ART & SOUL M alcolm S treet
Windows to the World Sundance is a place for dreamers: Of the more than 3,000 feature-length films submitted annually, only 125 are selected for screening at the festival; of those only a handful will be “picked up” by a studio or distributer; and of that handful only one or two will ever make it to the “big screen.” An additional few will be distributed directly to the home entertainment market or to HBO, but in the end about 96 percent of filmmakers’ efforts—the results of millions of dollars and countless hours—will never be seen or heard of again. But discouraging statistics are no match for the God-planted desire for artistic expression. Filmmakers’ passion for communicating their view of the human condition is what continues to drive festivals like Sundance. Directors, screenwriters, actors, and cinematographers all long to portray how what they see in the world around them reveals humans’ deepest questions about life and death, identity and relationships, the human spirit and God. In 2005, the Windrider Forum was launched, a collaboration of partners that includes Fuller Theological Seminary in Colorado, Biola University, Angelus Student Film Awards, Priddy Brothers, and the Peter Glenville Foundation. Billed as a set of “conversations at the intersection of faith and film,” Windrider has since become the single largest ticket-purchasing block of attendees at Sundance, clearly meeting a hunger in the film community to connect the dots between celluloid, stories, and spirit. Listen to what Melissa Leo, co-star of Frozen River, the 2008 Sundance Jury Grand Prize winner for drama, said at this year’s Windrider Forum: “For 28
years I have just been doing what I do, putting one foot in front of the other. I knew somebody would someday recognize my work, appreciate my craft. Why I do what I do is to give people a window into themselves, hoping that at the end of the film they will have learned something, something about the way the world is, and the way they are in the world. I believe acting is a ‘healing art.’ My work is sacred and holy for me.” Frozen River (written and directed by Courtney Hunt) is about two women. Ray is a white single mother living in a mobile home, whose husband has just run off with the family savings. Lisa is a young Mohawk woman living on a reservation in Upstate New York, and she too has experienced loss. Deeming her unfit for motherhood, Lisa’s motherin-law had her child taken from her at birth, an offense in which the police would not intervene because they “don’t get involved in Indian affairs.” Lisa supports herself by smuggling Chinese, Pakistani, and Sudanese people in the trunk of her car from Canada—over the “frozen river” of the Mohawk reservation. Driven by financial desperation, Ray becomes Lisa’s accomplice. Although they start out as antagonists, the two mothers grow to trust each other, and at the end Ray puts her “faith” in maternal instinct by asking Lisa to care for her two children while she goes to prison for four months for smuggling in order to protect Lisa, who as an Indian would receive a far harsher sentence. So here we have a film that puts flesh on the issues of poverty, single-mother households, discrimination (both economic and ethnic), and immigration policy. In addition, there is the irony of two American women who, having been locked out of the American Dream, smuggle into America illegal immigrants who believe they can achieve the American Dream.The image that remains at the end of the film is one of grace and PRISM 2008
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hope—women rising up to stand on their own two feet and, when united, able to overcome whatever hardships life brings their way. All these issues and themes were discussed at January’s Windrider Forum, where filmmakers, actors, and producers presenting films at Sundance, theology students and faculty from Fuller Seminary, and film students from Biola and Taylor Universities tried to connect popular culture and theology by practicing a “reversed hermeneutic”—that is, starting with popular culture and then “reading these signs of the times” in light of the Bible. Popular culture, in its own vocabulary, asks many of the same questions we find in the Bible:Why are you hiding— from me, from yourself, from each other, from your past, from your shame? Where is your brother? Am I my brother’s keeper? Why have you forsaken me? Who is my neighbor? The films at Sundance are sometimes viewed as edgy, in-your-face, decadent, irreligious. Some Christians draw back in disgust and judgment. But Jesus looked at the world and felt only compassion. He reached out where we reject. But the quality of our work as Christians who make and/or view films is deeply dependent on our understanding both the biblical story of sin, repentance, and redemption and the world’s story that we live in today. The art of filmmaking frames windows through which we can view both those stories, which, ultimately, are one—the story of creation, pain, restoration, and eternal love. Now that’s a story that should do well at the box office! ■ Malcolm Street helps older people “finish life well” in congregate housing settings in Texas. He was invited to the Sundance Festival by Dick Staub of TheKindlings.com, an online forum where creatives can explore ideas that matter. Learn more at Sundance.org and WindriderColorado.com.