ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Michelle Williams

All the Money in the World – What Are Riches For?

by Leave a Comment

“Everything has a price. The real struggle in life is to determine what that is.”

How do you determine the price of the important things in life? That question lies in the background all through All the Money in the World. “Inspired by true events”, it is a thriller based on the 1973 kidnapping of a grandson of “the richest man who had ever lived”, J. Paul Getty. But it is also an examination of the way money can shape or distort our lives.

J. Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) is kidnapped off the streets in Rome. When the kidnappers call his mother Gail (Michelle Williams), her first reaction is that it is a joke. Paul has often joked that faking his kidnapping would be a way to get money from his tight-fisted grandfather and namesake (Christopher Plummer). The elder Getty enlists the aid of a former CIA operative, now his head of security, Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlburg), to get young Paul back. When Getty is unwilling to part with any of his fortune for Paul’s return, Fletcher and Gail become allies in trying to get save Paul.

The thriller aspect of the film, with various twists along the way, is compelling to keep our interest, but that just serves to lead us to consideration of the role money has in our lives. Do we see it as a means to an end? Can we use money to achieve happiness or to buy things we want? Or is money an end in itself? Does having wealth fulfill us?

Although Getty is exceedingly rich, in this film we see him as a miser. An early scene shows him in his lavish Roman hotel suite, with his laundry draped over bathroom fixtures. Why pay someone to do that? he asks. When he eventually does pay the ransom (negotiated down over several months while Paul is held captive and facing brutal treatment), it is based on what he can write off on taxes and as a loan to Paul. He uses his wealth as a weapon to punish Gail for the divorce settlement with his son.

Getty, at least as portrayed in the film, uses his vast wealth to acquire great art. He places his trust (and his hope for fulfillment and happiness) in possessions. He does not expect people—even his family—to provide those things. He only trusts in the tangible. The attitude that money has inherent value and should be obtained is something that Getty has in common with the kidnappers. They all consider money as more important than people. For Fletcher Chase and Gail Getty, money is only valuable for what can be done with it—and especially done to aid someone in need.

Wealth is a topic that comes up frequently in the Bible. At times it is seen as evidence on God’s blessing, but it is frequently seen as an illusion or even as a hindrance in our relationship with God. Some scriptures that could be appropriate to consider in thinking of this film:

  • The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 5:10)
  • It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. (Mark 10: 25 and parallels)
  • The Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12: 16ff
  • The love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10a)
  • For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower fails, and its beauty perishes. It is the same with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away. (James 1:11)

Our attitude towards riches often shapes our spiritual lives just as much as it provides the trappings of our day to day lives. All the Money in the World gives us a chance to reflect on how our approach to money affects the way we understand so much more.

Photos courtesy of All the Money US, LLC

Manchester By the Sea – Moving through Grief and Pain

by Leave a Comment

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) spends his days as a janitor in Boston. It’s not a great job, but it provides him with what he needs. Still, there remains an anger within him that comes out in inappropriate ways from time to time. When his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies, he must return to his home town of Manchester to deal with the arrangements. It’s not a place he wants to be—for a number of reasons. Manchester By the Sea is a story of moving through grief and finding new ways to face life.

manchester1

Besides the funeral arrangements, Lee learns that Joe has named him guardian of Joe’s teen age son Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Lee really wants nothing to do with this responsibility because he doesn’t want to stay in Manchester. He is well known around the town. For many, he is “the Lee Chandler”. He also runs into his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams), which is awkward as Lee is trying to forget the pain they share. As the story progresses, we see what his life here was like. He was happy once but, a tragedy destroyed his life here, eventually leading him to the anonymity of Boston. Lee and Patrick must find the balance that allows them each to have the kind of life that will suit them. For Patrick, it is to find his way into adulthood. For Lee, however, it is how to find his way back out of his anger and pain.

In some ways, this is a slice-of-life story of a family in grief. It is a disconcerting experience that triggers emotions in strange ways. For example, since the ground is frozen, Joe can’t be buried until spring, and Patrick is distressed that his body will be kept in a freezer until then. As Lee comes to terms with his new responsibility there are plans that must be made, but they are the very kinds of responsibilities from which he has been running. While the road is difficult, Lee and Patrick find new ways to approach the trials before them.

manchester3

Lee’s struggle is the real focus. It is only as we slowly learn the cause of his pain and anger that we can appreciate just how hard it is for him to return to Manchester and family life. The anger that, at times, comes to the surface in his life is really his anger with himself. His tragic mistake is something he cannot bring himself to forgive but, because he is thrust back into life with people who he loves and who love him, he is forced to come to terms with who he is and find ways to live with himself and his past.

Special features include a conversation with writer/director Lonergan, the making of featurette “Emotional Lives,” and some deleted scenes. 

Surviving Winter’s Dream: An Interview with Timothy Lee DePriest

by Leave a Comment

nm1024193

Timothy Lee DePriest isn’t new to the Hollywood scene.

With guest roles in shows like Sons of Anarchy, Southland, and many more over the years, he’s more than familiar with the challenges of breaking into the industry. However, with starring roles in the sci-fi film, 2307: Winter’s Dream, and HBO’s mega-hit series Westworld, DePriest has finally stepped into the limelight. With all the attention, he admits that the sudden notoriety has been somewhat overwhelming.

“I’m [thinking] ‘What just happened to me?’” he remarks. “That [first] Westworld episode aired on a Sunday. On the Wednesday, I got a call from a director that wanted to meet me and that’s never happened to me before. It’s just so weird.”

tve102982-3847-20161002-0

“Just to be on set with Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, Geoffrey Wright, you learn so much. You see how it’s really done. Ed Harris is the coolest guy in the world and it just looks effortless to him. He’s just being [so] natural. So, that came along around the same time [as 2307] and it takes a couple of years so I wasn’t even sure what would happen with those things.”

With the release of 2307: Winter’s Dream, DePriest continues his work within the sci-fi world. Still, what excited him most about the project wasn’t the post-apocalyptic storyline or the epic action scenes. For him, the most appealing aspect was the opportunity to work with director Joey Curtis.

“I was really excited because [of] Joey,” he responds. “When I first learned about the project, just hearing his name and that he was involved with BLUE VALENTINE was a big sell for me because I love that movie. I’m always looking to do more quality stuff.”

408656

 2307: Winter’s Dream takes place in the year 2307—or 141 years ‘after man killed God’—as earth has become a barren, frozen wasteland. Forced underground by the extreme cold with a depleted population, mankind creates the ‘Humanoids’, superhuman slaves bio-engineered to stand up to the harsh conditions. When rogue humanoid named ASH-393 escapes from captivity, a team of elite military operatives, including Ishmael (DePriest), is sent into the ice-covered wilderness to eliminate the leader and the ensuing Humanoid threat.

Although science fiction isn’t necessarily his favourite genre, DePriest admits that the chance to star in films like this (or series such as Westworld) is something that he really enjoys and wouldn’t want to pass up.

“It’s odd because the films I like—and the reason I got into the business— are these scrappy, weird little films like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I love Jim Jarmusch’s early films, Aronofsky, Jonathan Glazer, Noah Baumbach. I like these indie, character-focused films but, of course, I love to have fun. When you’re doing sci-fi, you’re [basically] playing a superhero and that is extremely fun.“

Of course, ‘fun’ isn’t always the case when shooting a film like this, especially when it takes place in the midst of a glacial, post-apocalyptic desert.

While many of the indoor scenes were shot in a Los Angeles studio—DePriest muses that it was funny to be wiping away their sweat “because we were all bundled up shooting in Southern California”—the majority of the film takes place outdoors.

In the middle of nowhere.

In the snow.

Amazingly, the director found what he needed in an almost unexpected location: Buffalo, New York. Filming shortly after the infamous ice storm of 2014, DePriest explains that they were able to get the right effect by shooting on top of frozen Lake Erie.

2307wd-still-0004

“We had to wait until we could actually physically go there,” he recalls. “[Due to the weather], we would have died because it was so cold. We came in the spring but it was still cold, and we shot on frozen Lake Erie. We were just outside Buffalo and we stayed in the cabins [of a nearby Christian camp]. The lake was right behind there and they would take us a mile out in snowmobiles to the sets that they’d built out there and we shot on Lake Erie. It was about negative 20 with wind chill. I was wondering how they would do that and it made so much sense being out on a frozen lake. It looked like there was no one out there. It was such a great location.”

With this in mind, DePriest also feels that science fiction also opens up doors for conversations about our current culture as well. In other words, while the film maintains an aura of fun, he also believes that 2307 also speaks to issues about human rights and how we treat the disenfranchised in our world.

“I had a friend who just came back from Greece and she was working with Syrian refugees. We’re all trying to find a place and, man, when you’re not wanted. Her frustration was that nobody wants these people. Why don’t we want them and how do we deal with that? It’s kind of the same deal with the humanoids. We created them and we think we own them and that we can just toss them out.”

2307wd-still-0003

Somewhat ironically, while 2307 claims to take place in a time after ‘man killed God’, the film also lands on a distinctly existential question by asking who has the right to a ‘soul’. Although he, himself, doesn’t hold any specific spiritual worldview, DePriest also recognizes that this search for the soul can be a source of hope and healing.

“I went through a really dark time in my life where I was going off the rails in Hollywood, throwing myself into every excess, and I kind of hit a wall. The only thing that saved me was kind of going within. I guess that… every religious practice is like that where you try to find meaning and that soul within is probably a good place to start. For me, that’s what it feels like.”

With a hard-working attitude and a strong sense of hope, Timothy Lee DePriest seems ready to leave his mark on Hollywood. From Westworld to 2307: Winter’s Dream, he is grateful that he continues to have the opportunity to tell stories that matter.

photo by Audi England