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Author Topic:   Religious Films
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 16 of 30 (858522)
07-21-2019 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Trump won
07-20-2019 11:26 PM


Having waded in both waters, you might appreciate this anecdote.
First, we note that Catholic churches are known for being ornate with rather elaborate and even graphic artwork, whereas Protestant churches are fairly devote of artwork even to the point of leaning towards abstract forms. One convincing theory is that Catholic art is actually teaching, that when Catholics did not have access to Bibles (pre-Gutenberg books were relatively rare and prohibitively expensive, most lay people never learned to read, church policy discouraged or prohibited reading the Bible yourself) the artwork would act to remind you of the stories and teachings you have been told. The Protestant Reformation started with Gutenberg, a lot of the earliest printing projects were Bibles, and basic Protestant doctrine is for you to study the Bible. A primary purpose of the early Sunday Schools was to teach adult members how to read so that they could read the Bible. Protestant churches no longer needed all that artwork to remind them of Bible teachings, because all they had to do to remind themselves was to open the book.
Whatever the actual reason was, one of the most marked differences in church decor is a Catholic church's graphic crucifix with Jesus nailed upon it and a Protestant church's very plain and unadorned cross. That difference factors into the story.
Here's the story:
quote:
My ex-wife's best friend for years was Protestant while her husband was Catholic. He continued to attend Catholic church and she a Protestant one. They had two sons and would take turns taking one of them to either church, so both boys grew up attending both churches.
One day in the middle of mass, the younger son suddenly looked at the crucifix, apparently noticing it for the first time in years, and shouting out to his father, "Dad! Who's that guy hanging up there?" Right in the middle of mass for the entire congregation to hear.
Needless to say, that was the last time that son went to a Catholic service.
True story.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 24 of 30 (859227)
07-29-2019 7:38 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Faith
07-29-2019 6:30 PM


Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Tarkovsky ... , but I didn't know he was a Christian.
Sorry. Russian Orthodox. Actual orthodox, not your imagined orthodox. And the wrong kind of Christian for your liking.
For that matter, do you even consider the Orthodox churches to be Christian? It can be so difficult for outsiders to keep fundie beliefs straight.
ABE:
When working with foreign films, especially ones more foreign as is the case with Russian film, it can be difficult to tell what is due to the director's unique perspective and what just comes from that national genre.
For example, we had briefly discussed Hermann Hesse's Das Glasperlenspiel ("The Glass Bead Game", AKA "Magister Ludi"). Hesse's work is generally introspective and Das Glasperlenspiel was very much that. German literature would tend to dwell on social status keeping up appearances and the dire consequences of losing your status (eg, "Effi Briest" and "Der Blaue Engel" with Marlene Dietrich). Then post-war literature and later film would dwell on youth coming of age and feeling no connection with society rejecting their parents' lifestyle (eg, "A Coffee in Berlin", which is no longer on Netflix USA).
Point is that the genre can dictate a lot. What I've seen of Russian film has tended to be atmospheric and brooding (eg, " ", no longer on Netflix, "Hard to be a God", though I had read it in the German translation, "Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein" (I was surprised decades later when I stumbled upon the English translation in a used book store). Even though I still knew the story, the Russian movie was so heavily atmospheric that I simply could not slog through it, kind of like Solaris must have been for most Americans, only much much worse.
A friend in college started reading Tolstoy and what she really noticed was the banquet scenes in which Tolstoy would get into very intimate detail about the food and how it had been prepared.
So was Tarkovsky's work uniquely his, or was it very Russian? Maybe both.
Edited by dwise1, : ABE

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 Message 23 by Faith, posted 07-29-2019 6:30 PM Faith has replied

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 Message 25 by Faith, posted 07-30-2019 1:22 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 26 of 30 (859294)
07-30-2019 1:45 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Faith
07-30-2019 1:22 PM


Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
I vaguely recall that Tarkovsky didn't work in Russia, went to some other country to make his films. Possibly Sweden?
Nope! From Wikipedia:
quote:
He directed the first five of his seven feature films in the Soviet Union; his last two films, Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986), were produced in Italy and Sweden respectively.
I had only seen Solaris and, having studied Russian, I would have noticed if they weren't speaking Russian.
"Orthodox" is a simple English word that means "Right or true teaching," just as the word "catholic" means "universal." Just because some organization uses a word in its title doesn't mean it's been taken out of circulation and nobody else can use it.
I was pointing out that, being Russian Orthodox, your attitude of non-Protestants not of the "correct" sects would be that they are not Christians. That is certainly what I've heard from a great number of fundies.

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 Message 25 by Faith, posted 07-30-2019 1:22 PM Faith has replied

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 Message 28 by Faith, posted 07-30-2019 1:59 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 29 of 30 (859300)
07-30-2019 2:26 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Faith
07-30-2019 1:59 PM


Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
If you try to find the movie, Solaris, to watch, keep in mind that Tarkovsky's version is from 1972. There was a US remake in 2002 starring George Clooney, which wouldn't be the one you'd want.

This message is a reply to:
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