Up In The Air
Our guest contributor today is Elijah Davidson. He is a long time Rabbit Roomer and some may remember him as the winner of our Theolo-Vision (TM) contest a couple of years ago. He’s also a student at Fuller Theological Seminary and a contributor to the Brehm Center’s blog where he often tackles issues at the juxtaposition of theology and art. I hope you’ll give this Theolo-Visionary a warm welcome. -Pete Peterson
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“The worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it.” -Oscar Wilde
Where is your source of stability? What do you depend on? In the midst of the turmoil of life, where is peace? What is your hope?
For many, financial security is the bedrock of their lives. We work hard in our chosen fields. We go to school to obtain a higher degree and become more skilled. We save and invest. We do all of this in hopes that these practices will ensure a pleasant, peaceful life.
Then one day we find ourselves sitting across from a man like Ryan Bingham, and he has come to tell us that our foundation is being ripped from beneath us. We are losing our jobs. “Your hope,” he says, “is no hope at all. Take this packet, and let us begin helping you rebuild your life.”
Ryan Bingham, played by a never-been-better George Clooney, is the central character in Up in the Air, and his job is traveling around the country letting people know they have been let go. He is the god of wealth’s angel of death, flitting through the clouds and descending only to bring judgment on the unsuspecting worshipers below. He does this coolly, calmly, and without remorse.
But he is also human, and to become Mammon’s harbinger of doom he has had to detach himself from all consequential relationships. He loves and is loved by no one. Women are play things, other men are adversaries, and family is an annoyance. “Relationships are weight,” he says, “To carry them is to be slowed down, and to move is to live.”
The narrative’s central crisis is created when Bingham learns that like the thousands he has spent his life firing, his way of life is in jeopardy. A hot-shot young woman (Anna Kendrick, wonderfully liberated from the Twilight franchise) has arrived on the scene to revolutionize the way Bingham’s company fires people, and he isn’t going to be able to live disconnected any longer. He’s going to have to land in Omaha, a place where he has no reason to be except that the city houses the headquarters of his employer.
Up in the Air is essentially two films in one. On each end of the film and interspersed throughout are montages of people reacting to the news that they are losing their jobs. In these moments the film becomes a lament over the economic storm that we have weathered through the past year. Many of the people pictured in these moments are not actors. They are people who have recently lost their jobs. We see their actual reactions to finding out their hope has failed them. The audience lives vicariously through these people. We commiserate with them in their angst. We ask with them, “When our supposed hope fails us, to what do we hold?”
The second foci of the film concerns the purpose of relationships in our lives. “Make no mistake,” Bingham chides Nathalie, “We all die alone.” Why then, should we invest in one another?
“Ah ha!” you’re thinking, “I know where this movie is headed. The second question answers the first.” You’d be right in most films, but Up in the Air doesn’t offer such easy answers. Like Ecclesiastes, Up in the Air admits that loving relationships are a balm to life’s bruises, but also like Ecclesiastes, the film doesn’t picture love as a cure-all.
This film as a whole is more honest that most others. It is a brave work, because it is willing to point out our brokenness and to admit it’s inability to provide an answer. It is truly compassionate both to the character of Ryan Bingham and, by way of the people in the film who lose their jobs, to the audience. This is not a trite film in any way.
Like the slave masters who were kind to their slaves, most movies freely give false hope to their audiences. Up in the Air doesn’t want you to remain in slavery, and so it doesn’t offer easy answers. It doesn’t lie to its audience by saying that romance solves all problems. Some will see this film as sad and depressing and unsatisfying. It is these things, but the filmmakers should be applauded for honestly saying, “This is the world as we see it and as we surmise our audience sees it as well. It is a broken place, and we mourn over that, and we have no answers.”
This is the place where we, as bearers of the hope of Christ, must step in and give the Answer that has found us. We have true Hope in the face of economic misfortune. We have a reason for relationships. We see past death. “Saints love beyond Time’s measure,” the hymn sings (”All Flesh Is Grass”). It is our duty to answer Ryan Bingham’s cynicism with, “No, Ryan. We don’t all die alone, because we know One who has already died for us.
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
An excellent analysis, Elijah. While I haven’t seen this movie yet (I haven’t been able to justify spending $12 on movie tickets; $10 I was sort of all right with, but $12 is my limit, and I think I will now just wait for DVD on all but the rarest of movies), I fully intend to when it’s released on DVD or if it goes to the discount theater in my area. Jason Reitman’s a film maker I admire greatly.
Thank you, Jesse. I too really enjoy Reitman, and I hope he and Sheldon Turner take home the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay this year as they did with the Golden Globes.
I agree about movie prices too. I was able to see this film twice before writing this review because of the kindness of a friend who is a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild and had an awards copy sent to him to watch before voting. He kindly allowed me to watch with him.
$12? Good grief. Where do you live?
I should clarify - the first time I saw the film, I saw it in the theater.
I live in L.A., and movies can cost more the $12 for a post-matinee showing here.
I live in the Seattle area. Recently movies jumped from $10.50 to $12 for a general admission movie ticket here. It’s ridiculous. I’m hoping at some point there will be a backlash against Hollywood’s big-budget frenzy and they’ll have to start making films with better writing and fewer special effects to keep people coming. But alas, with Avatar, it looks like the trend will just be towards bigger and more expensive films with “EVEN BETTER” special effects.
$12 is a lot but I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable. It’s the price of a meal at Cracker Barrel.
Seeing a play or a musical or even reading book will cost you more than that. I think Americans have become a bit spoiled by our appetite for cheap entertainment.
(I’m sure I’d feel differently if I had kids.)
I suppose I’d be all right with the increase if I felt it was in tune with inflation in other areas of the economy, but movie tickets seem to be increasing at a much higher rate than seems truly justifiable. Plus, for this new father who is currently the sole supporter for his little family, it puts movie-going pretty much out of reach except for maybe once or twice a year.
But let’s re-rail here: How about that Clooney guy?
Ticket prices? Cracker Barrel? Cheap
entertainment? Did I totally miss the
point here? “When our supposed hope
fails us, to what do we hold?” The world
is a broken place and we morn over that,
and have no answers.”
Are we ready at all times to give an answer
for the hope that is with-in us? Have we been
diligent workers, (disciples) who need not
to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth? I will admit, I am not always ready and
I have not always been diligent in studying
God’s Word; however, I know beyond a shadow
of a doubt, Christ Followers have the Answer!!
That will always be Jesus the Christ….the Way
the Truth, and the Life…Mighty God, Prince of
Peace, Rose of Sharron, Lilly of the Valley, Bright
Morning Star!! George who? Right!! Time to re-rail~
My attention kind of got derailed with that Oscar Wilde quote. Seriously, kind masters are the problem? Somebody should tell that to Jesus.
In the Wilde quote, kind masters aren’t the problem - slavery is, and “kind” masters aren’t really kind at all. They mask the injustice of the system with kindness. They keep the evil of the system from being recognized as such.
And remember, we’re talking about popular art, not slavery.
Our world is full of (un)kind masters, “artists” who fill their films with foxy women and giant robots that inebriate us and steal not only our $12 but our aesthetic and moral discernment as well. Such banality dumbs us down. It entertains without edifying. Don’t get me wrong, there is great room in life for great entertainment, but not at the expense of truth.
And the truth is, without Christ, there is no hope. While Reitman may not profess Christ, he is at least courageous enough to point out hope’s absence. Reitman is unafraid to call slavery bad. He is willing to ask the question and to encourage his audience to ask it as well. I think that’s the first step to finding the Answer.
I pray he finds it, and I pray we as artists have his courage and are willing to wrestle with life’s complexities, for our sake and for our audiences. And when we can’t find resolution, I pray we resolve to rest in Christ.
Elijah, thank you for the response (and for sticking your neck out by writing an article in the first place).
You’re absolutely right about the threat that the world poses to our spiritual well-being, and the insidious ways that we are deceived into giving away our life in Christ. I just don’t think that slapping that grid on top of American slavery is a very good fit — at least not in the way Mr. Wilde attempts. What we detest about that system wasn’t servitude as such, but the kidnapping and abuse which characterized it. Kind masters were in fact kind, and when he calls them “the worst”, he ignores the fact that good can come from people inside a poor system; it seems a very irresponsible use of words on his part. Then again, that discussion is probably a bit too lengthy for post-blog-post comments.
I know what you mean about Reitman; oddly enough, it’s why I appreciate Billy Joel. He acutely understands the problem, even if he still has no idea of the Solution.