Tip of the hat to Denny Burk on this who is a Baptist I need to add to the links.
Duvall is one of my favorite actors. He also showed through his movie the The Apostle that one could have an intelligent movies dealing with Christian themes and yes it sells. Hopefully Hollywood will get that point more fully one day. More on that below.
Duval gave a interview to Christianity Today where he talks on his new movie and other matters.
In that interview the movie industry and Christians come up
Why do you think Hollywood has a tendency to mock Christians and preachers?
Well, it's not just Christians. I mean, I'm a Christian. But they mock the interior of the United States of America, the heartland. They don't go out of their way to understand what's really there.
I actually agree with that but I also think they mock middle America because of the Christain nature of it.
Returning to the Apostle he is asked about that:
Some people thought The Apostle was mocking Southern holiness or Pentecostal preachers …
Who said that?
Oh, some Christians wished it had been a more positive portrayal of a preacher rather than a man with all these …
Let me straighten these people out. And you can put it in print. My guy [Rev. Euliss "Sonny" Dewey, the title character] killed a guy out of anger, right? But he wasn't one half as bad as King David in the Psalms, who sent a man off to be killed so he could be with his wife. Every time I read the Psalms I think of that. But on the other hand, I heard that Billy Graham liked the movie, and many, many preachers did. Rev. James Robison of Fort Worth said I could use anything from any of his services to put in the film. So I'm not mocking.
If Hollywood had done this, they would have mocked these people. No, I did not mock these people. I didn't patronize these people. I've been in many, many churches, Pentecostal churches. I could have made these people look bad if I wanted to. So you can tell these people I did not mock these people or condescend at all. Had I done it in a Hollywood movie, we would have patronized these people. That's why I had to do the movie myself.
I agree with that and to be clear I think the the Preacher and faith community he portrayed was more Southern Holiness than Pentecostal. Which one could be picked up by his attention to details. I thought it was a great movies and I rarely heard Christians that had problems with it. Anyway good interview read the whole thing.
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