(rock music) hello. i'm behalf of the archdiocese of san francisco, welcome to ""mosaic"." i think we all know the world, range is lization and evangelist and related word. we associate these with religious approaching or pros lethesing. backup into the root pars of the word. it looks less narrow and focused. that angel part of it indicates a message, mess ranger and the eve in the front is a greek particle of two letters. a teeny particle with large meaning meaning good, fortuitous, helpful, welcome.

and see an evangelist is a person bringing a welcome message. god tidings, good news, useful untiling a. they're only preachers who evangelize in that sense? not at all. my guest today is a literary scholar, theo loamian and teacher who -- theologian and teacher with us, fiction of film and poetry are bringing us good news and revealing to us truths that can help us live wisely and well if, is that is, we know how to read their books and watch their. how do we read and watch the products of our secular culture? stay with us as we talk with dr. margaret turet about the fix, film and faith around us and the depths of a rich human insight that can be found in the best of the arts. plan

. hello and welcome to ""mosaic"." meet our guest today this is their market turek, t-u-r-e-k. margaret, may i call you margaret in judge absolutely. >> now, you are a teacher, a professor of dog mattics at the santa patrick's seminary in menlo park. you taught also at the university of dallas j. yes.

>> you have an m.a. in systematic theology and a doctoral degree from the university of fry porg in theology as well. >> yes. >> you're a learned scholar, experienced teacher, you're a writer. i know all of that. what you want to talk to us today is evangelization and film and art. we know what evangelization is as a catholic outreach to people about the faith. where do film and literary arts come into that? >> john, i would like to suggest that the serious screen play writer and movie tracker and novelist, fiction writer, if they're all in the business of revelation. >> okay. >> and by that, i mean that the serious screen play brighter and movie director, they apply their imagination and their

talents to the task of bringing others to see. now to so more than action- packed sequences like car chases and to see more than beautiful costumes and breathtaking scenery. the serious screen play writer/movie director/writer of fiction has, as his or her primary aim, to bring others to see. to see a vision of life. a vision of life. i am mindful of what joseph conrad -- . >> uh-huh. >> had said. he is a novelist, as you know. >> yes. >> and perhaps his best-known work is the novel "heart of darkness." >> uh-huh. >> that aspired the movie "a pocketo wellness now." joseph conrad summed up his task in this way. he said my task is to bring you

to feel. and above all, to make you see. to see the meaning of life. he goes on and said my stories are concerned with nothing less than the whole point of living. >> right. >> the whole point of living. >> that is source art. >> that is source. so, the serious screenplay writer, the serious novelist, they untent upon intensifying our capacity to feel, but to feel what it is that we truly handwritinger for. >> uh-huh. >> thirst for. what it is we long for and hope for. they're intent upon deepening our capacity to see, to see what makes life worth living. to see what makes life fully human. and leads to authentic happiness. >> that is interesting in that

i have mentioned the word "evangelize." >> yes. >> and we think of that as giving a religious message to someone that you can accept or reject. what you're talking about is whether conrad is a catholic or not, whether any artist is, a serious deep human humane artist, is trying to get us to see and to feel. in other words. >> yes. >> not to adopt a position about something. may be not, have an to ascent to a metaphysics he's selling, but to see truly and to feel. >> yes. >> there is no intensify their purposes of being human. judge which seems paradoxical to me. being human is an intense experience already. we tent to defend ourselves against it, right? >> yes. yes. >> and you develop a shell, a crust. what is the artist breaks us

out of the scale? >> absolutely. my task is to make you feel. >> yeah. >> and to make you see at an intensity as never before. flappery o'connor, as well. a catholic fiction writer. >> a american reiter. >> yes. >> famous catholic. >> i know that you know of her works quite well, john, and she'll admit that hear method often involves this kind of shock tactics. she has to shock her readers to come to a spiritual awakening to see the human condition, especially in its contemporary setting as never before. >> yeah. >> we think we see. we think we feel. many spots. are ddlewith we're hampered by so much spiritual brownedness. >> and let's talk about that.

our contemporary situation, which dates back to flannery o'connor. their is endless media available. books and ever mode we're discussing here and there is so much of it, we may have to guard ourselves against it. what is the challenge to the makers of those products to, in this age of ours, what is missing? it seems to me that the structure of christianity as the narrative of our world has sunk in purpose, yeah? >> yeah. yes. >> and i am sorry, john. you want me to address the challenge? >> yes. >> that is face by in the first place, you're saying the christian artists, the christian writer of fiction? the christian screenplay writer. also, his or her readship. >> right. >> the audience.

>> and again, if i meet have recourse to the wisdom of flannery o'connor and la jolla on her experience. she bemoaned the fact that she said today, the world is going through something like a dark knight of the soul. >> uh-huh. >> and the world in its its increasingly secular condition is losing its capacity to see. to see the presence of god. the stirrings of grace. as well as conversion experiences. >> hold that thought. >> okay. >> we will take a brief break. we'll be back gan shortly with our guest dr. margaret turek and talk about faith, fiction and film.

theme hello, welcome back. we're talking with dr. market turek and that is evangelizing. not only approaching the christian message, but seeing the christian truth and finding unexpected ways to see it. you mentioned flannery o'connor, and her incancellation of provocation as a writer was? >> well, she had said at one point that the primary gift that she needed as a catholic writer was the government error of prophetec vig. the capacity to see. and to see prophetically. by which she meant not the capacity to read the future, but the capacity to see what is hidden. >> yeah. >> again, for her, it's primarily the hidden presence of god. our god is emmanuel. our god is with us.

in our increasingly secular age, god is less and less visible. more and more easily forgettable. >> uh-huh. >> and so god is becoming increasingly hidden and what she needs to do, she said is find ways in this secular culture tom impregnate her stories with the perhaps of god. often, the perhaps of god is best seen or recognized by the negative pointers that she imbeds in her tacts. she forces you to face the seeming absence of god. >> right. >> the seeming void. the dessert experience of our contemporary and secular culture. >> yeah. >> excuse me. >> and the experience meaning there is not really in our issuement for the soul available. we're talking about film and

fix. there is a lot of escape of the literature. >> yes. >> and lots of erotic literature and escapests, car crashes and various other things. >> yes. yes. >> the serious art is perhaps having a struggle. >> yes. >> to find itself. >> you mentioned, told me but do teach or hold seminars on watching film and sharpening your vision to see what is in that film. >> yes. >> you do this for all ages, i think. >> i do. i have done it for high school students and their teachers. i have done it at the college level. at the graduate level. at the seminary, st. patrick seminary recently. >> yeah. >> and i have also gone out to parishes throughout the bay area, and i have given evening presenting as, full days of retreat. a weekend where i train the eye. >> yeah. >> to see god, to find god, and recognize his patterns of relating to us. albeit in the dark, and to

recognize also the stirrings of grace. the promptings of grace. god is always trying to lure us to woo us back to himself. to see him with us under any condition and, since the current is most pervasively in the dark, we have to between a night vision. the capacity, this prophetic vision, to see god in the dark. to recognize stirrings of grace. opportunities for conversion. in a shadow. in the twit. yeah. >> and with the vision. >> i think it's difficult to develop a humane disability e days. the human race is more or less the villain of the peace those days. either we're sort of accidents. >> yes. >> or a virus on the planet, you know, health. where is the affirmation of my human nature and my soul? where can that be found?

you mentioned -- we'll talk about films, i think, from here on out and there seems to be a vivid specialty of yours. you mentioned groundhog day. >> yes. >> and is that an examination of despairing world? >> yes. >> okay. >> yes. now, as i see and interpret groundhog day. >> which everyone knows, a film from the '80s, bill murray. >> bill murray. >> lives the same day over and over again. >> over and over. stars bill murray as phil connors and andy mcdowell as his verbatim love interest, rita -- verbatim love interest, rita. -- eventual love interest right a. it's a portrait that is about the whole point of living. it's a wonderful illustration of conrad's point. in film. this story is about the whole point of living. what makes life worth living. as the movie opens, phil connors, the protagonist, believes he knowwhatmakes wor

i the e there are a variety of ways that you can view it, i see phil connors initially illustrating freudian psychology. the freudian theory of the ultimate motivating factor for human behavior. why to we do what we do? what are we truly seeking? freud, of course, is well-known for the pleasure principle. >> sure. >> what ultimately motivates us is the pleasure. we seek pleasure. and in today, more than ever, erotic pleasure. >> uh-huh. >> sexual pleasure. so, phil connors initially goes about his life seeking sexual pleasure. he does so quite winningly, we could say, but it's not enough.

you watch his character because, according to the story, groundhog, he has to live this day again and again. he is a force to live out in intensifying consecrated, concentrated form this thorough of life he comes to realize soon enough spiritually, not by reading a book, but spiritually that the pleasure principle is not enough. phil will choose to kill himself. he will choose to stop living. >> yeah. >> rather than be forced within this one theory. it's not enough. it's not -- the pleasure principle is not worthy of phil's humanity. >> right. >> and that is what he shows you. >> he's better than that. >> he's better than that. >> lot pause that thought and take a break. we'll come back soon for our final segment of this program and talk about the movie "gravity." with dr. margaret turek.

. >> hello and welcome back to ""mosaic"." dr. market turek, a seen insight for films and a sense where the serious artist is revealing god to you, whether the artist intends to or not. we talked about the wonderful film from a few years ago. an oscar winner, i'm not sure.

>> yes. >> "gravity," a space movie. >> yes. >> tell us what you see there? >> d movie at the surface level is a survival story about a woman who survives a life- threatening accident in outer space. the story is really about much more. it's really about the whole point of living. the title "gravity" in my mind, and this is my interpretation. it allows to gravetas, the weight, the pte fullness, meaningfulness of life. we need gravitas, meaningfulness, sufficient to prompt us, motivate us to say, yes to our next breath. >> hmm. >> and to say, yes to a life that often is shrouded in darkness. that often confronts us with

very tragic, very heartbreaking events. and this movie, it begins with a dark screen. the screen is black. and then the stark letters in white emerge. it says basically life in space is impossible. >> hmm. >> is impossible. now, space is i metaphor. >> uh-huh. >> for our space is a metaphor for inner space. what this woman, sandra bullock's character, dr. ryan stone is living on earth, and the condition of her life on earth is impossible. it's impossible to affirm it to endure it in if any meaningful way. and so, what the filmmakers do, they show you what life in space is about. it's cold. it's dark.

it is silent. there is no communication. there is no air to carry sound. so, it's a state of isolation, silence, non communication, darkness, coldness and so forth. well, that is really the state of dr. ryan stone's life on earth. in space, she is now living this out in a way that is magnified for us dramatically. and what the story brings us, what her story, as she endeavours to survive in outer space, the themes that become prominent are themes such as the importance of being tethered. the purpose of being in communion with others. we learn that on earth, we lost a, her daughter. >> yeah. >> her 4-year-old daughter she died a very tragic accidental

death. and from that moment on, dr. ryan stone lived a life disconnected, disengaged, disoriented. every day she said she would wake up, she would go to work and she would just drive. it was purposeless, it was aimless. it was dark and cold. in outer space, show finds herself following this accident adrift. >> yes. >> all-less. >> an accident. her life is at risk. >> yes. >> remember, and she is time and again, she is trying to communicate with houston. saying houston, i am calling, i'm in the blind. i'm in the blind. i am running out of air and i am adrift. and that describes her life on earth. uh-huh. >> and that is a wonderful moment to stop there. i think she's now in nantes position in the midst of life. >> yes. >> in the darkness of life, i

lost my way. i don't think we can talk about gravity, but you would recommend that everybody watch it. >> absolutely and look for, look for the cues. this filmmaker is quite deliberate in bringing you to see that she is going through a journey in the dark, but towards conversion from spiritual blindness to spiritual insight and that everything depends on her discovery of the importance of being tethered. not only to her comrade matt kowalsky, but she discovers show remains tethered to her daughter in the afterlove. all of this is because she's ultimately and always tethered to god. >> yeah. >> she will spoke about the experience of prayer and how no one ever taught her how to pray. no one trained her in this original and fundamental way of being tethered to our god. >> yeah. >> who provides that our tethers with each other, this communion of love and life that

makes this life worth living and that endures into the afterlife. >> margaret, that is wonderful. we have about 60 seconds left. i know that you told me that when you have developed your vision in various ways and have the eye to see, you should return over and over again to the scriptures. >> ultimately, to scripture. >> to read those better and bitter. >> yes. >> the best authors of novels and 55etry and -- poetry and of screen plays are those who have learned something from sacred scripture. salvation history. the human drama as portrayed there as never before, and they will imbed their works of art. >> yeah. >> with hints, with clues that lead you to see and experience the pig y ofthe -- pig nancy of the moments. you recognize the illusions cka >> right. >> developing your vision for art can blow the dust off of the old scriptures and you go

back to them with renewed interest and a possibility. >> yes. >> well, i want to thank dr. market turek for coming up from saint patrick's some nairy and spending time with us. we urge you to see the movie "gravity" and to read everything and so everything that you encounter in the arts with a discerning eye, an eye for revelation that will serve you well. thank you for being with us on ""mosaic"."

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and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out helic .the structure, call 911, keep people away, live from they area studios, this is kpix 5 news. >> right now on kpix 5 and on cbs news, it looks like a little relief is on the way. we are going to talk about how much rain you can expect. plus, a fire is bringing operations for two transit agencies to a complete stop, what they are saying about when service might resume. and the unrelenting war in ukraine is continuing but could ukrainian forces be getting the upper hand? good morning, it is sunday, march 27.

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