Christopher Cunningham

Miracles and the Supernatural in Popular Secular Films Christopher Cunningham

While many books on Film Criticism and Film Theory do a great job explaining important concepts, they often leave film students searching for ways to apply those theories and concepts to the real world of making meaning of the films studied. Miracles and the Supernatural in Popular Secular Films takes the study of film theory and criticism one step further by providing a case study of analysis of three different types of films. It helps the film student to see how the concepts and definitions are applied to the films in a systematic way. Many Americans believe in miracles and the supernatural as have been attested to by various surveys; and the American film and television industries capitalizing on this has had its fair share of miraculous and supernatural and motif films, especially in recent times. This book closely examines three such films, The Green Mile, Bruce Almighty and Phenomenon; movies which did well both in terms of box office returns and critical acclaim. These films represent three different types of films about miracles and the supernatural, films with God as man, man as God and man with the unexplained supernatural powers, respectively. Using a Neoformalist approach, the book sets out to discover the dominant of each movie and then to compare and contrast the use of the dominant in each to see if there is some commonality in approach which works well in depicting miracles and the supernatural in film. It is argued that by discovering how filmmakers of popular films use the dominant in portraying miracles and the supernatural, one is able to gain deeper insights into how a film goes about helping the audience to make meaning of the film, thus fostering belief. The uses of the dominant in these films are then examined within the wider context of fantasy genre in order to see how the findings may be adapted in the creation of new films which depict miracles and the supernatural. Finally, the book helps to bring some clarity to the question of the criteria by which films should be included in the fantasy genre.