From The River of God by Kim Cimio — Part II. Culture, Chapter 5
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)
Why film is the total work of art of our age, why Christians have struggled with it, where Christ appears in unexpected art, and how art flows from God’s call to be fruitful.
Why is it worth watching films in a cinema rather than on a laptop?
Watching only at home is like listening only to recordings and never attending a live concert. The big screen is a canvas the director composes with intention. On television, the lone man in the desert at the start of Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas almost disappears; on the big screen the wilderness swallows him and you feel his isolation. The rider emerging from the mirage in Lawrence of Arabia only works at scale. The theater also demands focus. I gave up on Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro on Netflix after twenty minutes, but on a big screen it captivated me. The difference was my attention. In art, you get what you invest, just as reading Homer in Greek gives more than a translation. Walter Benjamin said reproduction diminishes a work’s “aura”; films, like a Rubens or a Vermeer, demand presence.
Why is film the “total work of art” of our age, and why does the medium matter?
Wagner envisioned opera as a total work of art combining music, literature, acting and stagecraft. But opera is expensive and must be performed live again and again. Film is the total work of art of our age: accessible and combining visual art, music, literature and performance. Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey asks deep questions about human origins and AI, gave Strauss’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and “The Blue Danube” new meaning, and still looks stunning. Its cut from a bone thrown by an ape to an orbiting satellite says that modern technology extends primitive tools of aggression, a message no other medium could convey with the same impact. Christians tend to focus only on a film’s story and message and ignore the medium. But as Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” Breaking up by text hurts not only because of the breakup but because of the medium.
How have Christians related to the different arts?
Christians understand music best. Christianity has always been a musical tradition, from Vivaldi and Bach to today’s huge Christian music market. We also have a rich literary tradition, from Milton to T.S. Eliot. Fine art was embraced as “the literature of the laity” in the Middle Ages, though we may ask whether we respected it as art or only used it as a tool for communication. Dance was long rejected as too bodily, and only recently, especially in Pentecostal and charismatic churches, has it been embraced in worship. Film remains the most contested. Our unease goes back to the early church’s suspicion of theater; Augustine condemned plays as full of lust and idolatry, and cinema was judged with the same severity.
Why are Christian movies often mediocre, and how could that change?
Christian films are often valued only for delivering a safe message. As Frank Schaeffer observed, believers settle for works that are morally correct but artistically poor: preachy and predictable. Budgets are small because the audience is small, but the greater problem is a shortage of Christians who see filmmaking as a calling. Reservoir Dogs and The Florida Project were made on limited budgets by exceptionally skilled artists; talent can compensate for lack of resources. Talent grows by watching many films and making them. Yet if a gifted young Christian says they watch many movies because they want to be a filmmaker, other Christians are more likely to see it as a waste of time or even disloyalty to faith. We lack a healthy environment for raising filmmakers. YWAM offers filmmaking schools, and if we see cinema as an important field and a powerful art form, we should encourage more young people to pursue it.
Can non-Christian artists create truly Christian works of art?
Yes, often to the shame of Christian filmmakers. Pier Paolo Pasolini, an openly gay communist who also made the depraved Salò, directed The Gospel According to Matthew, a faithful, almost documentary portrayal of Jesus that the Vatican called “the best film on Christ ever made.” Carl Theodor Dreyer, a spiritual seeker skeptical of organized religion, made The Word, a masterpiece of faith triumphing over death. Steven Spielberg, a proud Jew, included a scene in Amistad where an African explains an illustrated Bible: “Their lives were full of suffering. Then he was born and everything changed.” Wagner, with his own demons, wrote Tannhäuser, in which a sinner even the Pope cannot forgive is saved by grace. We cannot judge a work by the creator’s faith. As Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “Christ plays in ten thousand places.”
What is art, and how is it different from craft or entertainment?
I studied aesthetics, the philosophy of beauty and art, but found the lectures dry and detached from the experience of art. Still, they clarified some problems. Art is hard to distinguish from craftsmanship: both learn technique and aim at beauty, yet the best way to become a painter isn’t to start as a house painter. It is also hard to separate from entertainment. Woody Allen said Mozart and Shakespeare were the entertainers of their day, and Dickens and Casablanca were made for mass audiences. Yet we intuitively know that Disneyland and an art museum offer different experiences. Frustrated, some aestheticians said art is simply whatever the “art world” calls art, which explains Duchamp’s urinal or Cage’s silent 4’33”. But who gave the art world that authority? That makes art a social construct, almost a pyramid scheme. We all know art is much bigger than the art world.
What makes something art: the passion of the artist and the respect of the public?
Defining art is a fool’s errand; cinema, poetry and sculpture were grouped as “art” only recently, and many modern artists abandoned beauty. It is more useful to look at two things. First, the artist’s passion. Craftsmen may see their work as a trade, but an artist is driven by irrepressible passion. When I took up street photography, I was poor, yet film came before food, and I developed rolls in a closet when I had no darkroom. Plato said the poet is possessed by the Muses; an artist is easily inspired and has the discipline to act on it. Second, the public’s respect. Governments build museums and honor artists; museums treat works as almost sacred, and Salvator Mundi sold for $450 million in 2017. Art is respected because through it we transcend this world and glimpse a better one.
Can an aesthetic experience be a spiritual experience?
Yes. Art is a gateway to another world. Schubert’s song “To Music” thanks art for bringing him, in gray hours when life struck him down, “to a better world.” When we are moved by music or painting, we experience something beyond the material world; we experience the presence of God. That is why so many artists are deeply spiritual even if not conventionally religious. D.H. Lawrence wrote, “One has to be so terribly religious to be an artist.” Producer David Puttnam said of Ennio Morricone: “Even if you struggle with the idea of God, you hear Ennio’s music and think, there is something out there.” Listening to “Gabriel’s Oboe” from The Mission or the love theme from Cinema Paradiso, it is hard to believe in a meaningless world of chance.
Why do humans make art, and how does it relate to God’s command to be fruitful?
When God told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful,” he meant more than having children. Fruit is the result of growth, so he was calling humans to develop their potential to maturity and complexity. Art is one of the most magnificent results of that mandate, alongside science, engineering and philosophy. We honor artists because they fulfill a calling we all share. Humans have made art from the start; the Lascaux cave paintings use perspective, shading and naturalistic detail. Yet art has no obvious survival value, which puzzles scientists. Jared Diamond suggested artistic skill helps attract partners, but that only moves the question to why we want artistic partners. The true answer lies in our innate, God-given desire to be fruitful.
What does the parable of the talents teach about developing our gifts?
In Matthew 25:14–30, a master gives servants five, two and one talent. A talent was not a coin but a huge weight of silver or gold, around 30 kilograms. Our modern word “talent” for a natural aptitude comes from this parable, and rightly so: God entrusts each of us with abilities, for painting, programming, music or something else, and expects us to multiply them. Most artists start unskilled; Spielberg’s first feature, Duel, gives only a hint of Saving Private Ryan, but the seed is there. Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst,” and in the film era that meant around €3,000 in film alone. Development costs something, but it is how we become fruitful. We are accountable for our talents. This book is my response to that call. What frightens me is not judgment itself but appearing before God empty-handed.
Source: Kim Cimio, The River of God (Vision & Logic, 2025), chapter 5, “Cinema Paradiso.” Answers are condensed from the book in the author’s words.
