Category: Film

Favorite Films of 2025, Part 2

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Read part 1 here.

Favorite Films of 2025

11. The Ballad of Wallis Island, dir. James Griffiths. The award goes to Charles Heath (Tim Key) for being 2025’s most endearing onscreen character, and for eliciting the most laughs. Charles is a quirky, widowed lottery winner living on a remote island off the coast of Wales. As a superfan of McGwyer Mortimer, a folk duo who broke up over a decade ago, he hires the two musicians, Herb (Tom Basden) and Nell (Carey Mulligan), to reunite for the performance of a private concert at his home. Herb didn’t know Nell was coming, and her presence causes tension, as they used to be in a romantic relationship—from which Herb has never fully moved on—and now she’s married.

The Ballad of Wallis Island was written by the male costars, Key and Basden, longtime comedy collaborators, who based the script on a short film they released in 2007. It’s about growing apart in love and ambition; looking back with gratitude on what once was while also recognizing the inability to recover it, and embracing new possibilities.

Streaming on Prime Video.

12. The Plague, dir. Charlie Polinger. A psychodrama with elements of body horror, The Plague is set at a middle school boys’ water polo summer camp in 2003. Ben (Everett Blunck) is kind and timid but also eager to fit in, so he cautiously befriends cool guy Jake (Kayo Martin). Jake and the other boys bully the socially awkward Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), who has a severe rash that they call “the plague” and that they claim spreads through contact. Ben feels sympathy for Eli and surreptitiously reaches out to him, at the risk of his own ostracization. The film explores the brutal peer group dynamics that male adolescents must navigate, especially as they seek to conform to cultural definitions of masculinity and normalcy. The performances by the three main child actors are excellent.

13. Familiar Touch, dir. Sarah Friedland. When the film opens, we’re inside Ruth’s (Kathleen Chalfant) kitchen; a former professional cook, she’s fixing a gourmet lunch for a date with a younger man (H. Jon Benjamin). But it turns out that man is not a boyfriend but her son; and the luggage he has prepared for her is not for some romantic getaway but for her new home in the “Memory Lane” wing of an assisted living facility. Familiar Touch is a humane (nonmiserabilist) portrayal of living with dementia, granting priority to Ruth’s perspective as she adjusts to her new living situation, facing fears and disorientation but also finding moments of comfort, connection, and joy. Writer-director Sarah Friedland said she wanted to tell a coming-of-old-age story, a transition as dramatic, she says, as that from teen to adult.

Streaming on MUBI.

14. A Little Prayer, dir. Angus MacLachlan. As I started watching this film, I thought how similar it feels to Junebug, one of my favorite movies—then I realized it’s by the same writer, who here also steps into the director’s chair. Shot and set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where MacLachlan has spent his whole life, A Little Prayer is, as reviewer Brian Tellarico sums up on Letterboxd, “a gentle dramedy about a decent man realizing he hasn’t raised a decent son.”

David (Will Pullen) and his wife Tammy (Jane Levy) live with David’s parents, Bill (David Strathairn) and Venida (Celia Weston). When Bill discovers that David is being unfaithful in his marriage, he confronts him. He is protective of his daughter-in-law. Bill and Tammy’s relationship is the central one of the film and is beautifully portrayed—the genuine affection they have for one another; they’re “kindred spirits,” as Tammy says. Bill finds it easier to talk with Tammy than with his own two children. (His flaky daughter is a sometime tenant in the house, whenever she’s fighting with her cocaine-dealing romantic partner.)

I also really like, in Bill and Venida’s characters, the portrayal of a seasoned marriage, especially as relates to parenting adult children. They want their kids to be strong, kind, fulfilled, principled—but they are continually disappointed in these hopes. The film shows them trying to accept the freedom their kids have to make their own choices, even when what they choose is short-sighted, dangerous, or immoral.

15. Souleymane’s Story, dir. Boris Lojkine. Souleymane (Abou Sangaré) is a Guinean immigrant to Paris, working illegally as a food delivery cyclist while in the process of seeking asylum. Set over two days, this social realist drama is empathetic and unsentimental in its look at the precarity of living in Europe without documents and the stress of navigating government bureaucracies to attain them. Other than the asylum interviewer, all the actors in the film are nonprofessionals. The lead was an auto mechanic when the casting director found him and is himself a Guinean seeking permanent residency in France. The story Souleymane tells at the end of the film is Sangaré’s real story of why and how he came to Paris.

Streaming on Kanopy.

16. Sinners, dir. Ryan Coogler. A southern gothic horror blockbuster, this is the most talked-about movie on my list, and the most ambitious. It’s October 1932, and twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) have just returned to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, after having worked with Al Capone in Chicago. They are opening a juke joint to carve out a space of freedom for their Black community, and they arrange for their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), the blues-loving son of a disapproving preacher, to perform. But Sammie’s music—its ability to “pierce the veil between life and death, past and future”—attracts a group of white vampires led by the centuries-old Irishman Remmick (Jack O’Connell). He’s seeking converts to his community of “fellowship and love,” and when they don’t join willingly, he takes them by force.

Going in, I had assumed the film would be an allegory of the terror of white supremacy, but it is more layered than that, and I’m not sure I understand all the layers. It’s in one sense about how white people feed on Black culture in destructive ways. But Remmick is a complex villain, as he shares with the protagonists a history of being oppressed, and he seems to be motivated by his homesickness for Ireland; he mourns the loss of his culture and yearns to reconnect with his ancestors. If that’s Remmick’s objective, it’s unclear to me how his actions would achieve that. I’m also confused as to what Remmick is selling—a melting pot of world musics? a vast, cross-cultural ancestral community? harmonious coexistence?—but most interpret it as assimilation in the guise of “let’s all get along.” While the film’s treatment of racial and cultural identities, ancestral ties, and racism is complex, its treatment of religion is (sadly) simplistic, portraying Christianity only as a sinister colonizing force, a system that not only does not contain the resources for liberation but that is itself oppressive both for cultures, which it kills or dilutes, and for individuals, restricting the pursuit of bodily pleasures.

Still, I rate Sinners highly for its big swings, its entertainment value, its cinematic craftsmanship, the popular discourse it has sparked, its phenomenal music, and the best scene of the year—the one in which the juke joint fills with centuries’ worth of African and African American music and dance traditions (from Senegalese xalam playing to G-funk, Zaouli dancing to Alvin Ailey ballet), creating an energy that literally burns the house down.

Streaming on HBO.

17. Grand Theft Hamlet, dir. Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls. Cinema, theater, and gaming combine in this unique and riotous documentary shot entirely inside Grand Theft Auto Online, an online multiplayer action-adventure game in which players roam as criminals through a hyperviolent variation on Los Angeles. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in January 2021, two professional but out-of-work actor friends from the UK, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, found themselves increasingly spending time on GTA and decided, for a fun challenge and for community, to stage a complete production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet inside the video game. They posted notices for auditions (no experience required), recruited security (to deter shootings), assigned parts, scouted locations, chose costumes, ran rehearsals, then oversaw the performance of the full play in July 2022 before an audience of in-game avatars, excerpts of which are shown in the last fifteen minutes of the film.

What makes the film so charming is the incongruity of it all. Grand Theft Auto enables players to indulge all sorts of depravities through a fictional character—steal cars, pick up prostitutes, blow people up. While sure, there’s depravity in Hamlet too, I wouldn’t think that those who enjoy GTA would enjoy classic Elizabethan drama. One taps into our baseness, the other into our nobler sentiments. So it’s surprising that Crane and Oosterveen’s project gained traction. And so comical! But also beautiful, in how lonely, isolated people all over the world endeavored to make art together in this unlikely virtual space during quarantine.

Streaming on MUBI.

18. When Fall Is Coming, dir. François Ozon. Michelle (Hélène Vincent) lives in the Burgundian countryside, enjoying a quiet retired life, which includes the regular company of her longtime friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko). Michelle has a good relationship with her preteen grandson Lucas (Garlan Erlos), but not with her daughter Valérie, Lucas’s mother (Ludivine Sagnier). When Valérie is hospitalized one day after eating poisonous mushrooms her mom unwittingly served for lunch, she cuts her off from Lucas. Meanwhile, Marie-Claude’s son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) has just gotten out of prison, and Michelle forms a motherly bond with him. He, in turn, becomes protective of Michelle and, seeing the pain she’s in being separated from Lucas, tries to mediate a reconciliation between mother and daughter—but his confrontation of Valérie causes a whole new set of troubles and turns this domestic drama into a character-driven mystery.

Streaming on Tubi and Prime Video.

19. East of Wall, dir. Kate Beecroft. Just east of Wall, South Dakota, the real-life Tabatha Zimiga works as a rancher, rescuing, training, and selling horses with her teenage daughter Porshia, a champion barrel racer. On her 1,200 acres, she also offers refuge to local teens who have fled abusive situations or whose parents can’t afford to take care of them, giving them a home and coaching them in competitive rodeo. Filmmaker Kate Beecroft met the Zimiga family (which also includes sons Chevy and Stetson) while looking for a story, and ended up living with them for three years in preparation for shooting the docufiction drama East of Wall, a female western. Other than professional actors Jennifer Ehle and Scoot McNairy, all the actors, including the two leads, play versions of themselves. The film centers on the mother-daughter pair, who are grieving the death of their husband and stepfather while also finding strength and solace in riding and in the community they’ve built.

20. Don’t Let’s Go the Dogs Tonight, dir. Embeth Davidtz. When casting the lead for her adaptation of a portion of Alexandra Fuller’s best-selling memoir, director Embeth Davidtz was looking for a grubby-faced wild child who could ride a horse and a motorbike and who had never acted before—and she found one in a small village in the South African bush in Lexi Venter, whose performance as eight-year-old Alexandra, aka “Bobo,” a white Rhodesian, is extraordinary. The movie depicts Bobo’s life on her family’s cattle farm during the final stages of the Bush War in the late 1970s, in which Black Rhodesians fought for independence from their white (British and British-descended) colonizers. Bobo is plucky and imperious and says outrageous things, some of which she’s heard from adults; family chaos, racial tensions, and national politics are narrated from her perspective, innocent (in the sense of simple, candid, ingenuous) and ignorant as it is. Davidtz plays Bobo’s mentally unstable mother, who drinks heavily to deal with her grief, not primarily over a collapsing way of life but over something more personally wrenching.

The title is a British idiom meaning “Let’s avoid ruin” or “Let’s not act in degrading ways,” an admonition spoken especially before parties—let’s not become like spoiled food thrown to the dogs. It originated with a poem by the English humorist A. P. Herbert, who writes, “Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight, / For mother will be there.”

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Eephus (MUBI); Rental Family; The Baltimorons (AMC+); If I Had Legs I’d Kick You; Wake Up Dead Man (Netflix)

Favorite Films of 2025, Part 1

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

This is my sixth consecutive year of sharing my top twenty newly released films—see my favorites from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020. My criterion for qualifying as a 2025 release is the film had to have shown in commercial screenings in the US in that year; or if there was no theatrical release, it had to have become available through video on demand. I’ve seen over a hundred such films and will share with you the ones I like best, split across two posts.

Favorite Films of 2025

The first Shaker settlement in colonial New York, the forests of early twentieth-century Idaho, a juke joint in Jim Crow Mississippi, the political prisons of 1970s Brazil, a crumbling ranch during the Rhodesian Bush War, a night market in Taipei, the beaches of a remote Welsh island—these are some of the places where the stories unfold. They explore parent-child relational fracture; the grief of losing a child or a spouse; the experience of spiritual ecstasy; the beauty of building a life and a family; the pressures of unemployment; the struggles of settling into a new city, country, or living arrangement; the horrors of adolescence; the consuming urge for revenge against an oppressor, and what to do when you’re confronted with their humanity; art making in (virtual) community; and the complicated process of healing from the trauma of sexual assault; among other themes.

Viewer discretion advised: Please beware that about half of these films have R ratings and may contain content that some find offensive. I do not flag such content because I don’t keep track of it and I evaluate movies based on their merit as a whole, recognizing that “mature” content is often necessary to tell a particular story; my descriptions should give you a good sense of whether that story is one you’d like to engage. But of course, if your conscience proscribes you from viewing certain content, please consult a content guide beforehand to determine if the film will be safe for you.

1. Sentimental Value, dir. Joachim Trier. Nora (Renate Reinsve), a stage actress, and her father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a filmmaker, have a broken relationship. When she was a child her dad drank a lot, cheated on her mom, and left Norway for long periods of time to focus on his career. Now in his old age, Gustav wants to reconcile, and the only way he knows how to affirm the hurt his daughter feels and apologize for it is to write a role for her in a movie inspired by his own childhood, in which she would play a version of his mother. Nora has no interest in the project. She thinks it’s only a publicity stunt, not realizing it’s her dad’s way of saying, “I see you.”

Sentimental Value is about the emotional communication we lack, but also art as a way of translating pain into something we can share. (Film has the power to say things without saying them, fostering understanding.) It’s about the wounds family members inflict on each other, about love and rage and regret.

We come to learn that depression has afflicted three generations of this family: Nora, her mother, and her paternal grandmother. One of the most poignant scenes is where, when Nora is incapacitated again from her mental illness, her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) comes to clean her apartment while she lies awake on the couch—a simple act of care. The sisters’ bond is, I think, the sweetest aspect of the film.

2. The Testament of Ann Lee, dir. Mona Fastvold. The Testament of Ann Lee is a musical biopic of the primary founder of the Shakers, a Christian sect that emerged in mid-eighteenth-century England and that was known for its ecstatic worship (“shaking”); under the visionary Ann Lee’s leadership, it would also come to be distinguished by its practice of communal living, celibacy, gender and racial equality, pacifism, and meticulous craftsmanship. Fleeing religious persecution, Lee (played by Amanda Seyfried) emigrated to America in 1774 with a small group of followers, building a community in upstate New York—but their loud, night-long worship services (which sparked rumors of witchcraft), their refusal to fight in the Revolutionary War (due to their commitment to nonviolence), and many men’s disapproval of sexual abstinence (women, including wives, flocked to the new movement) led to attacks in their new home country too.

Visceral and rousing and built largely on the rhythm of breaths and body slaps, Daniel Blumberg’s soundtrack is phenomenal; much of it consists of new arrangements of old Shaker hymns, including “Hunger and Thirst,” “All Is Summer,” and “Pretty Mother’s Home,” but he also composed a few original songs as well. Using historical documentation of Shaker dancing as fodder for the imagination, choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall designed the ways in which the characters commune with God together through movement, bringing all their emotions to bear in their bodies.

As someone deeply interested in Christian history (even unorthodox offshoots) and early American hymnody, I was already inclined to like this movie. But I did not expect to be as transported as I was. The story, the acting, the music and dancing, the costumes, the set design, the cinematography—all contribute to an electric, devotional film that illuminates the life and legacy of a radical woman preacher from centuries past. I did not know that Lee had had four children and lost them all in infancy; this repeated trauma likely prompted her teaching, which she claimed to have received in a revelation from God, about the sinfulness of sex. In many ways, the film is about moving through grief.

3. Hamnet, dir. Chloé Zhao. We don’t know much about William Shakespeare, and still less about his wife Anne (aka Agnes, pronounced AHN-yes). One thing we do know is that the couple had three children, and their only son Hamnet—a name interchangeable with “Hamlet” in the loose orthography of the time—died at age eleven, likely of the bubonic plague. Based on a novel by Maggie O’Farrell, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet traces Will (Paul Mescal) and Agnes’s (Jessie Buckley) relationship from courtship to marriage to childbearing and -rearing and then, in the second half, through the waves of grief that hit them in different ways after the sudden death of Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). The film focuses especially on Agnes’s perspective, opening with her nestled in the exposed roots of a giant tree (establishing her deep connection to nature), developing her as a feral yet tender character at first radiant with the joys of motherhood and then ripped apart by loss, and climaxing with a transcendent moment she experiences in community at the premiere performance of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre in London.

Several Shakespeare biographers have speculated that his writing Hamlet was a means by which he processed his grief over the loss of his son, reconfiguring that grief into a work of art. Even though it’s about the death of a father, the play contains ghosts, mourning, madness, guilt, and contemplations of suicide that may have been at least partially colored by Will’s own personal tragedy. O’Farrell and Zhao, who cowrote the Hamnet screenplay, have given this theory a compelling narrative framework, a story of marital love that’s strained by grief but that survives it.

4. No Other Choice, dir. Park Chan-wook. Man-su (Lee Byung-Hun) is a hardworking, upper middle-class South Korean family man with a wife (Son Ye-jin) and two kids. He takes pride in his work as a manager at a paper mill, producing beautiful products. Then suddenly, after twenty-five years at the same company, he’s laid off due to an American buyout. After more than a year of unemployment, he grows desperate and decides to eliminate the three highest-qualified men in competition with him for a job in the paper industry.

Often in dark comedy thrillers, murder is treated lightly. Not so here. We see the humanity of Man-su’s targets, the shocking and unjust nature of his determined course of action, and the soul-hollowing cost of moral compromise. Despite the film’s premise, there’s actually no graphic violence, other than when Man-su extracts from his mouth a rotting tooth, symbolic of his pained conscience, with pliers (plus a disturbing image having to do with bonsai wiring). A satire of capitalism and the male ego, the film explores the lengths to which a man is willing to go to maintain an affluent lifestyle for himself and his family. And oh, what wonderfully composed shots! (Props to cinematographer Woo-hyung Kim.)

5. I’m Still Here, dir. Walter Salles. This Brazilian biographical drama is about the real-life Eunice Paiva (played by Fernanda Torres), a mother of five who fought for the truth after her politically dissident husband, Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), was forcibly disappeared by the country’s military dictatorship in 1971. Suddenly thrown into the role of sole head of family, Eunice must hold everyone together and reinvent herself. She moves her family to São Paulo, earns a law degree, and becomes an activist at the center of campaigns to open archives on the victims of the military regime. She is indefatigable in demanding answers and pursuing justice. Her endurance is a form of resistance.

The director of I’m Still Here, Walter Salles, spent time with the Paivas during his adolescence—he was friends with one of Eunice’s boys and frequented their teeming, music-filled oceanfront home in Rio de Janeiro before Rubens went missing. The first half hour of the film activates those memories, while the film as a whole is based on a book by Eunice’s son Marcelo Rubens Paiva.

Streaming on Netflix.

6. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, dir. Rungano Nyoni. Made and set in Zambia, this comedy-drama is in Bemba and English. Its title is a metaphor referring to how guinea fowl use their voice—a screech—to warn the flock of predators or other impending dangers. The film opens with Shula (Susan Chardy) driving home from a party one night—wearing a glittering helmet and a puffy black jumpsuit inspired by Missy Elliott’s “The Rain” video—when she finds her uncle Fred lying dead in the road. She doesn’t seem upset, and later, when gathered with her relatives, they press her. Where are your tears? She observes her family’s performative grief for a man she knew to be immoral and their mistreatment of Fred’s widow, and she wants no part of it.

It’s hard to talk about this film without giving away a key reveal. But I can say that it’s about the silence families keep to maintain the myth of a happy and well-functioning unit, the behavior of elders that families pretend not to notice for the sake of cohesion. Consider who gets mourned and who/what does not. A critique of patriarchal culture in Zambia, the film confronts generational differences, especially as relates to traditionalist versus progressive notions of accountability, agency, respect, and respectability.

Streaming on HBO.

7. Train Dreams, dir. Clint Bentley. Adapted from Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name, Train Dreams spans the 1890s through 1960s in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Both grand and quiet, transcendent and personal, it chronicles the small, simple frontier life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton)—all the beauty and pain it holds. Orphaned at age six, Robert meets Gladys (Felicity Jones) sometime in his twenties, and the two marry. They build a cabin together near a river, and have a daughter. The family enjoys ordinary pleasures, like supper by candlelight, naps on the front porch, chasing chickens in the yard.

Robert works first as a railroad bridge builder, then as a logger—which takes him away from home for months at a time—then as a hauler. He suffers incredible loss, but he keeps moving on, into old age, as the wild country all around him modernizes and marvels like airplanes, television, and space travel are introduced. The film is about dreams realized and unrealized, about grief and change, about the fleetingness and yet (paradoxically) substantiality of human life.

Streaming on Netflix.

8. It Was Just an Accident, dir. Jafar Panahi. Working one day in an auto shop in Tehran, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) is traumatized by the voice and gait of a first-time customer, whom he swears is Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), an Iranian government security officer who, years earlier, had blindfolded and tortured him when he was imprisoned for speaking out for workers’ rights. In a thirst for vengeance, Vahid kidnaps the man and is in the process of burying him alive in the desert when he starts to have doubts as to whether he’s the right person. He tracks down a few of his fellow ex-prisoners, including a wedding photographer (Mariam Afshari) and a young bride-to-be (Hadis Pakbaten), to provide identity confirmation—but they, too, have mixed degrees of certainty.

Equal parts retribution drama, moral thriller, and screwball road comedy, this film explores what happens when four victimized men and women turn the tables on their victimizer. It wrestles with justice and mercy—what they look like, which is more virtuous or more prudent in this situation, and what would distinguish the civilians’ act of killing from the murders committed by the regime they resist.

Writer-director Jafar Panahi has spent time in Iranian prisons under the charge of “propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran” and has been banned from filmmaking in that country, so he had to shoot It Was Just an Accident furtively. I was surprised by how effective the comedic elements are against the backdrop of brutality. (My description makes the film sound only harrowing, but it’s also funny; there were quite a few laughs in the audience during the screening I attended.) It’s a difficult tonal balance to pull off, but Panahi does.

9. Left-Handed Girl, Shih-Ching Tsou. Single mom Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) and her daughters, college-age I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) and five-year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye), have just moved from rural Taiwan back to the city of Taipei. Shu-Fen opens a noodle stand at a night market, I-Ann takes a job as a “betel nut beauty” (dressing seductively to sell a fruit chewed for its stimulant and mild narcotic effects), and I-Jing attends school and takes care of her pet meerkat. This family drama is about these three female protagonists adapting to their new environment, each navigating their own challenges, whether that be paying the rent and dealing with old-fashioned parents; finding a new social scene and a place to belong; or overcoming the shameful “curse” (as I-Jing’s grandpa keeps reminding her) of being left-handed. There’s a clichéd plot device used to amp up the drama that irks me, but other than that, I enjoyed this story of acclimation and survival.

Director Shih-Ching Tsou wrote the screenplay with Sean Baker—whose Florida Project, which Tsou co-produced, is one of my favorite all-time films. She shot Left-Handed Girl entirely on an iPhone 13.

Streaming on Netflix.

10. Sorry, Baby, dir. Eva Victor. Writer-director and lead actor Eva Victor’s feature film debut is a tragicomedy about healing after sexual assault. Her character, Agnes, is a literature professor at a college in small-town New England—the same college where, three years earlier, her graduate thesis adviser raped her. She works through her trauma with the support of her friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie); her adopted cat Olga, her neighbor Gavin (Lucas Hedges), and a stranger with a sandwich shop (John Carroll Lynch) also offer her their presence. Wit and empathy combine in this nonlinear, life-affirming story of a woman in the process of recovering her sense of self and security that were wrenched from her by a trusted other.

Streaming on HBO.

Read part 2.

Roundup: Films for Advent, new Advent books, and more

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

BLOG SERIES: Three excellent, brief musings on the season of Advent by W. David O. Taylor, published last year on his blog:

  1. “Advent is for singing not-Christmas songs”: “This is, of course, easier said than done. Hymnals fail to supply a decent list of options and congregants often clamor for the ‘traditional’ carols, the songs of triumphant appearance and glorious coming. Yet this insistence fights against the dominant concern of the Gospels. Luke especially spends the bulk of his story anticipating Christ’s birth rather than narrating his arrival. The dramatic tension lies in what’s to come—not in what’s happened already . . .”
  2. “Advent is about being neither fish nor fowl”: “In being neither here nor there, Advent reminds us of our truest identity. We are amphibious creatures . . .”
  3. “Advent is about the goodness of divine interruptions”: “The entire story of Advent is a story of interruptions. . . . May we, like the actors in God’s divine nativity drama, have eyes to see and hearts to welcome his interrupting work in our lives. May we trust that he wills our deepest good in these interruptions. May we be blessed in our trust in him.”

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ESSAY: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: Dark Good News” by Linda Gregerson, Image: Poet Linda Gregerson reflects, in prose, on the quintessential Advent hymn, which dates back to the Middle Ages. She grew up singing it in her Methodist church every December. “It’s ironic, really—it quite betrays me—to realize that I must have loved this hymn for its whiff of the monastery: chalice and incense smuggled in by way of the minor chord. There’s a moment, a breathtaking moment, when the meter defies expectation. Everything has been steady-as-you-go, four-four time, all quarter notes and dotted halves. But during that remarkable refrain, just when you expect to dwell on the last syllable of the holy name for a count of three, as every verse before this has prepared you to do, the hymn leaps forward and anticipates itself by half a measure. No breath, no stately pause: Emmanuel / Shall come to thee, as though rushing to arrival. Those missed beats never fail to stop my heart.”

I didn’t know what Gregerson was talking about until I looked up the notation in The United Methodist Hymnal no. 211, and sure enough, in measure 15 there are two extra beats. In all the other hymnals I have (and all the recordings of the song I’ve heard), that measure is divided into two and the regular meter sustained, with “el” held out for three beats. Interesting! It does feel unnatural to me to sing it the way she suggests, but she offers a compelling theological reason for why the arranger made that decision.

O Come_v1
This is the standard way (as far as I’m concerned) of singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Sheet music excerpt from Majesty Hymns, the hymnal of my youth.
O Come_v2
Sheet music excerpt from The United Methodist Hymnal, showing the unusual (but significant, Gregerson claims) shift from 4/4 meter to 6/4 in one of the measures of the refrain

Here’s an example of a congregation (First United Methodist Houston) singing the refrain the way Gregerson so fondly remembers:

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NEW BOOKS:

>> The Art of Living in Advent: 28 Days of Joyful Waiting by Sylvie Vanhoozer: A retired French teacher and a botanical artist, Sylvie Vanhoozer was born and grew up in Provence and now lives in Illinois with her husband, the theologian Kevin Vanhoozer. In this little illustrated book, she introduces readers to the tradition of Provençal crèches, localized nativity scenes populated by santons (“little saints”). Made from the land’s clay, the santons resemble nineteenth-century villagers, who offer up gifts from their vocations—olives, bread, wine, wood, sheep, hurdy-gurdy music, herbal remedies. (Reminds me of the presepe from southern Italy that I encountered some years ago!) The crèches are also traditionally decorated with native vegetation, such as thyme, juniper, lavender, and rosemary, freshly harvested on the first weekend of Advent. This is one of the ways in which Provençals embrace Christ’s presence in their own time and place.

The Art of Living in Advent

“I am not inviting readers to leave their place and go to some distant land in a distant past,” Vanhoozer writes. “The invitation is rather to transpose this Provençal scene into one’s own place, to live the same story in a different context. . . . The question is not ‘Did Jesus really come to Provence?’ but rather ‘Could Jesus really come here, to me?’ Could my home, my neighborhood, my church, become a crèche scene, with Christ right here beside me, in me?”

I think this book would have worked better as a literary essay, as it feels padded out to make its ninety-page count, with redundancies and somewhat arbitrary divisions. But I love how Vanhoozer draws us into this cherished and still-living tradition from her childhood and calls us to see and participate in the story of God’s coming where we live, in all its particularities.

>> Advent: 24 Kunstwerke zur Bibel aus aller Welt by Christian Weber: Rev. Dr. Christian Weber [previously] is the director of studies for Mission 21, an international mission agency of the Protestant Reformed Churches in Switzerland. His work brings him into contact with religious art from diverse parts of the globe. I’m delighted by this new (German-language) book of his, whose title translates to Advent: 24 Bible-Inspired Artworks from Around the World. Organized into four parts (“Words of Prophecy,” “Parables of Jesus,” “John the Baptist,” and “Mary”) and printed in full color, the book features twenty-four primary artworks (plus some supplementary) from twenty-two countries, providing background on and interpretations of each, as well as information about the artists and a bibliography.

Advent (Mission 21 book cover)
Advent (Mission 21 page spread)
Sample page spread from Advent: 24 Kunstwerke zur Bibel aus aller Welt, showing a woodcut by the Ghanaian artist Kwabena (Emmanuel) Addo-Osafo

A church mural from Zimbabwe, a kalamkari from South India, a gourd carving from Peru, a manuscript illumination from Armenia—these are among the artworks Weber highlights. Some of the works are of higher quality than others, but the emphasis is on how the scripture texts of the Advent season have prompted artistic responses in a variety of places outside Europe, which is the continent that has most shaped the popular imagination when it comes to the biblical story. Weber’s Advent encourages us to widen those imaginations. Despite my fifteen or so years spent researching global Christian art, Weber is always bringing new artists to my attention! You can view sample pages from the book on the publisher’s website.

The cover image is a detail of For Those in Darkness by the American artist Lauren Wright Pittman.

Weber is looking for a North American publisher to release an English-language edition of the book.

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ARTICLE/VIDEO: “Five Films to Help You Observe Advent” by Abby Olcese, Think Christian: Abby Olcese, author of Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies, provides five movie suggestions for Advent, corresponding to the themes of Hope, Faith, Joy, Peace, and Christ. (Other churches and families, like mine, substitute “Faith” with “Love” on their Advent wreaths; Olcese’s fifth pick, for Christmas Eve, would fit the “Love” theme perfectly, but see also my suggestion below.) You can read the content as an article or watch it in video format, which includes a few film clips:

ALSO: Allow me to add one of my own suggestions: American Symphony, a 2023 documentary about musical artist Jon Batiste, whose meteoric rise to fame coincided with the return of his partner Suleika Jaouad’s leukemia. Directed by Matthew Heineman, the film follows a year in the life of the married couple, as Batiste prepared for the premiere of his boundary-breaking American Symphony composition at Carnegie Hall in September 2022 while Jaouad endured chemotherapy. It has a very Advent-y feel, by which I mean its calling on God in the darkness (Batiste is a devout Christian) and its orientation around faith, hope, and love. It’s a beautiful, intimate portrait of a marriage, of creativity, courage, and care.

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ART: Advent Wreath by Beach4Art: Beach4Art is a family of four who create beach art inspired by beautiful nature in Devon, UK. (Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and see their Etsy shop.) Below are some photos of the Advent wreath they made out of twigs, stones, and shells on Sandymere beach for the first Sunday of Advent in 2023.

Roundup: “Demons” (Dostoevsky) book club, quilting in prison, church installation by Kimsooja, and more

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

ONLINE COURSE: Studying the novel Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky with Brian Zahnd, January 3–March 9, 2026: This ten-week online course led by Pastor Brian Zahnd (a Christian writer and preacher I admire) will explore Dostoevsky’s “darkest and most prophetic novel”: Demons (aka The Possessed or The Devils), a social and political satire, psychological drama, and large-scale tragedy inspired by the true story of a 1869 political murder in Russia. The course sounds intriguing to me, and I’m contemplating whether I can invest the time in a seven-hundred-page book—but I did buy a copy just in case! It’s the only one of the literary master’s four novels I haven’t read.

Demons (book cover)

“Dostoevsky’s Demons changed me,” Zahnd writes on Substack. “From it I learned the danger of giving oneself to an ism instead of to Christ. Isms are idols and they often become demonic. Admittedly Demons is a difficult novel, but it’s also prophetic and timely. . . . As you read Demons, expect to be horrified, but also expect to laugh—you are meant to. During the course we will be horrified and warned, but we will also laugh and learn together.”

The live Q&As will take place the first ten Mondays of 2026 at 5 p.m. CT (6 p.m. ET).

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SEMINAR (VIDEO): “How to Watch a Movie (as a Christian)” with Chris Retts and Morgan Jefferson: On his Footnotes Substack, historian Jemar Tisby recently hosted a teach-in with two team members from the Los Angeles Film Studies Center, a nonprofit educational program designed to give undergraduate students at Christian colleges and universities meaningful experience in the film industry during a semester “abroad” in Los Angeles. Chris Retts is the director of the center, and Morgan Jefferson is an instructor.

Before discussing how to watch a movie, they discuss why Christians should watch movies in the first place, beyond the obvious (enjoyment):

  1. Because general revelation can happen anywhere, even at the movies (Rom. 1:20).
  2. Because movies generate empathy, which is central to the greatest commandment (Matt. 22:37–40).
  3. Because every movie has a theology, and media literacy makes it conscious and discernable (1 John 4:1).

They also discuss the four modes of meaning that filmmakers work with; cinematic language; and four steps for exegeting (“drawing out”) a film.

How does film relate to Dr. Tisby’s work at the intersection of faith, history, and justice? He has written for years about the dangers of white Christian nationalism. He says adherents of that ideology, or any, are not evaluating a list of propositions but are buying into a narrative; and “you can’t meet a narrative with logical reasoning,” he says. “You have to invite them into a counter-narrative—a more beautiful story.” Story is why he’s interested in film, as film is an engaging, and probably the most popular (in the US), storytelling medium. “Stories shape our sense of what’s true, what’s possible, and who belongs. That’s as true for political movements as it is for movies.”

For some of my movie recommendations, see my Top 20 Films of 2024 list and “Five Films about Finding Commmunity.”

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DOCUMENTARY SHORT: The Quilters (2024), dir. Jenifer McShane: This thirty-minute documentary on Netflix follows a group of men in a maximum-security prison in Missouri who design and sew custom quilts for children in foster care using donated fabrics and old machines. They care deeply about the quality of their work—they’re proud of what they make—and are emotional about the recipients, some of whom send thank-you cards. The film is about creating beauty and meaning within strict confines, not letting destructive choices from your past stymie you from making constructive ones in the present.

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TEMPORARY INSTALLATION: To Breathe—Mokum by Kimsooja, Oude Kerk (Old Church), Amsterdam, May 23–November 9, 2025: Sorry I didn’t get this out while the installation was still up (it wrapped on Sunday), but please do explore the photographic documentation. Kimsooja’s To Breathe—Mokum explores themes of migration, belonging, and the transient nature of home; the Yiddish word in its subtitle means “safe haven.” “At the work’s heart are Kimsooja’s iconic bottari—colorful textile bundles inspired by traditional Korean wrapping cloths,” designboom writes. “Spread across the [medieval] stone floor of the church, these bundles are filled with clothing donated by members of Amsterdam’s diverse communities. Each piece of clothing represents the lives and stories of the people who contribute to the city’s rich multicultural fabric. These textile bundles serve as symbols of both personal and collective journeys, embodying the arrival and departure of individuals who have shaped the identity of the city” over its 750 years.

Kimsooja_To Breathe (Mokum)
Kimsooja (Korean, 1957–), To Breathe—Mokum (partial view), 2025. Site-specific installation at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam. Photo: Natascha Libbert.

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POEMS:

>> “On the Staten Island Ferry” by A. E. Stallings, Plough, July 1, 2025: Liberty is an American ideal—but for many in this country, an illusory one. Riding in New York Harbor with a boatload of commuters and tourists, Stallings lets settle what a young girl, pointing to the Statue of Liberty, exclaims.

(Related post: “One sonnet vs. shouted prose: Lady Liberty, Emma Lazarus, and Trump”)

>> “The Pillar of Cloud and Fire” by Anna A. Friedrich, Monafolkspeak (Substack), October 29, 2025: The poet reflects on her confusion as a child about this manifestation of God from the Old Testament, which leads her to surprising insights.

Roundup: “Heaven and Earth” performance for Psalms-based exhibition, pay-what-you-can film seminar, Doris Salcedo’s “A Flor de Piel,” and more

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

EXHIBITION: Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, September 12, 2025–January 4, 2026: Sing a New Song traces the impact of the Psalms on people in medieval Europe from the sixth to sixteenth centuries, showing how this poetic book of the Bible suffused daily life, church liturgies, and art. The exhibition features, of course, numerous illuminated Psalters, as well as other art objects influenced by the Psalms, culled from the Morgan’s own collection and some two dozen institutions around the world.

Monaco, Lorenzo_David
Lorenzo Monaco (Italian, ca. 1370–ca. 1425), David, ca. 1408–10. Tempera on wood, gold ground, 22 3/8 × 17 in. (56.8 × 43.2 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

To coincide with the exhibition, on October 10 at 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., the Beijing-based artist Bingyi will be premiering a site-specific performance work in the Morgan’s garden (free with museum admission), made possible in part by the Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts. Titled Heaven and Earth: The Garden of Cosmos, the processional performance is “inspired by Psalm 104 and its reverence for creation, divine order, and cosmic harmony that transcend cultural boundaries.” Drawing on her longstanding engagement with both Abrahamic scriptures and Chinese philosophical traditions, Bingyi will be clad in a flowing, ink-painted garment and be joined by the Tibetan ritual master Nanmei and the Yi singer Aluo.

Bingyi_Heaven and Earth
Rehearsal for Heaven and Earth: The Garden of the Cosmos by Bingyi, to premiere October 10, 2025, at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City

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ONLINE FILM SEMINAR: Dreaming the World: Looking at the World through the Eyes of the Other with Gareth Higgins, September 30–November 11, 2025: “We live in anxious times, with our vision often limited to suspicion of others, concern about the future, and withdrawing into enclaves of the familiar. It can become a self-fulling prophecy, a vicious cycle which does not nurture the security, never mind the happiness we seek. It’s becoming clearer by the day that we need to be dislodged from the narrow circles of self-oriented, tribal thinking. There is a more expansive universe, characterized by connection, sharing, and taking responsibility for co-creating the next good day.”

Sponsored by Image journal and The Porch, Dreaming the World is a seven-week course in which participants will watch seven movies—one from each continent—and learn a more global way of thinking. Leader Gareth Higgins [previously] will share a short video introduction and written essay for each film, and registrants are invited to join a members’ Facebook page for conversation, as well as a weekly video call to discuss the movie and its implications for how we might live better. Those video calls will take place on Tuesdays from 7:00 to 8:15 p.m. ET on September 30, October 7, October 14, October 21, October 28, November 4, and November 11, 2025, but will also be recorded for asynchronous viewing.

The seminar is valued at $195, but the organizer is generously allowing registrants to pay what they can. I will be participating. Join me?

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CALLS FOR PAPERS:

>> From the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art: “‘And Who is My Neighbor?’: Refuge, Sanctuary, and Representation”: “The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) endures as a powerful meditation on compassion, hospitality, and the boundaries of moral responsibility. In an age marked by geopolitical instability, mass displacement, and deepening social divides, the question ‘And who is my neighbor?’ acquires renewed urgency. We welcome proposals that consider the ways in which visual culture has interpreted, challenged, or reimagined the ideals of refuge and hospitality within religious and intercultural frameworks. How have artistic practices responded to religious calls to welcome the stranger? In what ways do images negotiate the tensions between inclusion and exclusion, faith and politics, identity and alterity? How do modern and contemporary artworks embody, resist, or reinterpret Christian and other religious conceptions of community, care, and obligation? Proposals that engage Catholic visual cultures or interpretive frameworks, perspectives from the Global South, or comparative interreligious approaches are especially encouraged.” To be presented February 17, 2026, at ASCHA’s day-long symposium at DePaul University Chicago, or February 18–21 2026, at the 114th annual CAA Conference. Proposal submission deadline: October 15, 2025.

>> From the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame: “The Art of Encounter: Exploring Spiritual Engagement with Art Objects”: This museum is seeking papers exploring the relationship between art, spirituality, and museum spaces, to be presented April 24, 2026, at the museum’s spring symposium. Proposals that investigate how encounters with art can shape spiritual understanding, foster theological insight, or deepen contemplative practice are all welcome. Proposal submission deadline: November 3, 2025.

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SONGS:

September 15 through October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. One of the many ways Latinos have contributed to Christian artistic culture has been through the writing and singing of coritos: short, rhythmic, Spanish-language choruses used in worship. Here are two examples, the first one traditional and the second one new.

>> “Montaña” (Mountain), led by Josue Avila: Recorded live on November 29, 2020, from Calvary Orlando’s Unity Sunday Service, this corito is based on Matthew 17:20. The lyrics translate to: “If you have faith like a mustard seed, thus says the Lord: you can tell the mountain, ‘Move, move,’ and that mountain will move!”

Watch another performance, from a concert context, by the Austin, Texas–based band Salvador.

>> “Sal 22 / Te Amo” (Psalm 22 / I Love You) by Israel and New Breed with Aaron Moses: These two coritos, which released this summer as a single track, were written by Israel Houghton, Meleasa Houghton, Ricardo Sanchez, Aaron Lindsey, Rene Sotomayor, and Aaron Moses. The first is based on Psalm 22:3, which says that God is enthroned on the praises of his people, and is sung by Moses on lead; Houghton sings lead on the second.

Aaron Moses, of Dominican and Ecuadorian descent, is best known for his work with Maverick City Música.

Israel Houghton is not himself Latino (his mother is white, his biological father Black), but he was significantly influenced by his upbringing in a Hispanic neighborhood and church, a culture reflected in his musical output and that he remains connected to, not least through his wife, Adrienne Bailon (whom I know from The Cheetah Girls!).

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VIDEO: “In the Studio: Doris Salcedo making ‘A Flor de Piel’”: Produced by White Cube, this fourteen-minute documentary charts the collaborative, scientifically informed, labor-intensive process of making Doris Salcedo’s A Flor de Piel, an enormous shroud made of real rose petals as a memorial for a nurse who was brutally captured and murdered in Colombia. (“The title,” explains Lauren Hinkson, “is a Spanish idiomatic expression used to describe an overt display of emotions.”) The film includes footage from Salcedo’s Bogotá studio as well as interviews with the team of people who produced the work. I found this peek into the technical aspects of the piece fascinating.

Salcedo, Doris_A Flor de Piel
Doris Salcedo (Colombian, 1958–), A Flor de Piel, 2011–12. Rose petals and thread, approx. 246 7/8 × 433 1/8 in. (627 × 1100 cm). Photo © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, from the work’s installation at the Guggenheim in 2015.

However, the video doesn’t venture into the inspiration behind or meaning of the work. For a bit of that, see this audio clip from the Guggenheim (where A Flor de Piel was exhibited in 2015), and also Jonathan A. Anderson, The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art, pages 123–24.

Roundup: Pitjantjatjara picture Bible, “Feeling Through” short film, the reconciling Eucharist, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: September 2025 (Art & Theology): A new monthly playlist featuring a range of faith-based songs, including “Day by Day” by Lowana Wallace and Isaac Wardell of the Porter’s Gate (especially apt for Labor Day!), sung below by Kimberly Williams; “Jesus of Nazareth” by the early twentieth-century hymn writer Hugh W. Dougall, performed in a bluegrass style by the Lower Lights; and a fantastic instrumental jazz arrangement by Alice Grace of the classic children’s song “Jesus Loves Me,” performed by the Indonesian group Bestindo Music (Grace is at the keys).

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VIDEO: “The Apostles’ Creed”: This video presentation of the Apostles’ Creed, one of the oldest statements of Christian belief, used across denominations, was created in 2016 by Faith Church in Dyer, Indiana, using twenty-one of its members to voice the lines. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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CHILDREN’S PICTURE BIBLE: Godaku Tjukurpa (God’s Story): Nami Kulyuru, a long-serving Pitjantjatjara Bible translator and artist from Central Australia, had the vision to pass on the stories of the Bible to her grandchildren and other young Pitjantjatjara readers using traditional Anangu paintings, compiled in book format. She began the artistic work in 2021 but shortly after was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Following her death in 2022, her friends and colleagues rallied together to complete the project, which was published last November by Bible Society Australia. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

Godaku Tjukurpa
Kulyuru, Nami_Woman by the Well
Nami Kulyuru (Pitjantjatjara, 1964–2022), The Woman at the Well (John 4), 2021, from the bilingual book Godaku Tjukurpa (God’s Story) (Bible Society Australia, 2024)

Spanning the Old and New Testaments, Godaku Tjukurpa (God’s Story) features fifty-four Bible illustrations by Pitjantjatjara artists, along with descriptions in Pitjantjatjara and English. It is available for purchase through the Koorong website, but it appears that it can ship only to Australia or New Zealand.

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SHORT FILM: Feeling Through, dir. Doug Roland (2019): Nominated for an Academy Award in 2021, this eighteen-minute film is about a homeless teen (played by Steven Prescod) who encounters a DeafBlind man (played by Robert Tarango) on the streets of New York City. It was inspired by an actual experience writer-director Doug Roland had some years earlier. He partnered with the Helen Keller National Center to make the film, including casting a DeafBlind actor as co-lead, the first film to ever do so. You can watch Feeling Through for free on the film’s website, along with a “making of” documentary. Here’s a trailer:

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FEATURE FILM: Places in the Heart, dir. Robert Benton (1984): Set in Jim Crow Texas during the Great Depression, this film centers on the recently widowed Edna Spalding (Sally Field), a middle-age white woman who is struggling to run the cotton farm she inherited from her late husband and to make ends meet for herself and her two small children. To earn some cash, she takes in a boarder, Mr. Will (John Malkovich), a bitter World War I vet who is blind, and she hires Moze (Danny Glover), a Black drifter who is being harassed by the Ku Klux Klan, to teach her how to plant and harvest cotton. The three are thrown together out of necessity and help each other survive.

It’s a pretty good movie overall—and it won Sally Field her second Oscar for Best Actress—but what leads me to recommend it is its theologically profound closing scene, which shows the ordinance of Communion being celebrated at the local country church. First Corinthians 13:1–8, the famous “love” passage, is read from the pulpit, and the choir launches into “In the Garden” (a hymn inspired by the risen Christ’s appearance to Mary Magdalene on Easter morning) as the plates of bread and grape juice are passed down the pews. The camera zooms in close on each congregant as they receive the elements, starting with a couple whose marriage had suffered due to infidelity but who, in this scene, silently reconcile.

On my first watch, what signaled to me that we had entered the realm of the imaginary (the mystical? the aspirational?) was the presence of Moze, who had left town the previous night after having been beaten by Klansmen; he’s here, with no visible wounds, in this conservative white church in the 1930s that very likely would not have welcomed him, being served the body and blood of Christ by a deacon. I believe that some of the white men in the pews in front of him are repentant Klansmen who, when Mr. Will identified them under their hoods by their voices the previous night, mid-assault, slinked away in shame. Within the row, too, is the mortgage collector who was in conflict with Edna, insisting that she sell the farm.

After Edna receives the elements, she passes them to her husband, Royce, who was dead before but here is very much alive. He then passes the elements to the young Black teen, Wylie, who had shot and killed him in a drunken accident, whom vigilantes then lynched. “Peace of God,” they say to each other—a traditional Christian greeting expressing love and reconciliation. The final frame lingers on Royce and Wylie, sharing the meal together, and I’m intrigued by the actors’ choices of expression: Wylie is serene, grace-filled, whereas Royce appears befuddled, perhaps recognizing for the first time the blessed tie that binds him to his Black neighbor, his brother in Christ.

This scene speaks powerfully of the invitation of the Lord’s Table—open to all, even the most morally odious, who would come in humble confession of (and turning from) sin and reliance on God’s mercy through Christ, which heals and transforms. Partaking of the meal are various people from the community—people who have cheated on their spouses; people with ornery dispositions; people with narrow economic interests, who fail in compassion; people who have stolen; people who have committed cruel, racist, violent acts; people driven to drink, leading to fatal harm; people who have silently allowed racial terror to reign in their town. All these sinful, forgiven people make up the body of Christ, are united under his cross. They’ve often hurt one another, but the Holy Spirit is at work making them a new creation. I see this final scene as a picture of heaven, where wrongs are redressed, and of the “beloved community” Martin Luther King Jr. talked about.

Places in the Heart is streaming for free on Tubi (no account required).

Roundup: Free e-book on church art galleries, Hagar in art, Dramatic Encounters film series, and more

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: August 2025 (Art & Theology)

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FREE E-BOOK: Seeing the Unseen: Launching and Managing a Church Art Gallery by Sandra Bowden and Marianne Lettieri: I own a copy of the original 2015 edition of this book written by two wise, experienced friends of mine and published by the now-defunct Christians in the Visual Arts; this revised edition, published this year by Square Halo Books, includes all-new images and other updates. It’s an excellent resource for churches looking to start an art gallery, covering the logistics of defining the gallery program, designing the gallery space, funding the gallery, organizing exhibits and juried shows, handling art, engaging viewers, and more. The authors and publisher are generously making it available for free download!

Seeing the Unseen

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New this summer, the popular artist Laura James [previously], who frequently paints biblical subjects, now has a simple form on her website through which you can license digital image files of hers for use in publications, presentations, or websites: https://shop.laurajamesart.com/product/image-licensing/.

James, Laura_5000 Fed
Screenshot from laurajamesart.com: Laura James (American, 1971–), 5000 Fed, 1999

Also, folks often ask me where they can purchase affordable art: Check out James’s online store, as she sells giclée prints of many of her paintings.

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ESSAY: “Toward a Genuine Dialogue between the Bible and Art” by J. Cheryl Exum: J. Cheryl Exum (1946–2024) was a Hebrew Bible scholar renowned for her work on the Song of Songs, feminist biblical studies, and the reception of the Bible in culture and art history. In much of her writing and teaching she staged a dialogue between biblical texts and biblical art, the latter of which, she said, constitutes a form of exegesis. She argued “for adding visual criticism to other criticisms (historical, literary, form, rhetorical, etc.) in the exegete’s toolbox—for making visual criticism part of the exegetical process, so that, in biblical interpretation, we do not just look at the text and the commentaries on the text but also at art as commentary.” More than simply enhancing our appreciation of a biblical text, art “can point to problematic aspects of the text and help us ‘see’ things about the text we might have overlooked, or enable us to see things differently.”

In this paper from 2012, Exum examines two episodes from the life of Hagar: the Expulsion of Hagar and Ishamel (Gen. 21:8–14), and Sarah Presenting Hagar to Abraham (Gen. 16:3–4). I found the second section particularly illuminating in how it addresses a narrative gap in Genesis 16, which is Hagar’s being raped (made to have sex without her consent) by Abraham at Sarah’s behest. Customary in many ancient patriarchal societies, the use of slaves to bear children for one’s family line is what is dramatized in the popular novel-turned-TV series The Handmaid’s Tale. Exum looks at six seventeenth-century paintings of Sarah leading a reluctant and sometimes humiliated Hagar, who tries in vain to cover her nakedness, into Abraham’s bed. “These paintings,” Exum writes, “require us to consider what assumptions about women and slaves and their rights to their bodies lie behind the biblical narrator’s simple ‘he went in to her and she conceived’, assumptions commentators too readily ignore.”

Salomon de Bray_Hagar Brought to Abraham by Sarah
Salomon de Bray (Dutch, 1597–1664), Hagar Brought to Abraham by Sarah, 1650. Oil on panel, 31.2 × 23.5 cm. Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

In the final section of the paper, Exum considers a disturbing verse in the Song of Songs that has stumped commentators but that the artist Gustave Moreau chose to visually interpret.

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POEM: “He Who Sees Hagar” by Michelle Chin: “She buys me for my birth canal / but beats me for the birth. / I despise her . . .” Published in Reformed Journal.

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VIDEO SERIES: Dramatic Encounters (proof of concept pilot), created by Martin J. Young: Martin J. Young, a UK-based speaker, writer, and mentor to church leaders and creatives, is developing a film series with writer-director Ethan Milner of Cedar Creative that explores people’s dramatic encounters with Jesus in John’s Gospel. Inspired in part by David Ford’s The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Baker Academic, 2021), the series will adapt particular gospel stories to screen and, uniquely, will include a documentary component that highlights the creative process from start to finish.

Each episode will consist of four primary elements (expanded from the three showcased in the pilot):

  1. The Roundtable, a conversation with theologians, pastors, and artists about the given gospel story, examining its form, meaning, themes, and interpretations
  2. The Rehearsal, in which the actors, informed by the roundtable discussion, work out how to perform the story, choosing facial expressions, postures and movements, vocal tones and inflections
  3. Behind-the-Scenes, exploring the various cinematographic choices made by Milner and his filmmaking team (e.g., sets, lighting, framing, editing, scoring)
  4. The Film, a roughly ten-minute drama that brings the gospel story to life

The proof of concept pilot episode below is based on John 12:1–8, in which Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus with expensive perfume, much to Judas’s chagrin. The short starts at 24:13. I’m impressed by the quality! And the “voyage of discovery” approach of the overall episode—wrestling with scripture in preparation for inhabiting its characters, and translating it into a filmic narrative—pays off, as viewers are granted insight into the crafts of acting, filmmaking, and literary adaptation.

Young is seeking funding to produce and distribute a season of eight to ten episodes. (None have been made yet.) If you’re interested in helping out financially, visit https://www.cedarcreative.net/encounters, and click “Donate Today.” Explore more at https://this-is-that.com/.

Roundup: New online community for poetry lovers and learners; Christians in the movies; etc.

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

ONLINE COURSE: The Good, the True, the Beautiful: Reading Literature to Restore the Soul with Karen Swallow Prior, October 29–December 17, 2025: Offered through the Free to Be Faithful initiative of the Institute of Christian Studies in Toronto, this eight-week online course taught by literature scholar Karen Swallow Prior (author of On Reading Well and other books) “invites students into the sacred act of reading—exploring how classic and contemporary works of fiction and poetry can reawaken moral imagination, deepen empathy, and cultivate spiritual resilience. Together we will reflect on the formative power of beauty and goodness through the written word, guided by voices both timeless and timely.”

The class will meet Wednesdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. ET and will include lectures and discussion. The cost for first-time ICS students, not for credit, is $289 USD. (To take it for credit costs about $1,110 USD.) Read the ICS’s course introduction on Substack, and view additional course offerings at https://f2bf.icscanada.edu/#courses.

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ONLINE POETRY COMMUNITY: Versed~, founded and led by Dr. Adam Walker: A recently minted Harvard PhD grad and award-winning educator, Adam Walker is a scholar of English and American literature specializing in Romantic poetry. I’ve really been enjoying his “Close Reading Poetry” YouTube channel, where he has posted such videos as “6 Poets Tolkien Fans Should Read,” “The Theological Aesthetics of Gerard Manley Hopkins,” “Mary Sidney Herbert, the Mother of English Devotional Poetry,” “Reading John’s Gospel as Visionary Literature,” and many, many more. He seeks to make great poetry accessible to everyone. I love the combination of erudition and warmth that he exudes.

This March, Walker launched Versed~, “a space where the serious love and study of poetry is available beyond the paywalls of the universities—a place where readers can talk about books, make friends, compare notes, and share their writings with other readers.” He continues:

Our meetings blend the rigor of the classroom with the warmth of a living room. . . . Versed offers a wide range of learning opportunities, including live classes, a library of past courses, exclusive access to unpublished courses, and resources designed for everyone from beginners to advanced readers. At Versed, students can sharpen their literary skills, master various techniques in the art of close reading, and encounter works of great literature with other readers. Here, you’ll find all the insight of a university course, without the pressure, just good books and better company.

You can join for just $20/month.

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PODCAST EPISODES:

These are both available for listening wherever you get your podcasts.

>> “How to Read a Poem” with Ben Myers, The Artistic Vision, July 15, 2025: Dr. Benjamin Myers [previously], the 2015/16 poet laureate of Oklahoma and author of four books of poetry, kicks off a new “how to” lecture-style series for The Artistic Vision, providing tips on how to read (and listen to) poetry. “The purpose of poetry is the cultivation of attention,” he says. He urges readers to resist the temptation to try to “solve” the poem, and emphasizes the role of beauty and sound in enhancing the poetic experience. For consideration, he highlights the poems “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos William, “The Song of Wandering Aengus” by William Butler Yeats, “Birches” by Robert Frost, and “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats. For those who want to learn more, he heartily recommends How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan.

>> “On the Artistic Vision of Flannery O’Connor” with Jessica Hooten Wilson, The Artistic Vision, December 11, 2024: Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson—author of The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints and the forthcoming Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice, among other titles—discusses the sacramental vision of the Southern fiction writer Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964). She touches on the role of the dark and grotesque in O’Connor’s work; symbolism, allegory, and the accumulation of meaning; her favorite O’Connor short story, “Greenleaf”; Mystery and Manners, a collection of O’Connor’s essays and other prose; being called upon by O’Connor’s estate to present O’Connor’s unfinished third novel, Why Do the Heathen Rage?, to the public for the first time, and artist Steve Prince’s indispensable contribution to the project; and “The Woodcarver,” a parable of craft by the ancient Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi).

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MEDLEY: “You’re Nearer / Nearer, My God, to Thee” by Nnenna Freelon: Cued up in the video below, from a 2016 Jazz Vespers service at Duke University Chapel, is a medley by the American jazz singer Nnenna Freelon, which combines a 1940 Broadway musical number by Rodgers and Hart with a nineteenth-century hymn. What a compelling mash-up! It appears on Freelon’s 2000 album Soulcall.

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ARTICLE: “Christians in the Movies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” by Mike Frost: “Hollywood movies are full of religious nuts. . . . But it’s not all bad news. Mainstream cinema has presented us with some powerful, complex, and authentic depictions of devout Christians,” writes Mike Frost, a minister from Australia. He gives ten examples.

Roundup: Social music with Dan Zanes, the Green Man, and more

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Lancaster Digital Collections has published twelve webpages of “iconography-inspired sacred art,” with downloadable images made available by permission of the artists. I especially like the paintings of Janet McKenzie [previously] and Khrystyna Kvyk [previously].

McKenzie, Janet_The Divine Journey
Janet McKenzie, The Divine Journey: Companions of Love and Hope, 2017. Oil on canvas, 48 × 36 in. Memorial Church, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Kvyk, Khrystyna_The Descent into Hell
Khrystyna Kvyk (Ukrainian, 1994–), The Descent into Hell, 2023. Acrylic on gessoed wood, 40 × 40 cm. Private collection.

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FREE ZOOM CONVERSATION: Social music with Dan Zanes, July 16, 2025, 8 p.m. ET: I met the Baltimore-based folk musicians Dan and Claudia Zanes [previously] two years ago at a local family concert they put on. Joyous, bighearted, faith-filled, community-focused, committed to social justice—I love who they are and what they’re about and all the rich music they share.

In a social media post on June 11, Dan posed the question, “Is there anyone out there who wants to become a music maker and help uplift their community?” Followed by a generous offer: “I can teach you how to play guitar and sing songs (and write songs if you want). No cost, this is a different approach. It will be through a series of Zoom lessons (unless you live down the street). Whether you’re a beginner or someone who’s been dabbling and wants to take it out of the house, I can get you to a confident place so you can play for and with people.” The caveat? You just have to promise to put in the practice and to share your music freely in your community! And to teach someone else what you’ve learned.

“There are so many ways to make positive social change,” Dan says, “and creating music in our communities is certainly one of them.” I believe he has already selected a set of students to take on, but having received so many messages of interest, he has also decided to host a Zoom conversation on social music this coming Wednesday evening. On July 9, he wrote on social media:

Social music in chaotic times, people! Let’s talk about it. I’ve been hearing from many folks who want to be more useful in their communities and see music as the way.

Yes! Music can be healing, galvanizing, uplifting, energizing, and calming. Imagine if every community had many more music makers to play for the young folks, the elders, to lead singalongs and dance parties, to offer songs during times of loss and celebration. Of course it’s happening now, and still I believe there’s so much more that is possible.

If you’re interested in joining the meeting, send Dan an Instagram message @danzanes or a Facebook message @danandclaudiazanes and he’ll send you the link.

To give you a sense of Dan and Claudia’s vibes, here’s one of their original songs, which they debuted on their YouTube channel in 2020:

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ONLINE RETREAT: “Read for Your Life: Creating a Story-Formed Home” with Sarah Clarkson, August 5, 2025: Join author Sarah Clarkson [previously] for a daylong online retreat exploring children’s literature, childhood reading, and the development of imagination. “My goal,” she writes, “is to provide a vision for the beauty of the reading life, some good research, and a generous stack of practical booklists to help you begin to outfit and build a home library for the children in your life.” The cost is $35. The event begins at 9:30 a.m. UK time, but all live sessions will be recorded and offered on-demand afterward to registrants.

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PODCAST EPISODE: “The Green Man,” Gone Medieval, June 23, 2025: In this episode, Dr. Eleanor Janega talks with Imogen Corrigan, author of The Green Man: Myth and Reality (Amberley, 2025), about the enigmatic “green man” figure, or foliate head, which can be found in almost every pre-Reformation English cathedral and in many churches, decorating arches, corbels, roof bosses, choir stalls, and chancel screens. Corrigan claims that “the image has to be one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented in the history of church carvings,” having nothing to do with pagan fertility rites. She suggests, rather, that the Green Man gestures toward the resurrection of, and resurrection in, Christ—to spiritual rebirth and eternal life.

Green Man misericord
Misericord from King’s Lynn Minster, England, ca. 1370s, depicting a Green Man disgorging oak leaves. Photo: Lucy Miller. (Click on image for great compilation!)

The two medievalists speak on location at St Mary’s at Minster-in-Thanet and St Nicholas-at-Wade in Kent. The conversation really starts to pick up at 19:47.

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This past month has seen the death of two rock ’n’ roll legends whose music, which played regularly on Oldies 100.7 WTRG, formed part of the soundtrack of my 1990s childhood: Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys) and Sly Stone (of Sly and the Family Stone).

Much has been written about both trailblazers. I just want to mention two things:

1. Love and Mercy, the 2014 film directed by Bill Pohlad about Brian Wilson (played by Paul Dano and John Cusack), is excellent. Elliot Roberts makes the case that it’s the best music biopic ever made, and I’m inclined to agree; New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson also cites it as her favorite, at least within the rock genre. The story alternates between Wilson’s production of the Pet Sounds album in the mid-sixties and his psychological treatment under his abusive therapist and conservator Eugene Landy in the late 1980s, which coincided with his meeting Melinda Ledbetter, who would become his wife. The title is taken from one of Wilson’s solo songs from 1988. Here’s the film trailer:

2. Active from 1966 to 1983, Sly and the Family Stone was one of the very few multiracial, mixed-gender bands of the time, modeling integration when the notion was still fairly new in America. Perhaps you’ve heard their most famous hit, “Everyday People,” a call for unity across lines of difference (“There is a blue one who can’t accept the green one / For living with a fat one, tryna be a skinny one . . .”). Sly Stone was the front man—singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. As is common among so many African American musicians, he got his musical start in church; from infancy, he was immersed in gospel music as a member of the Church of God in Christ, and his musical talent was nurtured there. I learned that in the fifties, he and three of his four siblings even formed a gospel group called the Stewart Four, locally releasing a single in August 1956. Here’s the B-side, “Walking in Jesus’ Name,” with a thirteen-year-old Sly singing lead:

Roundup: Peter’s tears, “The Mission” film, Tan Dun’s “Water Passion,” and more

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

VISUAL COMMENTARY: “Repentance (Transforming Tears)” by Clemena Antonova: One of the three works that art historian Clemena Antonova curated for the Visual Commentary on Scripture exhibition on Peter’s denial of Christ (Matt. 26:69–75; Mark 14:66–72; Luke 22:54–62; John 18:15–18, 25–27) is the installation Lágrimas de São Pedro (Tears of Saint Peter) by contemporary Brazilian artist Vinícius Silva de Almeida. The artist used hundreds of light bulbs, filled with water and suspended on near-invisible nylon threads, to create an environment in which visitors move between “tears” falling like raindrops from above. In the Christian tradition, Peter is regarded as a paradigm of penitence, as scripture says he “wept bitterly” when he realized his sin, and soon after he was restored to Christ. As Antonova interprets, Tears of Saint Peter invites folks to reflect on the interconnection of sorrow and healing in Peter’s story and in their own.

Silva de Almeida, Vinicius_Tears of Saint Peter
Vinícius Silva de Almeida (Vinícius S.A.) (Brazilian, 1983–), Lágrimas de São Pedro (Tears of Saint Peter), 2005–21. 6,000 light bulbs filled with water (various numbers in different locations). Photo: Erivan Morais.

View additional photos here.

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SONGS:

>> “Peter” by Montell Fish: Montell Fish (the stage name of Montell Frazier) is a singer-songwriter from Pittsburgh whose music combines elements of lo-fi and classic R&B. In his song “Peter” from the album Camp Lukewarm (2020), he compares himself, in confessional mode, to the titular apostle, who denied Christ three times. “Sometimes I feel like Peter / Denied you and I cannot deny that I did / Can I rest my head on your shoulders again?” In the bridge, Christ answers in the affirmative: Yes, come rest.

>> “O How He Loves You and Me / Your Love Divine”: The first song in this medley was written by CCM (contemporary Christian music) pioneer Kurt Kaiser in 1975; the second by the legendary gospel artist Richard Smallwood. Recorded live at Jericho City of Praise in Landover, Maryland, it’s performed here by Smallwood (at piano) and his vocal and instrumental ensemble Vision, featuring soloist Vanessa Williams. The recording appears as two separate tracks on Persuaded: Live in D.C. (2001).

Here are the lyrics to the second song, starting at 3:06:

Refrain:
Lord, you know the pain, pain we bear
And Lord, you know the toils, toils and cares
Send your direction
Send your protection
Send your compassion
And your love divine

Verse:
Help us love those who would do us wrong
Send your cleansing power from above
Unite our hearts as one
Make us vessels for the flow-through of your love

[Refrain]

Vamp:
Your love divine
Your love divine

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BOOK CHAPTER: “Maundy Thursday—The Mission,” chap. 16 from Films for All Seasons by Abby Olcese: Abby Olcese is a writer on film, faith, and popular culture, living in Kansas City. Last year her book Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies was published by InterVarsity Press, spotlighting twenty-six films as lenses through which to reflect on the great themes of the church calendar. I was preparing to write something on The Mission, the 1986 film directed by Roland Joffé, for Lent this year when I encountered this book, and because Olcese covers the movie so well, I secured permission from IVP to provide a free PDF download of the chapter to Art & Theology readers. Olcese situates The Mission as a film that’s especially appropriate for Maundy Thursday, a day when the church reflects on the call to servant-love and commemorates, among other things, Jesus’s arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, during which he and his disciples “face the forces of human empire, a dramatic moment of conflict ending in what, for the moment, feels like defeat.”

The Mission addresses themes of Christian ministry, the kingdom of God, repentance, forgiveness, love, respect, and the nonviolent ethic of Christ. Based on actual events, it follows an eighteenth-century Spanish Jesuit priest, Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), as he establishes a mission among the Guaraní people in the borderlands of present-day Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil and seeks to protect the Guaraní from the encroachment of Spanish and Portuguese enslavers. He is later joined by the penitent Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro), a recent convert and former slave dealer and mercenary soldier. But the two clash over how best and most faithfully to protect the people they live among and serve.

Films for All Seasons, chap 16Download

PDF excerpt from Films for All Seasons by Abby Olcese. Copyright © 2024 by Abigail Olcese. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com

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ORATORIO: Water Passion After St. Matthew by Tan Dun: Commissioned for the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death in 2000, this eclectic, Asian-influenced Passion oratorio by the Chinese American composer Tan Dun follows Jesus from his baptism to his resurrection. As the title suggests, water plays an important role in the work. When performed, seventeen large transparent water bowls, dramatically lit from below, form a cross on the stage and are used by percussionists throughout the piece’s ninety-minute duration, creating various timbres. (“The three percussionists make water drip, flow, burble, crash and hiss. They lift handfuls of water, then fling it back down. They stir it, strike it with pairs of plastic cups, float soup bowls upside down in it and play them,” Justin Davidson described in his review of the world premiere.) For Tan, water is “a symbol of baptism, renewal, re-creation, and resurrection.”

Tan Dun
Composer Tan Dun plays a “water drum” in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Photo courtesy of Visual China Group (VCG).

In addition to the water percussion, the work calls for an SATB chorus that doubles on stones and tingsha (Tibetan finger cymbals); soprano and bass soloists who double on the xun (Chinese ocarina, or globular vessel flute) and who are required to do some Mongolian overtone singing; one violin; one cello; and one sampler player (Yamaha A-3000).

Water Passion premiered in Stuttgart, Germany, on September 8, 2000, conducted by Tan—you can listen to the full live recording on Spotify—and it has since been performed a handful of other times across the globe. I recommend the following hour-long video from Symphony Tacoma in Washington, which features excerpts from their March 30, 2016, performance augmented by interviews with some of the key players:

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ARTWORK: The Judas Window by Laurence Whistler: In 1940, St Nicholas Moreton in Dorset was hit by a German bomb, destroying much of the church building, including its nineteenth-century stained glass windows. After rebuilding, the church commissioned the renowned glass engraver Laurence Whistler in 1955 to make twelve new windows, replacing the ruined ones, a project he worked on for the next three decades; they depict butterflies, birds, rabbits, wildflowers, candles, stars and planets, and local scenes. (See a few photos at The Dorset Rambler or Chris Belsten’s Flickr album.) In 1987 he offered to donate a thirteenth window on the theme of forgiveness, featuring the death of Judas, which would be visible, by design, from the outside only (the proposed space was blocked on the inside by a memorial tablet). The idea was entertained but, after consultation between the rector, parish council, and local diocese, was ultimately rejected due to its controversial nature—too many felt that it just wasn’t a fitting subject for a church window. Eager to pursue his vision, Whistler made the window anyway and loaned it to the county museum in Dorchester but insisted that if the church ever changed its mind, it should be given to them.

Whistler, Laurence_The Death of Judas
Laurence Whistler (British, 1912–2000), The Death of Judas (aka the Forgiveness Window), made 1993, installed 2013. Engraved glass, St Nicholas’ Church, Moreton, Dorset, England. Photo: Phil Yeomans / Bournemouth News and Picture Service.

In 2012, Rev. Jacqueline Birdseye, the new rector, encouraged the parish to revisit the issue, and this time around, there was unanimous approval to install the window, startling though it is. Again, it’s a blind window—behind it is black wooden boarding—which was the artist’s intent, as he wanted Judas to be a “shadowy” figure (so he couldn’t be front-lit and backlit) and on the outside, near the graveyard. But, unlike traditional portrayals of Judas’s suicide, which are bleak and punishing, Whistler’s portrayal is one of subtle hope, redemption, and new life. The uniting theme of the twelve interior windows is “light,” and here a bright shaft falls from the heavens on Judas’s upturned face. Hanging from his noose, he relinquishes the thirty coins for which he sold his Savior, and when they hit the ground they transform into flowers; the “field of blood” (Acts 1:18–19) becomes a spring meadow.

Scripture tells us that after realizing his enormous error, Judas “repented” (Matt. 27:3 KJV), “was filled with remorse” (NLT), and returned the blood money. Though Christians have historically counted Judas as eternally damned, other Christians have suggested the possibility of forgiveness beyond the grave for the traitorous disciple who was desperately grieved by his sin. “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:17).