Something 4 The Weekend by
The lion, the penguins and the fundamentalist Christians
Welcome ladies, gentlemen and film
fans everywhere to entertainment manchester's weekly
feature 'Something for the Weekend'. Every Friday, we
deliver to you the best (and, in the interest of balance,
worst) of this week's new cinematic releases. If, as
Forrest Gump once might have said were he a film fan,
cinema really is like a box of chocolates, then think
of us as your mini-menu, steering you away from the
coffee creams and towards the Turkish delights of the
movie world.
The Big Picture
In October, just months ahead of the long-awaited cinematic release of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman caused a storm among English teachers and literature fans everywhere when he criticised the much loved CS Lewis novel for displaying a “peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice”, not to mention acting as a dubious piece of propaganda for fundamentalist Christianity.
"It's not the presence of the Christian doctrine I object to so much as the absence of Christian virtue,” he told The Observer. “The highest virtue - we have on the authority of the New Testament itself - is love, and yet you find not a trace of that in the books."
Here Pullman is discussing some of the more uncomfortable racial subtexts of the books, which comes firmly down to personal point of view. But on the periphery he raises an interesting point: is Narnia just a thinly veiled Christian allegory? Well, with it's Heavenly white locales and representations of the devil and Jesus in the shape of the White Witch and Aslan the Lion respectively, the first instalment into C.S Lewis' influential saga is easy to label as a Christian allegory, whether lacking true Christian values or not.
Now dead of course, Lewis himself can't have his say, so it's not really fair of Pullman to slam the story in such a way. But before his demise in 1963, Lewis did defend his seven novels from criticisms of overt Christianity.
"Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them," he wrote in Of Other Worlds. "This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord."
"If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure," he continued. "In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all."
Hmmm, not convinced? Neither am I. But while discussions will rage for years on the intentions of the books, the release of the film this week opens up a whole new area of discussion. Just how will director Andrew Adamson and writer Ann Peacock adapt the novel for these modern times and deal with the religious subtexts, especially in such polarisingly religious times?
For his part, Adamson, along with his producers and studio Disney, has (hardly surprisingly) distanced themselves from such issues. "[It's] open to the audience to interpret," Adamson told the BBC. "The religious aspect is something the press is more interested in than the world at large. When I read the book as a child I accepted it as a pure adventure story." Meanwhile the White Witch herself, Tilda Swinton adds: "Faith is in the eye of the beholder. You can make a religious allegory out of anything if that's what you're interested in. [For me] it feels like an ancient myth. It's about finding self-sufficiency in difficult circumstances and finding the capacity to dig deep, survive and prevail."
Producer Mark Jonhson explains: "When I first read it, it never occurred to me Aslan was anything more than a great lion. Christian themes were very important to CS Lewis and imbued everything he did, but he himself denied any religious implications. [The controversy is] a false issue. We're not selling the movie to any particular group. With a movie this size, we're trying to sell it to everybody."
So it’s pretty obvious that Disney are playing the classic ‘We don’t know nothing about nothing’ card. But with some churches in the States 'doing a Passion of the Christ' and buying up whole cinemas for their congregation to see the film and people like Lon Allison, director of Illinois' Billy Graham Centre proclaiming, "We believe that God will speak the gospel of Jesus Christ through the film", there could well be trouble ahead, especially as other Christian groups, such as an Orange County group called Mosaic, believe that the film is important as it will speak to children in particular. “Spiritual issues are not a natural topic for everyday discussion, so it’s great to have a movie that stimulates people to talk about them,” a spokesperson told The Times. “Pray for children in our community to respond to the message of The Chronicles of Narnia by receiving Jesus Christ as Saviour". You never got this with Lord of the Rings, eh?
Pseudo-religious subtexts aside, the film is certainly bold in its hiring of Shrek helmer Andrew Adamson for his first live action film and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch, who can hardly be considered your typical blockbuster actress. It's certainly divided the critics with The Mail's usually hard to please resident grouch Chris Tookey and many of the broadsheets awarding it five stars. But many of the monthly film magazines have been decidedly lukewarm about it with some, like Jonathan Ross on Film 2005, complaining of a distinct lack of charm and magic. Can Narnia be the new Rings as the trailer suggests it so dearly wants to be? Decide for yourself from today…
Also Playing...
The second, and final, big release of the week is another that the American Christian Right is claiming as its own - and is causing just as much controversy. A French documentary about a bunch of penguins surviving their mating cycle in the harsh winter conditions of the Antarctic, March of the Penguins has been embraced by the religious right as a validation of good Christian values: monogamy, self sacrifice and family - talk about sapping the fun out of it all…
Despite the fact that the hype has taken the film into the upper echelons of the US box office chart - quite sensational considering the American audiences normally vomit at the very sound of the word documentary - director Luc Jacquet is ‘doing a Narnia’ and denying that the film has any religious subtexts whatsoever.
“You can feel whatever you want in this film,” Jacquet told the BBC. “But [you can’t] make presumptions with a wildlife documentary. And even more, monogamy is not the best argument to find in the film. The divorce rate is about 90% each year”. That’s them told then…
But there’s more to the runaway success of the film dubbed ‘The Passion of the Penguins’ than just a bunch of religious nuts. The trailer, narrated, like the film, by a particularly portentous Morgan Freeman turns the film from quirky little nature doc into an epic battle to survive as grandiose music, more suited to The Chronicles of Narnia takes hold and displays the battling little blighters as true against the odds heroes.
March of the Penguins probably won’t take off in quite the same way on these shores, after all, we’ve got David Attenborough or, if you’re really desperate, Bill Oddie to satisfy all our nature needs and as such really don’t need Morgan Freeman telling us that Antarctica is a wee bit cold. Still, if these penguins are anything like Wallace and Gromit’s Feathers McGraw, they should be well worth a watch. Despite the fact the damn things can’t fly.
NEXT WEEK: A much anticipated film about a giant ancient ape who has the horn for a lithe young woman. No, it’s not The Michael Douglas Story, but Peter Jackson’s epic remake of King Kong. It’s a monkey special too. So be there, or be squished by a giant monkey foot!
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