Scientists work out if something is alive by asking a few basic questions:
Does it breathe, eat, grow, respond, have DNA, excrete and reproduce?

That's fine for a physical thing, but what about something less tangible,
like an idea or a concept? What about...
• the memory of a loved-one
• a work of art
• an organisation
• Christmas
• God
... how do I know if these things are alive?

Andrew Waywood, a deep thinker on education I met briefly many years ago, had a theory about this which I've never forgotten. His 'test' for if something living was this:

Does it speak,
or is it spoken about?

To me, this is a most profound way of working out if something is alive or not, and goes to the heart of what being alive is all about. A friend of mine suggested this is what “memes” are all about. Perhaps.

Tali is a fictional character. She is a visual artist interested in filmmaking, still in secondary school in her mid-late teens. As Tali explores the world with fresh eyes, my own eyes are opened to new ideas and trends. Tali has grown up in a Christian family and as Christian myself, I naturally want to encourage her to expand her faith as she expands her understanding of the world through photography, filmmaking, and art in general. As you might guess, Tali is based on a few real friends of mine, about 20 years my junior.

The trouble with honesty is it’s bad for your brand.

I work in an industry that’s obsessed with image: putting your best foot forward and giving the most positive impression about a particular marketable item or service. Any whiff of negativity is just NOT ON. Edit it out. Don’t give the competitor an inch.

It’s perhaps why I’m equally as obsessed about spirituality that does NOT play these same games.
I LOVE honesty in religion.
I LOVE honesty in art.
Images that do NOT sit well with the whole picture or the ‘grand narrative’ I find particularly appealing.

Take these quotes, for example.
“Everything is meaningless”
“For with much wisdom comes much sorrow. The more knowledge, the more grief”
You wouldn’t guess they were straight out of the bible (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 1:18), especially if you only listened to the well-marketed Christianity of our western civilisation.

It’s also what makes Mish Mumkin so gripping. If I was Ramzi, devout Muslim, I would have edited out the scenes with the father, or at least re-shot a few lines. Rising in aggression, Father orders his son not to see his girlfriend, saying “even if your eyes came out and burst from their sockets, you’re still not to see her!” You CAN’T SHOW that kind of thing as a Muslim in Australia…

Unless you’re honest.

In 1946, only a few years before writing the great classic 1984, George Orwell penned his manifesto, Why I write. Aside from the need to earn a living, he summarised his four basic motivations as follows:

1. sheer egoism – to be remembered after death, to prove himself to others
2. aesthetic enthusiasm – the joy of the art-form and his desire to share it
3. historical impulse – to record facts and store them for posterity
4. political purpose – in the widest possible sense…

Political purpose he defined as the desire to push the world in a certain direction – to alter peoples' idea of the kind of society they should strive after. While the different motivations drove him to varying degrees at different times, it was the fourth which he held to be the most important for writing.

The sentiments Orwell spoke of could equally apply to “why I make films”, or even more broadly, “why I create”.
Why DO we create films, when they take up so much time, effort and money?
Why DO we create any original work of art, when the daunting reality of the vast world-wide ocean of talent often makes our efforts feel like tiny droplets?

Why?
The reasons are much bigger than politics; more profound than a desire to change the world. Something spiritual, I believe, is going on. I’m sure Orwell would agree, as he concluded in his manifesto:

All writers are vain, lazy and selfish, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book (and making a film) is an awful struggle, like a long bout of some serious illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Why do YOU create?

Ingmar Bergman died on July 30. Film Historian Ronald Holloway described him as the most autobiographical of modern filmmakers and one of the great religious filmmakers of the 20th century (Beyond the Image, 1977). Certainly, as the son of a Lutheran minister, his struggles of faith were reflected deeply in his raft of films made during the 1950s and 60s.

Film buff David Erickson has uploaded 11 clips from Bergman's major films you can view here – thanks David.

While my knowledge of Bergman is limited, I’ve found it fascinating to discover the contemplative intensity he brought to the filmmaking process. He described the making of Winter Light as being like performing a solo part by Bach.
“It requires that kind of precision and presence the whole time,” he said in a filmed interview (see Erickson’s page).

Holloway wrote that Bergman sought a dialogue partner for all his important films – someone to toss around the weighty issues being explored, during the production process.

I’m familiar with a script editor during pre-production, but a dialogue partner during the shoot? There’s a role you rarely see in film credits! Not to be confused with a dialogue editor or workshops focussed on actors’ dialogue – this is dialogue for the sake of the director’s own headspace.

Film is art. At least, film can be art.
I love those that are. Not simply those classified as "arthouse" either. But what is art?

I used to think of art as “expression”.
Art captures the mood of a thing, and shows a way of perceiving the world from the artist’s point of view.
That was my working definition.

Even the less overtly expressive paintings, like A Burial at Ornans, which I still remember from high school,
captured a way of seeing things from Courbet’s realist point of view. Here’s a deeply significant occasion rendered common; with a wandering dog, a child tugging at someone’s arm, and people looking in different directions, distracted. It’s unglamorous. But it artfully displays a way of perceiving the world.

This is a long-overdue development at Campfire. Links obviously say a lot about who we are and what we do, but on matters of religious affiliation, we very much value our independence. Very soon we'll have a separate links page, but to get things going, here are a few starters.

Remember, Campfire does not necessarily endorse the views held by any of these groups but offers these links to promote the connection between films and faith.

Fitzroy shorts
Monthly film festival

Three Australian filmmakers in a Lebanese bakery.
All talking about film, all talking about faith, religion and spirituality.
One Muslim, one Christian, one Buddhist-leaning agnostic.

A wonderful impromptu meeting.
Do we agree? No.
Do we argue? No – none of us have a real gift for debate.
Do we ask questions? Yes.
Do we have one thing in common? Yes. Films. Short films, long films, films that mean something.
Surely this is a good place.
Where bridges are built.

Where do film and faith collide?
To tell you the truth, I don’t know, but this is what we explore here at campfire.
The intersection of art and faith – art in its most complex, layered and now accessible format – the short film.

Tonight we start something different. It’s a new idea thanks to campfire supporter (and 2-times essayist) Gavin Baulch out in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, called “Friday Fireside Flicks”. It’s another way of exploring this intersection.
I wonder what it will be like.

The exploration continues.

The Campfire May Festival is not far away!

All films are in,
essays are being finalised...
can you feel the excitement building?

OK, we tried to build it up :)

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