Jeffery Overstreet - Viewer Discretion Advised

"Viewer Discretion Advised"

An Excerpt from Through a Screen Darkly

by

Jeffrey Overstreet

"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." - Matthew 6:22-23

"Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them." - Ephesians 5:11

Low tide at Richmond Beach can be generous, and as I walk on the slippery wet rocks this evening, they glitter like pirate’s treasure in a children’s book. The setting sun rolls a gold carpet across quiet Puget Sound water toward me, a shimmering path like a dream of heaven’s own avenues.

A few teenagers skip stones, ducks paddle near the shore, and farther out a loon (a bird I don’t see very often, but its speckled wings are unmistakable) mopes along. The wind drags a dark curtain of rain across Bainbridge Island.

I can’t tell you why, exactly, but the place calms me down. I come here when I’m wounded. Like this afternoon, for instance. Somewhere in my chest, I feel a bruise. It’s the ache of helplessness and outrage I feel when a good friend has unfairly suffered some insult. Someone took a sledgehammer to an admirable work of art, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

In that agitated state, I couldn’t finish my film-review assignment for Christianity Today. So I’ve come down to let the whispering tide, the gulls and the sunset do their work on me. It’s what I love best about my neighborhood—the seven-minute drive to this panoramic glory. The psalmist knew what he was talking about when he implied that walking beside quiet waters would restore his soul (see Ps. 23:2). He also wrote that every day pours forth speech (see Ps. 19:2). This scenery is murmuring through stone and tree and tide. I’m not sure what it’s saying, but something inside me responds.

* * *

Yesterday I saw a film called Don’t Come Knocking, and it’s been on my mind ever since. Sam Shepard played Howard Spence, a foolish film star famous for playing Old West gunslingers. Spence comes to the conclusion that his life is rather empty, so he sets out to find his way back to opportunities that he missed in hopes of salvaging some of the relationships he let dwindle.

In the dark I scribbled down “the prodigal father.” As I did, I laughed, knowing I would find those same words in the reviews composed by other Christian film critics.

As part of my responsibilities for ChristianityTodayMovies.com, each week I read and excerpt a wide variety of religious press film reviews. I then line up those excerpts in a sort of round table format so that it sounds as if these writers have gathered after the movie to share their observations and argue. I’m quite accustomed to juxtaposing reviews in which one Christian heralds a new release as a powerful story with a redeeming message while another feels it exhibits shoddy craftsmanship and a formulaic narrative.

When I opened up my notes and compared them with the other Christian press reviews of Don’t Come Knocking, I expected to find similar views. But I was disappointed to find that very few critics had been able to see the film as of yet. Then I ran into one of those reviews—the sort of “Christian movie review” that I grew up reading. The writer condemned the film and the filmmakers, slapping a long list of derogatory labels on their work. It was like watching a guest at a generous feast stand up, spit on what is served to him and storm out.

Appalled at this display of contempt and skewed judgment, I was tempted to post a sharp retort online. But the words of a friend who once sent me a stinging e-mail came back to me: “Jeffrey, you might become a decent film critic someday if you learn to get over your outrage.” So I’m trying.

I think back to the beginning of Don’t Come Knocking. I try to watch the story again through different lenses. Was I fooled? Is this actually a dangerous and deceptive movie? Have I been corrupted by Hollywood poison?

A Tale with a Timeless Theme

Howard Spence is sitting on an old couch in the middle of the street in Butte, Montana.

He has run away from the set of his latest film, a Western being shot against the desolate backdrop of Moab, Utah. Something has drawn him to Butte, where he once fell in love with a waitress.

As he sits there, troubled and alone, enjoying a moment of stillness, there’s a sense that he’s opening his eyes for the first time. He seems bewildered, as if he’s never stopped to notice time passing before.

Through the lens of director Wim Wenders, Butte has the spacious silence of a ghost town, haunted with echoes of the past. In the stillness, Spence begins to ponder all that he’s missed during his pursuit of pleasure and fame. His success, his self-indulgence (which has landed him some impressive tabloid headlines) and his compulsion to escape into the ego-boosting fantasy of the American Western—all of these things have proven powerfully distracting.

Maybe here, at “the scene of the crime,” Spence will wake up and start living for the first time, drawn by the possibility of love and a family. It won’t be easy for Howard to re-enter relationships he left in shambles. That journey must begin with repentance and forgiveness. Is he up to it?

* * *

This story of the wandering father does not have the same glorious climax as Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. Howard’s fractured family does not fall into each others’ arms and live happily ever after. But we can still catch glimpses of grace and redemption along the way.

The film’s power grows from the authentic performances of seasoned actors. It resonates in the wry humor of the soft-spoken script. Above all, vivid imagery (stunning scenery, time-weathered faces and the disintegrating architecture of Butte) communicates volumes about this desolate spiritual territory.

It was bound to be an unusual outing—a German filmmaker telling the story of an American road trip. He had done it before in the masterful, Cannes-award-winning Paris, Texas, his only other collaboration with Sam Shepard. That was 20 years ago. Don’t Come Knocking is a lighter, funnier fiction, and some of its scenes feel more haphazard than meaningful. But once again Wenders and Shepard have crafted an evocative, contemplative journey full of characters who are longing for wholeness. And this time, Shepard takes the starring role of the wayward Hollywood icon, bringing rough authenticity both to the minimalist script and his performance.

Wenders has made his cowboy movie, and it is the antithesis of the classic Western. We’re quite accustomed to seeing the all-American hero win the heart of the girl, outwit and outgun the bad guys and then, when the woman begs him to stay home on the ranch, ride off with a tip of his hat to wander and seek adventure. In Wenders’ perspective, however, this is a distinctly American dream—self-reliance and independence that lead ultimately to regret and emptiness.

Wenders starts at the other end of the story, when the wanderer decides to turn back and reconsider the choices he’s left behind.

* * *

The story of Howard Spence is a prevalent tale in movies today, as generations growing up fatherless seek to fill a void and as men who have run from family and responsibility begin to yearn for what they might have chosen.

It’s an ache that we can feel in a wave of recent films: Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Hirozaki Koreeda’s Nobody Knows, Tim Burton’s Big Fish, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s The Return, Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, and Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers. We can trace it back to The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker finally learned about the betrayals of his own particularly irresponsible papa.

Yet Don’t Come Knocking is charged with personal passion. Sam Shepard admitted that this story reflects his troubled relationship with his own father. And Wenders heard echoes of his past as well. “[My father] was a great father,” he told me. “I loved him very much. He was always there for me. And then . . . we sort of had a falling out when I was 16, 17 and 18 years old. We actually didn’t speak for a number of years. And then we slowly talked to each other again and became very good friends . . . I spent his last six months with him on a day-to-day basis.”

The reconciliation clearly meant a great deal to Wenders, especially in view of the lack he has seen in others’ lives. “When I grew up, I only had one friend who didn’t have a father, and that was always horrifying to me. I had so much pity for the guy . . . [The] fact that he didn’t even know his father was inconceivable to me. And then, eventually, it was as if this friend multiplied. I knew more and more people who grew up without a father. The absent father became a regular cultural and social phenomenon. . . . It almost seemed during the ’90s that there were more people without a father than people with a father.”

As Wenders realized the “incredible lack” he would have felt without his father, he became interested in “telling the story of that absence.” But, in his characteristic style, Wenders told that story in Don’t Come Knocking from different perspectives in order to understand it as fully as possible. “From the beginning, I wanted to tell the story from both sides: the guy who missed being with his kids . . . and receiving their love and giving his love, and . . . from the perspective of these young adults who have this guy waltz in and say, ‘Hi, I’m your father,’ and how they feel about it.”

He was surprised at how closely Don’t Come Knocking paralleled another movie, Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, which was finished around the same time. “I think it’s in the air. . . . Jim Jarmusch is one of my best friends. We are not in any way competitive. And the fact that Jim, unbeknownst to me, made a film about the same subject made it clear for both of us that we had hit on something that is of grave contemporary concern.”

* * *

That ability to tap into timeless themes through the particularity of his work is what has earned Wenders a reputation as a poet amongst other filmmakers, even if his movies aren’t flashy enough to grab the attention of mainstream moviegoers.

Scott Derrickson, the director of the thought-provoking thriller The Exorcism of Emily Rose and one of Wenders’ good friends and collaborators, talked to me about how to appreciate Wenders’ work. “Unlike Hollywood films, Wenders’ films assume that you will bring your own thoughts and feelings to the moviegoing experience. He won’t tell you what to feel, so when you watch his films, you have to think about what you are seeing, what you are hearing and what you are feeling—in short, you have to interact with the film. Hollywood movies manipulate your emotions, but his films give you freedom to respond without coaxing.

“Pay attention to Wenders’ great muse, which is ‘a sense of place.’ He understands that human longing drives us to travel—to move beyond our houses into our own cities and often across our countries and out into the world. He is more sensitive to ‘place’ than any filmmaker I know, and you must always pay attention to his locations and landscapes; try to see how his visual space ties in to his characters and stories.”

In that sense, Don’t Come Knocking is a fine summation of Wenders’ strengths. The silences are as important as the conversations. The landscapes are as important as the characters in the foreground. They all contribute to questions that the viewer is encouraged to consider.

* * *

Watch the sky. Pay attention to weather, light and shadow. Watch the streets. Search the lines in each character’s face. Attend to the words they choose to use.

That’s one of the disciplines that those who get the most out of going to movies learn to develop. I’m still a beginner. I’ve got to watch everything and relentlessly ask, “Is this significant? What does it mean? Why is it there?”

If the filmmaker lacks talent, I probably won’t find many answers to those questions. But if he or she is a true artist, I’m often surprised by the relationships I find between different elements of the film. And I continue to discover surprising possibilities when I watch it again. When I’m scribbling in my film notebook, it’s just like combing the stones of Richmond Beach to find souvenirs. Any of these elements could turn out to be treasure, reflecting light, revealing insight. Hold some of them to your ear—you’ll hear the voice of an ocean.

Consider the following: An antique harmonium. A sugar cube held an inch above the swirling surface of coffee in a cup. A beam of blue light. A whiskey bottle. A tablet dissolving in water. A trapeze…

I’ve missed thousands of other meaningful moments along the way. So I go back, again and again. I pursue conversations with other moviegoers to learn what they saw so that I can fill in more of the picture. I want to learn how to train my attention and judge what is meaningful and what isn’t. In a word, I want to learn discretion.

“Discretion” is a word much abused. We’ve come to relate it to the warning “Viewer discretion advised,” meaning, “Watch out! Potentially offensive and lurid material ahead! Turn back!” But any good dictionary will tell you that discretion is about having good judgment.

“Details are confusing,” said Georgia O’Keeffe. “It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.” I want to learn the science of sifting art for meaning…

Signposts in a Strange Land

When we approach art with humility rather than a readiness to judge, we open ourselves to discovering that any particular detail might be a signpost that will point us in the direction of the truth…

God’s truth is not available solely in Scripture or in the mouths of preachers—it can also be discerned in the way a tree grows or the way a sugar cube absorbs coffee. God may be revealing Himself not just through the charity of a compassionate saint (Dead Man Walking) but also through the shocking evil of a desperate preacher (The Apostle). In Romans 1:20, Paul tells us that what can be known about God is plain for all to see: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

This unsettles Christians who have come to believe that the only source of God’s revelation is the Bible. I get letters from them; they warn me that I’m playing with fire if I look anywhere else. But the Scriptures relentlessly point us outward, teaching us how to hear God’s voice in the natural world, in human events and in history. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1). “I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?” (Ps. 121:1). “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!” (Prov. 6:6).

Christ gave us metaphors He found in nature and in the folly of human behavior to show us the truth about holiness. As the writer of Colossians assures us, “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (1:16-17, emphasis added).

If the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, for all we know it might also be like a red wheelbarrow. Or the black and white keys in Jane Campion’s The Piano. Or the old turntable playing music for the inmates of The Shawshank Redemption. Or even the quiet streets of Butte, Montana, in Don’t Come Knocking.

Christ’s incarnation teaches us that spiritual things and fleshly things are not separate. The sacred is waiting to be recognized in secular things. Even those artists who don’t believe in God might accidentally reflect back to us realities in which we can see God working.

“If thine heart were right,” wrote Thomas à Kempis, “then should every creature be a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and vile but that it showeth us the goodness of God.” In the same vein, George MacDonald wrote, “When we understand the outside of things, we think we have them: the Lord puts his things in subdefined, suggestive shapes, yielding no satisfactory meaning to the mere intellect, but unfolding themselves to the conscience and heart.”

Mathematics, science, art—these are languages through which God is speaking. All truth is God’s truth. We mustn’t be afraid of science, numbers or surrealist paintings. If God is sovereign in the world, as we assert that He is, these explorations affirm and increase the faith of those who look closely.

But isn’t this a dangerous endeavor? You bet your life. (And isn’t that what we all bet?) There are dangers: pieces of broken glass, glimpses of death, and obscenities spray-painted everywhere. We’ve done a bang-up job of polluting God’s world and making paths to glory fraught with peril.

But those who let the dangers discourage them from engaging the world are not really saving themselves. They’re cutting themselves off from sources of God’s revelation. If we think that by withdrawing we can get away from sin’s influence in the world, we have forgotten that sin is active within our own walls and within our own heart. When characters in horror movies run from the monster and lock themselves inside the house, we all know where the monster is going to show up next.

* * *

I’m learning to write in the dark. Important images and lines jump out of the film, and I want to remember them. My notebooks would be as illegible to you as some doctors’ prescription slips. But they’re useful to me when I think back through how the filmmaker employed different elements to convey meaning or explore a theme.

While watching Don’t Come Knocking, it occurred to me that very few filmmakers make Westerns anymore, and when they do, the movies don’t look like old-fashioned John Wayne Westerns. And yet here was Howard Spence, starring in an old-style Western in 2006 on a movie set in Moab, Utah. Odd, to say the least.

Was Wenders misguided? Ignorant about contemporary Hollywood productions? Or did he include this anachronistic production on purpose to represent something? Could it be that the characters in the film hadn’t noticed that time has passed and that the age of the cocky American gunslinger is over? Could it be that their nostalgia for the individualistic hero has blinded them to the consequences of such individualism?

I was also intrigued by the character Sutter, an investigator sent from the Utah movie set to find Howard in Montana and bring him back to fulfill his contract. Sutter, played by Tim Roth, is a well-groomed man who dresses in a suit and small-mirrored glasses that seem to emphasize his blindness. His attention is entirely focused on finding the lawbreaker and bringing him to justice. He seems just as lost in the vast silence of the desert as he is when a gracious old woman welcomes him in and offers him chocolate chip cookies.

Sutter, too, has seized on a limiting view of life. His narrow, legalistic mind has cut him off from true humanity, just as the runaway actor’s self-indulgence and recklessness have cut him off from the same. They’re on two different extremes of delusion. Wisdom lies elsewhere.

Don’t Come Knocking affirms that there are many different ways we can approach our lives. We can give in to the whispers of ego, temptation or distraction. We can put on the mirrored glasses of piety and condemn what we see, making ourselves feel superior in the process. Or we can walk this corrupt ground with humility, discernment and grace.

If we watch Don’t Come Knocking, we can see characters who take that third path and learn how their behavior stands in sharp contrast to those they encounter along the way.

“Abhorrent!”

So there I was, considering the rewards of Wim Wenders’ Don’t Come Knocking, pondering what it meant, when I finally found a review written by a prominent and popular Christian film critic.

Had he discovered any of the same things that I had? Had he found deeper meaning in Wenders’ parable? No. This Christian reviewer condemned not only the movie but Mr. Wenders as well, declaring that “discerning moral viewers should all together avoid this piece of trash.”

The reviewer went on to present a checklist of potentially offensive items he witnessed in the film. He catalogued “strong instances of foul language and miscellaneous immorality such as gambling, drinking and drugs.” He warned his readers about a scene involving “naturalistic upper male nudity.” (In other words, we see a grown man take off his shirt.) “This is a movie that is just not good,” he concluded.

Because the movie contained these elements, he branded the movie with a red bar and the rating he reserved for the worst of all movies: “Abhorrent.”

* * *

Are the reviewer’s claims about the content of Wenders’ movie true?

There are scenes in Don’t Come Knocking that include foul language, gambling, drinking and drugs, just as Christ’s tale of the prodigal son involves a man who wishes his father was dead, sinks into debauchery, and ends up eating pig slop.

Wenders includes these elements so that we can see the power of the traps that have been set for Howard Spence. I wouldn’t bring small children to the film. They wouldn’t understand Howard’s dilemmas, and they might be frightened by the rough behavior the lost cowboy encounters.

But none of this misbehavior is presented as rewarding activity. In fact, just as the traveler in Pilgrim’s Progress struggles through Vanity Fair, so Howard Spence falls victim to old addictions when he visits a casino. These elements are clearly included to show his weaknesses and why he needs to be saved.

We don’t see any Christian characters, like those in Wenders’ collaboration with Derrickson in 2005’s Land of Plenty. Nor are there any angels commenting on the work of the Holy Spirit, as in 1987’s Wings of Desire. But there are other factors to consider: the characters’ choices and consequences, the way that stillness prompts them to reflection, and the cinematographer’s interest in the scenery and run-down buildings, which serve in the film as suggestions about the passage of time and the failure of an old world. (Others may catch visual allusions to Edward Hopper’s body of work.)

If we were to approach the Bible the way that this dismissive reviewer approached Wenders’ story, what would we do with the story of Lot’s sexually misguided daughters, those last dark days in Sodom and Gomorrah, Ehud’s evisceration of a king, or Solomon’s love poetry . . . for starters? How would we deal with those bloody, bawdy Shakespeare stage plays? Imagine editing “strong instances” of violence and suffering from Dante’s Inferno.

I once received a letter from a furious reader who did not like my recommendation of a movie about gangsters. The foul language of these characters, I had written, was troubling, but I felt it was an accurate reflection of this corner of society. The reader wrote:

You say that this honestly depicts our society. Well, no, it does not depict mine. I don’t work with people who speak that way and I’m not around them away from work. If someone attempts to use this kind of language around me, I will quickly point out that I don’t like it and then remove myself from the situation.

The reader is telling the truth. I don’t doubt it. But is this the response that Christ would have us cultivate toward our fellow sinners?

If a depiction of evil causes us to sin, by all means, we must respond to our conscience and withdraw until we have become stronger. How many of us are humble enough to admit when we are what Scripture calls “the weaker brother”? But if we can look at evidence of sin, consider its consequences and resist the temptation to imitate it, this can lead to wisdom and resilience.

Christ did not turn and walk away from sinful people because of their imperfect behavior. His enemies, the Pharisees, were the folks who were appalled to find Him spending time in the homes of sinners and sin.

In an article titled “Should Christians Read Dirty Books?” Barbara Pell asks if the sensitivity of many American Christians toward foul language in art might have more to do with being middle-class than with being conscientious.

I was once told that some naturalistic scenes in a contemporary novel that particularly offended me were moderate compared to the scenes of human squalor and hopelessness witnessed by my friend, who was a public health nurse in a city slum. She implied that if I could get out of my ivory tower and my middle-class suburban community and experience the degradation and suffering of the majority of the world’s people, if only through the realism of a modern novel, maybe I could begin to understand what the nurses and social workers and street missions were trying to do in a society where one couldn’t run away from the consequences of human sin and need simply by closing the covers of a book.¹

If we are shocked by something as common as a spoken obscenity, it may reveal more about our distance from people in need than it does about the person who blurted out such coarse language. As children of God, we have not been instructed to create an insulated commune in order to wall ourselves off from the corrupting influences of the world.

In John 17, Jesus said that He was sending His disciples into the world, even though they were not of the world. They were to engage their corrupt culture armed with a spirit of courage and character. In Acts 17, Paul was able to walk among the Athenians’ altars to false gods and then point people toward the inscription to the “unknown god” on one of those altars.

For us, art serves by showing not only what is happening in the world around us but also the perspectives with which others are viewing and interpreting those events. It is bound to be fraught with deception, distortion and damage. Should we shield our eyes and run away?

In his book Whistling in the Dark, Frederick Buechner has a strong answer: “If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”²

Proceed with Caution

That spiteful review of Don’t Come Knocking may have rankled my nerves, but it was nothing new. I’ve become well acquainted with this type of Christian movie review in many different Christian publications. But seeing such brash ignorance and contempt for a fellow Christian’s artistic exploration of spiritual themes . . . well, this time, it just kicked me in the gut. That’s why I’m down here walking on the beach.

There’s a grown man lying on a beach blanket just ahead of me, even though the air is cooling down. He’s not wearing a shirt. Farther on, I happen upon some boys in their early teens who are wearing black jackets and splashing around in the water unsupervised. Three of them are cussing, throwing rocks at each other and bragging about sexual exploits that probably never took place.

I start making mental notes. I’ve already seen something that qualifies as “naturalistic upper male nudity,” if I understand that category correctly. I’ve encountered “strong instances” of profanity. The occasional broken beer bottle. Hunks of eroding Styrofoam. A discarded condom in the sand. Pieces of a dead crab. Should we close off this beach and rate it as “abhorrent”?

Again, I’m wrestling with my inner cynic. If I can’t get over my aggravation, I won’t ever find the right kind of spirit for effective review writing. That critic’s complaints came dangerously close to eclipsing the virtues of Wenders’ movie in my mind. I do not want to dwell, as he does, on the evidence of sin, or I’ll become the very thing that grieves me.

There’s something about this vast grandeur—water, storm, mountains and sky—that helps me regain my perspective. Suddenly, an aggravating movie review doesn’t seem like such a crisis. This shoreline is loaded with distracting memories, most of them pleasant, and they begin to glide into view like the sleepy gulls.

* * *

…There are those who think we should remain fearful children. They strive to convince us that exposure to corruption will contaminate us. They cultivate contempt for those who have the strength and maturity to move about in dangerous places. Before we go out on the beach, they burden us with reminders of all of the possible threats that might be waiting there. Educating ourselves to danger is an essential part of maturity, but if we dwell on such threats, we will complicate our enjoyment of freedom and blessing. If we proceed with caution, open to the possibility of revelation, we never know what treasure we’ll discover.

Don’t Come Knocking is a story about how a lifelong fool, Howard Spence, paid the price for living recklessly and tried to make up for his mistakes before it was too late. But by contrast, Wenders also shows us that one can become too concerned with law and order. He gives us the story of Sutter, who spends his day looking for fault in others and lives a lonely, stifled life that is closed off from pleasure and joy. As such, Don’t Come Knocking is a story about wisdom for those with eyes to see and ears to hear…

* * *

Today as I’m pondering the parallels between beachcombing and moviegoing, my review of Don’t Come Knocking waiting unfinished back home on my desk, I’m suddenly distracted by one of those teenagers in the water. He’s standing a short distance away from his posse, directly between me and that shining path of sunlight, and the blaze reduces him to a vague silhouette. His pant legs rolled up to his knees, he stands ankle-deep in rippling fire and concentrates fiercely on the deep blue cloudburst mushrooming over the islands. Perhaps there’s something on his mind. Perhaps the immeasurable glory of this place has, for a moment, won out over juvenile banter, danger and trash.

That’s when I notice the bold white print across the back of his T-shirt: “Viewer Discretion Advised.”

* * *

Jeffrey Overstreet is a veteran film critic, an author, and a novelist. To contact the Jeffery, please access his web site at: www.LookingCloser.org

Notes

1. Barbara Pell, “Should Christians Read Dirty Books?” Christian Educator’s Journal, February/March 1989, pp. 6-7.

2. Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), pp. 15-16.

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