Celluloid Sermons: The Emergence of the Christian Film Industry, 1930-1986

9 Conclusion: A Modest Renaissance before the End

| 203 9 Conclusion A Modest Renaissance before the End In 1979, a group of graduate film students at Regent University were given twelve hours in a television studio to shoot a documentary on the history of the Christian film movement. Titled We’ve Come a Long Way Baby, the hour-long presentation featured the former Gospel Films vice president Dave Anderson as its host, reflecting on key people and films over the previous forty years. Even with a noticeable fatigue overcoming the host after the long shoot, with his eyes and shoulders drooping and his words becoming slurred, the crew managed to capture the early energy and the tentative hope of the Christian film industry on the verge of a new decade.1 But after half a century of development in sound pictures, the Christian film industry actually seemed to stagnate as much as Anderson drooped on camera. With a few exceptions, film products produced for the church now followed predictable patterns. Yet in the early 1980s, the industry was to experience its own mini-revival, particularly with an influx of young Christians who had studied filmmaking in universities and sought to express their own visions through the 16mm format. Many were mavericks itching to forge ahead with innovative products, new wine into new wineskins. In the early 1980s, the future looked bright for these young directors and producers. WhenthisnewgenerationofChristianfilmmakersarrivedtoofferinteresting and challenging films, a modest renaissance flowered, as progressive (and sometimesdesperate)distributorswerelookingforfreshproducts.Thisrebirth would be short-lived, however, due to the impending demise of the 16mm Christianfilmdistributionnetworkandthesubsequentriseofvideotape. The New Auteurs By the late 1970s, most of the Christian film pioneers had retired or died. Simultaneously, a fresh new generation of filmmakers came into the Chris- 204 | Conclusion tian film industry, sparked not only by exposure to Christian films, but also by a cultural renaissance among evangelicals, finding a call to be leaven in the world rather than to be a judge of that world. By 1980, the Protestant scholar Edward Berckman observed the changing attitudes of Protestant churches to movies. Many conservative colleges that had condemned films as generally lewd and immoral, offering a deceptive illusion of life, and being a spiritual distraction (“the Hollywood road runs nearer Babylon than Sinai”) now relaxed their evangelical taboos.2 Many of those who flocked to Hollywood’s films were young college students ready to engage culture rather than merely condemn it. Young Christians began to attend film schools such as USC, even as institutions like Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, offered seminars in “Theology and Film.” The vanguard evangelical periodical, Christianity Today, had been reviewing films since December 10, 1956 (with its first review being on DeMille’s The Ten Commandments), both Christian and secular, which opened the door for young Christians to experiment with the medium. Super-8 film formats allowed these entrepreneurs to easily tinker with telling stories on celluloid. The Christian film industry was about to start a fresh generation with innovative films like Super Christian (1980) and The Music Box (1980), sprinkled liberally with music and humor. As we have seen, because of the work of the pioneers, a distribution system had been established with the film librarians. Unlike in the early days, these young Christian filmmakers didn’t have to be concerned about whether churches had projectors. Their prime concerns centered on production issues, on both the logistical challenges of budgets and equipment and the creative options of scriptwriting and cinematography. Their modest renaissance came about because of their better training, innovative opportunities for alternative genres of Christian film, and increased savvy regarding the importance of marketing. John Schmidt, one of the most ingenious and resourceful auteurs of the new generation, emerged out of the UCLA film school and Fuller Theological Seminary with his inaugural thesis film, Super Christian, a mixed satire and parody, released in 1980. With his brother Jim starring as the eponymous hero, the mild-mannered Clark Kant, Schmidt’s film gently and humorously poked fun at the plastic image of Christian youth and their artificial culture removed from real life. On Sundays, Clark Kant would become the model Christian while he took the rest of the week off. A clever sequel, Super Christian 2, appeared in 1986, puncturing the sacred cows of religious hypocrisy and the masks Christians wear to camouflage sin, pain, and fear. Conclusion | 205 In Super Christian, John Schmidt provided a remarkably clever parody of the Hollywood...