SFC: And what do you see the role of Christians being in film industry? Do we have a duty to evangelise or just to make wholesome movies? Or both? Where does the balance lie?
RC: From what I can tell, Catholic/Christian Hollywood are kind of divided; there are some out there that think the only thing we should be doing is evangelising, whilst with other people they’re making films yet you wouldn’t even know they’re Catholic. But what do I think? - I don’t actually like Christian movies; I don’t think I’ve seen one that I like. In fact I don’t even know if it’s possible to evangelise with the movies. For example, take The Passion of the Christ, yes people were talking about Church, but in a way they kind of had to look into the Church with allegations of anti-Semitism etc.
SFC: The vibe I get with respect to that film is that you get people that have watched every under film under sun, yet they haven’t watched The Passion. And I think that’s because they know it’s well made, and they know it will present quite a challenge to them - to be confronted with the sacrifice that Jesus made for them. I think that’s one of the reasons it wasn’t nominated for some of the bigger Oscars; many of the Oscar voters just didn’t see it.
RC: Yeah I agree I was upset it didn’t get more Oscar nods; it was well made and it deserved some Oscars. Plus it made me cry too!
SFC: And how about films that aren’t made with the specific intention to evangelise, but films that are mainly religious in genre – I’m thinking of something like a film about the Fatima visions that Barbara Nicolosi has recently mentioned may get made?
RC: I think it’s good we make those movies, for example I’ve recently been watching (the 1986 original) Thérèse, which I like a lot. You see the thing is, if we don’t make those movies, no one else is going to! I think there’s a market for both though – both films in more of a parable form and other more direct films, for example Thérèse. See whilst I liked Thérèse, I recognise that there are others out there that wouldn’t like that. In fact I’m actually thinking about writing a screenplay about St. Pelagia, who was an actress infamous for making men crazy, but the film could possibly be about a modern day person working in the sex industry who then repents. The repentance doesn’t necessarily have to be the character running to church. A secular audience isn’t going to respond to that. But one day someone could show her some pure kindness, and it awakens her curiosity, her desire for something better for her life. It’s one story, just two different versions appealing to two different audiences, but ultimately trying to do the same thing.
SFC: Okay, wrapping up now, let’s go into a brief S.W.O.T (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, of where you see Catholic filmmakers and Catholic filmmaking at this present time.
RC: Hmm, okay, well strengths… We have literally created our own Catholic film industry. It’s still small, but it’s growing. I’ve sort of made it my business to keep track of the productions of all the companies run by Catholics that I know of. What I see is that there are some very talented people going the indie film route, meaning making small films on a shoestring budget and then taking their pieces to the festival circuit to hopefully pick up distribution. To me that’s a great strength - the fact that people are not waiting for permission or acceptance to make quality films. I like what has been going on at places like Origin Entertainment – I’d like to get an internship there actually.
Also I’m a big Grassroots Films groupie; I really hope they switch to doing some narratives as well as documentaries. There seem to be a lot of companies popping up, but they tend to be doing media stuff and not necessarily feature-length narratives though. I also went on a visit to John Paul the Great Catholic University recently and there are a lot of people over there specifically interested in the movies, so I’m keeping my eyes on those guys also! It’s a very exciting time to be Catholic in this business. There are a number of people my age making good stuff, so I see a lot of potential for the next generation of Catholic filmmaking.
RC: Weaknesses… I think presenting ourselves and making ourselves look gimmicky is a potential weakness – making it seem like it’s about evangelisation first, and not art. When I was at a recent media conference, one of the speakers mentioned what John Paul II had said about beauty saving the world. And sometimes we make good material but we tend to mess it up by trying too hard to get people back into church. I think we need to make beautiful productions first, and then the rest will follow. Bad art is never okay, and I think we do a disservice to the message if it is packaged without care.
RC: Opportunities… Well with the internet now people are really starting to connect with each other, for example I went to the Cinema Vita Film Festival last year and now I’m helping them to prepare for next year’s event. Also websites like Gloriatv and St Paul’s tube – where people are beginning to help each other out. I’d also love to see more Catholic film school blogs – I think I’m pretty much alone in that at the moment.
What we really need though is a couple of people with plenty of money lying around that are willing to make a couple of good scripts! Actually, Steve McEveety has now split off from the company he formed with Mel Gibson and he’s talking about making a production of the book ‘Left to tell’ – I’m just about to read that book. I had planned to write an adaptation of that if I liked the book, but then I was watching EWTN and heard that Steve mentioned it, and I was like ‘urgh!’
We also have to learn to be more discerning. I think it’s important for all people to know how to interpret the media. You see even if you turn off bad channels there’s still a good chance that your kids will catch a Victoria Secret commercial or something, and the thing is chastity is not that hard unless you make it hard! And unfortunately we do that with all the media we have. When I had one of my third or fourth little conversions, I started to reform the stuff I listened to, reform the stuff I watched, and reform the stuff I was wearing, and that really does help. But the thing is people don’t necessarily realise that, so we have to teach people to be discerning, because you are what you eat basically.
RC: Threats… I know if I’m out of whack with God, if I haven’t been to confession etc, I know I can’t write. So ultimately I think keeping your own spirituality in check is what’s going to keep a lid on the threats. If God wants it to happen, the devil will try and mess it up. I’m thinking of getting a Spiritual director to talk about this kind of stuff, which leads me into the next threat: formation. Catholic schools and universities need to get on the ball with regard to raising another generation of artists. This has been a reoccurring theme in my blog - my struggle to learn how to stay Catholic in an industry that hates religion. (continued on next page...)
And within a minute of Rebecca saying that, having been fine for the past hour, our London to San Diego Skype connection goes down.
