Year Million (2017)

Recently, I stumbled across a new cable television series that started showing up on the National Geographic cable channel called Year Million (2017).   The documentary-style show is the type of series that makes an immediate impression on the viewer.  The series takes a speculative look at how human beings and human society will evolve (devolve?) in the next several hundred years (the term “Year Million” not specifically referring to a million years from today; it’s more of a catchy way of saying “the future.”) This is the kind of program that sticks with you long after a viewing, that makes you think, question your reality, and alternately, can invigorate/frighten you to your core, in its display of the future worlds depicted.

Here's a description of the show, via Google:

"Given how rapidly technology and intelligence have advanced humankind in the past 10 years, one can't help but wonder how different the world may be in another 10 years. National Geographic, however, is thinking big. The six-part docudrama "Year Million" paints a visual story of what it will be like to be a human 1 million years into the future. Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, the series features top futurists, scientists, scholars and notable science-fiction writers guiding viewers through the latest advances in technology, ideas and innovations and to an existence where we're living beyond our bodies, beyond our planet and beyond our solar system. Illustrative, imaginative storytelling describes humanity's fate through the lens of a typical futuristic American family, which includes an android daughter."

I've seen three episodes of the series thus far.  Here's the titles, with a brief description of each episode, via the series website:

Episode 1-Homo Sapien 2.0-A look at advances in neuroscience and engineering in regard to artificial intelligence. Advances in neuroscience and engineering are bringing us closer toward a reality first described in great science fiction, one in which artificial intelligence will become indistinguishable from – or perhaps even surpass – human intelligence. This could lead to a future in which AI beings become our essential collaborators or a threat to human value and life. What are the major milestones that are leading us towards this singularity, and how will that affect the evolution of the human species?

Episode 2-Never Say Die-How the futuristic idea of living forever will change what it's like to be human.  In the future, will we move beyond treating individual diseases and, instead, treat the aging process itself? How would a dramatically protracted life change not only the fabric of society, but what it means to be a human being?

Episode 3-Dude, Where's My Body?-With human activity transferring to virtual spaces, will reality suffer the consequences.  Advances in graphics and computing power have given rise to a renaissance in virtual technologies from world-building platforms like Second Life to manufacturers of VR headsets like Oculus Rift. We’re seeing more and more of human activity transfer to virtual spaces, offering people profound experiences via online personas and even transforming the way the real-world functions. Will we reach a tipping point where reality becomes a pale shadow of the rich, imaginative, virtual worlds we’ve created for ourselves? What will that mean for our perception of humanity? What do we risk losing?

My biggest issue with this series?  The impact of theology on human future society is completely ignored, a rather unfortunate misstep of this series.  Additionally, in the episodes I have watched, the disciplines of philosophy and psychology, and their impact on future human societies are to a large (but not total) extent, ignored.  Theoretical physicists are interviewed, yes, which is a welcome and necessary component of the program.  One theoretical physicist does reference such diverse thinkers as Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.  But no philosophers are interviewed in the series? No theologians?

There’s no discussion by the existing on-camera commentators on what impact religious faith will have on these future biological, electronic, et al advances of humanity, which I find curious, to say the least.  Yes, I am only three episodes into the series, but I find the omission of non-secular P.O.V. thus far contributes to an incomplete feeling whilst watching the show. 

For example, in the first episode, Homo Sapien 2.0, we are told that in the future, electronic automation will eliminate most jobs, even those occupations considered “safe,” like those in the medical or legal field.   The patriarch of a future family (that is followed throughout the series) is shown at one point to lose his job as an architect to computers/automation/robots that can do the job quicker, cheaper, and more effectively.  What are human beings, such as this individual, going to do when they no longer have a job to go to every day?

I believe that in the absence of employment, a large majority of unemployed individuals will turn towards psychology, philosophy, and yes, religion, to make sense of their lives following the massive loss of occupations.  Machines potentially can replace psychologists and philosophers, but they can never replace, say, Catholic priests, who are required to be human to fulfill their duties.  So, at least some jobs in the clergy sector will be irreplaceable. 

Yes, I am well aware of the argument that a system of guaranteed basic income might be a solution to widespread unemployment caused by job loss as a result of omnipresent automation in future human society.  In that case, humans will have ample opportunity to pursue leisurely activities, as they won’t need to earn money for a living.  This, of course, is assuming that some sort of basic income can be affordably provided to the citizens of a nation, or that the philosophical nature of a particular nation will allow for that guaranteed basic income in the first place.  I’m entirely not convinced a developed country like the U.S. would (or should) plan on a future guaranteed basic income to short-circuit mass poverty (or could even afford such a system in the future, were it to become an economic neccesity.)

As far as what the series Year Million gets right?  Well, there are a number of touches I really like. 

It was a really inspired choice to choose actor Laurence Fishburne to narrate this series.  Fishburne is synonymous in many a mind as the character of“Morpheous”in the set-in-the-future Cyberpunk Matrix movie series of the late 20^th-early 21rst century; his voice lends an air of authenticity to the proceedings.

I also like the choice the series producers made in following a futuristic family that we gradually get to know and love as the series progresses.  We feel a kinship with the family, even as we feel separated from them by multiple decades (and even centuries.)  By the third episode we are fully emotionally invested in the fate of this little group of related individuals.

Bottom line, I am very curious to see how this series plays out.  Truth be told, if some of the predictions of the future of humanity thus far illustrated come to pass as depicted in this series, the seeming-utopia presented seems to me (as a man of faith) to be more of a dystopia, and one that I am not all-too-interested in seeing come to fruition.

Alien: Covenant (2017) (Spoilers)

Yesterday, my brother Josh and I went to see the latest film in the Alien film franchise, Alien: Covenant.  The first Alien (1979) movie is considered a modern-day classic of horror/science fiction filmmaking.  It revolves around an Alien "Xenomorph" a creature created as a biological weapon that attacks anything it comes across, notably designed by the late Swiss artist of the surrealist tradition, H.R. Giger, and it has been successful enough to spawn an entire film franchise, spanning decades.  The Alien series is noted as being "grown-up" sci-fi, frequently rated R, and containing a sizable amount of profanity and violence and other objectionable material, but balanced by genuinely serious themes and noble artistic intentions.

Going to see Alien movies has become a tradition of sorts for my brother and I, as we have gone together to see every one when first released to theaters, save for the original Alien and the first sequel Aliens (1986.)  I am also not counting the two Alien vs. Predator films, which I count as a completely independent spin-off series.

Josh and I were both too young to see the first two movies in the Alien series when they were initially released in theaters, as they are both rated R movies, and neither of us was anywhere near close to age 18 when they premiered.  It's a pity, as those first two films are widely regarded as the best in the series.

I decided to write about Alien: Covenant in my faith-based as opposed to my secular blog, because of the grand creation themes the film explores as a direct sequel to Prometheus (2012) The Alien movie-without-Alien in the title.

Speaking of Prometheus, it is impossible to talk about Covenant without referencing that previous film.  Both movies, like the original Alien, are directed by Sir Ridley Scott.  Scott did not write either film, but it is his vision that is the driving force of both.  It is Scott that attempts to answer the age-old questions, via film, of where human beings came from, who created us, and why.

As a Catholic Christian, I have the benefit of knowledge from my religious tradition that human beings were created by God to know Him, love Him, to serve Him in this world, and to be with Him in Heaven after death.

Scott is writing with a wide, mainstream, secular ticket-buying audience in mind.  He assumes that the average Jane or Joe is not going to be satisfied with any theological answer to man's questions of existence.  And, to be fair, since the Alien series is a work of fiction, Scott is free to explain human origins in whatever way he sees fit.

We find out in Prometheus than human beings were created by an ancient,  pale, hairless, gigantic, bi-pedal race of very similar-looking creatures to humans.  These "Engineers," as they are dubbed, seeded the ancient planet earth by tasking a member of their race to perform a ritual suicide on a barren earth, eons before any life inhabited the planet.  The disintegrating body of the suicidal Engineer, destroyed after ingesting mysterious black goo (that achieves further importance later on in the movie) put the building blocks of DNA into the world's oceans and thus, enabled life to evolve on earth.

Who created the Engineers?  It's never explained by the movie.  In any case, at one point in Prometheus, David, an advanced robot created by humans, asks one of his human crew mates, Dr. Charlie Holloway, on the spacecraft Prometheus why humans created him.  He is casually and callously told "Because we could." David takes exception to this explanation, replying that if humans could hear the same explanation from their creator, they might take exception as well.

Later on towards the end of Prometheus, Peter Weyland, the founder of the Weyland Corporation (forerunner of the infamous Weyland-Yutani company of the previous films of the series) does in fact have the chance, via David, to ask a surviving engineer on a faraway planet why humans were created.  Instead, he wants to ask the Engineer how to prevent his death from extreme old age.  It is up to Elizabeth Shaw, the main protagonist of the film, to ask the question of where the Engineers (evidently indisputably humanity's creators at this point) came from and what humans did wrong to deserve extinction  (which apparently is the Engineer's plan for the human race.)  We never do get a clear answer from the Engineer, who unceremoniously decapitates David, and uses his severed robot head to kill Weyland.  It could be that this act of violence is the Engineer's way of dismissing creatures (and their questions) that it deems beneath it?  Similar to Holloway's previous disregard of David, when answering a similar important question to his "creation"?

Prometheus ends with David and Shaw commandeering an abandoned Engineer spacecraft to explore the Engineer's home planet.  We are left with a cliffhanger ending, wondering what the adventures of Shaw and David will be like as they travel to the Engineer's home world, seeking further answers to their questions of creation.  In an aftermath sequence, we see the appearance of what looks to be an ancestor of the Alien "Xenomorph" creature, birthed from the belly of the Engineer (who was impregnated by a parasitic creature, that had been birthed from Shaw earlier, who had been implanted with an 'alien' fetus by Holloway, who himself had been infected by the black goo by David (got all that?)

Fast-forward to the main subject of this post, Alien: Covenant.  This movie, though directed by Scott, is written by a different pair of writers than the two that wrote Prometheus, and it shows.  Covenant is set ten years after the events of Prometheus.  Shaw and David are long-presumed lost and disappeared, along with the rest of the Prometheus passengers and crew.  Covenant begins on the spaceship Covenant, a colonization vessel from earth that is inadvertently diverted by the fall-out from catastrophic solar flares to, you guested it, the Engineer's home planet, that same planet where Shaw and David were last seen headed to in Prometheus.

We never do get an answer as to who created the Engineers in Covenant.  What we do get is a glimpse at a burgeoning sociopath in the form of David in this movie.  It is shown in flashback that upon arrival on the Engineer's home world,  David intentionally unleashes his ship's deadly cargo of bombs filled with the black goo, which, in this instance, is dropped on the unsuspecting Engineer population of an entire city, killing everything in its wake.

David, over the next ten years, becomes obsessed with using the black goo to create and perfect new lifeforms himself.  At some point, he kills his (mutated?) companion Shaw, dissecting her in the name of his creation experiments.  David ingratiates himself to the crew of the newly-arrived Covenant, lying about his actions and motives along the way.  The black goo released by David ten years ago has since mutated to an airborne form, bonding with a Protozoa-like vegetation and sending its spores into two of the Covenant crew.  We get out of these infected crew a Xenomorph-like creature, dubbed by the script a "Neomorph" which resembles the Xenomorphs from the previous films in superficial ways.  Later on we discover that David has created an egg-like structure similar to the eggs of Xenomorphs found in the previous Alien movies; a "face hugger" creature infects the acting Captain of the Covenant, which later bursts from his chest, skipping the "Chest-burster" phase and going straight to an adult-like Xenomorph form.

So it appears that Ridley Scott was not interested in exploring Elizabeth Shaw's interesting protagonist from Prometheus, unceremoniously killing her off here, making us wonder what the purpose of her survival was in the first place from the first movie?   No, the character that Scott is much more interested in is David.  But, instead of exploring the origin of humanity by way of exploring the origin of humanity's creators, this new movie seemed more focused on exploring David's compulsion to both create (and destroy.)

Scott doesn't seem to be all that concerned when it comes to inconsistencies over various Alien movies, including the ones he directed himself.  I left the theater with various questions, such as:

-In the original 1979 Alien movie, a crashed Engineer ship, on remote planet LV-426, along with what was known in fan circles as the "Space Jockey" pilot (what we now know is an Engineer) is found by the crew of spacecraft Nostromo.  A crew member, Kane, is infected by a "face hugger" alien, that is birthed from an egg in a cargo hold of the Engineer's ship.  These eggs look remarkably similar to the ones that David engineers in Covenant.  So, does David have something to do with this crashed ship? Did the Engineers create Xenomorph eggs similar to David's?  Why do the Xenomorphs birthed from hosts in Alien go through a separate "Chestburster" worm-like stage, absent from Covenant?

I was similarly let-down with the question of what faith has to do with Alien: Covenant.  The acting captain of the ship, Billy Crudup's character  Christopher Oram, is described in various film-related media as a "man of faith" who thinks the crew's role on the Covenant is "an act of destiny."  I am never sure what wisdom tradition Oram belongs to, and I never get a sense of what the point of having him be a "man of faith" is supposed to be in the film, unless it has something to do with his faith being futile when opposed by the primal, raw, organic, energetic force of the Xenomorph created by (humanity's creation) David?

The "big questions" of the movie not being satisfactorily answered aside,  Alien: Covenant is satisfying in other ways.

Covenant is in the tradition of other Alien franchise movies in that it straddles the line between horror and science fiction, not to mention fantasy (albeit dark fantasy.) You know what you're getting into seeing an Alien movie, and you're seeing a portrait of the world, of the future, that is not so nice.  "Dark" is how my brother described Covenant, and it's an apt description.  The science of the film may not be ultra-realistic, but this movie follows the pattern of other films in the series that have gone before, where a suspension of disbelief is required.

Ridley Scott is at his best when creating worlds, in creating atmosphere, in employing expert wardrobe, set, and overall production design.  I love the fact that Covenant borrows music cues from the original Alien in its score, in addition to Prometheus, where appropriate.  I love the scares in Covenant-I haven't really been jolted out of my seat in an Alien film, until this film-the Xenomorphs are genuinely frightening, and near-invincible in this film.  I dig the subtle nods to the title design of Scott's previous Alien movies in the opening credits.  I appreciate that David the robot share's  the same first name with Alien film producer David Giler, just as Walter, David's "opposite" robot (both played by Michael Fassbinder) shares the first name with longtime series producer Walter Hill.

It will be interesting to see where the series goes from here, as there is another cliffhanger ending.  We need to know how Covenant connects to the original Alien, and we have about a thirty-year time gap between movies, so there's room for one or more films to fill in the gaps. Looking forward to it!

William Kurelek's The Maze (2011 Trailer)

Recently, I became aware through the writings of a favorite Catholic Christian writer of mine (Michael D. O'Brien, yet again) of an esteemed artist and writer from Canada that has been off my radar all this time, to my chagrin: William Kurelek (March 3, 1927 – November 3, 1977.) 

Here is a link to his wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kurelek

Kuralek interests me for a multitude of reasons.

I have an appreciation for art and art history, most probably an appreciation that was ingrained in me from an early age by my father, himself an amateur artist.

Kurelek, though a Canadian, was of Eastern European heritage like myself.  And like myself, he was a Roman Catholic (he converted.)

As a student studying psychology (I am taking a course in Foundations of Psychology at Neumann University) Kurelek's struggles with mental illness intrigue me.

I do have a fascination with Canada.  I traveled there many years ago to the Toronto area as part of an exchange program of the Boy Scouts of America.  In addition, I am a fan of Canadian cinema (My Winnipeg is a favorite documentary of mine.)

I have located the trailer for the documentary William Kuralek's The Maze, which was originally released in the 1960s , but which benefited from a restoration and re-release in 2011-2012.  I am anxious to view the film, but I cannot find it anywhere, either available for viewing online, or for purchase :-(

In the meantime, here's the link to the trailer on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Qy3o7eoNc

Looks awesome, doesn't it?

I am unsure the best way to characterize Kurelek's artwork with my limited vocabulary pertaining to art history but to me it looks very surreal, with a touch of the grotesque, and a bit of the pastoral thrown in for good measure.

I love that in the documentary, Kurelek himself is interviewed.  He died when he was only fifty, but apparently he was quite prolific as a painter and illustrator.

I am particularly interested in the story of Kurelek's religious conversion, and I am hoping this angle is explored in the film.  Apparently, he was born into the Ukrainian Orthodox faith, then identified as an atheist for a time, before converting to Roman Catholicism.

This documentary, as I mentioned, first premiered in 1969, directed by Robert M. Young and David Grubin.  Apparently, one of the film's co-directors (Young) worked on the restoration with his sons Nick Young and Zack Young.  They started a Kickstarter campaign to "re-imagine" the film in time to be shown in a retrospective of Kurelek's work showcase in museums in Canada back in 2011-2012.

The Case for Christ (2017 Trailer)

The following are my thoughts upon viewing the recently released trailer for the upcoming 2017 movie "The Case for Christ."
You can view the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhe8KhSxWGo


First impressions?  I am *very* excited for this movie to be released!  The trailer is a bit dramatic, with some overly-sensational music cues.  And, it looks like a period piece, judging by the wardrobe/settings in the preview.


I first read the non-fiction book by author Lee Strobel that this film is based on sometime around the year 2006.


Reading the book has had a profound effect on my own personal faith journey.


I was baptized Roman Catholic, and raised as such from the cradle onwards.  I attended Catholic grade school, high school, and college.


Sometime after college, my faith in my religion began to wane.  I started to have questions as to the veracity of my beliefs.  I  would have frequent periods of doubt.  I began to wonder if continuing to go to church every Sunday was worth the effort.  I started to seriously question in my mind the object truths of Christianity.


By 2006, although nominally still a Catholic, my dedication to my faith, and knowledge of my beliefs, was anything but where it should be.


It wasn't until 2007, when I discovered the Catholic young adult community, that I really started to revert to the man of faith that I was always intended to be.


But just before that fateful year I read Lee Strobel's amazing book.


A bit of background: the book is written by Lee Strobel, an investigative journalist from Chicago, former hardened atheist and full-time skeptic turned believer in the process of researching and writing his book.  What I really admired about the work was that it approached the subject matter of Christ's divinity from a skeptical viewpoint.  Arguments that I often presented to myself to refute the divinity of Jesus are actually addressed in the book, and countered head-on.


From Wikipedia:


"Strobel received a journalism degree from University of Missouri and a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School, becoming a journalist for The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers for 14 years. Formerly an avowed atheist, he began investigating the Biblical claims about Christ after his wife's conversion. Prompted by the results of his investigation, he became a Christian on November the 8th of 1981.^[ Strobel has also been trained in journalism and law at Harvard University."
"Strobel was a teaching pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, from 1987 to 2000, before shifting his focus to writing and producing his TV show.  He continues to speak periodically at churches and has been a board member of the Willow Creek Association. In 2007, Strobel was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by Southern Evangelical Seminary in recognition of his contributions to Christian apologetics.^"
"According to Strobel, The Case for Christ retraces and expands his journey toward becoming a Christian. The book summarizes his interviews with thirteen evangelical Christian scholars—Craig Blomberg, Bruce Metzger, Edwin Yamauchi, John McRay, Gregory Boyd, Ben Witherington III, Gary Collins, D.A. Carson, Louis Lapides, Alexander Metherell, William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and J. P. Moreland—in which they defend their views regarding the historical reliability of the New Testament.^"

I do not agree with all of Evangelical Christian Lee Strobel's faith-based views.  He is of a faith tradition that has important disagreements with my own.  However, as a fellow opponent of the pervasive secularism and "Post-Christian" society arising with alarming intensity in America and elsewhere in the world,  I feel a kinship enough with his apologetic cause to recommend his writings and the related media based on his work.

Anyway this looks like a sure-fire hit, and look forward to seeing the movie when it is released!

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

I got myself a fantastic birthday present yesterday: I purchased a copy of the newly-released Criterion Collection DVD of director Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs.  I first saw this movie a few short weeks ago, and I can say, without a hint of exaggeration, that this film has almost instantaneously rocketed near the top of the list of my favorite films of all time.  And I’ve watched A LOT of movies!

From the back of the slipcase of the 2016 Criterion Collection DVD, released yesterday, 2/14/17:

“A sensual immersion in late nineteenth-century Italian peasant life, Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs focuses on four families working for one landowner on an estate in the province of Bergamo.  Filming on an abandoned farm, Olmi adapted neorealist techniques to tell his story, enlisting local people to live as their ancestors had and speak in their native dialect on locations with which they were intimately familiar.  Through the cycle of seasons, of backbreaking labor, love and marriage, birth and death, faith and superstition, Olmi lovingly evokes an existence very close to nature, celebrating its beauty, humor, and simplicity but also acknowledging the feudal cruelty that governs it.”

This movie is over three hours long, but I was never bored watching it.  Apparently, it was originally produced as a three-part miniseries for Italian television.  The program was entered as a film at the prestigious Canne Film Festival inn 1978, and won the Palme d’Or, the highest award granted a film at the festival.  It was a just reward, and the film still stands the test of time almost four decades later.

Director Ermanno Olmi was motivated to create a picture of life during the time of his grandmother, who hailed from the Italian province of Lombardy.  At the time this film was made, the way of life presented had just about died out.  Olmi employed real farmers from the region in his film roles, given the feel of a documentary, you-are-there feel to scenes.  He also had them speak their lines in the local dialect of Burgamasque, necessitating subtitles even for native Italian viewers.  He came across the farm (dilapidated but still feasible) used in most of the movie almost by accient (he would say by providence) during a fog-shrouded drive scouting locations.

Olmi handled both the cinematography and editing of the film.  He spent years in development, writing the script, and creating the plot.  He used an alternative to the traditional Kodak color film to give the movie a different look that films usually shot in a warmer climate.  There’s not much to said plot, but we really get a great sense of this near-forgotten world Olmi paints like on a canvas for us, with his camera lens.

The title refers to an incident pertaining to one of the four families followed during the course of events of the movie.  A young peasant boy named Minek (Omar Brignoli) is given an extraordinary opportunity for a peasant child of that time: he is allowed to enroll in a local school, instead of having to go to work for his family.  Unfortunately, one day on the way walking the long four miles home from school, one of his wooden shoes (clogs) unexpectedly breaks beyond repair, and he is late arriving home.  His father, who does not own any appropriate shoe wood of his own for making shoes, takes it upon himself to cut down a tree owned by the wealthy landowner for whom he works and rents his home and livestock.  This fateful action taken by the father, leads to disastrous results.

Director Olmi was and is a devout Catholic, and his faith definitely shines through and pervades this movie’s many scenes.  The tenant farmer protagonists are a deeply religious folk: they huddle together to pray the rosary late at night as the last thing they do, before going to bed; the local parish priest, Father Carlo, is the individual that encourages young Minek’s father to send his bright son to school, despite the sacrifice for the family; it is not uncommon throughout the movie to see various characters praying for the divine intercession of the Lord in every crisis or near-crisis they face; two major characters are married in a Catholic religious ceremony, and spend their honeymoon in a convent in Milan as the guests of a Sister that is a family relative; and so on.

Director Olmi, unlike fellow directors of Italian Neorealism era, came up from actual peasant stock, and was not well-to-do like many of these fellow directors.  Many Italian Neorealist then and now describe themselves as Marxists.  Olmi, as well, apparently has described himself as such, but there is a difference with him, in that he eschews the atheism and revolutionaries traditionally closely associated with Marxism. 

Olmi was criticized by critics on the left at the time his film premiered.  These critics felt that the peasants portrayed in his films passively accepted their fate, instead of rising up and attempting to overthrow their oppressors.  The film 1900, directed by an Italian Neorealist contemporary of Olmi, Bernardo Bertolucci, premiered a short two years before The Tree of Wooden Clogs and explored similar themes of the peasant vs. patrician class struggle.  In Bertolucci’s film, which is far more dramatic and eventful, the struggle is more framed in a violent revolutionary context.

In a 2008 Interview located on the DVD, Olmi addresses his critics directly.  He claims that they failed to realize that, whilst in their comfortable ivory towers, these intellectual critics can complain all they want about the peasants not rising up, as they are not looking at the situation from the peasant’s perspective at the time.  No doubt if the peasants did rise up and revolt after being deprived, they would risk being killed, and lose what they had anyway.  The best the peasants can do is to pray for justice, which they indeed do.   

Writer Deborah Young, in an essay included with the DVD entitled “Sacred Realism,” sees The Tree of Wooden Clogs as the film that resonates more with audiences in terms of sympathy over the peasant’s plight.  She also notes this important difference between the two films:

“Whereas Bertolucci gives his padroni the familar face of Robert De Niro and Dominique Sanda, in Tree we barely glipse the man who holds the power of life and death over these children of the earth.  Olmi’s only comment on the landowner and his family is to associate them with the well-heeled culture of opera and chamber music. The peasants, instead, are identified with the sublime music of Johann Sebastian Bach, heard repeatedly on the soundtrack, until Bach’s baroque harmonies provide a spiritual metaphor akin to the ones in the films of Ingmar Bergman and Robert Bresson, a sort of divine blessing from above.”

 

On a personal note, a lost a good friend last week, Joseph Abraham.  He was a leader the guiding force behind the Catholic young adult group I’ve been involved with over the past several years.  Like me, he was a cinephile, and had an appetite for faith-based films in particular.  I do not know if he had seen The Tree of Wooden Clogs before his death, but I have no doubt he would have loved it.  If you're a person of faith, or even if you are not, do yourself a favor and watch this movie.  You'll be glad you did.

 

Father Brown and The Hammer of God. Part Two (Warning-Spoilers)

In 2013, BBC One began airing episodes of a new television adaptation of Father Brown.  According to Wikipedia, these episodes are loosely inspired on G.K. Chesterton’s works, primarily using new stories written for the series.  The show was developed by writers  Rachel  Flowerday  and Tahsin Guner.  Actor Mark Williams portrays the title role.

Williams had been primarily known for playing Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter films.  He also played Brian Williams in the BBC series Doctor Who, and Olaf Petersen in the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf.

In my opinion, Williams possesses the necessary roundness of face and body to portray Chesterton’s wily detective.   Williams as an actor is also totally believable as deceptively intelligent and shrewd, just like his character as written by Chesterton.  If he has any shortcomings, it is that he is…well…perhaps not short enough?  I pictured Father Brown as much shorter than Williams, who is about average height.

The production values of the 2013 BBC One tv series are leaps and bounds above what the 1974 ITV series adaptation of Father Brown was able to bring to the table back then.  The 1974 series would shift from realistic videotape for interior shots, to grainy film for exteriors.  This was apparently common practice for British tv shows in the 1970s, in order to save money.   I can recall watching early Doctor Who episodes on PBS from the 70s as a kid, where they did the same thing.  It was and is particularly disorienting and jarring to watch the transition from film to tv within a single episode.   This is not a problem in the 2013 series-everything is filmed the same way, interior and outdoor shots, for some much-appreciated consistency.

Another huge difference between the Father Brown short stories and the 1974 and 2013 tv versions is the time period and settings.  The short stories of Chesterton’s detective took place in the decades before and after World War I, and took Father Brown all around the globe-England, America, etc.  The 1974 series confined Father Brown to the United Kingdom in the 1920s.  The 2013 series confines Brown even more geographically, to the countryside region of the Cotswolds in South Central England, during the post-World War II 1950s.

This new 2013 series adds several regular characters to Father Brown’s usual acquaintances not seen in either the short stories or the 1974 series, including a parish secretary, housekeeper, and local socialite (all female.) 

The adaption of The Hammer of God for the BBC series strays quite a bit from the original short story and the 1974 version.  There’s a subplot involving blackmail, a homosexual relationship, and a key omission of a certain character’s religious faith.  There’s also an underground gambling circuit, a new sycophant character in place of Mad Joe, and an issue with an Anglican Church’s clock tower.  And there’s heaps more melodrama and action.

These new changes will appeal to modern audiences, no doubt.  If you are a fan of say, the BBC series Sherlock, you’ll probably prefer this new series.  If you would like to watch a series with more similarities to the original short stories by Chesterton, the 1974 series will appeal more to you.

Father Brown and The Hammer of God. Part One (Warning-Spoilers)

Today, I’m going to write my first blog post on a television series.  Specifically, two different television adaptations of the same subject, author G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mystery story The Hammer of God.  I will first give a short introduction to G.K. Chesterton, his Father Brown character, and the short story itself.  Then, I’ll compare and contrast the two different television adaptations of the same story, in two separate Blog postings. This is Part One.   

Here’s a short biography of G.K. Chesterton from Biography.com:

G.K. Chesterton was born on May 29, 1874 in London. He was known for writing academic commentary, poetry and short stories. His interest in theology and conversion to Catholicism led him to write religious fiction. In 1908, he wrote the novel The Man Who Was Thursday. His most popular work was a detective series featuring a sleuth named Father Brown. He died in 1936.

Here’s an interpretation I’ve found of the Father Brown literary character, the focus of Chesterton’s Father Brown stories.  From Wikipedia:

Father Brown was a vehicle for conveying Chesterton's view of the world and, of all of his characters, is perhaps closest to Chesterton's own point of view, or at least the effect of his point of view. Father Brown solves his crimes through a strict reasoning process more concerned with spiritual and philosophic truths than with scientific details, making him an almost equal counterbalance with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, whose stories Chesterton read.  However, the Father Brown series commenced before Chesterton's own conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Another interpretation of the character Father Brown, this time from the unlikely point of view of an Italian Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci.  Gramsci notes his preference of detective (Brown vs. Holmes) unequivocally.  Also from Wikipedia:

Father Brown is the Catholic priest who through the refined psychological experiences offered by confession and by the persistent activity of the fathers' moral casuistry, though not neglecting science and experimentation, but relying especially on deduction and introspection, totally defeats Sherlock Holmes, makes him look like a pretentious little boy, shows up his narrowness and pettiness.  Moreover, Chesterton is a great artist while Conan Doyle was a mediocre writer, even though he was knighted for literary merit; thus in Chesterton there is a stylistic gap between the content, the detective story plot, and the form, and therefore a subtle irony with regard to the subject being dealt with, which renders these stories so delicious.

 

Here’s the summary (warning-spoilers) of G.K. Chesterton’s Hammer of God short story, courtesy of enotes.com:

The Reverend Wilfred Bohun is pleading with his wanton brother, the colonel, to leave the blacksmith’s wife alone while the blacksmith is away. Angry at his brother’s unrepentant lust, the curate warns him that God may strike him dead and runs into the old Gothic church to pray. Half an hour later, the village cobbler enters the church to tell the curate that his brother is dead. They run out to find Colonel Bohun’s corpse stretched out in the courtyard of the smithy, his head smashed in by a small hammer. The local police inspector and doctor are already trying to reconstruct the crime. At first it seems obvious: The blow was so powerful, smashing even the colonel’s metal helmet, that only the smith could have delivered it—and the smith, indignantly aware of the colonel’s trifling with his wife, had ample motive. The smith, however, is soon cleared by unimpeachable witnesses who place him in the next town at the time of the crime.

The hammer’s smallness moves the doctor to guess that the smith’s wife killed the colonel. This theory is discarded, however, because the fatal blow was too powerful for her to have dealt. The curate suggests that the village idiot, Mad Joe, might be capable of such a blow. He recalls seeing Mad Joe, the smith’s nephew, praying in the chapel just before the murder, and seeing his brother, the colonel, mercilessly teasing the poor soul as he left the chapel.

The only one who does not seem content with the curate’s solution to the mystery is Father Brown, who suddenly becomes noticeable in the crowd. When he is alone with Reverend Bohun in the spire of the church, he offers his own solution to the mystery: The murderer is Bohun himself, and the mysterious force that crushed his brother’s metal helmet with such a small hammer is a natural one: gravity. Having picked up a hammer while pleading with the colonel at the smithy, Bohun threw it from the top of the belfry onto his brother’s head, the acceleration giving the tiny tool tremendous force. Father Brown swears that he will not reveal Bohun’s secret but urges him to give himself up, which the curate does immediately.

In 1974 the British tv network ITV aired 13 episodes of Father Brown, an adaptation starring Kenneth Moore in the title role.  I know Moore primarily as the “Ghost of Christmas Present” from the 1970 film musical Scrooge, which starred Albert Finney in the title role. Moore is physically on the short side, and stocky of build, similar to how he is described in Chesterton’s stories; conversely, not quite as “round,” either in face and build, as described in the stories.  American audiences were exposed to the series as it was broadcast for the tv show Mystery! on PBS over the years.

The Hammer of God story was adapted for ITV in 1974 by director Robert Tronson and writer Hugh Leonard (based on Chesterton’s original work.)  Among others, this episode co-Stars Kenneth Moore as Father Brown, Graham Crowden as Colonel James Bohun, William Russel as Reverend Wilfred Bohun, Geraldine Moffat as Elizabeth Barnes, John Forgeham as Simeon Barnes, and Alun Armstrong as Joe. 

I would have say this adaptation follows extremely closely to the original short story, which is not a long story to begin with.  It is quite understandable that certain details omitted from the original story are elucidated in this tv production.  For example, we are shown Colonel James Bohun and Elizabeth Barnes getting out of bed and just about finished dressing after an inferred illicit tryst, which must have been quite racy for tv at this time (1974.)

As far as the casting other than Moore (who is quite good in every episode of the series) the standout for me in this cast was Graham Crowden as Colonel James Bohen.  Crowden does a magnificent job of playing the boorish, lustful aristocrat Colonel Bohun.  He looks quite the part as Chesterton described: him, tall, imposing, with his blond mustaches and samurai-like armored green hat.

I like how religion takes the spotlight in this episode, and the harsh contrasts between the faiths.  There is of course, the faith of Father Brown, Roman Catholicism (here referred to as a “Papist” by another character, John Forgeham.)  Then there is the faith of Reverend Wilfred Bohun (Church of England-a church that, it is implied by Brown, acquired all the former old Catholic churches during its growth and development.)  Lastly, there is Scotsman John Forgeham’s Presbyterian faith (here portrayed as fire-and-brimstone, concerned with “revival meetings” and the like.)

In Part Two of this blog post, I will describe the recent BBC TV adaptation of the Father Brown story, comparing it to the 1974 ITV production.