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Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Wonder and Religion in American Cinema
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Book Presentation:
Why do we watch movies? If we read in search of more life, as Harold Bloom is fond of saying, then we watch movies, this book proposes, in search of wonder. We watch movies in search of awe-inspiring visions, transformative experiences, and moments of emotional transcendence and spiritual sublimity. We watch movies for many of the same reasons that we engage in religion: to fill our ordinary evenings and weekends with something of the extraordinary; to connect our isolated, individual selves to something that is greater than ourselves; and because we yearn for something that is ineffable but absolutely indispensable.
This book, through an exploration of some of the most intriguing films of the past two decades, illustrates how movies are partners with religion in inspiring, conveying, and helping us experience what Abraham Joshua Heschel refers to as "radical amazement": the sense that our material universe and our ordinary lives are filled with more wonders than we can ever imagine, and that it takes spiritually—as well as cinematically—trained eyes to uncover these ever-present ocular gems.
In addition to illustrating how films utilize religious themes and theological motifs to convey a sense of wonder, this book offers new interpretations of key films from canonical American directors such as Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, and the Coen brothers.
About the Author:
Daniel Ross Goodman is a writer, rabbi, and scholar from western Massachusetts. He writes on art, film, literature, and sports for the Washington Examiner, and his short stories have been published in over a dozen literary journals. He is also the author of the novel A Single Life. He currently lives in New York, where he is a Ph.D. candidate at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Press Reviews:
This book takes its readers on a fascinating journey through recent Hollywood films that illustrate the deep experiential similarities between cinema and religion in bringing together the heavenly and the human, the sublime and the mundane. The appreciative, but also analytical and critical, treatments of individual movies engage with Jewish and Christian themes and texts, and are punctuated here and there with excurses on the life and legacy of Roger Ebert and the image of Jews in Hollywood film. An enjoyable, informative, and inspiring read for all film-lovers. -- Adele Reinhartz, professor and chair, Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Ottawa
Goodman invites us into a conversation about film that stimulates the emotions and the intellect. He produces a rich fusion of insights from literary, philosophical, biblical, and rabbinic sources, while keeping the conversation light-hearted and accessible.
-- Claudia Setzer, Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College
This is a serious book but it is fun to read. On page after page, it surprises us with new insights drawn out of old iconic screen moments. After reading Goodman, you will reverse the old adage. Instead of saying "I lost it at the movies," you will say: "I found it (vision/divinity/global connectivity) at the movies." Thank God and thank Goodman. -- Irving Greenberg, President of the J.J. Greenberg Institute for the Advancement of Jewish Life
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