Metaphor, Paradox, and Truth

"'I'd say you can find beauty in most things. Not everything.'"
John Michael McDonagh's Calvary (2014)

Points for Reflection

The Bible: Romans 5:1-8

1. As described by Paul, God's saving grace--though accessible to all--necessitates what precondition (v.1-2)?
2. Consider the path from suffering to hope outlined by Paul (v.3-4). Does this formula make sense? Does it seem logical or counter-intuitive? Do you prefer an alternative series of stages?
3. Does Paul suggest that suffering always leads to hope, or should we assume that certain variables not mentioned here need to be considered as well?
4. Paul feels it necessary to state directly that "hope does not put [believers] to shame" (v.5). Why would it? Do some individuals consider hope to be shameful?
5. Does Paul configure Christ's willing death on the cross as a logical or illogical act (v.6-8)?

The Bible: Mark 10:13-16

1. What might it mean to "receive the kingdom of God like a little child"?

The Bible: Matthew 13:3-23

1. How many different sowing/planting conditions are identified by Jesus in this parable, and what percentage of these conditions lead to a lamentable end (v.3-8)?
2. Why might Jesus differentiate among three different degrees of unsuccessful growth (v.8)?
3. Why does Jesus sometimes speak in parables (v.10-17) instead of more directly expressing his ideas (as he does, for instance, in the Sermon on the Mount--see Matthew 5-7)?
4. Why might Jesus undertake to explain this cryptic parable so carefully?

The Bible: I Corinthians 7:1-5

1. What does this passage suggest about the divinely ratified purpose of sex?
2. Does this passage privilege one gender over the other?
3. Under what limited circumstances does Paul suggest it is okay to abstain from physical intimacy?

C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain (1940), chp. 4

1. At the opening of the chapter entitled “Human Wickedness,” Lewis restates the thesis of chapter three, that whereas kindness only wishes others to feel good, love wants what is ultimately best for others, even if it involves pain and suffering (48, 32). He proceeds to argue that modern society has fixated on one of the traditional virtues above all others, kindness, and on a single vice, cruelty.  Do you agree with this distillation of contemporary morality, with Lewis’ claim that we are much less interested in such virtues as mercy, temperance, chastity, and humility (49, 58)?
2. Do you accept Lewis’s assertion that shame can be beneficial in helping us to confront such failings as cowardice, unchastity, falsehood, and envy (50, 61), or do you consider shame to usually be an unhealthy anxiety about very natural behavior (49-50)?
3. Why is a guilty conviction of our own sinfulness so foundational to Christianity (50-52)? Does this passage privilege one gender over the other?
4. What various defense mechanisms do humans apparently deploy to avoid facing up to the deep-rootedness of their sin?
5. What do you make of Lewis’ theory that salvation may consist of perfected humans rejoicing in those shameful sins that made God’s compassion more palpable, instead of the utter erasure of those sins (55)?
6. Do you agree both that all virtues are interconnected, and that every vice ultimately leads to cruelty (59)?
7. Why does Lewis value the insight involved with shame more than its concomitant emotion (61-62)?

John Michael McDonagh's Calvary (2014)

1. The film’s opening epigraph quotes St. Augustine alluding to Luke’s account of Christ’s crucifixion, in which one of the thieves mocks his divinity while the other affirms it (Lk. 23:39-43), leading to very different eternal destinations for the two criminals.  Why might McDonagh open his tale this way?
2. What do Father James's very first words suggest about his character, and is this intimation borne out through the rest of the film?
3. The parishioner in the confessional wants to respond to his horrible trauma with violence instead of counseling. With which of the two characters do you think McDonagh--the screenwriter and director--intends audience sympathies to lie at this point?
4. Why does this parishioner settle on the target he selects?
5. Early on, someone tells Father James he is “innocent.”  To what degree does this film support this assertion?  Is it untrue in any way?
6. What various purposes do the opening, aerial shots of County Sligo, Ireland, serve?
7. What does John Michael McDonagh’s choice of such a wide, elongated aspect ratio (2.35:1) allow him to accomplish when setting up shots?
8. Which of our characters receive the sacrament of the eucharist (i.e. Lord’s Supper)?
9. Which of our characters receive the sacrament of the eucharist (i.e. Lord’s Supper)? Does their attendance at mass map onto their behavior outside of church? 
10. How might we best characterize the relationship between priest and altar boy, Father James and Mícheál, and why does this relational dynamic matter?
11. Do Father James and Father Leary respond similarly to the sordid sins they hear about during their parishioners’ confessions?
12. What does Father James see as his and Father Leary’s primary priestly role?
13. Are Father James and Bishop Montgomery of the same mind concerning how Father James should respond to his recent, startling experience in the confessional box?
14. Do Father James’ first words to Fiona reveal much about their relationship?
15. When Father James introduces Fiona to his mode of transport, she refers to a previous “midlife crisis.” What do we later learn precipitated this earlier crisis?
16. What do Milo’s and Frank’s different responses to Fiona’s presence signal about their very different temperaments?
17. To what does Fiona attribute her recent troubles?
18. When Veronica says, tongue-in-cheek, that folk claim you can find beauty in anything, how does Father James respond?
19. Does Veronica seem more happy than unhappy throughout the film?  What do you think? Do her easy smiles signal her internal condition?
20. Veronica observes that she’s always enjoyed Father James’s intelligence and vast knowledge. What examples does the film provide of Father James’s encyclopedic knowledge?
21. What does Jack’s general demeanor suggest about his emotional vulnerability and the state of his marriage?
22. Does Simon have an explanation for Veronica’s current, changed appearance?
23. How does Father James respond to Simon’s bringing up western Europe’s racist past?
24. Many of our characters have something to express about the fusion of violence and sex. Does the film adopt a clear position on this particular intersection? What of sex and pain?
25. Why might the film never provide a name for the old writer?
26. John Michael McDonagh takes a dig at an actual, rather popular author, Cecilia Ahern--the author of P. S., I Love You (2004)--at the same time praising the critically acclaimed novelist John Banville. (Look for this moment during Father James's first conversation with the old, unnamed writer.) Why risk alienating part of your viewing audience in this way?
27. Why does one of Father James’s parishioners wish to obtain a gun?  Are his reasons genuine?  How does Father James respond?
28. When Father James notes that he doesn’t need a photograph to remember his deceased wife, Fiona counters that memories fade: “‘That’s what’s so horrible about them’” (22:27). Father James holds that they don’t, “‘not really.’” Which position seems more crucial to this film’s storyline—that memories linger, or dissipate?
29. What does wealthy Michael Fitzgerald think of Father James’s reputation as a good priest?
30. How did Inspector Stanton obtain the gun he keeps in a box?
31. What fiction does Inspector Stanton recommend that Father James spin?
32. What happened to the pedophilic priest Inspector Stanton arrested twenty years earlier?
33. Do local folks’ opinions about the Catholic Church seem monolithically similar, or divided?
34. What does Father James do to relax?
35. What’s weighing on Milo, and is it a problem counseling can fix?
36. What’s Father James’s opinion about standing armies—about those who join the military during peacetime?
37. When Father James visits Michael Fitzgerald in his mansion, does Michael’s behavior help explain why his family and servants might have left him?
38. Michael makes a distinction between sins, which are past, and “evil thoughts floating around in your mind” in the present (34:05). Is this distinction upheld by Jesus in Matthew 5:21-30?
39. Does Dr. Frank Harte’s worldview appear viable, valid, within the context of this film?
40. When Father James tells the French woman that some people curse God in the face of unexpected tragedy, and some lose faith, how does she respond?
41. How many possible killers does Father James dream about, and why would he dream of more than one individual when he knows the identity of the person who threatened him?
42. The camera cuts from Father James and Fiona outdoors in the sunlight to inside the confessional box.  Does the tenor of their conversation change, in addition to the subject matter?
43. Why might McDonagh allow Fiona to dance around what exactly happened back in Dublin without divulging details—even when she’s in the confessional box?
44. Does the film affirm Fiona’s position that, “I belong to myself, not to anybody else”?
45. Does Fiona’s discussion of suicide complement Milo’s, or do their separate reflections on the subject diverge so much as to be entirely different things?
46. Father James notes to our elderly writer that “Bloody idiots can’t even be bothered coming up with a reason for murder these days. Wake up in a foul mood and it’s bang, bang, bang” (47:07).  Do his words ring truer, throughout the film, than the writer’s rejoinder that “Some people have very good reasons”?
47. Does Freddie Joyce deserve to be classed with Milo? Are their preoccupations similar enough?
48. Does Freddie’s claim about guilt convince you?
49. What does Brendan wish priests would preach about more often?
50. The pub scene in Lynch’s bar brings together many of those with whom Father James has had conversations earlier in the week.  Do their various interactions solidify your previous assumptions about each of these characters, or disrupt them?
51. Following the Wednesday night pub scene, a series of very difficult events befall Father James.  Which of these hit him the hardest?
52. Whose perspective on the future of the Catholic Church seems more valid, Father James’s or Inspector Stanton’s?
53. When Father James asks Veronica what she’d like to do with her life, does she reveal anything that might explain her behavior with men?
54. Bishop Garret Mongtomery assumes that the perpetrator of a recent disaster must be the same person in Father James’s confessional box at the film’s opening.  Is he accurate?
55. The bishop attempts to psychoanalyze the perpetrator of the recent disaster, in the process quoting a source that lists four different possible motivations for such extreme behavior. By the film’s end, does one possibility seem more accurate than the other? What of Father James’s own take on this unidentified man’s probable motivations?
56. Do Father James and Father Leary react similarly to Michael Fitzgerald’s philanthropic overture?
57. Responding to Michael’s observations about the Church paying out compensation to those with grievances against the church, Father Leary holds that most of the child abuse cases concerned behavior a half century old.  How does Father James react to these words?
58. Does Father James appear to be making any inroads with Veronica?  Why do they keep checking in with each other?
59. Do Fiona and her father connect in a meaningful way during their walk along the beach? At the conclusion of their talk, he asks whether their conversation constituted the kind of “third-act revelation” you find towards the close of a play. What was “revealed,” and how does it compare to the revelation at the close of the film?
60. Who wins the chess game being played in the pub Friday evening?
61. Does Father James’s kindness to Leo touch the prostitute?
62. Does Dr. Frank Harte “have a heart,” so to speak? Does he genuinely care about others? Does the story he tells Father James the story about the three-year-old boy demonstrate his own compassion, or something else?
63. Is Simon right to accuse Father James of being comfortable giving other people orders?
64. Can you make heads or tales of Father James’s enigmatic dream?  What is the “dirty thing” Fiona mentions but which we cannot see?
65. Is Father Leary a devoted priest?
66. What prompts Father James to alter the plans he makes for Saturday?
67. Do the conversations Father James has on Sunday benefit those with whom he speaks?
68. Who says “a friend is just an enemy you haven’t made yet,” and what does this reveal about their worldview?
69. The last scene at the beach answers one question and raises another.  Can you generate a likely answer to this new question?
70. Does the man who meets Father James on the beach confess sin?
71. Of what is Father James letting go during the last time we see him on the beach?
72. What does the montage that provides glimpses of our many characters suggest about their current state? Have any of them begun to change in any way?
73. What idea, articulated earlier, is given profound weight and density in the film’s closing shot?

Wheat Ear (1947)
Salvador Dalí

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu