Brehm Center

            On November 12^th, American Airlines Flight #587 crashed shortly after taking-off from JFK Airport in New York. Students in Rob’s theology and film class met that evening to discuss the pre-assigned movie, Fearless. It is a lyrical and introspective film by Peter Weir that first screened in 1993. Though the movie garnered critical acclaim, it died at the box office. Now students found it a riveting experience. What made the difference this time around? Fearless is a movie about a plane disaster. What a difference a day makes.

            Most disaster movies build their suspense throughout the film, the crash happening near the end. But not Weir’s movie. Instead, it begins with scenes of the crash and of Max Klein (Jeff Bridges), one of the few to survive the catastrophe. As the cameras roll, we are looking at idyllic cornfields that have been changed forever by the terrible crash. (Those who have seen Wier’s movie Witness will recall the fields of grain that similarly suggested an innocence being transgressed.)  What follows as the film unfolds is a moving meditation on the meaning of life by someone who has been forced to face the inexplicable and irrational reality of death. All of us could identify.

Max’s secure and successful life as architect and father has been shattered forever. Fame, money, and wisdom no longer seem significant to him. Although Max has rescued two children from the plane, he shuns becoming a media celebrity. An ambulance-chasing attorney wants to “help” him make millions, but to no avail. A trauma psychiatrist wants to help him readjust, but he is ineffective. It is almost as if they were Job’s friends; none are able to offer helpful advice. These counselors cannot enter Max’s grief-dominated world; it has become a different universe.

For a time Max assumes an air of invincibility, tempting fate (or is it God?). He eats strawberries that previously would have caused him to choke in allergic reaction. He walks across a busy intersection and later balances high on the ledge of a building. Looking up to heaven, he desperately mocks God, “You can’t do it! You want to kill me but you can’t.”  Viewers hear the pathos of this modern day Job as he addresses the heavens. But we see something more as well. For as Max screams, we find ourselves watching him from a camera suspended high above him. Like God, himself, we find ourselves looking down on Max, aching patiently for him.

            There is a subplot to the simple story as Max finds comfort in reaching out to help Carla (Rosie Perez), another of the crash survivors. From the opening camera shots that focus on Max’s side which has been pierced in the crash, to Max taking children in his arms and later reaching down to make some mud out of the dirt he has spit on, viewers are encouraged to look at Max as a “savior-like” figure. But the spiritual core of the film is not in Max’s Christ-like, sacrificial acts. The movie is, instead, about Max’s own salvation, something he cannot win for himself.

In the final climatic moment as Max discovers the wonder of life, particularly given the irrationality and amorality of death, the director Wier chooses as the background music a haunting piece by the contemporary Polish composer, Henryk Gorecki. “Symphony No. 3” was composed in 1976 for a performance at St. Magnus Church near Auschwitz. It is known as the “symphony of sorrowful songs.” But as in other of Gorecki’s compositions, there is heard through the pain a note of hope. As one conductor put it, in this symphony, we hear “a hope born of sorrow but not itself sorrowful.” Such a summary describes Fearless, as well.

Student discussion of Wier’s movie that evening centered on the film, but never far removed were our own reactions to the plane crashes of the last months, to the inexplicable horror we continue to witness, even to our own primal fears of dying in a plane crash. But life’s randomness did not have the last word. For neither Wier’s movie nor our biblical faith would permit such fatalism. Instead, students encountered a hope blossoming out of the very depth of our pain. We might even say, “as a result of our pain.” We might lack answers to all that has happened -- to injustice, amorality, mystery and death. The Old Testament sages, like Max, recognized that. But with Max, they could nevertheless embrace “the taste and love and beauty of life.” Life has a transcendent mystery that invites our wonder.

    Fearless will not give its viewers the roller coaster ride so typical of disaster genre films. It offers something far more significant. We as viewers are drawn by the portrayal of this airline crash and its aftermath to consider introspectively our own spiritual beliefs concerning life and death, death and life. Like Max, we are encouraged to choose life.