#antebellumfilmschool: Ep.9 - Sound of Freedom
Now there's a timeline involved in how we got to where we are in terms of what is the faith based film. What kind of film is sound of freedom? Because I was talking to my wife the other day and I said that sound of freedom is a straight up faith based film, but it kind of isn't. It's a unique production with how it goes about its subject matter
I like how you've already stated that this movie is shit. Yes. The movie that you're talking about, sounding freedom. I haven't seen it. I've seen the trailers for it. I'm going to watch it eventually, but. Yeah, I didn't need you to tell me that it was a shitty movie. I could tell that by just by watching it
And they're giving opportunities to filmmakers left and right, and christian filmmakers, religious filmmakers, I'm sure eventually even like mormon muslim filmmakers, whatever story you want to tell, Angel Studios is eventually going to tell it. And they're making stuff that has sound of freedom money. Can you even believe it? Sound of freedom money. I don't know if you guys realize how much money sound of freedom costs to make. It cost a lot of money. A lot of money
All right, I'm now eight minutes in. Did you go to film school? Do you have a film degree, sir? Because your knowledge is impressive. Yeah, it's incredible how knowledgeable you are. Film history. Holy crap. Yeah. Will you be my best friend? Holy crap. You know a lot about movies. Wow. I'm excited to listen to your holy crap. You know a lot. Wow. Okay
There was a certain quality of humanness about those movies that doesn't exist anymore. It's more the superficial, the flashy, the special effects or special ways of doing movies these days. However, one wants to fill that in, right, without there being real human aspects of the storyline, which makes it hollow. And it almost sounds like to some degree that this movie was like that as well
And that ties directly into why these christian films, not just in particular sound of freedom. It's on that list, but why so many modern christian films tend to exist in a very weird paradigm where you see them essentially, basically existing in the same dynamic of spectacle that the films from 50, 60, 70 years ago were. When I brought up the ten Commandments, the greatest story ever told been heard, things like that
He was an executive producer for Kevin Smith for many years. He made a version of the Grinch with Benedict Cumberbatch, a CGI version that my wife and my children love and is their favorite version of the Grinch. Despite the Grinch. It's the Grinch. Like, there's only one Grinch for me. But that movie is incredible. So I think right now we're in a sweet spot. A lot of the people that have been working and artists know the money is easier to come by now
But at the end of the day, and you, as a former christian or someone of the church or someone of the faith, you understand it. You understand that there are dark things about religion and the church and how they treat people and how I talk about it on Swokast before I come from a background where I was threatened with hell on a daily basis. My grandmother is still alive. She called me the other day because I told her that I wanted to be a christian minister
So as we create movies and tv being this sort of mirror or reflection of who we are, individually and collectively, but then also shaping who we are, and then you introduce the christian persecution complex and what was a verse and stories talking about persecution of a different kind now being perceived as any sort of criticism or observation, being seen as a criticism or an attack. And then there's little room for reflection, repentance, or change of direction or anything like that
And because he has platforms, with great power comes great responsibility, whether we're talking as an author who writes books or whether you have a literal stage or a social media stages, right, your words are being broadcast around the planet to people of all backgrounds, of all ages
We can talk further if you'd like, about Peterson and or phrases like the fold or falling away. I have strong opinions about these things, but I don't want to clutter up JP's thread here. So if you have any desire to talk about some of those things, we can do it elsewhere. But I don't want to muddy up JP's thread
But I think they are very light compared to most of the time when Hollywood makes a movie based on a true story, there's probably a good 50% that's like, well, this is how we wish it would have happened, or this is something cool that we decided to throw in there. But in general, sound of freedom, I'll agree that it's a lower budget movie
So I think the biggest negative over the whole thing was the backlash from Hollywood because of sound of freedom. They backlashed really hard. And this was mostly before they'd seen the movie. I don't even know if they'd reviewed the movie
Lots of Hollywood films, independent films, essentially, pretty much various forms of media go out of its way to address itself, is based on a true story to really get eyes on the product. That's not the problem
They were quickly produced and they were easy to kind of just create. They didn't require a lot of assistance. That usually was super inclusive and featured several black talents. The issue was that it was a lot of secondary scripts, a lot of closed minded perspectives, and a lot of racism. And unfortunately, that was from white production companies that were tone deaf because they only saw money. So in this current era where we're seeing now the diversity acts, I 100% agree
And that's why a movie like sound of freedom is so dull and it's so propaganda based, because it takes itself so serious in what it speaks about. You can just tell it's a film of absolute truths. When I brought up a movie called you were never really here with Joaquin Phoenix. It's directed by Lynn Ramsey. It's one of my favorite films of all time. It covers this same topic, and I talked a little bit about it in the podcast
And I don't think a lot of people really understand how complicated that is, because when you make a movie like sound of freedom, in many ways it is inherently bigoted. And that sounds like a liberal stretch, but it really isn't due to the fact the way Christianity was used to mold this country
I don't know why, but it blows my mind how long ago that first christian movie was. Obviously, I don't have the breadth and depth of movies the way that you do. And I'm curious if that first one was about educating and the newer ones are also about educating. The ones that are similar to the matrix, let's say. Would you say that those were, are they in a different arena altogether or were they more along the lines of a friend has this idea
It's a genre that exists within a certain type of rulebooks that a story has to be told in order to be considered a christian film. Because we see a lot of ideology in it. We see a lot of pandering. We see a lot of criticisms of alternative lifestyles like what would be considered an alternative lifestyle in the eyesight of Christianity in a movie would be the muslim faith or would be an atheist. Like, these things tend to be either directly or passively villainized
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
We had things like three ninjas and all those really bad Disney movies that just took off because kids love that shit. But, yeah, three ninjas, all that stuff. This is just another version of that. And Sharkboy and Lava Girl
