• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Film
  • DVD
  • Editorial
  • About ScreenFish

ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • News
  • OtherFish
  • Podcast
  • Give

Psychology

The Sounding – Transformed Mind

October 20, 2020 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

What do we make of someone who refuses to live conventionally? Is there something wrong with them that needs to be fixed? Or should we find a way into their world to see things in new ways? The Sounding (the first feature film by Catherine Eaton) presents viewers with these kinds of questions.

Liv (played by Eaton) has lived her life on a secluded island off the coast of Maine. She has been raised by her grandfather Lionel (Harris Yulin), a retired neurologist. At some point when Liv was young child, she ceased talking. There were no physical or evident psychological reasons. She just didn’t talk anymore. Lionel has read her everything from P.G. Wodehouse to Michel Foucault, but her favorite is Shakespeare.

When Lionel discovers he is dying, he recruits Michael (Teddy Sears), a former student and the son of a friend, to come to the island to protect Liv, along with Lionel’s attorney (Frankie Faison), so she can continue to live the life she has created. One evening when Lionel’s voice fails during the reading, Liv takes the book and begins to read. The words of Shakespeare become the words by which she speaks to the world.

But Michael ignores Lionel’s wishes and seeks to cure Liv of her “communication disorder”. He ends up having her committed to a psychiatric hospital. There, she rebels. She will only speak lines of Shakespeare. In time, Michael will realize his attempt to “cure” her only brought harm.

Language is very much at the heart of this story. When Liv ceased talking, it might have been interpreted as leaving the world. Yet, she had friends and people who loved her on the island. When she chooses Shakespeare as her new language, that is not just convenient language, but it invokes a different world—one that other people may not value as she does.

To use a line from Hamlet, “Aye, there’s the rub.” For those who want Liv to fit the patterns of their own world, she seems to be pathological. That is a category they understand. But perhaps their insistence of conformity is a pathology in itself. Michael discovers that Liv does not need to become like others; he needs to find the truth of her understanding of the world. She does not need to be cured. She needs to be accepted and encouraged in her life.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds ….” The medical staff in the hospital represent the forces that want to conform all things to the world. But we should realize that many parts of the life of faith require a different understanding of the world. And sometimes even our language manifests that difference. For example, we call the day in which Jesus was executed “Good Friday”. Where the world sees failure, we see triumph.

That different attitude also leads us to see the world differently than others. We see other people as children of God, and thus our family. We see God’s creation as a great gift, so we have a great responsibility to care for it. We believe that weakness can be more powerful than strength. There may be a certain amount of pathology to faith.

Liv’s world was something that Michael needed to appreciate for his own happiness. Perhaps that is how our faith will bring transformation not just to ourselves, but to the world that has conformed to its own pathology.

The Sounding is available on Apple TV.

Photos courtesy of Giant Pictures.

Filed Under: AppleTV+, Film, Reviews Tagged With: language, Psychology, Shakespeare

Why I Love (and Fear) Jordan Peterson & Russell Brand

August 22, 2018 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment

Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand

tldr version

Jordan Peterson
and Russell Brand
both see a
current crisis
and both see it as
primarily “spiritual”

however, for each,
there are issues
when it comes to how
*truth*
and “spirituality” relate

and how they relate
is vital

bit longer version

fanboying

i love me some
Peterson and Brand

always generally dug
Brand’s flicks
and standup,
and have been a
fan of his podcast/YouTube
for a year plus

(fun fact:
the pic above is
from once when
Peterson went
on said podcast;
and don’t they look
smashing together?
🙂 )

Peterson came to
my attention
more gradually,
but then like a
hurricane recently –
seriously:
give him a Google
and marvel at the
moment he’s been having

i have Recovery and
12 Rules for Life
on my bedside table
(along with some more
explicitly Christiany books
and a tablet, upon which
i theoretically read,
but mainly just
obsess over guitar gear
i don’t really need)

both are excellent texts
and both feel
supremely plugged in
to a zeitgeisty sense
that something’s amiss,
in general,
with ppl rn

(i agree)

both also,
and both men
in their public lives,
propose something
like a
spiritual cause
for this
“something amiss” –
what might be called a
“spiritual crisis of meaning”
stemming from
God
(or something like God;
more on this later)
no longer holding
significant sway
for so many

(i agree for sure)

caveating

please note here
that these gentlemen
are obv far more complex
than i’m making
them seem, as is
this whole topic
(and i’m not
even addressing
their politics);
i’m attempting to
essentialize here;
i considered deep diving,
but am refraining
for the sake of brevity
and also because i’m
kind of lazy

in any case, here are
some decent articles
related to this post;
go ahead and Google –
there’s plenty more:

“Jordan Peterson vs. Russell Brand”

“The religious hunger that drives Jordan Peterson’s fandom”

“Is Dr. Jordan Peterson A Gateway Drug to Christianity, Or Just A Highbrow Joel Osteen?”

here are two of my own,
also related:

“Get Re-Enchanted: Stranger Things 2, Pop Culture & God”

“What IT Means (and How *Any* Good Story “Means”)”

problematizing

but here’s the problem:
as much as i *love*
Peterson and Brand’s
respective approaches
to the significance
of the spiritual,
i *fear* that
neither approaches
*truth* sufficiently

what do i mean?

well, with Brand,
the issue appears to be
lack of specificity –
many manifestations
of spirituality
might address the
problems he sees
(note that his book
is based on the 12-steps,
which speaks of “God,
as we understand him”)

and while this is
well and good to a point,
of course,
in the end,
truth commonly understood
is *specific* and *exclusive*
by its nature,
and not addressing this,
it seems to me,
is a problem

for Peterson,
the issue is confusing
*truth*
with something like
“what works”

he tells us to live by a
certain ethic
and seek a certain meaning
grounded in
certain Jungian archetypes,
not because it is true
or because the
archetypes are –
at least not in
the usual
historical/correspondence
way generally meant –
but because it
just happens to reflect
how things have gone
re: humans
when it comes to
our psychology
from an
evolutionary perspective;
it is what is and
therefore what “works”
and therefore “true”

again, all well and good
to attach some
functionality to truth,
of course,
perhaps,
but conflating the two,
it seems to me,
is a problem

also, this is why
Peterson kind of
dodges/ducks/complicates
the question he’s
often asked:
“do you believe in God;”
he may or may not,
but he definitely
does not think of
that question primarily
as it relates to *truth*
commonly understood

finning

and so:
when it comes to
Peterson and Brand,
i love them,
but i also fear them

i find them both
engaging and articulate
and brilliant, etc.,
and *correct;*
but, concerningly,
on this point,
only to a point

i want people to
hear their message(s) –
i know good can come
of it –
but i fear ill may too

i see them as
important,
*prophetic* even
in this current moment –
both have
cut through the mix
in a way that’s so
unusual anymore,
given the noise –
but probably only
“part way down the path”
to the true destination
they both seem to
have glimpsed
(or, better,
which has glimpsed them):

not God
“as we understand him,”
not a “God” that
simply works,
but the *true* God

the true God
as He really is

 

Filed Under: Books, Current Events, Editorial, OtherFish Tagged With: 12 rules for life, 12 step, alt right, archetype, books, Canada, Christian, God, jordan peterson, jung, meaning, modern, politics, professor, Psychology, recovery, religion, russell brand, social justice warrior, spiritual, twelve step

Three Identical Stangers – Human Interest Story Turns Dark

July 28, 2018 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

“I don’t know whether this will be great or terrible.”

Sometimes we are fascinated by a story. But then there is the story that makes the story even more amazing. That is the case with Three Identical Strangers. It begins as a human interest story that captured a good deal of media attention in the 1980s. But as the film progresses, it reveals an increasingly darker story behind the story.

It begins when David Kellman went off to college. When he arrives everyone is amazingly friendly, although they keep calling him Eddy. It turned out that he looked exactly like a student who was there the year before, Eddy Galland. Soon, the two connect and discover they had the same birthdate and were both adopted through the same agency. The long-lost brothers story made the papers. When Robert Sharan saw pictures in the paper, he saw two copies of himself. Soon, the triplets who had been separated at birth were making the rounds of TV talk shows and were the toast of New York City. They moved in together and eventually went into business together with a restaurant. Yes, an amazing story.

But what about the story behind them being separated at birth? The three sets of parents were upset that they didn’t know there were others. Why hadn’t they had the chance to let the boys be together? Why didn’t the agency tell them all about these babies they adopted? Now the film begins to peel back layers of the story to reveal a darker manipulation that was going on, unknown to the families involved. There are people involved here who have been making use of and taking advantage of these children for years.

For the most part, the story is told by David and Bobby (Eddy died in 1995), with some input from family and friends. That makes this a personal story. That is important because as the film turns darker, it could be easy to step back and only see issues instead of the people whose lives were affected. And there are ample issues to be considered: nature/nurture, psychological and academic ethics, mental illness.

The film leaves viewers with unanswered questions, in part because there is a great deal of information that has been sealed. Even though we meet some people who were involved with what was going on behind the story, they only have limited information based on their particular involvement, as opposed to the overarching plan. There are also comments that refer to some things that may be too personal for the people involved to want to speak of on camera.

Because the film also deals with the roles of nature and nurture in determining who we become, it may also raise questions in viewers about how they came to become who they are. How much of our lives are we in control of and how much is set in our genetic make-up? This film points to some of the complexities of our lives by looking into the complexities of these three lives that seem so similar.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: documentary, ethics, nature vs nurture, Psychology, sociology, triplets

Mars Ep. 5 – The Importance of Community

December 12, 2016 by J. Alan Sharrer Leave a Comment

(photo credit: National Geographic/Robert Viglasky)
(photo credit: National Geographic/Robert Viglasky)

The area I live in is known for occasional dust storms that are more of a nuisance than anything, blowing tumbleweeds across the highway and make driving a bit of a challenge.  However, we had a dust storm two years ago that literally scared me. The winds whipped with such frenzy that the dust in the air caused the sun to completely disappear.  As a result, the sky went pitch black and visibility was reduced to zero.  The conditions continued for over an hour, causing my commute home to become a white-knuckle affair.

As a result of that dust storm, I cannot imagine being in the situation our group of intrepid explorers face in the penultimate episode of Mars (Monday, 9 PM/8CT, National Geographic). Recall that at the end of the fourth episode, three of the original crew members stare at an incredibly large dust storm spewing lightning.  This storm has dragged on for eight weeks and isn’t close to subsiding.  As a result, any activity outside the complex is prohibited.  And since the nuclear reactor was not put back online before the storm started, battery power is the only thing running the place (the solar arrays are covered with dust and are useless). That’s an awfully precarious scenario to be in. Power has to be rationed, causing the plants in the greenhouse to wither and die, much to the chagrin of Dr. Paul Richardson (John Light), who has changed significantly as a result of the trip.  He’s incredibly distant and crew doctor Amélie Durand (Clementine Poidatz) senses a psychological issue is the problem. His drawings, however, may tell a different story.

(photo credit: National Geographic Channels/Robert Viglasky)
(photo credit: National Geographic Channels/Robert Viglasky)

The focus of this episode of Mars centers on why a psychological balance in space life is important.  It’s not as easy as one might think. Going outside isn’t always a possibility. Astronauts may not see the sun for months at a time. If a person gets upset with someone, they can’t deal with the issue(s) by simply walking away. Space life is, in many ways, like being in prison, only with (hopefully) nicer individuals to deal with. There is a severe toll placed not only on the human body, but the mind as well. An example from Russia is cited, where a six-member crew was placed in a sealed environment for 520 days; only two of the six managed to stay psychologically stable for the entire time period.  Hollywood may glamorize space, but it’s not as much fun as one might think.

Yet at the same time, community is of the utmost importance.  People have to learn how to get along, how to take care of each other, how to live life together. Loners are prime candidates for causing problems to themselves and others.  It reminds me quite a bit of the early church after Jesus’ resurrection. The Bible says, “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people” (Acts 2:44-47 NASB).  Taking care of each other is important in life, and the sooner we realize that, the better off we’ll be as a collective whole.  It allows us an opportunity to put Jesus’ words into action in tangible ways people can see and react to (the story in Acts notes that as a result of their actions, God added to the believer’s numbers daily).

Will the colony on Mars survive the storm (and each other)?  Will the powers-that-be on Earth pull the plug on the whole mission?  Will there be a surprise none of us saw coming?  Only one episode remains to answer all of these questions . . .

Filed Under: Current Events, Reviews, Television Tagged With: Acts, Astronauts, Bible, Clémentine Poidatz, community, Dust Storms, Earth, God, Hollywood, Jesus, John Light, Loneliness, Mars, National Geographic, Oliver, Psychology

Primary Sidebar

THE SF NEWS

Get a special look, just for you.

sf podcast

Hot Off the Press

  • 7.17 Culture and Carnage in GODZILLA VS. KONG
  • Held: Stuck in a Marriage You Can’t Get Out Of
  • My True Fairytale – With Superpowers?
  • The Last Right – Acts of Grace
  • O Canada! Telefilm Canada launches new site devoted to Canadian film
Find tickets and showtimes on Fandango.

where faith and film are intertwined

film and television carry stories which remind us of the stories God has woven since the beginning of time. come with us on a journey to see where faith and film are intertwined.

Footer

ScreenFish Articles

7.17 Culture and Carnage in GODZILLA VS. KONG

Held: Stuck in a Marriage You Can’t Get Out Of

  • About ScreenFish
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 · ScreenFish.net · Built by Aaron Lee