[Oe List ...] more on that Bonhoeffer movie

Sun Nov 24 12:20:58 PST 2024

Thanks for the questions, Marshall
Dick

On Sun, Nov 24, 2024 at 1:54 PM W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
wrote:

> Dick, I applaud your interest in introducing your Methodist Church to
> Bonhoeffer with a movie and a movie conversation.
> If you want to evaluate the various available Bonhoeffer films for
> appropriateness for your audience and your pedagogical intent, instead of
> just promoting the latest one that you just saw, check out this listing
> from the International Bonhoeffer Society:
>
> https://bonhoeffersociety.org/2024/10/25/bonhoeffer-documentaries-and-films/
> My perspective is that *all* of these films translate Bonhoeffer into
> being a character acting in a story the filmmaker wants to tell.
> Each film may illuminate a facet of Dietrich's life, but we can never know
> *all* of his internal process as he struggled to discern the will of God
> for his life and death.
> What comes closest to illuminating his personal struggle are the glimmers
> we catch through reading his writings and what witnesses have to say about
> his extraordinary presence with others in places like Tegel Prison, for
> example.
> I would not want to be the director who had to select an actor who could
> fully embody this role in a movie, especially if that kind of depth were
> not even hinted at in the script. And if I had failed as a director to
> grasp a sense of what the *real* Bonhoeffer was about.
> I might wind up with a *turkey* of a film.
> But my bottom line is that everybody creates his or her own personal
> version of who Bonhoeffer was, based on one's individual values,
> perceptions, and experience of dealing with life questions. Or not.
> And so the decisional question is, what is each of us going to do with
> "our" Bonhoeffer? What does "our" Bonhoeffer mean to us?
> Marshall
> I've attached my version of a generic list of possible questions for a
> movie conversation. These are like a 'palette' of colors from which to draw
> as appropriate for the group and their process. Please *improve* on this
> version by adding your own generic questions or questions pertinent to the
> Bonhoeffer film you decide to show.
> On Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 08:35:06 PM EST, Richard Alton via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>
> Sorry about the money mistake. But I have seen the movie and thought
> Terry's comments were right on target. I am going to try and get my
> Methodist Church to go see the movie together and have  an ORID
> conversation. Will be interesting. Sorry about yours and Sarah's eye
> problems. Just had a cataract operation. The eyes seem to go first as we
> age.
> Thanks, Dick
>
> On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 6:46 PM Richard Alton <richard.alton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Marshal. go see the money and lead an ORID conversation with your
> community.. will surprise you.
> Dick
>
> On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 5:31 PM W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> wrote:
>
> I still haven't seen the movie, but a few of us have. Here's my response
> to a private email from one colleague:
> Marshall
>
> D**, I'm guessing from your description that the screenplay was not the
> result of any in-depth study of Bonhoeffer's life or his theology.
> I bet the screenwriter didn't even bother to read Eberhard Bethge's
> biography.
> What I think he did is to create a cartoon Bonhoeffer character by
> superimposing the skeletal outline of Bonhoeffer's life onto a thriller
> movie framework.
> Leaving out the nuances and agonizing complexities of Bonhoeffer's ethical
> dilemmas as a pacifist.
> I'm not shocked that this cartoon version of Bonhoeffer has him wishing to
> "tear down the institutional church."
> I think the real Bonhoeffer's life was more profoundly nuanced than that
> kind of statement. His *Life Together* and *The Cost of Discipleship* were
> written while he supervised the underground seminary at Finkenwalde for
> students who were preparing to serve the dissenting Confessing Church that
> opposed the official German Church coalition that embraced Hitler.
> His focus on a "religionless Christianity" is a rejection of the 'smells
> and bells' and medieval belief system Luther inherited from Catholicism in
> favor of a radical immersion in the secular life of the world.
> And also a radical following of Jesus rather than middle class cultural
> norms.
> Something like the monastic life of seminary students at Finkenwalde. Or
> maybe the O:E.
> Although Bonhoeffer never abandoned his upper-class entitlement to a rich,
> privileged life.
> I believe that the real Dietrich was in love with his young student
> Eberhard
> <https://spiritualfriendship.org/2014/08/08/one-more-post-on-the-gay-bonhoeffer/>,
> who was the beneficiary of his will.
> Dietrich reluctantly became engaged to marry the much younger Maria Von
> Wedemeyer only after her grandmother relentlessly pushed her on him and
> only after Eberhard got engaged to Dietrich's niece Renate.
> I don't get the sense that he was ever hot to make love with Maria.
> Perhaps their experience of 'true love' was always from an emotional
> distance, especially after Dietrich's arrest just three months after their
> announcement. There were letters and supervised visits. That's all.
> After both became engaged, Dietrich wrote to Eberhard, imagining that
>
> *Now, we can resume our partnership, and we can travel together in those
> places where we found so much joy, and we can leave our wives back in
> Germany, in Berlin, or some place.*
>
> In other words, they both acquired beards, and Dietrich longed to renew
> and pursue their spiritual friendship as 'soul mates' or whatever they
> decided to call it.
> But Eberhard was never willing to venture below the belt (as far as we can
> tell).
> I'm not at all sure that Dietrich was ever willing to go there, much as he
> may have longed to do just that. He wrote in prison that he would die a
> virgin.
> But since Eberhard's *whole life* was about Dietrich--especially as his
> martyred mentor and forever lost lover--how *hard* is it to understand
> the depth of his love in return?
> At least that's *my* version of Bonhoeffer. Now I'll have to see the damn
> movie!
> Marshall
>
> Dietrich Bonhoeffer Was Flamingly Gay-- Deal With It
> <https://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2014/06/dietrich-bonhoeffer-was-flamingly-gay-deal-with-it/>
> Links in the message (1)
> One More Post on the “Gay” Bonhoeffer
> <https://spiritualfriendship.org/2014/08/08/one-more-post-on-the-gay-bonhoeffer/>
> Dietrich Bonhoeffer Was Flamingly Gay--...
> <https://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2014/06/dietrich-bonhoeffer-was-flamingly-gay-deal-with-it/>
>
>
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>
>
> --
> Richard H. T. Alton
> ICA Global Fund
> The Last Chapter
> United Methodist Net Zero
> T: 773.344.7172
> richard.alton at gmail.com
> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
> Won't you be my neighbor?
>
>
>
> --
> Richard H. T. Alton
> ICA Global Fund
> The Last Chapter
> United Methodist Net Zero
> T: 773.344.7172
> richard.alton at gmail.com
> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
> Won't you be my neighbor?
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-- 
Richard H. T. Alton
ICA Global Fund
The Last Chapter
United Methodist Net Zero
T: 773.344.7172
richard.alton at gmail.com
Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
Won't you be my neighbor?
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