In the July-August issue of Commonweal magazine, there was an essay about film, entitled “All Things Shining,” that may be the best essay on film that I have ever read. It was written by Martin Woessner, a professor of history and society at the City College of New York City (CUNY) Center for Worker Education. The following is the first paragraph of Woessner’s essay:
“I started teaching a course called ‘Philosophy and Film’ in 2018. It wasn’t the most original idea, but I figured it might prove popular and get students into our interdisciplinary program — maybe even keep them there. In an academic environment increasingly governed by austerity budgets and their enforcers, enrollments are everything. I was doing my part to keep the humanities alive, gambling that Plato and Descartes might go down a little easier wrapped up in Westerns, thrillers, and rom-coms.”
I was hooked immediately by Woessner’s opening words because, like him, I was planning to offer my course, entitled “Philosophy and Film,” at St. John’s University in the fall 2025 semester and was hoping to interest a sufficient number of students that the course would run. Fortunately for Woessner, his course attracted a sufficient number of students that the course could run. I was greatly disappointed that my course did not work out, but I will try again next semester.
I believe that there is a treasure of great films waiting to be experienced by contemporary college students, and I want to do everything I can to expose students to this treasure. Unfortunately, at this moment, that treasury seems to be hidden in a field — a treasury that many students have never experienced. Students who have taken my film course in the past have been very enthusiastic about it. The way I structure the course is that students view 10 films at home and 10 films in class. This means that during the course, students will view 20 masterpieces or near masterpieces.
Woessner’s essay is mostly devoted to the films and vision of Krzysztof Kieslowski and Terrence Malick. Offering wonderful insights into the films of both directors, Woessner brilliantly demonstrates that, just as there are literary masterpieces, there are cinematic masterpieces, and Kieslowski and Malick have created several. My own experience of coming to appreciate what makes a film great parallels Woessner’s, who writes the following about his memorable experience in viewing films:
“It would be hard to choose because I more or less grew up at the movies.”
So did I. When I was an adolescent, there were nine movie theatres within walking distance of my home. This was the time of the double feature, and that meant that any week, there were approximately 30 films available to watch. I did not see all of those films, but I saw most of them. Woessner, reflecting on what might have been his most memorable moviegoing experience, continues:
“But the film that showed me what cinema could be was Kieslowski’s ‘Three Colors: Blue,’ a movie I walked into more or less by accident on a date back in high school. … I had never seen anything like it. Blue’s imagery and music were as foreign to my moviegoing sensibilities as its French dialogue and the unpronounceable name of its director. Still, I was captivated.”
I had a similar experience watching Kieslowski’s films, such as “Red,” “White,” and “Blue,” and the 10 short films that Kieslowski made related to the Ten Commandments. I found Kieslowski’s films demanding but well worth the attention and reflection they demanded. Woessner’s insights into Malick’s films are wonderful. Though I agree that at the root of Malick’s vision is a philosophy unveiling the meaning of the cosmos and the meaning of the human person, perhaps because of my own background studying and teaching personalist philosophy, the kind of philosophy tapped into often by Pope Francis in his writing and talks, I find that theology even more than philosophy permeates Malick’s films.
Woessner writes the following:
“Malick-related gossip is a staple of contemporary writing, especially these days, as everybody awaits the release of the film ‘The Way of the Wind,’ a film about Jesus that Malick has been editing for more than five years. Observers are now speculating that it might finally appear later this year at the Venice International Film Festival.”
Woessner suggests that perhaps we should start thinking of the viewing of films such as those Malick has created as spiritual exercises, not necessarily in a religious sense, but in a philosophical sense. I would go one step further and suggest that we can, and even should, view them as spiritual exercises in the spiritual sense. I think of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins’ insight and insistence that the world is charged with the grandeur of God.
Great artists imitate the creativity of God. Filmmakers like Kieslowski and Malick are special. Their vision is profound and their skill extraordinary.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.