Rev. Danny Fisher

Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings
September 23, 2008

The Wheel of Dharma

Our friend and fellow Buddhist chaplain Lawrence Grecco has a wonderful new Buddhist blog called The Wheel of Dharma–check it out immediately if not sooner.

September 23, 2008

Buddhism and Film 3-D

As I frequently mention here, one my research interests is religion and film–more specifically, Buddhism and film. I’ve contributed four big posts in the past that have a lot to do with both:

  • Buddhism and Film
  • Buddhism and Film 2: Electric Boogaloo
  • My Top Five Movies About Buddhism (Tax Day 2008 Edition)
  • INTERVIEW: James ZitoI’m interested in films about Buddhism (like Little Buddha or Zen Noir), Buddhist themes in films (like those apparent in The Matrix or Groundhog Day), distinctly Buddhist approaches to filmmaking (like John Daido Loori Roshi’s to his film Mountains and Rivers), the usefulness of films in Dharma teaching (as we can see in books like The Dharma of Star Wars), and other issues. I’m most interested, though, in contributing to the development of a sort of Buddhist film theory à la feminist film theory or Marxist film theory. I think the tidbits I have to share in this post will be useful to that end.


    The Washington Post profiled Oscar and Emmy Award-winning writer/producer/director Alan Ball (American Beauty, “Six Feet Under”) this week about his new film Towelhead (the controversy around which I was marginally involved) and his new television series “True Blood”, both of which are premiering at the same time. In the piece, Ball talks about his interest in Buddhism:
      Producing interests him more now than writing or directing, he admits, and he fantasizes about the time that would give him to explore his own life…

      “I have everything I want, and that’s kind of weird,” he allows. He thinks he and his partner might like to travel — Australia and New Zealand sound intriguing — “and I’d love to go to the Himalayas. I’m very drawn to Buddhism and would love to have more time to meditate.”

    Ball’s acclaimed HBO series “Six Feet Under” was filled to the brim with Buddhist-relevant topics, asides, and images–so much so that Tricycle: The Buddhist Review was compelled to interview him in the midst of its success. (One episode even featured scenes with two characters discussing Thich Nhat Hanh’s book No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life.) We wish him luck in his personal exploration, and look forward to more work from him that might be relevant to discuss in posts like this.


    As the Coen Brothers’ new film Burn After Reading arrives in theaters, the New York Times‘ A.O. Scott makes their 1994 comedy The Hudsucker Proxy his “pick of the week”. He notes the film’s “mystical” qualities, and highlights a scene in which title pawn Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) talks about karma. There’s also the film’s frequent use of circles and the cyclical nature of events in the film… Maybe we should add The Hudsucker Proxy to the unofficial canon of Buddhist-themed films?

    Watch Scott talk about the film here.


    I’ve blogged before about Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, the Bhutanese tulku (reincarnate lama) who authored What Makes You Not a Buddhist and directed the films The Cup and Travellers and Magicians. It seems like you can’t read any article about Rinpoche (like this one) without hearing that one of his favorite films is Oliver Stone’s controversial 1994 satire Natural Born Killers. (He even recommended it in an old issue of Premiere Magazine, along with the likes of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Sam Mendes’ American Beauty.) I suspect it gets mentioned in a lot of write-ups because it seems an unusual pick for a Buddhist monk: based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, Stone’s film chronicles the bloody murder spree of thrill-kill couple Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis) and the media’s obsession with the pair. The shocking images of sex, drug use, and (of course) violence in the film, as well as the real-life copycat killings it “inspired,” have kept the film high on many lists of “the most controversial films of all-time.”

    I saw the film years ago when it first came out on video. I didn’t really care for it. It seemed to me that Stone (who self-identifies as a Buddhist) ran out of ideas after about twenty minutes. When I later heard that Rinpoche was a fan, I made a mental note to try it again sometime. Well, I had that opportunity recently and took it. I liked it better, I think, but it definitely does flag at times, and it’s pretty much out of gas by the end. This time, though, I was really watching it looking for something Dharmic. Here’s what I came up with:

  • It’s a pretty scathing indictment of the television industry’s decided lack of compassion. As Roger Ebert puts it, the film is really about how “crime and show-biz have become unholy partners.” Stone seems to be taking us to task for allowing television to blunt our compassion–whether by titillating us with stories of violence or by sanctioning hurtful words and actions with a laugh-track.
  • I’ve said elsewhere that I think crime films are great for talking about karma, and this one is certainly no exception. Among other things, Stone seems to be looking for reasons why serial killers come into being. Mickey and Mallory’s childhoods of abuse, their desensitization through television, and sometimes drugs seem to be causes and conditions. While he’s not so naive to ignore certain other factors, like insanity (the film is called Natural Born Killers after all), he presents us with two protagonists who didn’t come from nowhere to do evil.
  • Part of Rinpoche’s recommending the film might have to do with chipping away at our dualistic thinking. As “good Buddhists,” we might think, “I only want to watch these spiritually rewarding films, and not these bad, violent films.” It’s possible he’s asking us to expand our awareness, and look for the seeds of awakening even in the places where we don’t think we’ll find them.But those are my thoughts. What do you think? Does Natural Born Killers speak to us as Buddhists?