Symposium 2004
Cliff Notes
Session 1 (Thursday,
October 14 AM)
After introductions, Bryan began with a quote by J.R.R. Tolkien that encapsulates many of the themes we would explore during the week.
It (Fairy Tale) does not
deny the existence of sorrow and failure.
The possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies, in the face of much evidence,
universal defeat, giving a fleeting glimpse of joy, joy beyond the walls of the
world, as poignant as grief.
He then began relating that the trend of storytelling in our culture has been toward a voice of cynicism and despair. He challenged the writers and producers in the room to consider that we must be the ones to lead people out of that cynicism toward messages of hope and restoration.
To begin the discussion, we posed the question, “How would you define hope?” Everyone wrote their answer on cards and then had a turn to explain their definition.
|
Hope |
|
Things change Expectation of promise fulfilled HOPE is the possibility of a life of completeness Give up Grief Getting back on the bike with scraped knees Aversion to bleakness A window God The unseen new balance Risk The present realization of future deliverance Anticipating the joy of the unseen Hope is not of this world Something that comes from a place of pain of unwise choices The faith to know suffering can end Hope (eternity) is not equal to Faith (life here) The new Jerusalem Tangible light Belief that a better life is coming in this life and the next Possibilities remain open Death The taller blonde, I think Promising rice? After hard labor, childbirth is hope Hope is the wonderful expectation of knowing that after pain, confusion and despair, there is a light at the end of the tunnel The end of pain Future Hope is knowing there is something better beyond current circumstance Expectation! It’ll work out My interests completely in the hand of God Looking forward The possibility of meaning Heaven A 2nd chance (probably more) |
Prior to the Symposium we asked people to consider their favorite ending of a film or play and be prepared to explain why it so resonated with them. Before lunch we began screening these endings.
Session 2 (Thursday,
October 14 PM)
During much of this session we screened people’s favorite endings and discussed them. We also continued to explore the question of what is hope.
|
Favorite Film
Ending |
Attendee |
|
Life is Beautiful |
Michael Harris |
|
Sullivan’s Travels |
Wayne Harrel |
|
Whale Rider |
Terri Adams |
|
Together |
Elkin Garabedian |
|
Pieces of April |
Sean Gaffney |
|
Usual Suspects |
Joe Frost |
|
Ordet |
Aaron Wiederspahn |
|
Shawshank Redemption |
Jonathan Bock |
|
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory |
Rick Bonn |
|
Black Hawk Down |
Scott Nolte |
|
Shakespeare in Love |
Dennis Hassell |
|
Tender Mercies |
Ron Reed |
|
The Elephant Man |
Hector Ramirez |
|
Magnolia |
Luann Purcell |
|
Witness |
Gillette Elvgren |
|
The Clearing - play |
Chris Cragin-Day |
|
True West |
Jeanne Murray Walker |
|
Metamorphosis – play |
Bob Smyth |
|
On the Waterfront |
Buddy White |
|
Angels with Dirty Faces |
Jim Krueger |
|
About Schmidt |
Buzz McLaughlin |
|
Iron Giant |
Steve Broyles |
|
It’s a Wonderful Life |
Bryan Coley |
Session 3 (Friday,
October 15 AM)
The first part of the morning we continued screening several more endings of films that people had selected. We then tried to take a step back to examine how we as artists can make our stories better, how we can create stories that resonate with audiences just as these films and plays have resonated with us.
Session 4 (Saturday,
October 16 AM)
We began this session trying to put together a ‘structure of restoration’ based on the themes we had explored over the past several days. How do we communicate eternal hope? How do we make sure that we ourselves are vessels that can express hope? If the dictionary definition of hope is confident expectation, what does that look like in our art?
After some discussion, we had the privilege of hearing form Matt Rindge, a New Testament scholar at Emory University, who helped us examine how the grotesque and the sublime are portrayed in scripture and in modern storytelling. He began by citing some examples of how Jesus’ healing brought about both physical and communal restoration. Collectively we then read through several quotes from Victor Hugo exhorting Christians in their art to explore both the grotesque and the sublime.
He showed us a clip from the film Requiem for a Dream, an example of an artist examining the grotesque almost exclusively. He then had us look at Philippians 4:8 where Paul lists out the things we are to think and meditate on. Matt noted the first word in the list is truth. We discussed how Christians often gravitate toward the noble, pure and beautiful in our stories and are often afraid to explore the ugliness for fear that, perhaps, people will somehow miss the whole picture of redemption.
We viewed another clip, Moulin Rouge, as an example of an over-the-top boisterous love story that we connect with only because it is set in the context of pain, suffering and brokenness. The hope is earned hope. He concluded with a personal story reminding us of God’s active work in both the beautiful and intensely painful events in life.
Session 5 (Saturday,
October 16 PM)
In our final session we worked at trying to organize all of our thoughts and ideas from the week into three different categories.
|
Themes We’ve Seen
that Resonate |
Techniques That
Work |
Challenges These
Ideas Present to Us |
|
- Pray – listen, lay out, remember - Be an ASS! - TO BE REAL |
|
We then went around the circle and shared personal visions of what we’ve learned and what we’re actually going to do with it in the coming year.