God in the Movies

Written 2001

Somewhere near the beginning of James Cameron’s Titanic, the gross plutocrat played by Billy Zane gazes at the long, phantomy length of the ship from the dock, and intones “God Himself could not sink this ship.”

With that kind of christening, of course you know the ship is going to go down, that it is a miracle it gets away from the dock afloat.

Not that this expresses any particular kind of theology about the film, other than hubris of puny humans. Generally, God is relegated to prop or plot device in films, particularly 'religious' films of the sandal and sand variety.

In fact, to my knowledge, the main way God could get a SAG card (Screen Actors Guild - to get one you have to have speaking parts in films), is to rely on The Ten Commandments. The very deep baritone of The Voice in that film generally just sets up a series of plot devices, i.e., giving Charlton Heston (“Moses”) a set of rules that enable the other actors to know exactly what to break. (Ironically, it's Heston who provides the actual voice of God in the film.)

In the film Field of Dreams (1989) Ray Liotta (who plays the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson of the infamous Chicago White 'Black' Sox who threw the 1919 World Series) provides the voice that whispers into Kevin Costner's brain "If you build it, they will come."

Original Page 2001 | Updated Jan 2014

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