Peter Jennings Reporting: The
Search for Paul (ABC News)
Picture: B+
Sound: B+ Extras: B- Documentary: B+
In
his compelling book Representations of
the Intellectual, the late Edward Said wrote, “It is in modern public life
seen as a novel or drama and not as a business or as the raw material for
sociological monograph that we can most readily see and understand how it is
that intellectuals are representative, not just of some subterranean or large
social movement, but of a quite peculiar, even abrasive style of life and
social performance that is uniquely theirs.”
And in a strange sort of way, I was reminded of this quote as I watched
ABC’s The Search for Paul, hosted by
Peter Jennings. I must admit, I
thoroughly enjoyed this disc, but I’m not sure I enjoyed it for the “right”
reasons.
The Search for Paul on the one hand, from its opening frames of a bus
racing past a sign for Damascus written in both English and Arabic – a knowing
nod to almost anyone familiar with that “sudden” and “bizarre“ event that
purportedly happened two thousand years ago on that very same road and arguably
gave birth not only to the highest hopes of the Western mind, but also to all
of its existential angst and greatest anxieties – is very clearly a sort of
experiment in the representation of genius; albeit a safe, and contained
one. I don’t just mean the genius of
Paul, but also those who might talk about him.
This is readily observed not only in the resonance between this disc and
its predecessor The Search for Jesus,
but also in the dissonance between these two discs. Why is it that The Search
for Paul has bonus material, while The
Search for Jesus does not? Perhaps
because by the time The Search for Paul
is produced, ABC has come to more fully understand the opportunities of digital
video and the possibilities provided by the non-linear format we have come to
know as the DVD. Either way, The Search for Paul denotes for me what
I think will be an increasing trend over the next few years where religious
scholars will start to enjoy an increasing favor as celebrities with their own
star personas in their own right as they find more and more places to represent
themselves through digital media.
It would be an
overstatement to say that ABC’s previous documentary The Search for Jesus (see my review elsewhere on this site) – which
Jennings also narrated and presumably wrote – was a disappointment. I would more likely say that while it did
spark some critical thinking and reconsideration on my part, the extent to which
I was persuaded was marginal to say the least compared to other documentary
works on the topic. This isn’t for lack
of trying, but trying to hard…to be politically correct. As a very apparent appeal to the mainstream
of its viewership, a disproportionate reliance on contributors to Robert Funk’s
Jesus Seminar reduces this seemingly unbiased and want-to-be rigorous work of
broadcast journalism to nothing more than an interesting, but decidedly
tentative exploration of one of the most controversial figures of human
history. That disc’s interest stems
more from its subject matter, than its own technique as a digital medium in a
rare instance where substance winning out over style is not necessarily a good
thing. Surprisingly though, I am
delighted to report that there is much to learn on The Search for Paul, a promising documentary disc that not only
exerts some style, but has a whole lot of substance.
Perhaps it is relevant,
and perhaps it is not. But for what
it’s worth, I must note that I do not come to Jennings’ report uninformed, or
without my own scholarly notions of Paul as deriving from the numerous books
I’ve studied on the topic, ranging from John Zeisler’s Pauline Christianity and E.P. Sanders Paul and Palestinian Judaism – who incidentally offers comments on
this disc – to Gene A. Getz’s Paul:
Living for the Call of Christ and A. N. Wilson’s Paul: The Mind of the Apostle, to Marty Wooten’s Power in Weakness and John W. Mauck’s Paul on Trial. I even took a class at the University of
Pittsburgh taught by Dr. Tony Edwards, entitled, you guessed it: Paul. Currently, I am reading John Dominic Crossan
and Jonathan L. Reed’s In Search of Paul,
which brings me to my first point.
Considering Crossan’s 2004 book, it surprises me why considering ABC’s
all-too predictable usage of Crossan on previous New Testament-centered
documentaries like The Search for Jesus
and many of their specials concerning Gibson’s The Passion, he doesn’t turn up here for as much as a
soundbyte. He did after all, quite
literally, write the book on the topic.
I can only hope that the reason for Crossan’s absence on The Search for Paul in the very same
year that he writes a book entitled In
Search of Paul is legitimate and not the result of some political power
play either on his part or that of ABC.
The fact that his bio still turns up in the bonus features, only
compounds my confusion why what he had to say might possibly have ended up on
the cutting room floor, or even worse, never even recorded. Either way, Crossan’s forthright and pointed
commentary is not only inexplicably absent, but noticeably missed – though not
sorely. Mainly because so many other
equally intelligent minds have been tapped by Jennings for this particular take
on the “co-founder of Christianity” who in his day began as the red-headed
step-child, and most potentially alienated of all of Jesus’ first-century
missionaries.
The disc presents a pretty
accurate chronology of Paul’s life, though certain key relationships like with
Titus, Timothy, Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila are either glossed over or
completely missed in this particular telling.
But this is not all that surprising – Roger Young’s Paul the Apostle (2000) basically does the same thing, and that was
supposed to be a dramatic presentation of his life…and death. But in the last section of this
disc, scholars are divided over exactly how Paul died. But to me, that is precisely the point. That such an influential Western thinker
could die in obscurity is the stuff of true intellectual endeavor. His was not a day when scholars powdered
their noses and put on make-up to muse over the depth of the Scriptures in
perfect prose, and rhythmic edits. No,
his was a day where opening your mouth could get you stoned or beheaded. But now, as if the truth is suddenly en
vogue, intellectualism has been a commodity bought, sold, and marketed to the
highest bidder. So perhaps this is why
John Dominic Crossan, the same man who wrote The Essential Jesus – a must read for anybody even remotely
interested in understanding the message of the gospels -- bowed out of this
particular outing of playing the expert.
Or did he?
Crossan’s ambiguous
absence is probably my biggest and only real critique of what is otherwise a
very fascinating and informative piece of educational cinema. The opening frame of The Search for Paul is very explicit in its attempts to be
different, even if only slightly, from other talking-head documentaries. While many of these marks of difference are
in some cases subtle, I think they do suggest impending shifts in the mise en
scene and cinematicity of television reporting, marked as much by MTV as recent
scholarship. No longer is the
stereotypical biblical specialist an immobile Anglophile in glasses, a bow-tie,
and a cardigan with three degrees after his name captured in uninspired jump
cuts of close-up and medium close-up.
In The Search for Paul the
scholars are men and women of various ethnicities and ages, with almost
deliberately most of the foundational commentary provided by two very disparate
but noteworthy voices: Pamela Eisenbaum, a very articulate, vibrant, and
conveniently photogenic expert in Jewish history; and the Rev. Dr. Calvin O.
Butts III, a black minister of the Abyssinian Baptist Church whose admission:
“I’m sure that I might be more a part of the culture of that day who kind of
looked askance at Paul…” because of the “cult”-like nature of his ministry,
while shocking to come from a man who somehow is able to preach the word of God
every Sunday can at least be respected for his candor and self-effacing
honesty. Butts further hypothesizes
that he would have probably wondered: “Who is this weird looking guy running
around talking about this other guy that some God raised from the dead?” We can
only assume by the size of his New York church that later gets depicted on the
disc and the fact that he serves as president of the Council of Churches of New
York City that somehow his placement in our modern world has more adequately
stabilized his prominently featured faith and understanding not only of Paul,
but of Jesus.
If
documentaries were merely textual productions and not cinematic ones, I am
curious as to whose understanding of Paul among these scholars would
prevail. I would like to think that
such considerations do not matter, but having spent many years in undergrad
around the all-too frequent droll professor, it is quite obvious that Jennings
and ABC are not only interested in the ideas of its scholars, but also their
personas and personalities. Not only is
this almost reality-TV inspired attempt at hipness evidenced in The Search for Paul’s soundtrack, a
raucous hodgepodge of speed metal, rock, hip hop, and standard video production
library samples – whoever thought one need comment on the soundtrack of a New
Testament documentary? – but also in its occasional moments of rapid-fire
montages of paintings of the balding, bearded apostle, and Ben McCoy’s
shaky-cam, fast-motion, skip-frame photography of pedestrians, crucifixes, and
priests. While such approaches are not
completely innovative in terms of nonfiction filmmaking, when combined with the
typical location shots of the Forum, The Arch of Titus, St. Paul’s Basilica,
and long-aerial shots of un-swaggering critics who dress comfortably in
sunglasses, polo shirts, and khakis combined with ubiquitous road shots that to
the literate baby-boomer may suggest Kerouac, on the other hand, to the
cineliterate Generation X’er may suggest the early moments of Godard’s Breathless.
But
please do not mistake my tone as sardonic.
I like these moments for several reasons. One, these moments are interesting to me as they suggest new
possibilities for the place of the scholar in post-modernity not only no longer
as a hidden and imagined persona behind some canonical text, but now as a
visible face with its own quirks or and idiosyncrasies. Let’s be honest, the scholar has and always
will be a sort of performance and act with its own script, dialogue, and
wardrobe – but to see these performances deconstructed somewhat by the lens only
to be co-opted once again by the sensibilities of Mark Burnett is the irony I
take note of. Heck, I enjoy an episode
of The Apprentice just as much as
the next man; but to see these experts assert with such conviction what was
going on in the minds of the likes of a Paul with such conviction, I often
wonder how many takes it took to get it all out without flubbing. I don’t know whether it is good or bad that
now, like doctors hired by both sides for legal depositions on the same case,
that scholars not only need to be
smart, but look smart – not a
Jean-Paul-Sartre-type smart, but an Abercrombie & Fitch-type smart.
As it
is, the documentary from the days of Robert Flaherty’s 1922 film Nanook of the North to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is an investment in the
dialogic relationship between sound and image for the purposes of information –
with a strong emphasis on the image.
Though this was not always the case.
The good thing about the stuffy, distant, and alienated intellectual of
black & white newsreels and Eisenhower-era documentaries was that it was
precisely those codes of dress and behavior that made you trust them –
precisely because they were not trying to look too good for you for fear of being perceived a hack. But now when even the so-called “everyman”
of Survivor or Fear Factor looks like a chiseled god or goddess, it is interesting
to note how even the experts of today are much more likely to resemble Indiana
Jones than Walter Cronkite. It is no
wonder Dan Brown describes his Robert Langdon, professor of Symbology – a
discipline not as fictional as some might think – in The Da Vinci Code as a “Harrison Ford in Harris tweed”. Just note the moment in The Search for Paul where Peter Jennings accompanies archaeologist
Eduard G. Reinhardt out on a boat in Caesarea, and then we follow them both
down into the sea, and get a quick shot of Jennings underwater in full scuba
gear. I must admit I was impressed,
thinking to myself of Jennings, he’s
smart, he’s in a great shape, he even scuba dives! What can’t he do? But
then I quickly remembered, he’s a journalist part of a corporate media
conglomerate and quickly remembered, Oh
yeah! He can’t tell us what he really
thinks or believes, otherwise it might compromise his fair and balanced
objectivity.
Yet in
spite of this predicament, Jennings does have some teeth and shrewdness to go
with it. Take for instance the moment
in Rome when he tells Don Alessandro, the clergyman who keeps the grounds of
sacred site it is “cheating” to use an engine to keep the water running where
supposedly two springs welled up from the two bounces of Paul’s decapitated
head – a telling metaphor perhaps for the systematic and regulating function of
the church as a whole, where clergy would rather manufacture symbols of faith
because they don’t believe in the devotion of their constituents, rather than
be truly devoted themselves and thus become true symbols of faith in their own
right. In response to Jennings’ quip as
to why he allows for the engine, according to Jennings, Alessandro allegedly
responds, “Tradition is important to teach the faithful about suffering and
sacrifice.” But it is an interesting logic that supposes technological
innovation might best reinforce tradition and teach of suffering and sacrifice,
but a logic nonetheless exercised by much of Christendom, especially in St.
Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where just a few feet from St. Peter’s tomb, one can
enter a gift shot and buy post cards with waving Popes and grinning Jesuses,
while listening to “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” on the gift shop’s
automated soundtrack. (While this is a
personal anecdote of my own recent experience in Rome, and not featured on the
disc, I had to chuckle knowingly when we go with Jennings to Ananias’ house on
Straight Street in Damascus where former Chicago firefighter Brother Tom
Courtney, who supervises the site, asides, “Of course we have the donation
box. If you want to drop something,
we’ll take it.”) Jennings also
chuckles.
What I like about Paul is
that he was a man who boldly and fiercely grappled with what it meant to be
devoted to a religious tradition, which was threatened to be annihilated by a
now ancient form of imperialism known as Emperor worship. For just as many people in his day and today
who accuse him of betraying Judaism, just as many could also say that he helped
reform it so that it might endure the destruction of the Temple, paving the way
for an eventual Judeo-Christian political alliance that has even greater
implications now post 9/11 than it did in the first century in terms of
defining what it means to be devoted and religious in the 21st
century.
Without necessarily
intending to do so, I think The Search
for Paul, with its schizoid and eclectic musical rifts and music-video-ish
editing, what comes to bare is what lies at the very root of all religious
quests – identity and all of the various politics and modes of discourse that
accompany any such notions. What we
have on this disc is a documentary trying to finds its own style, though confined
by the format of prime-time reporting, featuring scholars and ministers
undoubtedly concerned just as much for the advancement of their own reputations
as they are for who Paul actually was.
The bonus features are informative, and appreciated – but more text is
given to the scholar’s bios than the information about the places featured in
the disc. And the photo gallery comes
off almost as an afterthought. But
nonetheless, each of these as potential bonuses on future documentaries shows
promise, so I must commend ABC on their vision. Still, no doubt somewhere some filmmaker goo-goo eyed over the
inexplicable success of The Passion
is pining over a screenplay about Paul hoping to grasp just the hem of Gibson’s
pocketbook. Because of this, there is
also no doubt that some of those featured on this disc will be consulted as
experts on that film – their appearance here being the ultimate job
interview. And if that is not enough,
there are always the bonus features, which provide all the necessary biographical
information for contacting these scholars in the digital age of the
Internet. Truly Paul’s gospel is being
preached to the very ends of the earth.
I’m sure the apostle would be pleased.
- Greg Allen
