Friday, August 13, 2004

More Passion Talk

Ouch. Check out the less than flattering review of the Passion of the Christ DVD by Rollingstone’s Rob Sheffield. (Warning: This review is not suitable for Christians with an extremely thin skin.) Sheffield’s comments about “The Passion [being] slow and pompous with too much blood,” do raise an interesting question: Do Christians like this movie because it is good art, or do they like it simply because it is about Jesus?

As is usually the case, I am not the first to ask this question. For an interesting discussion of this issue, check out the article “Overcome with Passion,” in the March 2004 issue of Catapult Magazine, written by my old college friend, Kate Bowman. I recently came across it, and though the article is about five months old, I think the issues are still very relevant, especially within the context of the film being released on DVD later this month.

Kate raises some excellent points about Christian views of art, film and culture in general – issues that are near and dear to my heart and my academic pursuits. Plus, whenever anyone mentions the film Magnolia in a positive light, I perk my ears up and listen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi ben! this is the aforementioned kate. thanks for your email, and for the mention on your blog. i'm completely flattered.

i'll be replying to the email soon, but right now i'm too hopped up on coffee to string together any coherent thoughts. not much has changed since college, my friend... not much at all. :)

talk soon! please give my love to nikki.
kate

Joel said...

Hey Ben, found this site thru a link Kate posted on artsandfaith.com. This is a great blog ... I look forward to reading it in the days to come. Keep it up!

Ben said...

Kate,

Glad to hear things are going well. I'll definitely check out the site. Now, I must return to selling Christian propoganda.

-Ben