Pastors in Film: The Good, The Bad, and The Absent
by Dr. Marc T. Newman
February 25, 2005
(AgapePress) - The aim of many filmmakers is "authenticity." They want to tell stories that resonate with people's lives -- that "tell it like it is," or at least as they would like it to be. The kind of movies that win accolades tell the stories of wealthy, reclusive men (The Aviator), ordinary people struggling with relationships (Sideways), extraordinary people struggling with disabilities (Ray), people pulling themselves up by their collective bootstraps (Million Dollar Baby), and benevolent authors with difficult marriages (Finding Neverland). One of these films will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards on February 27. The one kind of life that Hollywood tends to shy away from -- or if it does reflect it, the mirror is muddied -- is the pastor's life. Pastors and priests most often appear in films as technicians, conducting marriages and funerals. Viewers know which characters are clergy because they are the ones wearing the uniform. But beyond performing rites, pastors normally get short-shrift at the cinema. That's why it is notable that three films in current release contain priests and pastors in main or substantial supporting roles. These films represent pastors as the good, the bad and -- well, you know the third one. But more often than not, even when the plot would seem to call for clergy, they are completely absent.
The Good -- Because of Winn-Dixie
It has been a long time since a film contained a pastor as complex as the Baptist clergyman known only as Preacher. I know that many Christians felt that the tide had turned with Raising Helen last year, when a Lutheran pastor was portrayed as a love interest. But John Corbett's Pastor Dan was just a funny, romantic reverend with an eye for the ladies. He even calls himself a "sexy man of God" while pursuing a woman who does not share his faith. Nevertheless, it seemed a step in the right direction after the priestly portrayals of the last couple of decades (more on that below).
In Because of Winn-Dixie, Preacher is not a cotton-candy Christian. Played by Jeff Daniels, Preacher is a layered character with problems of his own. Abandoned by his wife because she no longer wanted to be married to a pastor -- not an uncommon experience among clergy -- Preacher is lonely. He strives to make headway with a small-town flock. He buries himself in his work, and frequently lacks time for his daughter, Opal. He gets angry. Yet he also shows love and compassion toward Opal, and he has a sincere desire to bring his community together. He is unashamed to pray in public, and tries to find ways to make God's Word meaningful to his congregation. In other words, he is human -- flawed, yet approachable, even likeable -- trying to do what is right. It is a shame that characters like Preacher, who accurately reflect many pastors, emerge so infrequently in film.
Read Marc Newman's comments on Because of Winn-Dixie
Read a review of Because of Winn-Dixie
The Bad -- Million Dollar Baby
While contentious debate continues to swirl around the euthanasia theme in Million Dollar Baby, it is surprising to discover that in review after review, almost no one gives much more than a passing glance to the character of Father Horvak, whose advice to his parishioner should have been pivotal in the making of that deadly decision. Played with gusto by Brian O'Byrne, Father Horvak is a bad pastor. He is fed up with the needling questions of his most faithful parishioner, Frankie Dunn. In an early scene, he calls Frankie a pagan, and uses an extremely profane adjective to mark his displeasure at Frankie's inquiries into the mysteries of the faith. He asks Frankie if he has been writing to his daughter, and when Frankie answers "yes," he calls Frankie a liar. (We discover later that Frankie has, indeed, written to his daughter every week, but the letters are returned unopened.) Convinced that there is something wrong with Frankie, Father Horvak suggests, more than once, that Frankie not come to Mass. Father Horvak does not come across as a caring man, but as a functionary who wants to get his job done and get out. The Apostle Paul tells Christians, "Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary" (Gal. 6:9). The corollary is that if Christians do grow weary, they will not reap. Father Horvak has grown weary.
When Frankie comes to Father Horvak for advice about participating in euthanasia, Father Horvak says all of the right things. He tells Frankie that this sin will eclipse any sin he has ever committed -- that it will stay with him for a lifetime. Horvak commands Frankie not to do it. But as the scene unfolds there is no connection between these two men. Father Horvak has, long ago, squandered his right to be heard. He demonstrates no compassion for the difficulties faced by Frankie, who is grappling with competing loyalties -- one to his church, and another to the athlete he has trained who has become a daughter to him. The Apostle Paul instructed the young pastor Timothy not to speak harshly to an older man, but to "appeal to him as a father" (I Tim. 5:1). Horvak scolds and commands, but because he has no apparent relationship with Frankie, his words fall on deaf ears.
Million Dollar Baby may draw criticism for its plotline, but it still serves as a useful reminder for pastors. Bad examples are still examples -- they teach us what we must turn from lest we fail to reap. So instead of focusing anger solely on filmmakers who might dare to make a pro-euthanasia movie -- perhaps we should reserve some of that criticism for some clergy, and for that matter some Christians (perhaps ourselves), who have failed to create the kind of relationships that would allow them to persuasively and compassionately argue an apologetic for life.
Read Michael Medved's comments on Million Dollar Baby
The Ugly -- Constantine
Demon fighter John Constantine's collaborator, Father Hennessy, is the latest in a long line of severely damaged pastors. These range from the cross-dressing, peep-show visiting, homicidal Rev. Peter Shayne (played by Anthony Perkins) in Crimes of Passion, to the ghostly cult leader, Reverend Kane in Poltergeist II, to the faith-challenged Father Karras in The Exorcist, to the fornicating Rev. Russell in Simon Birch. And sometimes, well, you're pastor's just a werewolf, as is Pastor Lowe in Silver Bullet.
Father Hennessy is an alcoholic who hears voices -- what Constantine calls "soul traffic." He wears an amulet as protection against the demonic, and he drinks so that he can sleep. From his introductory scene he is portrayed as a disheveled, impotent mess. He calls Constantine to an exorcism when he is unable to pull a demon out of a little girl. Constantine, self-admittedly no priest, steps right up and succeeds where the Father Hennessy has failed.
Hennessy hears the damned. He taps into these voices by going into an altered state of consciousness -- which he achieves not through prayer, but by eerily rolling his eyes back in his head and running his hands over newspaper headlines. Frantic to escape when occult power is manifested at an investigation scene, he rushes into a liquor store to get a bottle. But as he goes to drink, nothing comes out. He tries bottle after bottle, but to no avail. He is, however, being demonically deceived. The demon Balthazar has blinded him, and Farther Hennessy is actually drowning himself in alcohol.
Read Marc Newman's comments on Constantine
The Bible declares that light and darkness have no fellowship (2 Cor. 6:14), and that the indwelling presence of Christ empowers believers to resist the devil and cause him to flee (James 4:7). Yet here is a priest impotent in the presence of a half-breed demon, and enslaved to alcohol.
These portrayals send a distorted image to the unchurched culture, whose only contact with pastors often comes from the images they ingest from mass media. We can applaud the portrayal of Preacher, we can use Father Horvak as a warning, and we can reject the ugly portrayal of pastors as weak in the face of evil. There is only one kind of film more damaging to the image of the clergy than an ugly one.
The Absent
At least when clergy are on the screen, in more than a functionary role, they provide filmgoers with something to talk about. Perhaps they will comment about a good pastor, lament an experience with a bad priest, or recoil from a clergyman who has been co-opted by evil. But what of those films in which evil lurks, or tragedy strikes, or relationships are damaged and the clergy, or any Christian person, is completely out of the frame?
One striking component of most science-fiction films is that there is no church in the future (Star Trek is the notable exception). Horror films abound with transcendent evil, yet it rarely occurs to the impending victims to seek out a pastor for help. Countless movies create scenes of death and despair, yet rare is the scene in which someone asks for, let alone receives, Christian prayer. When people are troubled, these films imply, none of them ever think to call on a pastor.
Films are a form of amusement -- "a-muse" -- to not think. In other words, when viewers watch them, often they are not critically engaged. What films place in our minds, if I may borrow from C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, is "not a theory, but an assumption" that, even when its origins are forgotten, will cause us to "take one side in a controversy" that we have "never recognized as a controversy at all." When people have no direct contact with pastors, they will formulate their opinions about pastors from other sources. When pastors do not appear where they should in the cultural landscape, the image that remains is that they are irrelevant, inconsequential, or worse, completely absent from thought. The assumption is that pastors are unnecessary.
The Need to Respond
When Christians are given the opportunity to see films that portray pastors, they need to think about how these roles define the clergy for their friends and acquaintances. When such films come up in conversation (or, for the bold, when they begin such a discussion), Christians ought to use these films to explore what people believe about clergy. We should be prepared to defend pastors against improper images, and, more importantly, ask what a pastor (or a Christian) might have done had a role been created to include that perspective. By exploring pastoral images in film, or by introducing spiritual ideas into film plotlines where none exist, we open up conversations that are meaningful and have eternal consequences.
Marc T. Newman, PhD (marc@movieministry.com) is the president of MovieMinistry.com -- an organization that provides sermon and teaching illustrations from popular film, and helps the Church use movies to reach out to others and connect with people.
