A Response to Sheila Nayar's "The Sacred & the Cinema"

A Response to Sheila Nayar's "The Sacred and the Cinema: Reconfiguring the 'Genuinely' Religious Film" 

In chapter two of her book, Nayar says the following: "no other art form might seem less suited than film to express the transcendent" (36). She continues, saying: "film's general fealty to narrative and realism, compounded by its high cost of its apparatus, not to mention, its reliance on technology, would seem to dictate against the pure, individual expression of the 'holy' that one can find in painting, music, or literature" (36). 

I completely disagree, and I feel like this class has demonstrated the complete opposite! As we watched the films together in class, each of us were able to have our own unique experience with the film, and we each interpreted it in both similar and different ways. As we discussed the films at the end of class, it was clear that we had been able to draw religious themes out of the films and find "expressions of the holy" throughout. 

In a previous blog I mentioned the role of film as Midrash, and I stand by that! Film helps us to draw connections between the issues of our culture and the steadfast truths and messages of the Bible. 

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