Disturbing Thrillers

My recent ratings of The 10 Most Disturbing Movies of all Time surprised one of my frequent commenters for the omission of David Fincher's Seven. Let me explain why I don't consider a film like this to be in the same league as the truly disturbing ones I put on my list.

Seven falls into what I call the "disturbing thriller" category, alongside other masterpieces like Silence of the Lambs, Hard Candy, and Cape Fear. They contain plenty of torturous material, to be sure, but most people don't feel soiled or ashamed to be watching (and enjoying) them. On the contrary, these films amuse as much as they disturb, involving colorful psychopaths who are almost anti-heroes. What they do is clearly wrong, yet they gratify us despite ourselves. Everyone loves Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the genteel cannibal obsessed with etiquette. Max Cady and Haley Stark are hilarious, full of nasty wit, each nursing a sore grievance that allows us to sympathize with them in their most passionate moments. (Max was deliberately shafted by his lawyer, and Hayley is furious about pedophiles.) John Doe has grievances too, and we get a glimpse of his soul when his robotic demeanor falls away, and he lashes out against a detective for daring to claim that gluttons, greedy lawyers, whores, and slothful pederasts are "innocent people". Doe even has the grace to acknowledge that he's as sinful as those he kills, and willingly pays the penalty for it. There's something rather over-dramatic about these films that reminds us we're having fun more than getting kicked in the stomach.

And it doesn't hurt that these psychos -- Lecter, Cady, Stark, Doe -- are played by first-rate actors -- Anthony Hopkins, Robert De Niro, Ellen Page, and Kevin Spacey -- who are so artistic in their depravity that it's hard to hate them too much. (With the exception of Catherine Keener in An American Crime and Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet, the baddies on my list are played by unknown or obscure actors.) Thrillers often involve victims or protagonists who serve in large measure as a foil to the perversely amusing psychopath. Attorney Bowden (Cape Fear) shafted his client by burying evidence that could have saved him; so he's arguably getting his just deserts. Jeff Kolver (Hard Candy) is a closet pedophile and active ephebophile; perhaps he deserves to be castrated. Detective Mills (Seven) is angry and unpleasant, and becomes the perfect tool in a string of serial killings. In truly disturbing films, the victims are thoroughly likable, the baddies utterly despicable. But in thrillers like these, an FBI agent can team up with a man-eating psychiatrist, and we're not sure who to like more.

Most importantly, thrillers don't become unbearably graphic. Silence of the Lambs may deal with cannibalism and skinning people alive, but certainly not on the same visual plane as Cannibal Holocaust and Martyrs. Cape Fear has a vicious rape scene -- De Niro even bites a chunk of flesh out of the woman's face, speaking of cannibalism -- but it's not remotely as pulverizing as those in Last House on the Left, Blue Velvet, and Irreversible. The torture Ellen Page inflicts in Hard Candy excites as much as it disturbs, while the torture she receives in An American Crime is appalling on every level. Seven shows the aftermath of some gruesome killings, and has a miserably unhappy ending, but it allows us to come up for air at plenty of points, and it's also philosophically intriguing. Contrast this with the brutally nihilistic ending of Eden Lake -- a film which doesn't allow us to breathe at all. In truly disturbing movies, the ugliness is the film, and at no point are we remotely sympathetic towards or thrilled by the villains. In thrillers that's not the case.

Heaven Help the Bees

Last year around this time, Scientific American warned that if bees continue vanishing at the rate they're going, then fruits and vegetables will likely become the food of kings. Only recently did I watch the Nature special released a year prior ('08), The Silence of the Bees (which can be watched for free in its entirety here), which does a pretty good job covering the possible causes of the CCD (community collapse disorder) of the world's honeybee population: (1) fatigue from being transported over long distances for commercial pollination, (2) neonicotinoid pesticides, (3) malnutrition, (4) mites & parasites, (5) IAPV, or Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, (6) some kind of immune system suppression caused by a virus like AIDS in humans.

In the Scientific American article (4/09), "Solving the Mystery of the Vanishing Bees", the researchers are confident that it's likely some combination of the above, with no easy fix in sight:

"Bees suffering from CCD tend to be infested with multiple pathogens, including a newly discovered virus, but these infections seem secondary or opportunistic -- much in the way pneumonia kills a patient with AIDS. The picture now emerging is of a complex condition that can be triggered by different combinations of causes. There may be no easy remedy to CCD. It may require taking better care of the environment and making long-term changes to our beekeeping and agricultural practices." (p 42)

Pesticides have been getting nastier over the years, but healthy bee colonies sometimes have higher levels of toxic chemicals than colonies suffering from CCD. And as the Nature documentary points out, organic beekeepers are witnessing as much CCD in areas where there are no pesticides at all. So it may be that malnutrition has played a strong role in eroding the bees' immune system:

"Honeybees no longer have the same number or variety of flowers available to them because we humans have tried to 'neaten' our environments. We have, for example, planted huge expanses of crops without weedy, flower-filled borders or fencerows. We maintain large green lawns free of any 'weeds' such as clover and dandelions. Even our roadsides and parks reflect our desire to keep things neat and weed-free. But to bees and other pollinators, green lawns look like deserts." (p 43)

Perhaps malnutrition, in conjunction with pesticides, has made the bees susceptible to the alarming virus found in most of the sick colonies examined: the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV). Though it could be the other way around, with CCD already in place making the bees prone to the IAPV infection.

There is a new documentary available in the U.K., The Vanishing of the Bees, and the U.S. version (narrated by Ellen Page) will be released this October. I'll have to watch it, if only to get even more depressed. One thing is certain: if the honeybees continue vanishing at this rate, and we don't come up with a viable alternative to natural pollination, we'll all be living on rice, corn, and wheat by the year 2035 -- and many people much sooner than that.

Jesus and Nasty Name-Calling

This caught my eye from the recent RBL mailing: Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am?: An Investigation of the Accusations against Jesus, by (editors) Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica. Seven essays (four of them by bloggers) address the seven accusations against Jesus found in the gospels: (1) "law breaker" (Michael Bird), (2) "demon possessed" (Dwight Sheets), (3) "glutton and drunkard" (Joseph Modica), (4) "blasphemer" (Darrel Bock), (5) "false prophet" (James McGrath), (6) "King of the Jews" (Lynn Cohick), and (7) "mamzer (illegitimate son)" (Scot McKnight). The project apparently grew out of Malina & Neyrey's Calling Jesus Names, so it will be interesting to see how the authors rose to the challenge.

From the two RBL reviews:

"The basic premise of the collection is that the followers of Jesus and the early Christian community would not have created fictive charges against Jesus that would serve only to demean and call into question the nature of his life and ministry as well as provide ammunition for the opponents of the early Christian movement. Consequently, such charges are presumed to have been attached to Jesus by his opponents." (M. Robert Mulholland)

"The investigations have merit, but the task of figuring out the 'truth' about the historical Jesus from the slanted accusations is not an easy one. The seven scholars document their arguments thoroughly, providing copious footnotes for their readers to pursue further. In the end, though, 'Christology' associated with the historical figure of Jesus is hardly advanced in this study beyond the traditional, churchly beliefs espoused for centuries. This raises the question of methodology." (V. George Shillington)

Shillington's remarks imply that some hard questions are being dodged (I wonder what Malina & Neyrey think of this work), but I'll have to read the book myself.

Ten Regenerations

I'm excited about Matt Smith's debut as Doctor Who, and of course Easter is an appropriate season to introduce a newly regenerated Time Lord. I notice that someone recently made a youtube compilation of All the Doctor's Regenerations (except for 8->9, which was never filmed). Do watch the clip. Here are my ratings of the regenerations. The top three -- four, five, and nine -- are near flawless and get extended commentary.

1. Four: Tom Baker-->Peter Davison. 5 jelly babies. The fourth regeneration encapsulates a golden age of Doctor Who and floors me every time I watch it. Tom Baker accommodated more change in the show's vision than any other incarnation, under Philip Hinchcliffe (three seasons of gothic horror), Graham Williams (three more of light comedy), and then John Nathan-Turner (the last and most talked about season, which reined in the comedy and grounded the stories more firmly in science). Logopolis has a perfect funereal feeling to it and was seen by millions when it first aired. I'll never forget the way Baker's final whisper brought tears to my eyes: "It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for". It may not have been as flashy as later regenerations, but it's by far the most moving.

2. Five: Peter Davison-->Colin Baker. 5 jelly babies. Many believe that the fifth regeneration is the best, but while I agree it's the most dramatic it doesn't have the soul or dignity of the fourth. Davison had the luxury of going out as strong as possible, in what is universally hailed as the best story from his period (The Caves of Androzani), and his regeneration is the culmination of all that suspense and adrenaline rush. Best of all is the fact that the new (Sixth) Doctor gets in some beautiful lines at the end, when Peri asks, "What's going on?" The cold reply: "Change, my dear. And it would seem not a moment too soon." Poor Peri would get quite a change indeed when this arrogant incarnation went berserk and tried to kill her.

3. Nine: Christopher Eccleston-->David Tennant. 5 jelly babies. Christopher Eccleston's departure after a single season worked out splendidly for two reasons. For one, he wasn't the best representation of the Doctor, a gurning manic-depressive, and remarkably ineffectual (though I confess he's grown on me over time). He took his minimalist character about as far as it could go. But in leaving the series so quickly, he gave newcomers an opportunity to see some Gallifreyan lore in action. And what a regeneration -- more flashy than any from the classic period, if lacking some of the soul -- leaving us with David Tennant licking over his teeth in bemused wonder. I knew right there and then that he was going to be "the" Doctor of the new series.

4. Three: Jon Pertwee-->Tom Baker. 4 jelly babies. If the fourth regeneration is the most deeply moving, the fifth the most dramatic, and the ninth the most majestic, the third is the most touching. It's Jon Pertwee's farewell to Sarah Jane Smith, and played wonderfully by Elizabeth Sladen.

5. Seven: Sylvester McCoy-->Paul McGann. 4 jelly babies. I never liked the Eighth Doctor's single-episode "movie", but the seventh regeneration is impressive and creepy on its own right.

6. One: William Hartnell-->Patrick Troughton. 3 jelly babies. By today's standards it looks pretty lame, but the first regeneration is a landmark and retains its dramatic pull.

7. Six: Colin Baker-->Sylvester McCoy. 2 jelly babies. A half-hearted attempt to cover for Colin Baker's absence. After being fired Baker (quite rightly) refused to return for a regeneration scene, and so we have the embarrassing spectacle of Sylvester McCoy in a wig regenerating into Sylvester McCoy with his own hair. And it's too rushed and undramatic.

8. Ten: David Tennant-->Matt Smith. 1 jelly baby. The longest regeneration sequence in the show's history is weighed down by melodrama, saccharine farewells, and ridiculously overblown stuff that makes no sense (parts of the TARDIS exploding). Russell Davies was clueless by this point, and truth told, he should have handed over the reins to Steven Moffat immediately after Turn Left. It's a shower of piss, and David Tennant deserved better.

9. Two: Patrick Troughton-->Jon Pertwee. 0 jelly babies. The youtube clip shows the Second Doctor being exiled and told that it's time for him to regenerate, but this doesn't really count. We never actually see the the second regeneration. I dislike this scene anyway for Troughton yipping in that girlish voice, "Stop, you're making me dizzy, no, no, no!"

10. Eight: Paul McGann-->Christopher Eccleston. n/a. The eighth regeneration was never filmed.

A Dozen Questions I'd Ask Paul

Over six years ago on the Corpus Paulinum mailing list, Jeffrey Gibson initiated the following thought experiment:

"Imagine if you will that

(a) we had the mid 60's CE Paul before us for an hour or two and that

(b) we were able to make ourselves understood by him, and that

(c) he had agreed to answer anything about himself, his career, his beliefs, and his writings about which we might be inclined to inquire,

what questions would you put to him?"

I've blogged so much about Paul in the past five years, and on the most controversial issues which I naturally think I'm right about, but could never rest completely satisfied without TARDIS-traveling back to the 60's and getting answers from the horse's mouth. Jeffrey had set a limit of five questions, but I'm going with a dirty dozen. Here they are, followed in many cases by links to the way I understand Paul on these points. Other bloggers are invited to participate in the exercise.

(1) What was it about Christians that pissed you off so much before your conversion? Did you loathe them for worshiping a crucified criminal, appearing seditious, eating indiscriminately with Gentiles -- or something else?

(2) Please clarify what you meant when you said to the Corinthians that "flesh and blood would not inherit the kingdom of God". (See here.)

(3) What exactly did you mean by pistis Christou? Should people be putting their faith in Christ or copying the faithful Christ? (See here.)

(4) What exactly did you mean by dikaiosyne? Are righteous people acquitted and restored to fellowship, do they lead a new life in Christ, or are they simply privileged and blessed? (See here and here.)

(5) Do you believe that anyone other than Abraham experienced faith-righteousness before the coming of Christ? (See here.)

(6) Were the "weak" in I Cor 8 and the "weak in faith" of Rom 14-15 predominantly Christians or non-Christians? (See here.)

(7) Do you believe that male homosexuality is as bad as temple prostitution and pederasty? And what about lesbianism?

(8) Just who do you think you are in Rom 7:7-13 and 7:14-25? Adam? Medea? Yourself? (See here and here.)

(9) What did you mean by Christian "fulfilment" (pleroma) of the law? (See here.)

(10) What did you mean when you said that "all Israel" would be saved? And please define "Israel". (See here.)

(11) Fess up: The collection which you so altruistically maintain you were eager to take up actually galled and chafed you at first, didn't it? The pillars were strong-arming you, no? (See here and here.)

(12) Fess up (take 2): It must have burned you at Antioch, not being able to call out Peter and James for the liars they were, for going back on their word and breaking the Jerusalem deal. "Hypocrisy" is quite an understatement, no? What did you say to Peter when you got him alone out of earshot of everyone else? (See here.)

Thanks for your time, dude.

Pistis Christou in the Apostolic Fathers

Michael Whitenton has written a helpful essay on the usage of πίστις Χριστοῦ ("faith [in/of] Christ") in the apostolic fathers. Anyone and everyone who has something at stake in the ongoing πίστις Χριστοῦ debate should take the time to read it.

It's a no-brainer that later church fathers (c. 150-430 CE) cited Paul's usage of πίστις Χριστοῦ in a clear objective genitive sense: "faith in Christ". But the evidence of the apostolic fathers (c. 70-150 CE) is more murky. While they weren't citing Paul, their usage of πίστις Χριστοῦ could nonetheless represent possible transmissions of Pauline traditions, and this is what Whitenton seems to believe.

He surveys all the uses of πίστις by the apostolic fathers, classifying them into one of three categories:

(1) πίστις is modified by a personal genitive substantive in a clearly subjective manner, though the referent of the genitive is neither God nor Christ -- 13 cases (I Clement 1:2, 5:5-6, 58:2; Ignatius to the Ephesians 9:1; Polycarp to the Philippians 1:1-2; Didache 16:2, 16:5; Barnabas 1:5, 1:6, 2:2, 4:9; Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 4:2:4, Similitude 9:26:8)

(2) πίστις is modified by a personal genitive substantive in an ambiguous manner (i.e. either objectively or subjectively, or other), referring to God or a divine spirit -- 4 cases (I Clement 3:4, 27:3; Ignatius to the Ephesians 16:2; Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 11:9)

(3) πίστις is modified by a personal genitive substantive in an ambiguous manner (i.e. either objectively or subjectively, or other), referring to Christ -- 11 cases (Ignatius to the Ephesians 20:1, to the Magnesians 1:1, to the Romans Inscription; Polycarp to the Philippians 4:3; Barnabas 4:8, 16:9; Shephered of Hermas, Vision 4:1:8, Mandate 11:4, Similitude 6:1:2, 6:3:6, 9:16:5)

The first category is listed without commentary, "simply for sake of completeness" (p 6), and frankly I don't think they have any bearing, or shed much light, on cases involving the modifier of God or Christ. So it's the second and third categories that concern us.

Of the four cases in category (2), Whitenton finds that the first favors an objective reading, "faith in God" (I Clem 3:4); the second favors either reading, but the scales tip in favor of a subjective one, "the faithfulness of God" (I Clem 27:3); the third refers to a "teaching from God", meaning that a genitive of source is in view (Ign Eph 16:2); and the last denotes a pledge from a divine spirit, meaning that πίστις is better translated "proof" of God's spirit, rather than "faith" or "trust" [in/of] God's spirit (Herm Mand 11:9).

Of the eleven cases in category (3), Whitenton finds that the first favors a subjective reading, "the faithfulness of Jesus Christ", (Ign Eph 20:1); the second favors either a subjective reading, "the faithfulness of Jesus Christ", or a genitive-of-source reading, "the doctrine of Jesus Christ" (Ign Mag 1:1); the third favors either an objective reading, "by faith in and love for Jesus Christ", or a subjective one, "by the faithfulness and love of Jesus Christ" (Ign Rom inscription); the fourth involves a usage of πίστις as "teaching", with four possibilities -- a genitive of source, "the teaching of the Lord", a possessive genitive, "the teaching from the Lord", a genitive of content, "the teaching about the Lord", or an attributive genitive, "the teaching that is characterized by the Lord" (Polyc Philip 4:3); the fifth favors either an objective reading, "the hope which springs from faith in Jesus", or a subjective one, "the hope anchored in Jesus' faithfulness", with the scales tipping in favor of the subjective reading (Barn 4:8); the sixth favors a subjective reading, "the word of Jesus' faith" (Barn 16:9); the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth all emphasize fidelity to the Lord as a gift, and thus favor neither an objective nor subjective reading, but rather a genitive-of-source reading, "the faithfulness from the Lord" (Herm Vis 4:1:8, Mand 11:4, Sim 6:1:2, 6:3:6); and the last favors either an objective reading, "preaching to the dead about power and faith in the Son of God", or subjective reading, preaching to the dead about the power and faithfulness of the Son of God", with the balance tipping slightly in favor of the latter (Herm Sim 9:16:5).

I don't necessarily agree with all of Whitenton's judgments -- in some of the more ambiguous cases, I think the scales tip in favor of the objective reading -- but for the most part his assessments are sound and show how fluidly πίστις Χριστοῦ was used by the apostolic fathers. Again, this says little about Paul, because in none of the above cases is he being cited -- with the possible exceptions of Ign Eph 20:1 and Mag 1:1 echoing Gal 2:20 (noted by Whitenton, pp 14,16).

If the ambiguity of the apostolic fathers' usage points to anything about Paul, it's the point emphasized by Stephen Finlan: that Paul's participatory theology carried within it the seeds for a subjective genitive reading of πίστις Χριστοῦ, even if Paul never went that far. (There's a good reason, after all, why he goes out of his way to avoid faith terminology in Rom 5-8.) The above evidence may well indicate how this potential was developed in some circles by the late first and early second centuries.

I want to thank Michael Whitenton for a helpful analysis which shows, to me, that the subjective genitive reading isn't quite as faddish as I've been claiming. While it certainly remains the weaker reading in Paul's letters, and plays unquestionably into a variety of modern agendas, that weakness can be laid at the door of theologians who pre-date Duke scholars by almost nineteen centuries.

The 10 Most Disturbing Movies of All Time

The following list supplements my ratings of The 10 Scariest Movies of All Time. The reason for a sequel is simple. In my opinion, too many critics conflate "scary" and "disturbing" when compiling these lists. They're not the same. A scary film is one that makes you afraid to be alone in the dark. A disturbing film is one that makes you feel helpless, sick, angry, and ashamed of your own humanity. A film can obviously be both (notice The Exorcist claims the top slot on both lists). As before I'm sticking with good films worth seeing. The critics don't necessarily agree with me; four of them are rotten tomatoes. On my other list only one was rotten, and it may be that disturbing films have to work extra hard at impressing elitists who have delicate sensibilities.

It's worth noting that most of the films on my scariest list come from an earlier period (between 1973-1981), while most on this list come from the recent decade. This is surely a general indicator of how horror films have evolved. It's getting harder to find truly scary and frightening films, but much easier to comes across disturbing and repulsive ones. Neither is necessarily superior to the other, though I do bemoan the rarity of the former these days.

(1) The Exorcist. 1973. Critical approval: 85%. Disturb level: 99/100. When you get down to it, The Exorcist is about a little girl being obscenely tortured. The demon thrashes her body into hideous contortions, scars her face, stabs her vagina with a crucifix, buries her mother's face in her bleeding crotch, vomits quarts of green puke across the bedroom, and barks the foulest vulgarities known to humanity. People threw up themselves and ran screaming from the theaters when it first aired in '73, and I doubt any film has had the same harrowing effect on so many viewers since. As Father Merrin explains to a troubled Karras -- who can't understand the point of such vile torment being inflicted on an innocent twelve-year old in the grand scheme of things -- "the point is to see ourselves as animal and ugly", which pretty much sums up the nature of disturbing films. It doesn't get more repulsive than this.

(2) Martyrs. 2009. Critical approval: 52%. Disturb level: 96/100. The latest in a series of hard-core French horror films. A woman takes ruthless vengeance on people who tortured her when she was a child, and then kills herself in despair while her best friend gets abducted by the same atheist cult. It's her turn to be tortured as the cult prepares for her "transfiguration", the most perverse eschatological experiment conceivable -- a visit to the great beyond by becoming one with pain. The French are doing now what Americans did in the '70s, not giving audiences a chance to come up for air. I'm not sure which half is more disturbing: the crazy woman stalked and savaged by a "demon" (a figment of her imagination: she's really mutilating herself), while she goes homicidal, or the friend who resumes her place in the hideous seat of torment and gets skinned alive after weeks of unspeakable torture. This film pulls no punches (literally) and has polarized critics with a vengeance.

(3) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 1974. Critical approval: 90%. Fright level: 94/100. I got the ultimate edition DVD for Christmas this year and watched it for the first time in over a decade. It remains a nasty, hard-hitting piece of cinema, which at the same time (believe it or not) relies on Hitchcock-type tricks that make you think you're seeing more massacre than depicted. It isn't close to the bloodbath I remember, but something more disturbing. The classic dinner table scene, involving the only remaining victim strapped to a chair and terrorized by the cannibal-family, is pulverizing. No surprise, the lousy remake scrapped that scene in favor of cheap prolonged chases through the woods. Stick with the original, which is on almost every top-10 list I've come across.

(4) Cannibal Holocaust. 1980. Critical approval: 70%. Disturb level: 93/100. An animal snuff film (a turtle, a pig, a coatimundi, a spider, a snake, and a squirrel monkey were killed just as you see them on screen), and the director had to appear in court to prove he didn't kill people as well -- their deaths look that real. (When the film was released, the four American actors had gone into hiding as a ploy, which was perhaps more effective than the director intended.) The narrative is about four college students who go into the Amazon to research bizarre native customs, and get more than they bargained for: forced abortion rites, rape-murder as punishment for adultery, castration, disembowelment, and voracious cannibalism. In the end, they are the victims of this business, and it looks obscenely real. Hailed by many as the most controversial film of all time, and still banned in some countries, it can make you lose your appetite for days; so watch out.

(5) The Last House on the Left. 2009. Critical approval: 42%. Disturb level: 92/100. Both the original and remake are equally disturbing, but I don't recommend the former because it plays like a snuff film with lousy production values and bad acting. The remake is surprisingly decent, if flawed, about a group of thugs who kidnap two girls, killing one and raping the other, and then come to the home of the raped girl's parents. The rape scene is the most upsetting that I've seen in any film -- even worse than the longer one in Irreversible (on which see below) -- not only for the girl's trauma, but for the son of the rapist who is forced to watch and clearly wants to stop his father but can't. The stabbing/torture/death of the other girl is just as intimate and ugly. The whole film radiates an atmosphere of sickening dread, from the initial encounter in the motel room, to the climax in the lake cabin. You feel raped yourself long after the credits roll.

(6) Eden Lake. 2008. Critical approval: 83%. Disturb level: 91/100. It's Golding's Lord of the Flies meets Deliverance meets Them, and it doesn't add up to a pretty picture. A couple go on a camping trip and run afoul a pack of young bullies. One thing leads to another, until torture and killing are on the menu, and it becomes clear there won't be a happy ending for either Jenny or Steve. The kids' homicidal behavior is so ferocious, and so believable, that it plays like a documentary about U.K. chav culture. It certainly takes nihilism to a new level: the final act involving the parents -- who decide to "take care of their own" and finish what their kids started -- is downright unspeakable. I had trouble picking myself out of the chair after this one. Reviewed at length here.

(7) An American Crime. 2007. Critical approval: 31%. Disturb level: 90/100. This film is incredibly hard to sit through, especially knowing it's based on a true account of domestic child abuse. Sylvia Likens was tortured and killed by a woman caring for her in her parents' absence, tied up in a basement for weeks -- beaten, burned, cut, branded, and forced to eat filth, while, amazingly, kids in the neighborhood dropped by daily to participate in the "fun". Ellen Page is as convincing in the role of a savagely abused innocent as she is playing a tormenting sadist (Hard Candy), if not more so. The final act -- Sylvia's dream of reuniting with her parents as she lies unconscious and dying -- is extremely upsetting. I'm not sure why critics came down so hard on this film; like most of Ellen Page's accomplishments, it's well done and has a lot to say without being gratuitous.

(8) Blue Velvet. 1986. Critical approval: 90%. Disturb level: 88/100. When I first saw this back in the '80s it pulverized me. I'd never seen a David Lynch movie and was unaccustomed to suffocatingly dark levels of misanthropy. It's a murder mystery, but surreally weird and vicious, with enough sadomasochism, bullying, and ritualistic rape to make you stop caring about who killed whom for whatever reason. People continue debating whether or not Isabella Rossellini's character is really raped, since she loves being treated violently. I think it has to be rape, because the Dennis Hopper character is able to obtain sex from her only through extortion (having kidnapped her son). The fact that she largely gets off on being brutalized after the fact doesn't negate this starting point. Blue Velvet is one of the most brilliant cinematic achievements of all time -- rated the fourth best movie of the last three decades by Entertainment Weekly -- and likewise remains one of the most disturbing.

(9) Irreversible. 2002. Critical approval: 56%. Disturb level: 87/100. A French film about a woman who leaves a party, walks into a subway tunnel, is raped for an excruciatingly long time and beaten within an inch of her life. Her boyfriend then goes on a mad hunt for the rapist, finds him in a night club and pounds his face in with a fire extinguisher... though it turns out he got the wrong guy. This story is played in reverse, like Christopher Nolan's Memento, meaning we start assaulted by a chaotic sequence of revenge (but not knowing it's an act of revenge, or who the bad guy really is), moving back to a merciless nine-minute rape scene, and finally to the "happy ending", which is really a happy beginning. The backward structure results in a "fundamentally different film" (Roger Ebert), because instead of ending with pornographic payoff and revenge, the reverse chronology forces us to think seriously about how we feel during scenes of unbearable violence.

(10) A Clockwork Orange. 1971. Critical approval: 91%. Disturb level: 85/100. Kubrick's classic is a commentary on crime, violence, punishment, and redemption, but also on the way state authority crushes the human spirit. The famous sequences involve juvenile delinquents who systematically beat the poor and homeless, invade houses of the rich to commit rape and murder, and "singing in the rain" through it all. Kubrick, as always, was ahead of his time in daring to go where cinema hadn't before. To be honest, I've always found the scenes of aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals to be twice as disturbing as the criminal behavior itself. The attacks of sickness and erosion of free will make capital punishment look humane.

For other "most disturbing" lists, see Greencine parts one and two (a top-25), IGN (a top-15), Infobarrel (a top-12), and Alternative Reel (a top-10). I should note that there are films on these lists which would have made my own top-10 if not for the fact that they're completely devoid of artistic merit (I Spit on Your Grave, the original The Last House on the Left, etc.).

UPDATE: In response to Stephen Carlson's comment about Seven, see Disturbing Thrillers.

Scratch My Back

Peter Gabriel's first studio album in eight years, Scratch My Back, is the first half of a joint effort in which the most talented rock musician of the last three decades reinterprets songs of his favorite bands. In exchange, these artists -- David Bowie, Paul Simon, Elbow, Bon Iver, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, Arcade Fire, The Magnetic Fields, Randy Newman, Regina Spektor, and Radiohead -- will be returning the favor. On a forthcoming album called I'll Scratch Yours, they'll perform some of Gabriel's songs.

The JamsBio reviewer's reaction to Scratch My Back is the same as mine:

"Rather than putting his typical percussion-heavy, rhythmically inventive spin on these songs, Gabriel performs them here backed by just an orchestra. No percussions, no guitars. The old maxim says that a song can only be considered great even if it sounds great when performed with just acoustic guitar or piano. But Gabriel goes for the counterintuitive approach here; he's out to show the beauty of these songs by removing them from their familiar settings and pumping up the majesty. When this approach works, and it does more often than not, it's revelatory...

"When his voice soars from humble murmur to impassioned bellow, as it seemingly does at one point on every song, it brings chills every time. While I wouldn't dare to say that Gabriel improved on any of these songs, I feel like he definitely brings some new perspective to them, which, considering their quality and popularity in their original versions, is quite the achievement. It also makes me wonder if these artists so diverse and talented can rise to the occasion when they cover Gabriel's music in an upcoming release."

The special edition of the album is available on iTunes, so don't wait any longer to buy it!

Get Thee Behind Me, Subjective Genitive

"The argument for the subjective genitive reading is so weak as to qualify as one of the 'emperor has no clothes' variety." (Philip Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans, p 157)

"[Advocates of the subjective genitive] are bringing out something that is potential within Pauline thought, but that Paul himself did not develop." (Stephen Finlan, The Apostle Paul and the Pauline Tradition, p 113)

"The subjective genitive reading is like it sounds: subjective, speculative, and self-indulgently faddish. The objective genitive reading is also like it sounds: objective, plausible, and nicely in touch with the historical Paul." (Loren Rosson, The Busybody)

If Hell exists, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a special bolgia reserved for advocates of the subjective genitive reading of pistis Christou (Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16, 20; Gal 3:22; Philip 3:9). Over a year ago I explained why "faith in Christ" is the better translation, and why "the faith(fulness) of Christ" is a house of cards, but this demon won't be exorcised so easily. It's time to revisit, taking Stephen Carlson's bait, with a five-point summary against the exegetical fad.

(1.) Let's look at the crucial text of Rom 3:21-26. It sits between two sections that contrast human activity. The former (1:18-3:20) is about human sin, human works. The latter (3:27-31) contrasts human faith over against all of this boasting and works. The middle section of 3:21-26 thus tells people what to believe in order to achieve this faith. Likewise, a believer's faith (not Christ's) is the focus of Romans 4. Abraham's trust is emphasized, and believers are to follow the example of his faith (Rom 4:12), not Christ's. Abraham believed the initial promise, and believers may now believe in the content of that promise (Christ). The stress of Rom 4, as Stephen Finlan has argued, is on believing the promise. To share the faith of Abraham (Rom 4:16) is to believe in Christ (the promise).

* Richard Hays (the pioneer of the subjective genitive reading) thinks it is puzzling to say that God's justice would be revealed through human believing. To him, God's righteousness could only have been shown forth by an act of God -- the death of Jesus -- and so Paul is contrasting the faithful Jesus with the rebellious humans of Rom 1:18-3:20; "God put forward as a sacrifice the one perfectly faithful human being." But it isn't puzzling at all to say that God's righteousness is revealed through human belief as a natural response to grace (Rom 3:24), and thus that "God put forward Jesus as a sacrifice effective through faith". Hays' objection is a non-argument, as far as I'm concerned.

(2.) Ironically, advocates of the subjective genitive need to rely heavily on the transformation doctrine of Rom 5-8, where Paul speaks of copying or imitating the savior -- dying with Christ, dying to sin, etc. But it is precisely in this section where Paul does not mention "faith" (aside briefly in 5:1), let alone pistis Christou! He never contrasts Christ's faith with any disbelief of Adam's ("something that would be crying out to be said, if the 'faith of Christ' were the focus of salvation", notes Stephen Finlan), only Christ's obedience vs. Adam's disobedience. Rom 3:21-4:25 and Rom 9:30-10:21 are about faith: what people must do in order to be saved. Rom 5-8 is about mystical union with the savior: what people do naturally as a result of being called. (In Galatians the categories mesh briefly (2:19-21).)

* Douglas Campbell argues that the faith claims of Rom 3-4 & Rom 9-10 should be read through the participationist language of Rom 5-8, which is the heart of Paul's gospel. While I agree that Rom 5-8 is most important for the retrospective angle, it doesn't follow that its entire content can be aggressively imposed on the justification language implied by the term pistis Christou in Rom 3, or even by the more general faith-claims made throughout Rom 3-4 and Rom 9-10. (And it certainly doesn't follow that Rom 2-4 can be drastically rewritten to square with the same thrust of Rom 5-8.) As Stephen Finlan notes (see the citation at the top of this posting), advocates of the subjective genitive are bringing out a potential of Pauline thought, but it's something Paul never developed. Put simply: that Paul's participationist language is compatible with a subjective genitive reading of pistis Christou doesn't make that reading of pistis Christou correct.

(3.) For that reading is plainly wrong. If the subjective genitive were really what Paul had in mind when speaking directly about faith, we would expect him to have used (at least once, surely) Christ as the subject of the verb "believe"/"have faith", but as Thomas Tobin points out (Paul's Rhetoric in its Contexts, p 132), that never happens in the 42 places the verb is found in his letters. On the other hand, Paul used Christ as the object of the verb in clear cases (Rom 9:33, 10:11). And if exegetes then desperately insist that the verb should be translated one way ("believe"/"trust"), the noun another ("faithfulness"), then they will have to contend with Francis Watson's demolition of that distinction (Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective, pp 241-244), based on the evidence of Paul's scriptural interpretations in Rom 4:1-12 and 9:30-10:21 -- where noun and verb are seen to be interchangeable; "believing" and the response of "faith" one and the same. This point alone shows how flimsy the subjective genitive reading is.

(4.) There is the glaring and embarrassing fact that later church fathers never read Paul in terms of the subjective genitive. Michael Whitenton thinks he has demonstrated otherwise, and we'll have to await his article to see what he makes of this business. But for now, this fact stands as a serious strike against the subjective genitive reading. [Edit: See comments below. I misunderstood Michael's thesis. He's talking about the earlier apostolic fathers (and not how they read Paul per se) rather than later church fathers (who did in fact read Paul with the objective genitive). So this point will remain standing in any case.]

(5.) Finally, a more oblique point. When confronted with faddish readings of the bible, we must always ask what agendas are being served. Here are a few (with thanks to Stephen Carlson for the third). (a) Hyper-Protestant phobias: if "faithfulness" (or "fidelity") is the natural response to an elective call made by God, then the subjective genitive reading allows one to put to bed the fear that "faith" is a work. (b) Proto-Arianism: if Christ is more a role-model (whose faith(fulness) is to be followed) than a deity (to have faith in), then the subjective genitive reading allows one to think of Jesus as a buddy/brother more than the proto-trinitarian Father Paul truly believed in. (c) New frontiers, new paradigms: it could just be that some (especially Duke scholars, in this case) are in love with new paradigms which allow them to read Paul completely on their own terms outside the confines of Reformationist categories; but like it or not -- and the same can be said against the New Perspective -- Luther was not wholly in error. Largely in error, yes, but not entirely.

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels of All Time

I've been meaning to set this straight for a few weeks now. On Facebook Stephen Carlson posted Alex Carnevale's rating of The 100 Greatest Science Fiction or Fantasy Novels of All Time. On whole it's not a shabby list, though the omission of Stephen R. Donaldson is absurdly criminal (I'm sure Jim Davila would agree). Too much space is given to certain authors, most notably Jack Vance, and Tolkien and Herbert come in way too low. So here's my own top-10 list, which serves as a corrective to some of Carnevale's ratings.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. (#13 on Carnevale's list.) I could go on about Tolkien's meticulous crafting of Middle Earth, his mythic approach which left little room for allegory, his linguistic brilliance, and his ability to filter simple themes (courage, friendship, and passing on) through all of this to result in the greatest story ever told. Contrary to popular opinion, he didn't supply a happy ending. As a Catholic he saw the history of Middle-Earth as a "long defeat" (containing glimpses of final victory but never more), which is why Frodo had to be a failure, ultimately unable to resist the Ring. The quest to Mount Doom was hopeless from the start, and the cause, rather than the hero, was triumphant only because of the unexpected intervention of fate made possible by the mercy shown Gollum. The tragic ending to The Lord of the Rings has been tragically lost on too many of Tolkien's imitators.

2. Dune, Frank Herbert. (#11 on Carnevale's list.) The first book only. The five sequels are good but don't live up to the original. Themes of messiahship and charismatic movements are addressed in a remarkably well-developed story set in the far future on a desert planet, where water is precious as gold, and sandworms the size of skyscrapers. Herbert intended his story to make a statement about the "messianic convulsions that overtake us" and inevitably fail, the depths of their failure being directly related to how successful they are initially. "Heroes are painful, he declared, "superheroes [messiahs] a catastrophe. The mistakes of superheroes involve too many of us in disaster." On top of that is the narrative power. The book is simply impossible to put down.

3. A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin. (#19 on Carnevale's list.) A projected seven-volume series, with three yet to come, but showing every sign of being able to deliver the goods. More like historical fantasy (think James Clavell crossed with Guy Gavriel Kay), gritty, completely unpredictable, with the good guys losing (and dying) more often than the bad -- though of course the good guys aren't terribly "good" to begin with. You find yourself cheering for characters you never expected to, and hating those you thought you liked. There's little sorcery in this epic, and because magic is so rare, it's all the more interesting, powerful, and precious. Martin understands people like few authors I've read (he writes brilliantly from the perspective of women and children as much as men), and it's rare to see such gritty realism portrayed in works of fantasy.

4. The Gap Cycle, Stephen R. Donaldson. (Nowhere on Carnevale's list.) This five-volume epic, structured on Wagner's Ring, will blow your mind. Set in a future where the administrators of intergalactic mining companies are effectively gods of the universe, a woman who is raped and abused horribly attempts to bring them all down. You won't like this series if you can't tolerate thoroughly despicable characters (the worldview is suffocatingly misanthropic); Donaldson delights in putting his protagonists through physical and emotional hell. I've never read a work of fiction with a plot and counterplots so convoluted that you need to keep notes trying to figure out who is doing what to whom and for what reason, but it makes for exciting reading -- the most exciting work of fiction I've read after Shogun. The narrative crescendo escalates until your nerves are shrieking. It's that good.

5. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Stephen R. Donaldson. (Nowhere, shamefully, on Carnevale's list.) All ten books. The last one is yet to be published, but I'm supremely confident it will live up to the standards of the other nine. That this series didn't come in anywhere on Carnevale's top-100 list (let alone the top 10!) is incredible, and pretty much disqualifies the list. One is hard pressed to name a fantasy series with the same level of originality and philosophical depth. The underlying interplay throughout the chronicles is between that of innocence and guilt. The former, while good, is completely useless; guilt is power. Only the damned can be saved and thus effective for the salvation of others. Thomas Covenant is the best anti-hero of all time -- leper, outcast, unclean, unbeliever, rapist -- I mean, really, how often is someone like that the source of redemption in a work of fantasy?

6. The Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmmons. (#33 on Carnevale's list.) Influenced by the narrative structure of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the poetry of John Keats, and the theology of Teilhard de Chardin, this four-volume space opera centers on a time-traveling creature known as the Shrike. The first two books deal with a space-invasion Armageddon and collapse of the Hegemony of Man. By the time of the second two books, the Roman Catholic Church has assumed control of the galaxy's government, declaring crusades on aliens, reaching out to its subjects with the hideous arm of the Inquisition. Simmons is one of the most versatile writers in existence and comes up with jolting ideas. The Merlin sickness is one of the most horrifying I've ever had to ponder: an anti-entropic aging disease causing a woman in her twenties to age backwards one day at the start of each day. Her emotionally pulverized father is forced to watch her regress into a baby as she keeps losing the memory of her lost days and needs everything explained to her every morning. Yikes. I'll never touch a Shrike.

7. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Fritz Leiber. (Nowhere on Carnevale's list.) This six-volume collection of short stories (the fifth is actually a complete novel) is a terribly underrated gem, in fact seldom mentioned anymore. Leiber's heroes are two rogues, a barbarian and thief, who live in a world so decadent that corruption is the norm and you easily get drawn into the amorality. The notorious city of Lankhmar is the world's microcosm, and it's like going on vacation to an ancient city dominated by thieves and cutthroats, with sorcery cropping up in unexpected places. Fafhrd and Gray Mouser are an awesome pair -- corrupt as everyone else, but at least humane at heart -- and I relish these books when I want a ride of roguish adventure.

8. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe. (#8 also on Carnevale's list.) A literary masterpiece set in the distant past or far future (it's never clear which). The four books chronicle a man's ascent to power, narrated in his unreliable voice. He starts apprenticed to a torturer's guild and experiences a revelation which causes him to question authority -- of the guild and society beyond it. Excommunicated out into the world, he eventually rises to become autarch of the planet. That his hindsight account of events isn't always trustworthy infuriates some readers, but it's the strength of the story. Those of us who study the apostle Paul know all about the reality (and dangers) of hindsight perspectives! Curiously, Carnevale rated the sequel series, The Book of the Long Sun, at #1, but while I agree it's very good, it doesn't come close to matching the strength of the first series.

9. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay. (#5 on Carnevale's list.) Kay is a lyricist who knows how to pluck the right cords in every sentence. Situated on a peninsula reminiscent of medieval Italy, the story tells of a land overrun by two rival sorcerers, each claiming four of nine provinces with one remaining neutral. This last province has been horribly cursed in a way that resonates with the plight of many countries in our own world. The author describes this novel as a story about memory: "the necessity of it, in cultural terms, and the dangers that come when it is too intense". It depicts a resistance group who are determined to overthrow not only the sorcerer who ravaged their province, but the other sorcerer too. It's more complex than most revenge/revolution stories, and the lines between good and bad guys are constantly blurred. I actually wept a couple of times reading this book.

10. The Earthsea Trilogy, Ursula K. Le Guin. (#51 on Carnevale's list.) For kids or teen literature, I go with Earthsea over The Hobbit. I read this trilogy many times as a kid; it manages to say so much in so few pages. The first two books are coming of age stories, the first taking place in an all-male school for wizards, the second in an all-female temple complex. The third is about the necessity of death as the outworking of life. Taoist influences are evident: the power of naming, the ability to overcome pride, and plenty of yin-and-yang trade-offs. As a kid I adored the world of Earthsea and would pretend to sail between the archipelago of islands on various quests.

Biblical Studies Carnival LI

The fifty-first Biblical Studies Carnival is up on G. Brooke Lester's Anumma.