Dear Forum, forgive these picks, in that they emerge from wells I visit too frequently, but know that I drew from them only to glorify this thread. In the name of the Games; of the Movies; of the Books, comics, TV, music; of the Politics and religion; of the Hardware and technical stuff; and of Everything else, for this post and all in the posts to come, until the time of three in the morning arrives, amen.
- Prayer! Opening the lines between mankind and the infinite, scanning through the shortwave radio stations, hacking through .ini files to read the code, making a toll call to the hint line, entering the chat room, marching on the capital, putting in a good word for a buddy, begging your pardon m’lady, dropping the thank-you note in the mailbox, leaving a gratuity on the table. Prayer! It separates the Dualists from the Materialists.
The Darjeeling Limited is all about prayer. Three brothers are suffering with weight on their spirits: unresolved grief, abandonment issues, fear of the future, and so on. And so to lift their spirits, they travel to what they have heard is the most spiritual country on the planet, India.
The boys are religious tourists, as opposed to pilgrims. They don’t have the background to really comprehend the dogma, the concepts, the weight of the air heavy with millennia of prayers. They bumble through the rituals as best they can. Owen Wilson’s character, the oldest brother, is the most doctrinal of the three, but the other two dive into the prayers without an agnostic mutter. They all have spiritual needs to fulfill, even though they shop for power adapters and cobras on the steps of “one of the holiest places in the world”, the Temple of A Thousand Bulls. Inside the temple as in outside, they bicker and jockey for advantage. Eventually the middle brother, played by Adrien Brody, goes off to pray in a slightly different location than Owen, seeking enlightenment through solitude.
Honestly I think I chose this particular scene instead of several other scenes of emerging spirituality (especially the modified feather ceremony near the end) is the odd detail around Adrien Brody kneeling. Blink and you may miss it, as Anderson is pushing the camera into Brody’s face. But on the right side of the screen stands a boy with a revolver staring at Brody, and he doesn’t look friendly. Does the kid work there? Is he waiting to use the kneeler? Is this part of the ineffable ceremony? Is this an Indian version of the Sword of Damocles? Does the pistol foreshadow the death of the boy that his character did not save? Does it prepare Brody for his own impending fatherhood? What does it all mean? What is the point of prayer if you don’t get all the answers to your questions?
- There Will Be Blood Daniel Day-Lewis hated Paul Dano’s shabby little holy roller offshoot of an offshoot of a wild-eyed Protestant religious movement. This wasn’t unusual: his Daniel Plainview hated everything he couldn’t believe in, and he only believed in himself and certain geological principles. He knew that Dano’s Sunday character was engaging in the his sort of flim-flam on the sheeple, just with God-talk instead of oil-talk. So as a competitor, Plainview especially hated Paul, er, Billy, er, Eli Sunday and his Church of the Third Revelation. Various plot threads contrive to bring Daniel into the lion’s den, however. Plainview prostrates himself in front of his foe and, like the Spanish Jews in front of the Dominican monks, must convert or die (or if not die, he will not get what he wants, which is worse than death).
Plainview treats the Sunday inquisition like an improv class at the local ComedySportz. He enthusiastically plays along with every line Sunday lays on him, repeats every bit of superstitious spittle sprayed on him, never negates Eli’s premises, takes the stage combat slaps like a professional comedian. But the ordeal is torturous, and at one point something which sounds very much like a prayer escapes his lips. Eli tells him to beg for the blood [of the Lamb/Lord]. Daniel responds: “give me the blood, Eli, and let me get out of here. Give me the blood, Lord! and let me get away!” It’s like, he’s fake-praying anyway, he might as well slip a real one in there, what’s the worst that can happen? His prayer is answered: paying homage to the Lord, care of the Lord’s servant Eli, gives him all the wealth he can use in the whole world.
- Michael Francis Rizzi’s baptism in The Godfather. This isn’t a bunch of rich kids making up their own religion on the spot, this isn’t a revival of the Pentecostal spirit out in some hick village, this is the High Roman Catholic Church with all its pomps and circumstances. When the Church performs a sacrament, some serious shit is going down, especially if it was pre-Vatican II. First you need a magnificent church, which, through architecture, proclaims the majesty of God. Then you need a priest. The priest knows how to best grab God’s attention, like a dutiful secretary getting an important tycoon on the phone. The priest speaks Latin, which is God’s favorite language to speak. The priest has the sacred oils and waters and incenses that makes God happy enough to listen to the solemn request of the congregation. The priest has the liturgical ritual to make sure that all the holy ts are crossed and the sacred is are dotted.
For this particular occasion, the congregation is letting God know that His population is increasing by one. There’s a little baby who is going to be baptized, who is going to grow up in communion as a Catholic just like the rest of his family. But a baby can’t just stroll up to the Kingdom of Heaven, he needs a sponsor, a grown-up, a godfather, a moral center and polestar who will escort him past the bouncers and into the club proper. This is baby Michael’s uncle and namesake, Michael Corleone.
Part of the sacrament is to establish the sponsor’s bona fides, or “good faith”. Grown Up Michael, named after God’s strongest and fiercest angel, has been raised in and lived in the Church all his life. Over the course of the movie, we’ve seen him get married twice in it, participate in his father’s funeral. We’ve also seen him become powerful, become a murderer, become a mobster. And as we watch big and little Michael participate in this sacrament, we see big Michael’s fiendish plans play out. Several men are murdered on his orders. We may recall the title of the movie, and that his father, mob boss of the Corleone family, was also known as “The Godfather”. He tried to fight it, but Michael has grown into his father’s position. And he doesn’t have a problem with the disconnect between the sacredness of the ritual and the profanity of the violence.
The priest performs a brief job interview. Michael Corleone is to stand in for Michael Rizzi, since Rizzi hasn’t mastered speech yet. The answers are to flow from Michael’s lips to God’s Ears:
Do you reject Satan? I do renounce him.
And all his works? I do renounce them.
And all his pomps? I do renounce them.
Michael Rizzi, will you be baptized? I will.
Michael Corleone might not be listening to Slayer and reading LaVey, because that would be anachronistic, but he isn’t fighting for the angels. He got what he wanted, though—a cool and apropos nickname, his enemies laid waste before him, with an alibi on top. Of course he would kill his brother-in-law, father to his godson, before the movie ends. Of course he would lie about his criminal dealings to his wife. He could sin and break any commandment he wants to. He’s already lied to God through prayer, without blinking. God seems to be cool with this, although He has been known to move in mysterious ways.
Runners Up: This is more of a pep-talk than a prayer, but the first lines and last lines of Gallipoli. Archie, proud of his speed, is about to sprint to his death. The familiar words give him just a quantum of solace before his stupid, pointless, end by Turkish machine gun.
To the listener who came up with Mola Ram’s prayer in Temple of Doom, that was inspired! Great pick.
Dingus’s Election pick, the candidates’ prayers on the eve of election.