Sunday, April 24, 2011

Stranger than fiction

Since I am a persistent follower of the feeds from Forgotten Classics and SFF audio, I was also familiar with the new podcast A Good Story Is Hard To Find made by Julie Davies (Forgotten Classics) and Scott Danielson (SFF). The two come together as believing Catholics and discuss their favorite books and movies and express what they find in these stories that strikes them as Christian content or a Christian message. (feed)

So far, the titles they chose to discuss were not ones I had any affinity with, but recently they took up the movie Stranger Than Fiction and that made me game. This movie has the supra-realistic tale of a man named Harold who finds out he is in a novel and seeks the help of a literature professor (a great performance by Dustin Hoffman). He thinks the author of the novel intends for him to die and he wants to do something about it. In the end Harold meets the author and when she (a role by Emma Thompson) finds out her character is a real person, she finds her intention to kill him off in the story further complicated - aside from her writer's block.

It was great fun to have the film discussed and learn more of the details. It sure makes me want to see the movie again. I am not sure I will agree with Scott and Julie's take on the story. I can understand how they can see Christ when they meet a person sacrificing his life in a story, but that could be a stretch. When they discuss the peculiar role of Harold's watch and claim to see 'how God works in ones life' I do not even know what they mean. Is it that God is in the details? Or that God's Master Plan is carried out by seemingly trivial circumstances? That is when I find their perspective being forced upon the story and upon an otherwise very captivating and entertaining discussion.