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The best movies of 1997
By Steve Lansingh | A few issues ago I wrote a review of Chasing Amy in which I praised its commentary on sexual relationships. About a week later, I had dinner with a friend who told me he found the film too raunchy to make much of an emotional impact on him. And I realized that my article had really failed to communicate why I love the film so much. It wasn't because I thought the movie had risky, original subject matter; it wasn't because I learned some abstract truth I could pass onto readers. It was because the film changed my life.
Now, in order to explain how it changed my life, I have to make myself very transparent and vulnerable -- which is not something most people want to read when they're browsing through a review. Still, I felt as if there should be some forum for being very honest with my readers and letting them know what I've gone through and what I've learned from the movies. If the purpose of Film Forum is to enrich our lives through the cinematic art form, then I should be telling stories from my own life as examples. As Frederick Buechner says in his memoirs, if I tell my story well then others will be able to see their own stories in the reflection of mine.
I kept this idea in the back of my mind for a few months, and it popped up again as I was preparing this article. In putting together a Top 10 list, I found myself dropping Oscar-nominated films like L.A. Confidential and As Good As It Gets from my list in favor of films like Austin Powers and The Tango Lesson. It's not as if I didn't learn anything from As Good As It Gets or as if I didn't appreciate the dark eloquence of L.A. Confidential; it's just that they spoke to my mind, not my heart. And if I was going to get excited about writing a Top 10 list, they were going to have to be movies that touched my heart, that became part of my inner life.
What follows is a journal of sorts, one that chronicles my life during the past year and ten movies that helped shape it in one way or another. I realize that this is unorthodox, risky, and perhaps even absurd. But I'm hoping that by letting you into my world I can better communicate how art keeps us thinking, growing, feeling, understanding, and searching. At the very least, my eclectic selections should keep this Top 10 list from mimicking the dozens you've already read this Oscar season. May I have the envelope please ...

My story begins last May, when I graduated from college. I felt as if I stood in front of a giant, blank piece of paper, and I was to spend the rest of my life filling it. As much as I feared things going on my "permanent record" in high school and college, I now knew that my schooling had been mere practice -- this life I was to construct for myself would be my true permanent record. I needed to start with good habits and strong goals -- make, bold, thick lines on my paper, if you will -- that would guide me during the coming years of day-to-day living and growing apathy, when we are tempted to doodle rather than to flesh out the picture we first intended to create. I felt completely immobilized.
A couple weeks later I was freed while watching the film Night Falls on Manhattan. We first meet the protagonist, Sean Casey (Andy Garcia), in training to become an assistant district attorney. The low-ranking member of the DA's office who is lecturing the class assumes that they're there to pay their dues and move on to higher-paying jobs, but Casey, full of idealism and allegiance to justice, is there because he's doing what he believes in -- exactly what I was hoping for.
The film concerns itself with Casey's rise from public defender to District Attorney, and the compromises he has to make once he gets there. His father, Liam (Ian Holm), is a cop who was almost killed by a drug dealer, a situation that makes him the key witness in Casey's successful prosecution against the dealer. Casey's victory propels him into the DA's office, where he vows not to waver on any matter of law. But the old case doesn't seem to go away, and as Casey learns more and more details about it he begins to find himself divided between loyalty and justice. Eventually, Casey learns that there is no single "right way" to do things; the virtues of loyalty, justice, courage, humility, honesty, and compassion do not dictate a single course of action but many, depending on what order they are ranked in one's mind.
Casey tries to teach this hard truth to the new crop of assistant district attorneys who have joined his office. He tells them: "You're going to spend most of your time in the gray areas. But out there, that's where you're going to come face to face with who you really are. That's a frightening thing to ask of you. And it might take a lifetime to figure out. For me, I know two things: I know I still have complete faith in the law, and I also know I'm fallible. I just hope God is not finished with me yet."
I felt as though he were speaking directly to me. And I knew that I was now free to act. There's no single way to construct your life that satisfies every need and duty; there is only a constant wrestling with life's small decisions that must be made day after day that, over time, reveals who you really are and what you value. I was no longer afraid of messing up because I knew I was guaranteed to. The trick was to not let that be an excuse to give up.
So, I began looking for a job. My goal, of course, was to become a movie critic, but all I could find was a part-time gig doing entertainment coverage for a local newspaper and another part-time job doing graphic design for a missions group. Eventually, to make ends meet, I started working at Blockbuster some 38 hours a week -- not exactly the most prestigious job for a college graduate. My idealism had been thoroughly dampened. But I knew I couldn't let that be an excuse to give up. I decided that since there was no place in the Christian community where I could write as an open-minded film critic, I would create that place. So I began working on what would eventually become this magazine.

In 1996, I found out that two close friends of mine no longer considered themselves Christians. One is now an atheist, the other an agnostic. It was a shattering blow to me, because all three of us had grown up in Christian homes, and now the two of them had decided that what their parents had taught them was wrong. When they both explained to me, several months apart, their reasons for rejecting God, their arguments sounded logical and level-headed. I wasn't sure how to answer them, because they were asking for proof of God and I had none to give. There's nature, of course, which points to a creator -- but what makes us think that the one who created it is the same God we worship? And there's the Bible, but in order to believe it's God's word, you have to first believe that God exists.
I had fallen into the trap of thinking the way the world thinks about God. I'd spent so much time in classes about Christian thought and about the New Testament last year that I had reduced God to something that was to be studied, just as sociologists study the church as a social phenomenon or historians study Jesus as a influential figure. I had forgotten that God is experienced, not analyzed.
The film that reopened my eyes to the wonder and mystery and glory of God was Contact. It tells the story of Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), an astronomer who is convinced that life must exist on other planets, but, paradoxically, does not believe in God, due to lack of scientific evidence. To make a long story short (i.e., to keep from giving away too many plot secrets), Ellie has an encounter with extraterrestrial life, but, because of lack of scientific evidence, no one believes her. Still, Ellie insists that she did indeed make contact, that she experienced something wonderful and eye-opening. "Everything I know as a human being, everything that I am," she says, "tells me that it was real."
That sentence reminded me of everything I had forgotten. The reason I knew God exists, the reason I knew that he loves me, was not merely because the Bible tells me so but because everything that I know as a human being tells me that. All the wisdom I find in art I also find in the pages of the Bible. Everything I know from human relationships tells me that the Bible was written by the one who created those relationships. Every longing I have in my heart is satisfied by the life God calls us to lead and by our promised heaven. God is the author of this world and of my life, and he works both together for his glory. I can't prove it, but everything I am tells me it's true.

When discussing any topic in life -- speed limits, school uniforms, hockey stars, swimwear, the electoral college -- you'll find dozens of viewpoints from people you talk to, articles you read, and what you see on television. But when it comes to a physical relationship with someone, you're lucky to find more than two. One, which I will label "the world's" perspective, goes like this: Rule #1: Do whatever you want to do. Rule #2: Oh, and remember not to get any diseases. The other, which I will label "the church's" perspective, goes like this: Rule #1: Whatever you do, don't have sex. Rule #2: Oh, and remember to thank God for giving you sexuality.
It seems, at least to me, that too much of the rhetoric about physical relationships centers around whether or not you should have sex. Neither the culture nor the church has given much attention to someone who isn't having sex but wants to understand how the physical and emotional lives affect one another. If one person is comfortable showing affection in public and the other isn't, how is that best reconciled without one person feeling used or the other feeling unloved? If talking about it is the answer, how do you choose a good time to discuss your physical relationship? How do you communicate effectively when you might both hold very different ideas of what terms, such as "kiss" or "back rub," mean? Does one person's jealousy make the other person feel protected or feel untrusted? If one person has been in many relationships and the other is brand new to dating, how do their differing degrees of dating experience affect their physical relationship and their relationship in general?
I'm sorry to say that I haven't found much reading material to help me out with questions like these (with the exception of selected chapters from Sex for Christians, by Lewis B. Smedes). For the most part, I had to learn them the old-fashioned way, which is to struggle through them -- at the risk of killing the relationship. Fortunately, my relationship with Amanda still thrives, and I give some of the credit for that to Chasing Amy. It gave me a key to beginning to understand some of those questions.
Obviously, Chasing Amy falls into "the world's" perspective, in that the characters don't think twice about having sex, but the core issue -- How do people with different dating backgrounds make a relationship work? -- is something most every couple struggles with, even we tame church couples. The couple in question here is Holden (Ben Affleck), a semi-geeky comic-book artist who's dated a few women but never been in love before, and Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams), a glamorous comic-book artist who has slept with hundreds of men and women but never been in love before. Holden and Alyssa become platonic friends while he's under the impression that she's a lesbian, and the pair find out they truly care for each other -- which quite admirably shows us that friendship, not sex, is the glue to a relationship. But things begin to falter once they introduce a physical relationship into their friendship. Holden feels somewhat inadequate because of his lack of experience; he tries to push the envelope, hoping he can satisfy her. But Alyssa is already satisfied; she wants a physical relationship with someone who loves her and isn't going to just treat her like a piece of meat -- and Holden is getting dangerously close to crossing that line. He thinks that loving Alyssa means making her happy, when in fact loving her means doing what's best for her.
That's a principle of love that I knew long before seeing this film, but it had remained "book knowledge" that was rattling inside my head. But when Alyssa finally reveals the pain that Holden is causing her -- a scene that broke my heart -- the principle seeped into that crack in my heart, where it has stayed ever since, where it has become part of how I see and act. I finally understood the pain I could cause others by ignoring their heart. Knowing what is best for another person is not an easy thing; it involves listening to both what is said and how it is said; it involves a deaf ear toward your own thoughts and desires temporarily. It is a constant process, since you, the other person, and your relationship are constantly changing and growing. But it is essential, I believe, to maintaining a vibrant relationship.

When I began working at Blockbuster, I faced the difficult task of making friends and becoming a trusted worker. Becoming a trusted worker isn't difficult for me; I'm a fairly meticulous person, so I didn't have too much trouble keeping the cash drawer balanced and the videos stocked. But making friends is more difficult, because I'm naturally shy and I make lousy small talk.
What eventually broke the ice was quoting lines from Austin Powers. By far the funniest film of the year, it's one of those movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail or The Princess Bride that automatically provides a bond between two people who might have very little else in common. Becky, Dave, Charlie, Carl and I soon became good friends, every once in a while incorporating a little Dr. Evil into our conversations -- "Throw me a frickin' bone here" was our favorite -- as well as the occasional Austin Powers "Judo chop!" and "Oh, behave." Believe me, whenever you're reshelving an endless stream of videotapes or listening to that DiGiorno's commercial for the 86 billionth time, you appreciate any bit of levity you can get.

The first issue of Film Forum was without doubt the most difficult one to put together. The energy and drive that had infused the preceding months were dwindling in the face of actually creating the issue. A lot of that had to do with the fact that there weren't that many good movies out. I was starting a magazine in which I wanted to tell people to listen to the cinema for what it has to say, and at the time it wasn't saying much. I was afraid that, right off the bat, readers would be uninterested in my viewpoint.
The film that put me back on course, that put passion back in my heart and gave me something important to say, was The Game. It's not just the fact that it's the only truly white-knuckle moviegoing experience since The Usual Suspects. It's that David Fincher has managed to put heart back into the thriller genre; the puzzle-piece plot makes sense not only in terms of logistics and motives, but the emotional life of the film also falls neatly into place -- displaying, once the last piece is in place, a portrait of unique love. This film has both top-notch showmanship and a soft underbelly, something rare and special in cinema -- giving me the exciting challenge of trying to communicate its value.

It wasn't more than a couple weeks later that I started to get semi-depressed. The novelty of the magazine started to wear off a little bit; I was wondering whether I was good enough for Amanda; I was still working my lowly Blockbuster job; even though I had lost 20 pounds over the summer, my weight loss had plateaued. Not to mention that I was staring down my 22nd birthday -- a mocking confirmation of the fact that I was now an adult. I was completely insecure but wanted to maintain the illusion that I still had everything under control -- the typical male response.
Then I saw The Full Monty, the hilarious British import about a group of recently unemployed steelworkers who get the bright idea to become strippers -- they've lost dignity to the point where stripping is a step up. The film is primarily about male insecurities: not being able to put bread on the table, not being attractive enough to your wife, not being considered a good father to your son, not being strong enough to help a friend who needs your help -- and, of course, not being good-looking enough to strip. Instead of trying to hide these inadequacies, ignore them, or overcome them, the men in The Full Monty learn to embrace them. They're saying, in effect, "This is who I am. I might not be the ideal man, but I am nevertheless a human being." As my friend Ted put it, when the men strip, they're stripping to their souls. And so I learned to embrace my inadequacies; I learned to be proud of what I do and who I am even if it might not look like much to anyone else.

Although I didn't realize it at the time, there was a second step on my road to recovery. I'd gotten back to my normal self, but I was due for a shot of preventative medicine in the form of Critical Care, a little-seen Sidney Lumet satire of American health care. I learned that one reason I had fallen into depression was because all my focus was on me -- whether I was good enough. It's a huge temptation in our individualistic society to think that our own problems are the most important thing in the world. But if we learn to live for others, to foster a spirit of selflessness, our own problems will become less significant in our minds' eye.
Critical Care concerns itself with Dr. Werner Ernst (James Spader), whose main ambition is to use his medical degree to seduce women who once thought he was too geeky to date. One of these women, Felicia (Kyra Sedgwick), has an elderly father in a vegetative state under Ernst's care, and in the course of trying to win her over, Ernst tells her that it's his medical opinion that her father should be taken off life-support, since that's what she wants to hear. Suddenly he finds himself in the midst of a huge legal battle, because Felicia's sister is filing a lawsuit to keep the old man alive, and Felicia plans on using Ernst's opinion (she has it on tape) for her own lawsuit to end his life. With his medical license on the line, Ernst must find a way out -- or, rather, a way through, as Mitch McDeere says in The Firm.
Then another doctor discovers that the old man's twitching hand is actually sending out a morse code message: "If you love me ..." Ernst realizes that nobody has the patient's interests in mind; everyone is thinking only about his or her own needs. He then decides to do what's best for the old man instead of worrying about his own stake in the situation -- he decides the reason he became a doctor in the first place, to help people, was a commitment to selflessness that he'd somehow forgotten.
Most of us, however, don't deal with life-and-death situations in the course of our day, so we're not sure how to love our neighbors. We get as far as not hating our neighbor. But love can be communicated in small ways, too -- a simple act of generosity, a little dose of kindness. A person doesn't have to be broke to appreciate a free lunch. Just a few weeks ago, Kent and I were talking about the time, five years ago now, when a high-school classmate of ours, Adam, paid for the entire order of pizza when eight or nine of us went out to Domino's together. I remembered how good that felt, so the next day, when nine of us went out for dessert after the college winter formal, I took the bill. I give full credit for that to Adam's example -- which taught me something else: Selflessness is contagious.

By nature, I am not a leader. In fact, with the exception of being the editor in chief of the college newspaper last year, I've had a long history of being the vice president of my high school class, the supporting actor in the school play, a section editor of the yearbook, etc. I don't lead in my interpersonal relationships either. I trade off taking control of things when I'm with Kent; and when I'm with Amanda, we agree on everything before we do it.
Then I started to take dance lessons. Even though I can claim gender equality in most arenas of life, ballroom dance is one arena where the male must lead whether he likes it or not. I hated that, primarily because I worried my partner would get bored from having to follow my unimaginative steps.
Then I saw The Tango Lesson, writer-director Sally Potter's semi-autobiographical film about her fascination with tango, her meeting Argentinian dancer Pablo Veron, and her becoming his dance partner. One of the biggest issues in the film revolves around leading; since they are both creative people, they were used to being the leader in their lives. Their situation was reversed from mine, since I'm not used to it, but the film nevertheless instructed me on the importance of leading. A strong leader will give his follower something definite to follow, which doesn't bore her but frees her to add her own flair to the performance -- whereas a weak leader will make his follower spend all of her energies on trying to figure out what he's doing.
The idea of leadership stretches far beyond the confines of the dance floor, of course. I learned, in my relationship with Amanda, that it is sometimes good to take control of a situation; then the other person can flourish. If I decide what we'll make for dinner, she can cook some tasty grilled cheese sandwiches; if she sets up a time to read the Bible together, then I can bring up thoughtful discussion questions. I'm still working on it; as I said, leadership is not in my nature. But I've seen the profits of being a strong leader, and little by little I'm beginning to see strides of progress in my behavior.

By the time Christmas rolled around and I saw Good Will Hunting and Titanic, my life was going very well -- I thought that the first few strokes I had made on my sheet of paper were bold and creative. Film Forum was receiving a small but steady increase in subscriptions, and most readers seemed to like it; I had been working for two months as a full-time graphic artist for The Bible League, the missions group that "lured" me away from Blockbuster; Amanda and I had joined Bally's Health and Fitness Club and were attending three times a week; we had been engaged for two months and were doing well in preparing for marriage. My emotional, spiritual, physical, and creative needs were all being met. But, as I learned, you are never without areas in your life that need work on, and you are never as self-aware as you'd like to think.
I learned this from the character of Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a brilliant twenty-something mathematician from the wrong side of the tracks. Beaten and rejected by foster parents while growing up, Will has finally found acceptance in his best friend, Chuckie (Ben Affleck). He resists any idea of using his genius to land a high-paying job or of moving with his girlfriend to California -- even though a large part of him wants to -- because either would take him away from Chuckie. His self-worth is tied up in what Chuckie and his friends think of him, and therefore he is more concerned with pleasing them than himself.
It is his conversations with Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), the psychologist Will must see as part of his probation deal, that changes Will. Sean sees value hidden beneath Will's many layers of defenses, and, over time, Will begins to see it, too. That, combined with Chuckie's insistence that Will not end up like the rest of his friends, gives Will the courage to do what he really wants to.
Suddenly, it clicked with me: That's why I'd been so faithful about going to the gym during the past month, when I had tried so hard to work out at the college gym during the past four years but had only done it a handful of times. I had been doing it for all the wrong reasons. Subconsciously, I was trying to slim down so that I'd be more accepted by society, be more attractive to women, and feel better about myself; I was trying to find my identity in it. Ultimately, that never lasts long as a motivating factor because it doesn't work. Now that I have Amanda's encouragement and love, however, I'm no longer concerned about living up to the expectations of society. I'm secure that I'm a valuable human being because I know someone who believes that, and now I am free to act without concern over whether I succeed or fail. Amanda's love for me gives me the ability to live closer to how my heart truly desires. Also, her example has made me realize how God loves me in the same way; I no longer have to worry about whether I'm doing enough for God, whether I am succeeding or failing at my prayer goals or service goals, but can just pray and serve knowing that God values me anyway. That's what freedom in Christ truly means, I think.

Titanic also concerns itself with freedom; for me, it built on the principle laid down in Good Will Hunting. I was particularly struck by the thirty seconds or so at the end of Titanic when we glide by the photographs of the older Rose and see the bold things she's done with her life. I immediately recognized that I wanted that for my own life, too. I want to be able to look back at my life and see that I took risks, that I didn't waste years going through the motions, that I made a difference in people's lives.
Many people thought that Rose was able to do these things because of her love for Jack, who urged her to keep living boldly. But I think it's actually a combination of Jack and of Titanic itself. If we take Titanic to have mythic themes (Joseph Campbell's book The Power of Myth discusses these themes), then we take Rose as our heroine. Campbell says "what all the myths have to deal with is the transformation of consciousness [in the hero] -- that you're thinking in this way, and you have now to think in that way." Rose undergoes two shifts in consciousness: The first is a change from the repressed lifestyle she hates to a very free lifestyle she has with Jack -- she parties with the steerage passengers, gives someone the finger, poses nude for Jack, and even has sex with him. If this were allowed to continue, there's little notion that Rose would go on to do important things with her life; she is apparently content with being Jack's "whore," as she tells her fianc�.
But it's important to note that immediately after the sex scene -- the ultimate rebellion in 1912 -- Titanic hits the iceberg and begins to sink. Rose is confronted with how short and how precious life is. It is here that the second shift in consciousness takes place: She now realizes she hasn't embraced freedom so much as she has a carefree existence. Freedom, she learns, is to live without being ruled by the ideals of those around you -- but at the same time, recognize their worth as humans (just as our freedom in Christ does not give us license to do whatever we want, but to care for our friends and neighbors even as we live differently from them). With freedom comes responsibility.
Rose's example stands out to me because real people forget too often about their freedom. Just the idea that someone might cling to that value for her whole life -- that it became ingrained in who she is -- gives me hope. It gives me hope, in particular, for Amanda and me in our marriage. Once again, as we approach the wedding, I feel as if I'm at the edge of a giant piece of paper -- but this time, I'm working in tandem with another artist. We want to hang on to certain principles we have learned, like freedom, leadership, and faith, and I have hope that we can do so. They are by no means the only factors that will influence the beginning stages of our marriage; it's just that 1997 ended, and, with it, my story must end for now. Where we decide to go from here ... well, that's a story for next year.