Sunday, February 03, 2013

CUTAWAYS: LEGEND

Oh sure, there’s plenty of things wrong with Ridley Scott’s epic fairy tale Legend, just ask every single person on the Internet and they’ll be happy to launch into a diatribe about shallow characters and inappropriate use of modern vernacular. But despite its problems, the parts in Legend that work do so really well, especially Rob Bottin’s make-up and Tim Curry’s scenery chewing performance (I’m pretty sure that’s the only kind he knows how to deliver) as Darkness, the living personification of evil.  Plus, if you look really hard, mixed in amongst all the fairies, unicorns, and goblins, you just might find a pretty good symbol for the Church. Take a look.

Did you catch it? That’s right… it was the plates. Yes, the plates, you know, the ones Jack and his pals used to reflect the sunlight from the surface down into the depths to bring doom to Darkness. You see, while perusing the selection for Day 113 of reading through the Catechism in one year as a part of the Year of Faith, I was struck by the paragraph that notes how “according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.” The Catechism calls to mind this imagery while discussing the part in the creeds in which we profess our belief in the holy Catholic Church. It does so that we always remember “not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God’s goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on the Church… The Church has no other light then Christ’s.” In short, the only light we have to shine on the shadowed evils of this world come not from us, but are reflected from God above. Without his light, we are powerless before darkness.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"they’ll be happy to launch into a diatribe about shallow characters and inappropriate use of modern vernacular"

LOL! Because fairy tales need to have those, and we're so improved by things like "Snow White" and "Hans and Gretel, witch hunters"!

But seriously, it also makes me think of the Church that the good guys range from unicorns & purity to "you and we all is barbecue". It's the salvation of the absurd and ugly, as well as the sublime, that strikes me as Catholic.

Xena Catolica

EegahInc said...

"It's the salvation of the absurd and ugly, as well as the sublime, that strikes me as Catholic."

Yep, we've got room for not only for Michelangelo, but Pieter Bruegel as well, which is good to know when you run a blog like this :)

Anonymous said...

Love Bruegel. He and Bosch are the dynamic duo.

Did you catch the Dr. Faustus/ Mercedes commercial just after the game? It was great.

Xena Catolica

EegahInc said...

I did catch that, good one. You know, that now makes Willem Dafoe one of the few actors to have played both God (Jesus) and the Devil.