Status Updates From Scoring Transcendence: Cont...

“From within a culture that suffers under the weight of a surfeit of information and a distinct lack of deep and thoughtful reflection, do films like Cars promote the cultivation of wisdom, or do they simply present us with something more easily digested but far from enduring?” Author advocates for meaningful use of film (including other Pixar films) where music invites engagement, not mindless reception.

“Interestingly, each of Pixar’s films in some way addresses the bleak or more menacing side of our lived experience…Yet especially in the studio’s earlier films, music often works to undermine or mitigate the stark (and perhaps all-too-real) narratives. Indeed, the music often anesthetizes the brutality of the images and narratives we witness.” E.g., Toy Story, Monsters Inc, etc.

“The images…offered us an invitation to remember our loss and, in an important sense, functioned as an embodiment of our pain. But it was the music that expressed something that even the most explicit visual or narrative reference to our pain-filled story could not contain: the redemptive power of hard-won hope.”

“We know we are in the presence of the transcendent Spirit of God when we encounter a beauty that issues from out of ugliness, or perhaps even more disturbingly for modern persons, from out of ordinariness.” Love.