The Pilgrim’s Protest

“The movies are great medicine. / Thank you, Thomas Edison, / for giving us the best years of our lives!” So goes the refrain of the old Statler Brother song called simply, “The Movies.” Indeed, Edison’s gift exerts, for good or ill, tremendous force and influence in our contemporary culture. Some say cinematic productions have usurped the creative and cultural role that the novel of yesteryear once occupied.
The Christian community has always had a somewhat rocky relationship with the world of cinema, especially Hollywood. The staff of The Pilgrim’s Protest thought it would be interesting to survey our undergrad faculty to learn what kinds of movies have impressed them. Before we present the list, let’s make some observations.

Why do we watch movies? I suspect it is for a variety of reasons. Why do we read novels? I suggest we watch in order to escape our own mundane lives (ever heard of cinema therapy?), to be entertained, to feel, to think, and even to experience something through someone else. Cliff Bedell specifically mentioned in his response to our survey the desire to be challenged by the movies he watches; his favorites reflect that (except for that Snow White thing, but there’s a story behind that; ask him about it!). All these reasons, and more, keep us going back to the theatre, or to Blockbuster, and spending our lives in roughly 2-hour increments watching other people do things.
Now to the results! The film with the most votes was Chariots of Fire (5). Other top movies were Lord of the Rings (4), followed by Fiddler on the Roof (3), The Passion of the Christ (3), The Shawshank Redemption (3), and The Princess Bride (3). In terms of genre, it should be no surprise that our faculty prefers films with religious themes (7), followed by drama (6), action (6), fantasy (2), comedy (2), and sci-fi (2).
What are the films our faculty watches rated? My daughter and I tabulated that 8% were rated G, 40% were rated PG, 18% were rated PG-13, 20% were rated R, and 15% were not rated (usually because the movies in question predated the rating system). Is it notable that only 8% were rated G? Or that one film out of five was rated R? And, almost half of the movies listed, 40%, were rated PG? What do these numbers tell us? Look at the list and draw your own conclusions.

Faculty Movie Favorites:
Steve Baarendse:
A Man for All Seasons
Horatio
Hornblower series
Chariots of Fire
Henry V (Branagh)
High Noon
Cliff Bedell:
Hotel Rwanda
The Passion of the Christ
Ghandi
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Killing Fields
Pat Blewett:
Fiddler on the Roof
Bruce Almighty
A Time to Run
A Time to Kill
Saving Private Ryan
Anita Cooper:
Sense and Sensibility
The Never Ending Story
Little Men
The Princess Bride
Les Miserables
Citizen Kane
John Crutchfield:
Chariots of Fire
Gettysburg
It’s A Wonderful Life/A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott as Scrooge)
Lord of the Rings
The Passion of the Christ
Dan DeLozier:
Star Wars
Matrix
Independence Day
Harry Potter
The Lord of the Rings
Steve Farra:
Signs
The Natural
Saving Private Ryan
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Glenn Gentry:
Pride and Prejudice (A&E)
Second Hand Lions
Bourne Identity
Nell
The Passion of the Christ
Jack Layman:
Something to Die For
Chariots of Fire
My Father’s Glory
Hule Goddard:
Jeremiah Johnson
The Four Feathers (b&w version)
Dances with Wolves
The Horse Whisperer
Braveheart
Lindsay Hislop:
Schindler’s List
Chariots of Fire
The Good Earth
The Shawshank Redemption
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Joel Williams:
The Princess Bride
What about Bob?
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Napoleon Dynamite
Becky Williams:
The Mission
Napoleon Dynamite
Les Miserables (1978 version)
The Princess Bride
Fiddler on the Roof
Joe LeTexier:
Star Wars (episodes 1-6)
The Lord of the Rings
Braveheart
The Godfather (1 & 2)
Fiddler on the Roof
Larry Wagner:
The Mission
Chariots of Fire
Rudy
The Shawshank Redemption
Platoon
David Olshine:
Simon Birch
Patch Adams
Shawshank Redemption
Hoosiers/Remember the Titans/Rudy (sports category)
Mr. Holland’s Opus
Mark Wenger:
The Matrix
The Lord of the Rings
The Incredibles
Much Ado About Nothing
Ever After