I am prepping notes for our March film and theology session at Harambee in Seattle where we’ll be screening “Monster’s Ball”. Would be very interested in any thoughtful material you’ve written or come across on the film and/or the Gospel/Cultural issues that watching it raises.

Beyond being interested in reviews, I am also looking for content that gives good treatment to the Believer’s discerning process that goes into figuring out when watching films, to which strong sexual content is integral to the storyline, is fruitful.

Also -- Would love to have any of you who are in the Seattle area join us. Screening will be Friday March 12 at 7 pm in Tukwila. If interested, ping info@harambeechurch.com for directions.

Gratsi --

zug

See this thread: http://promontoryarts.com/viewtopic.php?t=...hlight=monsters

And here's my review, although if I wrote it TODAY, I'd be much harder on the film. This is one where I really do think the sex scene is inexcusably explicit, and its role in the story given too much weight.

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Monster’s Ball is a naturalistic drama directed by Marc Forster. By naturalistic, I mean the camera moves slowly, as though half-asleep, forcing us to move at the pace of everyday life through spaces that look as real as your own neighborhood. The actors aren’t noticeably \"gussied up\", there are no noticeable special effects, and there is as much said in silence as there is in dialogue. It’s a movie for people who like to think about their movies, instead of for the masses who just want to be spoon-fed. Billy Bob Thornton plays Hank, a corrections officer carrying intense racial prejudice in one hand and a sidearm in the other. Hank’s aging father Buck (Peter Doyle) constantly reinforces the family’s race-hate, calling Sonny, Hank’s son, \"weak\" because he befriends their black neighbors. Halle Berry plays Leticia, the wife of a convicted killer, a mother trying to raise her son right and survive as a black single mother in the middle of the South’s racial tensions.  After the criminal is executed, Hank’s dispute with his son (Heath Ledger of The Patriot) intensifies. But as he watches Leticia grieve while she works at his favorite late-night diner, he comes to care for her, and love begins breaking apart his prejudice.   Make no mistake: This is a story about people who are severely damaged and lost, behaving in reckless, dangerous ways as they nurse their particular needs for love, understanding, and intimacy. People are killed. Men lash out in racist hate. Father and sons call on and use prostitutes to find fleeting satisfaction. A mother beats her son. Lovers fall into hasty sex while under the influence of alcohol. It is not a pretty picture, and definitely not a film for younger viewers, or for the squeamish. But the central theme of the story is this—hate, even hardened racism, can be overcome by love and compassion. Hank and Leticia are moving towards a mature relationship the way toddlers learn to walk—they’re making every variety of mistake, fumbling their way towards the basic lessons of love, gaining wisdom inch by inch. Their missteps are clearly portrayed as missteps. (Hank’s interaction with a prostitute is not glamorized, but shown as the joyless, empty, and contemptible exchange that it is. Thus, when he finds true love, the revelation is all the more meaningful.) The Bible itself tells us stories of men more evil than Hank who learned about love the hard way. Each mistake Hank makes teaches him something.   The performances of Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry are excellent. Billy Bob Thornton again shows he can make a bad script seem good. Halle Berry pours herself, heart and soul, into the character, making this her most impressive performance yet.   But Forster makes us too intimate with these characters. When two of them get drunk after a devastating day, they rush into sexual activity that changes the course of their lives and their story. These scenes are entirely necessary, but they’re filmed too explicitly. Forster lets them go beyond informative to become merely provocative. It’s a primary rule of art, Mr. Director—less is more.   I also think Forster portrays Southern prejudice a bit too intensely. It may reflect the truth, but it isn't explored much. It's just loud, offensive, and in-your-face brutal. This seemed somewhat clichéd as well. Yes, there are still communities deeply divided by prejudice, but the portrayals here are played for shock value, to make contemporary audiences gasp and end up hating the bad guys. If I lived in the South, I’d find the relentlessness of these portrayals to exhibit a prejudice of their own.   There are other problems with the movie—its flaws seem more evident upon reflection, after the film’s powerfully meditative mood music and leisurely camerawork are finished. Forster is a little to excited about his film’s symbolism, and he uses it heavy-handedly. During one scene we see jarringly incongruous pictures of someone trying to free a bird from a cage. Yeah yeah, we get the point: Leticia’s caged heart is being set free. Not only is that painfully cliché, but there is no bird or bird cage in the story, unless I missed something, and thus the audience is left trying to figure out \"Whose bird is that?\" If Leticia had kept a bird, that would have been just enough of suggested metaphor. Just because most audiences don’t like to think doesn’t mean a director should try to explain his own imagery in the middle of the movie.   The movie’s leisurely pace gave me room to remember where I’d seen this story before. Monster’s Ball is The Crying Game, re-set in the American South, where bad men are prejudiced against blacks instead of homosexuals. The hero begins the movie participating in the execution of a man whose wife he will, racked with guilt, decide to befriend and support. As in Crying Game, these two very different people will fall in love, and of course, the hero’s connection to the execution will remain secret until the end.   But we also have As Good as it Gets here, as Hank and Leticia get to know each other through quick, tense, prejudice-laced exchanges in a diner, while she pours his \"black\" coffee and serves his \"chocolate\" ice cream. Perhaps the unflatteringly graphic electric-chair scenes will give the film the added importance that worked for Dead Man Walking. This is a movie hard-wired for critical acclaim, so loaded with issues that it may have backfired among Oscar voters. While it won Roger Ebert’s \"movie of the year\" mention, it hasn’t become an \"event\" film for any reason other than Berry’s occasional state of undress. But far be it from me to say the film is empty. Heavy-handed and derivative as it is, thanks to its two central performers, it strikes some resonant chords about forgiveness, compassion, and doing the right thing.

Thanks amigo -- had not imagined that it had been as recently discussed as the thread you posted.

My review (along side one by Simon Remark) at http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/monsters_ball.htm

zug wrote:
: Thanks amigo -- had not imagined that it had been as recently discussed
: as the thread you posted.

Well, that's why God gave us search engines.

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Well, that's why God gave us search engines.

But then I'd miss out on the warm fuzzy "Chattaway" feeling in your replies. Man, I feel welcome back already ;)

QUOTE

This is one where I really do think the sex scene is inexcusably explicit, and its role in the story given too much weight.

Jeffrey (and anyone else who wants to chime in) -- Can you give me some of your examples of great films with very explicit sex scenes that you thought were given appropriate weight in regards to the overall piece? I’m trying to get an idea of your sense of scale (no sexual pun intended ;)

Also – What would you consider to be the most sexually explicit portions of the Bible to you?

Well, I disagree with Jeffrey on this one. As explicit as the sex is in the film, I think it is absolutely essential to the film overall. The sex scenes in the film tie the three generations of men together and also are one of the ways we see transformation occuring in Thorton's character and his ability to form a non-monsterous relationship.

I see the sex in Monster's Ball as fitting the story even better than it does in Eyes Wide Shut which is about sex.

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I see the sex in 'Monster's Ball' as fitting the story even better than it does in 'Eyes Wide Shut' which is about sex.

Darrel -- Any other highly regarded films where you think the sex scenes do not serve the story as well?

zug wrote:

: : Well, that's why God gave us search engines.
:
: But then I'd miss out on the warm fuzzy "Chattaway" feeling in your
: replies. Man, I feel welcome back already

Heh. Well, don't worry, there's more than enough of those warm fuzzies to go around without worrying about multiple threads on the same topic.

: Jeffrey (and anyone else who wants to chime in) -- Can you give me
: some of your examples of great films with very explicit sex scenes that
: you thought were given appropriate weight in regards to the overall piece?

I know Jeff and I have defended the sex scenes in The Dreamlife of Angels, for one.

Darrel Manson wrote:
: As explicit as the sex is in the film, I think it is absolutely essential to the
: film overall. The sex scenes in the film tie the three generations of men
: together and also are one of the ways we see transformation occuring in
: Thorton's character and his ability to form a non-monsterous relationship.

Agreed, I think. Like I think I said in that review that I linked to on the other thread, the primary sex scene in this film has a full dramatic arc all its own, as Thornton begins in a position of exploitation, moves to a position of mutuality, and ultimately a position of submission -- no way would a good ol' racist white man let a black woman be on top! You can't just zip through that in a few seconds, and if you fade out and skip over the sequence then you have lost the pivotal moment in the character's transformation. Still, that said, the scene COULD arguably be less explicit than it is -- even Ebert said as much (a fact that Movieguide overlooked).