30: Anti-Depressive Movies/Passing
GARETH HIGGINS ON Anti-Depressive Movies
The BBC reported this week that “an increasing number of people are turning away from the news because it lowers their mood”. As someone who cares about the stories we tell, and being informed about the world, not to mention a sometime journalist who actually used to work for the BBC, I greet this Reuters research report as mixed news. It’s obviously important to have a sane relationship with reality, and that requires being well-informed; but people who work in the news media have to deal with the tension that the economic values driving the news agenda (and the psychological impulses that drive audiences to pay attention) do not align with the kind of storytelling that offers a proportionate vision of the suffering and goodness in the world, never mind the kind of wisdom that could be authentically called sovereign. The kind that, to paraphrase the rabbi and leadership teacher Edwin Friedman, induces the conditions whereby the audience will become mature enough to face the world with courage and creativity, and to offer healing as part of our ordinary ways of being.
What Soul Telegram can specifically offer here is the invitation to cinema as an icon through which we can see ourselves and the world more clearly, be provoked to understand more of what we’re here for (to begin with: to embody the image of love, to participate uniquely and meaningfully in the circle of gift that serves the common good of humanity and the wider ecosystem, and to let go of unnecessary control…). So here are some of my favorite movies that I believe seek to tell the truth, enlarge our understanding of the world, and won’t leave us feeling disempowered or depressed, despite the fact that they sometimes deal with challenging and painful subjects.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Soul Telegram: Movies & Meaning to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.