Simon Cox Blog: The Year in Liturgical Cinema: Ordinary Time

Friday, 5 August 2016

The Year in Liturgical Cinema: Ordinary Time

Film will always have an escapist quality to it, but it can also emphasize the beauty and transcendence of the everyday.

“The Liturgical Year in Cinema” is an ongoing series, a personal exploration of the thematic connections between the Christian calendar and films. Ordinary Time is the season of growth, vitality, and the normal practices of the Christian life.

Few films this summer provide us an image of the mundane. Instead, the current box office features superheroes and talking animal movies with a couple surrealist indie fare. Mostly escapist cinema, these titles offer us two hours in the dark to avoid the next horrific news story or onslaught of emails. The quick edits and constantly-moving camera attempt to hold our attention spans, often cramming half-a-dozen cuts in a 10-second time frame. A sentimental score carries our emotions on a journey to the bright and noisy images on the screen. In the midst of international and personal crises, we trust in the CGI-laden, 3D, IMAX, action-packed blockbuster to distract us.

Film will always have this escapist quality to it, but it can also emphasize the beauty and transcendence of ordinary life. Static shots of quotidian actions and objects and the minimization of soundtrack while emphasizing the noise of common life—a door opening, footsteps on pavement, birds or traffic in the background—are all employed to prepare the viewer for the remarkably cathartic moment where grace and the divine break through. Instead of sweeping melodrama or vivid surrealist imagery, the realization of the transcendent occurs as a response to the ordinary and every day, “a meticulous representation of the dull, banal commonplaces of everyday living,” writes screenwriter Paul Schrader, in Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.

Here’s the catch: this sort of film ...