3
04
2007
I’m not sure I agree with Tyler’s post and all the adoring comments it’s recieved. But then again, I still haven’t managed to see the film (AGH!) so maybe I’m just missing what everyone seems to be trying to articulate. It seems to me that what’s being described are, pretty much, four different ways to worship God. None of these descriptions seem to quite get at all of, or even half of, the qualities a Biblical God possess. They are, rather, ways we worship God by trying to conform ourselves to his image. And yet if we’re conforming ourselves, we’re in essance creating ourselves, which makes us God-like. But not God. After all, the Bible says “all our riches are as filthy rags compared to the glory of the Lord.” (this isn’t exact, but it captures, I think, the essance of the verse. But maybe we’re not talking about God in a Biblical sense; that’s just what I think of when someone says God. How does one become a stand-in for God? I ask this in both a filmic and novelistic sense, as I’m all over the Christ-character concept, but I don’t think I’ve encountered a God-like figure. How do you, anyway, represent someone/something who is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. No human has all the answers, we can’t even figure out what truth is, so how can we portray ourselves as even coming close? Maybe someone can help me out!? I promise to try and see the movie soon, but I’m halfway through The Fog of War right now, and I’m finding it STUNNING (but more on that later). Besides, talking about the concepts of the movie seems to me to be almost more “brain-charging” than talking about them in the context of the film. Doesn’t Morris want us to take them outside of his films and engage with them anyway? But that doesn’t mean I won’t watch. I will make a valiant effort to see this, arguably, fantastic movie.
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You need to see this movie, Mary-Carolyn, and then report back on a) did you like it? and b) was it good?
[...] We turn now to my fellow bloggers, & face their decisions & implications on the matters of God, reason, purpose, & Vernon, Florida. The most interesting argument concerning any aspect of the film is found in Robyn’s post concerning the syntactical limitations of language & understanding. Deciding to focus mainly on how Man defines both the structured & indefinable, she asks the questions that really get to the point of the matter: how we do define something? How do we define someone? What if a gopher is really a turtle? What if a boy is really not a boy at all…at least not entirely? Her analysis of the situation boils down to essentially my same views on the topic & are more revelatory concerning my issues with God & purpose than they may seem to be at first. After all, is it incorrect to imply that what we assume to be only crickets could be the faintest trace of God? Both are imperceptible without close examination, both are accepted & understood by only the few who choose to tackle the issue, & yet both are still recognized as being. Perhaps the answers to Robyn’s questions don’t have to do with the naming of things, but rather with the realization that there are things & they simply are. This isn’t to imply entirely that labels or definitions are utterly obsolete, but rather that the understanding of them only by these labels is unimportant. Herein lies the over-arching message that I feel with all my heart Vernon, Florida is attempting to relate to the viewer: accept the unknown not without hope, but without submission. Because to ignore possibilities concerning the world both divine & earthly simply on causal terms not only shows an ignorance of the mind, but surely ignorance of both faith & the heart as well. One of Ben’s blog posts concerning Morris’ film touched on an issue relative to this subject: that of the importance of pride & the will of man. His statement concerning the amount of pride each character in Vernon, Florida has touches on much more than I think he might have been aware of when originally thinking about it. Theologically, pride is generally considered to be the original & most important of the Seven Deadly Sins, often thought to be the source for the remaining six, as it involves an excessive love of self to the point of contempt for others. If this is true, the characters in Errol Morris’ film are each sinful in some excessively romantic way. In many cases, I can see where this might be the case - the turkey hunter’s desire to charismatically relate dramatic hunting stories; the need to keep wild animals in a backyard cage for the purpose of sale & exhibition - & yet for some reason I can’t help but think that the sins are not cause for damnation, but only for gradual purgation. Each man in Vernon is ultimately full of a recognition of God & speaks with an intense awareness of some Divine Plan, & thus lives with the redeeming qualities of faith, hope, & love. Even if prideful, the mere desire to understand some vision of God is cause for complete, eventual redemption. And yet still complete understanding is forever elusive to Man, considered with unmatched beauty & mental intensity in Mary-Carolyn’s post about the portrayal of Morris’ film characters as forms of God. In her comments, she manages to think about the most poignant of questions in matters of the Divine: “How do you, anyway, represent someone/something who is all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful.” This again (yes, AGAIN) brings to mind Dante’s work in the final moments of the Divine Comedy, in which his vision of God is perpetually inadequate, only possibly existing through a string of metaphors. When Dante finally reaches The Empyrean, his vision of God is a flowing river of bright light until the moment when the light begins to circle in upon itself & create the shape of a white rose. Blessed souls fly excitedly around the scene as God’s form again changes through Dante’s poetry into the form of three circles of blinding, indescribable light, a final & complete description of that which Dante has no accurate words for. In this sense, the answer to Mary-Carolyn’s problem is that there is no way to show God, only a way for God to show himself; in the case of Vernon, Florida, the Vision of God is the slow oarsman, bathed in light & full of divine paradigms. But still there is a blog post that brings everything back down to the base level, where thoughts are gloriously untroubled & happiness is anywhere you please. Nathan’s post on the film in general is the beginning & end of the ring of characterizations we as a class associated with Morris’ film, & his notes on humility & pleasure are the most simplistically wonderful. The depth in this post is found in the language: the words “human,” “genuine,” & “value” are praises to God in their own right, practically screaming down the reader to alert them to the merits found within. Because despite all the talk about divinity, hope, & the search for God in something (anything!), Vernon, Florida is really just about the human, & considering the fact that this follows the path of a person & was completed with human intellect, the consideration of the role of humanity in the film is one of the most important. Even if these people are real & yet still characters (as Ben said), & even if they choose not to fully comprehend the importance of understanding that things just are (as Robyn implied), they are a genuine reflection of God’s love. Their value, it is important to note, does not lie automatically within themselves, but rather has been molded with an editing process that serves the purpose of preserving the nature of Man as both original sinner & blessed individual. Nathan calls the citizens in Morris’ film “adorable,” but at this point I’ll opt for true, because after all the debate about truth & reality in the world of the neo-realist documentary filmmaker, I’m betting that no man is truer than he who has come to terms with a personal understanding of his connection with faith, hope, & love. And yet still these words return to haunt me: “Reality? You mean this is the real world…?” [...]
[...] I remember there was some controversy over my initial Fast Cheap post, where I wondered about the men as four models of God. Someone suggested that it was a new religion based on Morris, which wasn’t exactly what I meant. Then Mary Carolyn pointed out that my four models of God weren’t complete, which I understood. Morris is asking questions, probing- I think he has an open mind about the whole question of God. I’ve probably talked about this film with Serena the most. We watched it together initially, so she caught both my opening frenzy and has been willing to keep talking about it over the weeks. Serena continued probing the initial idea in an interesting way. She took the movie as a religious text, trying on the implications as Morris made them, finding her own personal interpretation through a Morro-religious lens. Serena ended up thinking that she’s a headless giraffe shrubbery. I guess that may be so. I’m pretty sure I’m a toothless tiger myself, bluffed into a cage I’m more than capable of escaping, or at least wrecking. Serena’s issues and my issues are represented in different parts of the film. Even more than the technical artistry of the film, it is this that makes it a masterpiece. Fast Cheap and Out of Control smashes into my soul every time I watch it (rather, both times I’ve watched it). But it doesn’t leave me alone, or empty- just open. [...]
[...] suggested that it was a new religion based on Morris, which wasn’t exactly what I meant. Then Mary Carolyn pointed out that my four models of God weren’t complete, which I understood. Morris is asking [...]