5. Film Pedagogy and Application (Religion and Film‪)‬

A. Educational Uses of Religion and Film Using various critical methodologies, various scholars have provided models for understanding how films reflect and affect the cultural milieu of which they are an integral part. As such, films become documents and artifacts for teaching about religious values and worldviews; they implicitly, and often explicitly, mirror attitudes and values within society. According to Blake (1991c) films speak for themselves, with no need of imposing moral or religious messages. Blake's own journey with film, however, signals a diachronic development from movies being merely a sort of secular and sociological prophecy to inhering a spirituality of their own. In an early work on film aesthetics, Blake (1968) identifies church interest in realms of ethical and educational understanding, with a need to make its message more relevant and palatable. He recommends a new visual rhetoric for the modern man of faith, seeking Tillich's "ultimate concern," and using redaktionsgeschichte to discover layers of significant meaning. Citing Bazin's observation that "the cinema has always been interested in God," he recommends those works that demand theological interpretation, such as The Passion of Joan of Arc and A Man for All Seasons. However, for Blake the movies move from being a mere peepshow to a site of prayer and spirituality (1970, 2002).