Film fathers: From the demonic to the angelic

In an essay which examines Paul Tillich’s theology of correlation, Clive Marsh quotes from John Dillenberger: ‘Tillich’s theological use of art is not sufficiently grounded in the arts themselves.’ Marsh continues, ‘In other words, Tillich’s approach to the arts was too heavily controlled by theological needs to allow the works of arts he considered to “speak” in a way that is true to their own integrity.’

These observations by Marsh, who lectures in theology, religious and cultural studies at the University College of Ripon and York, St. John, England, are from a book he co-edited with Gayle Ortiz, Explorations in Theology and Film. His observations should be committed to memory by any writer or speaker who comments on the relationship between religion and film. To be fair to both Tillich and Marsh, however, it should be noted that Marsh is appreciative of the manner in which Tillich’s theology of correlation brings together ‘contemporary cultural concerns and Christian theology so that Christian theology could be allowed to address actual questions.’

But as a theologian, Tillich did have his priorities, and the danger inherent in any connection of the secular to the sacred is that it is always tempting to ‘use’ the secular rather than allow the medium to display its own integrity. Nowhere in modern culture is this more a danger than in the world of film, which is driven perhaps more than any other contemporary art form, by commerce and ideology. We must resist, vigorously, the temptation to use film to ‘illustrate’ our theological points.

I am reminding myself of this danger because I am constantly in search of those films that resonate with tenets of the faith. For example, three recent films have special value in examining father-son relationships. They lend themselves to this delicate human interaction, not as mere illustrations, but as evocations of the truth of God’s intention for his creation. The theological point to ponder as we consider how fathers and sons relate is that the template which determines the ideal of that connection is the relationship of God to his son, Jesus. Love is at the centre of that relationship, sacrificial love, which the Father presages in the earlier command He gave to Abraham to sacrifice his son as an expression of his absolute devotion to Yahweh.

No parent can live up to that theological ideal, but it is the template of love and trust on which our limited human efforts is based. We aspire to perfection even as we know we fall far short of that aspiration, and God’s love for his Son is our model. Three recent films capture the essence of what father-son relationships are intended to be. In these films, we are confronted with the limitations imposed by human frailty and the circumstances in which these relationships are played out.

A modern fable

Consider, first, a film that is, in actuality, a fable written from the perspective of an adult looking back on his childhood. His remembered father is too good to be true, of course, but as he recalls his story, the memory is so engaging that the viewer is drawn into its portrayal and, indeed, its evocation of grace. Life is Beautiful is an Italian film directed and written by, and starring, Roberto Benigni. A noted Italian comedian, Benigni begins his narrative with a series of comedic moments which establish the strong relationship between an Italian Jew and his non-Jewish bride in such a fashion that the viewer experiences the joy of a family into which a fortunate young boy enters in pre-World War II Italy.

When the war begins, Benigni and his son, both Jews, are taken to a concentration camp; the mother joins them in her own sacrificial act. Faced with the horror of the camp, Benigni convinces his son that what is happening to them is all a game, with a set of rules the child must follow in order to win a big prize. This game is the heart of the film, depicting a series of play-acting moments in which the father’s love for his son protects him from the ugly reality of the camp and the journey most of its inhabitants will make to the gas chamber.

One scene stands out: Hiding in a box, the boy sees his father taken away by soldiers. His father peers over his shoulder, catches his son’s eye, and then proceeds to mimic the German goose step, just to show that the ‘game’ continues. The father in Life is Beautiful is, of course, too good to be true, but the style of the film is designed to evoke a joyful reality that leads to a moment of great ‘victory’ for the boy and a permanent reminder that he has been loved by a man, and his mother, with such depth that no matter what awaits him, he will have that memory of sacrificial love.

This is not a film that ‘illustrates’ how fathers and sons might relate to one another; it is rather, an artistic evocation of sacrificial love that suggests experientially how this connection may mirror God’s love for all his children.

Like father, like son

A second film which addresses the issue of father-son relationships is Affliction, the polar opposite of Life is Beautiful, in that it examines the impact an oppressive, hate-filled father has on his children. Affliction is based on a Russell Banks’ novel, and it is directed by Paul Schrader, who in an earlier film, Hardcore, revealed some of his own background as the product of a fundamentalist Christian, Dutch Reform, family in Michigan.

In a review of Affliction in the Film Journal International, Kevin Lally writes: ‘For anyone who’s read Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, it’s hard not to flash on siblings Paul and Leonard Schrader’s miserable Calvinist upbringing while watching this tale of two brother raised by a frighteningly volatile father.’ In a separate interview in Filmmaker magazine, cited by Lally, Schrader recalled: ‘My father was not abusive, he was not alcoholic, but there were enough similarities.’

Whatever the similarities, Affliction is a stunningly ugly portrait of the damage a father can do to his sons when driven by unbridled anger and a total absence of love. For a writer used to developing his own material (he wrote, for example, Taxi Driver) Schrader is remarkably faithful to Russell Bank’s novel, which explores the emotional and physical disintegration of Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte), the police officer of a small New Hampshire town. The time is Halloween and the opening of the deer hunting season, and the narrative is as dark as Banks’ other novel made into a strong film, The Sweet Hereafter, which centres on a school bus accident.

In Affliction, James Coburn plays Glen Whitehouse, who is seen through flashbacks beating Wade in violent, drunken outbursts of anger. The book’s narrator, Wade’s brother, avoided the beatings by withdrawing from any connection to his family, and to life itself, and leaves town as soon as he could.

Divorced from his wife, Wade wants desperately to hang onto his young daughter’s affection, but his own life has taken on a pattern that parallels his father’s, continual drinking and a temper which he can barely keep under control. All of his actions reveal that he cannot escape the influence of his father on his own manner of dealing with those close to him. In one burst of fury, he strikes his child, evoking the comment from his father that his son has truly become like his father.

Convinced that he knows the answer to the mystery of a hunter’s death, Wade spirals out of control, until, as his brother concludes, the ‘affliction’ of violence brings his life to a tragic conclusion. Affliction does not illustrate evil; it embodies it in the person of a father who damages the lives of those around him, afflicting then with violence. If one’s theology has room for the presence of a satanic influence in the lives of all of us, sometimes held at bay, at other times, embraced, then this is a film that evokes the presence of absolute evil in the person of Glen Wade.

Ambiguities and nostalgia

While Life is Beautiful and Affliction offer cinematic extremes of the embodiment of love and evil, a third film, October Sky, suggests a more realistic presentation of the ambiguity of most father-son relationships. Based on the true story of Homer Hickham, Jr., a NASA scientist, and taken from Hickham’s autobiography, October Sky is Hickham’s memory of his high school years in a West Virginia coal mining town.

Inspired by Sputnik and with the encouragement of their science teacher, Hickham and three other classmates build increasingly sophisticated rockets and emerge as scientists in the making. Hickham’s biggest struggle is not with rocketry but with his father, foreman of the local coal mining company who wants his son to follow him into a job the father actually loves. ‘I know the mine like I know a man. I was born for this,’ the father exults, eager to convince his son he should follow his path.

Chris Cooper (the sheriff from Lone Star) plays the senior Hookham in a remarkably sensitive performance, portraying a father limited in parenting skills but driven by a love for his family which is almost overridden by his devotion to mining. This is not a story of major crises, but of a series of small struggles as Homer and his three classmates, after almost going to jail for destroying community property, emerge as town heroes, culminating with Homer’s trip to the national science fair with a rocket built with the help of co-operative adults in the coal mining town.

Under the able direction of Joe Johnston, the relationship of father and son moves through the film without false sentiment, relying instead on familiar parental edicts (the boys have to leave town and walk eight miles to shoot off their rockets) and the son’s final insistence that he had to follow his passion, not that of his father’s. There are sacrifices and adjustments to the reality of their relationship; the father, for example, reluctantly compromising with the union during a strike in order to help his son produce a rocket casing.

There is a strong feeling of nostalgia in the film; it is after all, Homer Hickham’s memory of his teenage years, before he became a trainer of astronauts for NASA. The ambiguity of the relationship between father and son in October Sky, however, even viewed through nostalgic lens, is at times painful to watch, since such relationships in the teen years are never exactly as we would want them to be. There are no winners or losers as sons go their separate way, sometimes in defiance of their father’s desires. Raising children is a risky business; it involves giving up control just when decision-making by the child seems to promise such an unpredictable future.

October Sky does not illustrate good parenting; it, does, however, evoke the feeling that since every parent has only a limited vision of how to shape their children’s future, the job requires a lot of luck and a huge amount of love.

James M. Wall is Senior Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, Chicago, USA.