Film and Life's Issues

Darrell Bock: 

Welcome to the Table where we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at the Hendricks Center here at Dallas Theological Seminary. And our topic today is film, the arts, the Christian, and in particular, Sundance Film Festival. Now, those of you who are aware of the calendar know that the Sundance Film Festival takes place normally in January. It takes place in January. It's not normally, it takes place in January, but we have waited a few months to talk about it, to see where Sundance lands. And I have two really qualified people to talk with me about this. First is Claude Alexander, who is a leader at the Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has been there for 29 years. That's not bad, Claude. That's a good long tenure. What is that? 

Claude Alexander: 

33.  

Darrell Bock: 

33. 

Claude Alexander: 

33. 

Darrell Bock: 

33. We need to update your bio. Okay. All right. You're chasing me. I'm in my 42nd year here at Dallas Seminary. 

Claude Alexander: 

There we go. 

Darrell Bock: 

There we go. Yeah. 

Claude Alexander: 

There we go. 

Darrell Bock: 

And he also serves as the chaplain for Windrider, a group we'll be talking about later on in the podcast. And then Craig Detweiler is president of the Wedgwood Circle and dean of College of Arts and Media at Grand Canyon University and has a variety of film credits to his name, as well as written several books related to the arts and film, Deep Focus, Film and Theology in Dialogue in particular. So, I couldn't have two more qualified people to think about the integration of theology and film than Claude and Craig. So let me dive in. And Craig, I'll start with you. How did a guy like you get into a gig like this? How in the world does someone who's thinking about theology end up focusing their life on film? 

Craig Detweiler: 

I think because film animated my imagination and stirred my spirit before I had ever heard the words personal relationship in Jesus Christ in the same sentence. And so, my categories for understanding faith fell in after I tried to understand what does manhood look like based on Humphrey Bogart or Robert De Niro or all of these maybe non-role models that I was studying in film, but trying to also try to figure out how to live a purposeful life. I guess movies were giving me an idea of what happy endings look like and how you write them. So I've always integrated these two things, faith and film. 

Darrell Bock: 

So In the beginning there was film and then there was Christ. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Maybe in my own heart and mind, yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. Okay. That's pretty interesting. Claude, how did you get interested in this topic? 

Claude Alexander: 

Well, film was something that my mom and I would always do. And so, I loved film. I mean, I just loved movies. And then, in the course of going to seminary at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, there was a course Theology and Film, and that was it. That was all that it took in terms of the integration. And so, since that was around 1987, so it's been on since 1987. 

Darrell Bock: 

And Craig, how does one train, and maybe that's not the right word, but how does one train to integrate theology and film? I think for a lot of people, that seem like two such very different things. Of course, at their core, they're all dealing with issues of life. But how does one train for that? 

Craig Detweiler: 

Well, in both cases, you're dealing with a text. One begins with a written word, one maybe begins more with a visual word, with moving images. So in both cases, you're trying to unpack a story. You're trying to figure out maybe the surface meaning, and then try to get the subtext, trying to do some history, try to do some homework. So whether you're doing biblical exegesis Jesus or maybe a visual exegesis of film, it's really similar. It's trying to get at the author's intent. It's trying to get at how it applies and what it means, what it meant in its day, and what it means for me today. And so, I don't see it as complimentary. In fact, in our book, we talk about the lenses that we bring to film, maybe a visual lens, maybe a cinematographer's lens, a audio lens, a musical lens. And then we're doing the same thing with Scripture. We're bringing our lenses of our life and what are the lenses that were influencing the author, and then how do we find, in a sense, God's lens, what's the spirit saying to us through that process? 

Darrell Bock: 

I was talking to someone, well, earlier this week or the end of last week, I guess, about film, about the chosen. We were talking about that in particular. And I said, what most people don't realize when something like that gets done, how many questions a cinematographer has to ask or a director about everyday life, that what does this look like, how did this work, how does that happen, et cetera, which most people probably don't even think about being a part of really trying to present a film if you're going to be wrestling with the authenticity of what it is you're looking back- looking at as you look back in time. 

Craig Detweiler: 

And I think if we, again, go back to the Scripture and start to understand why was Jesus pulling all these agricultural metaphors or fishing metaphors, it's like, well, that was the context, right? He's literally pointing to something that's all around, that people can see and hear, and might be right in front of them as daily reminders and sermon illustrations. 

Darrell Bock: 

So Claude, as a pastor, and I know you've got family that has stayed in this space as well, I think, is your daughter still at Windrider working there? 

Claude Alexander: 

No, now she is in Ecuador with the Peace Corps. 

Darrell Bock: 

Oh, wow. Girl on the move. 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah, there you go. 

Craig Detweiler: 

That's called the twenties. Right? There's your twenties. 

Claude Alexander: 

There you go. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. 

Claude Alexander: 

There you go. 

Darrell Bock: 

Interesting. But she worked at a while at Windrider. Talk about your association with Windrider as a chaplain there, and what attracted you to doing that? 

Claude Alexander: 

So besides the fact that my daughter was there, the fact that here is an institution with a theological underpinning, it's tied to Fuller Seminary that is effectively engaging the arts and culture space in a major way by its presence at Sundance. You don't get a greater open door than that. And so, to see the commitment that John Priddy and others have to that, to see the level of excellence at which they operate, to witness the reach, I mean, to be able to bring on these producers and directors of major films, to have served in the development of an Oscar winner, all of that appealed to me, and it was just something that I couldn't refuse. 

Darrell Bock: 

So Windrider hosts us when we take students to Sundance and provides a Christian lens, to use Craig's term, into the world of the arts and thinking about the world of the arts and what it offers to Christians. When I tell people that I spend one week out of the academic year at the Sundance Film Festival as a New Testament person who also works in cultural engagement, I think people look at me cross-eyed and say, "What? How does that work?" So, let's talk a little bit about film and the arts because I think this is an important conversation. So let's talk about what is Sundance and why should what happens at Sundance matter to people of faith. All right, Craig? 

Craig Detweiler: 

Well, it's the largest market for independent film in America, and probably one of the most influential, I would say, in a sense, king makers or queen makers regarding talent, new talent. And so, going there puts you ahead of the cultural conversation. A solid six months. In some cases, maybe three, four years. At Sundance, we were there when Ava DuVernay won Best Director way before she did a film like Selma. We saw Ryan Coogler's first film, Fruitvale Station far before he did Black Panther. Damien Chazelle broke through with winning a film called Whiplash One at Sundance, way before La La Land was competing and winning Oscars. So, it's a chance to meet the culture shapers and makers and get ahead of what's coming, and start to, I think, exegete the cultural conversation and think about a thoughtful response before it hits the broader culture. 

Darrell Bock: 

Claude, as I think about this, and this is one of the reasons we take students, is it's a way of putting your ear to the ground and listening to what the culture is wrestling with about life and thinking through those kinds of issues, and hearing people wrestling to put life together who may not have a connection to God, but are still trying to ask core questions about how life works. And I find that to be pretty fascinating. 

Claude Alexander: 

Well, the old adage, Karl Barth said, "Have your Bible and a newspaper." Right? Well, in today's society is have your Bible and you have film or media, visual media, and the way in which we come to terms with understanding the thoughts, beliefs, feelings, perceptions, is really generated through visual arts and visual media. So the opportunity to be exposed, as Craig said, six months to three years ahead of time, because independent film, that's where it's happening and that's where the cutting edge is, and so to be able to be present there gives us an unusual opportunity worth taking advantage of. 

Darrell Bock: 

And for me, the opportunity is, like I say, putting kind of an ear to the ground with what people are wrestling with and how they see the world and how they are thinking about what's happening in front of them and trying to make sense out of it. I mean, you go to the film festival and you watch these films that really deal with very interesting kinds of topics. I'm thinking in particular, and I'm trying to think of the name of this as I'm thinking about it, but you sit down and there was one film, for example, I think it's called A Still Small Voice, that took a close look at chaplaincy training at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. And you're watching chaplains being trained, and what they're having to deal with and face at some of life's most traumatic moments. 

And the filmmaker is trying to process... Of course, we interviewed the filmmaker and we asked him, "so how did this film impact you to be filming these situations where you're ministering to a couple that's just lost a child in a miscarriage?" Or in fact, the interesting scene was we had a Jewish chaplain who was performing a prayer and a service for a Christian family that had lost a child and was engaged in a form of Christian liturgy as a Jewish person. He was just trying to minister to this person. And it's a very poignant moment in the entire film. Meanwhile, she's struggling with all she's having to cope with in the midst of all that and the tensions that, I mean, that's life as it's happening in many ways. 

So to me, it seems that one of the values is this ability to overhear what people are wrestling with and struggling with and trying to put life together. And I think that makes for very interesting reflection for someone who is also thinking about the gospel and what God's doing in the world. That's an open-ended comment and can go to either of you. What do you think. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Bishop? 

Claude Alexander: 

Well, in listening to him, he also had a relative who was in the chaplaincy that served as the motivation that piqued his curiosity. And so, being drawn in through that, it was personal and you could sense how personal it was by the way in which he made it. Craig can speak to how a director's or a producer's personal experience and motivation impacts how a film is done and what one feels. But that's certainly an example of that. 

Craig Detweiler: 

From the beginning, with Windrider, we've always wanted to bring aspiring filmmakers who have a chance to learn from role models, as well as ministers in training, or maybe ministers who are already in the field, who are trying to figure out what are those questions being asked by these artists or being asked through the stories that these artists are telling. And so, I think Sundance being really strong in the documentary category gives us windows into major world conflicts that are hard to get our heads around, but I think even last year, there was 20 days in Mariupol- 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, I'm going there next, so that's good. Bring it up. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Right. The Russian invasion. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yup. 

Craig Detweiler: 

The Russian invasion in Ukraine couldn't be more timely. And yet to have a camera that's there, sitting with the victims, sitting with the folks struggling with it, it's going to move your heart, it's going to move your mind, and then it's going to cause you to go deeper and try to understand more, and then also try to understand where is Jesus in the middle of that conflict and how do I respond as a person of faith? 

So whether it's chaplaincy. There was a beautiful doc called the Eternal memory about Alzheimer's, maybe you're dealing with aging in your congregation. Beyond Utopia was about Pastor Kim in helping defectors from North Korea. These are major geopolitical conflicts that all have these faith issues floating around and essentially as part of them. And so, rather than seeing those things as separate from us, Sundance gets it into your soul, I think, in the right kind of way. 

Darrell Bock: 

Oh, that's a great description. I was just going to say, one of the things that these films do, because they're usually done if it's done by a competent crew, is to pull you in and make you experience what you are seeing to a degree. And so, rather than it being an abstract discussion with no names, no faces, no reality, it's in cinematographic Technicolor or whatever, with Dolby sound on top of it, and you're pulled in. And of course, when you're in a theater, you're immersed in what's in front of you. And so, it's maybe the ultimate Baptist experience of immersion. I don't know. 

So you're confronted with this, and if the characterization is done, well, of course you get a sense of knowing the people and what they're wrestling with in the midst of these often challenging scenarios, which I think causes anyone with any kind of sensitive or pastoral heart to be sensitive to what's going on around them relationally and not just doctrinally, if I can make that distinction. And so, all of that, it seems to me is important in developing someone who's thinking about being a mature Christian in a world that's obviously filled with all kinds of challenges because of the fallenness of the world that we live in. 

Claude Alexander: 

Darrell, you mentioned the last word, fallenness. One of the themes that ran throughout our time was the notion of brokenness and how many of the filmmakers were seeking to address that in one form or another. How do we come to terms with it? How do we rise above it, the ability to own it and transcend it, that was a constant theme throughout. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that I find attractive having gone now for a few years, is everyone's dealing with... they recognize what's going on and they're trying to come to grips with it. And to see it from this angle or that angle is a way of beginning to come to grips with sometimes how complex some of these situations that people put themselves in can be, or that life circumstances put them in. So brokenness is a good term, and it does something else, Claude, that I think is important, and that's a good alternative term to fallenness. Because I think one of the things that Christians do is they will park on the fallenness part, this is where this comes up short, whereas it's the brokenness that produces the pastoral connection and relational connection that also has to be dealt with. 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

And so, both of those are important in the conversation. And what I find, and I think this is what surprised me about my own Sundance experience, is there are so many things that non-believers, I'll say it that way, are seeing and feeling and sensing that I tend to think sometimes in the church we miss because we're in the fallenness box rather than the brokenness box. 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah. So a prime example of that, one of those short films Just Hold On? 

Darrell Bock: 

Yes. 

Claude Alexander: 

About the girl who rides sheep, but she also has pediatric cancer. Now, that is transcending brokenness. That is her ability to rise above this, what many would say cuts life off, but she doesn't allow it to do so she rises above it. Now, whether that gets a lot of play or not, that movie is powerful in its ability to show how we rise above. 

Darrell Bock: 

Another one along that line is the movie, I think it won the award this last year in one of the categories, I don't remember which, Scrapper, which was about a dad who picked up a relationship with a child, abandoned child who had been returned to him after mom died. And of course, he wasn't planning on ever being a parent to this child. And the movie is about his having to adjust to the presence of this responsibility, for lack of a better description, located inner city London with, well, I can say, all the accents attached there unto in that part of the city. And the challenge of just watching someone cope with having to care for someone when really it seems like, and I think the movie reflected this, it was someone who wasn't used to having to think about caring for someone else and building that relationship, et cetera. I mean, those are the kinds of themes that show up at Sundance that are in the middle of really what ministry oftentimes ends up being, people who have walked into a situation in life that is challenging them immensely and they're looking for help. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. Well, and film, I think at its best, I believe Roger Ebert called it an Empathy Machine. Right? It's literally generating feelings of identification, whether it's with the dad in Scrapper, whether it's with a single mom in a film like Flora and Son, whether it's with Iranian families in the Persian version, whether it's with a teacher in Mexico in a film like Radical, it's both an empathy machine and it's also a transportation engine. So it's transporting you to places that you could not easily go, dropping you into situations that you may not be familiar with, and then allowing you, as Bishop Alexander mentioned, to be ushered to a higher plane, a different plane of response, a more transcendent space, because you are out of your comfort zone now, and now your eyes and ears are more attuned to what's happening with other people. And that's when you start to see, gosh, well, if Jesus loves this person, how do I need to love this person? How do I need to care for this person and respond to this situation rather than judging it? Can I enter into it in a compassionate way? 

Darrell Bock: 

And it does so in a... Go ahead, Claude. Go ahead. 

Claude Alexander: 

You mentioned that the movie Scrapper, and another part that made it compelling is that it's looking at it from a child's point of view, how the director chooses to give that the point of view can totally alter the experience, and that one is from the child's point of view. There was a movie that we saw, not this past year, but the year before where it was from the wheelchair point of view. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yes. Yeah. 

Claude Alexander: 

Do you remember the name of that? 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, I don't remember the name of it, but it was filmed with the camera on the edge of the wheelchair, so you're looking at everything from that angle. I mean, that was an unbelievable piece of work. 

Claude Alexander: 

Right? And so, how one chooses to even frame, not just by way of the framing but the point of view, opens up possibilities of consideration that you would not normally have. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yup. And the thing that I found interesting, and this is one of the things, another thing that I really enjoy about the week is the films come from all over the world. So I mean, in just the what, 10, 15 minutes we've been talking about these films, we've talked about a film that's in the UK. We've talked about a film that's in the Ukraine. We've talked about a film that has Persian roots. 

I remember this was two years ago now, I think there was a woman who... Well, there were two films juxtaposed to each other if you paid attention. One was in maternity wards in hospitals in the US, and the other was a woman who gave pregnancy care in where was it? Somewhere in Asia, Myanmar, someplace like that, where there also were religious tensions associated with who she cared for, that kind of thing. 

And you're plunged not only to a visual experience and a reflection about life's brokenness, but oftentimes, you're plunged in, in cross cultural way that you have very little chance of replicating as Craig mentioned earlier. I think that's part of the attraction of what happens at Sundance, and you can hear in the undercurrent of what I'm saying, that usually when Christians go to film, they go to film to critique it and say, "This is how this doesn't match up to the Bible or whatever." But actually there are things going on in films that are worth observing and reflecting on, and not coming so much with that critical lens only, but also coming with a lens that says, "Okay, I want to understand the human experience that's being portrayed here, and think about what would be the best way to step into and minister to someone who's in this kind of a situation." Craig, talk about that a little bit, and then we'll talk about some of the technical aspects of film. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Well, it brings to mind the Leonard Cohen line from one of his songs that says, "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." I think that that's where the beginning with brokenness, as you enter into that, if you make room in your own heart, right, more space in our own hearts through these films, you might find God surprising you in how he's expanding your own vision, your own heart. The film you mentioned, I Didn't See You There, and took you inside Reid Davenport's experience as someone who is experiencing life from a wheelchair and literally seeing things literally from his point of view, where he sits, and thinking about curbs differently, and thinking about streets differently and buses and apartments. He, I think- 

Darrell Bock: 

And the way people look away when he shows up, I mean- 

Craig Detweiler: 

It's right there in the title, I Didn't See You There. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Right? Yeah. So yes, I think having to deal with people who are not like us, who might be viewed as other, whether that's the Afghan immigrant experience in a film like Fremont, whether that's what's going on with Native American women in a film like Fancy Dance, I just find myself a richer person from having given myself 90 minutes, two hours of these folks' vision of life and where they're coming from. 

Darrell Bock: 

It inevitably causes you to reflect. If it's done well, it inevitably leads you to a place of reflection about an array of life's circumstances. Let me mention another film that at least I saw that I thought was interesting, that as far as I know hasn't been picked up, but raised interesting questions. It was what's called iPod Generation. It was the film about AI and imagining a world in which it would be possible, how can I say this, to give birth to a child without the child actually being in a physical woman's womb, but in a technologically produced environment. And the experience of thinking about that, and then the play that took place, because in this case, it was a woman working for a corporation who wanted her to utilize this service so she could continue to be employed all the way through her pregnancy. 

Meanwhile, her husband, who originally didn't want to have anything to do with it, because this artificial womb, I don't know how else to describe it, was at home, and he had to care for it, developed a connection that the woman didn't have. I mean, this is breaking all kinds of stereotypes and stuff, and done with such a sense of humor from a producer, I think who was from Belgium, or at least from Europe. I don't remember if he's Belgian or not. But anyway, the Belgians would do something like this. Anyway, that to me was an interesting film because it shows the way imagination can work in areas of terms of speculating where we could be headed. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Did you see the Pod Generation, Bishop Claude? 

Claude Alexander: 

I did. I did. Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig Detweiler: 

It's available on, I think, you can see it on Amazon or Roku or wherever you buy and rent movies. It's out there now. 

Darrell Bock: 

Oh, well, that's good. The group I saw it with, a group of students I saw, we were talking about it for a long while after we walked out of the film, just because of the array of... We talked about it in two ways. One, just the issue itself, and then secondly, the skill that we thought the people who put the film together approached a delicate topic and used humor among other things to get there. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. Yeah. That's that French director, Sophie Barthes. 

Darrell Bock: 

Ah. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. She's charming. Did you like the film, Bishop Claude? Did you remember it? 

Claude Alexander: 

I did. I did. So many different levels that it addresses, role reversal, right? 

Darrell Bock: 

Right. 

Claude Alexander: 

In terms of the husband as opposed to the wife, this notion of freedom versus responsibility. So, the continuation of technology, being able to "free us, remove us" from things and what happens when we go there. 

Darrell Bock: 

And institutional pressure, because she was doing this solely because the company that she was working for was asking her to do it, demanding her to do it, rewarding her for doing it. I mean, take your pick, right? 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of the above. And again, the scary part is how close one really is to that. 

Darrell Bock: 

That's right. That's right. Yeah. You were talking about earlier, we were talking about how Sundance puts us ahead of the game in terms of what's being talked about culturally, well, here it's an example of Sundance looking forward and making us think about what may be lying ahead. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. 

Claude Alexander: 

That's right. Yeah. 

Craig Detweiler: 

That's good. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. It's a fascinating piece. 

So let's do a little scorecard checking. Okay? So Craig, this is you. Sundance took place in January. Of course, what happens is people display their films and they're hoping that they get picked up so they can get into wider distribution. I mean, that's the market part of the business part of Sundance. So how did that do this last year? I mean, where did stuff land? 

Craig Detweiler: 

So the two biggest films to sell, they each sold for around $20 million, a film called Fair Play sold to Netflix, and it's a very, I would call it, a dark thriller about men and women and Wall Street and maybe toxic insecure masculinity and how far you're willing to go if women are getting promotions that you aren't, and where jealousy leads. So that one's heavy. And that's on Netflix. But then Flora and Son was bought by Apple. It stars Bono's daughter, Eve Hewson as a single mom. 

Darrell Bock: 

Oh, I didn't know that. 

Craig Detweiler: 

A teen son that she's trying to reach, and it was made by the gentleman who's a musician by background, who made Sing Street and Once. And so, it really allows us to use music as a way to lift our spirits, lift out of our situations, imagine a different world from us. Apple bought it because it involves coaching by a guitar teacher via Zoom and via the computer. So it's about how the power of computer allows us to connect and the power of computers to make beats and make sounds. So it's a bit of a film about creativity, allowing us to get out of our maybe what feels like maybe a trapped situation. So Flora and Son is the feelgood film of the fall, which just released on Apple. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, and I've got some others here, Still and Underrated and A Thousand and One, and they end up all over the place, Apple, Hulu, Peacock. 

Craig Detweiler: 

That's right. 

Darrell Bock: 

And in fact, I think one that we alluded to earlier that we haven't developed and I want to go back to, 12 Days in Mariupol, which was about the siege of Mariupol at the very beginning of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, which ended up, I think, on PBS through the summer, et cetera, one of their major documentary presentations, taking a close look not only at the war, but also giving people a feel of what it takes to be a really top flight photojournalist in a difficult situation. 

Craig Detweiler: 

That's right. Well, the hard part is there's so much good work, it's very hard to find these things. And oftentimes, if you blink, you'll miss it, which Apple, they funded the Michael Fox documentary, Still, the Steph Curry documentary, Underrated, the Judy Blume documentary. There's a Little Richard documentary. So when you have a celebrity that's easier to get your head around when it's maybe a story that you haven't seen, like A Thousand and One, that's available on Hulu now. You've got Teyana Taylor, a great actor. She's a musician, she's a known entity, but you haven't seen her in this kind of dramatic setting. And if you blink, you miss it in theaters, yet it's really beautifully done hard film, but also beautiful film about dedication and love. Rye Lane is also on Hulu, if you're looking for a Sundance film. Theater Camp is on Hulu also. Those are a little more romantic comedies, a little more lighter flavor, and a little more hopeful in how- 

Darrell Bock: 

The one built around celebrity, I mean, the first film that I saw this last year when I was at Sundance was the one that featured Brooke Shields and what her life was like when she was very, very young, thrust into a very, we might even say, prematurely sexualized environment, and the way she looks at all that now and what she sees and how she talks to her kids about it, that kind of thing, very interesting feeling. In fact, I was surprised by that film. I walked in saying, "Well, I signed up for this because it was on my menu. I'm not sure I would've volunteered to do this one." But I ended up really being caught by just her wrestling with her own self-awareness, both as she was going through this and then her reflective self-awareness afterwards having been through it, and just what that did to her in her life. In some ways, a frightening film about how she was, I want to say, taken advantage of in order to be thrust into this limelight simply because she was attractive. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. And that's also on Hulu, if you want to seek it out. 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. So it's interesting how- 

Claude Alexander: 

So- 

Darrell Bock: 

Go ahead, Claude. 

Claude Alexander: 

So one of the things that you're scratching on, Craig, is the role of streaming and how it has really changed the distribution of movies. 10 years ago, there was no Hulu or Netflix or Prime. And for people out there who might be listening to this, who've witnessed the recent writer strike and don't know, can't make heads or tail of it, can you speak a little bit about that as it relates to how we're viewing films, the access that we have, et cetera? 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. So Sundance, an independent film fills in this middle space. They're made outside the Hollywood system. So they're made for lower prices, but they also have more freedom of expression. They don't have that pressure with a Marvel film where it's like they need $200 million just to break even or a Star Wars update. 

So these are smaller films that are really about bigger ideas. And right now, the rise of streaming has put a squeeze on independent film where there's many more outlets, but they're also not paying at the same rates. And so, for artists and creators to have a sustained career, they've had to say, "Hold on, time out." It can't be that there's just like three $200 million movies, what about the rest of us? How do we sustain a career in film, in TV? And so, the strike was a way of saying, "Hey, due to technology and AI, the ability to duplicate me or to duplicate my work, we want to seek timeout and let's rethink this and let's come up with an equitable distribution for everybody. 

And frankly, the streamers have seen good success with Sundance Films. A film like Coda, it was made outside the Hollywood system, it was bought at Sundance by Apple, and then it ended up winning the Oscar for Best Picture. So this is what independent voices are capable of if they have that chance to come to the table. So that's what that strike was about. I'm glad that they're winning, got the creator's way. 

Darrell Bock: 

If someone wants to dip their toe in this independent film/documentary world, is there a place for them to go to either one, find out what is out there, or two, view some of these films that don't get as wide a distribution? Is there a collection point or at least an information collection point for what's going on? 

Craig Detweiler: 

Actually, I don't think there is. I think that's a real problem. 

Darrell Bock: 

Interesting. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Is that the fragmenting of the audience into all these different forms has made it really tough. I think a few labels have become kind of go-to's, so a company like A24 has a certain brand identity that allows you to say, "Okay, I don't trust that studio, but I trust that brand, A24." 

And so, even in the last year at Sundance, they had a film like You Hurt My Feelings starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. They had a film like Past Lives by a director, Celine Song. It was just gorgeous. But they also had a breakout hit with a film like Talk to Me, a horror film from Australian YouTubers. So they do a range of product and projects that I think are of a slightly higher quality. You think of an Oscar nominee and a winner like Minari, Korean-American immigrant experience film. That was A24 releasing that. So you can trust certain brands within the independent world, I would say. 

Darrell Bock: 

So that ends up being a challenge then in terms of what goes on. I'm having trouble thinking of the title of this, but the other thing that's interesting is you've got what you might call full length feature films that run your 90 minutes or two hours, and then you've got these little things called shorts. As I'm thinking about this, the reason I'm laughing is they may be short on time, but they're not short on content. And the one that I remember is the one made, I think it's of a black filmmaker with his... I think it was his father or something who he's caring for, and it's about the special connection that they had in the midst of their developed relationship. Man, I can't remember the title of it, but I do remember thinking, "What a interesting work." 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Well, and these are segregated on Windrider, right? You could talk about that a bit? 

Claude Alexander: 

That's right. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah. It actually won the Amplify Award, which was Winrider's first award for a black filmmaker, and I forget the title of the film. 

Craig Detweiler: 

That's fine. I'm going to look it up. I'm going to look it up. 

Claude Alexander: 

Oh my God! 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. 

Claude Alexander: 

Yeah. But it was profound in that it was father-son relationship, grief, mental health, all wrapped up into five to 10 minutes. 

Darrell Bock: 

And done in animation. I mean, that's the amazing part of it. 

Claude Alexander: 

And done in animation. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, told the story, but did it in animation. It didn't just do it straight. And so, just a fascinating film about connection. I mean, I remember they had a certain way of communicating when they wanted to talk to each other and a certain code language that they used and that kind of thing. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Check in. 

Darrell Bock: 

Check in? 

Craig Detweiler: 

Check in. 

Darrell Bock: 

Is that what it's called? 

Claude Alexander: 

Check in. 

Craig Detweiler: 

No, that's what they did with each other. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, in packing all kinds of stuff in a short period, another short that I remember, and again, I'm not sure I remember the title of this, maybe it was the one on miscarriage, was it Black Whole? But W-H-O-L-E, which was taking a family through their sense of loss and recovery as they had gone through a miscarriage, which of course can be devastating to a family and reproducing the trauma and the reflection and the experience and the sense of loss. I mean, doing all of that all at the same time, very visually. We have the expression, a picture is worth a thousand words. It's amazing sometimes how much absence of dialogue leads to reflection about what's taking place. 

Craig Detweiler: 

That's good. That's good. Well, you know where you can find these, if you go to windriderstudios.org, they have all of the award-winning short films that we've featured at Sundance. And so, they're all gathered in that one place, windriderstudios.org. You can join for a month for free and just check it out. The film that we were talking about is called Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. 

Craig Detweiler: 

Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad, and it was about doing a gate check. 

Darrell Bock: 

Gate check, that was the expression. You're right. 

Craig Detweiler: 

To make sure that you're doing well. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, that was a great piece. We have a carousel on our own webpage that is a Windrider carousel that takes some of the best of these and makes it available to people who are connected to the Hendricks Center as well, because we're really committed here as we think about public engagement and public space, about people thinking about the culture, the arts, what they deal with. And again, because we're talking about independent films, most people when they think about films, they're thinking about what the major studios produce as entertainment, and in some cases, I say, to distract us from life in some cases. Even though sometimes good films that are produced by studios do have some underlying questions, they tend not to be as focused at the trauma and empathy and reflective elements as the stuff that you see at Sundance. You think that's a fair way to characterize the difference between what comes out of studios oftentimes and what comes out of these independent films? 

Craig Detweiler: 

Yeah. I say it's as simple as most studios are designed to comfort you, and so you walk in maybe feeling tired and beat down at the end of a week, and a happy bright ending lifts your spirit, so they comfort the afflicted. Independent films, I think, tend to afflict the comfortable, coming after the powers that be and saying, "Something's wrong here, and we need to fix something." And so, they're more about disturbing the peace than offering reassurance. And so, it's a lot in a week long experience to process that many hard messages, but it gives you so much to think about that you carry throughout the rest of the year. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, in fact, I tease the students that I go with. I say I see more films in one week than I do probably in four years, otherwise. So just the nature of my own life. But it is a really good tap into what people are wrestling with and why. 

Well, Claude and Craig, our time is up. I really thank you for taking the time to help people understand what's going on in the arts, what's going on with independent films, what Sundance is about, what Windrider is, and just possibly encouraging people to think about a different way to listen to what's going on in the culture that might actually open up some vistas to see life from a little different angle and appreciate what's involved, so thank you all very much for the time. 

Craig Detweiler: 

We'll see you in the snow. 

Darrell Bock: 

Well, just right ahead. 

Claude Alexander: 

There you go. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yup. Yup. We're turning the corner here in Texas in terms of the weather. I know we haven't quite reached you in Phoenix, but we're praying for you, Craig. So I want to thank... Go ahead, Claude. 

Claude Alexander: 

Nope, we're good. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. I want to thank you for being a part of The Table, and we hope you'll join us again soon. If you're interested in any other of our podcasts, you can see them at voice.dts.edu/tablepodcast, and we hope you'll join us again soon.