‘The Chosen’ and the de-Bastardization of Christian Filmmaking
Here’s
the deal. As a Christian who loves visual stories, I am, more often than not,
ashamed and embarrassed by the lack of creativity displayed by those who claim
adherence to (and often inspiration from) the original Creator. A few years
ago, I wrote a piece entitled God’s
Not Dead and the Bastardization of
Christian Filmmaking. I meant every word of it, and I still believe what I wrote.
Suffice
it to say, it is a rare thing for me to fully enjoy a faith-based drama. It is
rarer still for me to fully enjoy and
fully admire a faith-based drama.
Enter
The Chosen, a faith-based TV show on
the life of Christ, with multiple seasons planned.
Technically,
I have already reviewed
this show, and it’s not typical to write two reviews of the same piece.
However, I have more to say about this work of art (in both the literal and
figurative sense), so a follow-up review became necessary.
GREATEST
LIABILITY = GREATEST ASSET
One
of the elements I love about The Chosen
is one of its most controversial features: its fidelity (or, as some might say,
the lack thereof) to Scripture. The show has received criticism for including
dialogue and scenes in the narrative that don’t appear in any of the gospel
accounts. In most cases, at least, this additional material is controversial,
not because it is actually problematic, but because of misplaced expectations.
While
the gospels are factual,
historical records, they are not biographies in the modern sense, in which details
and emotions and backstory are fleshed out in order to present a comprehensive
picture of a particular figure. When we read about an encounter Jesus has with
any number of people, we are often not given the entire conversation, nor the
entire scenario. The gospels highlight only the parts of Jesus’ life that were
important to the divinely-inspired authors who wrote them. That is partly why
one gospel might omit certain events that another gospel includes.
When
a show like The Chosen attempts a
more comprehensive picture of the life of Christ, it necessitates filling in
the blanks with details, emotions, and backstory that may or may not have
happened. As such, when The Chosen takes
scenes we are familiar with and adds new dialogue or plot developments to
enhance their emotional impact, it isn’t an inherent affront to Scripture. It
can—and, in the case of The Chosen,
it does—act simply as a way to imagine what might have happened between the
lines (so to speak).
As
the show’s director, Dallas Jenkins, has made clear elsewhere, The Chosen is not the same thing as Scripture, and it isn’t trying
to be. And as I have previously
written, “The Chosen is
historical fiction: it…uses artistic
license when needed, but always in a way that exalts, not dishonors, what we
already know about the Biblical narrative. To put it another way, The Chosen is speculation, not
subversion.”
Indeed,
Jenkins and his team have approached the Scriptures with a commendable sense of
reverence and humility.
For
example, consider the Scriptural account of the woman at the well. When she finishes
her conversation with Jesus and goes back into town, she tells people, “Come,
see a Man who told me all things that I ever did” (John 4:29). We actually
don’t have a record of Jesus telling her those things. All we have a record of
is Jesus telling her about her marital status—certainly not what would
constitute everything she ever did. That
means the gospel of John left out some of the conversation.
When
The Chosen portrays this encounter,
it adds dialogue that isn’t in the Bible, but which honors what the Bible does
tell us. Based on John 4:29, this additional dialogue enhances the scene with dramatically
powerful results.
It
is this reverence for Scripture that characterizes each episode of The Chosen.
Besides,
we have the testimony of Scripture itself that Jesus did many other things not
recounted in the gospels, which “if they were written one by one…even the world
itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). What
else did Jesus do? What else did He say? There’s a lot to speculate
about—certainly enough to speculate on for six, seven, or eight seasons (what
the producers of The Chosen hope to
accomplish).
OH,
THE HUMANITY
Another
factor I love about The Chosen is
that its extended format gives us ample time to really get to know the
characters—including, of course, Christ himself. By showing us more of the
humanity of Jesus, we are, almost counterintuitively, more in awe of his
divinity. After all, the way Christ came to relate to us—to meet us where we
are and draw us out of our sin and shame—was to become one of us.
It
is in His humble humanity—the emptying of Himself—where we find the connection
to Him that we so desperately need. The Jesus we meet in The Chosen practices daily hygiene, builds fires, and even
experiences physical injuries. This is truly God made flesh—in a way we’ve
never seen before.
By
emphasizing how Jesus tabernacled amongst us as a human, The Chosen never strays into blasphemous territory. Rather, it
connects us with the wonder of Christ’s condescending love, as we see just how
much and how often He denied Himself many of his rights and privileges as the
sovereign Lord of all (see Philippians 2:5-11 and 2 Corinthians 8:9).
GET
USED TO DIFFERENT
One
of the main problems with the faith-based approach to moviemaking is that it
views the medium of film as being similar to a sermon. In other words, the main
point is to communicate a particular message to an audience ready and willing
to listen. The result of this faulty perspective is a plethora of
sermons-in-disguise with little to no care taken for artistry, nuance, or
realism. These stories are often filled to overflowing with caricatures,
wish-fulfillment fantasies, and even outright deception.
The
reality is that a film is not a sermon, and the requirements for a filmmaker
are not the same as that for a pastor. When we conflate the two, we confuse the
two—with embarrassing and even detrimental results.
Unlike
the typical faith-based drama, where the message trumps everything else, The Chosen remains committed to a
complex, artfully-told, and engaging story. It is never debased to the level of
a simple vehicle by which the filmmakers promote any personal soapboxes.
The Chosen is in a class all
by itself. It deals honestly and realistically with its characters. It
refuses to caricature its villains just to stack the narrative deck in its
favor. And it utilizes the format of a multi-season show to provide depth to a
story that we already know. As such, The
Chosen is at once both intimately familiar and surprisingly foreign. It
provides what could become the most complex, nuanced, and powerful portrayal of
the life of Christ to ever grace the visual arts.
That
might sound like highfalutin praise. If so, remember that my tendency is toward
highfalutin criticism. And yet The Chosen has won me over; I am a genuine
fanboy. We’re only in Season 1 of what will, Lord willing, be a multi-season
show, but The Chosen has already become
my extended universe of choice. (Sorry, Marvel and DCEU.)
So,
either The Chosen has slipped me a Mickey, or it really is
something extraordinary. Either I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid or The Chosen really is the best thing since sliced garlic bread
sprinkled with parmesan cheese and drizzled with coddled eggs.