God In The Movies

The religious imagination is alive and well in the movies. Contrary to those who criticize Hollywood, popular movies very often have metaphorically represented God on the screen. From Clint Eastwood as an avenging angel in Pale Rider and Nicolas Cage as a lovesick angel in City of Angeles to Jessica Lange as an angel of death in All That Jazz, God is very much present in the movies. This intelligent, insightful volume, now available in paperback, is an exercise in urban anthropology. Religious imagination is the subject and the movie house is its location. The authors show that the religious imagination is irrepressible, and shows up in our best-known example of popular culture: movies. Contrary to conservative opinion that suggests that Hollywood is anti-religious, Bergesen and Greeley find just the opposite. Ordinary movies, not explicitly about religion and not made by particularly religious individuals, often demonstrate some basic religious theme, point, or message. God in the Movies does not judge or approve, recommend or criticize; the authors simply alert the reader to the great variety of metaphors for God, angels, heaven, and hell, from beautiful women to white light at the end of the tunnel to Groundhog Day. They are not concerned with explicitly religious movies, but of ordinary mass release movies. The authors' vivid explication of various cinematic metaphors for God is accompanied by an analysis of what these movies tell about our sociological attitudes toward life and death. This book is for both the professional concerned with religion, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, media and cinema studies, and the layperson interested in how popular movies also containreligious imagery.