Spirituality At The Movies

Whether your screenplay approaches spirituality directly or indirectly, movies dramatizing spiritual subjects (or themes) are becoming increasingly popular.

Recently, Indigo, a movie about a 10-year-old child who helps her family find redemption and healing through her psychic abilities, won the Audience Favorite Award at the Santa Fe Film Festival. Written by James Twyman, whom many call the "Peace Troubadour," and Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God, Indigo was somewhat of a miracle itself. Directed by Twyman and starring Walsch, it was shot in just three weeks for $500,000, going from idea to film festival favorite in just eight months.   

Stephen Simon, who produced Indigo (as well as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come), has described Spiritual Cinema as, “a specific type of film that has not yet been recognized as its own genre.

Films in this category illuminate the most extraordinary aspects of our search for meaning as human beings, such as:

• the nature of reality itself (The Matrix, Beautiful Mind, Vanilla Sky)
• life after death (Sixth Sense, Ghost, Heaven Can Wait)
• enhanced human abilities (Phenomenon, Powder, Altered States)
• time travel (Back to the Future, The Kid, Frequency)
• angels (All That Jazz, City of Angels, Michael)
• aliens (Independence Day, Forbidden Planet, E.T.)
• planetary destruction (Armageddon, Planet of the Apes, Fail Safe)
• the power of love (Cast Away, Sleepless in Seattle, It's a Wonderful Life).”

Simon distinguishes between spiritual cinema, which he says focuses on the empowerment of the God within each individual, and religious cinema, which focuses on God as an external power.

While each person may define the boundaries between "spiritual" and "religious" differently, there are also many common religious themes in movies, such as:

• the crisis of faith (The Third Miracle)
• politics and intrigue in the church (The Name of the Rose, Monsignor)
• miracles (The Song of Bernadette, The Maldonado Miracle)
• challenging social/religious traditions (Fiddler on the Roof, Yentl)
• Biblical stories (Ten Commandments, Solomon, The Passion of Christ)
• the outsider in a religious community (Witness, Little Buddha)
• interfaith relationships (Keeping the Faith).

In addition to dramas, documentaries are a powerful way of sharing spiritual and religious views. Documentaries tackle such subjects as:

• religious traditions (Living Islam, The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God)
• individuals who have made a spiritual impact (Peace Pilgrim, Andrew Harvey: The Making of a Modern Mystic, Thomas Berry: Dreamer of the Universe)
• specific aspects of religious or spiritual life (Ancient Mysteries: Enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Story of Silent Night, Kalachakra: The Wheel of Time, A Crisis of Faith: the American Dilemma).

Whether these films depict their subject matter from the point of view of doubt or faith, whether their intent is to persuade or explore, they make us question, think, and get in touch with what we feel about the specific spiritual points being made. Whatever your particular spiritual interests or point of view, write about them with passion, precision, and honesty, and you'll have a script that will touch people's hearts and minds.

Copyright 2004 by Julie Isaac