On the film "Die Grosse Stille" (Into Great Silence)
It's worth it just to see them sledding
Or to see a spider moving its foreleg
How moving! Its going to get something to eat!
These monks are as close to children
As spiders are to the grass
Around the vegetable garden
And when they speak. . . .
But they have forgotten exchange
But prayer is changing
A reviewer said that they were aliens
The Word comes from outside us
The Bell clangs from other side of galaxy
10 comments:
My wife and I were quite moved by this film as well. And amazed at how quickly the three hours (or however long) passed. I particularly loved the juxtaposition of monastic imagery with images of the natural world. If we worship the 'life creating Trinity', then a holy life bears some intrinsic connection to an organic one--even with the world under the condition of a curse--right?
I was hoping to see it myself. however, I don't think a movie that has at its essence the theme of silence is an appropriate choice for a baby.
I'm coming late to the Into Great Silence party, held earlier on this blog through various inspired and inspiring posts, but I'll throw in an observation. The lack of any running narrative really struck me about this film. As I fell into a kind of reverie staring at dust motes swarming in sunbeams, raindrops falling into puddles and perturbing the reflections of trees, and finally, the monks themselves, staring into the camera and back at me, I was surprised that the filmmaker avoided picking up and following any narrative line.
A typical narrative film, and even a documentary, would have exploited the arrival of two new initiates who wished to join the monastery, for example, by following their progress and adjustment to their new lives. However, the newly arrived remain a point of focus only briefly. We see the ceremony surrounding their trial entry into to the monastery, but none of the activities they are shown to do afterwards differ in any way from the activities carried out by monks who have been there for fifty years as opposed to fifty hours. We follow all of them as they pray, prepare food, care for animals, chop wood, pray, and so forth. And we follow the progress of the seasons from winter to spring to summer and then back again to winter. Everything revolves. Nothing bursts forth from any of the cycles.
In its refusal to develop a story, the film achieves a wonderful expression of the repetitions and relative peacefulness central to life in the monastery. It's nice to know that a static shot of the Empire State Building over 8 hours long and similar avant-garde endeavors do not provide our sole cinematic refuge from narrative!
However, I wondered what conclusions to draw from this aspect of Into Great Silence. If the monks are endlessly praying and contemplating Biblical stories, in a sense living the Bible (as Aron suggested in a brief conversation, as long as I understood him correctly), then what are we to make of this film that eschews narrative? What are we to conclude about its circular trajectory, as it sweeps through the changing seasons but never depicts change outside the context of continuity and ultimate stillness? In fact, even the Biblical quotations that come up on the screen tend to appear more than once, further emphasizing the repetition. Is this simply a beautiful expression of the stillness of a continuous connection with God that the monks are seeking, deepening it every day through continuous prayer, or can we graph the circular trajectories of the film onto the Bible story or stories somehow, with all of their repetitions? Yet, how can we bring Christ into the picture if there is nothing that bursts out of these cyclical patterns?
Did anyone else who saw the film have the sense that it avoided developing narratives for theological reasons, and not merely to reflect monastery life, or did I get lost somewhere while watching green leaves in the treetops sway in the wind?
Interesting. I thought the film had a nice narrative arc, albeit an understated one.
Though it doesn't always focus on the novice, it does return to him (and his cell) throughout, tracing his passage from the black habit to the white. It also introduces the viewer to many elements of monastic life with images containing the novice and/or his cell, giving the sense that the experiences might also be new for him. And I love the final images contrasting a very old monk with the new guy.
Definitely recapitulation, though, as you say. And loosely stated. And very cathartic in that regard.
I thought the passing of seasons, also, was at least a proto-narrative element. Circular, yes, but not entirely non-narrative. The seasons provided a good bit of dramatic arc, with the challenge of winter and its storms, then the scraping of snow from the garden plot in early spring, and so on to the rebirth of summer.
But yes, I did get lost in the green leaves as well . . .
"For theological reasons?" Yes...
In typical serendipitous fashion, I just happen to be rereading John F. Haught's marvelous book on *Science and Religion* (I'm working on a post on it) and his final chapter moves into a meditation on "sabbath, sacramentalism, and silence." I suspect that perhaps there is a profound link with Christ (as spagnoli queries?)through the monastic embrace of the sacramental attitude, which is maintained not only to the elements of the Eucharist but to the natural world itself (where the bread and the wine originates after all). Haught is Catholic, taught at Georgetown for decades, and here are a few excerpts that might detail some of the R.C. philosophy that might lie behind the film's relatively non-narrative structure. I coudn't resist the correlations with the topic "spagnoli" raises. (Besides, I love this book, and want to recommend it heartily!)
"That the natural world is at heart a symbolic disclosure of God gives nature a "sacral" quality which thwarts our destructive tendencies.... Our classic moral traditions have been so obsessed with questions of individual rights that they have overlooked the inter-dependent, relational nature of our existence and that of all beings.... The most appropriate way to "express" our standing in the presence of the divine mystery is, in imitation of Job, to press our fingers to our lips, to refrain from speech, to fall into silence. Our point here is that this "apophatic" posture of pure silence toward the sacred spills over into a deep respect for the autonomy of the natural world as well. Silence is fundamentally our "letting be" not only of God but also of God's world. Our contemplative reserve imitates God's own creative "letting be." In assuming the attitude of silence, religion expresses our reluctance to intrude into the mystery of God with the mundane instruments of words, images, and concepts. We allow the divine mystery to be. Likewise silence indicates our willingness to let the world of divine creation be itself....nature too particpates in the divine mystery... Our conviction is that the ecological crisis has something to do with modernity's loss of a genuine appreciation of the religious meaning of silence. The religiously rooted posture of contemplative silence effectively restrains the tendency to filter our sense of nature through human designs driven by a dubious carving for control....God's creation is something quite other than what we might take it to be. It has its own inviolable inner reality....Sabbath shares with both sacramentalism and silence a reluctance to rush in and transform nature into stuff we can use for our own purposes. Sabbath, sacramentalism, and silence, we are convinced, provide us with the deepest roots of the ecological concern the world so desperately needs to recover today."
I still haven't seen the movie but I wanted to chime in, especially considering Laura's really nice comment (thanks and welcome, Laura!). If I understand Laura's reading of the film correctly, the idea of circularity and, in a sense, immutability in the life of the monastery, or at least what I assume the film's tendency to focus on these themes, seems to subscribe to a Platonic view of perfection. If we see God as perfection in a static, immutable way, and our connection to God is through an ascendancy through the forms (also perfect by way of immutability), then a way of life that in its orbit is static, even if circular, is going to be the purest and probably most sure way to participate in the divine life. Thus, a life that gets away from images, temporal hang ups, anything that is part of Plato's world of becoming is going to be jettisoned. I suspect, as Laura seems to, that most Biblical (narrative) imagery would also be jettisoned, seeing as how it fits more into the distraction category.
Anyway, all of that said with the really KING SIZE caveat that I have still not seen the film.
I went to the film expecting to be somewhat bored, and I was indeed somewhat bored... in the way that I was somewhat bored at a Quaker meeting. I think part of the problem is that I'm not used to sitting still and just watching -- with no narrative, no action, no character development.
I think I understood the film quite well because I had previously read An Infinity of Little Hours, Nancy Klein Maguire's book about the Parkminster Charterhouse in England. That was a pretty good book that really explained what the Carthusians were about.
I think that this film served for me as the soundtrack (and video track) for that book.
Jay
I guess, Laura, you are the writer to whom I uncouthly referred as "spagnoli"? Sorry! Hello, Laura. (I couldn't tell if it was "l spagnolli" or "i spagnolli" so I just typed spagnolli....)
A really excellent related film, that I just heard about and watched: Ostrov (Russian for "The Island"). A 2006 film, that made its way through various film festivals (including as a juried film at Sundance) about a Russian monastery and, in particular, the life of a "fool for Christ." Incredibly moving and powerful, and a good representation of Orthodox spirituality, a la "Into Great Silence" for Carthusian spirituality. If you search for "Ostrov" at amazon.com, that's probably a good place to start. If anyone wants to see it, I email me and I can help you find ways to get it (it's not distributed widely in the US yet). The lead actor, some famous Russian rock star, reportedly became a monk after making the film.
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