Today’s Artuality day! Our theme this month is movies. How have movies or a movie inspired you artistically or spiritually?
(For more explanation of Artuality, check out this post for more on this month’s theme or this one for the genesis of Artuality.)
For me, there are so many movies I can use to answer this question: how Chocolat inspired joyful living, how Hero portrayed sacrifice, the friendship and resurrection in Steel Magnolias, unconditional love in When Harry Met Sally, creation and creativity in Babette’s Feast, community in Rent, the list goes on.
But today, I want to tell you about a movie I saw last week: Bullets Over Broadway. It’s a Woody Allen movie, and it got me thinking about what it means to be an artist.
Of course, being a Woody Allen movie, part of the greatness lies in laughing at yourself. This movie is about a struggling theater writer who finally gets his big chance to produce a show. Of course, he demands to direct it so that some random director won’t mess it up. Fine, fine. But one thing: since the production’s being funded by the head mafia guy, it has to star his girlfriend. Who can’t act. Heck, she can’t even pronounce most of her words correctly. Oh, the frustrations! The impurity!
As the movie unfolds, we see that the play is really dribble. The story sucks. It doesn’t move. Finally, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer, the mafia hitman who’s been escorting the lovely mafia girlfriend, suggests a change. It’s wonderful! It’s exactly what the play needs! Everyone loves it!
Except, of course, the artist, the playwright.
The movie goes on, and the mafia hitman makes more and more suggestions. The playwright eventually recognizes the hitman’s brilliance and meets with him secretly to improve the play. By the end, the play’s a huge success. But it’s written by the hitman, not the playwright. In fact, the playwright, it turns out, isn’t an artist at all. And the hitman is. As the hitman’s artistry emerges, he can’t take the un-acting of the mafia girlfriend. So he kills her. And when he’s shot by the mafia don, his last words are about his play.
All nonsensical. Yet all true somehow. In the beginning of the movie, another playwright asks, if you’re in a burning building and you can either save a human or the last existing copies of Shakespeare’s plays, which would you choose? The rest of the movie answers this question. The main character (played by John Cusack) asks his girlfriend, do you love me as a man or as an artist? And he has to explore that question.
In some ways, it asks the same questions that Asher Lev asks: do artists have rights that other humans don’t? Are they ultimately responsible to humans or to art? What does it mean to be an artist?
These questions have to do with the spiritual formation of an artist. How do we love artists as the church? In what ways do we hold them accountable both as artists and as humans? As an artist, how do I balance a demand for excellence with loving my neighbor as myself? Obviously, I’m not going to knock off someone when they get in the way of my art, but if my attitude toward them is disparaging, isn’t it the same thing? What is the posture of an artist?
Also, in this movie, art comes from unexpected places. Who would’ve thunk that a mafia hitman who didn’t finish high school would be a brilliant playwright? Who would’ve thunk that the playwright wasn’t an artist at all? I love this part. You never know where God’ll plant beauty. In that way, it shares a theme with Amadeus.
You’re turn! Tell me on your blog about the movies that have influenced you then come back and let me know you’ve posted your entry. Oh, and when you use Mr. Linky, please leave a comment so I know a new link was left. Feel free to participate throughout the month of November whenever inspiration or epiphanies or apostraphes hit.
