Purifying the Imagination to Render It Capable of Perceiving Beauty
An excerpt from an interview with Leslie Fain and Dr. Onalee McGraw.
The Educational Guidance Institute (EGI), founded and directed by Dr. Onalee McGraw, uses classic film to teach universal truths to today’s youth. EGI’s study guides have been used in public, charter, Catholic, and religious school classrooms; after-school programs; special events in detention homes and alternative schools; pilot programs for college students and young adult groups; homeschools and homeschool co-ops; and parent-teen events in communities and churches.
Leading with beauty—and classics from Hollywood’s Golden Age
Dr. Onalee McGraw: What makes studying classic films in group settings so effective is the timeless power of the story to move the heart through the imagination. The depth of the emotional response can vary based upon each person’s personality and life experience, but most viewers cannot help coming away with a better understanding of who they are and their place in the mysterious universe we share. The tragic loss of community, solidarity, and identity can be confronted with films that invite the viewer on a journey of the moral imagination. For example, our study guide for It’s a Wonderful Life provides a comparison of Bedford Falls and Pottersville. The students discuss the elements of community that they see present in Bedford Falls and absent in Pottersville. With seven films in [the study guide] “The Feminine Soul,” mothers and daughters can gather together to explore the timeless features of womanhood. We see female characters as whole persons, such as Olivia de Havilland recovering from mental illness in The Snake Pit and Grace Kelly making choices about the men in her life in The Country Girl. With our study guide “Men of the West,” the masculine genius is on full display in movies such as Shane and The Magnificent Seven. The beauty of authentic love can be explored in “Men and Women in Love: The View from Classic Hollywood.” Watching and discussing these classic films, the viewers—regardless of experience and cultural background—will encounter intangible meaning and truth in the concrete images and dialogue they see and hear.
CWR: The films featured in your study guides were created when the Motion Picture Production Code was in use. Tell us why the Production Code came about, what it was, and why you believe it was a force for good.
McGraw: The Motion Picture Production Code was accepted by the Hollywood studios in 1930. It was developed by Father Daniel Lord with a strong philosophical tone and approach. The movies had turned to sound, and the whole question of vivid presentation—not only of images, but of dialogue—was a growing concern. The moral nature of the times was such that state and local censorship boards across the country with a broad range of opinions would object and even ban films the studios had already spent money to produce. This state of affairs continued after 1930 when the Code had been adopted. The studio people knew that something was needed to enforce the Code or federal censorship was almost certain.
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The pursuit or appreciation of beauty—authentic beauty, that is—requires the imagination to be purified and informed (e.g., by meritorious works, i.e., art) in order to accurately perceive beauty. Some colleges commit to this enterprise with zeal, and they are all the more Catholic for it! Typically, those Catholic colleges offer 'great books' programs, i.e., programs which use primary sources (i.e., works of art) as the texts of a course. Instead of looking at photographs (texts full of excerpts and snapshots) of majestic mountains, magnificent rivers and such, students place their feet on the ground, mingle with the outdoors, breathe the air and savour the buffet of scents surfing the breeze, and allow themselves to "waste time" with the elements. Similarly, great books (movies, etc.) programs invite the student to encounter the artwork and the inspiration behind works of art, as much as worshippers should know the Liturgy and move beyond caricatures (ideological distortions) of the Liturgy.
To accurately perceive beauty, then, the viewer requires something of a scaffold, a trellis or guide upon which the mind moves along to find beauty and its source. That trellis is a creed, a compendium of realities that put to us Reality. With practice, we become oriented to reality, to beauty—and truth and goodness. Without such a compass, we substitute idols for icons.
The Catholic Church alone provides the means by which we may enter into communion with Beauty, Truth and Goodness. Which is to say, the Church proposes the Way, the Truth and the Life—Jesus Christ. Truth, then, is a person. One can have a relationship with a person. What sets Christianity apart from all other religions is that, more than mere ideas, 'That' which we seek is a 'Who', not merely a 'what'. No other teacher did nor could legitimately say, 'Follow me, for I am the Way, the Truth and the Life'. Only Jesus could say that; His words and His miraculous works provide a rational basis for accepting that He is Who He says He is. And Who is He? He is the Word of God.
Ask for the grace to meet Jesus.
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