Having ended the last blog with the real presence of the Eucharist where we are renewed and our life in God is affirmed, today I continue and begin with sacredness and holiness. There are places inthe world that we can describe as 'thin' places, places thatnare steeped in holiness. Whether this is something particular about the place or about the worship that has been made there for millennia, I do not know, but I suspect there is a relationship: thinking of Iona where I first encountered the immensity of a loving creator, that little island has peace and space and light in of itself and not something that humanity has created there; whilst at the same time I ponder on the depth I touched upon in the Holy Sephlchre in Jerusalem, or rather the depth that touched me, and knowing that there is nothing about the physicality of the place that makes it special, just the act of heaven breaking death that occured there.
Prometheus continues in one of these places: Skye, that well known Scottish Isle, and in a cave up a mountain. We meet Dr Elizabeth Shaw and her partner Charlie Holloway for the first time, she calling him in urgency to the discovery she has made. In the cave, painted upon the wall are paintings, like those seen on cave walls across Europe and Africa, lions and deer, the hand prints of men and women who died thousands of years ago, and their figures 'moving' across the surface of the rock: and part of this painting is the image of humanity at worship, kneeling down before a larger human figure who points up towards a constellation of spheres in the heaven. Note Drs Shaw and Holloway's reactions: he takes off his hat and she, with tears in her eyes, says, "I think they want us to come and find them."
Similarly, there is the response of David, the artificial human, to the control room of the torc spaceship... throughout the movie, constant reference is made to his lack of emotional response, but and considering this, there is an apparent wonderment and childlike enjoyment in encountering the beauty and splendour of the Engineers' holographic representations of space etc.
"Moses... came to Horeb, the mountain of God... [and God] said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:1-6)
When one encounters something greater than you, greater in magnitude, literally awesome; when one encounters this, one has to have a reaction to it. Thus, when we encounter the divine, we take off our shoes or our hats, or we cover our heads or bow down. There is a reaction that is instinctive, that is practically unavoidable when we are touched by something other.
In setting this scene with Charlie and Eli in the cave RS is inviting the audience to view their searching for the Engineers as the search for the divine, for the other, even as the film recognises that they are creations themselves... but that's jumping the gun somewhat.
Yet for humanity to recieve the invitation to come and find them, the Engineers must have first (re)found humanity.
"What is man, that you should be mindful of him;
the son of man, that you should seek him out?" (Psalm 8:5)
So much of our discussion about God speaks about us seeking him/her: likewise Prometheus centred on the idea of seeking out our creator(s). Yet it is God who seeks us out and, in the film, it was the Engineers who first sought humanity out - for how else were the paintings produced - and who planned to return to Earth again. As in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel painting, God reaches out to touch us even as we attempt to reach out to him: yet in the film, the imperative is on humanity to go and find.
Is this what most people assume? That the divine has to be searched for rather than letting oneself be discovered by it? I agree that there should be some personal activity to find God in one's life, to search for heaven, but God will find us: God has become incarnate to find us and continues to be; God's Holy Spirit continues to dwell with his people and in his people. Alongside the argument for active searching, there must also be an argument for active waiting: finding the thin places and the sacred spaces, wherever they are, and allowing God to meet us there; taking time for silence and stillness, for the dawn of heaven to break into our lives. And in those times and places letting our reaction be like those of Eli and Charlie and Daivd: with wonder, with awe, with desire we are called to approach heaven.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Monday, 18 June 2012
Prometheus: Ridley Scott talks God
As the film opens, we are met with soaring views and notes that are reminiscent of those used for the Day After Tomorrow and the Star Trek movies respectively, and the shadow of the flying saucer, so effective in Independence Day, is again used to good affect in Prometheus. Regular Sci-Fi fans like myself are thus drawn in and hearts are captured from the start by these simple cinematic techniques, and immediately a comparison begins between those epic productions and this: the stage is set for something great.
But what I'm hoping to do here is not a film review as such, but make some theological reflections on this work of Ridley Scott (RS) that is absolutely packed with questions:
where do we come from?
Where are we going?
What is the nature of truth? Of theory? Of faith?
Who are we?
Where does Science now fit in our society and where does belief come in?
How do we share our beliefs and how do we accept others?
and more.
My first questions about the film are regarding the 'Engineers' themselves: these alien 'creators' who appear as immense, pale, heavily muscled humans top and tail the film.
What is interesting to note firstly is the difference between the Engineers' ships at this starting point and then at the end of film: do the two different shapes, the former a disc, the latter a torc, represent something else? Or is this just artistic licence to allow RS to feed into Alien as the torc ship is reminiscent of the alien craft found on the planet LV-426. RS has alllowed definite allusions to Alien, despite remarking that this is not a prequel, for the letters of the Prometheus title appear in a similar way as they did for Alien. There also appears to be a morphological different between the Engineers: the one at the end of the film has neck ridges that appear to be part of his anatomy rather than part of the suit he is wearing: are these differences purposeful or accidental, or am I just mistaken (nothing unusual there). If the former, there is room to suggest that we are to be invited into a new world of Engineers for any future film in this Alien semi-prequel. Are there differences between Engineers who create and Engineers who destroy?
As the film turns, the Engineer, in the barren landscape of a seemingly new world (although fleshed with the green of plants) makes his was across the rocky platform by the cascades of a powerful waterfall: above him, the disc rotates into a more vertical axis as it pearces the clouds and gives us a perspective on the immensity of its size (seemingly larger by a magnitude than the torc later in the film). The Engineer takes some device from his robes and strips to the bare essentials. The device is some kind of container and, upon opening it, we see a cup with an organically moving chemical substance. He drinks of this cup (of sorrows) and immediately his body begins to break down as the substance spreads through his blood. As his body breaks in pain it collapses under him and he cascades into the water. As he falls, his body is broken into a cloud of molecules, particularly DNA. This seeding of genetics blooms into life and cells form and divide.
In interview with the blog 'If Only', Daniel Twiss, who plays the part of this Engineer, comments: "My character is that of a fairly young 'Engineer' who ritualistically sacrifices himself... [to provide] the first building blocks for new life to form..." Self-sacrifice to provide life. There is no good reason for this seeding of life to involve sacrifice: DNA can easily be created in the lab and then fed into any system. Thus the ritual and the sacrifice are deliberate ploys to cast our minds towards religion, towards faith: this is a film produced in the context of Christianity, for our faith has, at it's heart, a creator (God) who would sacrifice himself to bring us life. The pain evident on the young Engineer's face as he is torn apart turned my thoughts to the paintings of the crucifixion with Christ in the anguish of torture. And as the Engineer is ripped into molecular clouds, I cannot but think of the Eucharist and the words 'this is my body given for you, broken for you', and the very notion that the presence of Jesus is dispersed and concentrated in each of us as we receive communion as the Engineer's DNA was dispersed into ocean and concentrated into cells.
And thus begins my musings on Prometheus: with the incarnation and the death of our Lord that we call to heart and mind and soul every Sunday, every Eucharist. This is always where creation begins and where we find life.
But what I'm hoping to do here is not a film review as such, but make some theological reflections on this work of Ridley Scott (RS) that is absolutely packed with questions:
where do we come from?
Where are we going?
What is the nature of truth? Of theory? Of faith?
Who are we?
Where does Science now fit in our society and where does belief come in?
How do we share our beliefs and how do we accept others?
and more.
My first questions about the film are regarding the 'Engineers' themselves: these alien 'creators' who appear as immense, pale, heavily muscled humans top and tail the film.
What is interesting to note firstly is the difference between the Engineers' ships at this starting point and then at the end of film: do the two different shapes, the former a disc, the latter a torc, represent something else? Or is this just artistic licence to allow RS to feed into Alien as the torc ship is reminiscent of the alien craft found on the planet LV-426. RS has alllowed definite allusions to Alien, despite remarking that this is not a prequel, for the letters of the Prometheus title appear in a similar way as they did for Alien. There also appears to be a morphological different between the Engineers: the one at the end of the film has neck ridges that appear to be part of his anatomy rather than part of the suit he is wearing: are these differences purposeful or accidental, or am I just mistaken (nothing unusual there). If the former, there is room to suggest that we are to be invited into a new world of Engineers for any future film in this Alien semi-prequel. Are there differences between Engineers who create and Engineers who destroy?
As the film turns, the Engineer, in the barren landscape of a seemingly new world (although fleshed with the green of plants) makes his was across the rocky platform by the cascades of a powerful waterfall: above him, the disc rotates into a more vertical axis as it pearces the clouds and gives us a perspective on the immensity of its size (seemingly larger by a magnitude than the torc later in the film). The Engineer takes some device from his robes and strips to the bare essentials. The device is some kind of container and, upon opening it, we see a cup with an organically moving chemical substance. He drinks of this cup (of sorrows) and immediately his body begins to break down as the substance spreads through his blood. As his body breaks in pain it collapses under him and he cascades into the water. As he falls, his body is broken into a cloud of molecules, particularly DNA. This seeding of genetics blooms into life and cells form and divide.
In interview with the blog 'If Only', Daniel Twiss, who plays the part of this Engineer, comments: "My character is that of a fairly young 'Engineer' who ritualistically sacrifices himself... [to provide] the first building blocks for new life to form..." Self-sacrifice to provide life. There is no good reason for this seeding of life to involve sacrifice: DNA can easily be created in the lab and then fed into any system. Thus the ritual and the sacrifice are deliberate ploys to cast our minds towards religion, towards faith: this is a film produced in the context of Christianity, for our faith has, at it's heart, a creator (God) who would sacrifice himself to bring us life. The pain evident on the young Engineer's face as he is torn apart turned my thoughts to the paintings of the crucifixion with Christ in the anguish of torture. And as the Engineer is ripped into molecular clouds, I cannot but think of the Eucharist and the words 'this is my body given for you, broken for you', and the very notion that the presence of Jesus is dispersed and concentrated in each of us as we receive communion as the Engineer's DNA was dispersed into ocean and concentrated into cells.
And thus begins my musings on Prometheus: with the incarnation and the death of our Lord that we call to heart and mind and soul every Sunday, every Eucharist. This is always where creation begins and where we find life.
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