Unbroken: A cure for cynicism

Some people earn their cynicism through a hard life and serial disappointment. Others (the majority, I suspect, at least in this country) dress up in it as defensive garb or a drape of sophistication. They sneer at political, show business, and sports heroes, and while these often deserve the sneers, some hard-core cynics scoff at the notion of heroism itself. This is the kind of surface worldliness analyzed by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man—the famous “men without chests” produced by modern education.

Heroism still happens, and by God’s grace we’re capable of responding to it. The striving spirit He planted in man (Genesis 6:3) breaks out in startling ways, both good and evil—we fall for the evil, but are still drawn to the good. Though the word “hero” is sometimes thrown around with reckless abandon these days, we know it when we see it.

Louis Zamperini’s heroism during WWII was mostly passive; he distinguished himself more as a survivor than a fighter. Only after the war did he emerge as a real warrior—for Christ. Unbroken, the movie version of his story, has taken some criticism for not showing his conversion, the truly life-shattering event that allowed him to make sense of everything that happened to him and use it for good. Angelina Jolie, the film’s director, gave two reasons for leaving that part out: It would have made the movie too long and would have alienated a large portion of the audience. This was probably a personal decision based on a gut-level sense of audience reaction. But it was also an artistic decision, understandable on that level.

Here’s why: Art is a reflection of human experience, and conversion is the one deeply human experience that is not generally shared. Everyone, no matter their station, has known joy, sorrow, disappointment, loss, excitement, and fear to some degree and can respond to artistic depictions of all these. Coming to Christ is something else entirely, so alien to humanity that God has to do it. Those who have experienced conversion feel their hearts leap when they see it portrayed. To those who haven’t, it can feel like a door slamming in their faces.

So perhaps Jolie stopped where she, personally, had to stop. The result feels unfinished, even to some secular critics, but it is not cynical. The director’s respect for Zamperini extended to the men of his generation.

“They were responsible young men who’d come through the Depression, who were fighting for their country, and who took pride in the way they held themselves and the way they spoke.” Jolie said in an interview.

To preserve that self-respect, she instituted a no-cursing rule on the set so the actors and crew had to find more creative ways of expressing themselves than f-bombs. It was a small thing that contributed her depiction of believable characters—ordinary guys who behaved in extraordinary ways. America still produces heroes, though perhaps not in such numbers. Unbroken deserves respect for reminding us that cynicism is a dead end.