Reflections of a Toaster
Tony Watkins' blog on life, work, books, contemporary culture and who knows what else.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Focus: The Art and Soul of Cinema
Once more good intentions of keeping up with blogging have gone the way of most good intentions. Anyway, the book,
Focus: The Art and Soul of Cinema was officially published last Friday. My copies arrived on Monday - always an exciting moment to see the results of so much hard work nicely printed (11 pt Palatino on a very crisp white paper if, like me, you care about such things - and I realise most don't) with a lovely cover.
Here's the back cover blurb:
Films have never been more popular or, with the increase in television channels and home rentals, so readily available. But how much of what we watch do we really understand? Focus: The Art and Soul of Cinema explains how films communicate the worldview of the film-maker, helping us to engage more fully with the films we watch - and so to enjoy them more. With a passion for film and a deep concern to develop a robust Christian understanding of our culture, Tony Watkins equips us to recognise and respond to the messages in today's movies. Essential reading for anyone who enjoys films and who wants to get more out of their viewing experience.
There is a little more blurb, but since it's people saying nice things about the book, modesty prevents me from putting it here. You can get more information from the
Focus microsite. You can even read all the nice things there, as well as see what's in the book, read a sample extract and get additional resources.
If you feel inclined to buy a copy - at the bargain price of £8.99 - you can do so in a number of ways. Here's three, all with different advantages: order it through a bookshop (the ISBN is 978-1-904753-15-5), buy it through the
Damaris shop or buy it from Amazon.co.uk via the
books page on my website (which has the small advantage of a little commission from Amazon helping towards our support, as well as encouraging more sales on Amazon). Wherever you buy from, it really helps when people leave reviews on the Amazon website(s) - it has a huge influence on what people buy.
Monday, September 11, 2006
More audio
I ran out of time for preparing more Da Vinci Code audio for my site. I may put up a more recent one when the DVD comes out later in the year.
Meanwhile, the
Above Bar Church website website now carries dowloads of Sunday sermons so there's some recent material from me there. Of particular interest might be my two-parter on Engaging with the real world -
part one and
part two.
The book
Well, I'm behind schedule with just two weeks to go and a lot of revisions to do as well as writing appendices and other stuff. I'm pleased with what I've done, though, and hope it will make a valuable and distinctive contribution.
More soon - when I have some time again!
tony
Friday, June 16, 2006
And more on The Da Vinci Code
I neglected to inform the world that my recording of a Men's Breakfast at King's Community Church, Hedge End (Southampton) is now available. It didn't seem to be the right context to talk about the sacred feminine and goddess spirituality, so instead I talked about
The Da Vinci Code and conspiracy theories. I highlighted a number of features of conspiracy theories and suggested that, despite Dan Brown's protests,
The Da Vinci Code strongly fits the criteria. I compared the lack of evidence for the ideas which Brown claims he believes with the strong evidence for the historically orthodox understanding of Christianity and the gospels.
All my available recordings are at
www.tonywatkins.co.uk - or follow the Read More link below.
Current writing project
It's about time I said something about my current writing project. I am getting towards the end of writing a book about engaging with film at a worldview level. There are a number of books written by Christians which look at connections between films and theology - some of them extremely good. Robert K. Johnstone's
Reel Spirituality is one of them (one day I will get around to putting my various bibliographies on this site - but not yet). But there is very little on how to understand, analyse and respond to what films are saying on their own terms.
I don't think we treat a film fairly if all we're doing is looking for parallels with the Christian story, or if we are preoccupied with how films handle explicitly theological issues. Thinking at a worldview level is much broader and requires us to consider what the film is saying about the nature of reality, the nature of human beings, how we know truth, how we know right and wrong, and what humans most need in order to attain fulfilment. All of these have a theological dimension to them, but a worldview approach allows us to think outside of a narrow framework and really hear what is being said. Then we can hopefully respond in richer, fuller, more helpful ways.
The plan is for me to finish writing by the end of July (I'm a long way behind at the moment) and for the book to be published in the spring of 2007. I'll keep you posted!
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Da Vinci Code - more audio
I've now added the recordings of Wednesday evening's events at Above Bar Church, Southampton, which I shared with David Couchman of
Focus.
I talked about the appeal of
The Da Vinci Code, its opposition to orthodox historical Christianity, the sacred feminine and goddess spirituality.
David addressed three key claims in the book: that the Gnostic gospels discovered at Nag Hammadi are earlier than the biblical gospels and give us a more historically truthful account of Jesus, that the council of Nicea in AD 325 voted to treat Jesus as divine although he had only been considered mortal until that point, and that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.
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