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Journal of Religion & Film

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Melodrama On A Mission: Latter-Day Saint Film And The Melodramatic Mode, Airen Hall Oct 2012

Melodrama On A Mission: Latter-Day Saint Film And The Melodramatic Mode, Airen Hall

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) makes use of the melodramatic mode in creating short and feature length films for both insider and outsider consumption. The argument is made that the melodramatic mode gives the LDS Church a particularly meaningful tool for accomplishing three key goals: to encourage conversion or re-conversion by provoking tears and pathos, to work out social issues, and to create and maintain a certain identity for the Church as victim-hero. As such, the melodramatic mode is a means for identity formation and community building, significant in a …

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Hitchcock And The Scapegoat: Violence And Victimization In The Wrong Man, David Humbert Oct 2012

Hitchcock And The Scapegoat: Violence And Victimization In The Wrong Man, David Humbert

Journal of Religion & Film

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man tells the story of Emmanuel Balestrero, arrested for a crime committed by his physical double. This paper examines the theme of the scapegoat in the film and argues that it portrays in miniature what theorist René Girard has described as a mimetic crisis. While the plight of the central character is usually portrayed as a product of blind chance, it is instead due to the mimetic fears, desires, and vanities of the members of society that accuse him. The fate of Balestrero reveals the operation of a specific kind of scapegoat mechanism that has its …

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The Reenchantment Of Eschatology: Religious Secular Apocalypse In Akira Kurosawa’S Dreams, Justin Heinzekehr Oct 2012

The Reenchantment Of Eschatology: Religious Secular Apocalypse In Akira Kurosawa’S Dreams, Justin Heinzekehr

Journal of Religion & Film

The possibility of nuclear destruction in the modern world has created a secular eschatology which, unlike religious eschatologies, creates nihilism and apathy rather than ultimate meaning. The Japanese film Dreams, by Akira Kurosawa, depicts this secularized eschatology as well as a counter-apocalyptic utopia. However, Kurosawa does not merely repeat the Western visions of nuclear apocalypse, but uses Japanese folk religion as a lens through which this apocalypse can be viewed. By doing so, Kurosawa creates a specifically Eastern response to nuclear destruction: a “religious secular” eschatology. Despite its lack of critical success, Dreams provides a valuable alternative for Western …

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The Ring Goes To Different Cultures: A Call For Cross Cultural Studies Of Religious Horror Films, Seung Min Hong Oct 2012

The Ring Goes To Different Cultures: A Call For Cross Cultural Studies Of Religious Horror Films, Seung Min Hong

Journal of Religion & Film

Within the field of religion and media, the study of horror films has always been treated as a minor topic, and cross-cultural comparative studies of such films are even rarer. Furthermore, such comparative projects that involve East Asian contexts, despite their influence on the genre of horror, are yet more difficult to find. By attempting a brief American & East Asian comparative analysis of the Ring series as an example and also proposing an empirical comparative audience research, I call for more cross cultural studies of religious horror films.

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The Magdalene Sisters: How To Solve The Problem Of ‘Bad’ Girls, Irena S. M. Makarushka Ph.D. Oct 2012

The Magdalene Sisters: How To Solve The Problem Of ‘Bad’ Girls, Irena S. M. Makarushka Ph.D.

Journal of Religion & Film

This article focuses on Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters which explores the scope and complex nature of the punishment experienced by the women incarcerated in the Magdalene Asylum near Dublin. The analysis reflects my long-standing interest in religion, film and feminist values as well as my revulsion at the sexual abuse and predatory practices of countless Catholic priests and nuns. It is the same revulsion that drove Mullan to bring the horrors of the Magdalene Asylums out from beneath the culturally sanctioned shadows into plain sight. My analysis focuses not only on women as victims of abuse, but also on …

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Los Ultimos Cristeros (The Last Christeros), Davide Zordan May 2012

Los Ultimos Cristeros (The Last Christeros), Davide Zordan

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Los Ultimos Cristeros (2011), directed by Matias Meyer.

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Good Deeds, Carol Miles May 2012

Good Deeds, Carol Miles

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Good Deeds (2012), directed by Tyler Perry.

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The Woman In Black, Danny Pegg May 2012

The Woman In Black, Danny Pegg

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Woman in Black (2012), directed by James Watkins.

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Take Shelter, Dereck Daschke May 2012

Take Shelter, Dereck Daschke

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Take Shelter (2011) directed by Jeff Nichols.

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The Descendants, William Blizek May 2012

The Descendants, William Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Descendants (2011), directed by Alexander Payne.

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Out Of The Fire, William Blizek May 2012

Out Of The Fire, William Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Out of the Fire (2010), directed by Jeanette Reedy Solano.

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Melancholia, Jon Pahl May 2012

Melancholia, Jon Pahl

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Melancholia (2011) directed by Lars Von Trier.

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Slamdance Film Festival 2012 Report, William Blizek, Dereck Daschke May 2012

Slamdance Film Festival 2012 Report, William Blizek, Dereck Daschke

Journal of Religion & Film

This is the report on films reviewed at the Slamdance Film Festival, held in Park City, Utah in January 2012.

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Sundance Film Festival 2012 Report, John C. Lyden, William Blizek, Dereck Daschke, Kutter Callaway, Jeanette Reedy Solano May 2012

Sundance Film Festival 2012 Report, John C. Lyden, William Blizek, Dereck Daschke, Kutter Callaway, Jeanette Reedy Solano

Journal of Religion & Film

This is the report of our editors from the Sundance Film Festival, held in Park City, Utah from January 19-29, 2012.

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From The Editor, John C. Lyden May 2012

From The Editor, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

The Editor introduces the April 2012 issue of the Journal of Religion and Film.

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Ironic Faith In Monty Python’S Life Of Brian, Steven A. Benko May 2012

Ironic Faith In Monty Python’S Life Of Brian, Steven A. Benko

Journal of Religion & Film

Monty Python’s Life of Brian tells the story of Brian, a contemporary of Jesus whose life becomes chaotic when he is mistaken for a messiah. Standard comedic devices are used to mock and ridicule those who use their authority or office to claim that they are more than human. In this case, laughter humbles those individuals and brings them back to the human community. Second, an ironic faith perspective allows the Pythons to assert that it is up to each individual to define the meaning of his/her own life. While some interpretations of ironic faith suggest the possibility of an …

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King Of Masks: The Myth Of Miao-Shan And The Empowerment Of Women, Kevin Dodd May 2012

King Of Masks: The Myth Of Miao-Shan And The Empowerment Of Women, Kevin Dodd

Journal of Religion & Film

King of Masks represents a particular type of mythic film that includes within it references to an ancient sacred story and is itself a contemporary recapitulation of it. The movie also belongs to a further subcategory of mythic cinema, using the double citation of the myth—in its original integrity and its re-enactment—to critique the subordinate position of women to men in the narrated world. To do this, the Buddhist myth of Miao-shan, which centralizes the Confucian value of filiality, is re-applied beyond its traditional scope and context. Thereby two prominent features of contemporary China are creatively addressed: the revival of …

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Irruptions Of The Sacred In A “World Of Shit”: Profanity, Sacred Words, And Cinematic Hierophanies In Stanley Kubrick’S Full Metal Jacket (1987), Joseph E. Bisson May 2012

Irruptions Of The Sacred In A “World Of Shit”: Profanity, Sacred Words, And Cinematic Hierophanies In Stanley Kubrick’S Full Metal Jacket (1987), Joseph E. Bisson

Journal of Religion & Film

Full Metal Jacket remains embedded in the consciousness of the popular culture mainly because of its abundance of profane language, violent imagery, and salacious set pieces. The juxtaposition of profane language and imagery with sacred language and religious symbolism reveals that Kubrick’s Vietnam film has powerful religious overtones that comprise an important element of the film’s critique of homo religiosus and the modern human condition. By continually juxtaposing the sacred and profane, Kubrick created “cinematic hierophanies” that advanced a cultural critique that inventively integrated ideas from some of the mid-20th Century’s greatest interpreters of myths -- Carl Jung, Joseph …

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There’S No Place Like Home: From Oz To Antichrist, J. Sage Elwell May 2012

There’S No Place Like Home: From Oz To Antichrist, J. Sage Elwell

Journal of Religion & Film

This article explores the dialectic of the uncanny in The Wizard of Oz (Victor Flemming, 1939) and Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009), treating the latter as a sequel to the former such that we encounter Dorothy first as a young girl and then as a grown woman. I observe that the uncanny entails a repressive and expressive moment that is cinematically rendered in these two films, and drawing on Freud and Žižek, I argue that in Dorothy’s evolution from Oz to Antichrist we see that the witches and wizards and gods and devils of our own minds are known to …

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Scapegoats And Redemption On Shutter Island, Cari Myers May 2012

Scapegoats And Redemption On Shutter Island, Cari Myers

Journal of Religion & Film

The themes of redemptive violence, scapegoating, and ritual in the films of Martin Scorsese have provided much grist for critical scholarship. While it is going too far to claim that Scorsese is intentionally interpreting Girardian themes (which are themselves borrowed from a rich mythological tradition), the comparisons between the theorist and the director are compelling. My goal here is to establish the primary themes of scapegoating, mimesis, the cycle of violence, and feuding identities that occur in both Girard’s works and Scorsese’s films and pull them forward into a more recent work of Scorsese, Shutter Island.

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Menstruation As Heroine’S Journey In Pan’S Labyrinth, Richard Lindsay May 2012

Menstruation As Heroine’S Journey In Pan’S Labyrinth, Richard Lindsay

Journal of Religion & Film

I propose that the Guillermo del Toro film, Pan's Labyrinth (2006) follows the narrative outline of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey as experienced through the biological process of onset of menstruation in its young protagonist. I suggest a reading of the film that takes into account the visual and mythological symbolism of the figure of Pan, as well as the cultural context of menstruation in mythology and religion. I offer interviews from the director that support this interpretation, but ultimately I value a folk interpretation, or a "viewer's hunch" that the strange and fertile symbolism of the film represents a coming-of-age …

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