Monday, November 8, 2004

The Decalogue Tonight, at the meeting of the new CITA (Christians in Theatre Arts) chapter, we're going to be watching one of the films from Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue. My friend Jeffrey Overstreet who does the popular Film Forum web site over at ChristianityToday.com, first introduced me to The Decalogue a few years ago. I've not seen all of them, but the ones I've seen are like good food--they stick to the bones. These stories are classic example of show, not tell, drawing inspiration from the Ten Commandments, never creating an explicit one-on-one correspondence between story and particular commandment. Instead, they do exactly what I was blogging about the other day: they tell it slant. Some of the reading I've done about these films leads me to believe that the stories were built in very much the way Lee and Jan Bachelor said not to do it--they start with theme. (Actually, all Lee and Jan said was that theme was not a good place to start.) But the themes travel into us just how the Bachelor's said they should, by way of character, these ponderous, tormented people facing ethical dilemmas which would make most of us weak in the knees. Tonight, we're watching the last in the series, ("Thou shalt not covet") dealing with a pair of brothers who come into an inheritance worth millions. Should make for interesting discussion, and hopefully will move the discussion about faith and art in the theatre in the right direction... 2:54:18 PM    comment []

Daily Life Notes Heard both my kids sing on Saturday and was pretty impressed: I think the voice teacher they've found is a doozy...if nobody uses that word anymore, "doozy" is a good thing...Amy and Daniel need headshots, too, as they are both appearing in Seattle Public Theatre's Christmas production, and auditions just keep coming...I need a new headshot, too: the one on the web site is about 7 years old. Needless to say, I've changed... Joined Theatre Puget Sound over the weekend...maybe I'll find a photographer over there... Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA) meets tonight at the Northwest Church, 15555 15th Ave. NE @ 7:00 p.m., the first regular meeting of the new Seattle chapter... Our church life group continues to be an interesting journey, always changing tone and character depending on the nature of the discussion. Rick Warren's 40 Days of Purpose material continues to be both challenging on a practical level, and at the same time is raising issues about vocation and the purpose of living that I may try to address in the blog throughout the week. To say that this life is only about the next one misses major realities, undercutting the very nature of what it means to be human...more to come on that... Finished my material for my screenplay project that the Act One screenwriter's group will be reading next week: we'll see what they say... Need to get back to the novel, but the January class--"A Christian Aesthetic: The Arts and Culture"--is coming up again, and with Christians new desire to engage the culture through pop culture forms (film, music, and television) and the political impact Christians seem to be having, discussions around the role of faith and art continue to provoke thought and debate... Praying for the world... 7:16:45 AM    comment []

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