Normally this is the time of year when I start reading through scripts of the previous year’s best films and dissecting them for themes and storytelling lessons we can learn from them. However, I noticed an interesting throughline in several big contenders last year, one that we haven’t seen explored much in Hollywood in recent years: religion. It’s a thorny topic in today’s day and age, but no matter what you believe in, spirituality is a fascinating aspect of life that deserves deeper exploration! We’ve seen a few (older) filmmakers tackle the concept in recent years: Martin Scorsese’s Silence and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed to name a couple. But last year gave us two young up-and-coming directors with something to say about faith through their films that did not come across as preachy or overzealous. Today I want to look at the screenplays for Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari and Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal to see what they have in common in regards to spirituality.
Continue reading “‘Minari’ & ‘Sound of Metal’ Script Analysis: Spirituality in a Secular World”