Million Dollar Baby

i'm not sure there is another film director like clint eastwood to make me long for the Gospel.

if you loved bawling after Old Yeller and Shine, you'll really love Million Dollar Baby. i wasn't entirely sure i could make it out of the theatre in one piece, so wracked with sobs i could hardly move. (ok, so i'm a wimp. just give me a break and pass the kleenex, will ya?)

more than any other director i can think of, eastwood exposes the need for rescue. for redemption. for salvation. consider the stories of the aging, guilty and despairing gunman in Unforgiven... the estranged father, failed husband, aged thief in Absolute Power... the failed secret-service agent forever haunted by guilt for his inability to protect Kennedy from the assassin's bullet in In the Line of Fire... the ruined life following abduction and abuse culminating in even more injustice in Mystic River... and the unspeakable horror, grief, loss and despair in Million Dollar Baby.

what I deeply appreciate about eastwood's vision is his unflinching spotlight on human pain. he sees it, and tells it straight. eastwood knows pain. true pain. human pain. our pain. and his films are wonderfully adept at getting us to see that pain, to recognize it as the world's pain and ours. moreover, whether eastwood intends this or not, he always makes me see it as God's pain too. i leave an eastwood film knowing exactly why the Hound of Heaven relentlessly pursues us. and for this i am always grateful. this clear-eyed vision of reality, this splash of the cold icy water of what real humans experience and feel is something we all should see. the would-be contemplative (and i dare not call myself anything more than "would-be") must contemplate all the world -- the shadow as well as the light, the pain as well as the joy.

but what i do not love about eastwood's films is the absence of anything more. he has his finger absolutely on the pulse of the human need for redemption and hope. but there the film ends.

my soul cries out for rescue. for salvation. for some way out of the horror and despair. "Out of the depths, my soul cried to, O LORD..." (Ps 130.1)

but the film ends... and there has been no response to our cry.

this, by the way, is not a criticism. it may be a complaint, but it is not a criticism. Holy Scripture shares the same fault. Jonah ends on the downbeat, as do many of the Psalms, as do many of the stories. (who wants their stories of faith to end like Noah's, Lot's, or in the confusion of John the Baptist?)

perhaps it is enough to leave us gasping for breath, wracked with sobs, fully aware of our deep need, our voracious hunger for God -- and perhaps more importantly -- to know that this is universal? after all, didn't Jesus claim that those who truly hunger and thirst are blessed?

the Lord be with you