This clearly relates also to the third aspect of Geertz’s definition: religions formulate conceptions of a general order of existence that include the attempt to deal with experiences of chaos—the uncanny, pain and suffering, and injustice or evil. Most people go to the movies claiming the need to “escape” from their daily lives, but to what do they escape? The world presented by most films tends to be neater, more orderly, and has satisfactory endings (usually) in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded, families are reunited, and lovers mate for life. Although the narratives can introduce considerable conflict and tension, it tends to be resolved within the time limit prescribed by the filmgoing experience. However bad the situation of the characters may be at various points in the story, by the end, all will be tidy, and we will be reassured that all is well with the world. This does not mean that every film invokes a banal “happy ending,” as not everything may work out perfectly for all the characters in every respect. But as Geertz said about religion, it can provide a sense that justice and order exist, even though particular events remain unexplained or seem unfair. There are films that are exceptions to this, such as art-house or avant-garde films, but these do not tend to be the films with the largest audiences or box-office success. Such films might still be considered “religious” for the intelligentsia that enjoys them in that they display worldviews and systems of values (just as atheistic existentialism might be considered a religion), but I will not focus on them in this book, as they do not tend to demonstrate larger cultural trends or influence. Nonetheless, I will sometimes contrast films that have been less popular with those that have succeeded better at the box office in order to point out what mythologies and values resonate best with a particular culture: the most popular films are accepted by the largest group of people as representative both of how reality should be and how it actually is.
This brings us to the fourth aspect of Geertz’s definition of religion: the aura of factuality provided through the ritualization of the mythic worldview and its values. Some may claim that there can be no religious ritual involved in film viewing, as it need not be communal and does not require the viewer to participate in the same way as in a religious service. However, I would claim that this view of filmgoers as passive receptacles, doing nothing but imbibing the film’s values in isolation from one another, is a remnant of the discredited “hypodermic needle” model of cinema propounded by the mass-culture theorists—according to which filmgoers were “injected” with the ideology of the filmmakers in the theater and their response could only be that of unquestioning acceptance.32 In fact, filmgoers are very involved in their own appropriation of a film, and they do not passively accept whatever it says. They are often highly critical and spend much time discussing films before, during, and after the viewing. People are especially involved in the film while viewing it, whether they are screaming in a horror movie, laughing in a comedy, or applauding the hero at a key moment. This is one reason people still go to the movies instead of just renting a movie at home: it creates an “aura of factuality,” to use Geertz’s term, a sense of reality in a darkened room with an enlarged screen that encompasses all attention. Furthermore, a good audience can make a difference in how well one likes the movie—whether they laugh, cry, scream, or applaud enough to invite one to join in the communal experience of enjoying the film.
Geertz himself does not seem to see how Western popular cultural experiences might have the sort of ritual dimension he depicts as part of Balinese religion. He notes that the Balinese drama, because of its participatory aspect, is more “like a high mass, not like a presentation of Murder in the Cathedral,” which presumably does not invite the audience to join in.33 But popular films do often invite audience participation—more than live theatrical performances like Murder in the Cathedral in some ways, though (oddly enough) the film actors are not “there” to appreciate it. (Perhaps films even invite more audience participation precisely because audiences don’t need to fear upsetting the actors by their heckling!) Had Geertz done an ethnographic study of a midnight showing of the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for example, he might have had some appreciation for the ways in which Western popular culture creates the sort of ritual experience that the Balinese have in their religious drama. As the audience flick their lighters on, throw toast at the screen, or respond verbally to the cues in the film, they become part of the story. This no doubt explains also why people would go to the film over and over again, as if to a church service, for this ritual experience. In fact, filmgoers routinely go multiple times to a film they like and may purchase the film to watch over and over again.34 The experience of watching the film on video is often communal, too, as friends are invited over, popcorn is made, and a discussion of the film surrounds its viewing. Many people memorize dialogue from movies that they can repeat with their friends as a sort of “in-joke” that defines their own groups. Clearly, the communal nature of film viewing and its ritual aspects are linked.35
More ethnographic study needs to be done on the ways films are experienced, as the tendency in scholarship until relatively recently was to treat the film as a “text” in need of interpretation rather than describing the event of film viewing and its attendant symbolisms. Films are understood and interpreted and therefore have meaning only in the context of their actual viewing. Instead of pretending we understand the meaning of a film because we have watched it ourselves and intellectually analyzed its meaning for us, we need to allow for the possibility that to understand the meaning of the film involves understanding how the average viewer sees it, what she liked about it, and perhaps even where she saw it, why, and with whom. Only by answering these sorts of questions can we have any idea of what the film might represent to those who have seen it. This sort of research is elaborate and time-consuming, so there is less of it available than we might wish, but new tools such as online viewer comments have given a source of considerable data that did not exist even a few years ago.
Geertz’s fifth point reinforces the idea that religious rituals create a sense of reality that points to a different way of viewing the world from that provided by ordinary experience. Although people clearly know that films are not “real” in the commonsensical meaning of the term, the films take on the dimension of reality within the context of their viewing. Geertz himself seemed unwilling to admit the extent to which works of art can create this alternate sense of reality. In distinguishing art from religion, he accepts Suzanne Langer’s view that art deals with illusion and appearance, imagining how the world could be, whereas religion claims to represent the world as it really is.36 But religion also imagines how the world might be, and as Geertz’s own theory indicates, religion links together what “is” and what “ought to be” in its ritual structure. Religion does not simply describe the world, and art does not simply provide imaginary illusions; both are involved in the complex relationship between the ideal and the real, in that both offer a worldview as well as an ethos. The way in which films—and religion—represent a version of “reality” has been a point of much debate that deserves further attention.
Film (and Religion) as Illusion or Reality
From the beginning of cinema in the late nineteenth century, it was already clear that film had a dual nature in its ability to “reproduce” reality but also to distort it. Louis Lumière made a series of short films, each less than forty seconds, which he first screened before audiences in 1895. These included Baby’s Breakfast and Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, which filmed ordinary scenes from life with no pretense at art, acting, or story. The Sprinkler Sprinkled did include a bit of comedic acting, as it showed a boy playing a trick on the gardener in order to spray him with a hose and the gardener chasing and spanking him in response. Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is a more familiar example of a film said to have provoked some shock, as the train appears to be heading into the audience. Lumière’s popularity waned quickly as the novelty of his method wore off, as he was not very interested in story development or artistic details—but he had established the ability of the moving picture to film a “real” scene—or at least one that appeared to be real.
On the other hand, George Méliès made films that were clearly fantastic in both theme and appearance, such as A Trip to the Moon (1902), a thirteen-minute film that told the story of a rocket