and big corporations and legal entities. Tom Clancy novels provided ample inspiration for a slew of thrillers with a political twist, including The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, and Patriot Games (1993), which perfectly encapsulated the age’s current boogeyman, IRA terrorists during “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland.

Following 9/11, political thrillers were forced to reckon with the threat of terrorism with a heightened and critical focus on the intelligence operatives that were supposedly protecting citizens from these dangers. Spielberg’s Munich (2005), the third entry in what many scholars call his 9/11 trilogy, grapples with the question of state-sponsored vengeance and the fallout of a terrorist attack. As the decade progressed, thrillers again turned a critical eye to the covert operations of certain government agencies, with the Bourne series focusing on a man trained as a weapon by the American intelligence apparatus. Following the characteristics of the genre, after an episode of memory loss, Bourne embarks on an investigative journey to discover how these shadowy agencies operated and where he received his training. The political thriller also enjoyed an appearance in the MCU with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), which adapted familiar genre tropes through a superhero lens. Steve Rogers learns that the organization he served (S.H.I.E.L.D.) has in fact become infiltrated by Hydra.

As the tumultuous events of 2020 and beyond began to be reflected in cinematic language, faith in institutions continued to deteriorate to the point where the focus became less about corruption within the government and more about what would happen if the entire order as we know it collapsed. 2024’s Civil War provides a perfect example of this post-COVID frame of mind. The political consensus has already collapsed, and the film focuses less on putting together who did what than on simply witnessing events as they unfold. It’s a signal to the fact that perhaps people have become less confident that political reality can actually be understood. As the decade comes to a conclusion, it will be interesting to see how this genre develops, with a plethora of significant world events that could provide influence.

Political thrillers are essential in understanding the anxieties of the age and challenging the viewer to ask difficult questions about the institutions they live under. Another valuable element of the genre includes its focus on the ordinary everyman, an aspect that many will find it easy to relate to. As Castrillo notes, “[the genre’s] characters are human beings subject to the same limitations and prone to the same weaknesses as the viewers, and the world, society, and institutions respond to them in ways that are at once familiar and ordinary.”2 We are often learning alongside them as they stumble toward the truth, making for a particularly compelling experience. In All the President’s Men, a pair of inexperienced, young reporters suddenly find themselves led to the highest levels of government by their investigation. In Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), his protagonist is a highly ordinary man who has a sense of neurosis. There is nothing extraordinary about him besides his commitment to the truth, which leads him to uncover a corporate conspiracy, simply because he would not back down from his investigation. While not every film in the genre ends on a happy note or with the perfect revelation, what the genre does is help show that ordinary people, even when faced with insurmountable odds or extremely powerful organizations, can in fact make a difference. Everyone who speaks out against corruption, sheds light on a cover-up, and simply questions the narrative can make a positive impact.

Thus, our next series will examine this fascinating genre in detail, highlighting five films throughout history that are worth exploring in more detail. We believe that film can inspire positive change while being entertaining. We hope that you will enjoy this series and look forward to your thoughts and observations in the comments.

My first exposure to Terrence Malick was rather unconventional. As a college freshman perusing my library’s DVD stacks, I still remember being intrigued by a brightly colored keep case featuring a guitar and one of my favorite actors – Ryan Gosling – on the cover. As soon as I put it into my portable player, I was immediately floored. I had never been to Texas before, but it looked breathtaking.

This was Song to Song, and it was my unconventional path to discovering one of my favorite directors.

Set in Austin, Song to Song is a time capsule of the contemporary music scene, both “do-it-yourself” indie musicians and polished record companies. Struggling independent songwriter Faye (Rooney Mara) is looking for her big break, and after meeting record producer Cook (Michael Fassbender), she hooks up with him under the illusion of stardom.

At the same time, she meets singer-songwriter B.V. (Gosling), one of Cook’s clients who becomes a genuine friend of hers. The central drama comes from this love triangle: while Faye and B.V. grow closer in pure romance, Cook keeps dangling the prize of fame and pushing her more in a secret relationship she clearly does not want. Things go from bad to worse as Cook hooks up with Rhonda (Natalie Portman), a waitress desperate for money, and Faye realizes that Cook was just using her. As Cook love-bombs Rhonda with illusions of true love, she begins to feel uncomfortable with his hard-partying lifestyle, and B.V. and Faye eventually reconnect and live simpler lives.

Malick’s command of parallel narratives help capture the spectrum of modern relationships. B.V. and Faye chase a high-energy romance typical of contemporary “young love” narrative, but Faye’s initial infidelity burns her out as she fails to see B.V.’s authenticity and honest commitment. Cook, by contrast, treats love and people as business deals he needs to “win,” projecting his lust and flaws onto others through coercive control. Rhonda’s grounded devotion is different from any other character in the film, and becomes the easiest character to root for when escaping Cook’s vicious cycle.

Unconventional yet rather masterful, this main love triangle illustrates the dizzying cycle of working in the music industry, or any field of cultural production. The Austin music scene forms a backdrop for the film that is as chaotic as the relationships it centers. B.V. feels like an outsider among the excess and power dynamics of the industry, as his musical style contrasts with the scene’s vision. Faye’s career anxiety swallows her whole as she falls into an abusive relationship. Cook doesn’t create music but considers himself a “visionary” who treats both talented musicians and romantic partners as assets to own and manipulate.

Every character’s search for a big break fuels their emotional instability, and the loud concerts and crowded greenrooms make it difficult for any intimate moments. Personal connections are warped by “grind culture” and shallow networking, and every single person brought into the scene becomes progressively lonelier. It is only by leaving this bohemian lifestyle that true freedom and happiness are found by BV and Faye, as their reconnection comes from both partners understanding and showing their true selves.

Roger Ebert writes that Malick’s films have a unifying theme: “Human lives diminish beneath the overarching majesty of the world.”

Song to Song’s sun-drenched Texas landscape is open and free, contrary to the trapped, shallow nature of the music industry that Malick is portraying. This “majesty,” however, also comes from the narrative’s explicit ties to Texas, evoking the literary technique of local color. The importance of genuine art and genuine relationships are deep concepts, but when intertwined with Austin bars, venues, and landmarks, the deep narrative stays grounded in reality.

Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography helps expand this “majesty” as well. Fresh off the high of two Oscar wins when he shot this, Lubezki’s camera work physically forces the audience into the disorientation that characters feel throughout the film. His close-up shots go right into actors’ faces, distorting the frame and making the whole world around them feel natural and unstable. But in the rare instances of a character being alone, the wide-angle shots make the city of Austin much larger, allowing a short period of meditation among the chaos. Viewers are reminded of the big picture as the scene slows down, as musicians being dwarfed shows how big the scene, and the world, is compared to their individual desires. They are isolated among the industry’s massive engines, and their loneliness in a big world becomes their solace.

But the most impressive use of Lubezki’s skills comes in how he embraces a hallmark of Malick’s work: natural lighting. Texas’s iconic “golden hours,” that brief scenic window where the sun hits at the right time, creates a soft and warm atmosphere that enhances the romantic or nostalgic scenes. The more intense moments have a sliver of light fading and leaving characters in the dark, creating a sense of fleeting beauty. Lubezki uses natural light as a countdown, where actors briefly chase it before it disappears – right as their characters’ temporary fame and superficial relationships crumble.

Malick’s deep personal ties to Austin are amplified with Lubezki’s mastery of lighting techniques, especially in an age where blockbusters are saturated with complicated visual effects. There’s no artificial overlighting here, and the naturally vibrant cities and landscapes anchor the film’s emotional core. Alongside the music scene chaos and local color, Lubezki’s natural light frames Song to Song as a “Texas story” that truly cannot be set anywhere else.

While critics may call Song to Song’s nonlinear storytelling and love triangles “shallow,” the film stands out among Malick’s modern work because of its reminder that good art comes from being your full self. A city with a vibrant music scene is the perfect place to explore spiritual redemption, as hedonism leaves characters feeling unfulfilled. B.V. and Faye face sufferings together at the hand of Cook, whose pride, greed, and corrupting influence call to mind the Devil. But rather than physical pain, their suffering is emotional – associated with broken trust, shallow desires, and empty pleasures, before finding a path towards becoming authentic artists and authentic people. The conclusion is a reconciliation, as Faye’s vulnerability and forgiveness offers her soul the healing it deserved.

B.V. and Faye’s exploitation becomes a catalyst for a simple truth: that making beautiful art, art that nourishes the soul, is a pathway to a better life. The music industry’s superficiality and exploitation, in the name of secular gods like “fame,” caused them to forget why they became artists. Remembering that art is a tool for beauty led them back to a righteous path, even if they were broken coming into it.

While it is a later and more experimental entry, Song to Song might be a perfect introduction to Terrence Malick for fans of contemporary cinema. Characters, plot points, and scenes fade away like they’re songs on an album, and the distinctly modern setting balances a timeless philosophy on creativity. While the central lovers’ actions are frustrating at times, the grand, stunning scenes serve as foreshadowing that everything will be okay once they escape.

Content warning: Song to Song is rated R for sexual scenes and strong language. There’s a lot of value to be found in this film, but some portrayals of sexual themes may be troubling. I recommend using DoesTheDogDie, VidAngel, or your good ol’ fast forward button if it gets uncomfortable.

The New World is a work of quiet, aching beauty. Imbued with a sense of melancholy and reverence, it is often overlooked amidst a filmography that has produced the likes of The Tree of Life and A Hidden Life. Uncompromising in his artistic vision, Malick’s film proved hard for many to absorb, with its meandering narrative, frequent voiceovers, and highly picturesque rendering of the events surrounding the founding of the Jamestown Colony. Malick’s aesthetics are certainly polarizing throughout his body of work, perhaps because they demand something of the viewer. Art is not meant to be passive, and Malick’s films, more than most others, demand a response, an immersion, and most of all, a slowing down. Within this framework, The New World offers a work of remarkable philosophical depth, celebrating the beauty of God’s creation and the inherent dignity of mankind while meditating on encounter, the loss of innocence, and the search for identity.

Taking place in early Colonial America, The New World situates itself as an origin story, both in national terms and in terms of human transformation. The opening sequence is a jaw-dropping affair, depicting the viewpoint of the Powhatan natives as they see the white sails of the English ships entering their waters for the first time. Ever known for his exquisite taste in music, Malick sets the scene to Wagner’s Prelude to Das Rheingold, a shimmering piece that Wagner used to build a sense of space and wonder of creation for the Rhine River. This is an apt thematic choice, for not only does Malick’s film capture this wonder, but much of it revolves around a sense of mystery and anticipation as the two cultures collide.

What The New World does particularly well is balance a sense of grounded historical realism with Malick’s high artistry. The panning woodland shots with sunlight bursting through the trees never seem to detract from the sense of place that the film establishes. Few films have sought to bring the early colonial age to life, and fewer still have managed to do so with any degree of historical accuracy. From a linguistic perspective, the extinct language of the Powhatan tribe (a derivative of Virginian Algonquian) was painstakingly reconstructed so that the natives could speak it onscreen. Similar to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto, this commitment to historical immersion pays dividends, adding an extra layer of authenticity. For the sets and locations, the production team consulted Jamestown archaeologists to construct realistic Powhatan housing and early colonial structures. However, Malick chose to stray from the hard facts of history for the emotional and thematic core of the film: the romance of John Smith and Pocahontas. Many historians have concluded that there was no actual love affair between Smith and Pocahontas; rather, it was a legend that has been romanticized and passed down through history in many artistic renditions. It is a legend, however, that served as the perfect vehicle for Malick’s thematic and aesthetic exploration.

The New World also marked the first collaboration between Malick and legendary cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, an artistic partnership that would go on to bear great fruit. Lubezki’s naturalistic visual style proved perfectly suited to the director’s poetic aesthetic. Shooting entirely in natural light, he was able to tap into a sense of the primal sacred. Removed from the artificiality of studio lighting, he gave the landscapes room to breathe and to evoke a sense of awe and wonder. This sense of beauty is a distinguishing characteristic of his work, yet many of Malick’s detractors like to dismiss his films as “too pretty.” Critic Tom Gunning argues in the Criterion edition liner notes for the film that “admittedly, [Malick’s] often breathtaking images may conceal the radical nature of his filmmaking, since in the modern era, serious art often prefers the discordant or the everyday, and avoids the comfort that ‘lovely images’ seem to offer. But rather than reassuring, Malick’s images inspire the awe associated with the sublime.”1 This speaks to the core of Malick’s vision. His images are not beautiful merely for their own sake; countless films are visually attractive. Malick’s beauty leads one beyond the surface to an encounter with the divine.

As with many of his films, Malick looks extensively to Sacred Scripture for inspiration. The New World nods to Genesis with Edenic imagery. In one sense, the pure, untouched natural vistas of the New World are a kind of Eden: unblemished and inherently good. The whole film can be read as a kind of Genesis story, as man goes from a state of natural innocence to one burdened by original sin. Malick is careful not to lean into a simplistic dichotomy by depicting the English settlers as inherently evil while exalting the natives as idealized noble savages. But he does use the contact and assimilation of the native tribes as a metaphor for the loss of original innocence. It’s a film about encounters and about identities. Both cultures are forced to encounter the other and to learn to understand their ways and, in a sense, lose their innocence. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Pocahontas and John Smith.

The film’s narrative largely centers around Pocahontas (played masterfully by Q’orianka Kilcher), following her journey from a young native girl prancing about the meadows to a fully Anglicized married woman walking gracefully through the English throne room. Malick utilizes parallels with the Book of Ruth, which centers on the theme of an outsider moving inward to find a sense of belonging while also experiencing a sense of loss for the identity left behind. Ruth is a Moabite woman, part of a nation completely foreign to Israel (and viewed with some hostility). She marries an Israelite. When he dies, faced with the decision to return to her Moabite people or remain with Israel, she proclaims:

Do not urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.” (Ruth 1:16–17)

This very much echoes Pocahontas’s journey, as she eventually assimilates into the English settlement and begins an edifying marriage with Englishman John Rolfe. Malick never shies away from the pain of loss Pocahontas feels when leaving her way of life, nor does he minimize the pain that the native peoples felt as they lost their homeland. However, it is Pocahontas’s transformation, embrace of, and adaptation to her new way of life that make for the film’s dynamism. She approaches everything with a sense of wonder and respect. When she arrives in England, she marvels at the architectural wonders and the fine dresses. She gives birth to an English son and loves him dearly. There is indeed sadness for what was left behind and a recognition that it was good, but in The New World, Malick is able to articulate this fundamental notion of change, a notion to which many parallels can be drawn. From the Catholic perspective, there is the notion of God’s call in the life of vocation, which invites one to a life of transformation, to leave good things behind, but ultimately to choose a new identity in Christ. Pocahontas’s story remains the core of the film and something that elevates an aesthetically beautiful experience to the universal.

While Malick has created many masterful films, The New World deserves a moment of appreciation. It is a truly beautiful film and makes for an edifying and meditative watch. Watching the director’s cut is the way to go, as that most closely aligns with Malick’s vision. A Malick is a rich experience, it will demand a response, an immersion, and most of all, a slowing down.

“This great evil, where does it come from?”

In the stacked year of 1998, we were blessed with two of the best WWII films ever made. In July, Spielberg changed the war film genre with Saving Private Ryan, masterfully displaying the brutality of the infamous Omaha Beach and the European theater. While it would be the third most successful film of 1998, another (and arguably better) WWII film would slip in at the end of the year to offer its own distinct and introspective voice: The Thin Red Line. While Malick’s dramatic reentry into the film industry after 20 years was met with somewhat mixed reception and a modest box-office return, I can confidently say it has aged like fine wine, firmly cementing itself as one of the greatest war films ever made.

The Thin Red Line depicts the long and grueling campaign of Guadalcanal. Guadalcanal was one of the more crucial campaigns in the Pacific theater, resulting in significant losses of territory and positions for the Empire of Japan. The more than 6-month conflict was a hard-earned but decisive American victory, further forcing a Japanese retreat after the turning point of Midway. The film is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by James Jones (From Here to Eternity), which depicts 3 different soldiers’ responses to combat and trauma.

Malick, in an unsurprising manner, takes a rather unconventional approach by having the film less narrative-based and more meditative. The Thin Red Line delves into war, the cost of victory, and the impact we have on the world around us. In this massive star-studded cast, the film seems to primarily focus on the struggles of Sean Penn’s character and Jim Caviezel’s. Gym plays a conscientious objector who flees from combat to live with natives of local Islands, but he’s caught and sent back to the front by Sean Penn. The dynamic between these two sets the tone for most of the film. This main dynamic is the relationship between man and nature. This is not from a merely material stance from the perspective that but a more spiritual understanding of the Earth and the responsibility that man has to keep it, which was given to him in the Garden of Eden. The beauty of the Pacific Islands and the people who inhabit them is consistently juxtaposed with the brutality and carnage of modern warfare. Our characters consistently reflect on this world and the role we play in it, barraging us with an inner monologue that feels distinct to the individual yet applicable to all. Caviezel’s character is perhaps the most sensitive to this, and has a deeply satisfying character arc that shows him discover a more selfless way in expressing his love for humanity.

This is just one of the many characters featured in The Thin Red Line. Part of the joy of watching the film is discovering and watching them interact with each other. The Thin Red Line’s lack of focus on one character is what adds to the grandeur of it. The sheer quantity of A-list actors that practically volunteered for the film upon hearing of Malick’s return was staggering, and left him with the unenviable task of turning down A-listers like Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Gary Oldman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Viggo Mortenson, and Martin Sheen. So many characters are featured in the film; Bill Pullman and Mickey Rourke’s characters didn’t even make the final cut. Despite having to gallop through so many over less than 3 hours, Terrence manages to give each character their own distinct personality and enough time to grow within the world of the Pacific Theater.

I would argue that there is hardly any war film that isn’t “anti-war”. Even the so-called propaganda films of the 1940’s didn’t shy away from the profound sadness of war. As a regular consumer of the genre, I have yet to find one that truly says “Yeah, war is awesome, let’s go!” Thin Red Line takes war to another level, however, and asks its audience to meditate on the true “Why” of war. It elevates the audience to more than just being observers, but instead active participants in the discussion. This creative gesture has always elevated Terrence Malick above most of his contemporaries.

The scale of The Thin Red Line is truly massive. Cinematographer John Toll does a career-defining job with some of the greatest cinematography of the modern Hollywood era. Battles feel grand yet intimate, visceral yet clean, and sweeping yet grounded. I frequently find myself in awe of the spectacle being presented without being distracted from the messaging. There are tracking shots in here that belong in the top 10 of all time, and I am awe-struck to think how they were even pulled off. The beauty of nature is on such display, in perfect sync with one of Hans Zimmer’s more underrated scores, that most of the shots could be used as high-quality wallpapers or paintings.

The Thin Red Line is one of the ultimate cinematic experiences. Through brilliant direction, what could have been a by-the-books soldier memoir is elevated to an extraordinary meditation on man, nature, and God. Beautiful cinematography, excellent acting, impeccable scoring, and high-quality storytelling all come together to make one of the greatest war films ever made.

What’s funny about Days of Heaven is that it is in many ways a remake of Malick’s previous film, Badlands.

Both films follow a young couple who flee after the man (in this case, Richard Gere) commits murder. However, unlike Badlands, this is not based on a true story, and the murder was an accident.

Thus begin the comparisons to the Book of Exodus, and the Steinbeckian influence of The Book of Genesis on the next three decades of Malick’s work.

“Whatever Cathy may have been, she set off the glory in Adam. His spirit rose flying and released him from fear and bitterness and rancid memories. The glory lights up the world and changes it the way a star shell changes a battleground.” (East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Chapter 13, Section 2)

“I went to work in the mill. Couldn't wait to get in there. Begin at 7:00. Got to have a smile on your face. And one day you wake up, you find you're not the smartest guy in the world. Never gonna come up with the big score. When I was growin' up, I thought I really would.” - Bill (Richard Gere), Days of Heaven

On January 17, 1917, Emil Avimalg Malick was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, not far from New York City.

Baptized a Presbyterian, he grew up a strong, capable boy, who excelled at everything he touched, including becoming an accomplished pianist and organist.

Five years prior, Irene Thompson was born to a large Irish Catholic family that lived on farmland not far from Chicago, where she was destined to meet Emil Malick. They married on June 26, 1942, moving to Alexandria, Virginia during a very tumultuous period for the nation.

Prior to the move, Malick had enlisted in the Navy as an officer, before being moved to the Power Plant Division of the Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington D.C. However, he continued his passion for music, helping support his family with recitals featuring a range of music from “the Londonderry Air to J.S. Bach”.1

These were the parents of Terrence Frederick Malick, born on a Tuesday, November 30, 1943 in Ottawa, Illinois: Irene wanted to be home near her family’s farmland for the birth of their first child.

Terrence would eventually come to live the majority of his adolescent life in the suburbs of Waco, Texas, but at heart his roots were planted in the soil of American Midwest farmland.

Malick was sent to boarding school in the fall of 1955, 110 miles away from his family in Waco at St. Stephen’s Episcopal High School, near Austin.

Here lay the roots of Days of Heaven, as quoted in Malick’s last-ever recorded interview given in 1979:

It was in Austin, Texas that I had the idea for ‘Days of Heaven.’ I found myself alone for a summer in the town I had left when I was a high school student. There were those green, undulating hills, and the very beautiful Colorado river. The place is inspired. It is inspiring, and there the film came to me all together. It would be difficult for me to make a film about contemporary America today. We live in such dark times and we have gradually lost our open spaces. We always had hope, the illusion that there was a place where we could live, where one could emigrate and go even further. Wilderness, this is the place where everything seems possible, where solidarity exists—and justice—where the virtues are somehow linked to this justice. In the region where I grew up, everyone felt it in a very strong way. This sense of space disappearing, we nevertheless can find it in cinema, which will pass it on to us There is so much to do: it’s as if we were on the Mississippi Territory, in the eighteenth century. For an hour, or for two days, or longer, these films can enable small changes of heart, changes that mean the same thing: to live better and to love more. And even an old movie in poor and beaten condition and can give us that. What else is there to ask for?

Malick gives what I would call a pretty atypical answer for that younger period of his life. I think, if asked now about his inspiration for Days of Heaven, he would see that it’s a lot more autobiographical than it lets on.

There is a recurring kind of character in Malick’s films, typified first by Martin Sheen’s stoic murderer Kit in Badlands. We’ll call him the Wild Man. In Badlands, Sissy Spacek’s Holly chooses to be with the Wild Man over the Good Man, her father, who sees the evil in Kit and refuses to let his daughter be with him, before Kit kills him.

The Good Man is less of a risk-taker than the Wild Man, and is only drawn out by the appearance of the Woman.

In The Thin Red Line, a whole mix of these two kinds of men are pitted against each other amongst the American Forces in Japan in World War II, with Jim Caviezel’s Pvt. Witt representing the Good Man and Sean Penn’s 1st Sgt. Welsh the Wild. In The New World, Pocahontas must choose between the Colin Farrell’s ex-mercenary John Smith and Christian Bale’s English farmer John Rolfe.

In The Tree of Life, the Woman melds with the Good Man in the form of the protagonist’s mother, Mrs. O’Brien, played by Jessica Chastain, and the Wild Man is characterized by Mr. O’Brien, played by Brad Pitt. Young Jack (Hunter McCracken) must choose whose moral exemplar he must follow. (The name “O’Brien” was chosen for the family after Malick’s maternal Irish grandmother, Katherine “Kitty” O’Brien, a version of whom is actually portrayed in Tree of Life briefly by Fiona Shaw.)

In Days of Heaven, after fleeing from Chicago into the American heartland of the Texas Panhandle (although the film was primarily shot in Alberta, Canada) Bill (Gere), his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams), and his younger sister Linda (Linda Manz) must start a new life working on the land of a wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard, whose character is never named).

Bill and Abby keep their relationship a secret, telling the many other workers they encounter that they are brother and sister to avoid any suspicion. The rich Farmer, who is far more shy than the wild Bill, begins to take a liking to Abby; however, he also finds out that he only has one year to live from his doctor from a terminal illness.

One thing leads to another, and soon the newly motivated Farmer, aroused by his short lease on life, asks for Abby’s hand in marriage. Abby, shocked, asks Bill what to do, and he tells her to accept, knowing full well that the Farmer will die within a year and they can inherit his wealth. Abby, though conflicted, accepts.

Bill, Abby, Linda, and the Farmer all end up living in a twisted Eden, living an isolated but happy life, until the Farmer begins to pick up that Bill and Abby may not exactly be brother and sister.

Throwing another wrench into the situation, Abby begins to fall deeply in love with her husband despite her continued, secret faithfulness to Bill. And from there, everything begins to crumble.

Bill’s murder back in Chicago of a foreman— a tussle that didn’t mean to get that far— still marked him just as Cain’s murder of Abel did, and the entire movie sees him on the run. He gets a way out- living off the land as a simple farmhand— but eschews it for a sick, twisted will-inheriting scheme that eventually sets him on the run yet again.

But beyond simply being a meditation on Genesis, there’s something more here which I didn’t even realize until I sat down to begin this essay.

The young couple flee from their native Chicago to the Texas Panhandle to begin a new life, essentially raising Linda as their child.

Days of Heaven went through a famously tumultuous production that resulted in Terrence Malick disappearing for twenty years, however that story would take up an entire other essay. What’s important to know from it is that Malick ended up making the decision in post-production— when the cut wasn’t working— to add voice-over from Linda to tie the story together. Large swaths of dialogue (which can be found in the original script) were cut and the movie focused more on visuals.

Linda suddenly became the protagonist— all of the events were viewed through her young, but already slightly jaded eyes, with the voice-over giving us her thoughts on her brother, God, and life itself.

What I didn’t realize until my second rewatch is that Linda is Malick, swept up from a life in Chicago he barely knew to Texas, with his Wild Man father and a mother who wanted more than anything to be seen as Good.

Without spoiling what exactly happens to the characters at the end of the film, the last shot of the movie is Linda following her friend along some train tracks, played by Jackie Shultis, after running away from her Texas boarding school, as we hear Linda muse:

“This girl, she didn't know where she was goin' or what she was gonna do. She didn't have no money on her. Maybe she'd meet up with a character. I was hopin' things would work out for her. She was a good friend of mine.”

In 1973, Terrence Malick began his career with one of the greatest directorial debuts of all time: Badlands. Using crowdfunding and his connections, Malick was able to create a dreamlike but somewhat disturbing portrayal of what true youthful impulsiveness looks like.

Badlands is loosely based off of the Starkweather homicides of 1957. It tells the story of Kit (Martin Sheen), a 25-year-old wannabe James Dean who ends up forming a strong bond with a 15 year old Holly (Sissy Spacek). Kit is predatory and relations between him and Holly are implied (extremely tasteful) before he kills Holly’s father and the two decide to run off together. This starts a long murder spree that takes us all the way through the beautiful American West.

Badlands is a remarkably reflective film. It takes its time to explore the consequences of impulsive behavior, and the fact that youth is typically drawn to this more so than others. Easily manipulated and prone to going where the wind takes them, Malick clearly shows the consequences of this in full and ugly detail. Kit can be seen or interpreted as a manifestation of the Devil. If you let him in just a little bit he will come in and take control and you will just be stuck in the passenger seat, as Holly is. She continuously sits by and goes “Eh, whatever” as Kit continues to escalate things and pull her in deeper and deeper. She is intrigued by him and somewhat frightened by him at times, but has no desire to stand up to him. Holley’s go-with-the-flow type behavior something that seems to be present in all young generations, and not per se exclusive to Gen Alpha.

The major enigma of this film is, however, Kit. Expertly played by Martin Sheen, this character is mysterious and acts in ways that sometimes seem illogical. It is very clear from the beginning that despite his charming charisma and perceived easygoing nature, he is the furthest thing from that. The greaser archetype of the 1950s certainly had a reputation for being violent and disruptive, but Kit takes this to a whole new level, probably to its most extreme limit. The film presents the idea of a greaser transitioning from a potentially violent and rebellious youth into a fully formed serial killer. This does track with the real Charles Starkweather, who killed 12 people in about the course of a month.

The biggest and most daunting question around the entire film is simple: Why? Why kill all these people? Why run around? Why end things the way you choose to end them? The truth is that there aren’t easy answers to these questions. People under the effect of sin act illogically and unpredictably. God designed the universe to act in harmony, and that which is logical and moral is of God. When you depart from this, you separate yourself from Him.

Departing from these certainly is a demonstration of our own pride, which is a cornerstone of Kit’s character. Is most likely why he chooses to end things the way he does. His disturbing notion that his reasons for the killings were “just something to do, I guess” is a clear manifestation of the warning St. Paul gave us in Philippians 4:8

The idle mind is the Devil’s playground.

Badlands carries a dream-like feel to it that dulls the violence but nevertheless acts in a hypnotic manner. Right out of the gate, Malick demonstrates his unusual style of heavy voiceovers and beautiful shot composition. Shockingly enough, he went through three different cinematographers over the course of shooting. The first one quit halfway through because he could not stand his unorthodox method of shooting, and the second one filled in until an official replacement could be found in the third. Despite all of these changes, Badlands is seamless and its imagery and style, showing that the true man with the vision was in fact Malick.

There is a distinct benefit to voice over in all of his films. They give us a very intimate view of his characters and an insight into the internal monologue. These internal monologues often give us unique insight into the characters and are super in-depth, meaning that they are not overkill or wasted moments. None of Badlands is wasted, and it is a highly efficient and well paced film with no fat. Sissy Spacek for being as young as she is, absolutely crushes every monologue she’s given, and was perfectly casted to play Holly. Martin Sheen of course steals the show; it feels every much of this character as an actor could possibly hope for.

Badlands is a cautionary tale against bad influences, impulsive behavior, and spiritual lethargy. It bases itself off of real life events to deconstruct the greaser archetype and so the ocean that a man who acts violently is someone to be sought after, but rather someone to be avoided. It’s a strong warning against going with the flow and it’s a call to arms to have a strong base so as not to be swept off by the whims of the devil.

Never has there been someone so mysterious in the world of cinema as Terrance Malick. A man shrouded in mystery who practically never does interviews, does not allow cameras on his sets, or lets people into his creative process, Terrence Malick is the most private man working in the film industry today. Despite all the secrecy, Malick is perhaps the greatest Christian filmmaker working today and should be the gold standard by which others are measured.

While Malick’s Christian faith is undeniable, what denomination he subscribes to is quite elusive. He was born into a split-faith household and seemed to be much closer to his Catholic mother than his Episcopal father ( at least as seen through his films). Malick’s academic career is almost as impressive as his filmography. He would go on to attend an Episcopal School and then Harvard, where he would graduate with a degree in philosophy and receive the Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford, he was responsible for translating Heidegger’s The Essence of Reason into English. He would come just short of getting his doctorate from Oxford due to a major dispute he had with his advisor over Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein (all highly dense philosophical reading). Returning to the US, he taught philosophy at MIT and freelance wrote until he decided to become a filmmaker.

Terrence Malick would start strong using his newfound connections at the AFI Conservatory with Badlands and Days of Heaven. From the very beginning, he demonstrated a unique and dreamlike style that would only become more pronounced as his career continued. His stunning sense of imagery was quite pronounced, especially with Days of Heaven, as well as his rather unorthodox style of filmmaking. He would end up suddenly taking a 20-year hiatus from filmmaking before his triumphant return in The Thin Red Line. From then on, Malick would continue to make profound films until the present, with his upcoming Jesus film, The Way of the Wind, still in editing 6 years after filming wrapped with no end in sight.

Profound and contemplative are the best ways to describe the art of Terrence Malick. Every question under the sun is asked over the course of every film he has made, and not always provide answers. At the core of all of it is Christianity. Christianity is the cornerstone of all his films, even if it is sometimes discreet. His films feel more Catholic than Evangelical because they offer a holistic view of the universe through faith and science, rather than being more issue-based. Not to mention his most recent film (A Hidden Life) being the story of a not particularly well-known blessed in the Catholic Church (Franz Jägerstätter). His approach to Christian filmmaking is far more impactful than stereotypical Christian films like God’s Not Dead (I apologize to fans of the film). Belief in Christ isn’t just placed on the surface and preached to the audience like a loud sermon, but baked into the very material of his films.

Malick is obsessed with people, places, and the interior monologue. All of his films are heavily voiced over and feature extensive photography of humans and settings. Rather than telling a straightforward story, he elects to convey complex thoughts, reflections, and ideas in a dreamlike style that is unmistakable. Nature is a constant and is captured in all of its stunning glory, with Days of Heaven in particular being maybe the most beautiful film ever shot. The beauty of God’s creation is on full display in every film and meditated on extensively. Mankind is something that is held sacred and revered in almost all of his films, and no life is ever lost without great contemplation. Life is something natural and sacred, the way things ought to be. Death is unnatural and a sign of our fallen nature and the broken world we live in. This fundamental understanding of how things were meant to be is one of the many things that separate a Malick film from others. In The Thin Red Line, when Jim Caviezel’s character is meditating on the destruction that mankind causes to the world, it avoids the toxic environmentalism of the modern era (that people are a poison that should be reduced), but instead offers a more grounded and Christian insight into how we were called to be tillers of the Earth yet subject to it, trying to establish a healthy balance.

Terrence Malick’s shooting style is considered highly unconventional, to the point where he is the only one who does it in this fashion. Rather than having a strict schedule of what to shoot and when based on a screenplay, he will just go out with the cast and crew and begin shooting all sorts of scenes that come to him. He may start with a highly detailed screenplay, but then start to heavily improvise shots and neglect the script. This typically leads to strain on the crew, as well as what may seem like excessive amounts of footage (The New World had over 1 million feet of 35mm film shot by the end). This style also accounts for the extended periods he spends editing his films, which usually take years.

There is something to be gained from seeing all of Terrence Malick’s films. Every single one of his films offers a profound and moving experience where something of value can be discerned or learned. All of his films are shot with a beauty and elegance that is often imitated but never quite perfected (Train Dreams is the closest and could be considered a spiritual addition to his filmography). The cinematography in a Malick film is something that you will remember and may even put as your wallpaper at some point. These gorgeous shots are always paired with some of the finest soundtracks and scores ever compiled. His most underrated trait as a filmmaker has always been his taste and choice of music. From James Newton Howard’s deeply moving score for A Hidden Life to the soundtrack of The Tree of Life that fits so well it could be a score, Malick’s taste in music, in my book, is impeccable. Casting is never an area of need as well, which is not surprising since most actors and actresses practically line up to be in his films whenever they enter production (see the casting section for The Thin Red Line).

Regardless if Terrence Malick ever ends up finishing The Way of the Wind, he has already made his impact on the world of cinema. No other filmmaker quite captures the interior monologue and reaches such profound levels as Malick. Every icon he creates using the art form stands as a challenging yet deeply rewarding jewel in the crown of Christian cinema.

Perhaps best described as the “American Tarkovsky”, the cinema of Terrence Malick is perhaps some of the most edifying visual media that a Catholic can take in, and something worth letting become a part of your soul.

If you look across the history of film, alien encounter films usually wrestle mostly with the titular aliens: how they look, how they act, what they want to do on Earth. Steven Spielberg always gives careful consideration to these same questions in his own alien movies — Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., War of the Worlds, and Disclosure Day — but they always take a backseat to the human concerns raised by the aforementioned aliens. Each and every time, his films have less to do with his stunning, otherworldly creations, and much more to do with how these creations emphasize just how alone or apart human beings really are.

In Close Encounters and E.T., the aliens helped to provide purpose and to unite people who otherwise felt lonely, disconnected, or afraid in their lives before the aliens arrived. That message — of love and empathy — echoed loud and clear across Spielberg’s filmography as cinema’s favorite optimist and sentimentalist continued to rule movie theaters and the box office over the course of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But, at the turn of the 21^st century, everything changed.

September 11, 2001, affected everyone in profound ways — Spielberg included. In the wake of that devastating day, he tried to reckon with the horrors he witnessed in the only way he knew how: through the medium of movies. That desire led him back to the alien encounter genre for the first time in over 20 years, but this time with a far different message than he articulated in his first two alien pictures. Where Close Encounters and E.T. showed how aliens could save humanity from loneliness, his newest creation would instead show how aliens would only drive a further wedge in humanity, forcing people to turn to their basest instincts in the wake of unspeakable terror.

That intention turns 2005’s War of the Worlds into a full-blown panic attack of a movie, where cinema’s foremost master of the summer blockbuster returned to his old stomping grounds with something far darker, far bleaker, and more sinister than audiences ever could have anticipated.

I remember seeing War of the Worlds for the first time not in 2005 — my mom got wind of how dark it was and forbid it under any and all circumstances — but around 2009. What I expected to be a Tom Cruise-starring sci-fi action extravaganza, like most audiences at the time, ended up being one of the most terrifying moviegoing experiences of my life. The Spielberg I knew and loved had taken all of his filmmaking prowess and poured it into relentless set piece after set piece, ratcheting up the tension while simultaneously painting horrific image after horrific image with his filmmaking brush.

At the time of its release, War of the Worlds received a positive, if slightly more muted response. Less than four years separated from 9/11, critics and audiences were perhaps ill at ease with a story so clearly wrestling with everything America had just gone through. But as time has gone on, War of the Worlds has grown in estimation. It’s Spielberg at his most visceral — his first true “evil twin” movie since Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and it’s all the better for it.

His War of the Worlds, taking inspiration from the H.G. Wells book of the same name, follows Tom Cruise’s Ray, a blue collar, downbeat divorced dad, who has to protect his estranged kids when aliens invade Earth and seek to destroy all of humanity. The aliens here, unlike the friendly extraterrestrials of E.T., are literally called “terrorists” by the characters in this film, as they quickly devastate cities across the globe.

During their first attack, they vaporize the residents of Beyonne, New Jersey, leaving them as clouds of dust that cover Tom Cruise’s Ray during his escape. When he arrives back home and sees himself in the mirror, covered in dust, the intention is never more clear: this is Spielberg’s 9/11. What comes after shatters any hopeful notions of rah-rah nationalism in the wake of tragedy. Those horrific images I mentioned earlier? They come quickly and often. Bodies floating in a river. Crowds desperately trying to pack onto a ferry. Clothes raining down in a forest. A valley of blood. Even an incredible homage and reversal of The Wizard of Oz, where he swaps the wonder of that film revealing technicolor for the first time to an image of utmost horror.

Spielberg’s anger and fear in the wake of 9/11 is channeled with verve and propulsion throughout every set piece in War of the Worlds — ones that are both unspeakably huge in scale but also devastatingly intimate, making each subsequent situation only feel more hopeless for all the characters involved.

The craftsmanship on display is some of the best of Spielberg’s career, with all his usual heavy hitters – Janusz Kaminski on cinematography, Michael Kahn on editing, John Williams on score, Kathleen Kennedy on producing, and David Koepp on script — bringing their best to the table. The same is true of the performances. Cruise’s helplessness, fear, and relentless desire to protect his kids commands every frame (also, unfortunately, the worst baseball throwing you will ever see), while Dakota Fanning’s innocence and terror as Rachel, his daughter, is heartbreaking.

As the film barrels towards its conclusion, it wraps up perhaps too neatly given the devastation that preceded it. If you’ve read the book or seen previous adaptations, Spielberg chooses not to deviate from the original story, despite his previous changes in the lead-up to the final stretches. It can feel a bit deflating, but how it wraps up is also integral to the Spielberg philosophy: despite his anger, his horror, his fear, he refuses to leave audiences without a sense of hope that things can get better in the end. To conclude one of his films any other way would be a betrayal to himself and his core principles. Maybe not as satisfying as a wrap-up to a terror campaign of a film but still fascinating within the entire breadth of his filmography.

If Close Encounters was Spielberg wrestling with his purpose in life, and if E.T. was him discovering his love of children, War of the Worlds is him at his angriest and his most scared. Coming in the wake of 9/11, Spielberg channeled all of his feelings about the horror of that day into a sci-fi terror unlike anything in his filmography.

Humans are lonely. They’re broken. And in War of the Worlds, they have never been more ill at ease with how alone they truly are in the universe.

This is Spielberg at his absolute darkest. It terrified me the first time I saw it. It always will.

When the Vatican released its list of 45 great films celebrating the first 100 years of the cinematic art form in 1995, they included one film that was not even two years old at the time: 1993’s Schindler’s List. From its very release, Schindler’s List was recognized as one of the most impactful historical epics ever made. It tackles the Holocaust, a subject that has by now been significantly over-represented in Hollywood, but makes perhaps the most definitive cinematic statements about this historical atrocity, often imitated but never surpassed. It is a monumental film, one which is not an easy watch but is still accessible for the average viewer. Steven Spielberg’s genius was in making incredibly popular, endlessly watchable films; Schindler’s List transcends the rest of his filmography but retains the hallmarks of Spielberg’s filmmaking that make this 3 hour epic approachable for a popular audience. It is a sobering depiction of the Holocaust, it is a fascinating character study of a bad man called to redemption, and it is an excellently crafted and beautifully shot film. Its high reputation and place on the Vatican film list is well-earned.

Through the first part of the film, the theme that interested me the most was man’s inhumanity to man. Schindler’s List does a great job of showing how easy it can be to dehumanize, mistreat, and ultimately exterminate fellow human beings in the name of grievance or ideology. There isn’t a question or a struggle in the minds of the Nazi soldiers about what they are doing; the Jews are subhuman, explicitly compared to rats or beetles at a couple points through the film. Even the camera itself seems to dehumanize the violence we experience, with Spielberg using an impartial, documentary style of filmmaking to capture the impersonal, detached, dehumanized vision of Jews held by the Nazis. We see Jews playing along with the Nazis to get special treatment, turning on their fellow countrymen in a futile attempt to escape their ultimate fate. As I watched so much horrendous cruelty, I was even tempted to dissociate these characters from reality, to remind myself that these were fictional characters I was watching. But no, Spielberg will not let us use that out to downplay or cope with the evil he portrays. His unblinking camera is as unforgiving to its viewers as its subjects, forcing me to wrestle with the harsh reality he was revealing. At the end of the film, we see the actors process to Oskar Schindler’s grave accompanying the real-life people whom they portrayed. At every turn Spielberg makes us grapple with the realization that human beings can and will do such awful things to each other, and the even more awful truth that we ourselves are not too different either from victim or monster.

It is by drawing us from the universal to the particular that Spielberg works his movie magic. There is so much death, so much cruelty, so much inhumanity in this film, and yet it is the individuals that struggle, work, hope, despair, live, and die that give the film its power. The various inmates of the Krakow ghetto, labor camp, and factory are presented with gentleness and pathos. From a wealthy family forced from their luxury flat into a room with a dozen other Jews, to a mother and daughter clinging desperately to each other through thick and thin, to a young couple getting secretly married in the concentration camp barracks, Spielberg excels in getting us invested in the many small stories that make up this larger epic film. Our investment in these stories make the cruelties and tragedies so much sadder, the hope and salvation so much more triumphant. In the first act, I found the many characters Spielberg was setting up to be overindulgent; by the end, I realized this choice was masterful. The emotional impact of the film is greatly strengthened by building sympathy for so many of the victims and potential victims of the inhumanity oppressing them.

What really makes the movie masterful, however, is the central character of Oskar Schindler. Schindler (played masterfully by Liam Neeson) starts the film as a war profiteer, fully willing to exploit the cheap Jewish labor offered to him by the Nazi work camp system. He is a vain, prodigal, womanizing conman, living it up in the Krakow nightlife while making money off the backs of unpaid Jewish prisoners. Things change, however, when the Nazis clear out the Krakow ghetto and move the Jews into a concentration camp, killing indiscriminately as they go. Schindler observes this from a distance, removed from the violence but repulsed by it, seeing a level of inhumanity he did not believe possible. He does not change overnight, but he begins to provide better and more humane treatment for his workers, convincing himself at first that it was better for business but eventually being completely overcome by compassion. He works to keep as many of his workers as he can from being sent to Auschwitz as the war turns against the Nazis, creating the titular List of over 1000 people that he buys from the camp before it is completely shut down. Schindler’s transformation is slow, believable, and complete. Spielberg portrays the redemption of a wicked man, showing how a moral transformation can be effected through exposure to great evil. It is a call to heroism under fire, a celebration of the good of human nature even while exposing the evil.

And ultimately, the story has a happy ending, as Schindler’s factory is liberated and the men and women he saved are set free. As dark as it can be, Schindler’s List never loses hope: hope in each other, hope in divine assistance, hope in humanity. I came into the film expecting to see man’s inhumanity to man exposed, meditated upon, and condemned. What I did not expect was the theme of man’s goodness, compassion, and heroism that can emerge under fire. The film is, indeed, dark at times, but it moves beyond the darkness into the light of hope. Man has the capacity for great evil but also great good, in the small moments of compassion and love shown to each other in day to day life as well as in the grand heroic gestures of a man like Schindler, begrudgingly moved from apathetic profiteering to altruistic patronage. Schindler’s List is about good and evil, darkness and light, the angelic part of man as well as the demonic. It is as good a popular exploration of these themes as has ever been produced, and will go down as Steven Spielberg’s most enduring serious work. It is an epic, in every sense of the word, and fully deserves the acclaim it has received over the years.

"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."

“I could have got more.”

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(There’s a nice little preface to my thoughts on this film in my introductory post for this series, found here.)

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. - Dr. Ian Malcolm

When the main cast of Jurassic Park finally enters Jurassic Park- Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, Dr. Malcolm, Tim and Lex, and the hapless lawyer Gennaro- they are disappointed that for almost the entirety of their trip they see no dinosaurs. The one dinosaur they see- a Triceratops- is sick and barely moving.

So it is for the audience as well: you don’t get a full look at a dinosaur for 32 minutes, and the T-Rex doesn’t appear for exactly 61 minutes!

And yet why is the first act of the movie so entertaining?

Screenwriter David Koepp- who would go on to collaborate numerous times with Spielberg- takes the characters from Michael Crichton’s 1990 hit novel1 and breathes new life into them, introducing all the major players in about 45 minutes.

The real magic of Jurassic Park isn’t getting you to believe dinosaurs were brought back to life, it’s getting you to fall in love with all the characters who you must later care for if the movie is going to have any meaningful thrills and suspense. In this day and age of the “mega-cast” Avengers blockbusters, this is a hard feat, especially when your characters are not superpowered metahumans.

The central protagonist of Jurassic Park is paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, played by Sam Neill, and like all of the characters in this film, he gets a pretty memorable introduction that tells us everything we need to know about him.

Dr. Grant’s confrontation with the annoying kid is not just meant for laughs, it sets up the core theme of this film: the fear of becoming a parent.

It’s made clear after this scene that Dr. Sattler (Laura Dern)- Grant’s partner- loves kids and its implied that she wants to have kids with him someday, but Grant is not interested. It isn’t until he must take care of children later in dangerous circumstances that he learns that he might not be a

Recently on The Big Picture Podcast (one of my favorite podcasts, check it out), host Sean Fennessey interviewed Steven Spielberg and asked him what movie he enjoyed making the most, and he answered very quickly that it was E.T., explaining:

‘E.T.’ was a joyful time making a film because I discovered my love for parenting, not just directing. 'E.T.’ made me want to have kids. I was such an opportunist…I didn’t have much of a personal life. And I remember after making ‘E.T.’…I think I discovered how great it must be to be a parent.

This transition from making art as a “son” to making art as a “father” could not be clearer in the films that were to follow. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade introduced Indiana Jones’ father, and Hook delved into what it means to be a father who must regain the ability to connect with his children.

For those who don’t know, Spielberg was a child of divorce, and did not learn until decades later- shortly before they both passed away- that it was his mother who cheated on his father and not the other way around. For decades, he had resented his father and his films displayed an implicit distrust of authority figures: the main two characters of Sugarland Express are on the lam, the mayor in Jaws is an idiot, and in E.T. the government is the primary antagonist. At the time of the making of Jurassic Park, Spielberg did not yet know this revelation about his parents, but he had married Kate Capshaw after Temple of Doom and they had their first child together in 1985: so by that point he had been a father for almost a decade.

Contrast Grant with Ian Malcolm, who is introduced en route to the island:

Another common theme of Spielberg’s films revolves around the protagonist as outsider: Elliott is unpopular amongst his peers in E.T., Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can must bend the system to get what he wants, and even Brody in Jaws finds himself the sole voice of reason against the forces that be at Martha’s Vineyard.

The outsider protagonist is often contrasted with an older, “cooler” character who is more seasoned in the world, much akin to George Lucas using Luke and Han Solo to represent his friendship with his mentor, Francis Ford Coppola.

Brody has Quint, Elliott has his older brother, and even Indiana Jones bases his entire persona on some treasure hunter he met who gave him his hat. For Spielberg, this was embodied by fellow filmmaker Brian de Palma, who was part of the “New Hollywood” movement that included Spielberg, Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Coppola.

In Jurassic Park, this is embodied by Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who is a steadfast proponent of “chaos theory”. Grant believes in facts and empirical data whereas Malcolm embraces a more cavalier, impulsive attitude. During their tour of the park, Grant has to suffer Malcolm making moves on Ellie, who is charmed momentarily by the chaos mathematician. It is no wonder that in the sequel, when it is Malcolm’s turn to be the protagonist, Spielberg makes him more like Grant, even going so far as to give him a teenage black daughter to reflect Spielberg’s own adopted black daughter.

When Malcolm and Grant both face the T-Rex when it escapes its paddock, Malcolm embraces chaos and acts impulsively, leading the dinosaur on with a flare to momentarily distract the creature, causing him to almost get killed and doing nothing to help those still remaining in the cars.

It is now up to Grant to save Tim and Lex (the “blood-sucking” lawyer Gennaro does not make it), the grandchildren of park founder John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), who remain trapped in their stalled tour vehicle. Grant is able to calmly use his knowledge of T-Rex behavior to avoid being eaten and escort the children to (relative) safety.

While Malcolm does eventually make it back in one piece (being rescued by Ellie, no less), he is pretty much out of commission for the rest of the movie. Dr. Grant proves to have the skills it takes to be a father and to protect his family, moreso than Malcolm, and not only proves this to Ellie but to himself.

Jurassic Park could have easily been a “monster movie of the week”, and while it could have been very entertaining, it’s long-lasting status as a beloved film is due to the attention both Spielberg and Koepp pay to the characters of this film. I could write an entire essay on the technical aspects- on the work Stan Winston’s team did on the animatronic dinosaurs in this film and how the revolutionary CGI would not work without them- but the “Spielberg touch” is the heart and soul he adds to the characters of his films.

Spielberg actually shot this movie back-to-back with another film which was tonally completely different but is just as much a classic nonetheless…stay tuned for next week’s post!

How a simple monster movie with a clunky animatronic shark captivated the world’s imagination and shifted the paradigm of filmmaking forever is one of cinema’s most fascinating chapters. It was a perfect storm of talent and happenstance that produced what has become an enduring classic, and perhaps the quintessential American film. In this 250th year of this nation’s founding and over 50 years after its release, there is no better time to examine Steven Spielberg’s classic, a film that proved to be a watershed moment in his career and has earned a place in the pantheon of all-time greats.

The release of Jaws saw the birth of what is now known as the summer blockbuster. With the collapse of the studio system in the 60s, and the bold experimentation of a maverick group of young, boundary-pushing filmmakers, the 1970s proved to be a crossroads for the cinematic art form. Jaws arrived at the perfect time, garnering instant and near-universal acclaim and shaping the future of how popular films were made. Yet despite its mass appeal, Jaws packs a surprising layer of sophistication, from its nuanced thematic exploration of human nature to a masterful score, which continues to inspire study and appreciation to this day. Despite its many layers, the film feels effortless and simple in its execution, the mark of a quality piece of art.

The term blockbuster conjures images of explosions and spectacle, often at the expense of quality storytelling and well-developed characters. Had Jaws arrived a few years later, perhaps it would not have resisted this temptation. Yet, as the film’s famously difficult production would have it, the technological limitations of the era proved to be greatly beneficial in forcing Spielberg and his team to use their ingenuity to craft a narrative that built a sense of dread through what was not onscreen rather than what was. The animatronic shark was beset with technical problems from the outset, so much so that it was only shown onscreen for brief moments, 4 minutes of the film’s 124-minute runtime, to be exact. The unseen is often far more terrifying than the seen, a psychological fact that informs almost every facet of reality. From the unnerving opening sequences, which featured John Williams’s ominous two-note motif against point-of-view underwater imagery slowly drawing closer to the swimmer at the surface, the film plays into this primal fear. It is a fear that drives each character in their own way, from the island’s mayor, who refuses to acknowledge the danger lurking beyond his shores, to Police Chief Martin Brody, whose phobia of water (and anything dangerous in general) initially causes passivity and inaction. With emphasis not on the monster or spectacle, Jaws is, at its heart, a story of ordinary humans and how they react to a seemingly unknown danger, something that is out of their control yet threatens those most dear.

Chief Brody represents the everyman, who, in the classical hero’s journey arc, is called from his mundane life to perform heroic deeds. Unlike many subsequent monster flicks which feature a macho, machete-wielding superman fighting sharks on jet skis (think The Meg’s Jason Statham character), Brody does not exhibit the physical characteristics of a hero who could single-handedly save a town from a monstrous incursion. He is introduced as a somewhat neurotic New York cop who has relocated his family to Amity Island to take a new post as police chief. He is unfamiliar with the island’s ways and struggles to fit in while trying to do his best to care for his wife and children. Spielberg is often known for his depictions of family dysfunction. Yet in Jaws, the emotional core of the film revolves around a very positive depiction of family life, with onscreen interactions between Brody and his wife and children showing a strong sense of familial bonds. However, like everyone on this earth, Brody is hampered by a flaw, in this case his fear of water, which proves to be an unfortunate characteristic for one charged with protecting those living on an island.

The shark attack is the pivotal moment by which each of the film’s colorful characters are forced to contend with their innermost fears. It is the memorable ensemble of imperfect yet relatable characters, from Chief Brody and Mayor Larry Vaughn to the grizzled local shark hunter Quint and the eccentrically brilliant oceanographer Matt Hooper, that ground the film and draw the audience to invest in the stakes at hand. Perhaps the film’s most fascinating exploration of human nature comes with the decision of whether to close Amity’s beaches ahead of the island’s most lucrative Independence Day tourist weekend in light of the recent shark attack which killed a young teen. Mayor Vaughn, fearing for his island’s economy, attempts to dispel the growing fear, pressuring the coroner to declare the young teen’s death the result of a boating accident despite clear evidence from Brody and Hooper pointing to a shark attack. He then attempts to assuage those fears further by framing a small tiger shark found dead on the beach as the killer, despite Brody and Hooper’s compelling evidence to the contrary. Time and again throughout history, this reaction has characterized those in power in an effort to preserve the status quo at all costs for the sake of economic or political gain. Greed and fear in the face of inconvenient danger lead to a disregard for the truth and, ultimately, human lives. Human history presents this episode time and again, examples including the explosion of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, during which Soviet officials forced the residents of Pripyat to participate in the May Day parade under an unseen shower of radiation, all for the sake of party optics and prestige.

Brody acquiesces to the mayor in keeping the beaches open despite knowledge of the grave danger, something that subsequently weighs heavily on his conscience when a child is killed in the heavily packed shallow waters. He is then forced to confront his own fears of the water, yet it is the desire to protect his own children swimming in the same dangerous waters that finally galvanizes him to act. He finally forces the mayor to acknowledge and act upon the reality of the danger, joining forces with Quint and Hooper and setting sail to end the ocean menace once and for all. This change in Brody is accentuated by the quieter moments Spielberg allows throughout the film, from a quiet hug with his son at the dinner table following the attack to moments of small conversation on the boat. The restraint from spectacle, and focus on the humanity of characters such as Brody, make the brief moments of action all the more exciting. And ultimately, Brody’s arc becomes all the more edifying, as he strives to put aside his fears and risk stepping into the very place he is most afraid of to save his family and all of those living on the island. It’s a simple story at heart, but when executed at the level Spielberg and his team were operating, it becomes incredibly effective.

While the masterful exploration of human nature deserves its adulation, one would be remiss not to briefly mention the technical achievement behind the camera. The screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb provides a masterclass in scriptwriting, with its simplicity and focus, buildup of suspense, and overall structure. Within the first 10 minutes, the world, stakes, and characters are clearly established. Every scene feels purposeful, and not a moment is wasted. Bill Butler’s cinematography, paired with the production design, makes for a world that feels grounded and lived in. However, it is John Williams’s score that ties it all together, elevating the entire affair to an almost mythic status.

There is perhaps no more iconic or effective two-note pairing in history than John Williams’s shark theme. Two notes—F and F♯—played over and over by the growling tones of the double bass were all that was needed to elevate the suspense and burn the fear of sharks into the nation’s subconscious. It is this utter simplicity which encapsulates the entire ethos of the Jaws production. Nothing was wasted, everything was intentional, and everything hit home. There is a lesser-known moment in the score that is worth pointing out, especially for the musically inclined. This is the Shark Cage Fugue, which deftly mixes many of the film’s key leitmotifs into a thrilling contrapuntal exposition in the tradition of Bach. Few film scores have utilized classical music’s most complex compositional technique, the fugue, yet here John Williams lets one rip as the boat cruises out of the harbor in search of the shark.

Jaws is rightfully lauded and studied as a masterclass in filmmaking, deftly balancing populist appeal with artistic excellence and thematic depth. It’s an exploration of human nature, and ultimately a film that depicts the everyman’s hero’s journey, a man who realizes his full potential by facing his fears and putting his life on the line to defend his family. In a production where everything went wrong, Spielberg managed to turn every setback to his advantage, bringing about a timeless masterpiece. As the summer season sets in, there is no more perfect time to revisit this all-American classic.

The cultural impact of Raiders of the Lost Ark cannot be overstated.

Releasing in 1981 to near universal acclaim (except from Pauline Kael, of course), Steven Spielberg’s pulp classic forever changed the landscape of pop culture for the better. Indiana Jones inspired countless others to be interested in archaeology and/or history. Every boy since 1981 has wanted to be Indiana Jones or looked up to him in some capacity. It has been parodied, referenced, and used for inspiration across most genres in the art form and continues to age like a fine wine. But why?

Oddly enough, the original idea of Indiana Jones came from George Lucas. He came up with the idea after he wrapped shooting on his 1973 classic American Graffiti. He had always enjoyed serial adventure movies such as Buck Rogers, and had envisioned making a B movie inspired by it. He began brainstorming with director Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) in 1975, but put down the project so he could work on a sci-fi film known as Star Wars (perhaps you’ve heard of it). While waiting for news of Star Wars’ reception in 1977, Lucas asked Spielberg if he would be open to directing it as they discussed upcoming projects. Spielberg thankfully agreed and chose Lawrence Kasdan to write the screenplay.

Originally titled The Adventures of Indiana Smith, the three of them (Kasdan, Lucas, and Spielberg) successfully outlined the script and even offered additional ideas for future installments over the course of 5 days. Eventually, Indiana Smith was changed to Indiana Jones out of fear of the character being confused with Steve McQueen’s Nevada Smith. Kasdan did struggle with writing the script and piecing all their ideas together, taking almost two years to complete it. The end product, however, was well worth the effort.

The Indiana Jones series is a spiritual epic. It is the story of one man’s faith and how it grows and changes over the course of his life. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a perfect microcosm for the whole series, inviting the audience to find faith with Indy. Faith. George Michael says you gotta have it. Jesus says you need it. It’s something that is needed more than ever in today’s society. An endearing part of humanity that separates us from all other creatures. Throughout the course of the film, Indiana Jones goes from the cynical skeptic who’s seen doubting while he prepares to just go find another “means to an end” to a fearful believer who ends up saving himself and others through his faith in the highest power.

Raiders of the Lost Ark shows its protagonist grow in respect and honor for God. While the Ark of the Covenant itself in the film is a classic example of a MacGuffin, the honor that this MacGuffin warrants transforms it from a cool museum piece to an awesome symbol of God’s power. Although if the real Ark of the Covenant were found and opened, it would probably not have the severe side effects that it does in the film (considering Christ fulfilled the Old Covenant and Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant), the film is so impactful that any modern archaeologist would at least hesitate before even attempting it.

Raiders pairs excellently with The Last Crusade (#14). Their relationship seems to be similar to that of the Old and New Testaments. This sentiment is also further pushed forward by the fact that both are heavily reliant on their respective sections of the Bible. Raiders is definitely a Jewish film, and The Last Crusade is a Catholic one that ties up Indy’s story of faith nicely.

During the production of Raiders, there were so many opportunities where things could have gone wrong. Countless twists and turns, difficult casting decisions, editing choices, and constant second guesses as to whether any of it would be good lay throughout this saga. It was ultimately under Spielberg’s continuity and ambition that one won out in the end. Spielberg committed to the bit so much that he defined the action-adventure genre. Everything in the film feels like it was done out of love and care. Raiders is truly an example of all of the pieces coming together to fit just perfectly.

Despite a hectic production and the never-ending wheelhouse of potential actors to play the lead, Harrison Ford thankfully won out. While all of the acting rules are expertly cast and have their own charm, Harrison Ford is the face of the series. His role as Indiana Jones is arguably more famous than his Han Solo performance. There is simply no one else who could be this character the way he was. He has the perfect amount of charm, sarcasm, wit, and ruggedness that is needed for this role. I would strongly advise that studios not attempt to reboot this series with anyone.

What Raiders also gets right is the fundamentals of filmmaking. Its shot composition and editing are regularly studied in film classes around the world. Every shot is hyper-intentional and does more than just show a character, but accentuates the drama and what is happening on a deeper level. The blocking (physical placement of characters within a scene) is the true standout in this film because everything feels so intentional. Long-time Spielberg collaborator Michael Kahn delivers a standout editing job that won Raiders one of its five well-deserved Academy Awards. The editing is fresh and never stale, effectively keeping audiences on the edge of their seats for the entire run time. The introduction of Indiana Jones at the very beginning of the film is a perfect microcosm for everything right with the movie from a technical perspective.

All of this to finally be tied up neatly In one of the most iconic film scores in the history of the art form. There is no Raiders of the Lost Ark without John Williams. I cannot possibly count how many times I have listened to this score. There is not a bad track in the entire film, and every song complements every scene with perfection that is often imitated but never matched. When I first saw Raiders in about the 5th grade, it changed what I thought music could do for a film. I finally saw it as an essential aspect to filmmaking, so much so that when in my music class to play part from a movie where we liked the music, I brought in my copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark and played the scene where Indy is pursuing the Ark on horseback. Instances where the music is noticeably heightening the cinematic experience through no shortcoming of the filmmaker, but through pure mastery of craft by the composer, occur throughout the entire runtime of the film. This is a feat that hardly any other film can claim to come even close to.

Altogether, the themes, characters, craftsmanship, and music make Raiders of the Lost Ark one of the most rewatchable films of all time. Indiana Jones’s spiritual journey from skepticism to belief distinctly separates this masterpiece from being pure entertainment for the masses and puts it firmly in the category of true art. It is a defining piece of cinema that I confidently recommend to any and all people. If you somehow have not seen it, put down your mobile device and find time TODAY to watch this must-see adventure as soon as possible.

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I’m 11 years old. I tell my older sister to come downstairs and that I have something important to show her.

I take her into the laundry room and stealthily pull out two VHS tapes, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park. I tell her that these movies were directed by the same person, Steven Spielberg, and that I’ve found his address (technically the address to his company, Amblin Entertainment) online.

But it gets better, I tell her: my plan is now to send a letter to Amblin and tell him of my great plan for a Jurassic Park 4. Spielberg will see my vague treatment and decide, “Yeah, it’s time for Jurassic Park 4, and this is how we’re gonna do it.”

I unfortunately don’t think I ever sent that letter, maybe reality set in, or I got distracted with other ambitious ideas. I don’t remember much from whatever pitch I had, except that I’m pretty sure it involved a grown up Tim from the original Jurassic Park and involved a pterodactyl chasing a school bus (this also may have been a dream I had). Either way, clearly he already had plans for continuing the franchise.

How did I even know who Spielberg was at that age? Sure, my parents had shown me E.T., and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had just come out and I had gotten a Lego set based on the movie for my birthday the previous year.

I was also super, SUPER into dinosaurs1 but my dad waited a while to show me Jurassic Park because he was afraid it would scare me away from dinosaurs forever. This didn’t stop me from reading about it in books on movies I found at the library, but when it finally came time to watch it at my aunt’s house I was mesmerized…until the T-Rex attacked and I ran to turn the TV off.

For a long time, most of what I learned about Spielberg came from books. Every time I went to the library I would pick up at least three books on movies and three books on dinosaurs (eventually the ratio favored books on movies). A lot of the movie books I would pick up in the kids section had to do with Star Wars, but there were a handful of books on special effects, most of which mentioned Spielberg.

That hyper-obsession was only fueled when I discovered Wikipedia, which provided me a magic portal into all the information I could ever want on any movie, even movies that hadn’t come out yet. This eventually led me to discover trade sites like ComingSoon.Net and /Film.com, and this led to obsessively reading film news sites, something that absolutely influenced my desire to start a website of my own to write on movies.

But reading about movies, especially Spielberg’s, did not only give me a desire to write on movies.

It gave me a desire to make them.

For many, Steven Spielberg was the first filmmaker to become a household name outside of Alfred Hitchcock.

But unlike Hitch, Spielberg has never cameoed in one of his own films (he has cameoed in at least one film to my knowledge and its one that’s on our original list), or hosted his own television anthology series.

People knew Spielberg because he simply made the most popular movies of all time.

Only one filmmaker has more than one film on the above list, and it’s Spielberg.

His films command not only an innate understanding of more than half a century of film language, but he also makes movies specifically with the audience in mind, every time.

The reason I make these pictures is that they give me a chance to be, not myself, but a lot of people sitting in the dark watching a movie. It's a chance to put on two hats: the directing hat and the audience hat. I get the opportunity to jump back and forth from the director's chair wondering, 'Gee, if I were the audience how would I like this scene to turn out?' And then I jump back onto the floor of the soundstage and say, 'Now that I'm the director, I can give audiences what I think they would like to see in a movie like this.'2

Spielberg, having grown up during peak Americana in the 1950s, often drapes his films in the nostalgia of a forgotten time. Yet this is why I find it interesting that in recent years the less successful his films have become, at least at the box office. To quote critic Armond White, from his book Make Spielberg Great Again:

Spielberg’s exceptionalism parallells American exceptionalism. His trajectory from the most popular filmmaker in the world to his current marginal status that no longer guarantees a box-office hit—nor popularity—parallels the trajectory of the nation that produced him. Spielberg once excited the imaginations of America’s young cultural consumers, but consumers of the current generation ignore his recent entreaties.

In the 1980s, Spielberg’s films, along with his friend George Lucas’, dominated the box office in the Reagan era- American optimism had been renewed in a post-Watergate world and audiences were ready to have fun at the movies again. In the 1990s, the box office continued to surge, but Spielberg was able to leverage his massive success to be able to start making less commercial, more dramatic fare like Schindler’s List and Amistad. The 2000s brought us the darkest Spielberg films at the turn of the century, including the science-fiction parables A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and War of the Worlds.

It is still the case that audiences have a certain expectation when Spielberg is attached to a project, even when he is producing. The word “Spielbergian” refers typically to a film about a family jeopardized by a fantastical, destructive outside force: sometimes aliens, sometimes dinosaurs, and in the case of many of his films, divorce.

Many have been hailed as the “new Spielberg”: M. Night Shyamalan, J.J. Abrams, to name a few, but none can equal his prowess (don’t get me wrong, I love Shyamalan). His upcoming Disclosure Day will be a test of whether or not the Spielberg name still means something to filmgoers, particularly Gen Z. Being of that generation myself (although I prefer the specific classification of “zillenial”) I am certainly excited for the film, as it looks to be a return to form to “audience-mode Spielberg”.

But to return to my story, all this has been to say that simply knowing who Spielberg was at a young age gave me a better idea of what it meant to make a movie. That someone could make movies that were wildly different but still retain a style throughout all of them that was easily identifiable. I could put on Last Crusade and Jurassic Park and identify some of the same zoom close-ups, bloom effects, and whip pans that comprise a Spielberg movie.

Having some sense of what it meant to be a director allowed me to shape and refine my own dreams for the future, and learning about the way Spielberg approached his films gave me the specific desire to make movies for audiences rather than simply for myself. To approach art that way gives the act of making a film, book, or painting a dimension of service and self-giving that I think is important for every artist to have.

I won’t post everything I’ve ever made here- it’s really not all worth seeing although I will link my YouTube channel below for the curious- but following the path to be a filmmaker has led my life to a lot of interesting and unexpected places that I am grateful for and constantly surprised by: co-founding this blog was certainly one of them.

I’m excited for you to read the essays that are forthcoming in this long overdue series, but I’ll leave you with this: in 2020 I fulfilled (partially) a long-held dream to remake the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the greatest cinematic openings of all time. It was at the height of the pandemic, thus being the perfect opportunity to make something fun with my siblings while we were at home. It’s unfinished, but I’ll leave it as my humble, extremely low-budget tribute to the master.

The first one through the wall always gets bloody.

The notion that we live in a post-Christendom society is not new. Echoed since the 18th century and exacerbated by war and institutions, one would be naïve to deny the decline of Christian values across the world. Despite the world and it’s current state, we are continuously called to evangelize and spread the gospel. Despite not having explicit references to Christianity, Moneyball oddly enough can serve as a secular example of perseverance through persecution and what real “trusting the process” can look like.

Moneyball is based on the 2003 novel of the same name about the 2002 Oakland Athletics season. For those unfamiliar, the Oakland A’s are/were the most notorious cheapskates in all the MLB (yes even more than the Pirates if you can believe it). With a quick google search one will see that the A’s did not win the World Series or make it particularly far in the post season, which begs the question, “What was so special about this particular season and team?”

The film follows Billy Beane, the manager of the A’s, and his quest to change the game of baseball. Initially, he is merely looking for a way to survive the next season after losing his star players (a struggle us smaller market teams have become accustomed to). While trying to impossibly piece together a presentable team, he stumbles across Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) and forms an unlikely bond with the socially awkward and underappreciated deputy to defy the odds with a new approach to baseball.

The concept of “Moneyball” originated in the 1970’s but was never fully attempted until the 2002 Oakland season. Moneyball is a method of selecting and placing players based on their statistics and pricing. A team may need to replace a player that gets on base on average twice a game. If they can’t afford the top candidate, they may go and find someone who statistically matches that good player, but has some oddity that makes them an “undesirable” player (injury prone, age, attitude etc). It’s a team’s way of getting the best statistical “bang for their buck” so to speak.

While the concept does have some flaws (using 3 players to replace 1 tends to create a thinner roster), the Boston Red Sox would go on to adopt the philosophy with a larger purse and finally break the curse of the Bambino. Many teams since this incident have also adopted this modified Moneyball with great success.

Moneyball has so much to do with finding success in failure. Billy’s vision to change baseball for the better was in the end realized, but just not quite in the way he envisioned it or thought it would happen. He, like us all too often, thought he understood the path and the steps that needed to be taken. We too often in our spiritual lives think we know all the steps we need to take and how exactly God is going to plan out our lives. But what we need to do is what Billy does throughout the film: trust the process. Beane throughout the film is mocked, scorned, and seen as flat out crazy for this new approach. This harkens back to Saints such as St Francis of Assisi or the founders of other religious orders who were first seen as odd in their desire to reshape how some approach the faith. Through divine inspiration and perseverance, they were able to radically transform the spiritual life of the Catholic Church forever.

Brad Pitt gives a career-defining performance as Billy Beane. This character feels so real and authentic it can be hard to see him something else and his later films. Beane is the kind of father that is needed in the 21st century. He holds firmly to what he believes and will see it through until it is done, through thick and thin. This hearkens back to older, more traditional heroes and reminds us of a Time when men constantly weren’t put down. There are even moments where rather than be emasculated, Pitt’s character decides to ignore grievances and push on. He constantly is willing to give those who often don’t even believe in themselves a chance to become something more than they could possibly imagine.

The other stand-up performance in this is Jonah Hill, who perfectly plays the highly intelligent but socially awkward nerd type that he was initially famous for. He is usually awkward, but never to the point where it breaks the audience’s immersion. In fact he can feel quite relatable and is a fun variable throughout the film. The excellent and subtle score by Mychael Danna helps accentuate the bitter sweet yet optimistic tone of the film that carries all the way to the credits.

The true tragedy of this film is that Bennett Miller only went on to do one more feature film after this. Miller has been quiet since Foxcatcher in 20141. Miller perfectly translated Sorkin’s fantastic adaptation to the screen with exceptionally clean shot composition and incredible pacing that really helps Moneyball’s rewatchability. It’s never too flashy, but never too bland.

Moneyball is a remarkably rewatchable and feel good film that on paper doesn’t seem like it would be. In spite of it’s bitter sweet ending, it gives audiences a lot to ponder about dedication to a higher purpose and seeing things through all the way to the end.

What is the greatest theme for a baseball movie? Some baseball movies, like 42 and the Natural, have highlighted an exceptional player that accomplishes something great or makes the major leagues. Another possible theme revolves around an underdog team that transforms from a dreadful team into a successful winning team, maybe one that wins a championship. Examples of this are Moneyball and Bad News Bears. Lastly, a baseball movie could highlight the importance of baseball in the relationship of a father and a son. Probably the most famous example of this is Field of Dreams, where the importance of having a catch with dad is highlighted. This is also an important theme because of the importance of fathers for children in baseball whether it be simply having a catch or having your father in attendance watching your game. All of these movies have great themes and all of them go about unfolding them in their own way, but what if one movie could tell all three? If a movie could achieve depicting all three in a successful way, wouldn’t that place it among the best baseball movies? One might think that that is an impossible task to combine all three of those aspects and still produce a coherent and enjoyable movie, but Disney’s The Rookie does it perfectly. The exceptional player? Jim Morris, who overcomes adversity to fulfill his dream and make the major leagues. The scrappy underdog team that flips from worst to first? The Big Lake Owls, who with the help of Morris and the purpose of playing for a greater cause turns the team around into a successful team. Finally, the father and son relationship that highlights the importance of baseball between a father and a son? The relationship between Jim and his father, Jim Sr. that is complicated throughout the movie but with the hope of sorting things out by the end. Disney’s The Rookie has all of these themes and combines them in a unique way to give us a truly distinct baseball movie.

Jimmy Morris...another masterful pitching performance...well on his way...to another World Series title.

At the beginning of the movie, we see a young Jim Morris dreaming of pitching in the major leagues. During this portion of the movie, Jim pretends he is pitching in the major leagues and throwing a no-hitter. Later in the movie, an older Jim Morris is talking about how he dreamed of pitching in a big league ballpark and in the final inning of the last game of the World Series. Although an older Jim realizes that he might not ever get that opportunity, it is clear that that dream to pitch in the major leagues has remained with him for his entire life. After a good performance in a minor league game, one step away from making it to the major leagues, Jim is called into his manager’s office. When the manager tells Jim that they are promoting him to play in the major leagues, Jim is speechless. His dream is finally fulfilled. The next part of the movie feels like a dream as Jim arrives at the major league ballpark and starts to warm up, it begins to sink in that he really is in the major leagues. Near the end of the game it is time for his team, the Devil Rays, to switch pitchers. One of the coaches on his team simply says, “Morris, you’re in,” and it is time for Morris to enter the game. As Morris walks out of the bullpen and onto the field, it feels like a fantasy as the excitement of the crowd and the major league ballpark hits him. What follows is a thrilling at bat and Jim wins the battle and strikes out the hitter. At last, Jim’s dream of playing in the major leagues and being successful there has come true.

Three years ago...this program ended the season with only one win. Two years ago...one win. Last year...same story. This year...we have won sixteen games. And gentlemen, we need seventeen.

Before Jim tries out for the Devil Rays and makes it all the way to the major leagues to fulfill his dream, he coaches a high school team, the Big Lake Owls, who over the previous three seasons have only won one game each year. Although the team is not winning, there are a couple of likable players on the team. Joel catches Jim after practice when Jim begins to throw hard again. Jaquin Campos, who is just referred to in the movie as “Wack”, gives Jim a hard time and challenges Jim on things, but doesn’t want Jim to leave and coach at another school when the opportunity comes. Rudy is a pitcher who is having a rough year, but perseveres through hard times and becomes a reliable pitcher. Finally, Joel is the firstbaseman who provides the comedic aspect to the group. After a particularly tough game, Jim needs something to motivate his team. When the team mentions that Jim throws hard and they all think that Jim should try out for a major league team, Jim makes a deal with them that if they win their district championship and go to the state playoffs, that he will find a tryout for a major league team. This motivation works and with the help of seeing Jim’s faster pitching in batting practice the team begins to win games. The Owls make it all the way to the district championship and win a showdown with a rival team to win the championship and advance to the state tournament. The players are excited that they win the championship, but were excited for their coach and after the win, every player tells Jim that it is his turn to chase his dream and find a major league tryout which Jim does and begins his journey to fulfill his dream of pitching in the major leagues. The underdog team with some likeable players finds a higher purpose and is motivated to turn their season around which leads to a championship win, a classic characteristic of a baseball movie.

I wasn’t missing this one.

Although Jim has always had a dream to play baseball, his father, Jim Sr., never seems to understand his love for baseball. In the early stages of the movie when Jimmy is a child, he visits his dad after one of his games. While Jimmy is describing how good of a game he had, his father seems distracted and simply asks him if his team won, to which Jim nods yes. We never see Jim Sr. at any of Jimmy’s games or encouraging him in his love for baseball. As Jim grows older and is pitching in the minor leagues, he gets an offer to teach and coach at a big high school in Fort Worth Texas which is a stable job and will comfortably provide for his family, but Jim would have to give up his opportunity to pursue his dream of pitching in the major leagues. When Jim asks his father for advice on what to do, Jim Sr. tells Jim that it is okay to think about what he wants to do until it is time to start doing what he was meant to do, implying that what he is meant to do is take the coaching job and provide for his family. This is consistent with Jim Sr.’s demeanor throughout the movie. He doesn’t seem to understand Jim’s love for the game and how much it means to him. Eventually though, Jim does make it out of the minor leagues and into the major league game. As reporters crowd around Jim to ask him about his game, something changes and Jim sees his father who has come to watch his game. Jim asks for a second to get away from the reporters and goes over to talk to his dad. Jim Sr. tells him that not many fathers get a chance to watch their kids in a game, and that he let too many of those opportunities get away. Although Jim Sr. might not know why baseball is important to him, he realizes that baseball is important to him and to two people that might not fully understand each other have an understanding in that moment and baseball was the connection that provided it.

Disney’s The Rookie has not one, not two, but three elements that make a great baseball movie. Jim’s unlikely journey from high school baseball coach with an injured arm to major league baseball player is just one story that makes the Rookie special. Not only that, but the Rookie also has a story about an underdog team that finds itself and becomes a winning team and earns a championship win. Finally, the complicated relationship between Jim and his father and the differences in opinion that they have about baseball is finally understood by both of them. Many baseball movies try to tackle one of these topics and make a movie based on just one of these aspects, but the Rookie takes on all three and succeeds at delivering on all of them. Since the Rookie takes on three central storylines of baseball movies and succeeds at delivering on all of them, it makes it a truly unique baseball movie and puts it amongst the best baseball movies.

Aside from the Founding Fathers, American culture’s two main sources of secular saints are the Civil Rights movement and baseball. One man’s story sits at the intersection of those two pillars of the twentieth century American imagination: Jackie Robinson. The breaking of baseball’s color barrier in 1947 was one of the most pivotal cultural moments that allowed the political movement of the 1960s to succeed. Jackie Robinson proved that skin color was irrelevant in baseball, that talent and character can overcome prejudice, and that faith and courage in adversity can move mountains. Robinson was a man of deep faith and integrity, and he proved that on and off the diamond in a way that normal, Christian Americans couldn’t ignore. In my opinion, Robinson was as integral to the success of the Civil Rights Movement as Martin Luther King, Jr. and deserves all the accolades and celebration he receives and more.1

Given his cultural importance, it was almost a given that Jackie Robinson’s story would get a cinematic portrayal, and in fact it only took three years from his historic rookie year in 1947 for him to make it to the silver screen in The Jackie Robinson Story. This film is of interest to baseball fans because Jackie plays himself in the film, at the height of his career, giving the project a rare authenticity. However, it’s not a very good film overall, with little cinematic flair other than the bizarre choice to undercrank the shots of Jackie running around the bases so he seems to run at a cartoonish speed in the film. Was this really necessary when filming the man who was already the fastest man in baseball?

I digress. The far better adaptation of Robinson’s story came in 2013 with the release of 42, starring Chadwick Boseman (requiescat in pace) as Jackie Robinson and Harrison Ford as Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey. 42 gives Robinson the dramatic treatment he deserves, a full cinematic hagiography. Boseman’s performance is especially electric, capturing Jackie’s spirit, integrity, courage, but also his flaws: a quick temper, some arrogance, a tendency to show off at times. This central performance is what makes the movie: bad hagiography portrays a protagonist without flaws, a saint from the beginning whose only struggle is against the evil forces conspiring against him. Good hagiography shows our hero fight and win enemies both internal and external; indeed, his conquest of his flaws is what enables him to vanquish his foes. Boseman perfectly portrays the inner struggle in Robinson’s life, the righteous rage against injustice that Robinson must control in order to overcome. It’s written on his face, in his body language, and into the very soul of the film, elevating what could have been a rote, stale retelling into a cinematic jewel.2

I would be remiss if I did not pair Boseman’s excellent performance with Harrison Ford’s Branch Rickey. The two stories are inseparably entwined, with Rickey functioning almost as a second protagonist instead of a side character. This is perhaps Ford’s strongest late-career performance, filled with subtlety and strength. Rickey is a man of many motivations. As a businessman, he wants to make money; bringing Jackie to the team will earn him the business of African Americans, and dollars, as he points out, are neither black nor white but green. As a baseball man, he wants to win the pennant; black ballplayers are a criminally overlooked talent pool and by bringing Robinson to the team the Dodgers have a chance to win the World Series. Both of these motivations are made explicit and used by Rickey to justify his decision to allies and enemies alike.

However, there is something deeper at play here, and Ford’s performance does a marvelous job at portraying the depth even when shallower explanations are being expressed. Branch Rickey was a deeply Christian man, formed by his faith into a deep opposition to injustice. I had forgotten how explicitly Christian Rickey’s motivations were in this film, but on rewatch I greatly appreciated that 42 did not gloss over or downplay the importance of Christianity in this momentous event. Rickey is looking for someone who has a great depth of character, someone whose faith will help restrain his baser tendencies and prove the worth of his whole swath of humanity to white America. He picks Jackie Robinson to be the man to break the color barrier partly because of their shared Methodist faith.3 Rickey knows that Robinson’s faith will be a crucial part of the success of this mission, appealing to Christ’s teaching to turn the other cheek in a pivotal scene. When Rickey tries to goad him into anger, asking what he’ll do when he is the target of incredible abuse and reviling for daring to play baseball with white men, Jackie asks if Rickey is looking for a coward, for someone without the guts to fight back. Rickey responds: “No….no. I want a player who’s got the guts not to fight back.” This response is deeply rooted in Rickey’s Christian faith, and it’s the heart of the film. Both Boseman and Ford give incredible performances that show the depth of their conviction and hatred of injustice layered under an outer peace and gentleness that together moved a nation one step further away from prejudice. American politics, on both the left and the right, seems to have forgotten the deeply held Christian faith of most of the participants in the Civil Rights movement and how it was that faith that overcame injustice and paved the way for greater peace. This movie retains that, and I applaud it for doing so.

42 is an excellent film, giving us a story with deep integrity, heroism, and good baseball. Jackie Robinson is one of those real life heroes who give us an example of integrity and courage in the face of incredible pressure, countering the doomer mentality so prevalent in our postmodern world. The film allows Robinson’s story to speak through grace, humor, and excellent performances from its central cast, cementing this American myth in the minds of a new generation. Would that all the racial-political movies of the 2010s focused on such integrity instead of grievance! But instead of lamenting the bad, I wish to celebrate the good, and 42 is one of the best. Break this film out every Jackie Robinson day and remember this story of integrity, courage, and faith. Black, white, yellow, or striped like a zebra, Jackie Robinson’s story can be an inspiration to us all.

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“Sing to me, Muse, of the wanderer, the man of twists and turns…” (Homer, The Odyssey)

Perhaps no sport is more malleable in genre than baseball. Sure, yes, every baseball movie squarely falls into the “sports movie genre” category. But baseball is able to cross over into other film genres with perhaps more ease than any other. It can be a straight drama (see Eight Men Out). It can be a comedy (Major League). It can be a mix of both, but with an added dash of Brad Pitt (Moneyball). It can be a coming-of-age dramedy (Everybody Wants Some!!!), it can be a father and son story (Field of Dreams)…I can keep going. The point is, baseball, with its over century of history, has found a way to be told and retold on film again and again.

At its core, though, baseball might be best understood as a myth. It’s at least this way for every young boy who has dreamed of becoming a baseball player, seeing their heroes on the diamond more like the gods of Olympus than as normal, mortal men. The Natural, more than any other baseball film, understands this core tenet of baseball better than any other.

The Robert Redford (may he rest in peace) star vehicle, adapted from the book of the same name, tells the tale — fable, really — of Roy Hobbs, the “best that ever was and ever will be,” a baseball player so naturally talented that he seems destined for greatness…until his own follies snatch that dream away for sixteen years. When he returns to the game as an older man, he gets another shot at his dream, only for his same flaws to threaten to derail everything once again. His only true path forward to fulfilling his baseball destiny? To find his way back home to his true love and the son he never knew he had.

If that at all sounds like The Odyssey, you would be right. If that at all sounds like King Arthur, you would be right once again. The Natural is dripping in Homeric and Arthurian references and influence, weaving its baseball tale like it’s one of the great ancient texts. Roy Hobbs is both Arthur and Odysseus, on an epic quest to ultimately make his way home to his one true love, even as the forces of darkness both outside and within threaten to stop him.

In the book version of The Natural, the story plays out more akin to a Greek tragedy — particularly in regards to the ending (we will get to that). In the film, however, it’s an American legend. Yes, there are “some mistakes you may pay for your whole life,” as Hobbs says at one point. But, as another character later puts it, we “live two lives. The one we learn with, and the life we live with after that.” Hobbs is given the opportunity to learn from his mistakes and become the best version of himself over the course of the film — both for his team, the aptly named New York Knights, and for the family he ultimately has to return to.

Now, about that ending. Forty-three years later, you have likely seen the closing minutes at this point, if not the entire movie. The shot of Redford smashing a home run into the stadium lights, causing an avalanche of sparks to come raining down upon him and his team as he rounds the bases one last time, is as iconic a shot as any other in movie history. The book, however, ended differently — with Hobbs, in the most important moment of his career, striking out, leaving his dream behind in disgrace, ultimately felled by the demons that tormented him his whole life.

For some, this change robs The Natural of its staying power and makes it nothing more than a feel-good, overly sentimental fairy tale. But, isn’t that what baseball is at its very best? A fairy tale, where the hopes and wishes we had as children finally get to come to true. All Roy Hobbs ever wanted to be was a baseball player. Just like any young, American boy. And for one shining, sparkling moment, as the sparks come crashing down, he got to live out that fairy tale and live it to the full — living it out for all of us who still clutch onto that dream. What could be more naturally baseball than that.

If you can indulge me two technical diversions that have to be mentioned as well. First, and obviously, the Randy Newman score. It’s been described as Coplandesque by some. Wagnerian by others. It is all those things, yes, but for generations of baseball fans, it’s been the soundtrack of iconic moment after iconic moment. What was once fantasy on film has become reality — Kirk Gibson’s magical home run for the Dodgers only becomes more mythic when Newman’s score swells underneath it. The Cubs finally winning the World Series after over a hundred years? Even more chill-inducing with Randy Newman scoring the moment.

Now, for the cinematography. The film is awash in nostalgic hues. That’s purposeful. Caleb Deschanel (you may know him from The Passion of the Christ) wanted the film to resemble the color processes of pictures from the early 1900s and obsessed over finding a way to emulate that look. The final, Academy Award-nominated product, is the result of all those efforts, making The Natural both nostalgic and timeless in a way that is still striking to this day.

The Natural is baseball at its myth-making best. It captures the mysticism of the sport in a way that perhaps no other sports picture ever has. As we follow Hobbs’ story to its rousing conclusion, we see a King Arthur for the sport of baseball, a man ready to inspire generation after generation that they, too, can step into the batter’s box and fulfill their wildest fantasies. Like Arthur, Hobbs strives for greatness, wielding a magical weapon to thwart his enemies. Yes, temptations lead to his downfall — as they do any man, in time.

But, in a distinctly American — and, dare I say, Catholic — twist on the Arthurian legend, Hobbs is able to overcome these enemies and ultimately fulfill the very destiny thrust upon him by his father. Sentimental to a fault? Perhaps. Does baseball exist to break your heart? Also, perhaps. But, for fleeting moments, it can also fulfill your wildest dreams.

That’s The Natural.