In a New Light: Spirituality and the Media Arts

by Ron Austin

An inside take on the intersection of film and faith Tinseltown is tarnished. Hollywood, while embracing creativity, seems to be shutting out morality and community. Can those with a Christian perspective find anything of value in such an environment or contribute anything worthwhile to it? Eying the landscape from an insider's perspective, Ron Austin answers a firm yes. Austin's In a New Light unpacks the spiritual principles underlying the art of film, including a historical survey of how cinematic art was shaped by the crisis of modernity. A veteran of the industry having worked nearly half a century in its environs Austin goes a step beyond the now popular course of critiquing current films from a Christian world view, espousing that the key to confronting evil in the media arts lies in the Christian attitude toward suffering. Based on several years of Austin's film making courses, In a New Light explores a spiritual foundation for creative film work and seeks ways to find common ground on which to build creative relationships. Austin's inside look will prove fascinating not only to students and practitioners of the media arts but to anyone interested in this aspect of popular culture. Includes 16 bw film stills.

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2007

Reviews

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not quite sure what Austin aimed to do with this book. The list of films in the "Brief Spiritual History of Film" is excellent, but he barely says anything about any of them. The first part of the book offers some tantalizing approaches to producing a more spiritually-informed cinema, but is again too brief. The provocations in part 1 are perhaps interesting enough to be of use to practicing filmmakers, but the rest of the book feels more like an outline for an important book, rather than a finished work. Is the book merely meant to provoke? It certainly shies away from explication.

Austin's final chapters on transcendence and modern culture, and faith, are fairly vague, arguing for a move beyond "conventional narrative and established film vocabulary" but offering scant direction about what this might look like and how it might be achieved. He does call for more poetic films, "in which the faces of ordinary people in ordinary circumstances are made translucent," recalling Roberto Rossellini's postwar work. The idea excites me but the state of contemporary cinema suggests an insurmountable challenge: to get films concerned with transcendence and the ordinary made and, as importantly, seen. Austin suggests the need for a more humane and spiritual cinema, but leaves the work of realization to others.

[Tam Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a good book overviewing the relationship between films and religion. The description of the movies mentioned in here is not too specific but not too general, quite appropriate for me to imagine directors' styles and spiritual motives.

[Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

The big insight here for me in this rather brief book is the way we can look at the art film cannon of the 20th century as documenting the many responses to the events and following spiritual crisis of the times. From Chaplin to Renoir to Fellini to Bergman, we’re watching able to track the deepest intellectuals of the medium as they process the two great wars, the age of anxiety, and the meaninglessness that stared them down in the face of possible annihilation. And what now?

[Mauberley]

There are as number of interesting ideas here but the book itself never delves too deeply into any of them. This is a shame as the author's Christian faith as well as his professional career in film gives him an interesting perspective. The brief essays on directors were, for me, the best part of the book.

[Scott Kohler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short and useful approach to film from a theological angle. Its brief history of movies is probably of greatest interest, though the opening theoretical chapters are most useful, as Austin sets out the "Spiritual Foundations" of his work. In this section, he suggests that "in searching for a spiritual foundation for creative work, three principles, common to all the faith traditions, emerged": These are "being in the present moment," "affirming the mystery of the other," and "transforming conflict." These become useful lenses through which to see what's going on in various films and filmmakers' work. For most of the book he keeps things general, but at the end sets out the specifically Christian angle from which he works. I will probably revisit this as I continue to think through what a Christian reading of film entails.

[Elijah]

Terrific little book on spirituality and filmmaking. Very theoretical and a shade idealistic, but it bubbles with the heat of first love. Austin admits as much in an appendix in which he says he came to the Christian faith late in life. I would recommend this book to any filmmaker similarly newly excited about the possibility of their art making being guided by a sense of calling rather than popularity or profit.