Cinema as sacramental: film aesthetics as mystagogy in the works of Dreyer, Bergman, and von Trier
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
As a still relatively young art form, cinema has evolved tremendously over the last one hundred and twenty-five years. However, as perhaps the most accessible popular art form at our disposal, it does not function merely as entertainment. This essay argues that film aesthetics are more than meets the eye. Through analysis of three northern European directors (Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, and Lars von Trier), I argue that cinema is an inherently mystical medium. Through this designation, I work to show how cinema functions to bring one to closer union with God, and thus function as sacramental. Both individual experience and communal consensus make viewing cinema an intensely pragmatic, and important, practice. Through the affective nature of cinema, the individual becomes malleable toward the cultivation of virtue. The mystical encounters one experiences become a co-participatory, pedagogical relationship between viewer and medium.