Bonhoeffer and the Rotting Undead

Extracurricularly speaking, I'm working on two things right now with a deadline around June 22 to finish them.

Chronologically first, in anticipation of the June 24 release of Land of the Dead, I'm revisiting Romero's three zombie films and will be posting about what I think they mean, or at least what they've meant to me. I'm really unsure whether the new film will be driven by the sort of thoughtful, pointed and, well, human touches that make the other films rise far above the splatter. Romero's maverick enough not to just give in to any studio dictates to make a bland shock flick , but it's been a while since he's has studio funding to this degree, and the tone of last year's Dawn remake gives us some insight into the sort of vision Universal might have for this film. And how many times can you go back to the Rio Bravo well and come back with something fresh? Still, I'm holding out cautious optimism.

Chronologically second, I'm still up in the air schedulewise as to whether I'll be able to attend Flickerings, the film portion of Cornerstone, which falls on the last day of June and the first few days of July. They've got a fantastic film and seminar lineup this year, and I'd hate to miss it. I caught Flickerings for the first time last year and had an unforgettable time. Flickerings is exactly the sort of thing I like to see pushed on me and the rest of the church. It's been on my mind for a while that one reason people aren't living examined lives and the church isn't as effective as it could and should be is because we're too lazy or afraid to use the highest and best art to inspire us and help us work through the messier problems of being human. Simplistic and artless entertainments don't do a lot, ultimately, to hold up a mirror to nature. Flickerings is a deliberate step toward taking the best film art available and fusing it with the enthusiasm and endless possibilities that come (should come) with a life battered by the three-personed God. It's an effort toward going back to the point a couple of hundred years ago when the American church decided art was a hinderance or, worse, a luxury, and throwing the blinders off.

I'm writing some intro material for the screening of Doblmeier's film on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and watching his film and two other Bonhoeffer films and reading some things to prepare. Bonhoeffer is such a fascinating and integral figure, and just when the act of meaningful sacrificial death seems to have become culturally worn out through overuse and empty repetition, a Bonhoeffer or a Balthazar comes along to strip off all the accumulated baggage and present the terrible and awesome thing as it is.