Journey into Truth, Part 1

The purpose of this new, epic post series is to tell the story of how I have come to believe what I believe about God; my journey into truth.

Each person has his or her own journey into truth. Some people “find God” through a personal divine encounter, some through a God-shaped void, some through religious indoctrination, some through science, and some through other means. I am a particular type of person who has found God through thought and reason. I do not pretend that my journey is superior to other journeys.

My journey began when I lost the faith of my Christian upbringing to a atheism. Though it was existentially stressful, I am grateful for this experience because it gave me a “clean slate” on which to write truth that I discovered as a thinking adult.

My journey into truth has been very rapid. I have not “paid my dues” as a historian, philosopher, logician, scientist, etc. I have not read the thousands of pages I would like to read about any one of the subtopics I will discuss in this series. I do not have a degree in any relevant fields of study.

But I do not have time for all that. I could spend an entire lifetime studying the veracity of one proposition of one of the formal arguments for God I will discuss later. I could spend an entire lifetime studying the gradual modification of the Bible by learning dead languages and personally reading all extant manuscripts. Etc. But then I would never have time to access the broader truths I seek. So, I am immensely grateful to the specialists who have spent their entire lives on such minutae, but I must read overviews and summaries and consensus estimations and at some point, I must decide what truth is most likely based on these alone.

In general, I am sufficiently convinced when (a) I have enough knowledge of a subject to understand that (b) a significant number of specialists concur on a point that is (c) logically and evidentially sound to me. Throughout this series I will give many examples of ideas that are convincing to me, and plenty that are not convincing to me for failing one or more of these personal criteria.

That being said, I always love to incorporate new data into my worldview. I fully expect to one day be unconvinced of some ideas that are convincingly true to me now, and vice versa. But I must soon accept some truths to the best of my understanding so that I can move on to other vital topics. Eventually, I would like to have “discovered” enough truth by these means to know the best way to live in all circumstances I encounter. I want to live in a fully realized, consistent worldview.

This does not mean that I expect to one day have a complete picture of the universe. I have never heard a consistent, believable conceptualization of how the universe (physical and metaphysical) works, and I never will. I just want to know enough that I can choose how to live in harmony and truth with existence.

My journey is rapid, and my coverage of it will be far more rapid. Though some readers may find this series long-winded, please understand that I will be cutting out a fuckton of material I believe to be necessary. I will be painfully concise to be easily readable, but I will certainly link to more complete materials for the interested.

In Part 2, I will begin to tell my tale and discuss the most important question in the universe.

 

non-God links

The World Is Not Flat: a couple travels around the entire world in one year, blogging their experiences with copious photos, videos, and impressions. Here are their highlights and lowlights, here are their travel tips, and here are all the posts about how they could afford such a comprehensive trip! Similar: Vagabonding, Jon Rawlinson, and Old World Wandering.

Choose My Adventure: some guy lets his readers choose what adventures he takes next.

I’m only 10% stupid. Yay!

How many countires can you name in 10 minutes? I got 73 in 6 minutes, and then gave up. Pathetic. Africa and Eastern Europe are the hardest for me.

The etymology of “meh”.

The world’s most amazing cars. Sexy.

Wow. Have you seen these photos of a towboat literally rolling under an unopened bridge? And hey, how did a deer get atop a communications pole? And here is one way to sneak across a border. And corset body piercing; now that’s hardcore! And more.

Most awkward TV interviews ever.

 

Quote of the Day

By stoic philosopher Epictetus, from his Golden Sayings:

Are these the only works of Providence within us? Nay! What language is adequate to praise them all or to bring them home to our minds as they deserve? Why, if we had sense, ought we be doing anything else publicly and privately than hymning and praising the Deity and rehearsing his benefits? Ought we not, as we dig and plow and eat, to sing the hymn of praise to God:

Great is God that he has furnished us these instruments werewith we shall till the earth! Great is God that he has given us hands, the power to swallow, and a belly, and the power to grow unconsciously, and to breathe while asleep! This is what we ought to sing on every occasion.

And above all, to sing the greatest and divinest hymn that God has given us: the faculty to comprehend these things, and to follow the path of reason.

What then? Since many of you have become blind, ought there not to be someone to fulfill this office for you, and on behalf of all sing the hymn of praise to God? Why, what else can I, a lame old man, do but sing hymns to God? If indeed I were a nightingale, I should sing as a nightingale; if a swan, I should sing as a swan. But as it is, I am a rational being. Therefore, I must be singing hymns of praise to God.

This is my task. I do it, and I will not desert this post as long as it may be given to me to fill it. And I exhort you to join me in singing the same song.

Knowledge is my song.

 

non-God links

A Nigerian scammer is tricked into acting out the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch. Video.

World’s best foosball player. Video.

The new thrill ride? Get literally catapulted into the air by your neck. Video.

This anti-Pangean theory sounds too good to be true. Good production values make it true, right?

 

Venezuela and Colombia

I visited the Mérida zoo, with a small waterfall, camel, a lion, monkeys, birds, etc. An evil ferret bit me, so I got vaccinated for rabies just in case. Then I visited the botanical gardens, with pretty flowers, strange plants, a cute bridge, dense tree clumps, and even tree forts!

That weekend, I visited a quaint set of cabins near some hot springs and a cute graveyard with some friends. The hike to the hot springs was amazing. We made shish kabobs and pasta and fruit smoothies. We had an awesome time hanging out, playing cards, and drinking.

I spent Carnaval week in Colombia. First, to Santa Marta, with some nice beaches, islands, huts, spiky trees, cow statues, cool trees, suds spray wars in the streets, and of course lots of garbage.

But the crown jewel was Cartagena, especially the walled colonial city, with its great colonial architecture, cute little doors, crumbling amphitheater, homeless people, and cheap shaves. Then there’s the castle, cannons aimed downtown, with its many (and sometimes water-filled) labyrinths. The hilltop convent provides an excellent outlook of the city. Did I mention the massive boots? A one hour boat ride took me to La Playa Blanca, a postcard-perfect beach paradise.

Rumor has it I got a bit drunk in Maracaibo (video), on the way back to Mérida.

 

The Apostolic Fathers

Ehrman’s lecture series, After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, is an excellent overview of early proto-orthodox Christian writings (writings that represent was later became victorious Christian doctrines). It is surprising to recognize that Christian doctrine and practice stems as much from Paul as from Jesus (which is why historians consider Jesus and Paul the co-founders of the Christian religion), and also surprising to note central Christian doctrines not explicity found in the New Testament, but instead in the writings of the ten “Apostolic Fathers.”

Though current theologians appeal to the New Testament to support doctrines like Christology (Christ as God), the Trinity, and church heirarchy (for example that of Roman Catholicism), they are first found in these later writings, dated roughly A.D. 95-150. Note that these doctrines, like many Pauline doctrines, are of central relevance to those seeking church empowerment, church unity, and personal comfort with orthodoxy, but not to those merely seeking to imitate Jesus.

The first letter attributed to Clement makes a long-winded argument for orderly church structure from the orderliness of God, manifest in, for example, the Phoenix: a bird of golden plumage which builds a nest of cinammon, burns its nest and self to ashes from which a new bird arises that embalms the ashes in myrhh and deposits them in Heliopolis exactly every 500 years. (This is not an argument highly ordered church governments cite today.)

Antioch’s bishop, Ignatius, wrote seven surviving letters on route to his martyrdom in Rome. He urges the Roman Christians to let him die violently like Christ, to unify and obey their bishops, and to ignore Jewish law. (He writes: “It is outlandish to proclaim Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism, for Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism believed in Christianity, in which every tongue that believes in God has been gathered together.”)

Other works of the Apostolic Fathers include the Didache, the epistle of Polycarp, and others.

 

Today’s non-God links

Have you seen this hilarious dumb thief?

Confused about Web 2.0?

11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations.

I will NOT be doing this at Angel Falls.

Here is an example of how math can be beautiful.

Are you ready for the violence of the lambs?

Watch a glass blower make a glass cat in less than 2 minutes.

Watch Jake Shimabukuro play a stunning arrangement of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” for ukulele.

 

Persona

Persona can be a difficult film. Like Buñuel and Deren before him, Bergman tossed out the conventions of filmmaking and reinvented cinema on his own terms. This leaves viewers (especially those with no avant-garde experience) with little familiar turf from which to appreciate the movie. Also, its narrative and characters are secondary to its technique: a self-conscious deconstruction of film art.

And so, Persona begins with the lighting of a carbon arcs and rolling film reels. Then we see images that represent many uses of the moving picture: documentation (a spider, moving hands), entertainment (a Chaplin-esque silent comedy, a children’s cartoon), propaganda (hands being nailed into wood, evocative of Christ’s crucifixion), arousal (an erect phallus), provocation (carving open a sheep, and a shot that reminds of the famous eyeball-slicing scene from Un Chien Andalou), and art (a still, painterly shot in a Swedish forest). Shots of sharp fence bars and a mound of dirty snow also foreshadow the stark, desperately cynical nature of the movie, and of the stage in Bergman’s career that began with the hopeless end of his previous film, 1963’s The Silence.

Next we see several corpses lying in what could be a morgue, and a boy lying in one of the beds wakes up. He stares at the camera (another Brechtian alienation technique to upset the fantasy of the film and remind us that it is a construct), then moves his hand over a large image of a woman’s face, which morphs into another face and back again. This may reference Bergman’s inspiration for the film. In a hospital, he was struck by the similar faces of the women who became his leads for Persona, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann.

Finally, the credits sequence. Titles are in extremely high-contrast black and white, with more split-second images displayed between each title. The music, expectedly, is jarring, contemporary avant-garde composition.

And then the story begins. Part of the fun of Persona is its openness to interpretation. I’ll begin with a literal reading.

Actress Elizabeth stops speaking during a performance of Elektra and months later is sent with Nurse Alma to an island house for therapy. Alma cannot get Elizabeth to speak, but finds in her a good listener, and in this way they become friends. While bringing mail to the post office, Alma reads Elizabeth’s outgoing letter. Elizabeth sees their roles reversed; she is studying talkative Alma. Alma is angered by this, and later leaves broken glass for Elizabeth to step on. Finally, frustrated that Elizabeth refuses to speak, the two fight, reconcile, embrace, and leave the island.

Though the literal reading works if you grant poetic license to this poem in images, Persona gives us many opportunities for creative interpretations that may work even better. No movie has more replay value than Persona.

My favorite is a popular theory, that Elisabeth and Alma are the same person - two personas that split when the actress stops acting. She stops acting for a living, but also stops acting for the outside world. Alma represents the outer, interactive persona. Elisabeth represents the inner, quiet, stronger persona. The film is a metaphor for the interaction between these two personas within a single human being. The outer character is comforted by the quiet inner strength, but frustrated that it does not give answers. Each scene shows a dialogue between the inner and outer. And when the actress’ husband arrives, she recognizes Alma, and doesn’t notice Elisabeth, who is merely a metaphor for the inner character of the actress. This unity is represented by the cinematography, which often positions the two lead faces overlapping each other, until finally they are superimposed over each other in a startling shot.

According to this interpretation, the child at the beginning of the movie may represent the actress’ aborted child, looking upon the dual personas of his mother from beyond the grave.

We are never allowed to forget that this is deconstructionist cinema. At one point, the film breaks down and burns up entirely, shows brief clips from the opening sequence, then returns to the story. At one point, a scene plays twice in a row from different camera angles, indicating the subjective possibilities of art. And at the end, the reels stop and the carbon arc goes out.

I have barely begun to explain how specific scenes may be interpreted, including the dreamlike bedroom scene, the vampirism scene, and the beachside chase scene. I leave that to curious minds.

In its relentlessly deconstructionist presentation, its brilliant portrayal of psychology, its inventiveness, its openness to interpretation, its cinematography, its powerful lead performances, and its frightening originality, I believe Persona is the greatest film ever made. I might have to write a scene-by-scene commentary to seriously make such an argument, and perhaps I will.

But if you’re not ready for Persona, try Mulholland Drive, a modern masterpiece that shares a multitude of strong similarities with Persona.

 

Today’s links

Can any of my readers point to a sort of TED Talks for Christianity? Sorta like Veritas or Open Forum?

Shaun Groves wrote a good post on giving and tithing.

Have you seen this? Blogging the Bible: What happens when an ignoramus reads the good book?

In case you missed it: Five Streams of the Emerging Church at Christianity Today.

Married guys, have you tried this argument?

 

King Kong

Holy Harryhausen, the SPECTACLE! Jackson’s King Kong goes so far beyond what has come before in CGI character and action, I’m surprised it didn’t cost $350 million. It will be as daunting to direct a spectacle movie after King Kong as it was to write a symphony after Beethoven. The eye-popping T-Rex sequence alone should make the producers of next year’s blockbusters weep, then beg their studios for another $50 million so their pictures can hold up to the new standard. Alas, the visuals are where praise must end for Kong.

Apparently, I’m one of the very few who thought the 1933 original was trash, and Jackson loved it enough to make his rehash similarly horrid. The dialogue is just as insipid, the editing is just as cliché for its time, the plotting is ridiculous on moment-by-moment and sequence-by-sequence scales, etc. The score was the only interesting part of the original and here it is simply mimicked. Plus, Jackson added more than an hour of superfluous waste developing dispensible characters and rendering pointless action sequences - paramount among them an outrageous creepy-crawly battle wisely excised from the 1933 film. Like its title character, King Kong is big and stupid.

Still, things could be worse. Ann Darrow could be played by one of the multitude of currently popular bimbettes rather than a real actress. The action could be less creative. The dialogue could be of Lucasian abhorability. And of course, the special effects could be merely “impressive”.

There are precisely three good scenes in King Kong. First is the opening sequence, which juxtaposes caged zoo animals with destitute tramps in their shacks, and wanders a stunning Depression-era New York while Al Jolson sings “I’m Sitting on Top of the World.” Second comes after Kong has run off with Ann. He pounds his alpha-male chest, and she wins his heart with a vaudeville act. The emotional progression of Kong here, who out-acts anyone in the movie, is heart-rending. It also gives the romance between beauty and beast the verve lacking in previous installments, which is unfortunately squandered in the scenes to follow. Third is a true landmark in animation and action, where Kong wrestles with three T-Rexes. Return of the King looks simple and puny now.

Is King Kong racist? Jackson accurately represented good vs. evil as white vs. black in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and again chose whites for heroes and blacks (or whites in blackface!) for ugly, mindless, murdering savages in King Kong. Frankly, one would expect those involved in the movie and shipping industries in 1933 New York to be white, just as one would expect indigenous people on an undiscovered South Pacific island to be dark-skinned and uneducated. So, one can hardly fault Jackson for these decisions, especially as they conform to the original film.

Nevertheless, the precedence of special effects to story and filmmaking in Peter Jackson’s monstrous King Kong lends new meaning to its closing line: “Twas beauty killed the beast!”

 

Letters from a Skeptic

Letters from a Skeptic chronicles Greg Boyd’s correspondence with his father’s questions about Christianity. Boyd’s answers to some of life’s toughest questions are brief and encouraging but of course incomplete. Here I will summarize his answers to the questions I found most challenging:

Why is the world so full of suffering?

Love without freedom is not love, and freedom without freedom to help or hurt others is not freedom. In free world, there are Warren Buffets and Hitlers. But is it worth it? It is the nature of love to hurt. “People reject us, they die, kids rebel, etc… If a person never loved, he’d never suffer. But then again, he’d never really live.” God is in the same position, on a cosmic scale. Love is the only reason worth creating, and it is very risky - for God and for us.

What about earthquakes and famines?

Famines are mostly caused by human evil discussed above: there’s plenty of food in the world. Earthquakes & company are the natural consequence of God creating anything less than himself. Things must possess certain characteristics that rule out possessing other characteristics. “The rock which holds you up must also be hard enough for you to stub your toe on it.” The natural world is limited because it is real, not because it is evil. Evil spiritual forces may also be at work, but we don’t know much about them.

What’s the point of prayer?

The main purpose of prayer is to build a relationship. Petitionary prayer may represent our bit of “say-so” in the spiritual realm (just as we have say-so in the physical realm). But prayer doesn’t always work; God is not a cosmic vending machine. Many forces interact: free wills, prayer, evil forces, and natural forces. God doesn’t usually override all these because that wouldn’t be a free world.

Why do you think Jesus actually rose from the dead?

1. The Resurrection is attested by three independent sources (the Synoptic gospels, John, and Paul) within 70 years of Jesus’ death (compare to, say, Buddha, whose first biography was written a millenia after his death).
2. Everyone knew where Jesus was buried. One could have easily proved the disciples wrong about Christ’s resurrection by simply digging up Christ’s body.
3. The resurrection accounts lack characteristics of myth. For example, there is much irrelevant and easily falsifiable detail (the name of the Sanhedrin member who donated Jesus’ tomb, etc.) There is also counter-productive material (which myths usually lack), for example the role of women (who were considered incurable liars) in the story.
4. Paul converted because of his conversion with the risen Christ. Why else would a persecutor of Christians join them, and why would he lie about the nature of his conversion?

[My note: The resurrection of Jesus is far from proven, but it does have far more historical support than any other resurrection in history.]

Why does God make believing in Him so difficult?

Even stupendous events can be explained away or forgotten. Even after the plagues, Egypt did not worship God. And Jesus’ miracles could be dismissed as tricks. Moreover, the world is incredibly complex because of the interactions mentioned above, and so there is as much evidence for evil and chaos as there is for a benevolent God.

[Unforunately, Boyd's answers about the inspired-ness of Scripture and how a loving God could let whole civilizations go to hell because nobody told them about God are unsatisfactory to me, and I won't reproduce them.]

 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I want you to enjoy watching movies. But I also want you to oppose bad movies and encourage filmmakers to make better ones. Alas, with Narnia you can’t do both. Instead of making the choice for you with my review, I’ll let you decide! If you want to enjoy Narnia, stop reading at the ***.

Fans of the C.S. Lewis novel will be content with this fairly faithful adaptation about four English children who venture through a wardrobe into a magical land of talking animals under the icy thumb of a witch. Christians will be pleased to find all the theological allegory in tact, along with direct quotes from Lewis’ novel and even the Bible. Others will see an inventive children’s story with great themes like courage, duty, forgiveness, redemption, and the authority of good over evil. The film encourages you to look deeper, and more is there. But you may not have time to find it all: stuffed with humor, suspense, family drama and epic action, Narnia is a brisk 140 minutes that may surprise those expecting another overlong Peter Jackson fantasy epic.

Adamson has done a Zeffirellian job of finding faces worth watching, and Dakota Fanning is blessedly absent. Georgie Henley as Lucy and James McAvoy as Tumnus the faun are especially engaging. And really, I’d be hard pressed to think of a more evocative voice for Aslan than Liam Neeson’s.

So put away your artistic pretensions, your source-reverant nit-picking, your unfair comparisons, and enjoy Narnia.

***

Damn I hated this movie.

Imagine Lord of the Rings. Now, strip away all depth of character, history, geography, lore, culture, langauge, and story. Reduce all special effects to Hulking incompetancy and the score to one of Titanic boredom. Use sock puppets for actors. Write every scene to maximize audience incredulity and confusion. Redesign every set as a third-rate Legend of Zelda ripoff. Above all, don’t give the audience time to care about anything happening on-screen. Finally, imagine you’re like me and didn’t think Lord of the Rings was that great to begin with, and you’ll have some inkling of the hell Narnia put me through.

Disney wants to drink from the lucrative box office wells of fantasy epics, explicitly Christian film (uber-blockbuster The Passion of The Christ), and kid flicks in general. But Narnia fails as a fantasy epic for being inferior to Lord of the Rings and even Harry Potter and Revenge of the Sith. It fails as a Christian film for replacing the insight of the novel with an exactingly careful niceness. It fails as a kid flick for its nightmarish terror, intense emotional drama (I heard crying from the seat behind me), and brutal violence.

The actors were well-chosen for their faces, yes, but only Henley shows signs of acting. The multitude of CGI characters each look plastic and soulless after LOTR’s Gollum. There is never life in Aslan’s eyes.

Both Shreks already feel dated by their irritating pop soundtracks, but Adamson has learned nothing: Alanis Morrisette (yes, of 1995 fame) peppers the movie. And the only non-diarrhetic segment of Gregson-Williams’s “original” score is a 3-second queue for Aslan’s forces rescuing Edmund that sounds clipped from John Adams’ glorious Harmonielehre.

Blech.

 

Venezuela

It’s great here in Venezuela! Every day brings new experiences and challenges.

One day, we students traveled to a national park in the mountains. I stripped to my boxers and climbed up about 200 yards of river rapids, then tried to cut back to the park through the jungle on one side of the river. Eventually the forest floor disappeared, and I was walking on vines on branches on rocks on branches on streams on ground. I was clawed my way through vines and branches. I came to a chain link fence, but it had barbed wire at the top. I tried to follow it, but ran into a ton of thorns, so I headed back towards the river a ways and followed it. I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I went back to the river and climbed back down its rapids. It was hard on my bare feet. I tried to cut through the jungle again and came to a road. I walked about 300 yards - people staring at me and my underwear - until I ran into a bunch of people from my group. They led me back to where my clothes were. At one point, I was at a stream with light shining through and a million vines hanging straight down over the stream. It was gorgeous and I wish I’d had a camera.

VenUSA (my school) hosts many events. People love to have fun here, including the staff. One night, we learned to make arapas, then danced. Another night, there was folk music, then dancing. Another night, there was dancing. One night, there was la paradura de niño Jesus, a Catholic ceremony with guitars, singing, a procession, candles, wine, cake, a nativity scene and fireworks (which we lit on the sidewalk outside VenUSA). Then, Venezuelan and U.S. students and staff went to Cafe Calypso, a lounge bar with good music and great drinks. I got more tipsy than ever from my new favorite drink, the aptly titled Cirrhosis (brandy & amaretto). Half a dozen chicas bonitas (Venezuela has more beauty shops per capita than any other country, and it shows) wanted their picture taken with a tall pale American, and I was happy to oblidge. Other nights, we’ve gone to “dancier” clubs and sports clubs. Baseball is more popular in Mérida than fútbol.

A shopping mall in Valencia (near Maracay) was half as big as Mall of America and just as American - and you could buy a 12″ American-style pizza for $5.

Of course, there’s festivals, street vendors, signs for Chavez everywhere, sub-par bathroom facilities, rampant piracy, Catholic churches, and most importantly, great-looking trees.

We went to a beach near Choroni, a tropical paradise. Our beach was an hour’s boatride away from Choroni, and very tranquil. The tiny beach town had one small store and one hotel. We had to fit 8 coeds in each of its two rooms. Everything there was a stunning display of God’s beauty. I played in the sand and made some Liechtensteinian friends.

But in fact, the trip through the mountains to Choroni was my favorite experience so far. Photos cannot capture the intense beauty I witnessed. And in fact, seeing shacks and gardens nestled in the steep mountains - along with all the trash - was even more beautiful than virgin nature. Humanity + Nature can’t be beat.

 

These Days

My recent private studies of metaphysics, religious history, theology, ecclesiology, textual criticism, and philosophy have been as exciting but far more important than my studies of 20th century music. I can easily see how I might fill several lifetimes working among these subjects, though it’s less clear how I might support a family and those in need doing so.

I’m surprised to report that most of my existential pain has already faded, replaced by a rapturous sense of freedom to experience God, fall in love with him, and let his Spirit guide me into truth - all in totally fresh ways and to assuredly fresh ends.

And yet, I remain frustrated by respected Christ-followers who compromise truth - including my favorite teachers, like Greg Boyd. In his Letters from a Skeptic, Boyd argues eloquently for God. But when he turns to the archaeological evidence that seems to damn parts of Christian Scripture, he writes that new archaeological findings continue to support the Biblical accounts. His best example of this is that archeology once showed that Quirinius was not governor of Syria until 10 years after Herod’s death (which contradicts Luke), but it now reveals that Quirinius governed for two terms (reconciling known history to Luke’s account). But in fact there is no solid evidence that Quirinius governed twice, and this position is rejected by most scholars.

Even though I am greatly intrigued in studying these subjects, I suspect I will best come to know God in my relationship and experience with him. Thus, I daily seek his presence and guidance. May I surrender all.

 

Lord of War

A trailer for Jarhead, about an American soldier in Desert Storm combat, preceded the matinée showing of Lord of War I saw two years ago. During the trailer, a U.S. marine passionately shouts, “We are the righteous hammer of God and that hammer is coming down!” A man behind me in the cinema responded, “Amen, brother!” I hope Niccol’s insinuating Lord of War helped him reconsider.

The film’s opening sequence takes us through the manufacture, shipment, and firing of an assault rifle cartridge from its own perspective. By placing us behind the bullet, from the factory to when it enters the skull of an African boy, Niccol implicates us in arms sales, genocide, and terrorism. And why not? The United States is the leading arms exporter and willfully ignores - if not supplies - most world terrorism.

Nicolas Cage’s performance as arms dealer Yuri Orlov also helps to reveal our complicity in worldwide violence. Niccol describes the process of selecting Cage for the role: “I thought, ‘Who can make the devil charming?’ It’s Nicolas Cage.” Yuri is an unsympathetic, heartless man who seeks from the start to profit from the greatest evils. But he is a pragmatic salesman, and Cage’s seductive performance soon finds the audience adopting Yuri’s blind-eye coldness. “It’s not our fight,” Yuri tells his brother. And somehow we believe him. When Yuri finally confronts his vain justifications, we are forced to confront our own.

But whatever Lord of War’s considerable moral and political implications, is it a good movie? Sadly, it isn’t; but screenwriting gurus Syd Field and Robert McKee would surely be impressed. Niccol has always written about strong concepts: a genetic totalitarianist future in Gattaca, a man who doesn’t know his life is a sitcom called The Truman Show, a digitally artificial movie star named S1m0ne, a trapped foreigner living in an airport Terminal, and now an arms trafficker “at war with himself” in Lord of War. Niccol’s characters are full-figured and memorable, his dialogue is sharp and ironic, his pacing is solid, his themes are significant, and he brings the audience plenty of fascinating behind-the-scenes how-to.

But Niccol’s trademark weaknesses accompany his “strengths” into Lord of War. He flaunts every nuance in the film, bringing them each to a painfully obvious forefront and leaving nothing for repeat viewings. When Yuri must convince his pilot to make a rough landing on a gravel highway, he yells, “You can do it, Aleksei! You’re the shit! You’re the shit! You’re the shit!” Then, in voice over: “Of course he wasn’t the shit…” And when Yuri removes a toy gun from his sleeping son’s bedroom because he doesn’t want young Nicolai to grow up into his father’s industry, we also see Yuri drop the gun in the waste basket, and later we see Interpol agent Jack Valentine retrieve it from Yuri’s trash. Niccol won’t take the chance that his audience won’t notice a writing tidbit he’s proud of conceiving.

He also relinquishes plausibility to squeeze superfluous “cool” or “intense” moments into the movie. When Yuri’s pilot makes that emergency landing on a highway, the jet’s front tires stop inches from a baby sitting in the road. And when Yuri must quickly switch flags on his ship to avoid Interpol’s suspicion, it so happens that it’s best for Yuri to look like a Dutch ship, and he has every flag but a Dutch one, but of course he can make a French flag look like a Dutch flag by hanging it sideways. And, on two occasions, Yuri happens to make a major arms sale only a few yards away from where murders are taking place at that very moment. Paul Thomas Anderson is a master with the cinema of coincidence; Andrew Niccol is not.

He’s not a master director, either. Borrowing heavily from David Fincher, Niccol’s style is visually flashy in gimmicky, overused ways. While the concept of the opening sequence is worthy, the execution is flawed. The close-up CGI bullet looks as fake as the digital elements in long, CGI-populated shots from Fincher’s Fight Club and Panic Room. A time-lapsed shot of a giant jet being stripped to the bone overnight is entertaining, but Niccol clearly belongs to that depraved school of film direction that seeks for “what looks cool” in each scene without considering the thematic, emotional, and artistic consequences of its decisions. To be fair, it sometimes seems we must we travel as far as Greece (Angelopoulos) or Iran (Kiarostami) to find good directors who haven’t spawned from that school.

The performances, at least, bear no complaints. Cage is reliable as ever, Jared Leto (Yuri’s kid brother) is as good a drug addict as he was in Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, Ethan Hawke (Interpol agent Jack Valentine) reveals a deep character with little screen time, and Ian Holm nearly steals the show as rival arms dealer Simeon Weisz. Bridget Moynahan is “just pretty,” but that’s her character (”cover girl” and Yuri’s wife, Ava Fontaine).

But all the supporting roles are tiny; it’s Yuri’s story, and he carries the film. In fact, there’s not even much plot. The movie is a montage of events that shape Yuri and reveal his attitude toward the world, propelled by his lengthy but thought-provoking narration. A wholly corrupt protagonist is a rare treat (though better handled in Noé’s I Stand Alone), as is an antagonist who is wholly righteous (Valentine). And Yuri’s presentation of African conflicts is just callous enough to suggest the importance of genocides unknown to the West without being self-important like Hotel Rwanda. Yuri’s character is what makes the movie worth seeing despite its flaws.

Lord of War is not great art, not a good film, not a significant film. But it’s not terrible, which, in today’s mainstream movie wasteland, is significant.