Film, spirituality and heirophany: the contemporary search for meaning

Film is certainly a medium which can appear to revel in the vulgar and inconsequential, (Kracauer, 1960) but at its best, like music, it can guide the viewer by means of metaphor and emotion, past the meretricious, to the heart of something which really matters (Steiner, 1989) The question is – how might it do that? How can a technical medium which puts sounds and images on celluloid attempt to represent that which is unrepresentable by virtue of being both ineffable and invisible? (Schrader, 1972 p.6). What kind of relationship might the medium possibly have with the sacred, with that which is set aside and attributed with extraordinary value, or with the Transcendent, that which is beyond normal sense experience? (Schrader, 1972 p.5). Over the last century many people have addressed these queries. It seems pertinent to raise them again now since there has been a renaissance of 3 interest in both making films and writing about films which deal with matters of the spirit. At the same time there have been changes in the academic and cultural contexts in which film making is situated. This paper surveys the range of approaches that have been used to discuss religion and film in the past and asks which of them are still relevant today