Higher Ground (2011), the directorial debut of Vera Farmiga, has become one of my favorite cinematic treatments of Christian faith, along with The Mission (1986), The Apostle (1997), Into Great Silence (2005), Of Gods and Men (2010), and The Tree of Life (2011). The film is admirable for its refusal to judge the characters, its refusal to proselytize or polemicize. With a reverent and respectful tone, which is so rare when Hollywood turns to religion, Higher Ground tells a story about the search for authentic faith––faith in marriage and family, faith in friendships, and, above all else, faith in God. Farmiga, who also plays the protagonist Corinne Walker, describes her as “not broken down, but broken open.” “She’s not ridding herself of faith,” Farmiga adds, “she’s ridding herself of an impoverished faith.” It’s these kind of subtleties that make the film so welcome. I cannot think of another character who more saliently embodies the fragility and fortitude of faith in late modernity more than Corinne. She embodies what Emily Dickinson memorably characterizes as nimble believing: “We both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an Hour, which keeps Believing nimble.”

The lines below are from the closing scene of the film, where Corinne courageously voices her struggle to make an enduring abode for God in her heart:

When I was a little girl my pastor told me that Jesus was knocking on the door of my heart. And, so, I listened real hard and I thought I heard him. I did. I raised my hand and told everyone that Jesus was standing there, and he wanted me. He wanted me. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. So I invited him in. “Welcome,” I said. And I gave my heart outright. I’m standing here today and I’m telling you today that, ahh, I’m still waiting for him to make himself at home. You know, I call and I call. There have been times when I know he answered me – times when I’m sure of it. But other times I got the porch light on and he doesn’t come. And I feel like I live in an empty place. I told God, you know what, I’m not going to let go, I won’t let go until he blesses me. But I’m wrestling with something nameless, without form and void, and I just want it to be solid so bad. I need all this to be real, and I don’t always know how to make it real – I don’t know how to make it real.

Interviews:

• Christianity Today: Frederica Mathewes-Green, Vera Farmiga’s Struggles with God
• Charlie Rose Show: Interview with Vera Farmiga
• Mother Jones: Aaron Ross, Vera Farmiga on “Higher Ground”
• BeliefNet: Nell Minow, Interview: Vera Farmiga of “Higher Ground”
• Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips, “Higher Ground” project wouldn’t let Farmiga get away

Reviews

• Christianity Today: Frederica Mathewes-Green
• Paste: Craig Detweiler
• New York Times: A. O. Scott
• Chicago Sun Times: Roger Ebert
• The New Yorker: Anthony Lane
• Reel Spirituality: Elijah Davidson
• Variety: Justin Chang

Last night I watched an oldie but a goodie – Neil Simon’s play turned film, The Odd Couple (1968). I loved its humorous treatment of male friendship, in which two divorced men try living together as roommates. Here are my favorite lines because they creatively address the irreducible particularity and dignity of human beings.

FELIX.  I don’t want to get divorced, Oscar. I don’t want to suddenly change my whole life. . . . (Moves to couch and sits next to OSCAR.) Talk to me, Oscar. What am I going to do? . . . What am I going to do?

OSCAR.  You’re going to pull yourself together. And then you’re going to drink that Scotch and then you and I are going to figure out a whole new life for you.

FELIX.  Without Frances? Without the kids?

OSCAR.  It’s been done before.

FELIX.  (Paces right.) You don’t understand, Oscar. I’m nothing without them. I’m nothing!

OSCAR.  What do you mean, nothing? You’re something! (FELIX sits in armchair.) A person! You’re flesh and blood and bones and hair and nails and ears. You’re not a fish. You’re not a buffalo. You’re you! . . . You walk and talk and cry and complain and eat little green pills and send suicide telegrams. No one else does that, Felix. I’m telling you, you’re-the-only-one-of-its-kind-in-the-world! (Goes to bar.) Now drink that.

The third day of our road trip began with a horseback ride that crossed Chalk Creek and traversed a portion of the narrow gauge railroad bed that serviced nearby mining camps. Recently dusted with snow, the Collegiate Peaks towered above cottonwood and aspen trees boasting their autumnal color – the very same color of the metal that attracted so many industrious people to this region. My friend and I visited St. Elmo, one of Colorado’s most preserved ghost towns. We saw a saloon, general store, post office, hotel, and school house. It is hard to imagine that this forested outpost was once home to nearly 2,000 residents and known as a boisterous “Saturday-night town.” A hushed solemnity pervades today. Our drive took us through the Upper Arkansas Valley from Buena Vista to Leadville (the highest incorporated city in the United States at 10,152 feet). In the late 19th century, Leadville was the second most populous city in Colorado (after Denver) and one of the world’s largest silver camps with around 20,000 people. The streets were once walked by the likes of Doc Holliday, Frank and Jesse James, Walt Whitman, Harry Houdini, Oscar Wilde, and Buffalo Bill. Greed brought glitter and gloom, evident in the Victorian homes, Tabor Opera House, and environmental ruin from mining.

Near Mt. Princeton Hot Springs – Nathrop

St. Elmo

St. Elmo

St. Elmo

Near Buena Vista on U.S. Route 24

Near Leadville on U.S. Route 24

Leadville

Leadville

Leadville

Leadville

On the second day of our road trip, my friend and I traveled back in time to the late 19th century gold rush in Cripple Creek and then to prehistoric Colorado at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Wilkerson Pass on U.S. Route 24 offered one of the most breathtaking vistas I have ever seen. Like Susan Ward, the character in Wallace Stegner’s novel Angle of Repose who journeys from the East coast to the Western frontier, “what [I] felt in the moment of arrival was space, extension, bigness.” Because of the high altitude, the skies here possess an unmatched clarity and intensity of color. The pictures speak for themselves: lonely homesteads and cabins, Western masculinity, and natural beauty that “bankrupts the English language,” as Teddy Roosevelt once said upon visiting the Centennial State. Our day ended near Nathrop, where we soaked in geothermal springs under a night sky with a full moon illuminating the kaolinite Chalk Cliffs.

Near Woodland Park

Near Woodland Park

Cripple Creek

Cripple Creek

Adeline Hornbek homestead near Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Adeline Hornbek homestead near Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Wilkerson Pass on U.S. Route 24

Near Hartsel on U.S. Route 24

A friend and I were inspired by National Geographic’s Drives of a Lifetime. For three days (October 10-12) this month we took a road trip to the ghost towns of Colorado. Beyond memory-making, the purpose of the trip was to deepen my sense of place in the Rocky Mountain West. I shot over two hundred photographs. In the coming days I will feature my favorite ones because, as the adage goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

The first day of the trip focused focused on Cañon City and the Gold Range. In the morning we boarded the Royal Gorge Route Railroad (named one of the top 8 train rides in North America by Trains Magazine) for a journey that follows “the winding, tumbling Arkansas River deep within the soaring, 1,000-foot granite cliffs of Colorado’s Royal Gorge.” In the afternoon we drove Phantom Canyon Road on the Gold Belt Tour, which “follows the route of the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad built in 1894 as a connection from Florence to the goldfields of Cripple Creek and Victor.”

Royal Gorge Route Railroad – Cañon City

Royal Gorge Route Railroad – Cañon City

Phantom Canyon Road – Gold Belt Tour

Phantom Canyon Road – Gold Belt Tour

Victor

Victor

From Ann Hornaday (Washington Post):

Star of the moment Ryan Gosling delivers a slow, white-hot burn of a performance in “Drive,” a nervy, understated ode to one of Hollywood’s most cherished archetypes, the sad-eyed man of few words.

They can be cowboys, hit men or, in this case, loners who drive cars for a living. But no matter how chilly and reserved, the mysteries at their core mesmerize rather than repel.

As a getaway driver known only as Driver, Gosling obviously harks back to similar protagonists played by Ryan O’Neal, Lee Marvin, Robert De Niro and especially Steve McQueen.

But in “Drive,” Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn neatly manage the hat trick of paying homage to those wheelmen of yore while reinvigorating the genre with style, smarts and flashes of wit. You may still want to fasten your seat belts, but in these capable, seductive hands you’re in for a smooth, uncommonly assured ride . . . .

Refn, a Danish director whose previous films include “Bronson” and “Valhalla Rising,” is known for his love of blood, and when the plot of “Drive” quickens he finds plenty of chances to indulge in his penchant for lurid, stylized violence. But even his most fetishized flourishes are tempered here, not just with the tender love story between Irene and Driver but with Refn’s newfound restraint (one pivotal murderous episode occurs entirely in shadow).

After skillfully earning the audience’s allegiance, “Drive,” which is based on the novel by James Sallis, throws its hero’s motives into more troubling ambiguity, with Gosling’s grievous angel proving to be capable of startling brutality. Like the scorpion on his jacket, he can’t escape his nature, and Refn does a good job of keeping that core moral essence opaque until the explosive end. He’s also constructed a perfect showcase for Gosling’s hangdog charisma, which has come into its own this year first with “Crazy, Stupid, Love” and next with “The Ides of March.”

Next to Traffic (2000), a film about the drug trade, Contagion is Steven Soderbergh’s best film. Watch the trailer. Read reviews by Manohla Dargis (New York Times) and David Denby (New Yorker).

Conservative public intellectual Roger Scruton is the author of many books including Beauty. In 2009 he presented a provocative BBC documentary on the importance of beauty in the arts and in our lives. In the 20th century, Scruton argues, art, architecture and music turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert. Using the thoughts of philosophers from Plato to Kant, and by talking to artists Michael Craig-Martin and Alexander Stoddart, Scruton analyses where art went wrong and presents his own impassioned case for restoring beauty to its traditional position at the center of our civilization.

The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster, is not a film I should like. But I do. And I like it a helluva lot despite Mel Gibson, whose off-screen breakdown makes it difficult for me to watch him on-screen, and despite the ridiculous premise of the story, in which a beaver hand-puppet becomes a savior in the protagonist’s darkest hour. But who better than Gibson to depict a family man in ruin? And what better than a far-fetched device to remind us of all the inventions we create to get psychic distance from our own messiness? The puppet symbolizes the depraved, destructive, and depressed parts of our identity, and, as Jesus taught and Walter demonstrates, “it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” A movie that touchingly renders this lesson earns my respect.

Resources

• Salon.com review by Andrew O’Hehir
• Rolling Stone review by Peter Travers
• Wall Street Journal review by Joe Morgenstern

I was introduced to American filmmaker Terrence Malick by my friend Jonathan Green, a graduate of Savannah College of Art & Design, St. John’s College, and American Film Institute. I was unfamiliar with his small but seminal oeuvre: Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), and The New World (2005). Malick has become one of my favorite filmmakers. As Dana Stevens of Slate says, “His films can change the way you look at the world.” Exploiting the full potential of the visual medium with an inimitable style, his stories are primarily told through images, not words. His films are icons – conduits to grace and transcendence. They invoke fear and trembling, holy silence, and joyous revelry. The Tree of Life, his most overtly Christian film yet, was released this summer and won the Palme d’Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival; it is his fifth film in a forty-year career. Below is a trailer and insightful excerpts from reviews.

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