The Exploration And Analysis On Christian Films In Europe And America

Film is an essential tool for us to interpret thoughts; meanwhile it also plays an important role in affecting and changing people’s subjective thinking, that is, our faith, belief and our perception and understanding of the objective world are all under the influence of film medium. Christianity has been making a fully use of it. By combining itself with film’s powerful influence, it uses film medium’s function as a tool and method to promote itself. Therefore, Christian film becomes a special category in American film industry, and Christian-themed films have been emerging one after another. It makes many scholars to start to study European and American Christian films, which has reached a sizeable scale since the late twentieth-century.Taking European and American Christian films as an entry point, this paper tries to use the form of film to convey Christian ideas. It is divided into three parts. The first part is an overview on Christian film, mainly introduces the origin of Christian films and several master works; the second part tells the interactive influence between European & American film and Christianity, including film’s influence and promotion on the delivery of Christian ideas, Christian theme’s impact on film subjects and contents, the contradiction and conflict, and the development of Christian films; the third part focuses on the presentation of Christian ideas in several classic European & American films from the following aspects: reconciliation of conflicts between belief and rationality, conflicts between soul and carnal desire, the holiness of God, realistic enlightenment of “ Eschatology ”, and moral enlightenment of Christianity.Taking The Shawshank Redemption as an instance to conduct a text analysis, it shows us the promoting and holding-back effect that rationality, as a double-edged sword, brings to faith, and how to overcome this kind of contradiction and conflict so as to reconcile them; Taking Dogville as an instance, this paper reveals the redemption of “sins”. And the real redemption of humanity is not in God’s hands but oneself; Moses the Ten Commandments describes the holiness and greatness of God, and interprets a Christian love and belief; 2012 presents the ultimate destruction of the world, hoping it can give people some thoughts so as to re-evaluate our current living conditions; Se7 en is about the moral enlightenment of Christianity from a moral commandment point of view. In the aspect of maintaining and stabilizing social order, Christianity has played a role. The influence between European & American film and Christianity is mutual. Film promotes the development of Christian ideas to some extent, while Christianity plays an important role in film theme. Though there are conflicts between them, yet as long as we keep innovating and enhance their integration, Christianity can be delivered further and further with the help of European & American films.