The Power of Film Building the Human Family

BY REV. MICHAEL CARTER, SSE ’12

Around age 12 or so I first began to see myself as an actual person. That was the magic age when I was beginning to understand what moved me, what my interests and desires were, what was calling to me and entering into my heart. That was the age when I first felt the pull toward something larger that would eventually lead me to the priesthood.

A major part of this era of rapid spiritual growth was a stray gift my sister Sarah gave me. She had rented and left lying around a VHS copy of an old German film called The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Curiosity compelled me to pop the tape into the VCR and I found myself transported to a world that I had never dreamed existed, sights I had never imagined, a story I never knew could be told. I had never experienced anything like this before, and I was dazzled. From that moment on, I knew I would always be chasing that same feeling of surprise, that intensity of emotion and connection. I knew from that moment that I was a fan of film.

There is something about being Catholic that translates well into an appreciation of film. Catholicism at its best is a full sensory experience, visually, audibly. There is an element of undeniable theatricality that can feed a cinematic imagination. Religion and film are both manifestations of communication: They sum up a whole world of experience and emotion in a powerfully symbolic way that is more eloquent than mere words. Perhaps only a film fan understands the power that comes from sharing a new movie with total strangers in a theater. When

the right movie comes along, you are all moved into a new world, brought to the heights and depths of emotion. You emerge from the experience perhaps never having spoken to one another, but now sharing the unity, connection, and communion that comes from being let into a unified vision. There is nothing else like it.

In matters of religion as well as cinema, the pandemic has arisen as a particular challenge. More so than any other event I have ever experienced, it keeps people apart from one another. The sensation I am blessed to have as a priest and as a preacher, of sharing the Word with people, sharing a common experience of the Divine, was taken away. Preaching to an empty chapel and a camera loses the whole power of the experience. Encountering film alone, in a tiny room, using headphones… it simply isn’t meant to be this way! The power of connection, that shared language, that shared experience; so much is stripped away when it can’t be shared together.

The slow re-emergence we are experiencing here in Vermont has helped me reflect on how important both of those elements are. The continual theme that shines forth so clearly is how we are all called to be together and communicate in the truest sense. As an Edmundite priest, my ministerial life is based on trying to communicate the goodness of God to others, trying in my very small way to help build the human family. The power of cinema refreshes me to the possibility and reality that a powerful vision will transcend culture, language, space, and time. My hope is that in ways cinematic and spiritual, emergence from the pandemic will only increase our need to connect and deepen our appreciation for the ways in which we bring it about. Until then, I’ll see you at the movies.