The Book of Eli is without a doubt the film that has single-handedly impacted me the most in the last year, at least. Some call it ridiculous, others call it beautiful. Some hate it, some love it.I, though, have a much more personal connection with it.
In 2007, I was wrapping up the first edit of my first feature film, "The Broken Quiet". I began getting visuals for another feature film, and the stories, characters, and plots kept changing, but the title was the same from the beginning: "Chains of Freedom".
I tossed and turned through treatment after treatment, concept after concept, and a narrative began to develop. I wanted to make a film that was one giant metaphor for the Gospel, and more than the Gospel, but the entire Book. I began refining the treatments, the layouts, and finally, the outline, until I was ready, in January of 2009, to sit down and jot down the first draft.
I remember the process as I did it. Rachel had spiritual experiences and dreams of an angel hovering about me, protecting me, guiding me. I felt those experiences, saw shadows move that weren't mine. God was there.
I got feedback from the first draft, and in the spring of 2009, I began writing the second draft. It all became a bit clearer, a bit cleaner, and that draft was sent out, and came back with suggestions from friends and colleagues.
Meanwhile, I was starting to figure out what kind of actors I would want cast for the various roles. Someone like Djimon Hounsou or Denzel Washington for the hero, Gary Oldman or Kevin Spacey for the villian. Assorted other types. Just dreaming.
It would be set in some kind of a Mad Max environment, because I liked the idea of a badass Jesus on a motorcycle.
It was now September. I decided to put it on the back burner for just a little while. In the meantime, I went with some friends to "Surrogates", a Bruce Willis film.
That's when I saw this trailer play on the screen:
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS NOT COMPLETELY SPOILER-FREE
Sufficed to say, I was crushed. I felt the wind blow out of my sails. Two years...two years of agonizing over details, scripts, characters...
And it wasn't just that. It was the fact that I felt like God Himself had pulled a bait and switch on me. See, if I had just lost two years of concept development, that's one thing. No biggie. It happens to everyone who's a "nobody" filmmaker, and even some "somebody" filmmakers, right?
What stung, rather, was that God had done all this stuff with dreams, with visions, with mad amounts of inspiration...only to have it all be done, similarly, by someone else. Why, God?
I still don't know the answer...but I know that it greatly enhanced the awe I have for this film (and no, not because it's so similar in character set-up and structure to mine).
I went into this film seeing the very mixed reviews, and was almost tempted to just pass it up, but because I had spent two years on something very similar...I had to see it. I had to. Maybe to breathe a sigh of relief if it sucked and plan to go again in a few years with a different cast, maybe to just hang it up once and for all if it was really good.
I didn't know what I was expecting. But I didn't expect what I got.
I don't want spoil the film for you; there's really not a whole lot to say about the film without ruining the plot. So I'll try to keep it light.
I will say this.
It did a far better job at doing what I wanted to do. It had balls of steel to actually proclaim the Word of the Lord instead of hiding behind metaphors. It was brutal, profane, and filled with humanity's darkness. It reflected the Book Eli was protecting itself, both the Old and New Testaments.
I never cry at a movie. Never. Maybe a sniffle, maybe a gasp, but I just don't cry. I get emotionally involved, but I don't cry. I don't think Passion of the Christ even pulled tears from me.
But this film left me with stained cheeks. It wasn't the film itself; the acting was excellent, but that wasn't what got me. Hearing the Word of God spoken with such...truth...on the silver screen... I don't think I'd ever heard it.
I wasn't going to go nearly that far. I had a more "clever" approach. Yet Denzel Washington helped produce and acted in a film that just said it: the world needs the Word, and the One Who Spoke it.
Two things this film did to me.
One, as a filmmaker, it was a humbling experience. I confess, I've become somewhat proud in the fact that I am a Christian filmmaker who wants to make intense, non-family friendly, real films, that really tell stories, not preach sermons. I'd gotten a bit of a smug smirk on my soul about it. I was Christian, but I was gonna make awesome R-rated films. Because God was gonna use me to do that.
Walking out of that theater, God said, "I don't need you to do anything, kid." He humbled me, lovingly, but truthfully. I realized, again, how small I am, and how small I'll stay, no matter how much success God brings me, if any at all. He reminded me again, why I'm even supposed to be pursuing filmmaking at all - to praise His name.
And if His name is praised, does it matter who's doing the praising? The Apostle Paul didn't seem to think so, he laughed at those preaching the Gospel in envy of him (not that anyone envies me), and said, basically, "As long as Jesus' name is spread, who cares?"
If and when I ever have the pleasure of meeting the Hughes brothers or Denzel Washington, I owe them thanks for that.
Second, and this is the one that really counts, The Book of Eli awakened within me an honest desire and love for the Word. For years, I've tried to push myself into being hungry for it, and while I love prayer and worship, I just couldn't stay interested when I cracked open the Word. It felt too...familiar.
This film shows a world with no Holy Book spared but one, and a very uniquely... restricted... version at that.
It showed a man called to protect it, and ultimately, to embody it. This man spends his entire life, his entire existence, purposing the Word to his mind. And he can never get enough. He's never fully arrived. His last lines are, "God, thank you for the good I was able to do. I'm so sorry about the bad." He was a humble, hungry servant.
It didn't make me feel judged, guilty, or depressed. Rather... it made me hungry.
I watched the film a second time, then went home, found a family Bible Rachel and I were given for Christmas a few years back. It's big, it's bulky, and it kind of reminds me of Eli's fictitious story. Why is it so important to remember a fictitious story?
Because it should be mine, too. I should be so hungry for this blessing that God Himself has protected, through the corrupted hands of men (I have faith for that), that I can never get enough. And it shouldn't truthfully be about the pages, or even the words on the page...
It should be about the words that translate to my soul. Eli demonstrates that in the closing act of the film in a way that, again, drove me to utter tears. A Hollywood film...portrays this? (There's that smugness, that pride, yet again. Thank you Lord, for the kind rebuke.)
So...as I finish typing this quite long ramble about a film and what it did to me (and prepare to see it once more tonight), I thank God for using what I thought was foolish to instruct me.
I thank God that He used this film to remind me that prayer is more about thanksgiving than demands. I thank God that He used this film to remind me that Discipleship is what He cares most about. I thank God that He used this film...to humble me.
I thank God. This is my film. I may not have made it, but I treasure it in my heart.
