Forgetting How to Make Action Films, addendum
A few days ago in this space I reviewed (read: "mocked") a number of movies I truly disliked. I railed on against the most recent version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, done with 3D computer animation by Zemeckis.
I forgot to mention one among the score of reasons I disliked the movie: the obligatory sucker-punch in my face all Leftiod filmmakers feel it necessary to put into their films: This one as a slap against organized religion.
Scrooge and the Spirit are hovering above a bakery. With no relation whatever to the plot, or to what we are seeing, comes this:
Scrooge: Spirit, these poor people have no means to cook their food and yet you seek to close the only places in which they can warm their meager meals every 7th day.
Ghost of Christmas Present: Hear me scrooge. There are some upon this earth of yours who claim to know me and my brothers and do their deeds of ill will and selfishness in our name. These so called men of the cloth are as strange to me and my kin as if they never lived. Charge their doing to them, not us.
For the record, here’s what Dickens wrote:
"There are some upon this earth of ours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us:"
You see, Dickens echoes the scriptural warnings against false prophets and false teachers, and condemns hypocrisy in properly Christlike words. Zemeckis condemns not hypocrites, but men of the cloth, that is, all priests and pastors.
If you want to see a film that does not slap Christians, let me recommend GOING MY WAY, or BELLS OF SAINT MARY’S or even ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
