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Life of Pi

Story, Lent and The Life of Pi

lifeofpiLast week I wrote about The Oscars and Lent. I wrote that these two phenomena share more in common than is usually suggested.  Today I want to move in for a closer look–at the stories themselves. If this annual cultural ritual in honor of story (The Oscars) is so telling of our culture’s condition, and if we, as critically thinking Christians, want to understand and thus impact our culture, it may do us some good to examine its favorite stories. The Life of Pi is one such story.  With four Academy Awards, The Life of Pi was the most glorified film of the year.

But why? And what might its success tell us about our culture? Furthermore, do these stories actually influence the way we think and act? And, finally, how do the answers to these three questions relate to Lent? [Read more…] about Story, Lent and The Life of Pi

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A Christian Reflection on The Oscars and Lent

oscars
The Oscars

On Sunday night more than 1,000,000,000 people participated in the cultural festival that is the 85th Oscar Awards Ceremony.  I can’t even begin to imagine the impact that Hollywood has on our culture’s development, and if there’s an opportune time to catch a glimpse of the dialectical conversation between the influence of the big screen and the values of our current culture, Sunday night’s celebration was it.

The first thing out of the mouth of the spokesman for the winning visual effects team of Life of Pi was this:

“The irony is not lost on any of us up here that, in a film whose central premise is to ask the audience what they believe is real or not real, most of what you see is—well—it’s fake.”

Fake or not, films have an incredibly powerful influence on the shape of our culture.  Directors are the modern day priests. Actors and actresses are our prophets.

The Oscars are, among other things, a celebration of story — the story of our culture.  [Read more…] about A Christian Reflection on The Oscars and Lent

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