Examining prayer in the movies
VWU professors’ film showing this weekend
To hear someone pray is often to know their innermost worries, joys and gratitude, and perhaps that’s why it appears in movies so much. Perhaps no other ritual so exposes the needs and longings of the human heart.
Maybe it’s Jenny in the 1994 “Forrest Gump” kneeling in a cornfield, asking God to make her a bird to fly far, far away from her abusive father.
Perhaps it’s Will Ferrell in the 2006 comedy “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”
“Dear 8-pound, 6-ounce, newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent, we just thank you for all the races that I’ve won and the $21.2 million,” prayed Ricky Bobby, Ferrell’s character.
Now, two Virginia Wesleyan University professors have directed and produced a documentary, “Hollywood, Teach Us to Pray,” which studies the inclusion of prayer in movies and will be screened Sunday at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk.
The documentary is directed by Stu Minnis, a communications professor at VWU who teaches film history, film production and media studies.
Producer Terry Lindvall is also the author of the 2019 book “God on the Big Screen: A History of Hollywood Prayer from the Silent Era to Today.”
Before becoming Wesleyan’s C.S. Lewis chair of communication and Christian thought, he taught film and theology classes at Duke University and William & Mary.
“But as I was teaching,” Lindvall said, “I noticed how many prayers appeared in film.”
He began focusing some of his research on the subject in the early 2000s. When in 2006 he was invited to speak at the Virginia Film Festival, he cobbled together a bunch of movie clips featuring prayer and presented “a program that just really worked.”
That experience led him to write the book and seek patrons to transfer the theme into a documentary.
“Hollywood, Teach Us to Pray” features film critics, directors and theologians. Film critic Leonard
Maltin makes an appearance, and screenwriters such as Robert Benton — of 1978’s “Superman,” 1979’s “Kramer vs. Kramer” and 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde” — get a word in, too.
The professors even got Sister Helen Prejean, whose bestselling book “Dead Man Walking” became the 1995 Oscar-winning movie, to be a part of their project.
The film’s marketing team, Lindvall said, is in negotiations with streaming services and film festivals.
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
IF YOU GO
When: 7 p.m. Sunday Where: 1507 Colley Ave., Norfolk
Tickets: $10
Details: narocinema.com