Hollywood producers know the power movies have to influence perceptions and behaviour. Mark Banks has turned his love of films into web site to help Catholics find movies that will nourish their faith and provide new insights.

Launched earlier this year, soulfoodcinema.com is the first Catholic web site in the UK exclusively devoted to films.  Amongst other things, it contains reviews, details of the latest releases, a list of the top 75 family films and a forum to share ideas.

It also uses a traffic light system to categorise films.  Those that are highly recommended have a green light, those recommended but with a note of caution an amber light and those not recommended a red one.

A number of similar sites have been going in the US for several years. Movieguide.org and hollywoodjesus.com are probably two of the best known.

Thirty-year-old Mark, from Wallington in Surrey, says that the idea for a movie web site came to him a couple of years ago.  

‘I was brought up watching musicals, so I had a good appreciation of films.  But I think the fascination with movies really came in my final year at university.

‘I was watching Good Will Hunting and found that I related to the main character.  He was cynical, intelligent, very defensive, and with an eye for the ladies.

‘There was a scene at the end of the film when he sees a therapist there is a breakthrough with him. It really struck a chord with me that I wasn’t expecting.

‘This made me realise the power of movies, that something could touch your soul in this way without you wanting it to do so.’

But back then, Mark confesses that he gave very little thought to his soul.  He was caught up in an obsession with bodybuilding.

‘Up until my final year at university I had been heavily involved in bodybuilding. It was really my life and religion.  I lived and breathed it,’ he says.

He admits that during the eight years he spent working out in the gym he regularly took steroids and supplements

‘I was quite superficial at that time. There was an element of vanity in it. And there was an element of perfectionism in it.’

Pumping iron meant that he had no trouble meeting women, he reveals.  But he adds that he felt many were only interested in him because of his physique. ‘This made me feel insecure.  And I began to ask: what do people actually like me for?’

‘Bodybuilding is also quite an addictive sport.  Every bodybuilder will have their goal.  Mine was two hundred pounds with seven per cent of body fat.’

Although he didn’t like to get involved in fights, he was aware that his physique gave him a certain physical presence when he was out in pubs and clubs. 

‘After I left bodybuilding and lost about two stone, it was hard to adjust to the fact that I no longer had this presence when I went out.’

He decided to quit bodybuilding after university, feeling that it no longer had any meaning for him.  But, as a result, he found that there was now a huge gap in his life.

After backpacking around the world for five months – ‘a real eye opener’ – and spending several months unemployed, he was offered a position as an economics research officer with Hampshire County Council, and moved to Winchester.

He discovered that his manager was a committed Anglican.  Mark was impressed by the way he lived out his Christian faith.  This and his experience working as a volunteer in a homeless centre led him to open the Bible.

His manager invited him to an ecumenical outreach event in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral.  Mark found himself moved by what he saw and heard and said a prayer.

‘I remember looking up afterwards and waiting for a bolt of lightening to come down. It didn’t happen, of course, but soon after that I started to see things in a different light.’

He says that up until then he’d only been a Sunday Catholic, ‘not knowing what it was really all about’.  His parents had been the same, he went on, until they got involved in charismatic renewal a few years ago.

Although Christianity failed to make much of an impact on him during his childhood, movies did, especially the old Hollywood musicals.

But in the days when the studios were turning out these movies and turning actors like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers into stars, the Church was sometimes unenthusiastic, seeing cinemas as places where morals were corrupted.

Today, the climate is very different, which is not to say that the Church doesn’t recognise that some movies present a message at odds with Christianity. For example, those with sexual and violent content, or those that reject the traditional understanding of the Christian story, such as The Last Temptation of Christ and The Da Vinci Code.

But there is recognition of the power for good some movies contain. In 1996 the Holy See marked the centenary of film by issuing its own list of the 45 best movies of the century.  This included Citizen Kane, Ben Hur and The Wizard of Oz.

Elsewhere, both the Italian and US Bishops’ Conference, for example, now have film commissions, which review many of the latest releases.  And in Calcutta in 2003 the archdiocese of Calcutta staged a film festival to celebrate Mother Teresa’s beatification.

Earlier this year, Mark was in Rome, where he met Monsignor Paul Tighe from the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

‘He gave me a lot of encouragement and also gave me some documents on ethics and the Internet. The main piece of advice he gave me was to try and build things locally.

‘There is an openness in the Church to films, whether it is fully aware of the real potential for influence, I’m not so sure.’

He has included his top 100 films on soulfoodcinema.com.  What was hardest about this, he explains, was not including films that he had once liked.

‘American Beauty was a case in point.  There are one or two truths in it that people will relate to.  But the are other things in the film that don’t help people. And it helped to bring about TV series such as Desperate Housewives.’

So what’s his favourite film?  ‘I’d have to list three, II Postino, Bella, and Life is Beautiful.

He says he is hoping to get some sponsorship for soulfoodcinema.com, and to also try his hand at screenwriting.

He has no doubts about the potential movies offer the Church.  ‘I think movies could unlock some doors in terms of people’s perceptions of Christianity and the battle for hearts and minds.’ 

www.soulfoodcinema.com

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