On Watching Theology, Joe, Duke, and Melissa take a single film and examine it closely, looking at the assumptions and ideas in the story. Every episode considers the theological, philosophical and thematic elements of a film, listening closely to what the author has to say, and interacting with those ideas. (It's more fun than it sounds).

Joe watches too many movies. He grew up in central Washington, earned his B.A. in Education and Fine Art, an M.A. in Theology and is currently completing an M.A. in English Literature. He's smuggled film classes into each degree. He is interested in writing, theology and hopes to one day compose the ultimate Joe Versus the Volcano commentary track.

Melissa has a B.A. in History and an M.A. in English with an emphasis on Film Studies. She has taken classes on everything from silent to romance to post-colonial films and much in between. Her research and interests lie mainly in feminist film theory, women in film, Hitchcock and the studio era. At the end of the day, however, she just loves films; from Notorious to Die Hard!
Duke enjoys the way movies can tell stories like no other medium. He is an amatuer critic that loves the atmosphere of the theater and the taste of overpriced popcorn. He loves a good story and appreciates the effort and skill of good story tellers. He is a nerd at heart and a sucker for heist movies. He hopes to see every good movie and lampoon every bad movie ever made before he dies.

Contact the hosts at mail@watchingtheology.com for more information.

Show DescriptionWatching Theology

WT02.04 The Wicker Man (1973)

Watching Theology April 15th, 2008

The Wicker Man (1973)Somewhere on an island outside Scotland, Christopher Lee has built the perfect neo-Pagan civilization. There you will find fertility rites, folk music and a frolicking Britt Ekland (and her body double). You will also witness a clash of civilizations that hasn't been seen since St. Patrick brought Christianity to the heathens in Ireland. On this episode, we'll explore Summerisle and its devotion to the old gods and how that may affect the life of a Christian police officer investigating the disappearance of a young girl.
Watching The Directors next edition: April 22 - Woody Allen (1966-85)
Next WT edition: April 29 - A Scanner Darkly)

Print This Post | Email This Post | Digg This! | Download MP3 | Play in Popup

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 12:10 am and is filed under , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “WT02.04 The Wicker Man (1973)”

Christov April 26th, 2008

It's not really a comment on your show, but I sometimes wonder about actors who have been typecast in the sorts of borderline scare roles, like Christopher Lee or Vincent Price - where they are spiritually or theologically.

Forwarding Andrew July 6th, 2009

And now for something not so different…

>>>Robin Hardy’s long awaited Cowboys For Christ is finally in production. Some shooting has already taken place in the US and the filmmakers are reportedly in the midst of the Scottish shoot right now.

>>>Hardy’s 1973 directorial debut The Wicker Man is truly one of the most jubilantly beloved films in the pantheon of British genre pictures. I still see it doing abundant business as late night screenings, and pretty much everybody I speak to holds it close and dear, including those of us all too aware of its shortcomings. For a good few years now, Hardy has been touting Cowboys as a kind of follow up, a ’spiritual successor’ to feature a number of the same ingredients as Wicker Man: a clash between pagans and Christians, a remote rural location, Christopher Lee as a mysterious aristocrat.

For the rest of the story, visit:
http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/07/04/cowboys-for-christ-shooting-now/

Leave a Reply