A Whole Life in Twelve Movies

October 1, 2024

Norris (Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life) and Higgins (How Not To Be Afraid: Seven Ways To Live When Everything Seems Terrifying), coauthors of the newsletter Soul Telegram: Movies and Meaning, mine movies arranged in a manner of a devotional calendar, replete with biblical passages, evaluating aspects of conflict management, empathy, resilience, and tenderness. Selecting international and domestic films for insights rather than entertainment, they suggest questions for group discussion about contexts and consequences, lessons learned, and how sight and sound contribute to messages. The assessed films are about birth--2001: A Space Odyssey; childhood--What Maisie Knew (featuring a custody battle by conflicted adults); community--The Seventh Fire (about the White Earth Indian Reservation); individual quests--The Fisher King; and quotidian routines structuring a sensitive life--Paterson. Speaking to vocations are Malcolm X, about the fluidity of identities; Make Way for Tomorrow and Love Is Strange, about how bigotry can disrupt viable partnerships; Faces Places, on the benefits of intergenerational affinity; Babette's Feast, showing how generosity begets generosity; and Wonder Woman 1984, with its super-heroic, self-sacrificial love. They conclude with After Life, featuring newly deceased people calmed by choosing one best memory, and Into Great Silence, about the quiet of a cloistered monastery. VERDICT Inviting multiple viewings, this book concurs that cinema is a properly communal experience that can benefit spirituality.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.

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