Customer Reviews

The Gospel according to Hollywood

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I picked up this book thinking it was an historical account of the portrayal of the gospels in Hollywood. There are many such books around that cover the history of blacks, homosexuals, drugs, and other topics in films, and the title suggested this was another of those type of books. It isn't. So what is it? In the author's own words - "I want to offer you a learned yet accessible look at films that can inspire as well as entertain, to show how you might use these films to discuss theological issues, and, wherever possible, to tie the stories of these films back to our core narratives about salvation and the life of faith (xxii - xxiii)."

Leaving aside my disappointment in not finding the historical account I was looking for, we need to evaluate the book on the basis of the author's goals, not my expectations. This is a well written book and the author is obviously a film buff, but I wouldn't go so far as to call this text a "learned" approach to film. There is very little depth to Mr. Garrett's film analysis, nor is there much backstory nor sociopolitical concurrents. In addition, Garrett usually ignores the box office information which I would have thought added value to any discussion of the film's impact. Mostly it is Garrett's reactions to films, rehashing the plots and reminding us of the actors whom played the various parts.

As far as being a teaching tool, I didn't see that either. Perhaps I am being too concrete and looking for teaching lesson material here. Of course Garrett's examples can be adopted by others and used for teaching, or any other purpose. But the book itself is hardly a teaching tool, even if the contents itself can be used for teaching.

Another problem I have with this book is that it is not particularly concerned with the gospels. Rather than using the gospels as the focus, Garrett adopts the culturally normative view of Jesus, which any scholar knows, is vastly different from the gospel point of view. I think the title "The Gospel according to..." is meant more as a play on words rather than an actual description of what we are getting.

So, the book doesn't live up to my expectations and neither does it seem to live up to the purpose as set forth by the author. Nonetheless, this is an entertaining book and well written, and if you like films and are very religious from a Christian perspective, this might be the type of book you're looking for.

Garrett writes from a "neo-evangelical" perspective, in the vein of Ron Sider or Sojourners Magazine. So his theology leans toward the conservative; his social and political views are slanted in a more liberal direction.

Garrett finds Christian themes in films ranging from old classics (The Philadelphia Story, To Kill a Mockingbird, Cool Hand Luke) to more recent movies (Pulp Fiction, Magnolia, American Beauty).

The first four chapters deal with more theological themes in films such as faith, the Trinity, sin, and redemption. The final two chapters explore more social and political themes such as war and peace, justice, poverty and race.

While I occasionally disagreed with Garrett's theololgy (and/or his politics), I found his insights into the spiritual themes in films unerringly accurate and insightful. The author avoids two common traps in Christian interpretation of film. He does not try to read explictly Christian ideas into movies where the filmmakers clearly did not intend them. Nor does he wholisticlally condemn films that contain offensive elements such as nudity or violence.

Instead he looks for the filmmakers intended themes and compares and contrasts them with Christian belief and practice. Although I have frequently taught college and greaduate classes on the spiritual themes in Hollywood movies, I learned a great deal from Garret's analysis.

Readers who are interested in this topic may also want to read "Hollywood Worldviews" by Brian Godawa.