Godwa does an excellent job of helping the reader understand that movies are not just entertainment. They are preachers who are out to proselytize. In other words, movies contain messages that can shape your life if you are not wise to them.
What makes the text so great is that Godwa explains the three prevalent worldviews in Hollywood (Humanism, Existentialism and Post-Modernism) and demonstrates how they come out in contemporary movies.
This past Friday we formally concluded our study and sought to apply what we learned by watching the late 80's classic Dead Poet's Society. I remember watching this movie when I was in Jr. High or High School, and I thought it was a superb movie. I still do. But, in watching it again with a better trained eye, what we found was that this movie promotes a strong existential worldview.
What are some of the major themes in this movie?
1. Salvation is breaking free from authorities and influences. Rules restrict creativity and suppress all potential and “the real you.”
2. Carpe Diem (“Seize the Day”):
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It can be bad if you take it to mean that all we have is today as DPS takes it ("we all are worm food"). The resulting ethic is, “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
But it can be good because, as Christians, we are to live life to the fullest each and every day. (more on this below)
How is truth gained or known? What was their source of truth?
Their source of truth and knowledge was their own instincts. No one could tell them what was right or wrong. They simply went with what they felt was right.
Two scenes in particular point this out. The first is when Keeting tells his students that they should not worry so much about what the author means in a given poem as what it means to them. Secondly, the scene where Anderson is brought up to talk about Walt Whitman is indicative of the "truth is from me" attitude. He ends up saying that truth is nothing more than a suffocating blanket.
Were there any ethical issues that we should be aware of? In other words, what did the movie say that was right and what was wrong?
As Christians we believe that parents/authorities should not provoke their children to wrath. The authorities in the movie were presented as stereotypically overbearing. (the church is also alluded to as one of the suppressors)
But this was done purposely for the sake of portraying the freedom of being "you." The movie promotes rebellion against authorities (poetry “rules”; school traditions, and parents) and considers them restrictive for living a truly deliberate life. The suicide that occurs flows from this is its ultimate form.
Ironic though that the film uses the “rules” of film for cuts, angles, contrasts, lighting etc. The director of the film must admit that he couldn’t live by his own premise.
Why does the movie end like it does?
Robin Williams is made out to be the sacrificial lamb who ultimately brings salvation. The young ones, who are his disciples, “repent” of their “betrayal” and acknowledge him as the “captain” because his teaching set them free. This is Gospel-like, but it presents a parody of the true gospel, where the great Teacher Jesus Christ dies in the place of penitent sinners so that they might have true and eternal life.
Yet the movie has two Christ-parodying figures. One of the students (Neil) gives up his life for the sake of his new found "faith." The scene goes to great length to portray him as the Christ who is hanging on the cross with his crown of thorns. Yet his death is not a sacrifice, nor is he a martyr. He simply expresses the ultimate existential choice to be free from all authoritative influence. Christ too willingly died, but his death was for the purpose of atonement.
What worldviews are manifested in this movie? What does it say about God, man, reality?
1. Existentialism: authorities are bad, No one should influence you.
2. Romanticism/Transcendentalism: an intuitive approach to truth. You get truth from your from your own instincts. When it comes to interpreting poetry, you make of it what you make of it, rather than what the author intended or rules—and the same goes for how you understand life!
This is a fuller version of a poem quoted in the movie:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life intoWhy did Thoreau go to the woods? What is special about the woods that would facilitate this? (You will remember that the DPS was conducted in the woods.)
a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden
In the transcendental mindset the woods were thought to be the place where people live simply and without intrusions and/or clutter. Truth then could be more accessible because its basically you and no one else interfering with you.
Thoreau wants to “suck the marrow out of life.” What does this mean? Is this a good thing?
Sucking the marrow out of life simply means that he wants to live the best life he can and get the most out of it.
It can be a good thing if it is taken in the right sense. DPS presents it as living a life that is in accord with your own selfish pursuits. As Christians, we are to live life to the fullest each and every day. King Solomon urged his readers to do just this very thing:
The early American preacher Jonathan Edwards understood this well. In his Resolutions he once wrote: "Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live."Go, eat your bread in joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Eccles. 9:7-10 (ESV)
What does the Bible say about “true living?”
True living comes only through faith in Christ. Christ came so that we “might have life and have it to the full.” We enter into that full (and eternal) life when we forsake our own intentions and sense of morality and begin to follow Christ. His yoke (law) is easy and his burden is light.
How did Solomon live? What was his final conclusion? (Eccl 12:13)
Solomon tried to “live it up.” If anyone tried to suck the marrow out of life, it was him. But he found that all ambitions that were apart from Christ were meaningless. In the end he concluded, “Fear God and keep his commands.”
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