Written by Brent Dickman, Master of Divinity student

It’s that time of year when we take down Christmas trees, polish off the last of those Christmas cookies, and instigate a plan to shed those holiday pounds.  Some of us are thankful to have the hectic world of the holidays behind us.  Others are sad to have ahead of us a long stretch of dreary winter months with little impending holiday magic.  Wherever you are in this first week of the new year, I invite you to join the merriments of one more season.  Now until February 27, 2011 is Oscar season.

Why bother with the Oscars?  Well, of course, no one, Christian or otherwise, need feel any obligation.  But there are many reasons to follow the drama of it all.  The films that will be shown in theatres and released on discs as Oscar contenders represent Hollywood’s most thoughtful and profound films.  The winners drive the industry for the years ahead.  Want to see more Westerns grace theatres during the summer blockbuster season?  Then root for True Grit to get nominations and awards.  Want to see more thoughtful and profound works of science fiction?  Then Inception is the movie for you.  Or maybe you think that Hollywood needs to be more family friendly.  Perhaps Toy Story 3 is your film.

Oscar films are works of art designed not only to entertain, but also to make us think or feel in certain ways.  And, of course, we might think that some fail, but arguing that can be part of the fun too.  Hollywood has something to say about truth, goodness, and beauty.  So do Christians, who, if they do it respectfully, have an opportunity to engage in a cultural conversation about these very theological themes.  The blog this month is dedicated to Christianity and film.  And with the seminary’s two classes on ministry and theology in our contemporary/cultural context approaching this spring, I thought it would be fun to consider briefly some current Oscar contenders.

This past weekend my wife and I went to see Black Swan.  I’m still not sure if I loved it or hated it.  Natalie Portman’s performance is phenomenal and Darren Aronofsky’s direction turns a flawed script into artistic brilliance.  This is high art and horror, all wrapped up in a messy and R-rated 108 minutes.  So I certainly would not recommend this movie to everyone.  But there is beauty here, alongside questions of truth and goodness.

Truth, goodness, and beauty have long been considered the three transcendentals of God’s nature.  God is true, good, and beautiful.  He always has been and always will be.  Yet even as God is perfectly beautiful (cf. Ps 50:2), beauty itself has been called the neglected theological stepsister of truth and goodness.  While her two sisters are understood as valuable in and of themselves, she must be content to merely serve them.  Truth and goodness can bring us to God, but can beauty?  Can a film, for instance, by its beauty alone bring people to God?  Or must it somehow serve some other ethical (goodness) or doctrinal (truth) purpose?  Many Christians often make beauty serve some other purpose.

The common way to theologically comment on Black Swan is to attempt to dissect what claims it might have about what is good and true.  Then we can divide this analysis into material that we think agrees with Christianity and that which doesn’t.  And there is some worth in this.  But to do that with a work of art runs the high risk of missing the point.  Art above all is meant to be beautiful.  And beauty is encountered through the imagination.  So when a Christian watches a film like Black Swan, he or she should let it enter his or her uniquely Christian imagination.  We need not fear.  Any beauty we find there belongs to God.

Black Swan follows the artistic endeavors of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a ballerina, about to perform the most famous of all ballet roles – the lead of Swan Lake.  Swan Lake, famously orchestrated by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, is a ballet fairy tale about beauty, good and evil, love and death.  Ballet is an art form that seeks to be beautiful with every gesture, step, and nuance.  But it is highly demanding, often taking quite the toll on the bodies of the performers.

Black Swan is something of a ballet within a ballet.  It is about Swan Lake even as it retells Swan Lake. As such, as we watch we find ourselves considering the nature and cost of beauty in a confusing world of good and evil.  So for those willing to tolerate its language and drug use, and look away from its moments of strong sexual content and violent imagery, here are some things that you can consider along with my wife and I in your own cultural and cinematic exegesis of this beautiful film.

1. Cinema and Sin. There are things in Black Swan that, personally, I would rather not see, especially as Aronofsky films them.  As Christians, how do we respond to visual and thematic representations of things we consider sinful?  Do we unabashedly reject such films in whole?  Or do we try somehow to separate the ugly from the beautiful?  Where do we draw our line?  For some Black Swan is well over that line while for others it hovers right around it.  How do we let these issues affect our interpretations?  What do we say to coworkers around the water cooler or to Christians we lead in ministry?
2. Darren Aronofky. It’s helpful to know that Black Swan is, thematically, conceived as a companion film to Aronofsky’s previous work, The Wrestler.  Both films consider how performers use and abuse their own bodies to express their art.  Likewise Black Swan can be interpreted through the lens of Aronofsky’s previous work (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler), which has routinely examined madness, sexuality, love, family, and the nature of human existence.  Black Swan is no different.  Examining the director’s previous work can help you better understand his current release, including point number one above.
3. The Disenchantment and Reenchantment of the World. Swan Lake is a fairy tale, full of love, beauty, magic, curses, princes, and princesses.  It is a tale of enchantment.  As such, it is designed to reveal to us something about the nature of our lives.  But in an age when we’re not supposed to believe in magic (or even the supernatural) any longer, how do we tell such a tale?  As you watch, or reflect on the movie afterward, track how the elements of fairy-tale enchantment (magic, curses, princes, etc.) get transposed into the world of the film.  For instance, where is magic in Black Swan?  Is it the power art, imagination, hallucination, or something else?  What does the film’s “magic” suggest about life and the nature of our existence?  Does this high-art horror film act as a fairy tale?  At least one reviewer thinks so.  Do you?

For those of you out there who would chose to not watch a movie like Black Swan, please believe me, I completely understand.  Next week I promise to tackle something far less controversial.  But for those interested, Black Swan is still in local theatres.  I for one have not been able to get its beauty and artistry out of my head.  Aronofsky carefully orchestrates every scene and shot.  Nothing is without purpose.  Yet never have I been so captivated and bored by a movie all at the same time.  But if its pace dragged at the beginning of the film, it was, perhaps, worth it to experience the film’s breathtaking final act.  I can’t talk about it without giving it away, so see it yourself to experience what I mean.  They are the moments from this film that will stay with me.  And I welcome them.