Research Paper

My spring quarter project will be a series of short films that exemplify different aspects of the Christian faith. In my research I struggled to find many other films in similar styles about religion and Christianity.

In today’s churches, experimental or abstract art is rarely encouraged. James Elaine, member of the Christians of the Visual Arts, says “As an artist and a Christian I understand the difficulty in reconciling the two and finding our place in life. The church often times ignores or rejects the relevance of the artist in the work of the Kingdom while the world rejects the perspective of the Christian in culture.” He follows up this point by adding that despite this lack of recognition we need to preserve and try and encourage our Christian communities to understand the importance of artistic expression.

I watched several videos produced by Nooma. Pastor Rob Bell stars in these video installments. They’re short (usually 7 - 15 minute) long videos that each focus on different aspects of the Christian faith. They are shot in a way that are unique to a majority of films used in churches or for Christian education. They are based heavily in metaphors and drawing connections from what is being filmed and the stories Rob Bell is telling. Episode 5 of the videos, titles “sound,” is almost completely silent and filmed from an angle that makes the viewer assume they are a television watching a person watching a television. These sort of abstract or more experimental filming choices separates the Nooma videos from the majority of videos in this genre. These videos exemplify several of Edward Smalls’ criteria for experimental cinema including brevity, lack of language, mental imagery, and reflexivity.

R.J. Rushdoony says, in his article The Meaning and Greatness of Christian Art, “Art is inescapably a religious activity. Man, in all his activities, manifests his faith.” The article talks about how culture, in itself, is a religion and those practice Christianity incorporate those beliefs into there culture. Art will often times be a vessel to express ideas or thoughts that are hard to define using words. In the Bible, Moses, a major author in the old testament, would seamlessly transition from story telling to poetry because some aspects of the story couldn’t be told in a conventional manor. Faith is such a personal and intimate interaction, it is hard to express how it causes you to feel. It is the challenge of the artist to take something so indescribable as belief in God and translate it to something visual or audible.


Bibliography
Witherington, Ben. “Rob Bell’s Nooma Videos.” Feb 24th, 2007. www.benwitherington.blogspot.com
Witherington’s blog was commentary on different Nooma videos.

Elaine, James. “Christians in the Visual Arts.” www.civa.org
This website displayed Christian art work as long as had short articles about the importance of Christian art work

Monsma, Cornelius. Art work.
Monsma is a Christian and a large amount of his artwork displays aspects of faith in metaphorical and abstract ways.

Boyd, Greg. “Random Reflections.” Jan 11th, 2008. www.gregboyd,blogpsot.com
Boyd blogs about Christianity and our culture, he specifically calls out for rebellion to mainstream Christian practices

Rushdoony, R.J. “The Meaning and Greatness of Christian Art.” 1993.
The article discusses the place of art in culture and religion and how those things intertwine.

Nooma videos. Episodes: 001 Rain, 005 Noise, 008 Dust, 0011 Rhythm.
These videos are experimental and discuss different aspects of faith.
Edward Smalls. Direct Theory.
This book discusses the characteristics of experimental cinema