Spiritual Cinema
"Movies containing spiritual, metaphysical, conscious or similar messages or themes".
Simon Keyes explains the idea behind Spiritual Cinema.
It is the extraordinary power of cinema, high or low, serious and exploitative, to move and disturb us that we should celebrate and embrace in all its diversity. Films can fertilise our inner lives and provide a counter-balance to that compartmentalisation of our "religious" selves that Thomas Merton dubbed our "personal holiness project". The feelings and shadows that films (well, perhaps not quite every movie) incarnate in us give us privileged access to the world beyond our immediate experience. The sights and sounds of cinema can resonate in the realms of the unconscious and the archetypal like no other medium, and there is much for us to learn about ourselves in this experience.
Below is a list of "the best of" this genre...
The Sound of Music ( Blu-ray ) (1965)
8/10
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Julie Andrews
The hills are alive with the sound of the Von Trapp family in this beloved Rodgers-Hammerstein epic musical. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer lea... Read more
Gertrud (1964)
7.5/10
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Starring: Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe
Acclaimed director Carl Dreyer's ('The Passion of Joan of Arc') final film, 'Gertrud' is the story of a woman's search for a romantic ideal of total a... Read more
The Gospel According To St. Matthew (1964)
7.9/10
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Starring: Enrique Irazoqui, Susanna Pasolini, Mario Socrate
A totally original Italian version of the story of Christ, using only the words and scenes described by St Matthew. Director Pasolini, an avowed marxi... Read more
Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb ( Blu-ray ) (1963)
8.4/10
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: George C Scott, James Earl Jones, Keenan Wynn, Peter Bull, Peter Sellers, Slim P...
A commie-hating, paranoid American general launches a flight of B-52 bombers at the Soviet Union with nuclear annihilation in mind. Since he is the on... Read more
Essential Bergman: The Faith Trilogy - Through A Glass Darkly / Winter Light / The Silence (1963)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Gunnel Lindblom, Ingrid Thulin, Max von S...
This 3 disc box set contains three of Bergman's signature dramas, exploring themes of alienation and faith. In 'Through a Glass Darkly', he confronts... Read more
Winter Light (1963)
8.1/10
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Ingrid Thulin, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand
This chilling and powerful story of despair is the second of Bergman's trilogy (the others two being "The Silence" and "Through a Glass Darkly") and f... Read more
Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963)
8.4/10
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: George C Scott, James Earl Jones, Keenan Wynn, Peter Bull, Peter Sellers, Slim P...
A commie-hating, paranoid American general launches a flight of B-52 bombers at the Soviet Union with nuclear annihilation in mind. Since he is the on... Read more
To Kill a Mockingbird ( Blu-ray ) (1962)
8.3/10
Director: Robert Mulligan
Starring: Brock Peters, Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Paul Fix, Phillip Alford, Robert Duvall...
Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, the defence lawyer of a black man accused of rape in the American South. Scripted by Hor... Read more
The Miracle Worker (1962)
8.1/10
Director: Arthur Penn
Starring: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory
Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke won Oscars for their roles in Arthur Penn's version of Annie Sullivan and her pupil, Helen Keller. The dramatic force of... Read more
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
8.3/10
Director: Robert Mulligan
Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Brock Peters, Phillip Alford, Robert Duvall
Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, the defence lawyer of a black man accused of rape in the American South. Scripted by Hor... Read more