Amy Larosn
Staff Writer
Think that filmmaking and theology have absolutely nothing in common?
City of the Angels Film Festival proves otherwise.
This year, City of the Angels Film Festival held Oct. 22 to 24 at the Directors Guild of America Theatres, celebrated its 10th year of working toward its mission: “To identify and showcase movies that probe the ambiguities of human life, which includes the longing for transcendence.” The festival consistently screens classic films, challenging viewers to rethink the notions they already possess about these stories.
Pepperdine is a major sponsor of the film festival and Provost Darryl Tippens was a member of the panel that spoke about the movies after the screenings.
“This year’s festival was particularly good, I think, at demonstrating how a seemingly secular art form can convey deep ethical and spiritual values,” Tippens said.
This year’s theme, “Reel Myths,” was meant to encourage viewers to explore their beliefs of truth and understanding, as well as to give them a chance to discuss film in social and spiritual contexts. Showing films like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the festival focused more on the spiritual and social deconstruction of the pictures than the pity felt for the cowardly lion or comedy of the knights who say “Ni!” Following the screening of each film, a panel comprised of various thinkers (including teachers, theologians, and filmmakers) shares their thoughts and feelings on the film, and then fields questions from the audience concerning the different concepts just spoken on or seen in the movie.
“The City of Angels film festival is unique in that it also links this quest to understand humanity with our quest to know God,” Tippens said. “Thus, the festival closely fits the spiritual mission of our university.
“People from all over the country and from many different backgrounds gather to examine films critically, aesthetically, and spiritually. In the conversation, we not only come to understand this great art form better, but we come to understand how faith and values can be mediated through cinematic art.”
Started in 1994, City of the Angels Film Festival was created as a response to the Los Angeles social injustices of the early 1990s, Great Books professor Michael Gose said. Spiritually aware filmmakers and theologians with an interest in cinema developed this event to give a shot of spiritual, artistic and social renewal to the city. In the past, this unique festival has tackled such topics as the apocalypse, evil and the global search for meaning.
Senior Dan Long attended the festival and came away with the idea of dialogue with a film.
“It’s the idea of communicating back,” Long said. “The basic idea is to approach a film at more than its face value. You have a disscusion group about what a person with faith draws from films.”
Gose is bringing a piece of the City of Angels Film Festival back to campus by creating a new course for students this spring, a film class discussing controversial films and how they relate to society and each individual’s own personal spirituality the class will be called “Uncivil Films, Civil Discourse.”
The movies featured in the class as well as the movies at the City of Angels Film Festival will allow students to better relate to their non-Christian peers.
“In the context of a Christian university, I think it is imperative that we closely consider non-Christian perspectives,” Gose said. “I am sincerely convinced that we can consider R-rated films without being defiled by having seen them – if we approach them rightly.”
10-28-2004
