{"id":7761,"date":"2004-03-09T09:09:27","date_gmt":"2004-03-09T09:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/speaking_of_religion_in_the_movies.html"},"modified":"2004-03-09T09:09:27","modified_gmt":"2004-03-09T09:09:27","slug":"speaking_of_religion_in_the_movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/speaking_of_religion_in_the_movies.html","title":{"rendered":"Speaking of religion in the movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a Detroit Free Press article highlighting new DVD releases out today.<\/a> Schindler’s List is the big one, but also out today is<\/p>\n

Far more tasteful is 1972’s “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” (TWO STARS out of four stars, Paramount, $14.99), from director Franco Zeffirelli. This is a flower-power biography of St. Francis of Assisi, the ascetic who riled up the Catholic church by contending that God was all about love, that materialism was bad, and Mother Nature was cool. That’s at least according to this version, which leaves out the part about his going to the Middle East to convert Muslims. The photography is soft-focus, and so is the soundtrack by Donovan, peace be with him. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know, I know, this movie is totally lame, I guess, but it had a HUGE impact on me when I saw it in college. All of us who were involved in the campus ministry went to see it at the student center, and we came out, arm in arm, singing the Donovan song they sing after San Damiano has been complete, and everyone comes in with their livestock and their vegetables…<\/p>\n

\nIf you want your dream to be
\nBuild it slow and surely.
\nSmall beginnings, greater ends.
\nHeartfelt work grows purely.<\/p>\n

If you want to live life free,
\nTake your time, go slowly.
\nDo few things, but do them well.
\nSimple joys are holy.<\/p>\n

Day by day, stone by stone,
\nBuild your secret slowly.
\nDay by day, you’ll grow, too,
\nYou’ll know heaven’s glory.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And we were so inspired, so jazzed, so determined that we could live like that, too….<\/p>\n

You know, there are actually some rather powerful scenes in that film. When Francis happens upon Clare tending to the lepers, “Brothers! Brothers!” she calls, and they emerge from the woods. His moment in the chapel when the eyes of Christ on the cross, formerly closed, open, and gaze at him fiercely. When Francis has started rebuilding San Damiano in the snow, and his friends slowly move from thinking he’s just whacked to throwing off their shoes and joining him as well. <\/p>\n

You know, I take it back. It’s not<\/strong> totally lame. It’s sort of goofy, in its total effect now, I guess, and it’s not a tenth of what St. Francis was, but… Here I take my stand. I can do no other.<\/p>\n

Here’s a review of the DVD from Christianity Today<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a Detroit Free Press article highlighting new DVD releases out today. Schindler’s List is the big one, but also out today is Far more tasteful is 1972’s “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” (TWO STARS out of four stars, Paramount, $14.99), from director Franco Zeffirelli. This is a flower-power biography of St. Francis of Assisi, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSpeaking of religion in the movies - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/speaking_of_religion_in_the_movies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Speaking of religion in the movies - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s a Detroit Free Press article highlighting new DVD releases out today. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}