“Academy Awards, USA: 2010

Just Announced…

Best Motion Picture of the Year
Winner: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro

Best Achievement in Directing
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Winner: Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side (2009)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Winner: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart (2009)

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Winner: El secreto de sus ojos (2009)(Argentina)

Best Achievement in Editing
Winner: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Bob Murawski, Chris Innis

Best Documentary, Features
Winner: The Cove (2009) - Louie Psihoyos, Fisher Stevens

Best Achievement in Visual Effects
Winner: Avatar (2009) - Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andy Jones

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
Winner: Up (2009) - Michael Giacchino

Best Achievement in Cinematography
Winner: Avatar (2009) - Mauro Fiore

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing
Winner: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Paul N.J. Ottosson, Ray Beckett

Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Winner: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Paul N.J. Ottosson

Best Achievement in Costume Design
Winner: The Young Victoria (2009) - Sandy Powell

Best Achievement in Art Direction
Winner: Avatar (2009) - Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Winner: Mo’Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Winner: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009) - Geoffrey Fletcher

Best Achievement in Makeup
Winner: Star Trek (2009) - Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, Joel Harlow

Best Short Film, Live Action
Winner: The New Tenants (2009) - Joachim Back, Tivi Magnusson

Best Documentary, Short Subjects
Winner: Music by Prudence (2010) - Roger Ross Williams, Elinor Burkett

Best Short Film, Animated
Winner: Logorama (2009) - Nicolas Schmerkin

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Winner: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Mark Boal

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
Winner: Crazy Heart (2009) - T-Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham(“The Weary Kind”)

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Winner: Up (2009) - Pete Docter

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Winner: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009)”

Cha-ching!

Posted by Norton Rodriguez referencing Gazette.com’s article from Colorado Springs:

http://christianfilmmaker.com/?p=301

Remains of Christian filmmaker David Hames found in Haiti
March 9, 2010
By admin

Brothers and Sisters, we just found out about this tragic news. We’ve lost one of our own, we never met Christian Filmmaker David Hames personally but his video production work and his love for God and children are a testimony of his amazing film making talents.

Posted Gazette.com Colorado Springs on February 09, 2010 6:53 PM

On Monday, searchers in Haiti found what are believed to be the remains of Christian filmmaker David Hames of Colorado Springs.
Melanie Dobson, a friend who has served as a family spokeswoman since Hames went missing in the Jan. 12 earthquake, said that the remains were being flown to Dover, Del., for a forensic examination. Matti Botero, Hames’ publicist, said there was no official confirmation on the identity of the body and that the family was waiting for more information.

Hames, a contract worker for Compassion International, was in the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, when the quake struck. Dan Woolley, Hames’ co-worker and roommate in Haiti, was rescued from the hotel’s elevator on Jan. 15 after being trapped in the rubble for 60 hours. Woolley sent word of the discovery of the remains Monday on his Twitter account.

Hames, 40,

was one of about 100 people, including 15 Americans, believed to be buried in the wreckage of the hotel. The six-story structure completely collapsed during the quake into a tangle of concrete and steel. U.S. Army Col. Noberto Cintron, who is in charge of recovery efforts at the hotel, said on Friday that it could take six to eight weeks to comb through the rubble.

Hames was in Haiti for a video shoot when the quake struck. He and his wife, Renee, have two sons, ages 3 and 5.

Staff at Compassion International said the agency was trying to confirm the discovery and had no statement on Monday.

Vanguard Church, where Hames is a member, has set up a fund to assist his family,

http://www.vanguardchurch.org/html/FriendsofDavidHames.html

To learn more about David Hames visit the following links:

David Hames was a good and proud father, so much so that he started the following two websites and projects to bless his kids, and also children everywhere.    David will be missed.  Our prayers are with his family.

http://craniumsark.com

http://balloonballoon.com

http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Hames/1141406170

(Note, this session was at SAICFF not at the CFA)

That is, the characters in movies doing the Right Thing.

I think one of the things that makes for a powerful story is the characters doing what is RIght to them, not always doing The Right Thing.

What I mean is, while I obviously wouldn’t condone any of Michael Sullivan, Sr.‘s actions in this movie, I understood why he did what he did, and I completely bought that he was doing the Right Thing as he knew it.

*Spoilers from here on*

See, he had obviously spent a lifetime as a hit man. He was an expert a killing people, defending himself, and he was very good at finding people and things (especially targets, apparently).

Sure, he chose this life, and it was his choice to make.

However, he recognized that his older son was much like him, and his biggest fear would be that his son would turn out to be like him and walk down the same path he did.

After his wife and one of his sons are murdered, he is heartbroken and enraged, as most husbands and fathers would be. He goes on an obsessive hunt for those responsible for their deaths, with his other son along for the ride.

Throughout the movie, he commits all sorts of crimes, primarily numerous robberies and murders. He allows his son to help in a limited manner, and he even gives his son a gun for self-defense, but only out of situational necessity; he takes on all the “heavy” responsibilities himself.

His reasons for doing this were what I mentioned previously: he loved his son dearly and didn’t want his son to follow the same path that he did.

To prevent this, he did the only thing he knew how to do: he murdered everyone involved in his family’s murder, along with those who protected them, not just out of vengeance but so that his son would have no one left to hunt.

And at the end, Michael, Sr. shoots the hit man, because his son hesitated for far too long. Michael, Jr. goes over to his dying father and tells him that he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger, and this gives Michael, Sr. a moment of contentment, peace, and satisfaction before his death. And in the following narration, Michael, Jr. says that that was the last time in his life that he ever held a gun.

So, despite his obviously lengthy list of horrible crimes, Michael, Sr. achieved his goal and nullified his fear that his son would follow his path.

See, I totally bought his character and motivations. He had the same fears as many other parents (fearing that our children will make the same mistakes we did), the same emotions as many other husbands and fathers (grief and rage at his family’s murder), but the only skills he had were criminal, so he went all out with all he could, out of love for his son.

(As a side note, I think there is great Truth in this about fatherly love and how parents so badly want the best for their children. I think there’s also Truth in that violence yields violence, and that we should never lose sight of the sanctity of human life.)

Back to the topic at hand, this movie was a stellar example of a character doing the Right Thing as they understand it, and I found it both believable and powerful.

I think that what we believe the Right Thing to do is can be communicated in the message of a story (the subtext, as Calix would say), without having our characters always do the Right Thing.

The character of Michael Sullivan, Sr. didn’t say, “Hey, if you love your son, you should do what I did.” His character said, “Hey, I love my son, and I will do everything I know how to give him a better future.”

(If you really want to get particular, you could say that Michael, Sr. did, or at least tried to do, the Right Thing by trying to provide for his son, but he did it in all the Wrong ways, even though that’s all he knew how to do ... he knew what he was doing was Wrong, and there was even a conversation in which he and another character acknowledged their belief that because of the nature of their work, they would never see heaven!)

There are tons of other examples of characters that do what they understand to be the Right Thing: perhaps either knowingly crossing the line (Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith, and Captain Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, especially in “In the Pale Moonlight”), coming close to it (Batman in The Dark Knight, Luke Skywalker in Star Wars 6: Return of the Jedi), Aragorn and Galadriel in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), succumbing to temptation (Frodo in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), or various other forms of interacting with Right and Wrong.

But my point is, we understand these characters reasons for doing what they do (except Anakin, but whatever ...), and they all think they’re doing the Right Thing, even when we know they’re not.

I’m reminded of an interview I read with Eric Bana on playing Nero in the new Star Trek. He was saying that even when playing the worst of villains, he always tries to give them some dimensionality by portraying them as people that really believe in what they’re doing.

Shoot, even Hitler and Saddam Hussein themselves probably believed they were doing the Right Thing!

So in movies, I think that rather than always having the characters always do the Right Thing, the Right Thing should be made clear to the audience in the message and/or subtext (and it probably will, anyway).

I see this directly relating to “Christian movies” in 2 ways:

  1.) The characters don’t always have to be, or become Christians so that we understand what the Right Thing to do is. (Christians don’t always do the Right Thing, anyway, and to portray them as people who do instead of the flawed humans we are is, frankly, a lie, not to mention an insult to the audience ...)

  2.) The Right Thing can be something that is implied, subtextually crafted and presented subtly but strongly, and/or present in the nature and message of the story, not just hashed out in the dialogue.

While I didn’t particularly enjoy Road to Perdition, Tom Hanks’ Michael Sullivan, Sr. was a truly compelling character that did the Right Thing to what he felt was the best of his ability, with clearly stated and very human motivations, and for that, I completely bought his character.

Movies need more characters like that.

Alex Beard, composer
Original music for film and TV!
http://www.composeralex.com

Cheers,
Calix

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        TOPFIVE.COM’S LITTLE FIVERS — MOVIES        
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                  April 17, 2009                

    The Top 8 Differences If Movies Had Never Been Invented    

8> Harvey Weinstein: Toughest real estate agent ever.

7> Blockbuster is a construction/demolition company.

6> Blu-Ray discs show ultra-clear video of Richard Simmons’ workouts.

5> The standby date: Dinner and a barn-raising.

4> “And the Academy Award for Best Flipbook goes to… Pixar!”

3> Seth Rogen would be a bartender, Keanu Reeves would be selling cars, and your waiter would be that nice, quiet Spielberg boy.

2> Biggest papparazzi-hounded celebs? Shadow puppeteers.

            and the Number 1 Difference If            
            Movies Had Never Been Invented…         

1> This summer at the Globe Theater! Romeo and Juliet II: Zombie Lovers, Taming of the Shrew III: Revenge of the Shrew, and Henry V Part VI!

          [  Copyright 2009 by Chris White   ]         
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==================================================================
Selected from 32 submissions from 11 contributors.
This week’s list authors are:
—————————————————————————————————
Donald Johnson, Cincinnati, OH   —1
Victor Vitek, Hopewell Junction, NY—2, 4, 6 (Three pic deal!)
Kris Johnson, Chatsworth, CA     —2, 3
Janis Spidle, Kansas City, MO     —2, 5
Jill Gallagher, Seattle, WA     —3, 7
Dave Ferry, Purvis, MS         —3
John English, Orem, UT         —5, 8
Kristian Idol, Burbank, CA       —Cecil B. DeListed

—————————————————————————————————
      Differences If Movies Had Never Been Invented      
            RUNNERS UP list — Bad Actors            
—————————————————————————————————

Tom Cruise arrested for breaking into homes and jumping on sofas.
      (Bruce Alter, Fairfax Station, VA)

Russell Crowe’s ego only five times normal size.
      (Donald Johnson, Cincinnati, OH)

Paul Reubens’ reputation: still squeaky clean.
      (Scott Witmer, Hanover, PA)

France would idolize Huey Lewis.
      (Bruce Alter, Fairfax Station, VA)

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http://oscars.movies.yahoo.com/blog/68-avatar-king-of-the-box-office-world-not-king-of-the-awards-world?nc

Avatar, King of The Box-Office World Not King of The Awards World
posted by Mike Ryan - Mon Mar 8 2010, 2:40 AM PST 154 comments

James Cameron Michael Caulfield/Wireimage.com Really, looking back, did “Avatar” even stand a chance?

“Avatar” is still raking in the profits, but failed to produce the critical success that Cameron’s previous film, “Titanic,” generated 12 years ago. In fact, “Avatar”—the most financially successful film of all time—was easily the most mocked film of the evening.

Sure, it was an easy target. No other nominated film featured blue aliens. Oscar co-host Steve Martin participated in a bit where he used bug spray to defend himself against “Avatar’s” jellyfish-like creatures. Ben Stiller attempted his best Na’vi impression as a presenter—oh, that could have been much, much worse.

However much audiences may enjoy the visually stunning imagery in “Avatar,” it seems, when it comes to the Oscars, nothing beats real, live human beings.

Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein sums up this sentiment by writing, “My suspicion is that academy members still find it difficult to believe that films largely created and sculpted in the computer—whether it’s “Avatar” or the long string of brilliant Pixar films—can be just as worthy and artistic as the old-fashioned live-action ones.”

But if anyone was going to defy the big-budget-visual-effects-films-don’t-win-Oscars rule, everyone seemed to think it could be James Cameron.

In 1997, James Cameron’s other box-office behemoth, “Titanic,” accomplished the rare feat of box-office and Oscar dominance. “Titanic” was nominated for a record 14 Academy Awards and won a record 9 awards. “Avatar” only won three of its nine nominations: Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects. Cameron’s “Titanic” also won those same three awards, plus 6 others, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director; “Avatar” lost Best Picture and Best Director to “The Hurt Locker.”

“Avatar” had the unfortunate luck—if you can call a movie that’s made over $2.5 billion worldwide “unfortunate”—of being right smack in the middle of the science fiction genre. A genre that, historically, doesn’t win Oscar gold no matter how successful financially. In 1977, “Star Wars” became the most financially successful film of all time but lost the Best Picture Oscar to “Annie Hall.” Similarly, in 1982 “E.T.” set box-office records but lost the Academy Award to “Ghandi.” The closet thing to science fiction to ever win Best Picture would be 2003’s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”—and even that film series needed three attempts before it finally won.

This year, Cameron was frustrated that his film wasn’t taken seriously as an “actor’s film.” He worked hard in his Oscar campaign to spread the notion that actors acting in front of green screens and using computer generated technology are just as worthy as actors not engulfed by special effects. (Actors make up the largest segment of the voting Academy.) Clearly, the campaign did not go over so well at the Oscars. However unfair it may be, it seems no one likes the idea of being replaced by a machine.

I’ve got some awesome ones right here:
[youtube]<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/fGM_ZQXIEOo&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/fGM_ZQXIEOo&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>[/youtube]
Your Move by Echoes the Fall…
[youtube]<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/-pAZaN0BD24&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/-pAZaN0BD24&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>[/youtube]
Spider Besider by Secret and Whisper…
[youtube]<object width=“560” height=“340”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/fym7eR2uhy4&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/fym7eR2uhy4&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“560” height=“340”></embed></object>[/youtube]
Dead Inside by Skillet
[youtube]<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/JtCTLJUJPHA&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/JtCTLJUJPHA&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>[/youtube]
You are not the End by Pillar
[youtube]<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/02BRnI3iUO4&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/02BRnI3iUO4&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>[/youtube]
The Invitation (and) Welcome to the Masquerade by Thousand Foot Krutch
[youtube]<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/_8Etv-cA0tI&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/_8Etv-cA0tI&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>[/youtube]
Walls by Manic Drive
[youtube]<object width=“560” height=“340”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/4OUHoFAziyU&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/4OUHoFAziyU&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“560” height=“340”></embed></object>[/youtube]
Already Over by RED
[youtube]<object width=“560” height=“340”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/2TUJDwliM6M&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param></param></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/2TUJDwliM6M&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“560” height=“340”></embed></object>[/youtube]
Descending upon us by Demon Hunter

Whoever said Christian Rock could never compete? There are so many more that would make awesome action movie trailers….

U guys got any?

Which is more important?
’ Which is a more fundamental element of the human psyche?

Which is a more God-centered mode of communication?

Cheekily,
Calix

(...all of the above questions are meaningless… but this could be a fun thread anyway…)

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/januaryweb-only/13-41.0.html?start=1

Dispatch from Jos, Nigeria
More Human Smoke Rises in Jos
This week’s deadly riots struck home for the academic dean of ECWA Theological Seminary.
Sunday B. Agang | posted 1/21/2010 09:28AM

While the whole world was mourning and grieving the loss of lives and property in earthquake-hit Haiti, human premeditated violence struck the city of Jos. The capital of Plateau State in North Central Nigeria, Jos was thrown into another round of violence when unsuspecting church goers were attacked by unprovoked Muslim youth.

“Muslim youths on Sunday [January 17] attacked Christian worshipers unprovoked,” said Plateau State Commissioner of Police Gregory Ayankiang.

The students of ECWA Theological Seminary Jos (JETS), who had just returned from their Christmas break to start the semester, were thrown into confusion. They had finished their registration a week ago, and every one of them was excited and thrilled to start the semester. Lecturers who had been preparing to teach also came to school on Monday to begin the new semester in earnest.

All that changed. Monday classes had to be cancelled when we learned that the Muslim youth shot one of our undergraduate students, Shem Daniel, on his way back from church on Sunday. He was rushed to one of the hospitals in town unconscious. He eventually died from his wounds on Monday morning.

In the midst of the confusion, some Muslims who usually pass through the seminary compound to their irrigation farm came and wanted to pass to the farm. But our students sent them back because of the tension that was mounting. If it were Christians who went into a Muslim community in such a volatile situation, the Muslims would have killed them.

To encourage each other after the devastating news of our student’s passing on to glory, the school management decided that we should have chapel. During the chapel worship, Provost Bulus Galadima read from Psalm 23:1-6 and Isaiah 40:1-29. He reminded us, “Our emotions are not trustworthy.” In times of crisis, the Bible should be our sole guide. He emphasized that the Word of God is the greatest comfort we have in times like these. “God is still in control,” Galadima reassured the JETS community.

Prayers were said on behalf of those whose loved ones have been killed or wounded. Toward Monday evening, the situation seemed to be under the security operatives’ control. JETS management even decided that we could proceed with classes on Tuesday. But Tuesday morning things took a turn for the worse. After their morning prayer, the Muslims went wild, massacring innocent people. Jos has again been turned into a battle field.

January 19, 2010, Tuesday, the fighting started at 7:10 a.m. From my house on the seminary campus, I could hear frequent gunshots. The gunshots were accompanied by the burning of used tires, cars, houses, churches, business premises, and worse still—human remains.

At 10 a.m. the tension was overwhelming, to the extent that the state government had to impose a 24-hour curfew on Jos city and the neighboring town of Bukuru.

Despite the curfew, the fighting persisted. At noon the smoke from all the burning hovered over the city, creating an ecological hazard. People are stranded in their houses without food and water. Some are without shelter. “The refugees are without food, water, and blankets,” said the Director of Global Relief and Emergency Response Mission in Jos. Worse still, with this crisis, there may be no end to the food crisis in Jos.

We had to cancel classes again on Tuesday. I was standing with several students when some strayed bullets started flying into our seminary campus. We immediately dispersed the students back to their hostels for safety.

The parents of our late student wanted to come and pick up the remains of their son on Tuesday. But due to the high tension, they were advised not to come for the corpse. Besides Shem Daniel, many other people have lost their lives in the violence, and over 4,000 people have been displaced. As in any violence of this magnitude, many people are looking for their missing loved ones.

No one ever thought that barely one year after the violence that hit Jos metropolis and environs on November 28, 2008, the city would again be attacked by people who do not want to give peace a chance. This upraising, along with others that took place in Maiduguri and Bauchi in 2009, culminating in the Boko Haram and Kalakuta sectarian violence, is an indicator of the failed state of social and religious structures in Nigeria. The Catholic Archbishop of Jos, Ignatius Kaigama, expressed dismay at the use of violence to resolve social and communal differences. “We condemn in totality the use of firearms to resolve social matters,” said Kaigama, who also serves as chairman of the Plateau State Inter-Religious Council for Peace and Harmony.

In spite of these challenges, I hope Plateau State will rise to claim its title of being a home of peace, beauty, and tourism. Both Muslims and Christians on the Plateau need to understand that “peace is that calm of mind that is not ruffled by adversity, overclouded by a remorseful conscience, or disturbed by fear.” May we be able to sing with Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
Oh, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life!

Dialogue breaks down not because it doesn’t work but because one of the parties insists on having things done their own way. As Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman has said, “The safest place in the world is in the center of God’s will. But it may be unsettling, and our fear of that may keep us from hearing God. Thank God that he is merciful and relentless.”

Lord Jesus, have mercy on the Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. Those among them who do not have sight cannot follow your will. Give them their sight so that they may see that the way to peace is dialogue.

Sunday B. Agang is Academic Dean of ECWA Theological Seminary in Jos, Nigeria.

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today.

Ross Douthat
March 4, 2010, 11:20 am

Why is there no Jewish Narnia? That’s the provocative question raised by
Michael Weingrad’s essay on Judaism and fantasy novels,
<http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/why-there-is-no-jewish-narnia> published in the inaugural issue of the Jewish Review of Books.

Note that Weingrad is talking about fantasy as a genre, not the use of the fantastic as a literary tool. (So the existence of Kafka and Isaac Bashevis Singer does not disprove his thesis.) And note, as well, that the piece is not entitled “Why Are There No Jewish Fantasy Novelists?” To the extent that Weingrad raises that question, he’s pretty easily refuted.

But really he’s raising a deeper issue, one that goes to the nature of the genre itself: “Why are there no works of modern fantasy that are profoundly Jewish in the way that, say, ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ is Christian? Why no Jewish [C.S.] Lewises, and why no Jewish Narnias?”

His answers seem plausible, and interesting. Fantasy novels tend to involve re-workings and re-imaginings of the medieval and ancient European past, and they’re often shot through with nostalgia for agrarian communities, chivalric codes of social order, and pre-modernity in general.

These conceits, Weingrad notes, “are not especially welcoming to Jews, who were too often at the wrong end of the medieval sword,” and who are more likely — for obvious reasons — to be “deeply and passionately invested in modernity.” (This explains, he suggests, the obvious Jewish influence on the science fiction genre — and, he might have added, on superhero comic books as well.)

At the same time, reflecting their medieval roots, fantasy novels tend to draw on a kind of Christian-pagan synthesis, which supplies their authors, and the secondary worlds that they create, with rich and teeming mythologies.

But Judaism, Weingrad argues, tends to be much less mythologically-minded than the Christian tradition: “Christianity has a much more vivid memory and even appreciation of the pagan worlds which preceded it than does Judaism,” and a greater comfort with supernaturalism and fairy tales in general:

“… various anthologists have attempted, with greater or lesser ideological urgency, to collect these elements and weave them together into a usable Jewish “mythology.” Hagai Dagan’s Ha-mitologiyah ha-yehudit (The Jewish Mythology, 2003) and Howard Schwartz’s Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism (2004) are only the most recent compilations that posit and seek to restore a supposedly repressed or marginalized Jewish mythic vitality, a project that runs back through Buber’s Hasidic collections and Berdichevsky’s emphasis on Judaism’s earthy, pagan side. Yet the very necessity of all these attempts to retrieve and weave together these elements suggests their marginality.”

Part and parcel of Judaism’s resistance to explorations in the realm of faerie, he goes on, is a discomfort with the semi-dualism that’s necessary to classic fantasy — the idea of a Devil figure, in other words, who seems capable of actually conquering the mortal world (be it Narnia or Middle-Earth, Fionavar or Osten Ard) and binding it permanently in darkness. As Weingrad notes, correctly I think: “Christianity offers a far more developed tradition of evil as a supernatural, external, autonomous force than does Judaism, whose Satan (or Samael or Lilith or Ashmedai) are limited in their power and usually rather obedient to God’s wishes.” Tolkien’s Sauron makes sense in a Christian universe; he makes less sense in a Jewish one.

But once you add up these insights, they jostle uneasily with Weingrad’s professed desire for a Jewish Tolkien, or a Jewish Lewis. What he seems to have demonstrated is that modern fantasy depends on Christianity, or at least a Christian-pagan synthesis of some kind, for its forms, conventions, and traditions.

This suggests that you could write a novel that embodies a kind of Jewish critique of fantasy — in much the same way that China Miéville’s novels are a kind of Marxist critique of Tolkien, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Mists of Avalon” was a feminist critique of Arthurian-based fantasy, Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy is an atheist’s critique of C.S. Lewis, and so on. (And indeed, Weingrad’s essay reads Lev Grossman’s new novel “The Magicians” as a kind of crypto-Jewish critique of Narnia and/or Harry Potter.) But the genre itself will remain irreducably Christian, and a truly Judaic fantasy would have to belong to, or invent, a different genre altogether.

I’m swiping this argument, a bit, from a provocative post by Abigail Nussbaum (thanks to Samuel Goldman for the pointer), so here’s her conclusion in full:

“Tolkien and Lewis (and many other, less frequently mentioned writers like Hope Mirrlees and Lord Dunsany) were trailblazers, creating a new mode which was deeply informed by their religious preoccupations but which very quickly became dissociated from them in all but its deepest levels, leaving room for unobservant Christian, atheist, and even Jewish (or Muslim or Buddhist or what have you) writers to play around in and sometimes bring their own cultural heritage into. But the core shape remains Christian, and one can almost sense Weingard recognizing this when he expresses his disappointment with The Water Between the Worlds, which despite utilizing Jewish and Middle Eastern elements “draws only superficially” on Jewish folklore. There’s nothing wrong, of course, with introducing Jewish window dressing to traditionally non-Jewish
genres—Michael Chabon has done so twice, to great effect, in recent years with The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Gentlemen of the Road, and I’d like to see more Jewish elements appearing in and out of fantastic literature (in particular I’d like to see more depictions of Jewish worship—I’m tired of devout characters always being Christian)—but that’s not Jewish fantasy, and Weingard, who ends his essay with the hopeful conclusion that “We will probably see more Jewish writers producing fantasy, as younger Israeli writers seek to follow global trends,” does not seem to acknowledge this …. A Jewish Narnia, meanwhile, will be nothing like Narnia, and the real question raised by “Why There is No Jewish Narnia” isn’t whether such a work will ever exist—it’s whether Michael Weingard will be able to recognize it.