Tag Archives: Academy Award

Loss and Longing in Oscar’s Best Original Song Nominees

 

This year’s original songs nominated for an Oscar have an unsurprising theme: loss and longing. If they are not downright sad, they are about sad situations, sad lives and a deep longing we can all relate to.

Sad songs are more popular than happy ones and have greater staying power. I wish Pharrell’s Happy would last longer than Adele’s Hello, but I would not count on it.

In a sad world, sad songs can be addictive.  So be careful; it is sad out there. Research suggests that sad music can play a role in emotional regulation — I think everyone knows the word “cathartic” by now; and everyone talks about “venting.” Music-evoked sadness helps us release emotional distress in a safe, beautiful way and provides some distance for reappraisal, and insight. Sometimes it gives us the chills, which feel good and soothe anxiety. Sad music teases out hormones like  oxytocin and prolactin, which are also associated with mom’s cuddles and falling in love. So the aftermath of a sad song can be a period of feeling not so sad. Of course we’ll need a another dose very soon – at least most of us seem to. But we like going back for more.

Jesus is acquainted with grief and full of joy

Jesus followers, contrary to what some of their teachers taught in the last century [like this], are encouraged to be sad in a hopeful way: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

We have a safe place in Christ to grieve fearlessly, knowing that we are not in danger of the deadly despair we dread. When we are wearing our true selves, we can sorrow without defeat and experience sadness without hopelessness.  We can aspire to true sorrow and true hope.

One reason Paul gives for this wonderful capacity is our knowledge that we grieve temporarily. We know our grief will come to an end. Like I said a couple of weeks ago, Jesus told his disciples: “So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” Paul highlights that hope by pointing back in time and then pointing forward: “For since we believe that [in the past] Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will [in the future] bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

This year’s songs are also acquainted with grief and longing for something else

The songs nominated for Best Original Song of 2018  are all longing for the hope Jesus instills in us (at least unconsciously). Take a look and see what you think.

All the Stars

Black Panther is a hopeful movie about a culture in hiding, its treasure masked by its contradictory camouflage of poverty.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA sing a duet of the nominated song, All the Stars, during the credits. Here’s part of it:

Love, let’s talk about love.
Is it anything and everything you hoped for?
Or do the feeling haunt you?
I know the feeling haunt you

This may be the night that my dreams might let me know:
All the stars are closer, all the stars are closer, all the stars are closer…

How did it all go to feel good?
You could live it all.
If you feel bad better live your life
We were runnin’ out of time.

I do not know everything Kendrick Lamar is getting at. But I can tell he is longing, like the movie, for respect. Even deeper, he is trying not to let love slip away, even though he would like to stop feeling the pain of missing it. Maybe even deeper than that, he would like the moment when he feels the stars are closer to be a regular occurrence — he misses God, too.

I’ll Fight

RBG is a bit of hagiography about the lawyer-turned-SCOTUS-member who worked valiantly to put women’s rights into law.

The song is called I’ll Fight. And RBG can pack a wallop for someone as notoriously diminutive as she is. Here is a bit:

When you feel you’re taking all that you can take
And you’re sure you’re never gonna catch a break
And the tears are rivers running down your face, yeah
When your faith is low and you’ve got no strength left
When you think you’ve gone as far as you can get
And you’re too run down to take another step

Oh I will take up the struggle
Oh I know it’s a fight

So I’ll fight, fight that war for you
I’ll fight, stand and defend you

Saints have often been stand-ins for the Savior. So it is appropriate that Jennifer Hudson, the church woman, steps up to sing a testimony: “I was low but you rescued me, I was defenseless and you were my strength.” It sounds like a psalm!

The song longs for that person who meets us when the tears are streaming down our face. Ultimately, I met that person in Jesus. But Jesus has a lot of friends. Every Jesus follower keeps growing in Jesus-like empathy and conviction; so sing it, Jennifer! And plenty of humans who don’t follow Jesus have goodness and courage built right in as the beloved creatures they are; so stay alive, Ruth!

The Place Where Lost Things Go

Above is the songwriter singing his version. If you want Emily Blunt, here she is.

Mary Poppins Returns is a great remake of the original. It should be given an award for daring! Emily Blunt should win prizes for letting herself be compared to the icon, Julie Andrews. Like so many Disney movies, the drama centers around the death of a parent. In this case, it is mom who is lost — thus, this stanza of The Place Where the Lost Things Go:

So when you need her touch
And loving gaze
Gone but not forgotten
Is the perfect phrase
Smiling from a star
That she makes glow
Trust she’s always there
Watching as you grow
Hiding in the place
Where the lost things go

The theology of many movies teaches children that dead people are like stars that shine down on us from heaven. And if you don’t forget people they are still alive, at least in your heart. I have, indeed, imagined that loved ones I miss are still looking over me, and my memories of them comfort me, since I still miss them. So this is a sweet, if somewhat untrustworthy song.

God has been generally banished from the movies, but we still need a Savior (Black Panther, RBG, and Mary Poppins) and we still need and still long for a touch of love and mystery in our sadness (strength in blackness, strength in weak old age, and strength returning to Dad in his deep, deep sadness). I hope Jesus appreciates how religious these movies are! He is still needed!

Shallow

I wasn’t much of a Gaga fan until this movie. As soon as I saw it, I forgave her for following Janet, JUDY and Barbra, she was just so talented! Plus, she writes evocative songs, like Shallow. Here’s a lot of it.

Tell me somethin’, girl
Are you happy in this modern world?
Or do you need more?
Is there somethin’ else you’re searchin’ for?

I’m falling
In all the good times I find myself
Longin’ for change
And in the bad times I fear myself

Tell me something, boy
Aren’t you tired tryin’ to fill that void?
Or do you need more?
Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore?

I’m falling
In all the good times I find myself
Longing for change
And in the bad times I fear myself

I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in
I’ll never meet the ground
Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us
We’re far from the shallow now

In just a few brief lines, this duet hits us where sadness meets fear: “Will I ever get to be who I feel I am? Is my longing doomed to go unmet?” I appreciate the clever image of crashing through the surface. It is on the other side of what seems to be the impenetrable surface that we find out we can’t be hurt like we feared quite so much.

For Lady Gaga, personally, the wall between men and women is broken down as the partners listen and empathize in this song. What’s more, the walls the misfits, like her, need to crash through is demonstrated for everyone needing to find courage.

I went back and listened to the words above as if Jesus were singing them, wherever that seemed right. It fit for me. I am blessed with people who crash through surfaces with me and for me. But when it comes to finding the place where they can’t hurt me, that comes with Jesus crashing into humanity and then crashing through death. My courage is too shallow to get where the song promises. Lady Gaga is worth about $300 million dollars — I know it does not buy her the great courage she has, but it surely helps. The rest of us probably need more.

When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a set of stories in which someone is going to die. It is a movie about death. The crack shooter, Buster Scruggs, sings the nominated song, When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings, as he is ascending to heaven. Here’s much of it:

When they wrap my body
In the thin linen sheet
And they take my six ounce
Pull the boots from my feet

Unsaddle my pony
She’ll be itching to roam
I’ll be halfway to heaven
Under horsepower of my own

Yippee-ki-yi-yay
When the roundup ends
Yippee-ki-yi-yay
And the campfire dims

Yippee-ki-yi-yay
He shalt be saved
When a cowboy trades
His spurs for wings

The final one of the film shorts that make up the movie: “Mortal Remains,” is the only one in which the characters are already dead. They are only marginally aware of this reality. They remind me of the spirits in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce (MUCH recommended, if you haven’t read it yet). This final parable pulls the rest of the stories together. It is the story of how three people who would normally not be in the same stagecoach together find their souls being harvested.

As dead people they try to put things together. Each is very sure of their own point of view as to what is happening. With a nod to why sad songs and stories about death move us so much, one of the harvesters notes that “We love hearing about ourselves. As long as the people in the stories are us, but not us. Not us in the end, especially.”  Each person’s confirmation bias can’t save them; though different, each is just as dead as the other. It is a Coen Brothers parable. They seem to see a world full of swift repercussions, but one that is also random, in which the only certainty is death.

The humor that laces the Coen Brothers’ debate with the narcissism and nihilism of the postmodern era leaves room for love and hope, which their wacky characters often demonstrate. The whole, three-hour Oscar ceremony, complete with the often less-than-classic nominated songs it elevates, is a similar celebration. Beautiful, talented people celebrate, show honor, cry, praise people (and sometimes God), and showcase the best of humanity.

I feel for the attenders, all all gussied up for their stagecoach ride in the Dolby Theater, all with their longings, 80% of the nominees soon to experience loss. In many ways, as the nominated songs are performed,  they will reveal their sadness and longing.  Those beautiful people might experience that tingle we feel when something has broken through our surface and the Holy Spirit gets an opportunity to beckon us into eternity and our true selves.

The end of the world 2013 — and why you matter.

Next Sunday night I will once again enjoy a guilty pleasure as I indulge in my tivo’d copy of the 86th Academy Awards show. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is 94% white, 77% male, 14% under the age of 50, with a median age of 62, which explains why only one of the movies I am about to talk about received a nomination (Star Trek for best visual effects). But in honor of of our society’s inventive and stimulating visual literature, I want to point out how the movies in 2013 had a very interesting theme that Christians have a lot to say about: the end.

The end of the world as we know it

I suppose that Christians should take some of the blame for how moviemakers were a bit obsessed about the end of the world last year. We Jesus followers have a great capacity to receive the goodness of each moment, but we also have an eye on the end of time when Jesus completes the graces of this age and returns to inaugurate the age to come. As we will see in a minute, Paul teaches us to assess each action for how it will endure the fire that is coming to test it! Over the years, the church has contributed in good ways and bad to how our culture views the end of the world. But if the moviemakers are channeling the zeitgeist well (and that is what makes them money!), then the general population must be very interested in the end — and afraid! The following six end-of-the-world, post-life-as-we-know-it movies grossed $739 million domestically and $1.75 billion worldwide in just 2013 – and there were more of their ilk.

So, what does this interest in the end mean? As any movie fan (or sci-fi aficionado) knows, this isn’t new. After the dawn of the atomic age, end-of-the-world B-movies proliferated like mushroom clouds across American drive-in screens. As Cold War paranoia grew, higher-profile films like Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe charted the same bleak territory, continuing on into the 80s with a slew of it-could-happen-here dramas like Red Dawn (remade in 2012 with Thor in the lead) and Miracle Mile.

That said, though, there’s even more of it now. More than 20 years after the official end of the Cold War, film makers seem focused on the mess we have made of things or the mess we are about to be made by things. We’re a dozen years after 9/11 and sort of emerging from a ten-year war and a lingering economic crisis. Hollywood seems to think that cinematic destruction — as well as the accompanying hope, heroism and homegrown humanity — will act as a kind of balm for the beleaguered public.

Who are the real doombusters?

actors

In 2013 the doombusters had some regular themes.

  • They have a melancholy for bygone days, especially in Oblivion and Elysium: in an age of increased technology, the simpler pleasures of 20th-century life are already haunting us.
  • They are frightened about unknown predators that might pop up at any time: the crew of Star Trek is battling an unleashed evil from the darkness; in The World’s End and Oblivion they meet aliens; in World War Z it is Zombies; in Elysium it is the one-percent and their machines; in This is the End it is God.
  • They think we have the weaponry to fight the battle: Pine, Pitt, Damon and Cruise are quite serious about it all, teaching us that one person can make all the difference against the powers that oppress us; Franco and Pegg periodically wink at the camera and pretend their mockery of the subject will solve the problem.

Jesus followers who live as the body of Christ have so much to offer in the atmosphere created by the filmmakers! There is always the danger that a saved person will forget that they mean something. Now is not the time to do that. Sometimes we see our freedom from fear as a freedom from reverence; so we just live in our moment with our great community and neglect our larger importance. The Bible writers are always quick to point out that we dare not do that. If anything, our freedom from fear of condemnation for what we do makes us even more responsible for what we do. Our freedom demonstrates that the Spirit of God dwells in us and that we have what people need as their end draws near. The rest of creation is locked in time, but Jesus has opened us up to eternity, now. We live in the beginning of the End. Jesus is the dawn of the Day. Read 1 Corinthians 3:10-20.

What Paul teaches us from his wonderful awareness of his undeserved importance is very relevant in a year when people all look like the actors above, facing the crazy, scary things that are happening to them. He makes sure we remember that Jesus is a sure foundation whether times seem shaky or the whole world is afraid. We should build on that foundation with the best stuff we’ve got. Because the world and its film makers are right about one thing: the end of the world as we know it is near. One way or another, our time will end and the life we lived and the things we built that were fit for eternity will be rewarded. In such a time, we people of God, who are the home of the Holy Spirit, need to take ourselves seriously. The standards of our age have some powerful, cinematic ways of teaching us their crafty futility. But we must not be deceived by them. If they think we are fools and James Franco makes fun of us, that just proves even more that we are truly on to something.