form versus content | pt 1

We're all a little different, but there's something kind of fantastic about that, isn't there?
~ Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox

As I’m wrapping up this book about Postman, I have to make sure an idea finds its own space…

Some blessed friends of ours recently did what only true friends do.
They watched a unique film that I shared was the piece of art that has impacted me most as a follower of Jesus.

Wes Anderson’s 2009 stop-motion flick based on Roald Dahl’s children classic, Fantastic Mr. Fox said to its viewers what few are prepared to say:
Listen to what I do with this art form, not what I say with it…

Most movies these days rely exhaustingly and heavily upon plot exposition and character dialogue to fill the viewer’s mind with the themes and emotions they intend (part of this is due to the “second screen” problem and part is due to enlightenment, materialist paradigms). They utilize load-bearing leads paid exorbitant amounts to express the cliches and motifs that run beneath their artistic trivialities.

This form of movie-watching indoctrination leads to the myth that a piece of art’s content carries its main themes, truths, and telos.

For most Christians today, that translates to a revulsion and stigma around works of art that contain whatever we deem uncomfortable. Sex, profanity, substance abuse, violence towards anyone but the “bad guys”, racism, injustice, people acting as they are not. These and more constitute what those who have a high view of Scripture are uncomfortable seeing portrayed in literature, film, and music. Christians eschew and criticize art they believe “glorifies” disagreeable behaviors and worldviews but never recognize the piece of art they hold most dear often has even more perverse and dark sensibilities. The old aphorism that “actions speak louder than words” is misapplied in a context it was never meant to see, that of art and aesthetic truths.

This film teaches that,

The at first invisible qualities of a movie are the things that work you over the most.
The medium is the message as one sage mused…

Very little of the time is Wes Anderson’s masterpiece beating you over the head with its message. Like all great artist he allows his medium, the score, visuals, cinematography, editing, and direction, to slowly work through the viewers soul as it asks questions and provokes thought.

The film doesn’t look like any other blockbuster in its genre.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline, and The Incredibles were all released the same year and contain characters that appear “different” because of their identities (superhero, magically-inclined kid, mad scientist). The charm of these movies, and the reason why they’re commercially successful, is in the way they make their characters “relatable.” The character of each is homogenized as they become sympathetic to the viewer. Their language, emotions, and self awareness all tend towards the broadly agreeable average to allow them to be understood by a greater number of people.

It’s a vital experience that,

The viewer, by design, comes away uncomfortable with the portrayal of its protagonists.
The jarring nature of the film’s choices creates a choice for the viewer…

I have to quote James Baldwin in full here to do this point justice:

The air of this time and place is so heavy with rhetoric, so thick with soothing lies, that one must really do great violence to language (or art), one must somehow disrupt the comforting beat in order to be heard. Obviously, one must dismiss any hopes one may ever have had of winning a popularity contest.
~ James Baldwin in “As Much Truth As One Can Bear” (with my parenthetical addition)

Part of the purpose of embedding a story of depth and meaning within a medium like stop-motion is to give the viewer pause. Similarly, creating complex animal characters makes the viewer expect one thing while getting another from the complexity and double-talk they engage in through a stilted script. And working within the confines of a classic short story gives the adaptation a familiar yet deeply unexpected tone.

All of this results in an artistic experience where,

These choices, as shared by the creators of the film itself, are deeply intentional.
Viewers must take or leave the nuance and life-reverberating consequences of encounter with the film…

And this idea brings us full force back to Postman…

// part 2…