DOMINUS DEBNEY
A Passionate appeal by John Takis
As an Orthodox Christian as well as a media critic, I want to attempt
to shed a little light on some of the comments John Debney has made in
interviews regarding his score to Mel Gibson's blockbuster spiritual The Passion of the Christ. This
essay is in direct response to those vociferous fans who were quick to
react to these comments with scornful and derisive posts about Debney
on various film music-related messageboards, but I write it in the hope
that it will be interesting to the general film music-loving community.
It's not every day I get to flex my seminary muscles on Film Score Daily, so I hope you'll
bear with me and not inundate the FSD Mailbox with angry missives.
That's why God (or his vicar on earth, Al Gore) made the internet. I
want to be clear: this article is in NO WAY an attempt at
proselytizing! Proselytizers go home! I do not here seek to justify any
particular faith, only to exposit one particular faith -- and then only
insofar as it concerns the widely distributed statements of a popular
composer on a controversial project -- for the sake of clarity and
fairness.
Before I begin, I want to say clearly that I am not speaking for John
Debney, merely interpreting his comments in light of what I know about
Catholic catechism and general Christian teaching. Nor do I claim to
speak with authority for any church. If John Debney or a Roman Catholic
theologian wants to write and correct or clarify my words, they are
more than welcome to do so.
DIVINE INSPIRATION
The first area of controversy stems from comments Debney made about the
inspiration of the score. Specifically, he says: "I believe that Mary
had a hand in giving me her theme. I was rather stuck, yet through
prayer, I came upon what is Mary's theme in the film."1
This process is elaborated elsewhere as miraculous: "I started to pray
to her [Mary], and a few days after I started that process... and this
is the truth; this is one of the miracles that happened to me
personally... I woke up with a theme in my head and with lyrics in my
head, in English [later translated into Aramaic]. I wrote those lyrics
down on a napkin or something, and I ran into work and started playing
around with this little theme, and that became Mary's theme."2
This story resonates with the legend of Romanos the Melodist, venerated
as a saint by Roman Catholics and Orthodox, who after much prayer is
said to have received a vision of Mary in a dream, where she presented
him with a volume of paper and said "Take the paper and eat it." Upon
awakening, Romanos began to compose sacred poetry that is still in
liturgical use today.
Now, does this mean Debney is setting himself up on the same level as
the most revered saints of the church? I don't think so. In the first
place, Debney doesn't claim anything so grand as a vision of the
"Mother of God," only an intense burst of creative energy as a response
to prayer. Second, the inspiration is worked, through his human
creative ability, to "become" Mary's theme. Finally, Debney admits,
"This is the first score I've ever done where I really have no clue
about how good it is."2 Hardly high praise
for Mary if she "wrote" her own theme.
In considering this, one needs to understand how Debney, as a
Christian, can say, "I didn't have a lot to do with the writing of this
music"3 and "I had to distance myself enough
and trust that He would tell me what to do,"3
and also claim, "I would say this would be the best work that I've done
so far and that it would probably express most clearly who I am."4
I'm fairly certain that Debney would be appalled at the idea that he
was merely a "human pen" for the divine hand. In Catholic theology, the
long view of inspiration takes into account a distinction of divine and
human activity. To quote Pope John Paul II: "With loving regard, the
divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own
surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power. That is
why artists, the more conscious they are of their "gift," are led all
the more to see themselves and the whole of creation with eyes able to
contemplate and give thanks, and to raise to God a hymn of praise.
[...] This is the only way for them to come to a full understanding of
themselves, their vocation and their mission." And later in the same
work: "Every genuine inspiration...contains some tremor of that
"breath" with which the Creator Spirit suffused the work of creation
from the very beginning...[the divine breath] reaches out to human
genius and stirs its creative power. He touches it with a kind of inner
illumination...he awakens energies of mind and heart which enable it to
conceive an idea and give it form in a work of art."5
God enables the creative process; when communicating specific
information about Himself, He may even direct it; but human beings
choose and strive to actualize it. This is very important theology
here: because God is absolutely transcendent, human works describing
God are just that -- human responses to encounters with the supreme
mystery of the divine presence. Whether these encounters are what they
seem, whether the mystery of Grace ensures that these Spirit-endowed
creative endeavors are sufficient to declare an authentic message of
salvation, are questions of faith.
In this context, then, "who Debney is" as an artist is someone who
confesses that all creative talent and energy has its origin in God,
and who feels "the obligation not to waste this talent but to develop
it, in order to put it at the service of their neighbour and of
humanity as a whole"5 This doesn't mean that
Jesus gets composing credit on the soundtrack album -- the music for
The Passion is John Debney music; as such, it is a reflection of
Debney's own strengths and weaknesses. But "the faith of countless
believers has been nourished by melodies flowing from the hearts of
other believers"5, and Debney's music doesn't
have to be God-sung perfection to accomplish this.
Having argued, then, that "miraculous" inspiration is not the same
thing as divine puppeteering or thoughtless self-aggrandizement, allow
me to move on to Part II of this essay...
DEMONIC INTERFERENCE
This is where many readers -- even some of those who are "on board"
with the whole inspiration thing -- will jump ship. In mainstream
interviews, Debney alludes to the trials he faced during the
composition of his score, even going so far as to make the relatively
bold claim that "dark forces were conspiring against me and against the
film."2 But in an interview3
with evangelical writer/idealogue Dan Wooding, Debney felt comfortable
elaborating. It turns out that Debney was convinced of personal
encounters with Satan himself. On his computer, the image of the devil
in the film would repeatedly freeze and the volume would spike. To
release some of his anxiety and frustration, Debney began to talk to
Satan, even going so far as to challenge him to a contest, demanding
that he "manifest" himself.
Now these kinds of comments aren't going to edify everyone (to put it
mildly). To take Debney seriously, one has to believe first in the
existence of spiritual powers, the real and individual person of the
Christian devil as a fallen angel, and the ability of such a being to
interact with the human race. Different branches of Protestant
Christianity teach different things on this subject; atheists and also
some other religious traditions dismiss the whole idea as, at best, a
harmless superstition. But the Catholic tradition (along with
mainstream Judaism and Islam, for that matter) has always affirmed the
existence, identity, and activity of the devil in the world. According
to Catholic demonology, that Debney -- or any of us, for that matter --
should face such demonic persecution is a virtual given; that Debney
should be able to perceive it is a matter of his personal faith and
religious training. (On that note, it does seem a bit naIve for Debney
to expect Satan to physically manifest himself for a throw-down.
Hagiography -- the lives of the saints -- often speaks of saints
"wrestling" with demons, but it's not always clear if these struggles
are concretely physical as well as spiritual. In any case, according to
Catholic doctrine Satan could never actually manifest a material body,
only project a spiritual image. Demonic power over the physical world
is limited; God only grants such power as a means to an end, to
demonstrate to the faithful how easily that power is cast down. In
general, such bodily experiences of struggle as Debney seems to have
wanted are only permitted to those who are very spiritually experienced
and advanced in the ascetical life.)
It's worth noting that Debney (and he's certainly not alone here)
admits that he did not take seriously the tenets of his own tradition
until he experienced them firsthand.3 Many
professed Catholics question or challenge traditional views about the
devil, and individual readers are, of course, free to laugh
dismissively at Debney's claims -- I would only ask that they take into
consideration the fact that if Debney is a nutjob for this reason, then
he is one of billions of "nutjobs" alive today and throughout human
history -- this author included; and also that Roman Catholic
demonology is a fully developed ontology which takes seriously
philosophical and scientific considerations. If it is a superstition,
it is certainly not primitive! Not that that will matter to some, but
it's worth pointing out.
To sum-up, I don't intend by this essay to change anyone's personal
views about the veracity of Debney's experiences. Again, that is a
question of faith. But to those who would attempt to caricature the
man, or to point to him as some kind of abberation, I counter that his
statements are perfectly in line with what I would consider to be
mainstream Christianity. In today's social climate, it may be
considered "unprofessional" to bring up one's religious views in public
-- if Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams draws inspiration from a
particular religious faith, they've kept it quite discreet. But when
you're pouring your heart and soul into a project which is so clearly a
testimony of faith, it would seem unprofessional to me -- maybe even
dishonest -- to fail to make your own faith clear. Peter Jackson felt
it important to establish that, in adapting The Lord of the Rings for the big
screen, he did not share Professor Tolkien's deeply-held Roman
Catholicism, and no one has faulted him for volunteering this
information because it informs us about the nature of Jackson's methods
and goals as a filmmaker. Likewise, whether you share Debney's beliefs
or not, his willingness to talk about his faith as it directly relates
to his work is both brave and a valuable insight into the creative
process of a talented artist.
1. John Debney interview by Deborah Evans Price, Crosswalk.com
2. John Debney interview by John Mullin, Cinemusic.net
3. John Debney interview by Dan Wooding, WorldNetDaily.com
4. John Debney interview by Christopher Coleman, TrackSounds.com
5. Pope John Paul II, A Letter to Artists, 1999
You can write the author at takisjoh@msu.edu.
Constructive feedback is welcome, but please, no anti-Catholic tracts,
anti-Orthodox tracts, anti-religious tracts, PRO-Catholic tracts, or
tracts of any other kind, thank
you.
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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