A religious plot (Narnia, Christianity, & Culture)

The Chronicles of Narnia has done the unthinkable - it's put Christianity smack-bang in the middle of a pop-cultural debate. Stephanie Bunbury spoke with Tilda Swinton and the Kiwi director Andrew Adamson about the film's "hidden" meaning.

If anyone still requires proof of the gulf of difference between the US and everywhere else, look no further than the current storm-in-a-cappuccino about The Chronicles of Narnia.

For weeks, it seems, there have been spats in the papers about C.S. Lewis' classic children's fantasy series, the first instalment of which has just been adapted as a lush blockbuster by Andrew Adamson, who directed the Shrek films, for Disney. The storm is over religion. C.S. Lewis had it; the Americans have a lot of it; the rest of us don't, supposedly, or at least we don't like to put a hat on it and give it a ticker-tape parade.

In America, Disney has been pushing Lewis' story to Christian fundamentalists, offering churches free screenings and shops a choice of soundtracks, one with pop music and one with "Christian songs", whatever they might be.

Walden Media, co-producer of the film with Disney, is offering "a 17-week Narnia Bible study for children". Yes, Professor Lewis may have been a dusty don who thought Heaven looked exactly like Oxford, but he was on the right side.

Both Catholic and fundamentalist groups have been promoting the film, even employing coordinators to make sure their flocks see it. "We believe," said Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Centre at Wheaton College in Illinois, "That God will speak the gospel of Jesus Christ through this film".

For Disney - desperate for a hit franchise to rival Warner's Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings, Sony's Spider-Man and Fox's Star Wars - it makes sense to sell the film to the one-third of the American population that is officially born again. Last month, the company posted a $US313 million ($A416 million) quarterly loss in its film division, the culmination of a three-year slide. Disney desperately needs a hit.

Since Mel Gibson showed it was possible to get this largely untapped audience into the cinemas for something sufficiently reverent, the marketing makes at least some sort of sense. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is even being described - entirely unfairly - as "The Passion for kids". And it is a strategy that seems to be working; in its first week, Adamson's film topped the charts in the 13 countries where it opened. By December 12, it had grossed $US112 million.

Outside America, however, even ordinary churchgoers are suspicious of a supposed children's adventure film that also serves as a Bible study aid; there is something horribly manipulative in that idea. Old Narnia fans, too, are inclined to reconsider a book that Governor Jeb Bush has decreed must be read by every child in Florida. It was not for this that we bashed around inside our parents' wardrobes, hoping that we too would find that the back panels gave way to Narnia - that, somewhere, we could fight and win battles against ogres, hags and the White Witch.

Like all the best children's stories, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and its sequels are jump started by a situation that means that children must fend for themselves without adult interference. In the case of the Pevensey children - Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy - that situation is World War II.

They are sent to the country to board in a vast mansion occupied only by a dotty professor and his harpy of a housekeeper. Playing hide and seek, they discover that a vast old wardrobe is a doorway to another world, Narnia, that is under the crushing sway of an evil White Witch who has ordained that there shall be endless winter without any Christmas. A prophecy has it, however, that Narnia's fortunes will turn when four human children come to lead a revolt and take their rightful places as kings and queens at the ancient seat of Cair Paravel.

For those who did not like the books, of course, all this Christian bandwagonry is a vindication; Lewis and his books were never anything other than thinly veiled missionary tracts.

The Pevensey children's arrival in Narnia coincides with the return of Aslan, a great lion of deliverance. After battling the Witch, Aslan negotiates with her and agrees to die in exchange for the children's lives, submitting himself to be executed by her henchcreatures. A night passes; the golden body disappears. And then, through the mystery of sacrifice and redemption, it comes back to life. Aslan rises again.

You could call it a parable; you could call it a borrowed legend. It is, indeed, a legend of undeniable power. One might just as well say that Lucy's afternoon tea with the faun Mr Tumnus, when she first finds herself in Narnia, reinforces the idea of Englishness as a universal marker of civilisation. Which, in fact, it does.

But who notices that stuff? For most juvenile readers and, I should think, for the largely secular Australian audiences who go to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this Christmas, the sacred story of resurrection slides by in the wash of centaurs, minotaurs and fauns and the essentially Homeric story of the children's attainment of heroic status.

Right now, however, the Christian allegory stands out in high relief. Any discussion of the Narnia stories, as journalist Zoe Williams has noted, is now compulsorily prefixed with some disclaimer that will reset the discussion to the neutral agnostic. "Besides the dodgy Christian subtext ..." the article will begin. We don't want to be tarred with the same brush as Disney.

Tilda Swinton, who plays the White Witch with an evil iciness that could snap freeze whole congregations, had not read the books when Adamson first approached her. A long-time collaborator with the now-deceased queer filmmaker Derek Jarman, she is probably the least likely actress in the world to join forces with Bible bashers. "The Christians are welcome," she says, with composed irony. "As everyone is welcome. Honestly, the connection had to be explained to me. And the more I got to know about Lewis ... I know he was a very devout Christian and that he was capable of writing, as he did his entire life, very obviously Christian tracts. This is not one of them."

Narnia is undoubtedly spiritual, she says, but its world derives from myths and legends that prefigure the religion of tracts. "In fact, if anything - and I cannot believe I am going to say this - I think it is almost anti-religious," she says.

"What I mean by that is that it's about children learning to draw not on any kind of dogma or doctrine but on their own resources, outside of the box. Outside their family, outside parental guidance, outside anything. The thing about Narnia is that it takes you to the heart of yourself, your own conscience and your own experience, and so I think it is so much wider than any religion could be, actually."

If there is evil in the world, she thinks it lies in the lack of doubt. "The incapacity to be compassionate, to be humane and changeable. I am very intrigued by the idea of the righteous. I am suspicious of it, being human. I think that human nature is so much more interesting than that; doubtlessness is not helpful to human beings. So to start the year as the Angel Gabriel in Constantine - and that is the film for the Christians, by the way, not this one - and finish it with the White Witch is a sort of little meditation for me on that idea."

Some Narnia naysayers, most notably the author Philip Pullman, have complained of the conservatism, racism and sexism inscribed in Lewis' stories. "It's not the presence of Christian doctrine I object to so much as the absence of Christian virtue," he said recently.

The Narnia books contained "a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice, but of love, of Christian charity, there is not a trace". In subsequent books, Narnia is at war with a country of swarthy men who carry scimitars, a clear reference to the Crusades. From the first, boys have adventures and take bossy command, he says, while girls are bonny and blithe and pure of heart. God is a lion, a representative of muscular Christianity, while evil, inevitably, is a woman.

Swinton, however, never saw her character as human at all. "She is not a person; she does look like a human but she isn't one," she says. "The Witch is a force of evil and Aslan is a force of good and they are absolutely in balance one with the other. I am Narnia, in a way ... One of the things I enjoyed developing was the costume, because I was determined that her costume should not look as if it had been made. That it should look like Narnia, that her dress be the side of a hill or her crown should be made of ice."

Andrew Adamson simply shrugs off the Christian marketing push as a press beat-up. "Largely, I think it is because people haven't seen the movie," he says. "The truth of the matter is that Disney is promoting this movie to everyone they can get to go and see it, because they want to make their money back. And C.S. Lewis was a Christian writer and there is, I think, a sense of ownership of this film from fans worldwide, some of whom are religious."

Nobody at Disney told him how to make the film. "It wasn't like anyone forced me to make it more or less Disney," he says. "And I think they are going to do a great job of getting this film out into the world, so I'm happy with that."

A down-to-earth New Zealander who graduated from reading Narnia as a child to managing special effects on films before he took on Shrek, Adamson is clearly much more invigorated by describing how they used green screen to turn James McAvoy into Mr Tumnus the faun, how he staged the battle, or how he worked with the children to get them used to the filmmaking process without losing the sense of surprise they needed to feel as they discovered the elements of Narnia.

Filmmaking is always experienced by those involved as a series of practical problems, but a film with hundreds of extras dressed as minotaurs presents more practical problems than most. The make-up artists worked 18-hour days; the effects make-up crew alone consisted of 42 people.

His other concern was telling the story in such a way that both the university-age fantasy buffs and the children hooked on the books could enjoy it.

"But ultimately, I made the film for myself. I know that sounds selfish, but you can only really appeal to your own instincts and make a film you like. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't too scary or gory or gratuitously bloody for young kids."

Clearly, nobody involved in the film was especially concerned with C.S. Lewis' allusion to the central story of Christianity. And why should they be? Isn't it a good story - one of the greatest, most primal of stories, in fact, along with the Greco-Roman and Norse myths on which Lewis also drew? Of course, it is true that Lewis did see the books as preparatory texts in Christian spirituality, easing the way for the juvenile reader's encounter with the real thing in later years.

However, given that the Narnia books are, in Andrew Adamson's estimation, generally read by children between eight and 13, this seems a fairly benign version of indoctrination; Lewis seems to be assuming his readers will be innocent of hard-core religion at least until their teens. There is none of that scary stuff about getting a child at seven and making him God's for life.

All Lewis is suggesting is a spirited romp with centaurs, beavers and a rather unpredictable lion: make of it what you will. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is hardly likely to deprave and corrupt nature's young atheists; most children don't even get the metaphor and, if they do, it is probably because the God-botherers already have them in iron thrall.

Now that Lewis has been signed into service by the American evangelists, however, all this is cast in the light of that disquietingly foreign religion, with its cheesy excess of good cheer, glib materialism and suspect political connections.

Any "Christian subtext" thus becomes "dodgy", as Zoe Williams has noted. The implication of that "dodgy", she wrote, is that Christianity is "inherently unsound, as if it had, without our noticing, ascended to the ranks of anachronistic wrong-headedness, like Nazism or hissing at single mothers".

It seems unfair to everyone, including - but perhaps not especially - C.S. Lewis himself. Forget those awful evangelists for a moment. Really, there is no good reason why a fantasy story should not be based on Christian narratives and iconography. Our entire culture, after all - most notably the laws of the land - derives from a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world. There is no good reason why he should not recount the Resurrection, albeit using furry animals instead of humans as dramatis personae.

There has to be a good case for knowing any of these stories, emblematic as they are. Does anyone, especially a thinking atheist, actually want to argue that children should be told less about anything? Surely not.

So bring on the lion, bring on the minotaurs, bring on the dancing horses. Apart from anything else, the pious don certainly knew how to spin a yarn.

Outside America, however, even ordinary churchgoers are suspicious of a supposed children's adventure film that also serves as a Bible study aid; there is something horribly manipulative in that idea.

Upfront, I am an agnostic and haven't seen this movie.

This article is a gag, right? (Or is it just meant to gag?)

Tilda Swinton is the least likely person to be with the Bible bashers? You're kidding, right? After mentioning Derek Jarman, she's the MOST likely. For her to say Lewis' books are anti-religious shows she is either actively working a revisionism campaign, or she's a bloody idiot.

The whole tone of this article is veddy upper crust, oh-we-don't-DO-that-sort-of-thing snobbery.

The idea that a movie having a strong subtext is somehow distasteful is beyond belief. The writer is saying it would be better if this were just mindless entertainment--is this REALLY what he means?

Popular culture has always been best when it pushes a strong subtextual message. The most common of these messages are "Be true to yourself" or "Do the right thing and you'll win". These are not things that turn out to be true all the time in real life, but they are lessons we must learn and relearn as we move through life.

But this boob keeps pushing that tired idea that the absolute worst thing one can do is wear their religion on their sleeve. Would he say this if Narnia pushed a POLITICAL message? Hell no. If Arslan were meant to be Karl Marx, he and the scary looking Swinton (or however she spells it) would be praising Lewis as being an intellectual.

To deny the religious content of these books is simply idiotic.

This was written by someone who neither saw the movie nor read the book. Aslan gives his life in place of one child, Edmund Pevensey, the betrayer. It is done before the battle with the White Witch, so the followers of Aslan have to battle the her forces without Him. The Stone Table if broken, and Aslan rises from the dead in time to resurrect the Narnians the White Witch has turned to stone. These reinforcements, lead by Aslan, turn the tide of battle.

By the way, Aslan is Turkish for Lion. That is why I have always thought of Edmund's desire for Turkish Delights as a double entente. The movie is really great, just as an adventure movie you can take the kids to.

Clearly, nobody involved in the film was especially concerned with C.S. Lewis' allusion to the central story of Christianity.

Unless I missed it, the writer of this piece fails to mention that the whole bloody movie was financed by an American millionaire who wants more "family" movies made. If I recall correctly, he is a Christian, and that was the main reason he financed this.

I guess the man most responsible for this particular film being made doesn't need to be mentioned in a piece on WHY this particular film was made, though.

And we wonder why MSM standards are in the toilet--because such basic facts are completely ignored in long, "in-depth" articles.

"Tilda Swinton is the least likely person to be with the Bible bashers?"

I was thrown by that too, but I think you and I are being confused by the down-under slang. I could be wrong, but I think when the author says "bible bashers" she means what we would call "bible belters", folks who agressively advocate the bible, not bashers, as we'd say it, who deplore the bible.

"Outside America, however, even ordinary churchgoers are suspicious of a supposed children's adventure film that also serves as a Bible study aid; there is something horribly manipulative in that idea."

What is wrong with the world? The hatred in this woman's tone is just beyond disgusting.

No, mam, there is something horribly disgusting in the filth spewing from what have been Christian nations. No one is forcing you into a pew or ordering you to watch a movie.

..."I'm not a Christian, but I saw this film recently with my niece and it was wonderful. None of these holier-than-thou liberals would have condemned the film if it was a Muslim allegory"...

We went to see this film the first day..All the children with us loved it. The oldest was 12..The youngest was 5. I hope the leftists who want to censor out or shout down ideas other than their own will be rebuffed by the huge success of this work. Americans of all faiths and of all races should rebel against the oppression going on in this nation regarding the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. All nations have one religion or another which enfolds a majority of the citizens. America is no different. In fact, without the practices of Christianity, America would not exist, enabling it's detractors to use the freedoms earned through Christian practice in their attempts to attack and destroy it. It is the responsible of freedom loving people, religious or non religious, to stop the insane move against our freedom of speech and of thought and ideas. Did anyone here see Ann Coulter shouted down at the University of Connecticut the other day? That is the perfect example of how these demons work. Bill O'Riley called them Nazis.

I don't think Swinton was denying the truth in this movie, she was simply denying the religiosity of it. I saw the movie and the faun creature said "Aslan is not a tame Lion but He is Good."

Religions have a tendency over time to attempt to tame "The Lion of the Tribe of Judah" as the Bible calls Jesus. Lewis attempted to show Aslan as an untamed beast, wild and rough with the simple goodness of the Deep Magic! Picture it another way, as Jesus the furious son of God whipping the money changers for desecrating the temple. The truth of God in the end swirls around all man made religions and traditions, death itself could never swallow Him up!

Some would have thought this a bad sign of Character in Jesus, this temper he displayed at the polluting of his Father's house...but consider, with a word Christ could have struck them all dead!(so why didn't he...he certainly would have had the authority too?)

Pop Christianity glosses over the importance of the shed blood for the remission of sins...it is "milk" for the masses.

Christ the sinless one who in himself never trangressed the Law, or the "word"(Logos)...or shall we say "the Deep Magic", took on the penalty of our transgressions when he himself was not guilty of any transgressions. The penalty of sin is death...but the death of the "living fleshly embodiment" of the Logos(or the "deep magic") created a universal existential quandary. This actually was by God's design. Death's power was broken, and broken lives could be renewed with the power of the resurrection available to all who ask and repent. "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection....as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive!"

This movie and the book it sprang from is solid red meat for the chewing...and I can see from posts from some Christians and agnostics alike that they are choaking on it!

I took my 14 year old grandson, who does not read (except for Harry Potter books). We both loved it. The theatre was jam packed with every age group and was, once the movie began, dead silent and enthralled.

I read British childrens literature from that period and the Narnia books follow a pattern that you won't find in The Sweet Valley High books or any of the current "teen" books that focus on the tawdry, the sexual and the spiritual violence of satanic beings -- a lot of the secular whining is product of people who do not read and are focused on form rather than substance. The books are a product of their time, and I was most relieved to find that the producer and director had resisted the urge to 'update' them by moving the venue to California and changing Narnia into a reprise of 17 Magazine and the girls into Xena, Warrior Princess. (I have to confess that the tiresome "Susan" character, the whining older girl who always wails in favour of running away and going home, is the one character in all books of the period that I would like to drown -- but she existed and exists -- she's the prototype of Cindy Sheehan and only the presence of brothers and friends with backbone keeps her on the right path.)

After the movie Paul and I talked about a few of the things we had seen -- but not much, just enough to give him something to think about, and to indicate to me that he'd picked up a few of the messages. We have been discussing gambling (he knows I gamble and we talk about it honestly) and an occasion when I had to choose between a friendship and a $40 slot machine win. He said "Money is always important" and you ought to choose it over your friends; two and and I pointed out that he'd seen Edmund betray his brother and sisters for a box of candy, and what that caused to happen. For a 14 year old, things are very black and white -- and a few more words revealed that he'd grasped the idea. That movie gave him plenty to think about. I bought him the book and I hope he'll read it.she

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