Film: Where Light Pierces Darkness

"And so they are linked, cinema and religion, two grand designs conjuring light out of darkness"

- John Updike

Gandalf fights Balrog

Religions are meant to give people out of body experiences that connect with the soul and give new light and life to every day experiences. In a similar way, films take people from their daily schedules and transform the world around them into a fantasy of color, sounds, and movements. Many films even take the next step and find ways to subtly, or blatantly, alter myths that people know to fit their own purposes.

Whether it be the slow downwards pan from the cosmos to the real in Star Wars, echoing the beginning of the world according to Genesis, or the death of Gandalf after fighting the Balrog, quite literally a demon of fire, and his resurrection shortly after, mirroring Jesus' death and resurrection, films find ways to give moviegoers a new take on religion. Like religions, they take people out of the physical realm and put them into the metaphysical, where light conquers darkness and the most unlikely of characters save the day.

Visual Representation of Myth in Film

ISacred Matters, Gary Laderman writes about the power of Disney movies as cultural myths. Disney films illustrate that good will defeat evil, happiness is possible, and that an individual can defeat the forces arrayed against him. Through visual symbols and plot events, these films illustrate basic cultural myths

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            In The Lord of the Rings series of films, visual elements are used to emphasize the mythic quality of the story. As an archetypical story of the battle of Good and Evil, a clear visual distinction between the two sides is necessary. Gandalf leads the forces of good, represented by the Fellowship of the Ring. When he is resurrected after sacrificing his life to save the other members of the Fellowship Gandalf wears white, a color that represents goodness and purity. The forces of evil are hideous. The clear differences between them emphasize the visual component of the myth.

            Films place a clear emphasis on sight, so they alter the way myths are perceived. For example, Genesis 1 places an emphasis on what happened. We are told what God did, but there is no indication of how he did it. This places an emphasis on the imagination. We are the ones who turn the words on the page into images through our imaginations. Films remove the need for that effort. If a film wanted to tell the story of creation, the director and cinematographer choose how to tell that story through images. By their very nature, films remove the imagination required to visualize myth.