JoyOfMovies.com: Peter Weir and Salvation

Peter Weir and the Theme of Salvation
By Doug Kimball
At the heart of every film that Peter Weir has directed is the theme of transformation or salvation. He might not view the phenomenon as Christians would, but he still investigates the issue of redemption, rescue, metamorphosis, conversion -- whatever name you might give it, the theme is the essence of change or of saving. How does he make this clear? What facets illumine his understanding of terms that those who have faith in Christ know all too well? His refreshing and startling "takes" on the subject may assist in shining fresh light on our conception of salvation.
We'll start with what could be considered Weir's most religious film; certainly no modern film has lent as much dignity and valor to the quiet, reverential ways of the Amish as 1985's Witness. John Book (Harrison Ford), the Philadelphian cop who is an outsider to the community, starts the film in a mindset of superiority to the Amish. It is he who acts as a savior to the helpless Rachel (Kelly McGillis) and Samuel (Lukas Haas) Lapps, after Samuel witnesses a murder and is being hunted down. But Book is seriously wounded by Samuel's pursuer, and the tables are turned almost immediately; close to death and losing consciousness due to his injury, Book is cared for and rescued from certain perishing by the care of the people of Lancaster and, in particular, the loving administrations of the recently-widowed Rachel. Book is strange to the Amish. His ways as "one of them English" are utterly foreign to them, as are theirs to him. Yet, slowly, a transformation takes place. True, he does not "convert" to the Amish faith and lifestyle, but he becomes somewhat accustomed to the simpler thoughts and actions of this gentle yet stern group of Godfearers. In turn, the Lapps accept him as much as tradition will allow them to do so, and then some; Rachel goes further, rebelling against the spirit of the rules due to her growing love for him.
Tension still exists, however, and makes itself most evident in the bathing scene. Naked from the waist up, Rachel gives herself a sponge bath; during this, she notices Book looking at her in the nearby mirror. Without fear or shame, she turns to face him, seemingly offering herself (or at least an intimate part of herself) to this man from another world. His gaze soon points to the ground as he struggles with the desire for her and his knowledge of their vast differences. Later, we learn that Book could not bring himself to take her as his own; he has reasoned that the realms which they inhabit are too divergent. Each of them should not be uprooted from the tradition which is deeply ingrained in their very souls. Such a concession to "the way things are" does not deny their growing love for each other; rather, it only points to its presence all the more. Weir depicts this friction, this love which can never be fully realized, in tender and earthly terms; not opting for the easy way out, he shows them kissing passionately yet never consummating the desires they feel. Is this "conversion" then aborted? Or was it never meant to be? Answers to these questions are hard to come by.
In any event, a last image of "rescuing the dying" should be mentioned. At the conclusion of the story, when the corrupt cops who are after Samuel show up at the Lapp homestead, Book commands Samuel to run to a neighboring farm. Despite the now visible care and concern he has for the boy, Book and the others may not have survived without Samuel's disobedience of this edict. Instead of running, Samuel rings the bell with all his might, bringing menfolk from the surrounding farms rushing to the scene to figure out what is happening. These Amish provide the human backdrop to the end of the confrontation between the two cops. Salvation (or rescue) is quite literally brought by a child to the chaotic and pivotal conflict taking place. Even though he is taking his cues from a script (Earl and Pamela Wallace wrote the screenplay), Peter Weir achieves the communication of a saving grace at the hands of the boy, handily convincing viewers of the perils and consequences that would result if Samuel's actions were absent. The danger is actual; thus, the deliverance from that difficulty is itself quite real.
In 1989's Dead Poets Society, Weir's most financially successful film to date, the references to redemption are more plain, but perhaps more powerful. Make no mistake about it, the screenplay turns professor Keating (Robin Williams) into a Christ-figure, not clobbering the viewer with constant imagery but ensuring that the comparison is drawn. Calling his future students/disciples away from the world to teach them, using methods that the authority figures at Welton disapprove of, the young English professor resembles Jesus in his gentleness and in the compelling nature of his speech. Granted, the "gospel" provided by this latter-day messiah does not compare with the good news of the Son of God, but it is exciting, new, and rebellious in its stance against the norms of the surrounding people and structures. In a subtle way, the encouragement to live each day to its fullest is not entirely incompatible with Christ's message to his followers.
Incidental touches, like a group of about twelve boys (disciples?) hoisting their coach/leader (Keating) to their shoulders for a victory lap after a rousing rugby win, do not distract from the deeper message of salvation by coming apart from the ways of the world, illustrated brilliantly by Weir at the conclusion of the work. The suicide of student Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), is pinned on the pernicious influences of the new and nonconformist teacher. ("They need a scapegoat," claims another student, Dalton.) We assume that no "trial" was held; any charges made against Keating were probably met with the silence that characterized Jesus during the proceedings before his crucifixion. All boys involved in the Dead Poets Society are forced to sign a document holding their mentor culpable for Perry's death ("denying" and "fleeing" from him); their names are supplied by Cameron, the Judas figure who is all too treacherous.
Released from employment at Welton, Keating enters his classroom a last time to clean out his belongings as Mr. Nolan, the headmaster (an appropriately cruel Caiaphas), begins teaching the class from the dreary textbook vilified earlier by the boys' former instructor. Todd Anderson can no longer handle the guilt inside him and professes how he and the others were made to sign the calumnious confession. Threatened with expulsion by Nolan, Todd stands on his desk and names his savior by the words Keating had suggested at their first class meeting: "O captain, my captain." Despite the headmaster's ranting, more boys follow the first disciple's brave lead (interestingly enough, the total of those standing is again approximately twelve). Their public declaration of faith in him leads the English teacher to offer heartfelt thanks to the boys before he leaves them. Weir's depiction of the earnest and forever-changed Anderson (cunningly framed in Keating's view by the legs of a young man standing in front of him) drives home the fact that a deep conversion has taken place; the filmmaker's conviction that transformation is possible, even in the face of persecution, becomes strikingly evident.
What if the conversion is not from the wrong to the right, but from the good to the evil? Is this a possible biblical explanation of the terms I have employed up to this point? Surely "redemption" or "salvation" do not have negative connotations. Notwithstanding this claim, the concept of change, of transformation or of metamorphosis, can be from light to darkness. Such an understanding must be coupled with the more common positive ones in order to comprehend the shifts in personal attitudes and fortunes in 1986's The Mosquito Coast.
Granted, Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) endeavors to save his family from the impending destruction he feels will overtake his homeland of America by whisking them away to La Mosquitia in the south. The idea of isolationism, although not always perceived as a good thing, seems to be done from noble enough motives in this instance. Fox does care for his family, even though this fact becomes less and less apparent as the film progresses. Even the concept of carving a new civilization from the wild jungle is not without its positive implications (despite the obvious overtones of western imperialism and colonialism this carries with it). As far as progress goes, he feels that he is improving the lot of the less fortunate, bringing ice and its modernizing powers to bear on a backward world.
This, however, is the place where any affirmation of Allie's plans must end. Fox succeeds in alienating himself from his family by demanding their allegiance to his ever-narrowing vision of the perfect society. Driven by his desire to succeed and to remain apart from the corrupting influence of a lazy world, he basically forces his loved ones to participate in his "project": subsistence-living on the beach near the mouth of the river. Scrounging from pieces of debris that have drifted ashore, he constructs a home that does support the disgruntled and weary members of his clan, despite their want to return home (or at least travel to a place that is more hospitable and "normal"). Descending into an increasingly monomaniacal determination to live his way, Allie sums up the definition of the word "selfish." The warning earlier in the film from Allie's neighbor, Doc, that Fox "is a dangerous man" is becoming more and more true.
When the "project" is washed off the land by a severe storm, the stubborn inventor insists on pursuing his goals of surviving without the world's help, to the detriment of his family. He is becoming an "anti-savior," almost purposefully driving Mother, Charlie, Jerry, and his twin daughters into rebellion against him. Deluded into thinking he is acting in their best interests, it actually appears that he is bent on destroying himself and those close to him to achieve his warped and unrealistic goals. After several attempts to secede and escape from his influence, his family witnesses his shooting and comes to his rescue (no matter how undeserving he is of their concern). As he lays dying, they act to preserve their lives, knowing that he cannot stop them now. Salvation in this case resides in their deceiving him and heading for the refuge and safety to be afforded by their return to the outside world. Brave enough to choose this script in the first place, Weir brings to life the story of a man who unwittingly endangers his family, pollutes the environment, and burns down a church, all of which spring from his personal vision of the way the world should be.
Charlie Fox's narrative voiceover is the perspective that Weir selects to paint this difficult picture; the final words of Charlie (River Phoenix), delivered as the boat heads out to sea, reveal part of the message to be gained from the film as a whole. "Once, I had believed in Father, and the world had seemed . . . small, and old. Now he was gone, and I wasn't afraid to love him anymore, and the world . . . seemed limitless." The concept of salvation, we are told, is freeing; it allows us to love as we have never been able to love before. "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear . . ." (I John 4:18a, NIV). Could it be that this is what the filmmaker intends us to see, working from the grace that is common to both the Christian and the non-Christian alike?
Redemption through the auspices of romantic love is revisited masterfully by the director in his witty and surprising 1990 film, Green Card. Since he also wrote and produced this picture, we should expect more of his feelings about the key issues of life to show through; in this regard, Weir does not fail to deliver. The main characters, Bronte (Andie McDowell) and Georges (Gerard Depardieu), each need a marriage to secure things thought most valuable: she, a huge apartment with a greenhouse upon which to practice her horticulture, and he, a permit to remain in the land of promise known as the United States. Meant only to be a piece of paper and nothing more, the agreement is soon turned into an elaborate charade by the INS in its efforts to crack down on illegal marriages. Two more disparate individuals could hardly be imagined. Bronte is the proper, liberally-minded young lady who works for a city-reclamation organization; Georges is older, overweight, vulgar, and unconcerned with the environment, let alone his own appearance. To pull off the hoax, they must memorize details of each other's lives which are normally quite intimate. Such discussions, miraculously, serve to bring the two of them closer, exactly when each needs the other most.
Both of these hapless members of the human race are selfish in their own ways; the reasons they chose this arrangement in the first place were entirely self centered. Part of the saving that Bronte needs is to be brought to a place of realizing that her objectives are no more noble than those of her less-appealing partner. However, both she and Georges need to be rescued from their inward focus so that they can perceive and meet the needs of another. The first glimmer of hope from the male side takes place at a well-to-do dinner party, where the Frenchman is introduced as a composer. We are led to think that he cannot create music to save his life, so disaster seems to be the inevitable outcome when he is prevailed upon to play his "work" at the piano. A pounding, dissonant melange of sound results, fulfilling our expectations; this is followed by a tender piece which wrings the exact emotion from the hostess that Bronte needs to secure a donation of plants to her "green" employer. Tenderness and care are shown by this huge risk-taking venture on his part; these are feelings she is presently unwilling to requite.
Unstoppable by futile human resistance, the process that Weir crafts in the hearts of the two opposite "partners" continues its course. The fateful interviews with the immigration officers reveal Georges and Bronte's true feelings for each other; the lies that have been carefully constructed are interwoven with truths that neither dares confide to the other, truths that show the transformation that has occurred. Georges' failed endeavor to keep his citizenship results in his deportation, but not before the newly-discovered lovers actualize their previously faux nuptials. Each has paid a price for the other; even though they will be physically separated for a time, their redemption has been successfully consummated. It is as if we can hear the creator of this film chuckling to himself, "Rescue completed." And so it is.
Weir's first film to gain popularity in the United States, 1983's The Year of Living Dangerously, is more raw than his later works have been, and perhaps more affecting as a result. Following the experiences of young reporter Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) as he tries to make sense of the political and communal life in Jakarta, we come face to face with a society wasting away from attrition and poverty. A walk through the slums with newly-made photog friend Billy Kwan reveals the immense pain and misery of the destitute residents. Billy, having been in the city much longer than Guy, has had time to process the sight of the poor and the system that confronts him daily. His hope is to school the young Aussie in the ways of justice, bringing him face to face with structures that continually oppress the poor and reinforce the position of the rich. In fact, Billy hopes to "save" his new friend � to rescue him from naivet� and to draw out the compassion he sees inside the journalist. Constantly we hear the refrain from Billy, "What then must we do?" The quote from Luke 3:10 spurs the photographer on in his pursuit of justice. Exercising facile control over the actions of Guy and Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), Kwan brings the two of them together; he realizes that the two of them are a perfect match. In engineering their intense romance, he hopes to further enhance the dawn of a kind spirit within Guy.
Weir meticulously defines the elaborate "dance" orchestrated by Billy in terms of Guy and Jill's relationship. The purpose is to evince a kind of "saved by love" ethos; despite its trite sound, such a concept can drastically change one's entire lifecourse. The beginning appears to be successful: the two do fall madly in love, even with Jill's early resistance. However, the British woman's commitment to Guy is deeper than his reciprocal love. When she relays information about a gun shipment to the Communist insurgency in hopes of saving his life, the "journo" (as he is critically dubbed in the film) instead sees it as the opportunity of a lifetime. It could be "his" story, the one that will make him famous and change the very fabric of Indonesian society. Such a reaction clearly shows that his love has not influenced his ethics; no conversion to the ideal of justice has taken place.
Pursuit of the information leads to frustration on Guy's part; he cannot obtain the confirmation he needs to report the influx of arms. When he finally gets similar news that does not come directly from Jill, he makes the fateful broadcast back to Australia. In a confrontation with Billy, the disloyal journalist is cut to the heart by his friend's revelation of the unfaithfulness to both himself and Jill. All of Billy's elaborate plans come to light, and Guy discovers just how much of a traitor he has been. Shortly thereafter, the photographer makes his last stand trying to communicate to the ruler the terrible plight of the city-dwellers; troops throw him out of a hotel window, and Guy is too late to save him. Harrowing events, including a clubbing which seriously injures his left eye, fail to keep him from escaping the roiling country by leaving with Jill. Her forgiveness of his deeds, and his contemplation of the error of his ways and his devotion for her, in large part serve to "rescue" him; he is pulled not only from a place that would surely have been his end but brought to a reconciliation with one he holds dear. A happy ending is here, to be sure, but more that: a transformation in his heart to the ways of justice and right thinking about Jill. Salvific influences are brought to bear by Weir on two levels of human functioning � ethics and emotions.
Salvation in 1993's Fearless, Weir's most recent film, is more physical. Repeated references to "saving" others are employed, most of them without mention of God; we are then left to translate the intents that the comments and actions suggest on the human sphere. Based on the novel by Rafael Yglesias, the film centers around Max Klein (Jeff Bridges), a plane crash survivor who now believes that he cannot die. Our "Good Samaritan" continues to use this "ability" (or delusion, depending on one's point of view) in efforts to rescue others, while ignoring the needs of those closest to him. (In this sense, Klein is similar to Allie Fox, although he does not descend to the deepest depths of the inventor's blindness).
The immediate focus of his attention is Carla (Rosie Perez), the woman who lost her child in the devastating plane crash. For all his striving, he seems unable to pierce the dark recesses of her guilt over letting go of her baby; Max cannot convince her that her son's death was not her fault. His last resort is to recreate the speed and conditions of the disaster by driving full-speed into a brick wall. This results in his admittance to the ICU at a nearby hospital and her deliverance from the demon that haunts her. Weir carefully makes plain, in the silence after the intentional "accident," the young Latino mother's inability to hold her "baby" (a red toolbox substituted by Klein). The freedom from guilt she experiences is overwhelming, both to her and the audience. The grip of death and blame has been broken in a salvific moment highlighted by the story and its motivated director.
One last act of redemption awaits: the release of Max to truly live again in the world inhabited by his wife, son, and the majority of human society. Returning from the hospital, he enters his house and flips through his son's scrapbook of the events that have transpired. His eyes are drawn to the headlines, each of which include the words "saves" or "rescue;" with his finger, he underlines the powerful yet personally meaningless word ("The Man's Bravery Saves Passengers"). His description of his need for a personal redeemer is expressed to his wife: "I want you to save me."
The appearance of Brillstein, the ultimately greedy lawyer, provides the fruit basket of opportunity. A bright red strawberry catches Klein's eye and he deliberately and slowly tastes the dangerous object � dangerous because he is deathly allergic to strawberries. The first bite, however, goes down fine. Then Laura comes back into the room, and he holds up the fruit for her to see, preparing to bite again. Her scream seems to trigger the allergic reaction, sending him sprawling to the floor. "This is it. This is the moment of my death," are the words that flash through his mind. With his wife desperately performing CPR, Max relives the instant of the crash. Seldom has a more harrowing yet relieving scene been witnessed in anything issuing from Hollywood: seats, walls, and objects shred apart, clasped hands tear asunder, flames engulf part of the cabin.
The "messiah" views his leading of others to safety but is himself turned away by the voice of his wife piercing the flashback. A loud intake of air greets his constricted windpipe and he revives. Hugging Max to herself, Laura hears his amazed words, "I'm alive!" � this is followed by his uncontrollable laughter. The two joyfully discover each other and collapse on the floor as they continue to thankfully laugh and cry. This resurrection ends a narrative that is as salvation minded as any I have seen; the sheer gratitude and bliss at reentering the world of the living speaks loudly of the redemption we enjoy in Christ.
Weir's depiction of utter dependence on a savior outside oneself is definitely proto-Christian. The startling juxtaposition of death, life, and the transition from one to the other sums up the auteur's deep conviction of the importance of it all for the existence of humankind.