This does not mean films which do not mention God. That would be non-theistic. I am talking about films with a truly atheistic message. A couple that have been suggested (but can arguably not fit the bill) are:
Star Trek V - The crew of the Enterprise search for God but find only an impostor.
The Wizard of Oz - The Wizard (God) is just a man behind the curtain.
Bring out the Dead - Nicholas Cage’s character searches for a spiritual answer to his problems and doesn’t find one.
Can anyone think of any others which might even possibly fit?
I’m not sure what you mean. If you assume there is no god, then why mention his/her/its non-existance in a movie? I believe there are no little green men living on mars. How would I present this idea in a movie? IMO, a truly atheistic movie would be one that does not mention god. Are you asking for movies with an anti-theistic message perhaps? If so, this is not the same an atheistic movie.
Yes, I suppose an anti-theistic message would be a better way to phrase it. I wanted to differentiate that type of movie from one with simply no mention of god.
Well most films are secular not religious. Even films with religious content are secular as long as they’re not trying to sell you a religion or tell a religious myth.
Now why there aren’t any anti-religious plots, say about so and so losing their faith, well it would be pretty boring. Well maybe except for comedies. Especially for mainstream audiences, the story would be highbrow and unexciting. That equals small, if any, profits.
I always thought that Star Trek movie was kinda neo-buddhist. Spock’s brother had the uncanny ability to produce states of enlightenment and euphoria in anyone he met. They seem pretty happy up until they try to find the western, male, father-figure, fire-and-brimstone god that they get disappointed. They’d be better off making Spock’s brother a guru and starting a colony on some beautiful planet.
Just like DrMatrix was saying, atheists don’t need to get together and talk about the non-existance of gods. They could get together to defend against the workings of the religious, but at that point they’d be an anti-religious group.
Contact and Inherit the Wind are two movies in which atheism plays a strong, positive part. I have also heard it said that The Truman Show can be looked at as an atheistic movie, in the sense that Truman gives up his known world to face a reality in which there is no one taking care of him or overseeing his life. I haven’t seen this one so can’t say whether I agreew with this view.
I can think of numerous anti-Christian films (“Elmer Gantry,” for one), and a host of anti-Catholic films (“Stigmata” comes to mind). Moreover, in any mainstream Hollywood film, if a character quotes the Bible, you can be sure he’s a psycho killer (Robert Deniro in “Cape Fear”, Bob Gunton in “The Shawshank Redemption”).
Still, though Hollywood seems to take it for granted that Christians are dangerous loonies, very, very few films present an out-and-out “God doesn’t exist, and religion is all a crock” message. Even films that attack Christian churches and Christian institutions seem to push a subtle, namby-pamby type of spirituality. Flat-out atheism in movies is very rare… except in Woody Allen films. (Woody, you may recall, TRIES to become a Catholic in “Hannah and HEr Sisters,” but then renounces it, saying “We live in a godless universe”).
Actually, “The Rapture” had an interesting (though contemptible and repugnant) take: that Jehovah DOES exit, but is evil and unworthy of our love and devotion.
The Fountainhead, based on the novel by Ayn Rand, was a film made in 1949, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia O’Neal. Never having seen the film, I can’t say how atheistic it was.
Hannah and Her Sisters is actually the closest to theism that Woody Allen gets in his films. I would summarize the statement he makes there as “I looked at religion (not just Catholism, but also Hare Krisnism) to try to find something to believe in, but I couldn’t quite persuade myself to accept the existence of God.”
Another film like The Rapture is Bedazzled. A short novel like it is Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger. They each say something like “If God exists, he must be contemptible.”
Gee, I’ve been an atheist for two decades precisely because I think that if Jehovah exists he would have to be contemptible. Most of the Christian religions I’ve encountered take the stance, “If you don’t believe in God correctly, you’re gonna be destroyed (or worse) and we won’t.” Tough noogies to all those people in China who weren’t fortunate enough to be born within 50 miles of a Bible.
I would like to propose that the film “The Matrix” has a subtly atheistic message, in that it puts forth the idea that everything we experience is illusion and that almost nothing we take to be true is so. (I say “almost” nothing because apparently people “really” do have primate-derived bodies.) It is, of course, the old “brains in vats” puzzler, but most people don’t know about that (or if they do, haven’t really thought about what it means).
The people who got upset over Dogma really piss me off. The message of the movie could only be offensive to those who either did not see the entire movie or are too stupid to understand what is going on.
As stated above, Dogma is very pro-God. There is even a speech in the film pointing out that while God created man, he also gave him the choice of belief. Bartleby laments the fact that God bestowed all this love on his creation (man), allowed him free will, created a paradise for him and yet some of them don’t even believe he exists.
I think that overall the film gives a very positive view of God (not necessarily religion). All the people who were upset by it were upset by the exact things in the film that Kevin Smith was pointing out were the stupid, non-important parts that make religion such a complicated web. Everyone gets bogged down in the politics and the Dogma of religion that they forget to believe what is most important.
The protesting began before the movie was released, no protester saw it, unless they were invited to the premiere. Well, they’re better off because its pretty bland, boring, and highly overrated. Err, they’re probably protesting the content. I’ve always considered that protest and the one with the Last Temptation of Christ to be nothing but fundamentalists advetising the world that they can’t handle reality.
The working script was posted several places on-line and several groups read the script before the movie was out. We all know that certain things work better when performed than they do when they are read in a script.
If you count Existentialism as atheistic, you can put me in the same boat with Wendell: Bergman trod this path often. The Seventh Seal is one of my very favorite films, perfect by every definition I have.
God is notably, despicably, absent in that film, and even Death himself doesn’t know whom he’s working for, if anyone. If it ain’t atheistic, it sure as hell is depressing, as well as piercingly observant of the quandaries created by organized religion. I like that.
I recall Steven Hawking mentioning a publisher who warned him that for every equasion in his book, his readership would be halved. Perhaps the film industry feels the same way about religion. After all, it is a touchy subject.
Let me note that I don’t have to agree with the viewpoint of a film to like it. I don’t agree with the religious views of either Bergman or Allen. I nearly always like Allen’s films but often don’t like Bergman’s. I agree with the comment made by Diane Keaton’s character in the movie Manhattan: Bergman frequently comes across as a college sophomore deciding he doesn’t believe in God and boring everybody to death with his agonizing. I like The Rapture and Bedazzled (and the story The Mysterious Stranger) even though I don’t agree with the philosophy.
This was sort of like when I saw “The Last Temptaion of Christ.” (I wouldn’t’ve gone to see it except for the hoopla.) There were so many protesters that about 2 dozen policemen were there to keep the peace.
One protester was carrying a sign that said, “To Lust In Your Heart Is A Sin.” She was wearing a tube top and Daisy Duke shorts. Either a hypocrite or The Devil tempting me.
When I left, the protest had gotten louder. One jerk was spouting scripture through a hand-made portable PA. But he was shouting so much and the equipment so shoddy that you couldn’t understand a word he said. I went up to him (on opposite sides of a police line) and tried to talk to him. He shouted at me so forcefully that spit was landing on me. Thouroughly grossed out, I left.
The movie was OK, but too long. Plus, while waiting in line I had drank 2 Big Gulps. So I was about to burst about halfway through the movie.
Bergman’s Through A Glass Darkly and The Virgin Spring are perhaps the most bleak, atheistic films ever shot.
2001 also qualifies.
The surrealists and existentialists also toyed around with atheism and nonbelief. Camus’ The Stranger is a notable example.
Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev is another fine example of atheism, retelling the tale of a religious icon painter who becomes disillusioned with God and Church.
These are some of the best films ever made because the directors had their eyes wide open.
