Gordon Houser Archive

Heartland uncovers prejudices toward the poor

(, , , , , , , )
January 31, 2019 Gordon Houser

One of my favorite books from 2018 is Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh. This is an important book in its uncovering of prejudices toward people who struggle in poverty. And while it’s not written from a specifically Christian perspective, it also addresses some biblical themes. Smarsh is a journalist who has covered socioeconomic class, politics and public policy for the Guardian, VQR, NewYorker.com, Harpers.org and many other publications. She also grew up in Kansas, which drew my interest, since I’m a lifelong Kansan. Smarsh challenges an idea—a […]

Fiction readers: do you love literary or popular books?

(, , , , , , , , )
January 17, 2019 Gordon Houser

According to an October 2013 article in Scientific American by Julianne Chiaet, researchers at The New School in New York City “found evidence that literary fiction improves a reader’s capacity to understand what others are thinking and feeling.” Participants in the study read excerpts from genre (or popular) fiction, literary fiction, nonfiction or nothing, then took a test that measured their ability to infer and understand other people’s thoughts and emotions. The difference was significant. Literary fiction, writes Chiaet, “focuses more on the psychology of characters and their relationships.” It increases readers’ psychological awareness. “Although literary fiction tends to be […]

The Old Man & the Gun

(, , , , , , )
November 2, 2018 Gordon Houser

David Lowery is unique, a director to watch. He’s made four films, all of them receiving critical acclaim but all of them different from one another—at least on the surface. His first, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, is a romantic crime drama a la Bonnie and Clyde. Pete’s Dragon, a remake of an animated musical, is a moving fantasy adventure tale. A Ghost Story made my top 10 list last year. Though different, his films have a relaxed quality and use misdirection. These are on display in his latest film. The Old Man & the Gun is based on a 2003 […]

Minding the Gap

(, , , , , , )
August 30, 2018 Gordon Houser

Many documentaries have in mind the point they want to get across and make the film fit that notion. A few let themes unfold as they present a narrative. Minding the Gap is one of the latter—and one of the best documentaries to emerge this year, when there are many good ones out. Bing Liu both directs the film and appears in it. It begins by showing skateboarders in Rockford, Illinois, with the camera (held by Liu who is himself on a skateboard) following the graceful, acrobatic skills of the young skateboarders. The music—neither intrusive nor overly dramatic—fits perfectly with […]

Leave No Trace

(, , , , , , , , , , , )
July 20, 2018 Gordon Houser

One rule of good storytelling is that less is more. One of the things that makes Leave No Trace so effective is not just the story it tells but what it leaves out. Will (Ben Foster) and his 13-year-old daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), are living in a Forest Park, a nature preserve near Portland, Oregon. They find food, collect rainwater, and sleep in a tent. They also do drills to practice hiding from anyone looking for them. We’re not told why they are there or what they are afraid of. We learn that Will is a veteran, likely suffering from […]

What Are We Doing Here?

(, , , , , , , , )
June 1, 2018 Gordon Houser

By Gordon Houser “What Are We Doing Here?” is the title of one of the 15 essays in Marilynne Robinson’s new book, What Are We Doing Here? (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27 USD), and while it addresses a specific audience that includes many literature teachers, it also serves as a major theme of the book, addressed to all of us. Although Robinson is known more as a novelist (Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, Lila), this is her sixth book of nonfiction. It collects mostly lectures she’s given in the last few years. In the preface, she notes that these essays reflect “matters of […]

The Power of Art

(, , , , , , )
May 4, 2018 Gordon Houser

By Gordon Houser A delightful French film, Faces Places, directed by Agnès Varda and JR, is a documentary from 2017 that appeared on many critics’ top 10 lists, and it would have appeared on mine, had I seen it in time. Varda, 89, is a well-known director (she was part of the French New Wave in the early 1960s), and JR, 33, is a photographer known for placing large photos on buildings. The two travel through rural France and create portraits of people they come across, then paste them onto surrounding buildings. These are regular people, not celebrities.   The […]

I Am Not Your Negro

()
January 19, 2018 Gordon Houser

On Wednesday, Third Way released the top 10 films of 2017 by three of its reviewers, including me. With each film we chose, we included a brief synopsis and why we chose it for that position. Today, I get to expand on my choice of what I felt was the best film of 2017. I chose it as my no. 1 film of 2017 because it is a must-see documentary for our time. I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary by Raoul Peck that focuses mainly on James Baldwin, the African American writer known particularly for his books Go Tell […]

Lady Bird

()
December 1, 2017 Gordon Houser

No, this film is not about Lady Bird Johnson. The title character, 17-year-old Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan in an outstanding performance), gives herself that moniker to try to establish a different identity. She wants to escape her hometown of Sacramento, which she calls “the Midwest of California” (as if the Midwest were a bad thing), and get into an East Coast college, preferably in New York City. What we pay attention to reveals what we love. Her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf, who is equally good), has other ideas. She harps on her daughter constantly that their family can’t afford to […]

A Ghost Story

()
September 1, 2017 Gordon Houser

A Ghost Story, directed by David Lowery, is the ultimate anti-blockbuster film. It is slow, with long takes and little dialogue, and eschews any violent action or special effects. There aren’t any car chases or bombs going off. Lowery plays with our conception of time as linear. In addition to the long takes, he makes quick cuts from one time period to another. And it will not set any box-office records. It only stayed one week at my local cinema, and when I viewed it, I was one of three people in the theater. But art and popularity don’t always […]