A Machine that Generates Empathy

Theology and Philosophy in Film: Week 1

Welcome to the first week of my go-at-your-own-pace class on THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY in FILM. The first two weeks are FREE. All are welcome to read everything, watch videos, and join the Zoom conversation this Saturday (more info below). If you want to keep accessing all content–or you just want to support me in this work–then you can become a paid subscriber for just $5 a month!

While this class has as its main focus both theology and philosophy, I want to start with a seemingly less cerebral concept: EMPATHY. I believe that our desire and ability to cultivate empathy are deeply intertwined with our theological beliefs and philosophical understanding of the nature of reality. Of course, our personal theologies and philosophies are also inseparable. Although all art forms have an almost mystical capacity to help us become more empathetic (just watch Cillian Murphy speak about it here), the multidimensional sensory experience that cinema provides helps us to see the beauty and brokenness of the Other in a unique, complex way. Roger Ebert (now famously) spoke on this at length, coining the term “empathy making machine:”

“We are all born with a certain package. We are who we are. Where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We are kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people, find out what makes them tick, what they care about. For me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. If it’s a great movie, it lets you understand a little bit more about what it’s like to be a different gender, a different race, a different age, a different economic class, a different nationality, a different profession, different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us. And that, to me, is the most noble thing that good movies can do and it’s a reason to encourage them and to support them and to go to them.”

A still from Three Colors: Red (1994) directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski

Although I love Ebert’s comments, his focus on seeing difference is both accurate and incomplete. One way that cinema helps to enable us to cultivate a deeper sense of empathy is in its capacity to remind us of our commonalities. In viewing the story of the other, we see both difference and sameness–and the “sameness” is what most often helps us to empathize. Is this narcissistic? Or is it a sort of profound delight in sharing the same nuanced markings of the imago Dei? Or maybe some of both?

As Dr. Josesph Kickasola notes in the video below, watching a film is a deeply embodied experience. The best films communicate to both the mind and the heart. But the heart–or even the “gut”–are deeply connected to our experience within our own bodies including our unique perception of images, voices, music. As Dr. Kickasola explains in his brilliant piece “10 Short Essays on Decalogue:”

“Cinema traffics in deeply meaningful bodily experiences (as opposed to cold, “intellectual” signs).”

Philippe and Salvatore in Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 love letter to cinema, Cinema Paradiso

To introduce this week’s film, Decalog I by Krzysztof Kieślowski, I recorded a conversation with Dr. Joseph Kickasola, Professor of Film & Communications at Baylor University. Kickasola is a Kieślowski scholar who has written widely on the director’s work (you can find his book HERE). I recommend watching the (40 minute) video before you watch the film. I will provide film viewing info and some questions and quotes that will help to guide your viewing after the video.

I hope you enjoyed the above conversation and are now excited to watch one of Kieslowski’s films! This beautiful, harrowing film is the first in a series of ten short films based loosely on the Ten Commandments that aired on Polish television.

WHERE TO WATCH IT:

This film is not the easiest to find streaming with subtitles. There are two options, and neither is ideal. You can find a free version on youtube here, but Portuguese subtitles sometimes make it hard to read the English ones. A better option is paying for a one-day subscription (4.99 Euros) to watch the film HERE. This is a legit site where you can access many Eastern European films. *All of the other class films are MUCH easier to access!*

ZOOM DISCUSSION:

The discussion for this film will be at 2 pm Eastern time on Saturday, Feb. 24. That is 11 am Pacific time, 7 pm UK time, and 8 pm EU time.

Join the Zoom call via THIS LINK.

The absolutely huge Inflancka Street Housing Complex in Warsaw, Poland. This is the setting of all of the films in Kieślowski’s Decalog series.

Here are a few questions/ quotes that can help to guide your viewing of the film. Anything in quotation marks is from Dr. Kickasola’s article (linked above) unless noted.

1. In the Decalog series, most characters “miscalculate their levels of control over the universe.” How is this communicated in Decalog I?

2. In the quote from Stanley Kubrick (about Kieślowski’s screenplay) read in the video, he says that Kieślowski and co-writer, Piesiewicz, “have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what’s really going on…They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don’t realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.”

   Decalog I is a film that highlights competing understandings of the nature of reality (philosophical materialism vs. theism). How do the writers and director escape making a very sterile, cerebral, overly abstract film? How do they achieve reaching the heart rather than just the mind?

3. How does this quote from Dr. Kickasola (that alludes to comments about worship from a famous speech by David Foster Wallace) relate to the film? How is this a film about worship?

   “We love,and we lose love, and no amount of scientific description can do justice to that all of that. What’s more, we worship, whether we believe or not, because we cannot not worship… something. Someone. Even if it is, tragically, our own self-interest. It’s hardwired into us.

4. On a very related note: Consider how the film is a dramatic enactment of the first commandment: "I am the Lord your God: you shall not have strange gods before me.”

5. Another quote from Kickasola to consider:

   “There is a strong sense of telos in the human person that makes

   us feel such things are not random, could not be random, and that meaning

   is not something we merely project onto the surface of things, but rather,

   especially at such moments, a message being delivered to us. Kieślowski never

   took a hard position on the truth of the matter. Rather, he was interested in

   the search. From whom is the message being delivered? we might ask. God?

   One’s own coping mechanism? Something between? All interpretations may

   be fair game when approaching Kieślowski’s films, but he does not permit

   avoidance of the issue. Metaphysics, real or imagined, matter.”

6. What does the film say about the human condition?

7. How does the historical context (Soviet era Poland) relate to the story?

8. Who is the mysterious guy warming his hands by the fire?

9. What do you make of the final scene when the bereaved father angrily attacks the altar?

10. How does the setting (the snow, the lake, the incomplete church, the apartment building) play a part in the story?

That’s all for now! If you watch the film, please leave a comment and let me know what you think on first view. I hope to see you on Saturday!