Why does understanding John’s intent on reflecting a new Genesis and a new Exodus important for grappling with the idea of the incarnation?

John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

Genesis 1:1;3
1 When God began to create…3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Some observations
The Word is something that is described as being spoken, meaning it emanates from the source (God). As scholar Carmen Imes points out in her book Bearing Gods Image, in the ancient world, which functioned according go Patriarchal terms, they understood a son to bear the image of the Father, meaning a son is an exact likeness of the Father.

A Word however also, as it says in the verses above, creates. In gives life. It gives light. It is the animating property of creation. Gods speaking is Gods presence. It has Power in and of itself. And in the Hebrew terminology it is often personified, something John is playing off of in writing His Gospel to a Greek world.

If such a “Word” then “becomes flesh”, what does this mean? That God simply procreates? Gives birth to a son? Although Jesus takes on bodily form, this would be misapplying the language of flesh. One of the key questions is, what did “flesh” mean to an ancient Jew? Unlike common perceptions, N.T. Wright notes in his book Into the Heart of Romans that flesh meant not fleshly body in contrast to the spirit, but rather the reality enslaved to Sin and Death itself. Flesh means to be present where Sin and Death dwell, or it means the presence of Sin and Death. Thus for the Word to become flesh, it means the Word takes up its presence where Sin and Death hold reign. Occupying this space means that he experiences the result of Sjn and Death- decay, suffering.

The Son in this sense is not a created being but the very Word that emanates from God and dwells among us in a world defined by the presence of Sin and Death. The reason why this does not divide God into different natures is because the Word emanates from the source itself. It is the very Word of God, meaning the very presence and lifeforce of God that takes residence in the wilderness space with us.

Film Journal 2023: Saltburn
Directed by Emerald Fennell

I could not get on this films wave length, and the end result was a viewing experience that felt more grating than enjoyable or even satisfying. I’m tempted to write that off as simply not my thing, but even still I’m having a difficult time understanding precisely where the draw for this story would come from.

Certainly the performances are good, but the lead is so deeply unlikable that the necessary transformation needed to make this two and half hour exercise in hedonism work is all but absent. Tonally speaking, most of the film stays far too muted and incoherent, and when the highly charged finale finally arrives it feels disconnected and even a bit baffling. I suppose there is a bit of shock and awe that, if it’s your cup of tea could be the hook, but I’m not sure the sexually charged energy of it has anywhere to go either but further and deeper into it’s own assumed sense of artistic vision.

It’s rare that I begrudge a viewing experience to this degree, but in this case I legitimately could not wait for it to be over.

Now I need something to cleanse my palate. Maybe my Wish will be granted.

Reading Journal 2023: Black, White, and The Grey: The story of an Unexpected Frienship an a Beloved Restaurant.

I had no idea what to expect when I picked thiis one up. I was inspired to do some after my recent trip to Savannah. Black, White and the Grey tells the story of a white investor an black chef whom embark on an experiment to open up a now famed restaurant in the south. As the subtitle reads, its “the story of an unexpected friendship and a beloved restaurant” called the Grey.

What was so suprising about this book, in a good way, was the way it writes itself warts and all. Half the fascination here is the details we get about the actual construction of this book. Yes, the book is about race, and yes it is about the ways in which race matters. But this was the furthest thing you could get from a story about two different skin colors coming together and proving it doesn’t matter and that we are all one. This is about two embattled people whom get to the end of their story, at least the part contained in these pages, and realize they are still world’s apart from understanding each others experiences. At the same time, the construction of the book becomes a case study in itself for how writing a book in the world today, even together, still marginalizes the black voice, even when it arrives with the best intentions. What we get in this final product is the white voice in regular print, and then the black voice in bold, telling two sides of the same story, sometimes in direct conflict. Its that sort of honest approach that endears this as a biography. We get the ignorance, the fighting, the tension, and we also get the beauty, commitment and growth, both to each other and to a restaurant.

That’s the backdrop of course to the other element of this book- southern food. That conversation in and of itself, and the richly detailed descriptive and background to it, was equally fascinating.

Reading Journal 2023: A Christmas Story
Author: Jean Shepherd

My first though after finishing this book- if they ever remake A Chrirstmas Story it needs to be Wes Anderson

I actually had no idea the classic Christmas movie was based on a book. It’s actually more of an anthology, or a collection of essays, each depicting one of the iconic scenes from the movie. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the classic film. It remains and has been a holiday favorite ever since I first saw it. The prose of this book is operating on a whole ever level. Its not just the quality of the writing, which infuses the quirkiness of the material with real sincerity and depth, its that it captures those uncensored moments of being a child and growing up in a world much younger than our own right down to the smells and the sensations. From the nature of play, to the excitement of recieving something in the mail, to watching our parents fight, to the anticipation of christmas, to racing home to listen to that favorite radio show, to those crazy childhood stories to those memorable neighbors (we get a whole lot more of the Bumpus’ here). Everything felt pitch perfect.

If the film is a whole lot of fun, the book is a real delight and joy. An easy read too. seperated as it is into 6 short episodes.
Now to get on with dreaming about that Wes Anderson adaptation.

Film Journal 2023: Wish
Directed by Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn

By far (and away), the greatest strength of the latest original to come out of Disney Studios is its honest to goodness attempt to reflect on and remember the reason Disney exists and why it makes films in the first place. It takes an original premise and builds around that a collage of hyperlinks to Disneys storied past. Without spoiling it, even the ending manages to bring all of these aspects together in what becomes a symbolic use of Disneys most iconic symbol. I don’t know if it’s an effort to remind themselves or to remind us as viewers, and maybe both at the same time, but thematically the film lands on this simple message- the power of story to evoke wonder and imagination, to unearth the inherent potential that children have to make a difference in this world in the face of real Evils and challenges, and to never be afraid to dream.

Wish isn’t going for the next breakout hit or undisputed Disney classic. Its modest and simple, which we also see in its blend of classic and modern animation styles. Most importantly it feels authentic to its message. Rather than sporting a breakout hit in terms of song, the music functions on a more integrated theatrical level befitting the kind of story that this is.

I would never begrudge an original work. Even the ones that fail I think are necessary in the bigger picture, and it’s far better to have them then not at all. The implications of a problematic box office aside (the sad truth is, if they aren’t supported, they don’t get made), the fact that the film also has some issues, most of which I would relegate to the storyboarding, shouldn’t negate the fact that this deserves your support and is worthwhile viewing. And to be fair, I think some of the issues that I had, it not most, are issues I had personally rather than objectively.

(Minor spoilers ahead)
While I loved the opening 20 minutes and had high hopes for where the film appeared to be taking its whole “wish upon a star” motif, there is a scene just after the quarter point where the depth it could have had gets reduced to another version of the “we are all just stardust” mantra and the subsequent “we are our own origins story” response. This is felt most acutely the further we get into the story, when the film clearly wants to make a case for human potential but is unable to reconcile that with a world where all manners of external factors work to rob one of that potential. Failed dreams, unfulfilled or unrealized dreams, becomes one of the inherent tensions in the story, but what remains greatly undefined is any concrete sense of hope for us to hang our dreams on.

There was an opportunity for this film to offer a critique of the whole fairy tale “happy ending” idea, but it can’t quite commit to this partly because its entire message depends on it. There is a version of this story where the villain actually wins, and part of the question this poses to us is, what do we believe in when this is often the case? What allows us to hope in something, and what is there to hope in beyond ourselves? Heck, there is even a clear and concrete Evil represented in the film, an external and enslaving Power. What is the good? That remains confusing, especially given that the libeesring Power does little more than operate as a proxy for the “self”, quite literally described at one point as “energy”. All being one and connected to the universe might sound like a nice sentiment, but it can only go so far before it hits the wall that is our material reality.

Maybe more concerning is the films clear correlation between the concrete representation of Evil and the sort of dictator that steals peoples agency and liberty under the guise of a promise to protect their hopes and dreams. The invitation to just trust the leaders to do what is best and work for the common good becomes a smokescreen for the controlling government force. It feels like a distinctly American sentiment that, given the murky times, becomes easy fodder for certain political interests, either within the American construct or applying to the current foreign enemy of the moment. That aspect left me a bit uncomfortable.

To bring this back around, while those would be my issues, which pertain to the narrative, I do think there are moments here that do really shine and that help to infuse it with a sense of purpose and vision. If it abandons the depth it could have had, over the course of the film it does manage to sprinkle some of that back in, making this a Wish worth experiencing.

Film Journal 2023: Dream Sequence
Directed by Kristoffer Borgli

This far into his current late stage renaissance and Cage is still finding ways to surprise. It’s almost tempting to say he’s playing to type here, but that doesn’t quite capture it. This is it’s own thing, and it’s a ton of fun.

The same could be said about the script. I don’t know if its Cage’s presence and performance or something else entirely, but one of the great things about Dream Sequence is that it is able to take something so off the wall and so unconventional and make it feel relatable in some weird way. Like it’s a grand metaphor for how things work in the real world and something true to everyday experiences. It also has a way of keeping one on their toes, as there is no real way to predict where this thing is going from one turn to the next. It just becomes what it becomes, and by the time it gets to the end, it becomes something else entirely. And yet it all just fits in the same glove.

Best experienced knowing as little as possible going in, but even if you know something about it, its not the sort of film that is easily spoiled.

Film Journal 2023: Napolean
Directed by Ridley Scott

You wouldn’t be faulted for walking into this expecting a Gladiator type historical epic. By all appearances that’s precisely what this seemed to be advertising. If you were, or are, caught off guard by the fact that a fair portion of this film ends up a comedy detailing Napleon’s quirks, shortcomings and eccentricities, you aren’t alone.

Which isn’t to say this dynamic of the film doesn’t work.the rise and fall of a madman makes for a fairly entertaining watch, especially where it involves a deadpan Phoenix playing up his own off the rails performance. It does take a bit of an adjustment though. Thankfully the rich historical detail help to make this a strong, visual experience.

There is a version of this film that would have been better served by streamlining the lengthy list of conquests and giving a bit more time to Josephine. There was an opportunity here to flesh out the different perspectives, and it would have been interesting to sit in that space with Joseohine as the one left behind. Director Ridely Scott seemed to want to give us a sense of the gradual progression of casualties that trail behind Napoleans obsessions, and the elongated portrait of these subsequent battles, all of which tend to blend together,becomes part of the viewing expeirmce. And full credit to Scott for committing to that vision, for better and for worse. Even if it doesn’t work for you, I think it would be hard to deny the film has a good dose of character and personality.

Napoleon was a man caught between ego and empathy, and that plays into the growing confusion of precisely what he believes he is accomplishing through his unwavering and often delusional conmitment to patriotism. Its here as well that we see the film straddling that line between its humor and the seriousness of the history. It doesn’t always work, but it does afford the film an interesting dynamic.
Seems weird to say, but Napolean might end up more polarizing then The Last Duel, a film I liked quite a bit, and which actually shares some similar sensibilities (including playing around with the gender dynamics of the time).

There’s a reason why Scott keeps coming back to these types of historical dramas- he’s good at imagining them for the big screen.

Film Journal 2023: The Killers of the Flower Moon
Directed by Martin Scorsese

It genuinely feels like the skies the limit in terms of this films potential to reward multiple rewatches. I suppose that comes with the territory of a 3 and a half hour epic, but even more so this is due to the mastercraft of one of cinemas greatest living directors.

If The Irishman turned the camera inward in an examination of Scorsese’s career, Killers turns the lense outwards again, this time towards the Osage people and the harrowing murder mystery that frames its source material. In truth, I have a complicated relationship with the Irishman. I felt it was too undisciplined in its approach, taking Scorsese’s penchant for rich human drama and probing complex thematic ideas and playing it through a story structure that seemed to throw caution too the wind. In Killers it feels like he’s married the brilliance of his craft to the sharpness that comes with submitting that vision to the many minds that surround him. There is a kind of collaborative spirit evidenced in this project that strives to shed light on one of the most pertinent issues of our day- the attrocoities experienced by the indigenous peoples by way of colonization. It reminded me a bit of Silence in its approach, marrying a quiet, reflective undercurrent to the intensity of its unfolding drama. In truth, I didn’t feel or notice the 3 and a half run time at all, it’s that absorbing.

One of the choices Scorsese makes here is shifting the vantage point of the story from the detectives to Lily Gladstone’s character Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman whom marries a white man (DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart). I enjoyed the story in the book, but found the execution of it a little underwhelming, perhaps given to it being overhyped. The film reaches a good deal beyond the scope of the book by digging into the backdrop that lies behind the story, asking questions about the perspective of the Osage from the inside looking out. The end result is a much richer story with a much more expensive playing field.

If that change in perspective defines the film’s focus, it retains the central beats of the story when it comes to the true crime. Scorsese allows the evils to slowly percolate to the surface over the film’s runtime, giving us a real sense of the systems and the settings that give rise to such attrocoities. Even when we arrive at the story’s craziest moments, one can feel the seasoned Director desperately seeking to try and understand how and why it is these characters arrive at their decisions and do what they do. The commentary feels subtle at times, but deceptively so, and Scorsese picks his moments to really give these themes specific scenes to attach themselves to.

If the film has any issues, it would probably be not diving in to the film’s central relationship even more than it does. There is a slight tension by the time we reach the end that confuses whether this is DiCaprio’s story or Gladstone’s story. We know who the narrator is, but the one who gets the most decisive arc is DiCaprio, whom by the way gives a fascinating performance going from unconfident, well meaning and awkward man to tortured and compromised soul. His usual charisma is muted, and we can see him looking for different ways into his character. I don’t know if it’s his best, but I found it to be one of his more interesting performances.

One of the issues though is that once we are in the thick of the murder mystery, the time and space available to exploring the central relationship lessens, and it left me feeling like Gladstone’s character was left slightly underserved. The way Scorsese tells the story leaves it feeling like she is and needs to be the primary voice, and all the working parts does push back on this ambition and intention ever so slightly.

A small criticism though in a film that takes its subject matter and real world history seriously and with reverence. It bears the weight of the tragedy for it’s subjects, capturing it’s emotional heft in some truly dynamic and awe inspiring sequences. This film is known for its crazy budget, and all of that budget is on display bringing the period piece to life through practical set pieces and a dedication to authenticity, detail and design. It’s a truly stunning set production that serves the sweeping scope of its narrative.

I’m certainly happy to be settled on this one as a mix of curiosity and confidence, fully expecting that it will age gracefully and grow in appreciation over time. There is so much care given to the craft and attention given to the cultural representation, and it’s the sort of emotional punch that is less interested in evoking easy sentiment and tears and instead approaches that in a more cerebral fashion. If the film is a reminder of how privileged we all are to have this guy still making films, it’s concern and impact is far more powerful in its ability to bring the darkness of its characters experiences to light without losing the beauty and humanity of its subjects in the process.

Reading Journal 2023: Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Thomas R. Flynn

One might ask, is it possible to write a book that breaks existentialism down into words the common person can read and understand? Flynn gives this his best shot in this short introduction. But alas, if this is any indication, such a question is bound to become its own form of an existential crisis.

In truth, I’m not sure the existential philsophers entirely understand their own ideas. In many ways, such understanding kind of betrays the point of a philosophy that is designed to live in the tension of an existence both seemingly bound by the constraints of time an beholden to the problem of infinity.

What Flynn does undoubtedly achieve however is giving us a necessary foundation from which to explore existentialism. If there is a single defining factor, Flynn breaks it down to this idea- authenticity. Existentialism is ultimately interested in locating the authentic self in response to the problem of self deception. And part of what leads this endeavor into a perpetual state of crisis is the fact that authenticity is, by its very nature, an allusive construct.

How can we speak of the self when it seems impossible to locate ourselves in the present, the past always defining us and the future always deconstructing us?

How can we speak of truth when all truth is perpetually bound to contingency?

How do reconcile the fact that our lives seem pulled and driven by conceptions of the infinite when they are simitaneously bound by time

How can we build our ideas around an idealised humanism when reality seems determined to redefine us according to the universal rules and laws of nature?

How can find joy in the midst of despair?

How do we find the real when all of the mind seems built on illusion?

How do we recognize the importance of irrationality when authenticity demands we be concerned with the rational.

How do we reposition our focus in the practicalities of living in the present when such investments demand an allegiance to the irrational experiences of awe?

How do we give allegiance to the self when reality tells us the self is a construct and an illusion?

How do we appeal to the idea of the free self when such freedom is depenendent on the external forces that define it?

How do we live when the process of life is defined by dying

How can the reality of finitude motivate us to live when to live seems to need the infinite to justify itself?

How can we speak of freedom as responsiblity when nothing in life appears to be within our contol.

These are the sorts of questions that lie underneath the density of the philosophy. It is what allows for a diversity of thought to exist within the uniformity of that existential concern for authenticity, or the authentic self. And yet this diversity of thought also exists within the realization that such concerns place the weight of existence on their shoulders. To think of such things is to be embroiled not simply in the hard matters of existence, but in the fact that a perpetual awareness of what these hard matters actually are leaves existence stuck in the tension. Its kind of like the concept of love. When we understand what love is, we are faced with the realizationn that love is the reality of a physiological process doing its thing and creating the illusion of a feeling. We are faced with the truth that such physiological realities have a clear biological purpose- suriival. We recognize that love is not some external reality that exists outside of ourselves as some motivating force. An we recognize that love is a highly manipulatable construct.

And yet, to say anything at all about the authentic self also seems to require us to give the illusion allegiance as a motivating force. To speak of love as though it is something that exists outside of ourselves. So which is more true? And how does one exist alongside the other? This is the sort of tension that gives rise to the existential crisis. When we know what is happening when we fall in love, for example, and we note the processes that give rise to the emotion, and further when we can note the process and how easy it is to manipulate it, would such manipulation be more or less authentic to the self? Take this a step further- what if love, in reality, is all a matter of manipulation based on illusions of the self? Could we still authentically fall in love?

We can apply this same reasonsing to the concept of the self. In fact, this is what all of existentialism ultimately boils down to. If the self is not some entity that exists external to our “self”, as in something preexistent that we grow into or discover, and if the self is an emergent property based on circumstance and choice, and if circumstance and choice bind the self to the external forces that shape us, then what do we do with something that can’t be whittled down to the present? If we are always becoming how can we be? And more astutely, if becoming is something we can manipulate and which is also completely beyond our control, how can we even speak about something such as authenticity in concrete terms?

It would make complete sense if you look at all that and simply choose to walk away. In some sense its easier to live rather than to think about living. And yet, at the same time the thinking matters because life is ridiculously hard. Sometimes it just seems necessary to pose the hard questions back at it. Does such angst actually have anywhere to go but into the empty space of that large philosophical void? Debatable. But it can be a way of allowing us to navigate the crisis. Or at the very least allowing us to feel like we are. For some of the existentialists there certainly was a sense of ultimate defeat lingering in the background. of this philosophical process That’s the risk. For others, there are moments of freedom that emerge, even if the path is long and treacherous and steep. This is just my observation, but where that intersection seems to meet is at the point where the authentic self meets with some sense of an ultimate reality. A freedom to say, this is true, or at the very least I can believe this to be true of reality. That is the singular, necessary facet of the process that then allows one to pursue authenticity in relationship to that ultimate reality, precisely because authenticity has something to measure itself by. And thats when we can recognize where our lives deviate from this measure and become inauthentic, or self deception. This won’t afford us certainty, but it can afford us functionality inbetween the inevitability of our next existential crisis.

Film Journal 2023: The Creator
Directed by Gareth Edwards

If Edwards proved anything to me with Rogue One, its that he knows how to tell a good, old fashioned story, and how to tell it well. His ability to do this within a well established mythos was simply a testament to his disciplined approach behind the camera.

The Creator doesn’t have these same constraints, building its mythos from the ground up, and in many ways this film is his most accomplished work yet. It all begins with his attention to detail and his commitment to shooting on location using practical effect and real world set design. The CGI is there, but it works seamlessly, integrated as it is into the films stunning design. If you get a chance, do a little digging on the cameras he used and the number of different locations he shot in. It is beyond impressive and makes use of every inch of the big screen format.

These are visual tools that he uses to tell his story, and the story itself is a richly imagined sci-fi epic told on an intimate scale and with a deep interest in questions about meaning and the nature of humanity. The story structure is built around the different movements within the story, each section centering on a central development in the plot. These sections add a piece to the puzzle while digging deeper into the ethos of our central characters. The story concerns a man named Joshua, played with real honesty and integrity by John David Washington, whom we meet in a developed relationship with a woman named Maya (Gemma Chan). Events unfold, and eventually Joshua crosses path with an advanced AI named Alphie, a nuanced and complex character that adapts to the striking range and raw talent of a young Madeleine Yuna Voyles. It is through the lives of these characters that the film finds depths to explore.

Thematically speaking, Edwards uses some powerful parallels to explore and examine aspects of our present day realities that feel all too real. The sci-fi premise is grounded in ideas that feel very much attune to the current progression of AI, but what makes it all the more powerful is the way these questions are able to play into the whole of human history at the same time. When we first meet Mia in the opening minutes of the film she is pregnant. The young AI is then juxtaposed alongside of this as a way of anchoring its creation within the human experience.

All along the way the film keeps pausing to wonder about where precisely the line is between robot and human, especially where the real world science of humans attaching themselves to otherwise benign material objects is concerned. The film even presses this further, wondering about how, and why, we could hold an external force like AI responsible when we are its creator. How much agency can it possibly have on its own? And in that light, perhaps we tend to see agency and liberty in a human sense as more than it actually is within the scope of our own lives. Somthing that challenges our conceptions of liberty.

There is an astute sense here of Edwards using this story in order to hold up a mirror to our own faces and our own reality. As the sentiment emerges from the mouths of a few characters, to say “they (meaning, their humanity) aren’t real” is simultaneously to wonder about what makes us real, or if we can lay claim to such realness at all.

The film teases out this sense that what we call real is bound up in relationship to others and to this world. In many ways this means that our reality is bound to our observations and experiences of this world, however subjective or objective this can become. And whatever we say about our humanness is measured by the nature of this experience as it relates to felt feelings and emotions. This is particularly evident when it comes to suffering. There is a powerful point in the film when we hear a brief monologue that relates the robot to the emergence of humans in a world once filled with Neanderthals. The common adage is to think of neanderthals as less intelligent and less civilized and lesser beings. The same way humans often think of other species or animals (watch for how often Edwards inserts a scene contrasting animals with humans and robots). They are dehumanized on the simple basis that they do not share what we perceive to be unique hominid capacities and characteristics. And yet history tells us this is almost certainly not the case. This becomes our point of clarification for how to think about the precarious relationship between humans and AI. It might seem like the unexpressed fears we hold about AI stem from the fear that we might be deemed the lesser species. The irony of this is that human history seems to suggest this fear is about a loss of power. It’s possible this fear is actually about a loss of measure. If we can no longer measure what is deemed to be good and right by the term “humane”, then where does that leave morality? More frightening yet- what happens when humane is attached to the atrocities of humanity’s potential for bad?

All of this gains a socio-political commentary given its interest in navigating the East-West divide. It cuts to the heart of the perpetual hostilies that exist between America and China, and wonders about how the ways these two entities percieve one another emerges from the trappings of progress. The inability to ask the right questions of our creations leads to dangerous places. A loss of our humanity one might say.

If all this seems like weighty stuff for what is supposed to be an entertaining blockbuster, trust me when I say that’s a big part of what makes this film so profound. It entertains, without a question. It also makes you think. Its ultimately where it manages to make you feel that it reaches yet another level. The emotional stakes are as real as they come.