'Compass': Challenging believers to articulate faith, values
By Sr. Rose Pacatte, FSP
The Tidings
December 7, 2007
http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/120707/compassrose.htm
New Line Cinema's latest contribution to the fantasy film genre is director/writer Chris Weitz's "The Golden Compass," based on the 1995 award-winning book of the same title by Phillip Pullman. New Line --- the studio behind "The Lord of the Rings" --- may have another hit trilogy on its hands.
"The Golden Compass" is Book I of Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy; the others are "The Subtle Knife (1997) and "The Amber Spyglass" (2000.) More than 15 million copies of the books have been sold worldwide. Pullman says he has borrowed from every book he has ever read to create this best-selling and controversial trilogy and these include the fantasy writings and mythic imagination of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein.
"The Golden Compass" is a very exciting film about a young girl, Lyra and her animal-shaped spirit companion, Pan, voiced by Freddie Highmore (called a daemon in the film) who guided by a golden compass embark on an odyssey to rescue their friends. It will engage young and old alike (scenes of peril and fantasy violence may scare very younger children.) There are missing children, interesting daemons (in Greek mythology, these are spirit beings who can be good or malevolent), terrible scientific experiments, great polar bears and witches, and the Authority, or Magisterium, that controls the universe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To believers, God is the author of creation and not subject to it; therefore, the god that Pullman tries to kill through the imposter angel Metatron in 'The Amber Skyglass' is not the God we believe in anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The seamless animation and brilliant special effects should attract some awards. Dakota Blue Richards, not burdened by excessive cuteness, plays Lyra with strength and courage. Nicole Kidman is positively chilling as Mrs. Coulter. My favorite character is the great armored polar bear, Iorek Byrnison, voiced by Sir Ian McKellan. Along with Lee Scorsby, an "aeronaut" from Texas, played by Sam Elliott, he is Lyra's brave and loyal champion.
The Controversy
Pullman (b. 1946) is a professed atheist: "Although I call myself an atheist I am a Church of England atheist, and a 1662 Book of Common Prayer atheist, because that's the tradition I was brought up in and I cannot escape those early influences" (quoted in "Killing the Imposter God: Phillip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in 'His Dark Materials,'" 2007, JosseyBass).
Some critics believe that Pullman's fantasy epic is an expression of an atheist agenda. The Catholic League (
www.CatholicLeague.org) agrees and has published a pamphlet about the book trilogy and sent it to all Catholic schools in the U.S. The Catholic League's website states that seeing the film --- even if it is not as troubling as the trilogy --- will cause children to want to read the novels and this would harm their faith. The Catholic League's website says that Pullman has twin goals "to promote atheism and denigrate Christianity to kids."
Others, such as Donna Frietas and Jason King, admit to Pullman's atheism in their book "Killing the Imposter God," but think he employs feminist and liberation critical theology in his writings, and that using these lenses reveals truth rather than denies it. Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware concede Pullman's darkness but also find and explore religious themes in "Shedding Light on His Dark Materials: Exploring Hidden Spiritual Themes in Philip Pullman's Popular Series" (2007, SaltRiver/Tyndale.)
Source material
Pullman's theological and spiritual source for "His Dark Materials" seems to be principally derived from the epic scriptural/theological poem "Paradise Lost" by John Milton (1608-1674). Milton's influence on Pullman's worldview cannot be underestimated.
Milton wrote passionately against England's monarchy as being head of church and state. In his later years, Milton also rejected Trinitarian Christianity and moved toward a more Unitarian theology. Some critics say that Pullman's vision of Christianity is medieval but it is really the Christianity of Milton's age, framed by the Renaissance/Reformation/Counter-Reformation centuries that fuel his discourse.
Philosophically, Milton was a monist. Simply put, monists believe that all matter can be reduced to a single substance, a kind of energy that animates everything, even angels. Pullman calls this substance "dust."
Human free will is the key theme in "Paradise Lost" and "His Dark Materials." Free will continues to be a point of theological debate between Catholics and Protestants and is contested in the film and books as well.
In the trilogy, Pullman places the headquarters of the church/magisterium (a term used by Catholics that means the teaching authority of the Church) in Geneva, Switzerland, where John Calvin's (1509-1564) religious movement was based. It is interesting that Pullman does not single out the Catholic Church for his critique but includes all organized religion, including mainstream Protestant churches.
There is one brief sequence when the polar bear Iorek Byrnison attacks the Magisterium's building in the north to retrieve his armor; the building is adorned with icons. To me, this showed that religion was one of the agencies in the film oppressing the characters, not the whole story.
Pullman's atheism?
There appears to be no explicit religious content, and therefore no atheism, in the film version of "The Golden Compass."
The book version is critical of religion and organized religion, though it is difficult to assess how much readers engage in the philosophy and theology that underpin his fantasy tale. Pullman does reject, and ultimately attempts to kill off, a convoluted idea of God in "The Amber Spyglass." On the one hand he presents a theological image of God as an old man, perhaps cruel and distant. On the other hand, Pullman rids the universe of a philosophical image of God that is uninterested in his creation, a creation that originally created him in the first place.
To believers, God is the author of creation and not subject to it; therefore, the god that Pullman tries to kill through the imposter angel Metatron in "The Amber Skyglass" is not the God we believe in anyway.
Pullman's image of God reminds me of how Bruce described him in the 2003 film "Bruce Almighty": "God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he'd rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm."
Although it is not clear if the divine will be part of any subsequent films, should they be produced, perhaps Pullman has done us all a favor by ridding us of many false images of God.
I do think that Pullman's writings ultimately reveal a nihilistic view of life and, at the end of the day, shed little light on the meaning of life. "The Golden Compass" film, however, demonstrates the values and virtues heroism, self-sacrifice and courage that transcend the challenges the characters face. If future films are made, we can hope that they will be consistent with this first film.
Moreover, "The Golden Compass" film challenges believing adults to articulate their faith and values and to brush up on Church history, theology and literature and literary forms. It is a difficult assignment, but an excellent way to engage in our culture. To "just say no" is not a valid option in today's media world.
Daughter of St. Paul Sister Rose Pacatte is co-author, with Sister Gretchen Hailer, of "Media Mindfulness: Educating Teens about Faith and Media" (St. Mary's Press, 2007).
