When was the last time that you experienced tranquility? Think about the last time that you felt profoundly at peace; the last time that you were in a state of being that was free from any agitation or disturbance. How long ago was it since you felt that way? And, if you felt that way recently, then when was the last time before that? Is it a regular thing that happens for you, or does it happen few and far between? Try to answer those questions in your head before you continue reading beyond this paragraph.
Personally, I experience tranquility very infrequently, although it is not something that is completely absent from my life. Yet, all around me, in all of my favorite works of art, throughout all of my most cherished stories, and within the life of Christ Himself, I encounter constant reminders that tranquility—or, in its most base form, solitude—is something that needs to have a more consistent presence in my day-to-day existence.
In regards to movies, television shows, and video games, the way in which peace is exemplified is through pacing (you cannot spell PEACE without PACE). You may ask, what is “pacing”? Well, “pacing” refers to the flow of time in which things happen. For example, the amount of downtime between moments of action or climax. Does the movie/show jump from one important plot point and action set-piece to another or does it space those out with character/world-building scenes or episodes? Does the video game throw encounter after encounter at you, constantly giving you another shiny item to acquire or score to achieve, or does it give you periods of respite via loading screens, level selects, walk backs, or stretches of time that are filled with seemingly nothing?
Odds are that for a majority of examples, if the movie or show is considered to be “good”, it does have those moments of respite. I’ll explain this further by comparing two, extremely different films: J.J. Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972).
I am a huge Star Wars fan. Ever since my grandma gifted me the Special Editions of the Original Trilogy (movies which I watched over and over and over again, often times in the same day according to my parents) I have loved every piece of content from A Galaxy Far, Far Away. Unfortunately, that love is also blind. It is incredibly hard for me to objectively look at Star Wars media in a rationale way and when I do, well, often times it is disappointing. One such disappointment is with 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. When I was watching the movie on opening night, I loved it. Yet, with passing time and repeat viewings I realized something: the movie sucks.
That isn’t to say that I love the movie any less but that my love is more so connected to the lore elements that were added to the universe rather than being attached to the quality of the movie itself. The film is SO packed with story—essentially feeling like Star Wars Episodes 9 & 10, perhaps in part to make up for a relative lack of story progression in Episode 8—that it never gives itself room to breathe. HEY LOOK IT’S THE MILLENIUM FALCON HYPERSP-REY TRAINING IN THE FOREST WITH LE-KYLO IS ON MUSTAFAR!!! I WONDER IF-DESERT CHASE SCENE WITH LANDO, HOW IS LAN-SNAKE IN A TUNNEL WITH A KEY-PALPATINE IS BACK AND HE IS A CLONE?-HERE IS KERI RUSSELL AS A NEW CHARACTER! HER AND POE AR-LIGHTSABER FIGHT, BROKEN HELMET!
Was that a little hard and disorienting to read? Well, that’s how the movie is, so if you haven’t seen it yet, prepare yourself accordingly. Watching The Rise of Skywalker feels like downing a Mountain Dew, eating a box of Sour Patch, taking a shot of espresso, and then jumping on a rollercoaster. You have a blast but you also need to throw up and take a nap afterwards. There is a decent, well-paced movie in that avalanche of bright colors and loud noises somewhere but it is so poorly written and badly paced, that any goodness is overshadowed. You as the viewer do not have a single second to process what is happening before something new is shoved in your face, presumably to ensure that you are not thinking too long about the shortcomings in the film. Now, I do not necessarily place the blame entirely on the director, J.J. Abrams, or the writer, Chris Terrio, both of whom who have put out good-to-borderline-great films in the past. They were tasked with a nigh-impossible task of sealing out the Sequel Trilogy in a satisfactory way while dealing with the facts that 1) a majority of audiences HATED The Last Jedi and 2) they were playing catch-up and being forced to release the film by December 2019 despite serving as pretty late-in-the-game replacements for the former writer and director, who had already completed an entire script of the film. So, the fact that the movie is watchable is enough reason to applaud Abrams and Terrio. They are nevertheless still culpable, but blame should also be directed towards Kathleen Kennedy and Robert Iger for their mismanagement of the film and the Sequel Trilogy as a whole.
P.S.: For those of you who are interested, here is a link to a fan made comic adaptation of the original script of Episode 9, then titled: Duel of the Fates. Additionally, here is some official concept art from when Colin Trevorrow was still attached to the film. Awhile back, I was able to find the PDF of the script itself and read it in its entirety, but now I cannot find it anywhere, so the comic-version is the best way that I know of to experience the story.
The tale of The Rise of Skywalker is ultimately one of too many cooks in way too small of a kitchen. Whether it is due to artistic choices, corporate interference, and/or real life tragedy, the film is a mess and a lackluster way to wrap up The Skywalker Saga (there’s a reason why The Mandalorian, a Disney+ show, has had way more of a cultural impact than the Sequel Trilogy ever did). As mentioned before, the pacing and writing is the film’s biggest downfall. It never gets its pacing right, and moments that would otherwise be impactful are immediately disregarded by the next shiny object to flash on screen. You leave the film feeling exhausted and dissatisfied, two feelings which you should never experience after watching a movie.
But, you know which movie will not leave you feeling that way? The Godfather.
I first watched The Godfather in 2014 during a best friend and I’s attempt to watch all of IMDb’s Top 250 Movies within a year.
And I hated it.
Dull, plodding, and over-hyped. Those were my initial reactions to the film and no one could have convinced me otherwise. Luckily, since then I have grown a brain and more of a heart and let me tell you, this movie is delicious. It’s a full course meal.
Rich, brilliantly-paced, and deserving of all the praise that it gets is how I would describe the film now after a recent re-watch. I would argue that there is not a single wasted moment, and each scene is specifically paced and spaced out to make the emotional, character driven moments stand out just as much as the more action-y moments. In fact, every action scene is a character moment. It is just a wonderful film and I cannot recommend it highly enough if you have not seen it yet.
By pacing the film in the way that he does, Francis Ford Coppola lets you as the viewer get a chance to catch your breath and process everything that is going on in this meaty movie (the film clocks in around 2 hours and 55 minutes). Then once you have calmed back down and gotten to know the characters well, Coppola hits you with a wallop of a scene where guns pop off and blood is shed. The back and forth between moments of tranquility and climax allow each to feel equally satisfying; neither would feel as momentous without the other.
That finely tuned rhythm is something that not only allows for a phenomenal, fulfilling movie but also represents a pattern that we should strive for amongst our own lives. I will go one step further: it is not just a pattern we should emulate, it is a pattern we need to emulate.
It goes without saying that life can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, when faced with overwhelming situations people in modern societies have tended to turn towards unhealthy avenues as a way to “relax.” This review published by Frontier in Human Dynamics—a website committed to publishing “rigorously peer-reviewed research that aims to address the sociological and demographic patterns of resilience and adaptation to our ever-changing societies and environment”—highlights how greatly screen time (the amount of time spent looking at a screen) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Long story short: screen time increased by A LOT. Overall screen time grew by an additional 5 hours per day, resulting in as high as 17.5 hours per day viewing a screen for individuals considered to be “heavy users” and 30 hours per week for a typical, “non-heavy” user. If you want to read the finer details of the review then I highly encourage you to check out the link that I provided above, but the general conclusions that are mentioned are that the increases in screen time resulted in poorer emotional health, worse sleep routines, terrible eating habits, and an influx in diagnosable mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Now, I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, nor do I have any type of degree that would grant my opinion a smidge of legitimacy. However, I want to think that the reason that an increase in screen time is associated with such negative outcomes is because people have effectively The Rise of Skywalker-ed (new verb) their lives. By attaching ourselves to a screen, especially a screen that has the potential to connect them to literally any person and any piece of information or news in the world, we have destroyed the pacing of our own lives and have drowned ourselves in stimulation. Sure, we may think that we are relaxing or having a tranquil moment away from the hustle and bustle when we sit down and browse social media or watch the newest piece of entertainment, but in reality we are sending our brains, hearts, and souls into overdrive. We are preventing ourselves from wholly processing our lives, setting up roadblocks on the path towards a better understanding of ourselves and others, and are then surprised when we feel exhausted all the time.
This proclivity towards unintentional hyper-stimulation is not something that is only relegated to smart phone/screen usage. I believe that excessive social plans and over-commitment can have similar effects. In other words, anything that you or I do which gets in the way of the pacing of our lives and prevents us from having intentional, quiet time within our own minds, actively eats away at our psyche and slowly turns us into emotionally-damaged husks. Our over-stimulation may even be comprised of “good” things but the inclination to jump from one thing to another robs those very things of any “good” associated with them. Seeing loved ones is great, so is watching a movie, reading a book, and so on. But, and this is a huge but, if every second of down time we have is spent doing something, anything, those things that can and should bring joy to our lives become the same things which destroy us.
We simply have to allow ourselves to have periods of time where we seek solitude and do nothing. Then, amidst the stillness of nothing, we must force ourselves to bring proper pacing to our lives by doing two actions: 1) process and 2) pray.
The art of processing and praying is one that takes a great deal of intention. Shutting off our minds from external distraction is exceptionally difficult, especially in the hyper-connected world that we live in now. Regardless, no matter how difficult it will be, processing and praying are integral to the maintenance of our mental health. Heck, I would argue that Jesus Christ Himself needed to pray and process in order to deal with the realities of life, and if He needed it, then so do we.
I do not want to be labeled an unbiblical heretic, so below are some the verses that lead me to such a conclusion:
Now when Jesus heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself; and when the people heard about this, they followed Him on foot from the cities. (Matthew 14:13, NASB)
And in the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and prayed there for a time. (Mark 1:35, NASB)
Now it was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer with God. (Luke 6:13, NASB)
And that is only some of them! You could also think of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness or the fact that when the Bible describes Jesus traveling from place to place, more likely than not he walked there. It was not that He hopped in a car and crossed miles in minutes, rather He walked and took His time getting to and fro. Of course, technology back then is not what it is now, and perhaps Christ would have taken a car, bicycle, etc. to get from place to place if He were to born in the modern era. Be that as it may, I think that the time period in which Christ was born and lived was an intentional choice by God, and thus how He went from one location to the next is significant.
I cannot think of the last time that I walked somewhere. Granted, that may be more so the fault of living miles away from civilization and also due to the car-centered design of most American towns and cities, but even when I drive I do not often seek to simulate the serenity of walking in a manner similar to Christ. I will turn on one of my favorite podcasts or one of my many playlists and fill my head with noise. Accordingly, a moment that I can experience some semblance of tranquility becomes another stretch of time that I do not let myself fully process and pray.
I have no idea what your schedule or day-to-day life may look like. Well, actually, I can see my subscriber list and I know many of you as of this writing, so I have some semblance of an idea. In any case, I do not know how many of you struggle with seeking and achieving tranquility in your own lives, but I have a strong feeling that my experience in improper life-pacing is the norm, not the exception.
To sum it all up, The Rise of Skywalker and The Godfather show that we do not need to look very far to see how pacing can make or break a movie. For the same reasons that pacing has such a tremendous effect on a film, so too does pacing have an effect on our personal lives. On top of all of that—and most importantly—Christ Himself demonstrates the necessity of seeking tranquility and properly pacing ourselves through prayer and processing.
The truth of how we should live is sitting right in front of us through the art we behold and the Lord that saved us. All we need to do is open our eyes and see what is being taught.