Article
Culture
Film & TV
4 min read

The Oscars and ourselves

Beyond the shiny escapism, the awards spotlight all our stories.

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A closely cropped group of gold Oscar statues showing mostly their head and shoulders.
Oscars.org

The Oscars are a funny old thing, aren’t they? Every year, I find myself wondering why we care about them so much.  

And sure, we could go for the low-hanging answers: because the show is brimming with glamour, because it’s packed with celebrity, because we may be treated to Ryan Gosling performing his Barbie anthem with Slash. We’ve been trained to gravitate toward such things, and that makes the Oscars the jackpot. And so, while shiny escapism is an undeniable aspect of the enormous hype attached to the Academy Awards, I think it would be unfair to assume that these are the only reasons we are still so drawn to this event.   

If we’re meaning-making creatures, and I believe that we are, then these films mean something.  

I once heard renowned mythologist, Dr Martin Shaw, say that ‘story is the best way to talk about almost anything’, and I wonder if cinema is evidence of how heartily we agree. The stories that are being crafted and told are important, they matter, they actually affect things. Or, at least, the good ones do.   

And this year, when I assess the films that swept up the majority of the prizes at the 96th Academy Awards, I noticed a trend. I noticed that these films are essentially humans talking to humans about what it means to be human.   

In many ways, for better or for worse, we spent 2023 telling stories about ourselves. Allow me to break down what I mean.  

These movies tell us of our own brokenness, our own breaking-things-ness.

Oppenheimer, which won six awards, and Zone of Interest, which was the first British film to win the Oscar for Best International Film – they tell our darkest stories. We know the 20th Century horrors of the dropping of the atomic bomb and the Holocaust, but these two movies introduce us to the faces behind the horror. And, what’s more, they hauntingly remind us that those faces could have been ours. They introduce us, not to monsters that we can keep at a comfortable distance, but to people who sanction, create and do the unimaginable, and then go home for dinner with their children.   

People did these things. People like us. These movies tell us of our own brokenness, our own breaking-things-ness. They remind us that the possibility of evil is not beyond us, it is within us, and that the most dangerous thing one could do is to believe otherwise.  

But then there was the acutely tender The Holdovers, and the deeply profound Past Lives. These movies tell of our gentleness, our fragility, our innate need for intimacy; they remind us that we were designed to be known and loved. They reintroduce us to our deepest and most innate needs - The Holdovers, in particular, tells us of the sacrality of relationship. Its success has me wondering if a story of three lonely people forced to spend Christmas together in an empty boarding school could tell us more about what our souls require than any academic deep dive. 

Yet again, these films seek to tell you the story of you; they aim to be windows into the souls of the characters, while also acting as mirrors through which we can catch glimpses of our own.  

Each movie, in one way or another, was a wrestle with personhood. What makes us, us?

And finally, there were two films, Barbie and Poor Things, which, to criminally over-simplify them, are the stories of two women (or, rather, one toy and one new-born baby in the body of a grown woman… don’t ask) who are working out what it means to be a person. Both Barbie and Bella Baxter walk through worlds that are entirely new to them, but completely familiar to their audiences. They assess the good and the bad of humanity as if utterly detached from it, until they are forced to confront their own place in the worlds that they are slowly coming to terms with. As is written into the script of Poor Things and was read aloud over a montage at the Oscars ceremony,  

‘We must experience everything. Not just the good, but degradation, horror, sadness. This makes us whole Bella, makes us people of substance. Not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world.’ 

(Is it me, or is there a little touch of – ‘just take a bite of the apple, Eve’ in there?) 

So, you see my point – this year, in the world of film, humans talked to other humans about what it means to be human. Each movie, in one way or another, was a wrestle with personhood. What makes us, us? Where does our propensity for goodness come from? How are we this clever? And how are we this clueless? Why do we do such evil things? And why do we have such tender needs? What is the difference between the worst and the best that we could possibly be? What and why are we? Or, in the simple words of Billie Eilish’s Oscar-scooping song – what were we made for?  

And listen, perhaps this is always somewhat the case. Maybe every film can be boiled down this way, and maybe the Oscars are just a storm in a particularly glitzy tea cup. And maybe nobody would be talking about it this morning had Slash not been involved.  

But I just have this sense that these movies, and the prizes that they won, mean something. These existential-yearning kind of films, I’m not sure they’re going anywhere anytime soon – if we’re wondering what we were made for in such public places, I’m wondering if it’s because we’re also wondering the same thing in the most personal places.  

If you’re asking me, last night was filled with as many cultural heart-cries as it was prizes.  

Review
Awe and wonder
Culture
Death & life
Music
4 min read

Natalie Bergman brings grief and joy to Union Chapel

A soul-soaked set turned personal tragedy into communal celebration

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A musician wearing black sits on a chair in a desert holding her guitar.
Natalie Bergman.
Natalie Bergman.

In any other context, they would call this revival! A wild belle singing songs of worship and wonder in a chapel packed to the rafters with a diverse crowd of beautiful people in rapture at songs such as ‘Talk To The Lord’ and ‘I Will Praise You’. This is Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel. 

Who? If you don’t already know, you need to know. Following three albums with Wild Belle, her debut solo album, Mercy, was a Gospel album written and recorded in response to the tragic death of her father and stepmother in a road traffic accident. Begun on retreat at a monastery, its lithe, light, luscious rhythms lift the listener from the valley of the shadow of death to the goodness and mercy found in the house of the Lord forever.    

If Mercy equates to the direct songs of praise and witness found on Bob Dylan’s Gospel albums, then her latest release, My Home Is Not In This World, equates to those later Dylan albums (like Infidels, Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind and Rough and Rowdy Ways) where faith infuses songs exploring life and love. Bergman has quoted T Bone Burnett’s distinction between songs about the light and songs about what you can see from the light. Mercy is the former and My Home Is Not In This World, the latter. 

As a result, tonight, she takes us down paths of sorrow into the wilderness to find the light of God shining on us. At Union Chapel, a series of subtly lit arches ascend behind her and her band guiding our eyes upward until they reach the central back-lit rose window. The beauty of that light is where she takes us through the soulful spirituality of her songs. By the end, the joint is jumping with joy as we sing and dance to ‘Keep Those Teardrops From Falling’. 

Why? Her super-melodic songs draw inspiration from the deep sources of sixties soul, including Motown, while being infused also with the rhythms of reggae and highlife. Her voice ranges from childlike wonder floating on a sea of sound to smoky sultry spirituality. In common with Nick Cave on Wild God, the source of her spirituality is a vulnerability and openness occasioned by the grief she has endured, an experience common to all of us, whether now or in the future.  

She has explained simply and clearly how it happened: “When I began writing, I had already lost the greatest love I’ve ever had, so I had nothing else to lose. I went for it. I sang from the depths of my sorrow and I witnessed a little light while doing so.” As she concludes, “How could anyone have a problem with someone processing grief in a harmless way?” At Union Chapel, it’s clear that they don’t. Instead, what resonated with Bergman in her loss, also resonates with us.  

‘Talk To The Lord’ quotes Psalm 23 – ‘Though I walk in shadows, I won't be afraid / I will fear no evil / For You walk with me’ – in order to state that: 

‘When you are scared, reach out your hand 

Talk to the Lord, talk to the Lord 

If you are sad, He'll dry your tears 

Talk to the Lord, talk to the Lord’ 

In ‘I Will Praise You’, she says ‘When I'm broken, I will sing Your name’, while ‘Shine Your Light On Me’ also quotes Psalm 23 in a prayer for light as she cries like a ‘mourning dove’ for her ‘greatest love’. ‘Paint The Rain’ documents difficult days but discovers that: 

‘In this pain, you make me sing 

When I am blue, you take me in 

My little ways, they feel strange 

You give me a little bit, and you take it away 

You paint the rain’ 

In these ways, she has been enabled to live again and to find joy in family life, with My Home Is Not In This World finding its inspiration in the birth of her son, Arthur. When not lamenting lost loves, My Home Is Not In This World is grounded in the realities of home and natural life. The song ‘My Home Is Not In This World’ contrasts a prior life of glitzy glamour – her home no longer being there - with the life she has now found: 

‘My home 

My home is not in this world 

My home 

My home is not in this world  

 

I want to go outside 

Tell the trees that I love them 

Open my eyes 

See the children in the garden 

Dancing underneath the sunshine 

Swinging underneath the moonlight 

Sing away your sorrow my little one’ 

It’s been said that her ‘greatest achievement is choosing to go against the grain’, a decision that includes her spiritual focus and proves the value of going counter to the culture. It’s also been said that her universal music ‘lives in the hearts and minds and souls of her fellow travelers; born again believers in love, joy, and music’s role as guiding light and lightning rod’. That was certainly the case at Union Chapel where she ‘let the sunshine in’ and we all experienced the everlasting light of love shining on us. 

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,500 articles. All for free. 
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
 
Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief