How Movies Helped Save My Soul: Finding Spiritual Fingerprints in Culturally Significant Films
- Book Review,
by Gareth Higgins
From Publishers Weekly
This book, writes Tony Campolo in the foreword, "calls us to go to the movies to hear and see sermons." Higgins, an Irish Gen X-er, could be the textbook case of a postmodern young Christian, writing about movies in order to both explain his own idiosyncrasies and encourage others in the faith. In true post-modern fashion, Higgins insists that he is not providing a "right" interpretation of any of the films (well, except one or two), but offers the book as the opening shot in a volley-like dialogue. Seventeen chapters are arranged thematically around concepts like fear, justice, power, "anti-heroes" and war-popular po-mo topics. (And there's a last-but-not-least factor: The Matrix scores its own closing chapter.) The writing is sassy, confessional and just darn funny; while some readers may be put off by Higgins's tone of studied casualness, others will find his irreverence a welcome change. Also, the sheer breadth of the movies covered here is nothing short of amazing--it's rare for a Christian book to have Disney films jockeying for space next to Quentin Tarantino and Stanley Kubrick. Bravo. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Steve Stockman, Rhythm and Soul,August 2003
He[Gareth Higgins]observes it[movies] from his own very personal perspective and chatters away with humour, discernment and perceptive insight.
Godzone, August 2003
"Gareth Higgins lifts the cinematic veil, exposing us to the only part of film disguised in modest soft-focus: the soul.
Tangzine.com, August 2003
This work ought to enhance your movie watching experience. "Ask yourself how,what and why it is being said."
Book Description
Ever wonder why Star Wars ruined your childhood? How Jesus and Prozac are not the same thing? What relationship Martha Stewart has to the brass on the Titanic? What Brad Pitt and ice cream have in common? Why the best sermon I've ever heard was preached by Robert Duvall? How Marlon Brando could be both astonishing and terrible, sometimes in the same film? Why you'll never build a barn as quickly as the Amish, or teach as well as Robin Williams, or fly like Neo, but you still think it's worth trying? How the Oscars are almost always given to the wrong films? Or why most films are pretty terrible? How Movies Helped Save My Soul will tell you. It's a guidebook for the journey into film for postmodern pilgrims. Gareth Higgins not only shows us how to find manna from heaven on the multiplex screen, but provides a recipe for what to do with it (or at least shows us what he did with it). In chapters on anti-heroes, brokenness, conspiracy, death, community, fear, God, justice, love, outsiders, power, quest, and war, we learn how to make sense of our life by looking at it through a celluloid lens. Higgins takes us through more than 500 films that just might change our lives. From The Matrix to Magnolia, Fight Club to Field of Dreams, and The Wizard of Oz to Wings of Desire, the book travels to the ends of the cinema world and back again. Buffs and novices alike will find much to enjoy, provoke, amuse, challenge and confound in How Movies Helped Save My Soul.
From the Author
How to use this book: It basically consists of seventeen chapters on the meaning of cinema, organized according to themes like "war" and "love" and "quest'. (My friend Jennie wanted me to write a chapter devoted to Dirty Dancing but I need this book to sell more than one copy, so I had to reluctantly demur. Sorry, Jennie.) I've tried to write about themes that have some resonance for people who want to make sense of their own lives, of our place in the world, of the need for an encounter with God to heal us. So I deal with anti-heroes (the ambiguous morality of being human), brokenness (how depression and the pain of our lives needs to be brought to the light if we are to survive), conspiracy (how we so often feel alone in a field where all the weapons of the world are trained against us), death (because, along with taxes and telethons, it's the one thing that will happen to us all), community (the human race has lost something to do with being present with each other, and we need to find it - quick), fear (it's the place most of us seem to live, most of the time), god (I couldn't really write a book about spirituality in cinema without a chapter called god), justice (one person's justice is another person's revenge), love (because I'm pretty sure we need help to know what love actually means), outsiders (because it seems that most of the important things that happen in this world involve outsiders), power (because the Church is full of the wrong kind, and we need to learn that the path to true power is through our own disempowerment - we need a regime change), quest (the journey is the destination and all that good stuff), war (what is it good for?), and The Matrix (because I don't know what category to put it in).
About the Author
Gareth Higgins is a freelance writer and research consultant specializing in Northern Ireland affairs, religion, peacemaking, youth culture, social activism, film and post-modern culture. He has written widely on Northern Ireland in particular and is currently completing a book on the topic of religion and sectarianism. He is the co-chair of the zero28 Project, a post-sectarian peace building initiative, and a company member of ECONI, the Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland.
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