Interesting "Constantine" article-excerpt
Feb. 15th, 2005 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrixrefugeeI had been considering seeing "Constantine" -- okay, my primary reason was originally, yep, because Keanu plays the lead -- but reading this item from an article by Steve Greydanus on decentfilms.com made me prick up my ears and make up my mind to see it. I'm familiar with the character John Constantine from his cameo appearances in one of the "Sandman" comics as well as the first of the "Books of Magic" series (I'm not interested in seeing the rest of that, simply because Neil didn't write 'em, though I enjoyed the first volume: it reads like a black, urban version of Harry Potter), but I have yet to read the "Hellblazer" series. And from what I've heard via the GAFF forum, I may not want to. I don't mind a certain amount of iconoclasm -- anyone who knows me knows I'd be the first to kick sacchrine religious imagery to the curb, but there's a limit to what I can take before I start getting religiously indignant.
“The Constantinan twist”
Comments from the Constantine filmmakers about the film’s religious themes at times resembled a panel discussion of biblical commentators from various denominations, each with a somewhat different point of view on the nature of the film’s themes, John Constantine’s dilemma and redemption, and the nature of other characters such as the film’s archangel Gabriel.
Asked about the role of Catholic or broadly Christian themes in the film and its source material, screenwriter Kevin Brodbin, who produced the first draft, commented, “It was never firmly one religion or the other… Constantine knows there’s a God, knows there’s a devil… It was never that firmly entrenched — it does have maybe a Judeo-Christian basis, but it was never firmly one religion or the other.”
But his fellow writer Frank Capello, who was responsible for the final version of the script, disagreed. “I think that religion, Christianity, heaven and hell is a big part of the comic book. It is there a lot.” Director Francis Lawrence concurred: “It’s obviously rooted in a sort of Catholic theology… [though] you don’t have to be Catholic to relate, because there are these really broad ideas that I think work for a lot of people spiritually and philosophically.” Lawrence also commented, “This stuff is very, very serious to a lot of people, so you have to be cautious, and be respectful… I never went into this to ruffle any feathers, or to have anybody embrace the film either.”
How did star Keanu Reeves regard the film’s religious vocabulary and conventions? “I think of it as just a kind of secular religosity,” he said. “The piece itself is using icons… a kind of Catholic heaven and hell, God and the devil [fighting for] human souls… I was hoping that these concepts could become a platform [for ideas] that are humanistic, that the journey of this particular hero… even though they’re such fantastical characters and situations — that it’s still a man trying to figure it out.”
There were also different points of view about precisely why Constantine is consigned to hell, and the nature of his eventual redemption. On one point everyone agreed: Constantine’s battle against the forces of darkness isn’t motivated by selfless reasons. “He’s sending demons to hell, but he’s doing it to buy favors from God,” says Broadbin. “He’s discovered he’s dying, and he knows where he’s going — he’s going to hell… And he’s going to try to negotiate with God.”
For Capello, though, there’s an additional difficulty: Constantine’s direct experiences of the supernatural preclude true faith; since he knows, he can’t believe. “There’s no faith going on here… He really does already know what we all wish — what faith is, what we wish we knew in our heart. Some people accept it totally, some people go, you gotta prove it to me. I have to see it. John’s seen it.”
Then there’s the question of repentance. In one scene, Constantine mentions the necessity of repenting in order to be forgiven. Why doesn’t Constantine simply repent his sins, especially the suicide attempt that sent him briefly to hell?
“Does he ask for redemption? He wouldn’t,” says Capello. “His pride gets in the way of his asking to be let off the hook. So he basically says, ‘I’m going to do it myself.’ And when you believe in yourself, you don’t want to ask for help. You don’t want to lower yourself to beg. And that’s kind of what he almost does [in one critical scene]… he almost gets there. He is a character who has a defined set of rules for himself. He pretty much says, ‘I won’t beg. I won’t ask for forgiveness. I won’t do all these things.’ ”
“Repentance,” says Keanu reflectively, pausing a moment. (Whoa.) “I think the aspect of repentance is expressed in his act — I don’t want to give it away — but his final act… that’s his repentance, and I think — and his sacrifice, and what goes on there — I think that’s what, you know, gives him a shot at going Upstairs.”
But is Constantine’s redemptive final act truly selfless? Capello doesn’t think so. “When you realize that it’s going to be over soon, you’re going to align yourself to the side where you’re going to feel the least pain. I mean, truly it’s a selfish thing even in the end, I believe. It’s still selfish because I’ll feel less pain if I go [to Heaven] than if my soul is ripped apart for all [eternity].”
But the director and star disagree. “There’s also the Constantinian twist of, did he make the sacrifice so that he could go to heaven, or does he really mean it?” Keanu acknowledges. “But he does [mean it], he does. I mean, ultimately he does, otherwise, the Man Upstairs knows, just like Santa Claus, if you’re telling a lie or if you’re really nice. He knows.” Lawrence concurs: “Because he is a con man you can say, wow, is it a trick? But it can’t be a trick.”
One aspect of Constantine that everyone seems to agree on is the notion of good and evil in a kind of dualistic “balance,” neither stronger or more fundamental than the other. Lawrence expressly calls them “two equal forces,” adding, “I believe that the world exists in a sort of polarized way. For there to be good, there has to be evil… that’s the idea of the balance… you need one for the other.”
Despite this notion of a “balance,” though, Constantine is full of demons wreaking havoc, yet never shows us angels fighting for good. Infernal imagery abounds, but there’s barely a glimpse of heaven. Why is that?
Capello offers two different explanations. On the one hand, he says, “That’s the point of this story — that it has changed, the balance is shifting, something is going wrong. They’re supposed to be equal, they’re supposed to be balanced. Then why are we seeing demons? That is the point of this movie. So, the balance is upset, is unbalanced.”
But he also points to a larger creative difficulty. “The reason why heaven isn’t shown as much in these kinds of movies, honestly, is that no one knows how to depict it in a cool way. It seems like an audience loves hell — they want to see demonic images — but if you show them angelic, if you show them light, if you show them white, they go, oh gosh… Francis [Lawrence] even said one time, you know, how do you depict heaven in an artistically cool way? [One] that that we haven’t seen before — that’s the other trouble. I mean, we’ve seen it in so many movies where heaven is right here, it’s in the subway, it’s this, it’s that, it’s just how you look at life. But when you’re doing a visual film and you want it up there on the screen, it is hard to get away from that classic image of light, angels, that sort of thing. So it is a practicality, it’s that you’re trying to do something cool, and what does the audience want to see?”
Was the difficulty of portraying heaven the real reason for leaving it out of the film? “No,” says Lawrence. “[Heaven] wasn’t written into the story at all, it wasn’t there in the story. So we didn’t have to worry about it.” But Lawrence adds that he would “definitely” be open to dealing more with the forces of light in a sequel. “[Heaven] is definitely part of Constantine’s world. It just wasn’t as much a part of this story.”
Asked about the character of Gabriel (an androgynous Tilda Swinton), whose nature in the film is decidedly unclear, the filmmakers tacitly acknowledge that this is one of the points at which Constantine doesn’t quite hold together. Capello initially identifies Gabriel as the archangel of scripture, but Broadbin explains him (or her) as a “half-breed” human spirit elevated to angelic status. In the end, Capello admits the inconsistency, explaining the character as an established part of the comic-book story. Questioned on the same point, Lawrence acknowledges simply, “If you really dig in, there are some little flaws in the rules.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me again: Now, to any sweetness-an'-light Christians out there, there is nothing wrong with dark religious imagery. Look at Grunewald's "Crucifixion". Read Dante's "Inferno". Speaking from my own personal experience, I've seen more of hell in my time than I have of heaven. I've had brushes with heaven, but I've spent more time clawing my way out of hell or wandering in purgatory. Usually, I feel as if I'm in Limbo. I'm looking forward to seeing this movie for the simple reason that it sounds like it approaches the spiritual journey with an attitude similar to my own: that it isn't easy, that it's more like an uphill battle than like a walk in a rose garden. Maybe other people have it easier than I do, but I pity them: what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. But there again, if they had to face down the demons I've had to, they might have cracked under the strain. I'm not saying that makes me better than them, I'm just saying I've been handed a more realistic view of things.
“The Constantinan twist”
Comments from the Constantine filmmakers about the film’s religious themes at times resembled a panel discussion of biblical commentators from various denominations, each with a somewhat different point of view on the nature of the film’s themes, John Constantine’s dilemma and redemption, and the nature of other characters such as the film’s archangel Gabriel.
Asked about the role of Catholic or broadly Christian themes in the film and its source material, screenwriter Kevin Brodbin, who produced the first draft, commented, “It was never firmly one religion or the other… Constantine knows there’s a God, knows there’s a devil… It was never that firmly entrenched — it does have maybe a Judeo-Christian basis, but it was never firmly one religion or the other.”
But his fellow writer Frank Capello, who was responsible for the final version of the script, disagreed. “I think that religion, Christianity, heaven and hell is a big part of the comic book. It is there a lot.” Director Francis Lawrence concurred: “It’s obviously rooted in a sort of Catholic theology… [though] you don’t have to be Catholic to relate, because there are these really broad ideas that I think work for a lot of people spiritually and philosophically.” Lawrence also commented, “This stuff is very, very serious to a lot of people, so you have to be cautious, and be respectful… I never went into this to ruffle any feathers, or to have anybody embrace the film either.”
How did star Keanu Reeves regard the film’s religious vocabulary and conventions? “I think of it as just a kind of secular religosity,” he said. “The piece itself is using icons… a kind of Catholic heaven and hell, God and the devil [fighting for] human souls… I was hoping that these concepts could become a platform [for ideas] that are humanistic, that the journey of this particular hero… even though they’re such fantastical characters and situations — that it’s still a man trying to figure it out.”
There were also different points of view about precisely why Constantine is consigned to hell, and the nature of his eventual redemption. On one point everyone agreed: Constantine’s battle against the forces of darkness isn’t motivated by selfless reasons. “He’s sending demons to hell, but he’s doing it to buy favors from God,” says Broadbin. “He’s discovered he’s dying, and he knows where he’s going — he’s going to hell… And he’s going to try to negotiate with God.”
For Capello, though, there’s an additional difficulty: Constantine’s direct experiences of the supernatural preclude true faith; since he knows, he can’t believe. “There’s no faith going on here… He really does already know what we all wish — what faith is, what we wish we knew in our heart. Some people accept it totally, some people go, you gotta prove it to me. I have to see it. John’s seen it.”
Then there’s the question of repentance. In one scene, Constantine mentions the necessity of repenting in order to be forgiven. Why doesn’t Constantine simply repent his sins, especially the suicide attempt that sent him briefly to hell?
“Does he ask for redemption? He wouldn’t,” says Capello. “His pride gets in the way of his asking to be let off the hook. So he basically says, ‘I’m going to do it myself.’ And when you believe in yourself, you don’t want to ask for help. You don’t want to lower yourself to beg. And that’s kind of what he almost does [in one critical scene]… he almost gets there. He is a character who has a defined set of rules for himself. He pretty much says, ‘I won’t beg. I won’t ask for forgiveness. I won’t do all these things.’ ”
“Repentance,” says Keanu reflectively, pausing a moment. (Whoa.) “I think the aspect of repentance is expressed in his act — I don’t want to give it away — but his final act… that’s his repentance, and I think — and his sacrifice, and what goes on there — I think that’s what, you know, gives him a shot at going Upstairs.”
But is Constantine’s redemptive final act truly selfless? Capello doesn’t think so. “When you realize that it’s going to be over soon, you’re going to align yourself to the side where you’re going to feel the least pain. I mean, truly it’s a selfish thing even in the end, I believe. It’s still selfish because I’ll feel less pain if I go [to Heaven] than if my soul is ripped apart for all [eternity].”
But the director and star disagree. “There’s also the Constantinian twist of, did he make the sacrifice so that he could go to heaven, or does he really mean it?” Keanu acknowledges. “But he does [mean it], he does. I mean, ultimately he does, otherwise, the Man Upstairs knows, just like Santa Claus, if you’re telling a lie or if you’re really nice. He knows.” Lawrence concurs: “Because he is a con man you can say, wow, is it a trick? But it can’t be a trick.”
One aspect of Constantine that everyone seems to agree on is the notion of good and evil in a kind of dualistic “balance,” neither stronger or more fundamental than the other. Lawrence expressly calls them “two equal forces,” adding, “I believe that the world exists in a sort of polarized way. For there to be good, there has to be evil… that’s the idea of the balance… you need one for the other.”
Despite this notion of a “balance,” though, Constantine is full of demons wreaking havoc, yet never shows us angels fighting for good. Infernal imagery abounds, but there’s barely a glimpse of heaven. Why is that?
Capello offers two different explanations. On the one hand, he says, “That’s the point of this story — that it has changed, the balance is shifting, something is going wrong. They’re supposed to be equal, they’re supposed to be balanced. Then why are we seeing demons? That is the point of this movie. So, the balance is upset, is unbalanced.”
But he also points to a larger creative difficulty. “The reason why heaven isn’t shown as much in these kinds of movies, honestly, is that no one knows how to depict it in a cool way. It seems like an audience loves hell — they want to see demonic images — but if you show them angelic, if you show them light, if you show them white, they go, oh gosh… Francis [Lawrence] even said one time, you know, how do you depict heaven in an artistically cool way? [One] that that we haven’t seen before — that’s the other trouble. I mean, we’ve seen it in so many movies where heaven is right here, it’s in the subway, it’s this, it’s that, it’s just how you look at life. But when you’re doing a visual film and you want it up there on the screen, it is hard to get away from that classic image of light, angels, that sort of thing. So it is a practicality, it’s that you’re trying to do something cool, and what does the audience want to see?”
Was the difficulty of portraying heaven the real reason for leaving it out of the film? “No,” says Lawrence. “[Heaven] wasn’t written into the story at all, it wasn’t there in the story. So we didn’t have to worry about it.” But Lawrence adds that he would “definitely” be open to dealing more with the forces of light in a sequel. “[Heaven] is definitely part of Constantine’s world. It just wasn’t as much a part of this story.”
Asked about the character of Gabriel (an androgynous Tilda Swinton), whose nature in the film is decidedly unclear, the filmmakers tacitly acknowledge that this is one of the points at which Constantine doesn’t quite hold together. Capello initially identifies Gabriel as the archangel of scripture, but Broadbin explains him (or her) as a “half-breed” human spirit elevated to angelic status. In the end, Capello admits the inconsistency, explaining the character as an established part of the comic-book story. Questioned on the same point, Lawrence acknowledges simply, “If you really dig in, there are some little flaws in the rules.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me again: Now, to any sweetness-an'-light Christians out there, there is nothing wrong with dark religious imagery. Look at Grunewald's "Crucifixion". Read Dante's "Inferno". Speaking from my own personal experience, I've seen more of hell in my time than I have of heaven. I've had brushes with heaven, but I've spent more time clawing my way out of hell or wandering in purgatory. Usually, I feel as if I'm in Limbo. I'm looking forward to seeing this movie for the simple reason that it sounds like it approaches the spiritual journey with an attitude similar to my own: that it isn't easy, that it's more like an uphill battle than like a walk in a rose garden. Maybe other people have it easier than I do, but I pity them: what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. But there again, if they had to face down the demons I've had to, they might have cracked under the strain. I'm not saying that makes me better than them, I'm just saying I've been handed a more realistic view of things.