Discovering Closeness via Creativity
A Review of
The Wages of Cinema: A Christian Aesthetic of Film in Conversation with Dorothy L. Sayers
Crystal L. Downing
Paperback: IVP Academic, 2025
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Reviewed by Danny Wright
In The Wages of Cinema, Crystal L. Downing explores the world of film through the heart, mind, and eyes of the brilliant writer, thinker, and artist Dorothy L. Sayers. Downing takes the reader on a journey through the history of the development of film from its nascent origins in every creative form of public performance including Greek and Roman drama, photography, and the theater of war to silent film and eventually into talkies while assisting the reader to understand the importance of truth, beauty, and goodness as it is displayed in the mind of the filmmaker, harnessed through film theory, and experienced on the screen in such varied forms as the characterization and portrayal of women and the beauties of different types of love. This book serves as a fitting introduction for the Sayers novice, and as a worthwhile next step for the deeply entrenched aficionado.
Dorothy Sayers’s seminal Christian work was The Mind of the Maker which explored the idea that humankind, created in the image of God, is fundamentally creative. She averred that since we were created in the imago Dei that we are closest to God when creating, and when we can find the good in what is being created. Sayers believed that you should focus on what you make, and that your product should be of the highest quality, if that is your profession. She focused on truth, beauty, and goodness in her Christian aesthetic and purported that Christian art should be defined as “good work well done (73).” She once wrote, “God is not served by technical incompetence (125).” She also had some brilliant inclinations about the imago Dei, and even the Trinity. Some believe her ideas of the Trinity as “idea, energy, and power” or “experience, expression, and recognition” are some of her greatest theological analogies. She was able to see all three concepts present together in the mind of the maker and in the finished product.
Downing wants people to know how to sift through media using generous eyes that are able to observe the visual detail of film and not simply mine the material for nuggets of Christian messages. Sayers believed that it was easier to cast an art form to the side than it was to take the time to faithfully evaluate its offerings. For Sayers and Downing, movies are not merely content delivery systems and their form and structure (how they are made) influences the why of their existence. Viewers should not focus on the spiritual message and ignore the material medium. Downing and Sayers would both take issue with Christians who reduce the sins of film to curse words and sex scenes while having no moral issues with the individualism, love of excess, and escapism that is espoused by many films.
Sayers believed that all drama is religious because it is experienced “as an act of communal worship (24),” and that movies could help people become better citizens by sharpening their abilities to think for themselves. She was not a fan of either/or thinking and helped to promote both/and thinking and the building of bridges between different sets of thinkers. Downing masterfully walks the reader through the structure and the details of film, connecting different concepts to scripture and the practices of the church. She even offers new insights regarding distinct reasons for why certain phrases and ideas were included in the New Testament. She has a magnificent chapter about the stigma of film versus theater that helps the reader understand the difference between the “presence” of theater and the “distance” portrayed in film. Downing defines the different camera angles and shots, along with the importance of sound, and provides magnificent in-depth examples to explain her ideas. Her discussions about technique are as effortless and insightful as her explanation of films themselves.
Dorothy Sayers also creativity possessed the ability to ignite controversy and attract slander. Her play written for the BBC, The Man Born to Be King, about the life of Jesus refused to use King James English and opted instead for more common language. It was referred to as blasphemy, caused protests, and was even blamed for the fall of the largest British military base in Asia at the hands of the Japanese. Yet, Sayers believed that the power of the gospel is revealed in forgiveness and allowed her radio broadcast to help teach the nation about the beauty of true salvation and redemption that could not be boiled down to some mere economy of exchange.
Downing also discusses the transition from silent films to sound films. Sayers was intimately involved in writing during that time and was opposed to the quota quickies when England was trying to catch up with Hollywood. Regardless of being silent or sound films, she never wavered on her opinions about the necessity of quality. The movie based on her book The Silent Passenger frustrated her because she was not allowed to have the final creative say, and it made her hesitant about offering her books for film projects in the future. Her play The Zeal of Thy House that was written for the Canterbury Festival became a testament to her ideas about creativity and the Christian aesthetic.
Downing has a brilliant section in which she discusses the mind of the filmmaker and even teases out how different theological heresies can shed light on the work of film. Her knowledge of theology and film is a gift to encounter, and there are few writers who can understand the structure and beauty of a film in its entirety better than she does. She has a rich command of the terminology and concepts behind the aggregate of cinema, and also offers a brilliant discussion of third cinema which focuses not on entertaining energy or the director’s idea but places the power into the mind of the viewer who can discuss and debate the nature of what happens on the screen. Downing’s knowledge of film theory, including semiology, offers ideas and concepts that spark meaningful debates about the aesthetics and ultimate value of the silver screen. She even discusses the beauty and magnificence that is found in Barbie pointing out the flaws in how some Christians misunderstood its structure and its message. She illustrates her understanding through the pen of Sayers by including references to Sayers’s essays on “Are Women Human?” and her play Love All which allowed women to be seen as valuable creators in the vein of The Zeal of Thy House.
Downing also has an excellent chapter on the concept of love, especially those loves that are beyond Hollywood’s attempts to focus on eros and concludes her book by reminding us of the life of Dorothy Sayers. Sayers loved theater, music, and writing for theater and film. Downing even helps us appreciate her love for actors, photography, and the detective fiction which originally gave rise to her notoriety. Dorothy Sayers was an artist’s artist who loved art for art’s sake and never forgot the value of how a soul can be saved from the wages of cinema.
Danny Wright
Danny Wright lives in Indianapolis, except when he is working with Entermission (a gap year program) which has him just about anywhere at any given moment. He loves his bride, and is always lost in wonder trying to find the next culinary adventure.
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