Posted on 10/16/2007 10:17:59 AM PDT by NYer
LONDON – A debate over a movie’s anti-religious antagonism – or lack thereof – is heating up ahead of its upcoming release, with some accusing Hollywood of “castrating” the anti-Catholic themes present in the novel from which it is based.
The expected blockbuster, “The Golden Compass,” is named after the American title of best-selling author Philip Pullman’s novel “Northern Lights” and will star actress Nicole Kidman and James Bond star Daniel Craig.
The original children’s novel, part of Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series, rejects organized religion – in particular, the Catholic Church – and critics of the movie version say the anti-religious elements of the book have been taken out of the storyline so as not to offend faithful moviegoers in the United Kingdom and United States.
“It was clear right from the start that the makers of this film intended to take out the anti-religious elements of Pullman's book. In doing that they are taking the heart out of it, losing the point of it, castrating it,” said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, a British organization that promotes secularism and which Pullman is an honorary associate of.
“It seems that religion has now completely conquered America's cultural life and it is much the poorer for it," she said in The Guardian newspaper Sunday. "What a shame that we have to endure such censorship here too.”
Filmmakers, however, say they have stayed true to a majority of the narrative in the fantasy novel – which tells the story of a young heroine and her battle against a dominant religious authority called the Magisterium, which condones the abduction of children for experimentation.
Movie director Chris Weitz, who directed the British hit family comedy “About A Boy,” starring actor Hugh Grant, assured that the film would be a fair reflection of Pullman's novel.
“In the books, the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots. If that's what you want in the film, you'll be disappointed,” he said.
The filmmaker explained that the sinister organization has been changed so that the film will now appear to be a more general widespread attack on dogmatic authorities.
“We have expanded the range of meanings of what the Magisterium represents. Philip Pullman is against any kind of organized dogma whether it is church hierarchy or, say, a Soviet hierarchy,” he noted.
Nicole Kidman, who is reportedly Christian herself, has also defended the movie.
She acknowledged that the movie “has been watered down a little,” but that it still introduces a world that is "dominated by the Magisterium, which seeks to control all humanity, and whose greatest threat, is the curiosity of a child."
“I was raised Catholic. The Catholic Church is part of my essence. I wouldn't be able to do this film if I thought it were at all anti-Catholic,” she has also stated.
Pullman, meanwhile, has said that he believes the “outline of the story is faithful to what I wrote, given my knowledge of what they have done.”
Although he is a self-professed atheist and a supporter of the British Humanist Association, Pullman has found support from some Christians – most notably Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams. They point out that the English writer’s negative portrayal of the "Church" in “His Dark Materials” amounts to an attack on dogmatism and the use of religion to oppress, not on Christianity itself. Williams has gone so far as to propose that “His Dark Materials” be taught as part of religious education in schools.
Others, however, view the “His Dark Materials” series as a direct rebuttal of C. S. Lewis' series “The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” as both feature children facing adult moral choices, talking animals, religious allegories, parallel worlds, and concern the ultimate fate of those worlds. Furthermore, the first published book from “Narnia” begins with a young girl hiding in a wardrobe, as does the first “His Dark Materials” book.
The U.S. release date for "The Golden Compass," based off the first installment of Pullman's "His Dark Material" triology, is Dec. 7, 2007.
Well, I haven’t read the books, so am not commenting from any insight, just what you just wrote. If your description is at all accurate then you have described a Gnostic universe, which has been the intellectuals’ semireligious plaything since late antiquity. It’s gotten quite popular lately, both for those who take it seriously and especially for those who recognize that any reasonably well-construceted Gnostic universe will end up looking quite ridiculous, much as Ptolemy’s epicycles now appear. For those who buy the initial premises, then, and begin to forget the actual theology being parodied, recognizing the fatuity brings the whole concept of theism into derision. Which may well have been the original point of the authors’ exercises.
BTW, this series was recommended to me by a cadre of folks at another forum site. Every one of those people literally hated Wheel of Time, which has its own theological problems, none of which happen to be Gnostic, fortunately. I found it interesting that they all would simply worship Pullman and absolutely loathe Jordan/Rigney.
And I could never never never get them to clearly state why, other than how well Pullman deconstructs Lewis. What they hated about Jordan they never never said. Having just wasted several months investigating series like the Sword of Truth and Song of Fire and Ice, I was no longer in the mood to give leeway to advertisers for obtuse fantasy series about which they refused to be honest.
The only reason I would even take up these books would be if I learned that someone in the parish was reading them and starting to have the problems that Pullman appears to wish to cause.
I’d consider that a penance to have to undertake.
The trailer says it all: boringly BORING!
Yes of course...Bella is the film to see this year.
Next year I hope this film will be making the headlines
Nicholas of Myra
http://www.nicholasofmyra-movie.com/
I’m torn over this too — of course I don’t like it but...
Isn’t Star Trek essentially the same kind of thing? Religious folk are often portrayed as narrow minded, political and bigoted, the gospel of Gene Roddenberry was that we are constantly evolving upward etc. etc...
Same basic principle isn’t it?
Personally I don’t get worked up over movies or books-of just about any type. People should read and think, regardless of the message. We’re far too sensitive these days. The world is full of deceptive trappings much more subtle than this. God’s light always shines through and His will will be done.
Would I go and see this movie? Probably not. As one person stated it looks boring and from what I saw in the previews, the special effects look chinzy. This hype is simply free publicity.
You seem to have missed the point. This film is targeted for children. In releasing it before Christmas, many unsuspecting parents may naively purchase the trilogy of books noted above. And that is where the author intends to deliver his message; not through the movie.
My family is not going to watch it. Period.
Pullman’s trilogy is absolutely nothing like Lewis’ science fiction trilogy. He’s a good writer, as is Lewis, but there the resemblence ends. I’m reading the last book of Pullman’s trilogy now and it’s a snoozer, unlike the first two. Pullman’s hatred for Christ and the church oozes throughout his works.
Probably the stars had dæmons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them. OMG, I remember reading a science fiction novel ca 1971 that had something of this concept in it. Remember little of it now.
The Perelandra trilogy has exactly this concept. It's really central to the plot, I think. The oyarsa (sp?) are the daemons of the various planets.
Pullman is just a hateful atheist, who set out to trash Lewis's Narnia books. Too bad he can string words together. But he has a long way to go before he has Lewis's persuasive facility with the language; you don't pick that up by the side of the road.
If he were as good as Lewis, his hatred wouldn't be so obvious. I still remember when I read The Last Battle for the first time, at the age of 7, being completely surprised by the line, "And then he no longer looked to them like a lion. . . . " Lewis doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve in his fiction.
I have read Perelandra several times, but not recently. I just don’t remember stars in it having demons. I can see why kids would like to read Pullman because they are more exciting to read—at least the first two of the triology. Third is boring. But Lewis’ writing stays with you and informs you throughout your life. At least it does me. I’ve read That Hideous Strength many times. I’ve thought about it a lot through the years. I enjoyed reading Pullman, and promptly forgot the details. It’s a one-time, forgettable book.
And it certainly informs one continually . . . his Apostate Bishop, taken in conjunction with current events, was a clear and certain warning for us to get OUT of the Episcopal Church USA. He sure did call it!
I read that many years ago. Maybe it’s time for another read. I also started to read The Abolition of Man recently for the first time. It’s short and excellent!
I understand. Children tend to be far more resilient than we give them credit for.
That being said this is a parenting issue so it's not for me to stick my nose into what movies parents let their children watch. My wife and I use to screen all my son's movies and books. There were times I would go to a movie prior to my son and watch it just to make sure there wasn't something wrong with it. So I can understand where people may be coming from on this. In one way, I would rather have my son go to something like this than overhearing the nightly news with the constant discussions on rape, murder, homosexuality, etc. I use to tell my wife to turn off the TV or go into another room.
If a parent doesn't feel their child can handle this type of movie, then they shouldn't take them. However, don't believe for one moment that their friends won't be talking about this in detail at school. They might even want to check the book out at the library if it hasn't been assigned in school. In the end, all we can do is to try to bring up a child in the best possible way and commit the rest to the Lord. It isn't in our control.
The optimistic vision of human progress (basically an evolutionary view of society) has often by pointed to as part of the reason for the success of Star Trek. I don’t know; maybe it was for some people. And there definitely are episodes in the old series and especially TNG which have an adversarial view of faith. But in the later series, GR’s unwillingness to portray conflict unless it had an alien source opened the door to other writers with more realistic views of human depravity. As I understand it, the other producers fought to free the series from that sort of constraint, especially since GR’s death.
(And funny that a lot of the people who get into the show prefer the Klingons or some other aliens, most of whom are more “human” in their actions than Roddenberry’s rosy vision of future generations...)
Interestingly, J.M. Strazynsky and Joss Whedon, writer/creators of two of the best of the new crop of TV SciFi IMO, are both atheists. But they’re good writers first, and while they may not have a orthodox understanding of faith and God, they don’t allow their work to be directly antagonistic, at least the bits I’ve seen (not a huge amount).
Is that different in kind or only in degree from these books? I don’t know the books, so I can’t compare. But I think the best in SF is about ideas, and challenging the reader/viewer to think. That’s not a bad thing, so long as people keep thinking critically and rationally.
But what makes it so much different than a lot of other godless entertainment targeted at children? To me it seems like just another drop in the bucket. I enjoy Star Trek, though it's obviously humanistic and anti-Christian. Suspension of disbelief does wonders I guess. Some of it I don't like and I don't really go out of my way to watch it. But I would argue that the same message is present in a lot of entertainment, not just this particular movie.
I don’t want to put any of my money in this atheist author’s pocket. So I think I will sit this one out.
I would rather they watch both, and discuss it with me, than to hear a titillating joke about sex on the radio. The other day on our local talk station they kept playing this stupid promo for a TV show that had a line where one of the characters was exclaiming almost breathlessly "We SHOULDN'T be having SEX in the OFFICE!"
I yelled at the radio each time and shut it off but it kept catching me unprepared. Anyway if something like that happens, I explain my frustration to the kids who heard it, and why it's wrong to put something like that on the air etc. Explain then the Christian attitude toward sex (at a level appropriate to their understanding).
It just seems there's no way to realistically expect kids to not notice the sex and other deceitful messages bombarding them at every turn. I just have to accept that I must explain it to them younger than I would have hoped. :-(
I probably will too, but it doesnt’ seem like there’s much point to making a big stink about yet another bucket of lies being put forth by Hollyweird!
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