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Part IV in the Series “Movies and the Values War.” Click here for the first article, here for the second, and here for part III.

If you’ve been to more than a dozen movies in the past few months I know what you said at least once – one of three things.

. It was a pretty good movie except for those two terrible scenes, OR
. How do movies like that ever get made in the first place? OR
. I could come up with a better story than that!

A lot of you just stay home and lament, “There is nothing worth seeing at the movies anymore.”  If you love movies as much as I do you keep going and looking and hoping. You share my frustration over getting ambushed over and over again. 

I’m not talking about R-rated movies. We expect to get assaulted if we step across that line. You can’t call willful risk an ambush. If we go into the pass having been warned there are bandits hiding in the rocks who want to steal our souls – well, we get what we deserve I guess.

But I am talking PG-13, PG and even G!  Last night a young father was lamenting the fact that all three G-rated animated films to which he took his little kids this summer included flatulence as “humor.” It may not be an issue of value but it is certainly an issue of class. And we wonder why the dignified fringe of culture is frayed and falling apart.

Movies are one of the most powerful influences in our culture.  Much of our perception about people, places and ideas comes from the movies. Like it or not, what happens at the movies influences our culture our lives and the lives of our kids and grandkids in significant ways.

We all love those great movies that keep us on the edge of our seat and make us laugh and cry and leave us cheering for the hero with a lump in our throat – the kind of movies that celebrate courage and conscience, respect women, family and fidelity.  There are far too few of these films anymore that don’t ambush our values somewhere along the way.

Even the “good movies” all seem to have those “two or three inappropriate to awful scenes or obligatory character” that ruin it – and rarely important to the story.

Special effects may be getting bigger, but virtues and values in most movies have gone missing altogether.  We need to do something about it.

We have a bold and workable plan to do just that – Audience Alliance Motion Picture Studios (AAMPS) . I keep talking about it. We promised an announcement November 17.  The buzz began, the word went out and the positive response from a few top producers in Hollywood prompted us to retool our plans just a bit. Some seasoned pros in the main-stream movie business are likewise sick and tired of Hollywood’s R-rated agenda and would love to make some great movies their kids can watch.

Is it possible to infuse great stories with the virtues and values of godliness – and all that that implies – without depreciating the premise the power or entertainment value? I asked that question in Write the Truth,  (See Part II )

The answer is absolutely!  For some writers and directors it may require a serious paradigm shift. From seeing man as animal to man as trailing clouds of glory. From envisioning man as beast to man as god in embryo. But I am convinced that using a matrix of virtues and values to evaluate a story, measure a theme or re-define a character can significantly enhance a motion picture and ultimately provide a more positive, richer and more satisfying experience for all the audience. (AAMPS matrix of virtues and values)

Consider Violence

The core of all conflict has seeds in the cosmic war of heaven. The struggle between good and evil is truly universal. Conflict is the essence of drama. Struggle demands action and action can turn violent.

The issue becomes one of how to depict conflict and violence, not whether it belongs in a story. When considered through a lens of values, the depiction is no longer seen in graphic detail and the splatter of blood but as reactive horror on the faces of the witnesses. The audience will carry the story in their imaginations without the graphic details. 

I know it is possible. I have done it. I filmed the fierce and bloody battle of the Alamo. I recreated the terrible conflicts of the Civil War.  Both depicted violence, conflict, injury and death. Either film is suitable for a general audience.

What a filmmaker believes about who and what man is makes a significant difference in how he thinks about life, how he treats death, and the way he depicts conflict and violence when it is essential to the story. Stories of great conflict can be told without gory special effects and graphic images on screen.

There are challenges, of course. The depiction of war is not easily handled in ways that protect the audience from disturbing images without minimizing the suffering and sacrifice that may be crucial to the story. Mormons often quip – nervously and humorously, of course – that the horrific atrocities and battles of great slaughter reported in the Book of Mormon [Moroni 9:8-10] would require an R-rated movie if accurately depicted on the screen. Even that great conflict can be depicted without ambushing the audience and elevated by the imposition of virtues and values – but that is a discussion for another day.

The question in the portrayal of violence must always be the integrity of the story versus gratuitous images for some other purpose. Being ambushed at the movies is most often the filmmakers going beyond the mark and far beyond what is essential for the audience to “get it.”   Clint Eastwood’s decision to roll a severed head across the beach in Flag of Our Fathers is the perfect example of way beyond the mark.  No one needed that image to “get it.” 

The discussion over violence in films and its impact on the audience will rage on. There are several particularly violent films at theaters as we speak. Anne Thompson, writing in the Hollywood Reporter, asks the pertinent question, “Where is the line between violent and too violent?”

The debate between authentic versus contrived and accurate versus gratuitous finds esoteric ears in Hollywood, while 70% of mainstream America will stay away from these movies altogether. Apocalypto, Blood Diamond, and Flag of our Fathers have audiences covering their eyes and feeling ambushed by even more gore and violence than they agreed to going in, but Happy Feet is making all the money. Why doesn’t Hollywood get that? 

Martin Scorsese is being touted for an Oscar as “American Cinema’s most vigorous classicist” for directing his absolutely worthless – and violent as always – new film, Departed, which arrived in theaters this fall on the magic carpet of Hollywood hype.  It is violent, amoral, and populated by characters we just can’t ever quite care about. They all get killed in the end anyway. So what?  

As a voting member of the Academy, I get these movies sent to me on DVD by the studios. Departed is now in the trash compactor. While I argue that most stories can be told in ways that endow them with value and the characters who populate the tale with real virtue, it has to be said that there are some stories that just don’t deserve to be told.

It is movies like Departed and the other 60% of Hollywood’s R-rated movies that truly remind us of the chasm between Mainstream Hollywood and Main Street America.  This film is what we hate about Hollywood. Welcome to the religion of the primordial slime. Man is an animal. There is no god.

Martin Scorsese has managed to make an incredibly well crafted, well-photographed and well-acted movie that has zero redeeming social value. This movie was not made for that 70% of the audience who say Hollywood is out of touch with their values. It is packing theater in foreign countries and we wonder why the world’s perception of America is so negative. Shame on you, Marty!

Recognizing the religion of Hollywood in movies like Departed is easy. Frontal assault, full salvo with plenty of advance warning. Unreliable as it may be, the MPAA rating board does wave the red flag on movies rated R. We are warned. We can duck or get out of the way. We can simply stay out of the pass ’cause we’ve been told the bad guys are hiding inside. It is the subtle subterfuge and unexpected ambush so often hiding in movies rated PG-13 or even PG may be even more dangerous.

Consider Love and Sex

In Hollywood, of course, “love” and “sex” have long since become the same thing. When a movie comes along that understands the conspicuous differences between Agape, Philia and Eros, we want to stand up and cheer.

The depiction of sex in movies reflects the core belief of the filmmaker(s). End of story!  If we are creatures evolved by fate to “a higher form of organism in the Kingdom of Animalia,” our basic instincts are justifiably animal lusts to be acted upon and our urges restrained only by rapidly diminishing social mores.  It is disturbing that the religion of Hollywood discounts any modicum of lingering social restraint as outdated Puritanism and reason that since “there is no God,” chastity is outmoded superstition.

If we are created in the image of God, commanded to subdue our carnal nature and treat our mortal bodies as temples destined for a resurrected eternity our instinct to procreate is seen as a divine appointment. Sexual expression must be coupled with love, faith, fidelity and marriage. 

When you willingly go see – or are unexpectedly ambushed by – an illicit love scene or depiction of “love” portrayed as sex that is inconsistent with your values, you may rightly surmise one of three things. The filmmakers – beginning with the writer – are exposing their core beliefs and values.  Or the filmmakers are endeavoring to satisfy what they believe to be the core beliefs and values of those empowered to get their movies made. Or the filmmakers are exploitive without conscience or care of consequence.

The Guardian (PG-13) is the story of Ben Randall (Kevin Costner), an aging United States Coast Guard rescue swimmer. His team is killed during a horrific rescue mission. His wife is leaving him. He struggles to cope. He is asked to retire or become an instructor at the USCG training school in Louisiana. He takes the latter.

Enter the young hot shot, Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) – determined to be the best and beat the old man’s records. The movie offers little we’ve not seen before. Some call it Top Gun meets Officer and a Gentleman. There are great special effects. The training goes on too long. The second act lasts forever, but it was a good Friday night date with Dagny“except for a couple of inappropriate scenes.” And there it is again!

Jake bets his buddies he can persuade a girl at the bar to leave with him. The girl, a local schoolteacher (Melissa Sagemiller), has heard every pickup line before, of course. She agrees to leave with him only if he’ll split the bet but reminds him, “You’re not the first Coast Guard Cadet that’s ever come to town.”  In spite of not wanting to get involved with a guy shipping out in six weeks, she agrees to sleep with him anyway. But only on one condition. “We keep it casual.”

That is the dominating theme of the love story subplot. She agrees to “casual sex” as long as there is no emotional entanglement.  This is PG-13! Is there a worse message a movie could send to teenagers? It is a tenant of the Hollywood religion: “Sex is OK as ‘casual’ recreation, as long as love, affection, service, unselfishness and chastity are avoided at all costs.” Yikes!

What if the filmmakers embraced the Judeo-Christian belief in man’s immortal soul? What if the screenwriter, Ron L. Brinkerhoff, had had the courage to endow these lovely and likable characters with the values and virtues of a lovely garden rather than a muddy slough?

Nothing would have been lost. A wonderful layer could have been added by replacing casualness with commitment, promiscuity with purity, and animal lust with the restraint of “pure and chaste from afar.”  The movie would have been PG and much more romantic.

A film I liked a lot this year is The Illusionist. Todd McCarthy of Variety called it “a bizarre story of intrigue, magic and murder in turn-of-the-century Vienna.” It is the tale of a stage magician named Eisenheim, who has extraordinary powers.  He falls in love with a woman who turns out to be the girl from his teenage infatuation. She becomes engaged to the prince, and Eisenheim uses his powers to recover his lost love and subvert a plot to overthrow the empire. Great stuff.

My wife is very particular about movies. Our Friday date night challenge is finding one she wants to see. The Illusionist ended up on both our lists. For one thing, I’d pay money to watch Paul Giamatti read the phone book for ninety minutes. Dagny and I liked The Illusionist a lot. EXCEPT for that one scene!

Sofie (played by Jessica Beil) rides through the night to be with Eisenheim, creating a wonderfully romantic love scene. Before anything gets uncomfortable, we see and hear all we need to know to move the story forward.  In the magic light of the roaring hearth they embrace, then kiss and Eisenheim discovers the necklace that holds the secrets of their past.

They kiss again. Terrific.  End of scene. No, wait!  The scene is over, but the movie goes on. We are ambushed very unexpectedly for another 45 seconds with extreme closeups of naked skin, faces, hands and body parts writhing about to luscious music.

The movie is PG-13! Cut to the next scene, stupid!  We get it! Cut to the storm outside. Cut to wind in the trees. Cut to the horse thrashing about, but for goodness sakes don’t spoil a great movie for the sake of 45 seconds of inconsequential images that add nothing to the story!  Dagny covered her eyes and hummed to herself.

Was it written that way? I wonder. Did Steven Millhauser include the love scene in his short story? Is the talented writer/director Neil Burger a secular humanist? Why did he opt to reduce his otherwise marvelous and moral characters to the level of their basic instincts to titillate a theater full of PG-13 teens?  It baffles me. Truly.

Neil Burger is a very talented writer and director. His films are close to being on the highest plateau of value and virtue. Compared to the truly salacious garbage and sexual deceptions masquerading as PG-13 films, it is misleading to use The Illusionist as my example. But that is my point exactly. That’s why we get ambushed over and over again.

“To the pure all things are pure.” That’s what Paul told Titus. “but to them that are defied and unbelieving is nothing pure; but their mind and conscience is defiled.” (Titus 1:15).

Consider Language

Little Miss Sunshine was the first film to arrive in the annual deluge of screeners from Hollywood studios to voting members of the Academy of Motion Pictures. It is the story of a family’s determination to take 7-year-old Olive from Albuquerque to California to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant.

For once we have a story that features a nuclear family with a mother, father and children. We learn that “nuclear” and “normal” are not synonymous in this charming little tale as the personalities and problems of each emerge. The characters are well-drawn and quirky. The premise might be, “When a family pulls together and self interests yield to a common cause, emotional healing takes place and good things happen.” The result is a funny, positive upbeat movie that I would recommend, “except for the language and a couple of scenes.”

Why do we always have to say that?

A couple of scenes with Grandpa spouting vulgar dialogue landed the film an R-rating. Profanity defines his character. Played brilliantly by Alan Arkin, grandpa’s cynical resignation is intended to be funny.  People in the movie business I admire argue that his profane dialogue is essential to Grandpa’s character, and given Arkin’s brilliant portrayal I can almost agree.

But do we draw a line in the sand or don’t we? The question is this.  If sifted upward through a values filter, could creative writers find other ways to keep the raspy edginess of the grandpa character without punching holes in the audience’s ears? I believe the answer is yes!

Can we ever argue that “good writing” justifies the inherent evil of profane, vulgar, crude and blasphemous dialogue?  Isaiah didn’t go to many movies or enjoy the convenience of Netflix, but I wish he were here now to be the film critic for the LA Times.  “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:21)

Back to Little Miss Sunshine. I am convinced that writer Albert Berger, director Jonathan Dayton, and actor Alan Arkin could have found alternative ways to preserve the cynical, foul-mouthed coarseness of grandpa without resorting to words that mandated the R-rating. It’s not only about the rating. It is ultimately about the overall value of the piece.  Filmmakers too often forget that the audience judges a movie based on what is left in. Not on what goes out. 

Little Miss Sunshine is an otherwise worthy little film that could have been a PG-13 or even a PG movie.  The film became the darling at Sundance and was snatched up by Fox Searchlight for $10.5 million. It is sadly predictable that had Little Miss Sunshine been made with a PG-13 or PG rating, it would not likely have caused such a stir. The perception of edginess and the influence of the Hollywood religion at Sundance was unquestionably a factor in the break-through success of the picture.

An R-rating on a film about a family taking their 7-year old daughter to the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant makes no sense – unless you understand the curious morality and mindset of Hollywood. A primary tenet of the Hollywood religion is that since there is no God, there is no sin. If there is no sin, there is no virtue. If there is no virtue, then purity is an illusion.  Is it any wonder so many movies defile and assault the reality of God by embracing the carnality of man?

There is something you can do about it. Click here for information about Audience Alliance Motion Picture Studios.