More important than a definition of ritual is a sense for it. Ritual is nothing if not a sensuous activity. A sense for ritual arises from participation in rituals that activate the senses. …
Princess Diana’s Funeral, Played and Replayed
The year 2023 is about to turn into 2024. The Crown, a televisions series treatment of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, is currently playing on Netflix. The series includes two funerals, one for Princess Diana, the other for her deceased lover, Dodi Fayed. The funerals occur in season 6, episode 4. The current media…
Consuming Ritual
Sacred Rites and Rituals, a forty-five minute film produced by FilmRoos for A&E’s Ancient Mysteries Series helped shape public attitudes toward ritual. These attitudes are now echoed by other media presentations of ritual. I was one of the scholarly consultants for the film and know the process that lies behind the production. I kept…
Rockin’ the Coffin
How does creativity help us cope? What role does the imagination play in allaying our age-old fears of loss and separation? Filmmaker Cailleah Scott-Grimes leans into these questions in the short doc she’s made in collaboration with her father. Rockin’ the Coffin, a contrarian’s guide to the good death, was made possible by the CBC’s Creative Relief…
Astrobiologist Breaks Down Apocalypse Scenes from Movies
It’s no longer necessary to watch post-apocalyptic movies since we are living in the middle of the apocalypse now. The apocalypse: all fiction, all faith. But it’s happening right now. Here astrobiologist David Grinspoon breaks down apocalyptic scenes from movies, including ‘I Am Legend,’ ‘Interstellar,’ ‘WALL-E,’ ‘The Day After,’ ‘Ad Astra,’ ‘Waterworld,’ ’12 Monkeys,’ ‘The…
Making It Up As We…Go
This video was first published in 2011, before Cailleah Scott-Grimes went to Japan for the first time. Here it is re-published with questions by Fabiana Fondevila, an Argentine journalist, and responses by Cailleah. Fabiana (by email): Tue, 10 May 2011. Hello Cailleah, Its nice to meet you. I am a journalist from Argentina and I’ve…
Are you watching ____ on Netflix?
Almost every week my two brothers and I exchange the query: Are you watching _______ on Netflix? Are you watching Messiah? Are you watching The First Temptation of Christ? As kids we watched The Ten Commandments, but after Mel Gibson bled on the silver screen, we avoided Jesus movies like the plague. There were a…
Making it up as we go
In 2012, Cailleah imagined I might die while she was in Japan. She worried that I would never know what she could become, so we improvised a ritual with her in Toronto and I in Waterloo. Then, she made this film. I didn’t croak (although I almost did in 2013). We’re both still going, making…
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