Spike Lee on Death and Dignity

I've watched some of Spike Lee's films, and usually find them interesting, and sometimes revealing about the realities of life in a fallen world. When I came across a Lee comment spoken at the Cannes film festival from a piece in the Washington Post, I had to comment on it:

"I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don't," Lee said at a news conference Tuesday. "Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life like a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that."

This comment reveals something about the way Lee sees the world. He believes that human life has inherent dignity. Accordingly, he believes that films that depict the processes of life, including death, should treat the matter with dignity. The filmmakers to whom Lee refers, the Coen brothers, just won the Academy Award for Best Picture with their film No Country for Old Men. This picture, like others in the Coen corpus, approaches life and death as macabre realities. Fargo, also directed by the Coens, had a notoriously dark sense of humor. The brothers make films that invite viewers to view the nastiest aspects of life from a lightly comedic viewpoint. It is this cinematic tendency to which Lee refers. People do not simply die in Coen films, as they do in those of many other directors; they die in particularly twisted ways at the hands of gleefully strange characters. Though I don't know the exact worldview of the Coens, I can say from a limited engagement with their films that Lee is to some extent correct in his analysis of the brothers' filmmaking. For them, death is one part of a twisted comic tragedy.

Lee, for his part, declares a desire to treat death in a more respectful light in his films. Though he certainly is no role model for overly moral filmmaking, Spike Lee is onto something here. He recognizes the biblical reality that life is fashioned by God to an inherently dignified enterprise. The fact that humanity en masse carries the image of God reveals that we are naturally "little gods", made with care, invested with worth and meaning. Though it does some have dark moments, and some textual details that seem darkly comic, the Bible does not present life as an exercise in comedic tragedy. Ecclesiastes does portray life as purposeless outside of God, and Job's questions do reveal the desperateness of a life lived in opposition to God, but the biblical authors nowhere encourage us to view life as darkly comedic and God as a twisted puppeteer in the sense that the Coen films certainly do not. As far as I can tell, the brothers seem exceptionally gifted at portraying a world where God does not exist. Watch No Country for Old Men. You'll see a world where evil is stronger than good, where desperation and folly reigns, where providence runs in favor of the darkness, not the light. If this is not a world without God, and without the dignity of humanity, show me what is.

Spike Lee is not a Christian to my knowledge. But he has lighted on a Christian concept in his Cannes speech. God has given dignity to the lives and deaths of his creatures. He has a special place in His economy for His children, whose lives and deaths are precious to Him. He superintends our lives with care and love. He has given us souls, and He teaches us in His word that the souls of men are the most precious of all things in the created realm. Spike Lee has unwittingly wandered into territory that Scripture has staked out as its own. We commend him for not wanting to present death in an undignified light, for wanting to preserve a sense of beauty and worth even in the moment when a person's life is taken from him. Yet we as Christians note that there is a ground for this impulse. There is a reason for this desire as expressed in Lee's comment. It is not simply that it "makes sense", or "follows naturally" from living. It does not. No, it proceeds directly from the Christian worldview as delineated by the Bible. We who have a reason for faith also have a foundation for dignity. It is the image of God given us to by our Creator.

We ought not to think that there is some kind of massive principle to be implemented here which will then revolutionize society. We do need filmmakers who will show a watching world that life is precious. But humanity will likely always struggle with the question of inherent dignity. Why is it, people will ask, that though I do not like the idea of God, or the biblical God, that I nonetheless want to treat life and people as precious? Why do I care when I hear of a child being murdered, when I read of a terrible civil war, when I learn of massive social injustice at the hands of totalitarian governments? Where does this instinct come from? Why do I tenaciously protect the life of my child when I am pro-choice? Why do I think it is wrong for people to treat death in undignified ways? Why do I dress up at funerals, and talk softly, and sometimes cry?

People will ask these questions. We can see from the Coen brothers' films and Spike Lee's comments that this is a live issue for the unbelieving among us. How great is the need for local churches that stand as lighthouses in their communities that provide on a week-by-week basis the true ground for dignity and hope. How much do we need Christians not to bury their light by avoiding unbelievers, but to be among them, salting their speech, telling the truth about dignity and hope and salvation in Christ. Will we speak truth to the lost? Or will we leave it to honest but lost folk like Spike Lee to accomplish this task?

August Rush: Another Movie Searches for Transcendence and Finds it in Music, and Family

The movie August Rush, which debuted in November 2007, presents an uneven but inspiring tale of one sweet boy's search for transcendence in a world of isolation and evil. The movie is not flawless, but its depiction of the power of music alone makes the film well worth watching.

The plot centers in two musicians (played ably by Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who chance upon one another, sleep together, and then lose touch completely with one another, despite the fact that they developed an incredible bond with one another (yes, in one brief night of passion; cue eye-rolling now). Russell's character ends up pregnant and gives birth to a boy she never meets (you'll have to watch the film to see why). The boy, "Evan Taylor" (played by Freddie Highmore of Lost in Neverland), ends up in a miserable home for boys. Sweet-spirited and mystically in touch with music, which he hears in even the most ordinary of sounds, he escapes from the home, ends up in New York, and embarks upon an adventure in which he trains himself to play a number of instruments at a lyrical level. The plot, as noted above, is a bit uneven and seems half-heartedly devoted to aping the story of Oliver Twist. In addition, some of the characters are less than plausible (Robin Williams shows up for several scenes of extended, and unneeded, histrionics).

These factors, and the act of fornication that drives the movie, are regrettable, but the movie has significant strengths as well. This is a film that quite simply is in love with music. As one who loves music (a rather broad statement), I resonated with its appreciation of harmonic beauty. The film, though not Christian, does also pick up on elements of common grace (though it would not call them such). Though little Evan is mired in a painful station in life, he finds beauty all around him, and maintains a disposition of hope and good cheer. It's touching and challenging to watch. Most of us are far too swallowed up in our own selfish little existences to notice the beauty of the world, let alone to draw others into it through creation and celebration. The movie further succeeds in representing man realistically. He is not inherently satisfied with life as it is placed in front of him. No, he searches, and quests, and storms until he finds that which he deems transcendent. For Evan (or "August", as he is renamed), the search ends with music, and also with a reunited family. These same ends bring transcendence to Evan's parents; throughout their young lives, they wrestle with music as Jacob with the angel, and even when musically accomplished search for their other family members. There are two insights here: one, music elevates our earthly existence, and two, family does the same. Without these two goods, we are impoverished, living isolated, hopeless lives.

As Christians, we can resonate with these points. As I've very recently said (in writing on the movie Once, which carries some similar themes), music is imbued with transcendence. It is not cheap and small; it was given us by God to explore the moral and spiritual complexity of the universe. Though music is not God--and thus August Rush fatally overreaches in ascribing it such significance--yet we can say that music is a strange and magical thing. It is another language, a way of speaking about our lives and experiences and the truths and mysteries of this world that defies verbal communication. Music is not Transcendence, then, but it is a transcendent art form, capable of reaching across structures and thought patterns to grab hold of our soul and plunge us into pools of mysterious and beautiful reality. I love that August Rush believes this and seeks to communicate it. Though it strains in this endeavor, and misses the truth that music points us to--that God alone is Transcendence--yet it succeeds in capturing something of the essence of music. It is a beautiful film, and there are several scenes that moved me on a deeply emotional level and made me thankful that people take up cameras and attempt to capture aspects of human existence such as music.

The film, as noted, also shows a powerful belief in the family, and perhaps unintentionally, the nuclear family (dad, mom, child). This is a great insight as well. Though the family is also not ultimately transcendent, as August Rush might lead us to think, we may say that the family is perhaps God's greatest earthly gift to us. It is simply impossible to enumerate the ways in which we are blessed on a daily, even hourly, basis by our families, even if they are not families of considerable health. Just having a family is immensely meaningful. The support that one has in being part of a family is not often consciously thought of but is precious beyond quantification. The film knows this, and shows us what it means for people to live without the structures of family--and most clearly to live without parents as an abandoned boy. One can have talent, and beauty, and joy, but without a family, one is ultimately unhappy. We Christians would of course go beyond this to say that God alone is our greatest need, that it is our most urgent necessity to enter into not an earthly family but a spiritual family that transcends this earth. On an earthly level, though, it is clear that God has structured the family to be the central part of our earthly existence. He has done so, I would argue, to show us something of the taste of familial perfection as expressed in the Trinity, the union of Father, Son, and Spirit, of which our families are but a type and shadow.

August Rush seeks true transcendence and fails to find it. But we may commend it for its pursuit and enjoy for its depiction of two of the choicest gifts God has given humanity: music and family. This movie shows us for the hundredth time that the people around us are not living atomistic lives, at least not all of the time. No, they are looking for something; something greater, something higher, something unified, something beautiful. Though they may discover numerous gifts of common grace in their search, we know that until they find the Christ, the salvation-giver, this search will prove fruitless in the end. We must be around them, then, to tell them where transcendence, and joy, and true hope may be found. It is not in music, but the One who created music; not in the family, but in the One who created the family; it is not found in the gift, but only in the Giver.

Daniel Day-Lewis, Oliver Twist, and the Mysterious Spectacle of Acting

A recent interview with Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis in London's Telegraph Magazine prompted some reflection on the nature of acting.

"Because of his commitment to a character, he has a very difficult time disengaging from a part. 'There's a terrible sadness,' he told me. 'The last day of shooting is surreal. Your mind, your body, your spirit are not prepared to accept that this experience is coming to an end. You've devoted so much of your time to unleashing, in an unconscious way, some sort of spiritual turmoil, and even if it's uncomfortable, no part of you wishes to leave that character behind. The sense of bereavement is such that it can take years before you can put it to rest.'"

I recently watched the masterpiece "There Will Be Blood" and loved it. The film showcases Day-Lewis's performance and reveals the actor to be probably the finest of his time. Acting is something of a mystery, a mysterious spectacle, and Day-Lewis is the embodiment of this enigma. Though he often struggles to get out exactly what it is that allows him to power through his performances, the above quotation explains a bit of his magic. For Day-Lewis, acting is a spiritual exercise, an attempt to find the soul of the character he is charged with portraying. No mere act of mirroring, acting for Day-Lewis signifies an assumption of the personality of another. It is for this reason that his performances draw your eyes like a burning sun.

My wife recently endured (well, I think she actually enjoyed it) a round of Day-Lewis films due to a slightly obsessive desire on my part to watch the actor portray other characters. My favorite film of the few we've watched was the 1997 drama "The Boxer", a tale of tragic love set against the backdrop of bloody 1990s Ireland. Don't watch the film if you want lots of fireworks and crazy plot twists. The film itself is moving and well-made, but the thing to watch is Day-Lewis's portrayal of a once-imprisoned boxer who seeks not vengeance but peace in the midst of a hometown torn apart by feuds between the Protestants and Catholics. The actor glides quietly through scenes washed in dark colors and carves out a man who is simultaneously capable of ferocity in the ring and tenderness with the street children he trains in his boxing club. One is moved not so much by swelling music or emotional outbursts but by Day-Lewis's profound humanity. In a town where men recruit boys to blow other men up, "Danny" devotes his life to living for others, to helping those around him in a self-sacrificial way. His character is nuanced, emotionally etched as if with the finest of brushes, and awes the viewer for the good he is able to accomplish by his gentle but stubborn will. In a world where so many men are worthy only of epithets, Danny's goodness considered as a whole puts tears in one's eyes. I've rarely been motivated to live more for the Lord by an invented person, but I was by this character as played flawlessly by Day-Lewis.

I remember playing the character Oliver Twist many years ago, back when I was the world's smallest eighth-grader. I have no illusions that I burrowed deeply into that character, though I can still make my mother and sister cry by singing "Where Is Love?". That useful talent aside, there is something in me that yearns to emulate Day-Lewis in disappearing into a character and bringing it to life. I don't think that I ever will, and I'm not sure that I ever could, but perhaps some out there understand this desire to probe the magic of drama. Is there not something almost unearthly about playing another person? I recall my limited drama experience with great happiness, and I suppose I'll carry a bit of a sadness with me until the end due to my inability to act. We all carry bits of sadness with us, I suppose, and that's one of mine.

But I can't stay melancholy for long, much as my current musical accompaniment (the Cranberries' "Empty", chosen in honor of Day-Lewis) seeks to do. It is a joy that though I do not now act, others do, others of great talent and insight. Perhaps more than this, though, this brief reflection on this "mysterious spectacle" that we call acting takes us to something beyond, something higher, something quite magical and mysterious, but something also real. One recalls a performance that involved the assumption of another nature, but this assumption was no fictional exercise, but one of authentic reality. Jesus Christ took on flesh and entered into a drama of positively cosmic proportions. The drama's climax, the death of the God-man, does not merely move us by its example. No, it has changed we who love Christ to our very core. Never was anything so real, so transformingly real, as this act. Held up against this figure, all our acting appears as vanity, for what is it that we strive for in our acting but the assumption of a second personality and the transformation of our audience? Daniel Day-Lewis may move us, but in Jesus Christ, we have found a performer, a dramatic figure, whose very real crucifixion has not simply touched us, or awed us, but has made us nothing less than a new creation. That, friends, is a mysterious spectacle we cannot quite comprehend, a genuine performance we cannot ever reproduce.