Focus: the Art and Soul of Cinema, by Tony Watkins
People love films. Whether it is going out for an evening at the cinema with a box of popcorn, or curling up at home with a DVD and a bar of chocolate, movies are one of our favourite forms of entertainment. They make us laugh and cry; they thrill us and scare us; they transport us to faraway places and bring to life things that we could only dream of; they stretch our thinking and enable us to see life through different eyes.
With a revival of cinema-going, new technologies transforming how we watch films, and new television channels enabling us to see more films, our culture is becoming increasingly film-literate. It is therefore more important than ever before that Christians should understand the significance of films within our culture and be able to engage with them. Film is a wonderfully rich medium: a rapid succession of moving images, accompanied by dialogue, sound effects and a musical score. All these elements combine to create meaning - to tell a story that may resonate with our own experience, or perhaps move us or stimulate our minds.
It is important for our ongoing Christian growth that we learn to watch films thoughtfully rather than let them wash over us, seeing them as mere entertainment. It is important for our ability to relate to our friends that we learn to understand the messages which films communicate and how they relate to the good news of Jesus Christ.
So my new book, Focus: The Art and Soul of Cinema, is about understanding films. It examines how films communicate their messages and how we can engage with them, digging beneath the surface to think about beliefs and and values. Film-makers put a great deal of effort into their work, so we will be rewarded for paying closer attention to what we see and hear. We discover deeper levels of meaning and understand more fully what the film-maker wanted to communicate - as well as what he or she communicated unwittingly. And it gives us much more to talk about after watching a film - hopefully in intelligent, stimulating and engaging ways.
Theologian Peter Fraser believes that:
... the time is at hand for Christians to engage our movie-made culture courageously, and this means we have to struggle with tough issues and tell the truth... When we stand back from engaging the world, in this case, the world of film, and instead allow ourselves to be treated like village idiots, we can hardly expect God to be pleased.
The first part of the book looks at the theological foundation on which engaging with film is based, introduces important themes that help us to understand a film's worldview, and explores the philosophical influences on cinema since its earliest days. Part Two looks at who makes movies and how they communicate their message through cinematic techniques, how the stories are constructed, and how film genres are related to worldviews. Part Three explores some key messages which movies communicate and explores how to respond to films - and help others to do so. The appendices include questions to ask when watching a film, and some reflections on the issue of sex and violence.
Focus is a book to help people understand what films are really saying, and then to engage with those ideas. I hope that it will make the process of watching a film even more fun than it was before, as well as helping our conversations about them to be more stimulating than ever.
Tony Watkins, March 2007
Order
from the UK
(not yet available in USA)
