Slow Zoom Towards the Mysterious Unseen
I wrote about a rather obscure short film called Wavelength and the way it parallels our own longing. Read the whole piece over at Mockingbird.
I wrote about a rather obscure short film called Wavelength and the way it parallels our own longing. Read the whole piece over at Mockingbird.
“We don’t do a lot of waiting nowadays. A few extra seconds of Internet load time merits a complaint call. We don’t like waiting, but we’re asked to do a lot of it. We especially don’t like waiting when it comes to movies. We tend to favor fast cuts and snappy punch lines. These movies “reward” the viewers (and also usually the characters) for their time by pairing questions with answers, effects with causes, and situations with explanations. There are actually storytelling formulas that dictate how long the viewer should be left to wonder before the truth is revealed, how long the protagonist should have to struggle before their want is achieved. This is effective storytelling, and a lot of fun, but sometimes we’re left to ask why our own lives aren’t resolving in this “normal” amount of time. The longer we wait, the more our faith is tested. We can’t skip to the end of our stories.”
Contact With Mystery
On Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor, and what 'The Revenant' misses on purpose, over at Christianity Today.
I wrote this piece on Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor, and what 'The Revenant' misses on purpose over at Christianity Today.
“Iñárritu doesn’t offer a deus ex machina solution to a problem his protagonist can’t solve. Rather, the climax is a form of grace that reveals a better resolution than Hugh determined to achieve. Usually the end of a story is about a giant choice that changes everything. Hugh makes a passive choice rather than an active one.”