America is lazy and wants to be comfortable. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, in fact I am exactly what I just described. We have progressed so much as a species that it seems that we deserve a good break isn’t that right? Why not, we work hard to create a world that is comfortable why shouldn’t we take full advantage? It seems that our careless comfort has actually become an issue for certain areas of society.

I believe that art has suffered in the last 10 years. In general people want art to be easy and unchallenging. Why should we have to think about what art means when we can put a sign under it telling us. Why watch a film with subtitles when we can get it dubbed (and then we get to turn it into a comedy because lip sync doesn’t match)? Why should we read books when there are cliff notes and movies made of them. (even comics!? How Lazy Are We?)

I remember the day that our local theatre in Scottsdale Arizona opened with brand new seats. I remember it was so exciting because watching a movie in a theatre would be just like watching it at home on the sofa. I remember being inordinately happy that I would no longer need to sit on my folded legs to see over the person in front of me. Im a short guy and learned to sit in unique and uncomfortable positions for long periods of time. I also actually liked sitting in the front row for the same reason. I still do actually:)

Old theatres were pathetic! Musty, hard walls that bounce sound in uneven ways unforgiving to THX sound, hard chairs that reminded you that you did in fact have a rigid skeleton that wanted to be free of its flesh suit and the quickest way was apparently sitting in those seats for 2 hours. In these theatres you could hear every wrapper crinkle like it was in your own lap. And the slanted floors were deadly for combinations of shoes and spilled drinks flowing from the rows behind you. The hard wood and steel clapped and creaked with every movement of the fidgety kid (me) and old man who needed to take another trip to the bathroom.

New theatres were the second coming. I never saw a head in front of me again. The silence of the theatre was beautiful (Yay THX certifications for theatre envrionments)! The seats were silent and felt like sitting in an alpaca chair stuffed with clouds in comparison to the rat trap wire and wood creations of old.

I have another soapbox that discusses the problem with in home entertainment, really just films in the home. The main focus of that diatribe is that I think that not only do we want to be more comfortable in life we want to have the option to ignore those around us. Let’s face it that is often the most comforting thing we can imagine (especially if we are Faust fans as many of us are admittedly or not.)

The issue is that since movies were in the home we could start to ignore people as a whole when we were being entertained. We no longer had to hear those annoying laughs, constant comments, people eating their food, or foot tapping, etc. We could limit our entertainment annoyances to those we knew and not have to deal with strangers. You have to admit it is easier to hear a friend eat popcorn than a stranger do the same. Other people are disgusting, horribly rude, loud, smelly, fat and should be put out of their misery. Ourselves and our friends are just fine though.

Movies used to be made to be seen in community. There was time for laughs and cheers and part of the film was the experience of the theatre. You could learn what was appropriate and not by the reactions of those around, you could spent time before and after chatting about the film. Now theatres are inside other distracting and entertaining centers where you are tempted not to spend time talking about the movie afterwords. Besides you wouldn’t want to offend someone with your opinions or be found to have the wrong opinions. Truly a fate worse than death.

Now the Theatre is a place where you go with a group of people so that you can be alone for 2 hours (just like at home). And if you get tired of (nervous about) talking about the film afterwords…”Hey let’s go shopping!”

New theatres are horrible. They are designed so that the minute that you walk in the door you can begin your journey into the depths isolation so that you can see a film all by yourself with the satisfaction of crediting yourself with some “family time” or something of equal value.

Movies have suffered. The people have suffered. The solution is simple…burn them down!! Wait, no never mind that would be worse.

The solution is simple. Regardless of the institution and how it has ruined itself be the handful that actually treat the theatre like it should. A place for people to congregate and learn more about being human by great Myth and Story, let the characters guide you for a few hours and them see how others were affected and how they may be different because of the experience that you, as a community, shared together.

So this is the introduction.  I will be spending a lot of time on this topic as I have been developing multiple posts on this topic.  This post will outline what I want to talk about and the breadth of the discussion as I have planed currently.  But as my philosophy requires I will be change focus as the discussion requires.

Let me start with a little bit of a retraction.  “How to read a film” is a bad way to think of this but since it is the way most commonly spoken about how to watch film I will use it still.  in reality reading a film is not al that we want to do.  After reading a bit of a great book “Reframing Theology and Film” I was affirmed in my belief that there is more than just “reading” a film.

What I want to emphasize is the idea if critical analysis.  Watching  a film involves more than just careful watching and a sincere intention to understand it.  It takes an entire shift in our thought process.  So the big deal of watching a film is the attention to all the elements that come into making a film.  Since film is made over possibly years and by hundreds of people and all over the world we have a lot to analyze.  there are so many issues to look at from the basic story, sound and Image all the way to budgets, buisness and cultural issues.  We should be examining political, sociological, phisiological and historical issues. So maybe we should be reading books like films or more likely we are terrible at both and need to be beter educated.

So next time I will be talking about the first thing that we should look at when learning how to watch a film properly.  We will start discussing how to prepare for a film and what to do when you watch the film.

see ya on the next reel!

Just go see it.

I have never cried at a rap song before. This made me do it.
I have never felt so much anger in a theatre
I have never felt so ashamed of myself and my reactions to life before
I have never prayed for someone in a theatre before
I have never understood how powerful the words of scripture could be
I have never realized how grace can change so many lives so EASILY
I have never understood the Psalms until I heard the song Kim wrote and sang.
I have never been so frustrated and felt so helpless on such a large scale

As my favorite quite says I sat huddled in the dark and looked at those in the light so they could show me what it is to be Human.

go see it.  please.

So due to some missunderstanding of my message caused by my terrible writing I would like to present this again.  This version is much the same but more clear in its intent and purpose.  Thanks!

So when you say porn most people think of sexually explicit romps viewed by college kids and creeps.  and I guess we could say yea that is pornography. but I have been having discussions with people about the media lately and what we decided is that there are more than one type of porn.  Let’s start with a definition to work with.  I’m going to state that porn is something designed to distort reality (read: Goodness Truth Beauty) intending to create a sudden and heightened physiological reaction in the viewer. This by definition should be a bad thing.  I think most people agree on this.The reason that it is wrong isn’t in the actual acts or events but in the representation of reality.  The reality of Pornography is damaging to the viewer if they begin to think the real world is like the porn world.

Sexual Pornography

The first type of porn is the obvious easy to avoid pornography. It is intended to arouse the viewer sexually and draw a compulsive audience.  It has that specific purpose and intent in its creation.  The reason that it is so powerful is that it has shadows of truth in it.  Sex is good, men and women should enjoy a sexual relationship.  But obviously we are no supposed to be marketing, selling or watching it. At the very least porn cheapens sex and makes it boring.  One of the bigger problems that sexual pornography is that with prolonged exposure the distortion of reality is inevitable. If sex becomes a performance or an instrument of personal pleasure instead of a relationship and a communication of love and a expression of Christ’s love for his church then we have lost the whole meaning of sex.

So what other kinds of porn are there? There are a few subjects that can stray into the porn arena that usually are not really considered porn but should be.

Violence Pornography

Movies have a history of dramatizing violent acts.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with this in and of itself.  Violence in films can have it’s use and serve a purpose. Heck the bible has some of the most incredible scenes ever of battle and carnage.  Though the current trend in films is rather disturbing.  We have taken the reality of violence and distorted it into something that audiences seek out for pleasure.  This is disturbing from this filmmakers perspective because this constant distortion of violence changes the  audiences perception of violence in standard films.  The thing is that films like Saw and Touristas, and Death Race distort reality, and to a culture of people immersed and saturated in violence pornography The Godfather turns out to be silly and ineffectual in its message. The most terrifying scenes are now Laughable to my students because they have been exposed to horribly graphic violent acts.  Violence pornography does not just ruin the current films on the market, they actually affect the classics when viewed by modern audiences and this is nearly intolerable to me personally.

Propaganda Pornography (news porn)

The news media has been in the business of propaganda for a long while now (like when it started…or before).  I will leave it at that for this one.  (as a note Colbert and Stewart get a free pass because they are satire not “news” although yes most people my age get their news from them).  Sadly most news suppliers are only thinly veiled propaganda machines with agendas reliant on creating sudden heightened reactions from their viewers.  At least The Daily Show and Colbert Report are honest about what they do.  Don’t tollerate being lied to or decieved, don’t let a talking head distory reality in your home.

Emotional Pornography

This type of porn is what I like to call the Hallmark channel porn.  This type of media is designed to represent a world that does not exist.  This type of media is purely created to infect you with constructed realities designed to withdrawl the highest possible phisiological response from the viewers as possible.  this cathartic emotional enema is nothing more than a cheap drug.  This is damaging because with prolonged exposure viewers will start to look at the world in the same way that the hallmark channel represents, and they will yearn for those carthic moments in real life.  When they dont get them they think there is somethign wrong with their reality so they go back to the media to fill that void.  This creates the same vicious cycle that all of the above create.

Christian Pornography

This is the one that bothers me the most.  You know the type media that I am talking about by now.  As a Christian it bothers me that this type of media has become the most recognizable part of christian culture.  these films represent a world that is only fractionally true.  It presents a picture of being a christian that is false.  It shows Christianity as a push button answer to all the worlds problems.  The scary part is people are acclimated to this type of Christian media and fall into the false reality the same as others fall into sexual or emotional pornography.  This one is the most terrible in my opinion becaus eit deals directly with our creator and redemer.  if our perception of him is manipulated by these films, and we are no longer able to see reality clearly then we could danm others by our actions and words.  we could lead others astray so easily with this type of media and exposure to this media.  my only comforting thought is that the bulk of this pornography is so poorly made that it should be obvious how false its reality is.  but when we make emotional christian pornography it can be like a drug for some people.

I’m not sure what can be done to reduce the effects of these types of pornography besides education people about personal responsibility.  I think it is important to show people that there are some very dangerous types of pornography that are equally as damaging to society and to yourself as any other.  These should be avoided and spoken against.  We should not tolerate it in our community and if we see people consuming this type of media we should speak to them in love and do what we can to help them rehabilitate themselves to the truths of the world. Our goals should be to help those struggling to see the truth and have been led astray by harmful worldviews that can corrupt their life.

If you are finding yourself as a consistent viewer of one of these take some time to consider the way you view the world, and honestly evaluate your actions.  If you find that you are affected by this media in your everyday life you may have a problem.  I know it sounds silly and a little to serious but I believe that the last three forms of pornography mentioned are the most prevalent and dangerous because they are not commonly thought of as dangerous and have been accepted into society.

Be strong and call out porn when you see it and drive it from your life.  Refuse to be manipulated any longer.  Reality is not a construct it is tangible Truth! Don’t let something take that away from you.

Bring your thoughts to the table!

I am Nate Marshall.  I was raised all over the country and have settled for the time being in the Bay Area.  I have found that one thing that has always impressed me since my childhood was the incredible power of the visual medium.  From design in toys to films to typography and what the words actual say, I have been fascinated by it all.  Visuals drive me to think harder and to act every day of my life.  This isn’t to say that I am a slave to media but you could safely say that I am often consuming media to learn more about this strange diverse beautiful and horrible world that we all live in and share.

I am a Teacher by profession currently though I will always be a student, I believe, in some fashion.  I trained to be a film producer in college @ Biola University.  My passion was to create films.  I particularly wanted to create animated films because of the freedoms involved and the relatively low cost.  The other reason I liked animation was that the smaller teams of creative individuals allows for a community to be developed and I always dreamed of living a life as an “Imagineer.”

I teach now though, and it is a perfect job in so many ways.  I teach many different classes at the private school that allows me such creative and personal freedom to teach great classes.  I offer a Intro to Video Class (how to hold a camera and point it at something interesting), Art of Filmmaking (creating the interesting image and learning from the masters how to say something Good, True and Beautiful), Applied Filmmaking (creating and distributing high quality content), Screenwriting I teach this with my wife Lindsay (How to tell a story and not look like an amateur so you can eventually put your script in the hands of people who matter).  We also have two other classes that I co-teach with other excellent facilitators and educators, Acting for Film is taught by our Theatre Department head and we offer a daily live news broadcast to the entire school.  I  co-teach this class with our Radio Dept. head.  we offer this news class so that we can live webcast school events and sports as well as provide the daily news to the student body.

My future is teaching for the foreseeable future as well as screenwriting with my wife.  We have been writing together for 5 years and have a great time doing it!  It is something that we love to do together and it keeps our marriage strong because we work together as a family and we work together creatively and academically.  That kind of bond is more valuable than anything I have ever experienced.

So this blog will be about the media, but really mostly about cinema.  I want to begin a tradition of reviewing movies in a new context.  I want to explore movies in the context of their value and their contribution of an age-old conversation on art, communication and other topic raised in the specific films.  because of this you wont expect to see many reviews of films here on the lower brow film of the week.  and you will have to be sure to expand your repertoire of films.

I want to encourage you as well to get involved reading and commenting on these films.  There is no real reason to talk to the air when we write and the only way that we can truly appreciate the films that are created is to discuss and try to better understand them.  So I call on you to challenge me and others in the goal of making us all better film viewers but essentially better people in the process.  People who understand just a small bit better the world that we live in and the world that we all share together.

Our future is together and our future is bright.  Let’s gather and speak of things that have value and create a new comunity of souls that understand the value of the visual word