“And the winner is” ... Faith goes to the Oscars

“And the winner is” … Faith goes to the Oscars

By Editor / Feb 16, 2015 at 12:52 pm

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Many pundits declared that 2014 would be Hollywood’s “year of the Bible” due to the number of explicitly religious movies slated for premiere — Noah, Son of God, Heaven Is for Real and Exodus: Gods and Kings, among them. Then there were the films built that touched on spiritual themes, such as Calvary, Wild, St. Vincent and Interstellar. Yet when the Academy Awards are presented on Feb. 22, only a few of the contenders in 24 main categories will have religion in their stories or backstories. What happened?

This edition of ReligionLink looks at the religion/spirituality themes in movies made in 2014, some of them up for Academy Awards, and asks, what is the current relationship between Hollywood and religion? Has it blossomed or shriveled since the groundbreaking debut of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the the Christ a decade ago? Or has the relationship moved to television, where popular shows such as The Good Wife, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy have all tackled themes religion usually deals in — redemption, forgiveness, belief and the meaning of life?

Background

ABC maintains a list of this year’s Oscar nominees.

Oscars.org is the official website of the Academy Awards.

America magazine, a Jesuit publication, regularly reviews major Hollywood releases and other, smaller films, both from the U.S. and abroad.

Read “From an ex-gay pastor to Bible scams and Scientology defectors — Sundance goes to church” by Peggy Fletcher Stack, writing in The Salt Lake Tribune on Jan. 24, 2015.

Read “How secular Hollywood is unwittingly promoting the Christian faith” by Jonathan Merritt writing for The Week on Jan. 15, 2015.

Read “Documentary Draws Ire From the Church of Scientology” by Michael Cieply for The New York Times on Jan. 15, 2015.

Read a Jan. 14, 2015, story by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Religion News Service titled “Here’s the faith in the ‘American Sniper’ you won’t see in the film.”

Read “The long march from ‘Exodus’ to ‘Selma,'” a commentary by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin for Religion News Service on Jan. 2, 2015.

Read “Will Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’ disappoint Christians? It depends” by Sarah Pulliam Bailey for Religion News Service on Dec. 5, 2014.

Read “‘Son of God'” kicks off flood of flood of religious-themed films in 2014″ by Tierney Sneed writing in U.S. News & World Report on Feb. 27, 2014.

2014's movies with a faith factor

American Sniper*

Calvary

Exodus: Gods and Kings

God’s Not Dead

Heaven Is for Real

Ida*

The Identical

Left Behind

Noah

Persecuted

Selma*

The Song

Son of God

Timbuktu*

Unbroken*

And movies to watch for in 2015:

Last Days in the Desert

* Film has at least one Academy Award nomination in the 24 main categories for 2014.

National sources

Richard A. Blake: The Rev. Richard A. Blake, a professor of film studies at Boston College, is a film historian and author of Afterimage: The Indelible Catholic Imagination of Six American Filmmakers. He reviews films for America magazine. Contact: richard.blake.1@bc.edu, 617-552-4532.

Douglas Cowan: Douglas Cowan is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He is an expert on the neo-pagan community and has written about the community’s use of the Internet to communicate and share ideas about faith and rituals. He has also published about Mormonism and evangelical practice in North America and on religion and film. Contact: decowan@uwaterloo.ca, 519-884-4404 ext. 607.

Michele Desmarais: Michele Desmarais is the associate editor of the Journal of Religion and Film and an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. She specializes in Buddhism and other Eastern religions. Contact: mdesmarais@mail.unomaha.edu.

Andrew Flescher: Andrew Flescher, religion

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