This presentation explores the nature of theology, theological thinking, transcendence and the arts in relation to film. It was presented during Allan Deck, SJ's class on Latino Religion & Spirituality

1. Theology & Film
Latino Religion & Spirituality
Course
Loyola Marymount University
Sr Rose Pacatte, FSP
SisterRoseMovies.net
January 18, 2018

2. Slideshare.net/rosepacatte

3. Andre’ Bazin (1918-1958)
 “Cinema has always been interested in
God.”

4. Coco

5. Story: narrative
 Content – parts, elements, separate
 Context – whole: narrative, words,
actions, characters; the world in which the
story unfolds
 God is in the messiness of life

6. Transcendence
 The Transcendent is beyond normal sense
experience: God
 Holy, ideal in itself
 “The Wholly Other”
 That which points to the Transcendent
 Cinema is an audio-visual language that
points, signs, another reality (analogy)
 Transcendence – human religious
experience

7. Men with Guns
 John Sayles

8. Theology: faith seeking
understanding
 Faith in God
 God’s self-revelation
 God becoming one of us, incarnated
human and divine in the person of Jesus
Christ,
 Grace, God’s divine action in the world
through the Holy Spirit.

9. Fools Rush In

10.  “If we think of
theology as rooted in
story, it should come
as no surprise that
some of the most
profoundly theological
works of the past
century have been
movies."
 Teresa Sanders
“Celluloid Saints”

11. Theology
 Christian theology refers to God’s self-
revelation as it relates to
 God’s nature
 God’s Word
 creation
 humanity
 incarnation
 Problem of evil
 Existence

12. Theology
 Not religious studies
 Not the catechism
 Not comparative religions
 But to study faith from the inside

13. Theology
 To engage in faith seeking to understand
God more deeply from one’s personal
experience of God
 or from the community’s experience of
God.

14. Theological thinking:
ways “to do theology”
 Aquinas: questions, dialogue
 Embedded theology: to seek to know God
God from what we have learned and
experienced at home, school, church
 Deliberative theology: the understanding
of faith that emerges from a process of
carefully reflecting upon embedded
theological convictions

15. Deliberative theology
 Sometimes prompted by a crisis
(existential)
 It means to ask theological questions
about experiences in one’s own beliefs,
life, world events, education, family,
worship, morals, behavior, and so forth

16. Theology and Art
 God’s revelation takes place in the here
and now
 It does not have to be religious to be an
experience of God
 The need for mystics in a pluralistic world:
to find the good – and God – in all things
– Ignatius of Loyola

17. Karl Rahner
 “Theology is to be understood as the total
and conscious self-expression of the
human being, insofar as this self-
expression arises out of God’s self-
communication to us through grace.”

18. The Milagro Beanfield War

19. Theology
 Insofar as the arts are an expression of
the human person and human experience
they are connected to the Mystery of God
 Especially if art awakens in the person the
whole question of existence.

20. Theology and Art
 Theology is incomplete without the arts
 God is the source of human existence and
therefore theology and art are compatible

21. Spirituality
 Rooted in faith, beliefs
 Based in values, faith, hope, love of
others, self-sacrifice
 Supported by theology
 Spirituality is that which gives life to faith
 Spirituality is a way of life

22. Latino cinema characterized by
 Catholic religious, faith, practices
 Influenced by colonization by countries
and culture
 A history of oppression and struggle for
freedom and human rights
 Practices: reading the Bible and saints, the
rosary and prayer
 The community

23.  Religious images: Our Lady of Guadalupe
and the crucifix (crown of thorns)
 A nun and a priest in everything (Coco)
 Cultural values, spiritual perspectives,
religious practices play out in Latino
cinema

24. Protestant Influence
Latino culture

25. At Play in the Fields of the Lord
 “We’ve come to save you.”
 “What are you saving us from? We have
everything we need, we are at peace.”

26. Protestant Theology: Verbal
theology
Catholic Theology: at home with
verbal and non verbal theology

27. Where is theology (the
transcendent) in Desperado?

28. Grindhouse: Exploitation films
 Sacrifice story, characters, production
values
 Gore, sex, killing, violence and anything
that shocks

29. Machete

30. Nacho Libre

31. Ineffable transcendence in
The Shawshank Redemption