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Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings

de Josh Larsen

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"Movies are our way of telling God what we think about this world and our place in it.... Movies can be many things: escapist experiences, historical artifacts, business ventures, and artistic expressions, to name a few. I'd like to suggest that they can also be prayers." Movies do more than tell a good story. They are expressions of raw emotion, naked vulnerability, and unbridled rage. They often function in the same way as prayers, communicating our deepest longings and joys to a God who hears each and every one. In this captivating book, Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen brings a critic's unique perspective to how movies function as expressions to God of lament, praise, joy, confession, and more. His clear expertise and passion for the art of film, along with his thoughtful reflections on the nature of prayer, will bring you a better understanding of both. God's omnipresence means that you can find him whether you're sitting on your sofa at home or in the seats at the theater. You can talk to him wherever movies are shown. And when words fail, the perfect film might be just what you need to jump-start your conversations with the Almighty.… (més)
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In the foreword, this book is recommended to anyone, religious or no; but it's pretty plain that the content is geared toward Christians, and I'm genuinely surprised to find positive reviews from both sides of the camp. It could be a pleasant, moderately interesting outing for the casual film fan who also happens to be religious, but I expect more serious movie buffs may find the pick and mix, surface-level approach tiresome. Larson is clearly passionate about film, though he surprised me on occasion with some rookie blunders (like confusing match cuts and jumps cuts) and occasionally making baseless leaps in logic to fit his outlook.

I would say that the book starts well enough, if only because the premise (while cringe in presentation) is an interesting one. The essential relationship between film and prayer here is that movies can be seen as deeper expressions of something internal (the idea conjures one of a few interpretations of Romans 8:26). I don't think Larson's definition of prayer is made abundantly clear though (one minute he'll be arguing movies as prayers, the next he'll be arguing for movies as uttering prayers), so I was left wondering initially whether he was arguing for the movie as a prayer of its creator, or merely that the movie substitutes itself as a prayer for the audience. It soon becomes clear that, at least for the most part, Larson is arguing the latter. I found this a pretty weak and convenient interpretation of the definition of prayer for the sake of marrying pop film commentary with Christian values (and if we zoom in on the Romans 8 parallel made in the introduction, then in that context the movies are really a parallel with the Holy Spirit and not the prayer itself). The former would have been a much more compelling exploration; if film and prayer are to become synonymous then surely the issuer/creator of the prayer/movie should be the source for determining whether indeed the parallel holds up? But instead Larson is content to navigate each chapter by listing his favourite movies, highlighting some themes, injecting subjective meaning, and then sticking the words 'prayer of' in front. This quickly becomes repetitive and many of the observations are frustratingly simplistic; some of the analysis can even be boiled down to "this film is sad - it's a prayer of lament!". And even then, the film isn't so much a lament as it is that Larson is observing that a character laments. This isn't the same as the film, the art object itself, being a lament, which would (again) depend on the position of the artist. Seeing the tenuous way Toy Story was justified as a prayer of confession was pretty much the last straw for me. I nearly threw the book into the fire (until I realised that it was the hot season and I didn't actually own a fireplace).

Putting all that aside, the format in which a selection of unrelated films are navigated at Larson's whim is equally annoying. If I want to hear this much detail about a movie, I'll have seen it first, in which case, I don't want a full summary. If I haven't seen it, I don't want a full summary spoiling events for me before I watch it. This approach does nothing for me whether I've seen the film or not. It's either tiresome or invasive.

At the end of the day, this is Larson using spiritual parallels to justify his hobby. I for sure think that film has a lot of value and that viewing it as expressing something spiritual subconsciously is a fascinating subject. But it's not explored here.

I'll leave you with the same facepalm Larson ends the book with:

"Dear God,

We pray for your presence in our theaters, in our homes, and wherever we participate in one of your great gifts: the art of cinema. Receive the praise of Avatar. Answer the yearning of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Hear the lament of 12 Years a Slave. Be merciful in the face of James Dean's anger. Accept Buzz Lightyear's confession. Bless the tentative reconciliation of Do the Right Thing. Enourage George Bailey as he obeys. Meet Buster Keaton in meditation. Stoke Fred and Ginger's joy. Thank you for the movies, Lord, and the talents you've given to those who make them. We ask for your guidance, so that we may watch and pray with wisdom and grace that honors you.

Fin/amen."
( )
1 vota TheScribblingMan | Jul 29, 2023 |
"Going far beyond a simple assessment of Christlike martyr figures (the movies are lousy with 'em), Josh Larsen's passionate and movingly reflective new book makes an inspiring case for treating a provocative variety of films as prayers for all seasons. He writes on everything from Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life to Michael Haneke's Amour, teasing out the filmmakers' insatiable desire to wrestle with the unknowable. But his democratically theological approach to the medium he loves brings into play unexpected gems: Polanski's Chinatown, or Demme's The Silence of the Lambs (to which Larsen took his future wife on a date). 'Many films,' he writes, 'even the challenging ones, are capable of functioning as messy, mixed-up, miraculous prayer.' I've long been engaged by Larsen's film criticism on Filmspotting, but his book seeks and finds a higher power and a more mysterious set of concerns, somewhere out past the lobby." (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune)
"This is one of the best books on film and theology I've ever read. By conceiving of and engaging with movies as 'prayerful gestures received by God," Larsen guides the reader in a study that is itself a reverent, prayerful gesture. Packed with insights into how both the content and the form of films can mirror prayer, Movies Are Prayers is a must-read for anyone who has ever felt the pangs of transcendence in a movie theater. Yet this is a book as much about prayer as it is about pop culture. Readers will gain not only new language with which to understand movies, but an enlivened paradigm for understanding prayer." (Brett McCracken, film critic for Christianity Today, author of Gray Matters and Hipster Christianity)
  staylorlib | Dec 6, 2019 |
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"Movies are our way of telling God what we think about this world and our place in it.... Movies can be many things: escapist experiences, historical artifacts, business ventures, and artistic expressions, to name a few. I'd like to suggest that they can also be prayers." Movies do more than tell a good story. They are expressions of raw emotion, naked vulnerability, and unbridled rage. They often function in the same way as prayers, communicating our deepest longings and joys to a God who hears each and every one. In this captivating book, Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen brings a critic's unique perspective to how movies function as expressions to God of lament, praise, joy, confession, and more. His clear expertise and passion for the art of film, along with his thoughtful reflections on the nature of prayer, will bring you a better understanding of both. God's omnipresence means that you can find him whether you're sitting on your sofa at home or in the seats at the theater. You can talk to him wherever movies are shown. And when words fail, the perfect film might be just what you need to jump-start your conversations with the Almighty.

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