Baptizing Hollywood

In Films for All Seasons (IVP, 240 pp.), Abby Olcese offers her readers a new understanding of how to relate to movies. She ties specific movies to particular events in the church calendar, giving Christian film buffs a more deliberate, intentional method of answering the perennial question: “What should we watch tonight?” At the same time, she asks an even more important question: “What did we watch tonight?” Movies are more than mere entertainment; the themes and ideas found in them are worthy of serious consideration, and Olcese’s book is a good tool for doing just that.

Olcese comes from an Episcopalian background, and her method involves looking for themes in film which resonate with the liturgy at different times in the year. Readers who follow the same liturgical calendar will likely find her approach comfortingly sensible; readers who are not familiar with the church calendar will, hopefully, find her framework refreshingly innovative.

Her interpretations of the individual films she chooses adhere to the approach, often found among Christian arts criticism, of finding a specific aspect of the film’s story and considering that aspect in light of a Biblical truth. Some of her interpretations seem rather straightforward, while others seem a bit of a stretch; calling Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men a Christmas movie is a safe bet, but thinking of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie as relating to Epiphany seems harder to accept.

I’m not sure what to think of this approach. It often seems it doesn’t give enough regard to the wishes and motivations of the creators of the artwork. Take her interpretation of Alex Garland’s Annihilation, for instance. Was there really anything in Garland’s mind relating to Ash Wednesday when he made the movie? Perhaps there was, but if so, it’s not discussed in Olcese’s comments on the film. It’s true that good art can speak to a variety of people in multiple contexts and can have depths of meaning not immediately understood, but I think more consideration of the filmmakers’ intentions would have been a better starting place for Olcese’s meditations, which are for the most part consistently insightful. However, this is a problem endemic to Christian artistic commentary and not the particular fault of Olcese herself.

As a method for interpreting films, though, Olcese’s church-year rubric works well most of the time. The only film in her list which might be unwelcome among some Christian circles is Olcese’s pick for the Saturday before Easter: Martin Scorsese’s highly controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, which is considered blasphemous by many Christians. Olcese provides a mix of both kid-friendly, entertainment-oriented movies and deeper, more thought-provoking films. Her discussion questions at the end of each film’s chapter provide good starting points for talking about the movie’s themes with more philosophically attuned viewers. Families, especially, will appreciate her facilitating of after-the-film discussion among parents and children. This would be a good book to use as a pattern for a film study circle or regularly occurring movie night.