See films in a different way

african painters

http://africanpainters.blogspot.com/

Tanzania

Interesting thought from Rebecca in this post: here.

We were in class making clocks. Okay, so you need a circle to make a clock, no probs, there are compasses for such things, well that is if you are in a school in the West. We don’t have compasses so I found round things for the student teachers to trace around. They weren’t really big enough but I thought we could make do.

Well to save myself some embarrassment I really should have asked the students for their ideas first because after I had handed out the things for them to trace and given a detailed explanation of the problem they set to work – completely ignoring everything I had said.

I watched as they were folding paper. Hummm, I didn’t remember talking about using folded paper, but then I saw it. Did you know that if you fold a piece of paper several times, put a hole in either end and then use one pencil as the centre point of the circle in one hole and the other pencil to draw in the other hole you can move the folded paper and make a perfect circle? Well I didn’t. I was quite impressed though and told them so, to which they all laughed, not being able to believe I didn’t know that.

To make it worse I came home and told Patrick all about what I learned today. Well he listened patiently and then laughed. I asked why he was laughing and he answered by telling me about another 5 ways one could draw a circle with no compass or model to trace.

It is quite a clever little trick, really.
It kind of talks to what I mentioned after Christmas:

It's so interesting, living here in Africa for a short time to see the good and bad effects of westernism. In some ways it is fantastic to see an attempt to advance the education system of Tanz, and a goal to push the millions of students to a high level of education, and to increase the number of children able to attend High-school (a tiny amount at the moment). But, of course, it is also a danger as we will probably (unknowingly) impart some unhelpful parts of our culture onto them if we aren't not careful. - Dec 26

Its a great privilege to still be doing some work for The Joshua Foundation via the internet while here in New Zealand, as well. I have been working on some sponsorship cards for them, and doing other little graphic design bits.

Ascapapa

I haven't had much time at all on my hands these past few weeks. I am heading in towards the end of my Bachelor of Graphic Design, so the pressure is really on, plus the fact that I have had major issues with my computer the last week to keep me very busy.

A friend and I were talking about escapism the other day. He is interested in escapism in the area of computer games. He was thinking that because people in the world aren't happy, they use certain computer games to escape this world and enter another, where you can be whomever you want, and forget about this life for a moment. He knows people who literally work eat and play computer games. That is their life. He himself finds escapism through computer games an important part of his life, which help him maintain his sanity.
I heard someone say once, in an old recording somewhere online, (it was possibly Billy Graham) that escapism isn't a bad thing. In fact it seems to be a important part of the lives of all humans. We watch movies, read books, listen to music, play computer games, to take our minds off reality, amongst other thing. It can become a negative thing, especially when taken to the extreme. And what does escapism tell us about ourselves? This is a fundamental question which, I believe, points us towards the eternal.

Interesting thought

‘Why don’t you change these stones into bread. Because if you change these stones into bread the whole world will follow you.’

Satan makes a fallacious assumption. The fallacious assumption he makes is that if God would be our constant miracle maker materially, and satisfy all our intellectual needs, the whole world would turn and follow him. Time and Time again in history we learn that some of the most vile indecencies and criminal acts have not come from men and women whose stomachs were empty, but men and women whose stomachs were full. Learning and understanding, does not amount to goodness. See: Germany and the Holocaust.

Hobart Mauer
Prof at Harvard
‘For several decades we psychologists have looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus, and acclaimed our liberation from sin as epoch making, but at length have discovered that to be free from sin- that is to have the excuse of being sick, rather than sinful- is to court the danger of also becoming lost. This danger, I believe, is betoken by the wide spread interest in existentialism which we are presently witnessing. In becoming amoral, ethically neutral and free, we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood and identity, and with, neurotics themselves, find ourselves asking who am I, what is my deepest destiny, and what does living really mean.’

Read these after the sequence posted below this one

Here are some recent drawings I've been doing. I am planning/working towards my end of year exhibition at AUT for the finale of my degree, so I want to do the best work I can. These are basically explorations of technique and medium. They are mirrored on my online sketchbook at Conceptart

Movies

I receive a newletter which reviews recently released movies from a Christian perspective called Christianity Today Movies. It offers a good and contrasting perspective from most other critics and allows readers to decide if watching a particular movie is a) worth their time, b) worth their money, c) morally decent and a good movie to take your kids to.

They recently reviewed the movie Sex in the City and, predictably, received much enmity as a result for daring to review such a movie. Here is the gist of the responses and the editor’s response:

"How can any Christian who takes the Bible seriously want to watch (or review) Sex and the City?"

"Anyone who could actually find something redeeming in [Sex and the City] is too awfully familiar with the world."

"Sex and the City is a pornographic film. You should either abandon your stated Christian aims and mission statement, or stop condoning pornography."

"Is this really Christianity Today??? Are you guys really serious about Jesus, the Bible, holiness, and biblical truth?"

And so went some of the letters we received in response to last week's review of Sex and the City. (There were a bunch of positive letters too, so please check them out as well.)

We totally understand why many people would have no desire to see Sex and the City, choosing to avoid it because of its portrayals of pre- and extra-marital sex and rampant materialism. I myself have no desire to see it, mostly for those reasons.

But to slam us for reviewing the film makes no sense. Our mission statement is to help readers make discerning choices about movies—not to make the choices for people. Our review clearly warned readers of the sinful behavior in the movie, while also noting some of its redeeming factors—like the universal longing for love and companionship, what it means to be a true friend, and more.

But some folks believe that when it comes to a movie like Sex and the City, there should be no choice—they've decided that no one should see it, period ... at least no one who calls themselves a Christian. They think we should essentially have a three-word review: "Don't watch it!" But that's not what we're about. We trust our readers to make their own decisions; we won't make those decisions for anyone.

But here's another reason for reviewing SATC and other uncomfortable films: It's good to sometimes enter into the minds and worldviews of others, even of those we completely disagree with. Occasionally, it can even be helpful to see what the world looks like through the eyes of the depraved.

Do those words make you uncomfortable? Or angry? Don't blame me, then. Blame C.S. Lewis, because they're essentially his words.

In his book, An Experiment in Criticism, Lewis writes, "We therefore delight to enter into other men's beliefs ... even though we think them untrue. And into their passions, though we think them depraved ... And also into their imaginations, though they lack all realism of content."

Lewis is writing mostly in the context of reading books and poetry, but his thoughts on criticism apply just as well to film—or any art form, for that matter. He continues: "This must not be understood as if I were making the literature of power once more into a department which existed to gratify our rational curiosity about other people's psychology. It is not a question of knowing (in that sense) at all. It is connaître not savoir; it is erleben; we become these other selves. Not only nor chiefly in order to see what they are like but in order to see what they see, to occupy, for a while, their seat in the great theatre, to use their spectacles and be made free of whatever insights, joys, terrors, wonders, or merriment those spectacles reveal ...

"This, so far as I can see, is the specific value or good of literature considered as Logos; it admits us to experiences other than our own. ... Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors." (Or, I might add, movie directors.) "We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less of a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. ... In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do."

That, dear readers, is why we review "objectionable" movies. Because our eyes "are not enough for me." We will "see through the eyes of others" and yet "remain" ourselves. It's our own "experiment in criticism." If that kind of thinking is good enough for C.S. Lewis, it's certainly good enough for us.

I find the Editor, Mark Moring, makes a good point- backed up with Lewis’ words, a great point.

Thus said, I am aware we need to be aware of what we feed our eyes. The visual has become almost all powerful- it can overpower our reason and beliefs with out us noticing. Lewis is writing about a different medium, which has lost a lot of power in popular culture in the last fifty years, but is still significant.

book list

Reading list of 2008 as of today.

1. The Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
2. Collected stories by Katherine Mansfield
3. Empire of the sun by J G Ballard
4. Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
5. Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene
6. Waking the dead by John Elderedge
7. Beasts by Carol Joyce Oats
8. War fever by J G Ballard
9. The Orchid Keeper by Cormac McCarthy
10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol
11. The New Weird edited by Jeff Vandermeer
12. All the pretty horses by Cormac McCarthy
13. The Club of Queer Trades by G K Chesterton
14. Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb
15. The Nigger and the Narcissus by Joseph Conrad
16. The book of the New Sun: Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
17. Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks
18. Excession by Iain M Banks
19. Screwtape proposes a toast by C S Lewis
20. Sons of Heaven by Lawrence Chen
21. Atonement by Iain McEwan
22. A House for Mr. Biswas by V S Naipaul

~22 books in aprox 6 months.....pretty good ones as well, most of them anyway. Some, like Beasts by Oats, Excession by Banks, were possibly not worth the time, but otherwise, all the books are quite recommended.