[Ron Reed]

The Hidden God: Film and Faith
Museum of Modern Art
December 4, 2003–February 27, 2004
http://www.moma.org/...hidden_god.html

A recurring subject in modernist art, the idea of a hidden God has acquired a particular resonance in the language of cinema. Movies with spiritual themes have been made throughout the film-producing world since the emergence of the medium in the 1890s, but it is with the advent of the sound period in the late 1920s that the theme of a hidden spirituality, or, alternatively, of spirituality’s absence, appeared. Since then, many movies have simultaneously insinuated and disguised the mystery that believers call God. This exhibition presents thirty feature films that explore this theme, by filmmakers such as Robert Bresson, Roberto Rossellini, Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, Clint Eastwood, and Harold Ramis. Accompanying the series is the publication The Hidden God: Film and Faith, comprising fifty essays by scholars, critics, and curators, now available through the Museum.

Organized by Mary Lea Bandy, Chief Curator, Department of Film and Media, and Antonio Monda, Film Professor, New York University. This exhibition is supported by Caral and Joe Lebworth.


Groundhog Day. 1993. USA. Directed by Harold Ramis. Screenplay by Ramis, Danny Rubin. With Andie MacDowell, Bill Murray, Chris Elliott. Hidden within this comedy about an egotistical newscaster forced to live the same day eternally is the spiritual journey of a man unable to be liberated from time until he learns to love. 101 min.
Thursday, December 4, 8:15; Friday, December 26, 4:30

Ordet (The Word). 1955. Denmark. Written and directed by Carl Th. Dreyer, based on the play by Kaj Munk. With Henrik Malberg, Emil Haas Christensen, Preben Lerdorff Rye. Ordet’s depiction of the struggle between conventional and personal religion achieves unsurpassed heights of sincerity and torment. Among the unforgettable characters is a young man who believes he is Christ and whose faith is viewed as madness until he is visited by the Holy Spirit. In Danish, English subtitles. 124 min.
Friday, December 5, 2:00

Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray). 1986. France. Directed by Eric Rohmer. Screenplay by Rohmer, Marie Rivière. With Rivière, Amira Chemakhi, Sylvie Richez. A young woman’s longings during a vacation reveal spiritual substance at the end. For Rohmer, writes Phillip Lopate, “leisure is the supreme spiritual test faced by modern men and women”; summer is “the dangerous time for the soul’s stocktaking.” In French, English subtitles. 98 min.
Friday, December 5, 4:15

Babettes Gaestebud (Babette’s Feast). 1987. Denmark. Directed by Gabriel Axel. Screenplay by Axel, based on the story by Isak Dinesen. With Stéphane Audran, Birgitte Federspiel, Bodil Kjer. At Babette’s feast, true grace hides among the caviar and truffles while righteousness lurks in the turtle soup and champagne: the path to Paradise lies in succumbing to the earthly pleasures of table and palate. In Danish, English subtitles. 102 min.
Friday, December 5, 9:15; Monday, December 29, 5:30

Love Affair. 1939. USA. Directed by Leo McCarey. Screenplay by McCarey, Delmer Daves, and others. With Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya. McCarey’s God “is a cruel God” notes Dave Kehr, yet moments of divine intervention are “screened by comic dialogue,” and most compelling are “the emotional layering, the effortless transitions between tones, and the brilliant mime” of Boyer and Dunne. 88 min.
Saturday, December 6, 7:15; Saturday, December 27, 7:00

Unforgiven. 1992. USA. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by David Webb Peoples. With Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman. In this tragic yet calmly beautiful Western, Mario Sesti finds a “skeptical moral lesson: … that anyone can commit the most terrible wrongs in the name of justice, and that good and bad mirror and are mistaken for each other.” 131 min.
Saturday, December 6, 9:00; Monday, December 29, 1:00

Andrei Rublev. 1969. USSR. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Screenplay by Tarkovsky, Andrei Konchalovsky. With Anatoli Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Grinko. For Stuart Klawans, Andrei Rublev depicts “characters for whom there used to be a God. The absence is terrifying, not only because material power is unchecked but because its brutalities are exciting.” In Russian, English subtitles. 205 min.
Sunday, December 7, 2:00

Crimes and Misdemeanors. 1989. USA. Written and directed by Woody Allen. With Allen, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston. With a story that mixes its tragedy with comedy, notes Antonio Monda, “Allen’s most ambitious movie deals with the fear of the universe’s indifference and with the existence or nonexistence of a hidden God, who may or may not be watching us.” 104 min.
Thursday, December 11, 2:00; Sunday, December 21, 3:30

The Night of the Hunter. 1955. USA. Directed by Charles Laughton. Screenplay by James Agee, based on the novel by Davis Grubb. With Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish. “If Milton’s Satan were to return to Earth” writes Molly Haskell, “he might look like Robert Mitchum. ... Seductive, honeytongued … the malignant preacher bestrides the earth … wreaking vengeance on all the Eves who … torture man.” 92 min.
Thursday, December 11, 4:00

Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light). 1963. Sweden. Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. With Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow. A Protestant pastor is tormented by his inability to love and his fading faith. “The question of ‘God’s silence’” writes Tony Pipolo, permeates Winter Light, “not least the images of the characters’ tortured faces.” In Swedish, English subtitles. 81 min.
Friday, December 19, 2:00; Sunday, December 28, 2:00

Francesco giullare di Dio (The Flowers of St. Francis). 1950. Italy. Directed by Roberto Rossellini. Screenplay by Rossellini, Federico Fellini. With Aldo Fabrizi, Brother Nazario Gerardi. Intentionally naïve in style and sentiment, this film offers nature at its most vigorous to enhance the bonding of the monks, their commitment to faith, and their selfless devotion to the poor. In Italian, English subtitles. 86 min.
Saturday, December 20, 1:00; Monday, December 22, 6:00

*

It says the exhibition includes thirty films, but only eleven are listed. I'm guessing that the remaining 19 will show up in January and February.

[Doug C]

Thanks Ron--this is incredible! It looks like my list of all-time favorites.

The Flowers of St. Francis is a beautiful, joyful film unavailable on video, Le Rayon vert (Summer, The Green Ray) is, next to Perceval and My Night at Maud's, my favorite Rohmer. Leo McCarey is a totally unsung (or just forgotten) "spiritual" filmmaker from classical Hollywood (check out Make Way for Tomorrow), Winter Light is a very enjoyably ambigious statement on faith by the usually stringently agnostic Bergman, and films like Ordet, Andrei Rublev, and Night of the Hunter need no introductions around here. Absolutely fantastic...I can't wait to see what other films they've got lined up.

A vacation is definitely in order...anyone want to join me?

[Doug C]

Will do!

[SDG]

I'm in the area, of course... perhaps we can have all-y'all over to the house.

[Doug C]

http://store4.yimg.com/I/artbook_1768_4379186

Edited by Mary Lea Bandy and Antonio Monda. Essays by Carlos Fuentes, Charles Silver, Dave Kehr, Michael Wood, Kent Jones, Phillip Lopate, Andrew Sarris, and Martin Scorsese.

The sense of God has often been touched on in the movies. European directors like Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rossellini and many others have dealt directly with the theme throughout their careers, and Hollywood too has told stories based on the Bible, the lives of the saints and the martyrdoms of ordinary people. The Hidden God, which accompanies a film series of the same name organized by The Museum of Modern Art and screening in October and November of 2003, explores the ways in which a sense of God may appear in films, whether or not it is understood as such or is visible to the eye. This book contains over 50 essays by a wide range of writers, who find God encoded not only in explicitly religious subjects but in westerns, horror movies, comedies and many other genres, and in films from all over the world. In the times, places and societies these filmmakers explore, God may be lost, found, absent entirely or seen by only a few, whether saint or sinner.

PUBLISHED BY: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
FORMAT: Paperback, 6.25 x 9.75 in., 312 pgs
ISBN: 0870703498
ITEM: D20152
RELEASE: 2003

[Doug C]

If you click here and scroll down the page to "Mary Lea Bandy and Antonio Mondy," you can listen to a RealAudio interview with The Hidden God's curators, who begin by explaining how seeing Au hasard Balthazar inspired the whole series.

[Doug C]

And another Film Comment note, the next issue will also offer a review of The Hidden God book.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Since no one else has linked to the other thread yet ...

: Unforgiven. 1992. . . . In this tragic yet calmly beautiful Western, Mario
: Sesti finds a "skeptical moral lesson: ... that anyone can commit the
: most terrible wrongs in the name of justice, and that good and bad
: mirror and are mistaken for each other." 131 min.

Hmmm. I still think this film is ultimately a nihilistic subversion of the idea that distinctions like "good" and "bad" make any difference in the first place -- in which case there is no real basis for using morally evaluative expressions like "terrible wrongs" -- but I guess this essay could be going in that direction. I just don't think morality, per se, is the key point of that film.

[Persona]

OH MAN, does this look cool. Wow. I'd really like to make the trip, but the timing is just not right. But Wow.

[sad-to-not-make-trip-emoticon]

[somewhat-jealous-of-anyone-else-that-does-emoticon]

The single biggest movie-mistake i made this year was in deciding that i was too tired to make it out for Andrei Rublev when it came to the big screen at Doc Films. But then i'd really have the Dark Stain Award around here. I mean, it's one thing to fall asleep at the latest Danny Boyle film. It would've been an entirely different animal had i fallen asleep on Rublev on the silver screen. You people would've dubbed me "The Human Stain."

All that to say -- i envy anyone who has the chance that i missed out on. Learn from my mistakes. Catch it while you can.

-s.

[Ron Reed]

QUOTE

If you click here and scroll down the page to \"Mary Lea Bandy and Antonio Mondy,\" you can listen to a RealAudio interview with The Hidden God's curators, who begin by explaining how seeing Au hasard Balthazar inspired the whole series.

Great link! Thanks.

Here are notes I jotted while listening. 'twould be better for me to edit them a little to make some sense of them, but hey, it's late. In case there are any scraps of interest for you all... I'll highlight some bits I found especially interesting. I note that these MoMA scholarly types play pretty fast and loose with their information - the (to them) obvious intentionality about the biblical inspiratation for the MAGNOLIA plague of frogs, Job's blasphemy, etc. Sheesh...

THE LEONARD LOPATE SHOW
Dec 4, 2003

HIDDEN GOD: FILM & FAITH
at MoMA

31 movies dealing with "latent spirituality." 1939-1999.

Curator saw Bresson retrospective at MoMA, Mouchette and Au Hasard Balthasar. God is hidden or absent: has failed mankind. Spiritual core, but about the lack/absence of God.

GROUNDHOG DAY: "Trying not so much to win Andie McDowell's heart as to win his own heart." Lopate references buddhism. "We're not thinking of any particular God in this show. This is the idea of God, but not a god."

"In the late thirties, a number of film makers who did think deeply about spiritual issues... lamented in this brutal period... the lack of spiritual cohesion."

Dreyer, Rosselini, Rohmer.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. About someone who comes from heaven and changes forever your life. YOu can watch the film in many different ways.

Magnolia "ends with something that comes directly from the Bible. From the book of Exodus. One of the plagues. What is he telling us, and why is he talking to us in such a symbolic, metaphoric, hidden way?
"Well In that case it had to be a very conscious thing. Do you think all of these hidden gods were conscious as far as the film makers were concerned?"
"I think they were conscious on the part of the screenwriter."
UNFORGIVEN. ambivalences. the lack of any guiding God.

Magnolia: "When the film was presented here in New York, a journalist from the NY Times magazine asked him "Are you Catholic? Do you go to confession?" And he said "Didn't you watch my film? That's my confession: the last three hours."

"Can't we say that most films worth seeing have some element or other that could be considered religious or spiritual? Can't any good story about redemption or the power of love or good and evil or moral dilemmas of any sort, Big Questions including the absence of God, be called religious?"
"I call them films about faith. There are so many films that could be tied to this theme that we in fact thought about doing an encyclopedia. Because I think it is one of the most important threads throughout fimmaking of the 20th Century."

Luis Bunuel, a self-proclaimed atheist. "May feel that he has lost God himself, that he has lost his own spiritual faith... Bunuel makes films about the loss of faith." Simon of the Desert is almost a parody of religious faith.

Lopate: "The one that I found hardest to explain was THE BAD LIEUTENANT... I could see it in a series of Really Mean Spirited Movies, but that's the only Spirit I can find in it."
Curator: "The way I see the film, it's like the scream of blasphemy that Job has when he loses, or thinks he has lost, everyone; his children, his family, and he starts screaming at God. In my opinion that's a prayer, that's not a blasphemy. And that's the way I look at BAD LIEUTENANT." "That it's the story of Job, who loses everything, and curses God."

THE MIRACLE. Controversial when it was released. unsure why. "I would have thought the Catholic church would have been just thrilled by Rosellini's film. Did they just see it too literally and miss the point?" "...inside the Catholic church now you will find a lot of admirers of the film. "The (simple-minded) woman who is pregnant... believes that this man who is clearly raping her is St Joseph, therefore she is carrying Jesus. The way I look at the film is that she is right, she is carrying Jesus, because every child is Jesus. I don't know if you agree."
"I don't think I do agree."

2 films by Carl Dreyer. "Too stringent for most film goers?"

Mizaguchi

Book: a collection of 50 essays, roughly 3000 words on a particular film – critics, scholars, writers – film maker Nick Dorsky has written a beautiful piece that ends the book, called "Devotional Cinema From Dreyer to the Present."

"More people wished to write about GROUNDHOG DAY and UNFORGIVEN than any other film, but more films by Rosselini are in the book than by any other director." The second most are by Bergman.

[Rich Kennedy]

"Allen's most ambitious film..." At last evidence that C&M has the respect in some quarters that I feel it deserves. Boy do I wish I could be there. They so inconveniently scheduled this with no regard to our guests itinerary.

[Doug C]

Thanks for typing this out, Ron. Great job.

Needless to say, I disagree with their comments on Balthazar as being about the lack of God, or as they also say, "How God fails mankind." You know, the beautiful thing about this statement is that Balthazar is in many ways a parable about a "holy" martyr, a suffering non-human who takes on the burdens of humanity. It underlines how tragic the Passion really is and how "unGod-like" Christ's death on a cross would have seemed to those expecting a "happy ending." Yes, his followers only had to wait three days, but you can't get there without Good Friday first. There is a deep empathy with humanity and the Fall that is subtly ingrained in every shot of this film.

I don't know if anyone here has really watched Rossellini's work besides a film here and there, but they mentioned that more contributors to the book wanted to write about him than any other filmmaker--and I can totally see why. His work is very poorly distributed on VHS, but he's considered a master filmmaker, one of the prime founders of neorealism, and many of his films brim with spirituality: Open City, Germany Year Zero, Stromboli, Voyage to Italy (just released on DVD in the UK), The Flowers of St. Francis, Europa 51, Acts of the Apostles, Blaise Pascal, St. Augustine, The Messiah, etc. He's definitely one to track down.

As they quoted in the interview, Buñuel used to say, paradoxically: "Thank God I'm an athiest!" So much of his work is anti-clerical, but most of it is directed at bourgoise hypocricy and in many ways is a ringing challenge to integrity.

I can't beilieve the interviewer was mystified by the inclusion of Bad Lieutenant, one of the most explicitly spiritual (if shocking and raw) films from Abel Ferrara, a filmmaker whose has often specialized in gritty spirituality.

Another quote: Dreyer is stringent, "but at the same time he was one of the closest artists I've ever seen (in terms of filmmaking) to expressing what a great religious vision is, and he is still."

Kenji Mizoguchi is a Japanese filmmaker who made astoundingly beautiful films, often championing the female spirit and the perserverence of women, perhaps due to the hard life his sister endured. Another filmmaker to seek out. (His Sansho Dayu is one of my all-time favorite films.)

I can't wait to get this book! Over 300 pages!

[Ron Reed]

Quote

...Balthazar is in many ways a parable about a "holy" martyr, a suffering non-human who takes on the burdens of humanity. It underlines how tragic the Passion really is and how "unGod-like" Christ's death on a cross would have seemed to those expecting a "happy ending." Yes, his followers only had to wait three days, but you can't get there without Good Friday first. There is a deep empathy with humanity and the Fall that is subtly ingrained in every shot of this film.

Nice. I'm one of those curious Christians who finds the shadow of the cross over Christmas, so your Balthazar comments are very much in keeping with the season, for me. Wish I could watch that flick right now!

Quote

I don't know if anyone here has really watched Rossellini's work besides a film here and there...

Not even that. But I bought a previously viewed copy of OPEN CITY a couple weeks ago, so the day will come. In the issue of IMAGE that was devoted to film (#20), Arthur Hiller cited that film as the one that had had the greatest spiritual impact on him.

Quote

I can't beilieve the interviewer was mystified by the inclusion of Bad Lieutenant, one of the most explicitly spiritual (if shocking and raw) films from Abel Ferrara, a filmmaker whose has often specialized in gritty spirituality.

Yes, it seemed to me that Mr Lopate's distaste for the world/events of the film caused him (astonishingly, to me) to overlook its explicitly religious nature. As if, perhaps, "spiritual" were another word for "pleasant."

Quote

Dreyer is stringent, "but at the same time he was one of the closest artists I've ever seen (in terms of filmmaking) to expressing what a great religious vision is, and he is still."

Thanks for catching a quote I missed! A good one.

Quote

Kenji Mizoguchi is a Japanese filmmaker who made astoundingly beautiful films, often championing the female spirit and the perserverence of women, perhaps due to the hard life his sister endured. Another filmmaker to seek out. (His Sansho Dayu is one of my all-time favorite films.)

He's completely unknown to me.

Quote

I can't wait to get this book! Over 300 pages!

I tried ordering it online yesterday, but it's not listed in the MoMA's online shop. When I called the 1-800 number, it said it's not in service. (It may very well be in service, but some American toll-free numbers can't be dialled from Canada. I think it has something to do with the movies we allow to be shown....)

[Doug C]

I called yesterday, too, and I was told the MoMA bookstore hadn't even received its shipment yet.

Re: Mizoguchi

http://www.sensesofc.../mizoguchi.html

My friend Acquarello has a slew of capsule reviews here.

[Ron Reed]

Quote

I called yesterday, too, and I was told the MoMA bookstore hadn't even received its shipment yet.

Once they have, let me know, okay?

Quote

Re: Mizoguchi

http://www.sensesofc.../mizoguchi.html

My friend Acquarello has a slew of capsule reviews here

Thanks!

[Doug C]

Yeah, some retread would be great. It didn't really sink in at first that the series actually started December 4, so we have missed a few already. I've got my eyes peeled (eww!) for any hint of the Jan/Feb schedule...

Hopefully there'll be one good weekend when a lot of great films coincide.

I wonder if this will be a traveling series?

[Doug C]

Thursday, 1/1
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Friday, 1/2
L'Amore (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)

Saturday, 1/3
Le rayon vert (The Green Ray, Summer) (Eric Rohmer, 1986)

Sunday, 1/4
Vertigo

Saturday, 1/10
Voyage to Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)

Sunday, 1/11
The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

Friday, 1/23
Day of Wrath (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1945)
Utamaro and His Five Women (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1946)

Saturday, 1/24
Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel, 1965)
White (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)

Sunday, 1/25
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)

Thursday, 1/29
Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)
L'Amore

Friday, 1/30
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
The Man Who Would Be King
Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996)

Saturday, 1/31
Red Beard
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Utamaro and His Five Women

[Ron Reed]

Quote

What a great-looking book. There's a blurb about it in the Uma Film Comment issue. Is the schedule for January and February set yet? I wonder if there will be repetition from the December schedule.

That review is reproduced over on the original thread.