The Wolff in winter by Stefan Beck

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In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age.

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Jun 05, 2008 03:25 PM

The Wolff in winter

by Stefan Beck

Tobias Wolff—one of my favorite writers, as I’ve noted here and also here—has written for The New Yorker’s Faith and Doubt series an essay on Ingmar Bergman’s 1962 film Winter Light. I should say it’s about the odd circumstances in which he saw it, on a winter night in Oxford in 1970, and what he learned about “the power of aesthetics to shape our lives,” especially our spiritual lives:

The church was cold. There couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, thirty of us scattered around the pews in our overcoats and scarves. The minister, a rugged-looking man with a Northern accent, stood before the screen and welcomed us, said he looked forward to the discussion that would follow the film. He was direct and plain in his speech, without a trace of the fluty, elevated manner my English friends so loved to parody in their High Church chaplains. Before taking his seat, he bowed his head and asked us to join him in prayer. Rob and I exchanged arch glances: so this wasn’t quite free.

After the first scoffing murmurs of recognition—the opening scenes of the film show a cold-looking church with a few parishioners in overcoats—we all settled down. You simply cannot be ironical in the face of this movie, its adamant seriousness, the unguarded, naked urgency of its story, and the challenge it presents both to believers and to skeptics to assess the depth and consequences of their convictions.

It’s the intrusion of another piece of artwork that breaks the spell, but I’ll leave that to Wolff—though this is an essay, it unfolds like some of his tightest (very) short fiction. It isn’t uncommon to hear a believer wonder how, in the face of mankind’s artistic heritage, anyone could doubt the presence of God. The fact that aesthetic experience can work in the opposite way is a wrinkle that demands at least as much attention.