“There is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, Holy Bible, KJV) Two nights ago, my family enjoyed watching The Legend of Zorro (starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones), the sequel to The Mask of Zorro. One of the screen-writing elements which have been in so many movies, if not in almost every movie, occurred in this one as well. If you’ve watched very many movies at all without disengaging your brain, you’ve likely noticed this particular element – when the good guy gets caught by the bad guys, they never terminate him immediately, even when they have the opportunity. This is an extreme irony.
Often these same bad guys, earlier in the story, were killing innocent people “at the drop of a hat” (i.e., without even a second thought). Although not always the case, these innocent people are often people to whom we the viewers haven’t become too closely attached emotionally because their death would be too unpleasant for us (making the story less appealing). On occasion, however, the victim will be someone of whom we had become fond (though almost never the main hero); this is likely done to make us hate the bad guy even more, thus, rejoicing all the more (as my son did quite audibly with Zorro) when the good guy takes out the bad guy.
But back to my point about extreme irony…. The rancher whose deed the bad guy really wants for some reason, the rancher who poses so little of an offensive threat to the bad guy, is killed without the slightest hint of remorse; but when the bad guy later catches the good guy off guard, the good guy who poses the greatest offensive threat to the bad guy, this same bad guy suddenly has second thoughts about immediately terminating his opponent. (Oh, he plans to terminate him all right, but he wants to do it slowly to make it more painful for the good guy, or some other convenient reason like that.)
So what’s all this have to do with plagiarism? Well, first let’s ask “WHY?!” Why in the world do the screen-writers throw in some sort of “all-of-a-sudden-I’m-gonna-think-twice-about-my-actions” perspective from the bad guy smack dab in the middle of the story’s climax? How realistic is that? No wonder the good guy always wins! All you have to do is throw in some (additional) inconsistency in the bad guy’s character, and your story can always turn out well in the end. Well, I’ll tell you why: this is the unspoken divine element of the story.
Even years ago, I used to think that one of the basic differences between good Christian stories and good non-Christian stories was simply that one acknowledged the presence and work of God and the other didn’t. (I’ll expound on this further in a moment but first…) Basically, the reason David was able to kill Goliath is the same reason that John Wayne was always able to outdraw his opponent – because God made it so. Only, David acknowledged this truth loudly, and John Wayne did not.
As I've thought about it, I’m convinced even more that this is so. In the most real, most true Story of all, it is impossible for evil to ultimately triumph over good… because God is good. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1:17, Holy Bible, KJV) Goodness (and evil, for that matter, but that’s another discussion) is NOT an absolute independent of any and all sources. Walking an old lady across the street is not a good deed just because it is; there’s a reason it’s good. That reason is God, Who is ontologically Good. (That is, Goodness is His very nature; It’s Who He is.) God is Goodness. Therefore, He cannot but triumph over evil. (I’m beginning to think that evil cannot even exist apart from Him. I think He probably created evil – Isaiah 45:7 – as another means of manifesting His goodness, to make us rejoice all the more when the Good Guy takes out the bad guy.)
The better the screen-writer becomes at story-telling, the closer he comes to “plagiarizing” God’s Story. How far into a 2.5-hour movie do you have to watch before some problem surfaces? Unless the movie is quite slow-moving, it’s not very long before the viewer becomes very suspicious, if not fully aware, of the problem. (Then the rest of the movie is spent developing that problem further and/or bringing it to a resolution.) And how long did it take for Evil to show its ugly face in God’s Story? ... In chapter 3, out of 1,193 chapters!
Why do we connect with and feel sorry for the poor rancher who was so heartlessly terrorized? Because we can relate to him; indeed, because we are (or were) related to him. So now we hate Evil all the more, even though we invited him. We welcomed him, and he robbed us blind. And now we rejoice when the Good Guy crushes the bad guy’s head, and the Good Guy’s redemption of us is all the more glorious!
This is why Good must triumph over Evil. This is why the bad guy can never fully carry out his hatred against the good guy. This is why the screen-writers can’t help but turn the tables on the bad guy for no apparent reason – the reason is not apparent because they hate admitting that God tells the greatest Story and the best they can do is copy It. – They have to do it; it would not be realistic, otherwise. God is real. And He’s really good!
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2 comments:
I think that if you are judging the merits and quality of a movie based on how well it reveals, either outwardly or symbolically, God’s grace and righteousness, you may be committing an injustice to some that have been blessed with wonderful talents for story telling. Not all great works of literature or cinematography reveal a Christian message yet they remain thought provoking social commentaries on the true nature of humans. Dostoevsky’s novel are wonderfully compelling books that paint a picture of the dark nature of people, and the Good Guy doesn’t always win. This is brought to life in the recent film Match Point, an adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Furthermore, recent movies like Fight Club, also paint a grim reality regarding human nature in this modern time of consumerism and materialism. And while the Bad Guy is brought down in the end, the Good Guy of the story doesn’t resemble the Christian that you may want him to resemble. If you are only watching films that reveal the work of God in the context of righteousness, then you are limiting yourself to a very narrow ideology, and quite possibly missing the more important aspect of gaining viewpoints and philosophies of those that may not be inherently Christian, and being able accept them and reconcile them with your own convictions. This begs the question: Is it better to focus on the messages within film and literature that are obviously Christian, or might it be more beneficial to focus on works that, though they may not be Christian in the message that they convey, appeal to a wider audience and use them to minister to those that may be needing to see how God is working in their lives? I know which one would be more difficult.
Well done Mark.
Nic the point of all this is is that you wouldn't know what made a good movie a good movie if God hadn't made the world that way. You wouldn't root for the good guy or boo the bad guy, for instance. If God hadn't created the world the way he did, none of this would matter. There would be no good guy or bad guy, no right or wrong. Everything would just be. It would also make no sense to say one movie was better than another. Things are the way they are because God made them that way. It could be no other way.
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