Book Review: Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies (2024) Abby Olcese
Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies (2024) Abby Olcese
InterVarsity Press, trade paperback, 231 pages, ISBN 978-1514007846 (includes a foreword by Josh Larsen, suggestions for further viewing, notes, and acknowledgments)
Seasons help define our lives, and most of us rely on various methods to keep track of them. Josh Larsen notes in his foreword that the church isn’t the only group of people who observe their own calendar. Moviegoers also have one, although theirs may not involve worship (but then again, it might). Cinephiles delight in Oscar season, summer blockbusters, fall prestige films, horror movies in October, themed festivals, and more. Wouldn’t it be great if congregants and movie lovers could intersect?
Maybe they already do and just don’t know it.
Abby Olcese’s new book Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies shows that religious truth can often be found in the unlikeliest places, including big-budget blockbusters, science fiction, film noir, animated movies, and more. While some pairings of films with the church calendar may seem far-fetched (Fast & Furious 6 with Pentecost? Seriously?), others contain unmistakable elements of faith (A Hidden Life, The Mission).
If we limit ourselves to the Advent season alone, viewers can discover movies with concepts of hope (The Last Jedi), faith (The Bishop’s Wife), joy (Paddington and Paddington 2), and peace (Joyeux Noel). But what about finding components of Epiphany in Barbie? The observance of Lent in Logan?
You’re kidding me, right? Olcese must be putting me on…
She’s not. Films for All Seasons celebrates the fact that movies can provide great entertainment and act as gifts to all viewers, regardless of their type or lack of faith. Yet films not necessarily made by people of faith often contain biblical truth. Let’s take a look at a couple:
The concept of sacrifice runs throughout the Bible, particularly by Christ, but we may not expect it in a movie like Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006), a post-apocalyptic film taking place in a future in which all women suffer from an unknown infertility epidemic. To make matters worse, most governments have collapsed, throwing the world into anarchy, terrorism, and a constant fight for survival. When a young London woman named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) discovers she’s pregnant, she doesn’t dare celebrate. She can’t even make it known. Doing so would endanger her and her child. As a Black woman, she becomes a greater political target and needs help, but who can she trust in such a ravaged world? Kee’s child, like Christ, offers hope to a world without much of a future.
Sometimes we discover our heroes are flawed people just like us. Even Jesus’ disciples in the early church didn’t always have their act together. On the surface, we might think a Marvel movie is about as far away from Pentecost as you can get. Yet, Olcese writes, “Guardians of the Galaxy reminds us that even in situations of extraordinary heroism, the people responsible are imperfect, flawed, and often pressed by circumstance to act and support each other.” Olcese also quotes theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing in his book Life Together, “Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.”
Southern writer Flannery O’Connor often mentioned that each one of her short stories (frequently containing violence, grotesque people, and some very ungodly behavior) always presents a moment of grace, a full stop for the characters (and ourselves) to witness something out of the ordinary, almost surreal, making us ponder whether our lives might now be different. You might agree or disagree, but Olcese’s book will challenge you to look at movies from another viewpoint. The variety of films chosen is impressive, even more so when considering the “Suggestions for Further Viewing,” which could constitute an additional volume.
Reading this, some may think, “The author is trying to Christianize my favorite movie, and I won’t stand for that!” Your favorite movie hasn’t changed. You can still enjoy it for what it is and what it means to you. But good movies (sometimes even not-so-good ones) can do more than one thing, intentionally or unintentionally.
Movies, like literature, music, and all art forms, take us deep inside ourselves. The arts touch on things that matter to us, speak to us, and cause us to go beyond the everyday routines of our lives. They make us ponder what’s important. They touch our souls. When a film or other art form speaks to you, even overwhelms you, that’s one of O’Connor’s moments of grace. That moment is telling you to look beyond yourself, to go deeper than the surface of the art form you’re enjoying. Olcese gets that, and we’re fortunate that she’s chosen to share these thoughts with us.
Films for All Seasons is a book that entertains yet asks us to go deeper in our movie-watching. The rewards could be extraordinary. I encourage movie lovers of all or no faiths to check it out.
Thanks to InterVarsity Press for providing me with a review copy of Films for All Seasons.