Film as Religion, Second Edition. John C. Lyden
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aspects of film, in that we can choose to identify with the characters portrayed and not only the perspective of the camera that views them.47
If film viewers do have some sense of the unreality of cinema, as these latter theorists propose, the power of film is not in its ability to erase or displace our sense of the real world but in its ability to provide a temporary escape from it. And yet that escape is not simply a matter of illusion but a construction that has the “aura of factuality” about it that Geertz associates with religious ritual. We willingly enter another world in the cinema, one that we realize is not the empirical world but one that has power over us nonetheless. It may be argued that the spiritual world referenced by religions is believed to be more “real” than the imaginary world we enter in films, but in both cases, the participant enters into such a ritual space in order to experience an alternate reality. The man who played Rangda had no problem distinguishing himself from Rangda once he was outside the ritual, but in the ritual space and time, that distinction was not observed. In a similar way, a viewer who entertains the fictitious world of the film as “real” during its viewing does not lose connection with the fact that she is in a theater viewing a constructed work, but she will not dwell on this fact if she is enjoying the film and is sufficiently absorbed in it.
Sometimes a film will even remind the viewers of its artificiality. In E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982), there is a moment when Elliot’s brother’s friends first see the alien that they have thought to be a figment of Elliot’s imagination. As Elliot matter-of-factly tells them, “He’s a man from outer space, and we’re taking him to his spaceship,” one of the boys asks, “But can’t he just beam up?” Elliot answers with exasperation (and somewhat condescendingly), “This is reality, Greg.” Audiences laughed at that line because they realized that the film is not our reality, but it is for the characters in the film, and for that reason, we can enter its world temporarily in order to discover a reality different from our own that is somehow connected to us as well. It is not less “relevant” to us for being recognized as imaginary. In a similar way, characters break the “fourth wall” when they address the audience directly and admit that they are in a movie. Deadpool (2016) and Deadpool 2 (2018) utilized this technique to comedic effect, as the main character comments on the action and even events outside the film, much like the comic-book character on which he was based, who also frequently broke the “fourth wall” of the printed page.
It is also the case that film viewing, like religion, affords a link between the alternate world it imagines and the empirical world of everyday life. Were there not such a connection, the illusion would not be powerful or relevant or even desired. We desire alternate worlds because we find our own imperfect, but such desires to flee also entail a desire to return, renewed and refreshed, to the everyday. One who wishes only to live in ritual time—or in the virtual reality of a film or computer game—has fallen into pathology in his preference for the imaginary world over the empirical world and will soon have difficulties living in the empirical world, as he may begin to neglect duties and relationships that are necessary for survival. Modern technology has spawned this sort of obsessive behavior, such as that found in a person addicted to social media or the internet, but this is not the nature of all experiences of the alternate realities offered by religion or modern media. Those who are less pathological will find a way to relate the two worlds more effectively so that “real” life may be enriched rather than impoverished by media consumption. Some may find this hope overly optimistic, but we have no reason at the outset to conclude that it is impossible to go back and forth between the two worlds without ultimately losing the distinction between them (as Baudrillard insists).
If film does operate as a religion according to Geertz’s definition, as I contend, then similar to a religion, it offers a connection between this world and the “other” world imagined by film in offering both models of and models for reality. These two aspects—worldview (or mythology) and ethos—together express a vision of what the world really is and what it should be. There is some confusion between these two, in that the ideal world imagined by religion is represented as the goal toward which empirical reality should reach, but it is also taken as a description of the way “true” reality really is. The imagined world is taken not as an invention of our minds but as a true representation of reality precisely because it depicts the way things really should be. In the same way, films offer near-perfect worlds that do not correspond exactly to reality as we experience it, but we often believe they are models of (and not only models for) reality as we would like it to be. This need not be taken simply as wishful thinking, as the desire to view models for and models of as identical is based in our desire to realize a unity of the two, to cause utopia to come to pass. This is not mere escapism but a real desire to change the world to be more like the way that the “religion” in question thinks it already is—at a “higher” level.
In addition, the fact that a cultural phenomenon—such as religion or film—is humanly constructed does not take away from its power to express another reality, even when people are aware of the constructed, “imaginary” nature of the phenomenon. Just as people can be affected by stories that they know are fictitious and even change their views of the world as a result, so also constructed religious artifacts can connect people with other realities even when they know that they are human “inventions.” Sam Gill, for example, has argued that the masks used in Native American religious rituals are not disguises but are symbolic representations of spiritual realities. Those who wear them are not “masquerading” as deities to fool the audience but are portraying in dramatic form beings that they believe to be real. Like Geertz, Gill argues that the performer who wears the mask takes on the identity of the character he portrays. Even when children are initiated into the masking process so that they realize it is their own relatives who wear the masks, this does not mean the gods portrayed are now recognized as unreal or that the ritual is viewed as a sham. Rather, Gill suggests that the new knowledge of the initiate is that gained by looking through the mask from the inside, by realizing not its falsity as a way of portraying the spiritual but rather its truth. The performer who looks out of the mask to see reality through it identifies with the character portrayed and so “knows” its reality in a clearer sense even than the audience that sees him. The mask does not hide truth; it reveals it.48 Filmgoers, too, know that films are not “real,” but the imaginary constructions within them can still serve to convey real truths about the nature of reality and how it is believed to be.
The question may still arise as to whether there “really” is a referent for religious beliefs or whether the religious person only thinks that the world imagined by religion is real. Some of those who define religion by its function in human life have been reductionist in claiming that it has no referent beyond its cultural function, that its referential claims are illusionary. This is not my view or that of Geertz, who, as we have seen, avoids reductionism. Questions about the “truth” of religious beliefs must be bracketed by the religion scholar, as they can never be definitively answered. This does not, however, prohibit religious people, including some scholars of religion, from believing particular truth claims of particular religions or from making such claims; it simply means that it is impossible to prove whether such claims have an external reality referent or not. What we can do is examine the faith of those who hold to such claims to see the differences it makes for them in terms of worldview and ethos. Thus we can seek to understand the beliefs of Christians, which have meaning whether or not God or Jesus really exists, and we can seek to understand the filmic religion whether or not the visions of reality it presents are “true.” Even if good guys don’t always win and not all romances are happy, those who enjoy films may believe justice and love will ultimately triumph, in part because this is presented as the nature of reality in many movies. And as such claims are not subject to definitive verification or falsification, filmgoers may choose to believe such things even when some evidence seems to count against them—for example, it is believed that in the end, justice will be served, even though we do not always see this happen.
Films, then, can be taken as illusions in one sense but can also have the force of reality by presenting a vision of how the world is as well as how it might be. In the ritual context of viewing a film, we “entertain” the truth of its mythology and ethos as a subject of consciousness even as it “entertains” us. It presents a reality that differs from that experienced in ordinary profane