Dragon posts
The Human Value of the Divine
This week, the Jesuit magazine America published a short article that I wrote about the fascination that Catholic saints hold for non-believing artists. Naturally, it is inspired by my experience working with the director-screenwriter of There Be Dragons, Roland Joffé, who has called himself a “wobbly agnostic.” You can read the article here: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/culture.cfm?cultureid=206 Read More
Dangerous Sacraments
You don’t usually think of sacraments as dangerous and daring things, but, after watching There Be Dragons, they may look a little different. Sacraments appear in four different scenes. Three involve the Eucharist, and one involves Confession. So much sacramentality is probably already unusual for a mainstream movie. What’s more, none of the scenes occurs where you’d expect to find sacraments: none of them occurs in a church (well, one does begin in a church). But... READ MORE
Is Jesus Christ Really the Protagonist of There Be Dragons?
“The film’s protagonist is Christ.” That’s what the agnostic screenwriter-director Roland Joffé declared in an interview in March, when he was in Spain for the Madrid premiere of There Be Dragons. He was asked which of the movie’s characters – presumably Manolo or Josemaría – was the film’s true protagonist. But his answer was a shocker – even to himself: “This answer surprises me as I make it because, in many respects, he is present in every moment of... READ MORE
News Alert: Dragons Can Change Lives
When you step inside a movie theater, you never know what’s going to happen… there in the dark, for an hour or two. A movie is a powerful thing, and this one, There Be Dragons, has already demonstrated the power to change the lives not only of viewers but also of actors. One of the stars,Wes Bentley (Manolo in the film), who struggled with addiction after his huge success in American Beauty, has spoken publicly about how he got sober while working on the There Be Dragons (see... READ MORE