A review of a film is a distinct genre in our culture. It is one which has fascinated me for years; in facct, I often find that watching how a critic goes about evaluating a film is more interesting than the film itself. It occurs to me that the skills displayed in an intelligent review are ones a preacher needs. To wit:
1) A film review mixes analysis and engagement in a way few other genres do. One both reflects on what one is seeing and is caught up with what one is seeing (either delightedly or disgustedly). A good review will reflect and observe, and also communicate the reviewer's reaction to a film. It will give you a little taste of what it's like to see the movie - or, at least, what is was like for the reviewer. In a positive review, the critic will enthuse over something, render it attractive, even while they are thinking deeply about it.
While preachers obviously don't evaluate the text the way a critic does, they must think deeply and reflect and observe - and also rejoice. They must be caught up in what the text is talking about. The sermon should not just point to something else; it should reify, re-present, what the text is talking about.
2) A good review does more than say whether a movie is good or bad. It deciphers the code internal to the movie. It asks, How is this film prompting me to interpret what it is showing me? (I mean this hermeneutically, not morally - although obviously it is necessary to ask about the morality of a movie in a way very similar to this question, i.e., how is the movie prompting me to respond to what it is showing me in an emotional way? Is it prompting me to enjoy things I shouldn't?) In other words, there is a kind of "semiotics" to film criticism. There is a hermeneutic internal to the film itself; a review picks on this, expresses it, and then evaluates it. Roger Ebert once said he reviews movies not according to what he thinks a movie should be, but according to what the movie itself is trying to be - that's the evaluative standard. (And so he gave the Mel Gisbon Jesus movie four stars.)
Pastors have to do something similar. There is a hermeneutic intrinsic to the text, which must be attended to, before the text can be applied to us, who are not its original audience. The question is more than, How do I make sense of this? It is, How is the biblical text prompting me to make sense of what it is telling me? If we do not ask the prior question, we will never be brought out of ourselves before the text; we will fit it into our otherwise undisturbed lives, and thus never hear it.
If you want some examples, get any book by Pauline Kael, a reviewer for the New Yorker for many years, and one of the most muscular, vivid rhetoriticians I've ever read. Ever. Or check slantmagazine.com: as intelligent and interesting writing on film as I've come across (see two excellent examples here and here).
1) A film review mixes analysis and engagement in a way few other genres do. One both reflects on what one is seeing and is caught up with what one is seeing (either delightedly or disgustedly). A good review will reflect and observe, and also communicate the reviewer's reaction to a film. It will give you a little taste of what it's like to see the movie - or, at least, what is was like for the reviewer. In a positive review, the critic will enthuse over something, render it attractive, even while they are thinking deeply about it.
While preachers obviously don't evaluate the text the way a critic does, they must think deeply and reflect and observe - and also rejoice. They must be caught up in what the text is talking about. The sermon should not just point to something else; it should reify, re-present, what the text is talking about.
2) A good review does more than say whether a movie is good or bad. It deciphers the code internal to the movie. It asks, How is this film prompting me to interpret what it is showing me? (I mean this hermeneutically, not morally - although obviously it is necessary to ask about the morality of a movie in a way very similar to this question, i.e., how is the movie prompting me to respond to what it is showing me in an emotional way? Is it prompting me to enjoy things I shouldn't?) In other words, there is a kind of "semiotics" to film criticism. There is a hermeneutic internal to the film itself; a review picks on this, expresses it, and then evaluates it. Roger Ebert once said he reviews movies not according to what he thinks a movie should be, but according to what the movie itself is trying to be - that's the evaluative standard. (And so he gave the Mel Gisbon Jesus movie four stars.)
Pastors have to do something similar. There is a hermeneutic intrinsic to the text, which must be attended to, before the text can be applied to us, who are not its original audience. The question is more than, How do I make sense of this? It is, How is the biblical text prompting me to make sense of what it is telling me? If we do not ask the prior question, we will never be brought out of ourselves before the text; we will fit it into our otherwise undisturbed lives, and thus never hear it.
If you want some examples, get any book by Pauline Kael, a reviewer for the New Yorker for many years, and one of the most muscular, vivid rhetoriticians I've ever read. Ever. Or check slantmagazine.com: as intelligent and interesting writing on film as I've come across (see two excellent examples here and here).
5 comments:
Eric! I think this is very insightful and illustrative. Into this come questions about a preacher's authority and the role of the Spirit and the congregation, but it seems to me if I had more time or brainpower right now I might be able to see further in-roads to those topics in the illustration itself. Brilliant stuff.
Jon, thank you for commenting. Yes, there is a good deal more to say; and it is only an analogy - and every analogy becomes distortive if pushed too far. I'd very much like to hear from you on this, though.
One thing that struck me is that this analogy, for good or bad, sort of casts preaching in the genre of reader-response rather than, say, authoritative proclamation or prophecy of the Word of God for congregation. I'm torn on which one to lean towards. I guess I sort of wish preaching were the latter but tend to think it is more often the former. If it is a kind of reader-response then it is the reader-response of the designated and hopefully called shepherd of a community, and as such it carries a certain weight to it. And as such it seems like we will get the weight behind it better if we enter into it with the mindset your analogy suggests. So I like it.
This feels like it could be a great conversation. That's a start anyway.
Particularly helpful is the way that you describe the sermon/review's mixture of "analysis and engagement", and the intent of pointing to the fuller picture rather than rendering it innocuous by distillation.
A reviewer of a bad movie will try to save you the trouble of seeing it, of course. But a reviewer of a good movie will have you halfway out the door to get in line at the cinema, and yet will have found a way not to spoil it but instead, like you said in the second point, to prepare you to see it well.
Thanks, Jon. Those are intelligent comments. Just about every analogy for preaching fails, right? Or, at least, hides as much as it reveals? Preaching really is one of a kind. No other kind of discourse is quite like it.
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