Godless Pdf

[Klaudia Aricas]

Here Paul is warning a young pastor not to get involved in godless talk because it leads you further into ungodliness. That makes it clear that a Christian can be ungodly to a point. But what does that mean?

In the month of August, we are kicking off a new series on the portrayal of clergy in popular media. We are interested in how faith leaders are represented in culture (movies, TV, books, plays, etc.) and how that reflects our current era and understanding of religion. Check back every Thursday in August for a new essay in this series. The following essay by Bearings Online poetry editor Susan Sink launches the series with a look at a false clergyman in the Netflix series Godless, which won three Emmys in 2018.

(Are you interested in writing for this series? There is certainly no lack of clergy in media. What is their role, and what do the depictions reveal about attitudes toward Christianity and clergy in particular? Send a pitch to skc...@CollegevilleInstitute.org.)

Meanwhile, Protestant churches, much more prevalent in Westerns, also serve as places where peace and reconciliation occurs, often mediated by the local reverend or preacher. In early Westerns, preachers are completely positive figures, brave and upright, forces for peace and civilization on the frontier. Even in films where preachers are not as visible, the church steeple rises above most Western towns as a clear sign of peace and domestication. Women, also forces for peace and order, are often seen going to church, reading Bibles, and singing hymns.

In the center of the town featured in Godless, a town of women where the men died in a single mining accident, is the skeleton of a church. Their pastor, we are told, is on the way, but still several states away (and traveling slowly). The unfinished church is no shelter from the violence of the West, no protection or civilizing force.

As a 21st century Western, Godless celebrates the same-sex relationship and the empowerment of women. African Americans are also given agency. There is a town of separatist Buffalo Soldiers and their families near the town, who can take care of themselves until Frank Griffin comes their way. Yet violence is at the center, a violence bred of a religion that is particular to the American West. Whether Frank Griffin is an imposter clergyman or has set himself up as the high priest of godlessness, carrying out the religion of hate and revenge, is unclear. The only question in the series is whether anyone will be able to stop him. He is beyond redemption.

Godless also reflects how, in recent decades, Christianity has failed many people. Its ministers have often failed to protect innocent children. Its hierarchies have often not embraced or loved or led the way in recognizing and empowering the marginalized in society. And this reality is reflected in Godless. The skeleton church shows the aspiration for faith is still there, but it is ineffective or marked by extreme corruption. The Bible verses used by Frank Griffin are twisted, and the King James poetics of Western speech are echoes of something that brings destruction instead of redemption or even protection. It is not that the moral order is no longer clear, but that it is almost inexpressible, it is seemingly absent. And this is, I think, where we are generally in terms of the portrayal of clergy and religion in pop culture (particularly film and television).

The people writing, directing, and acting in these roles overwhelmingly get organized religion wrong and show general confusion about what Christian characters could offer in our contemporary world. What does it mean if anyone can put on a collar, even the most heinous, murdering outlaw? And who, in a lawless world marked by senseless violence and widespread corruption, is going to build a space for reconciliation and offer moral guidance and hope?

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. One of my favorite movies of the year which I just finished watching is actually not technically a movie. It's a seven-part series on Netflix, a Western called "Godless."(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GODLESS")JEFF DANIELS: (As Frank Griffin) God - what God? Mister, you clearly don't know where you are. Look around. There ain't higher-up around here to watch over you and your young'uns. This here's the paradise of the locust, the lizard, the snake. It's land of the blade and the rifle. It's godless country.GROSS: That's Jeff Daniels as Frank Griffin, an outlaw obsessed with vengeance and willing to kill any person and destroy any town that stands in his way. The person he's obsessed with is Roy Goode, an orphan who Frank took into his gang and thought of as a son until Roy broke away and turned against him. My guest Scott Frank created, wrote and directed all seven episodes of "Godless." His film screenwriting credits include the adaptations of two Elmore Leonard novels, "Get Shorty" and "Out Of Sight," and the Philip K. Dick novel "The Minority Report.""Godless" has everything fans of Westerns love, but the story is pretty unconventional. It's set in the 1980s in La Belle, a New Mexican town run by women because most of the men died in a mining accident. The widow serving as the mayor dresses in men's clothes and has a lover who is also a woman. One of the storylines involves an interracial romance. Another woman on a ranch on the outskirts of town has a son who's half Native American. This woman is a great shot with a rifle.Let's hear another scene from "Godless." In the first episode, we see the men and women of another town singing a hymn in church when Frank, the villain, rides into the church on his horse, joining in the singing and stopping at the altar to deliver a menacing sermon while astride his horse.(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GODLESS")UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) Still all my song shall be nearer...DANIELS: (As Frank Griffin, singing) My God to thee - nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee.Folks, how 'bout it? Y'all been baptized? Y'all wash your bodies once a week? Have you committed adultery, Ma'am? Have you betrayed your brother, Sir? Do you preside in your family as servant of God? Y'all know I don't want to ever come back here and burn this house of the Lord down to the ground, so let's all bow our heads and pray that Roy Goode don't never show up here but that if he does, none of you well-meaning souls take him in unless you want to suffer like our Lord Jesus suffered for all of us. Amen.GROSS: Wow (laughter). Scott Frank, welcome to FRESH AIR. I love that scene. It's such a violation. This villain rides into the church on his horse and, on his horse, goes to the altar...SCOTT FRANK: Everything is wrong.GROSS: ...Basically starts threatening everybody that they might die if they do the wrong thing. It is all so wrong. And how did that image come to you of your villain riding to the altar of the church on his horse?FRANK: You know, it just seemed like the natural thing that Frank would do. And I knew that later there were going to be other scenes of people riding their horses into various structures. And I thought it might be a nice, fun little setup for me. And he is, as you say, violating everything. And so I really wanted to set that up right away. And it says everything about him. And you sort of synopsize what the kind of central battle is in that one moment. And it just seemed right. It just seemed right to have him keep going and ride right on in.GROSS: I'm so glad you made a Western because I'm a real fan of Westerns. And this Western is, like, so good. Why did you want to make a Western? And this is a major commitment. We're talking about - like, you've basically made seven movies here because there are seven episodes.FRANK: The start and genesis for this project was I just wanted to do something different. You know, I've always tried different genres as a writer. And I hadn't yet directed anything when I wrote this. And so I knew I wanted to write a Western at some point in my career. I just wanted to try it. It seemed impossible to me. It seemed impossible to do a new Western. The problem was nobody wanted to watch one. So I kept putting it off and putting it off because they were just - there were very difficult economically to make in Hollywood. They don't, as they say, travel. They don't do well overseas. And the way, you know, anyone determines what they're going to make from a business standpoint is how well it does over there versus over here. So I put it off. And finally I couldn't anymore. I just really wanted to write a Western.And I have to tell you about a woman named Mimi Munson, who's instrumental in all of this. Mimi's been my researcher for the last 17 years. And I told Mimi I'm thinking about writing a Western. I don't know what it's about. And she did two things that were - three things, actually, that sort of changed my life and made this happen. One, she gave me about 20 of what she felt were the best Western novels to read and had me read all of them.Then she said she'd been doing a little research about mining towns in the Southwest. And I said to myself, mining - you mean the guys in the - with the black faces. I'm not so sure. And I kind of looked at all of her research. And I told her, you know, all the sooty looking guys, and they're down there in the dark. I don't know that I want to write about that world. And Mimi said to me, oh, no, I'm not talking about the men. I'm talking about the women. And she said that all throughout the Southwest, there were several towns, from Dawes (ph), Colo., - was one I remember offhand - where all the men would die in a single day in an accident. And the women would be left behind, stranded. And they would either leave, or they would try and make a go of it. And all of a sudden, I had part of my movie. And again, it was not going to be a series back then. It was just going to be a film. And so this is around 2000, 2001. And so suddenly I had this place that I could write about that was very clear. And I had a group of people that I could write about.And then the third thing she did was she went to the university research library at UCLA and collected all these letters. And they wouldn't let her Xerox them. So she actually had a hand-copy all of these letters, about a hundred of them. And a lot of them were oral histories in effect and written by these women. And it was spectacular for me because I not only got ideas for characters, like the prostitute who's the richest woman in town, for example. But also I got to hear how people spoke, which was hugely important to me because I didn't want to write a lot of, I-reckon-I'll-rustle-up-a-bunch-of-grub-type stuff.GROSS: So the main town in "Godless" is called La Belle. And this is a town where all the men died. It's a mining town. And all the men or most of the men have died in a mining accident. So it's basically a town of widows with a few older men. And one of the widows played by Merritt Wever who our listeners might know from "Nurse Jackie" - she plays Mary Agnes, who's a widow of the late mayor of La Belle.And now that she is no longer a wife, she's given up a lot of, like, quote, "womanly" kinds of things. She dresses in men's clothes, a cowboy hat. She carries a rifle, and she's a good shot. And there's a scene in "Godless" that's kind of like, what if "The Magnificent Seven" were women...(LAUGHTER)GROSS: ...And they were protecting a town? Were you thinking of "The Magnificent Seven" at all?FRANK: I was thinking about so many Westerns...GROSS: So many movies (laughter).FRANK: I'm sure that was one of them. And I'm sure now that you've said that, someone is about to do "The Magnificent Seven" with women.GROSS: (Laughter).FRANK: I'm sure that will be happening shortly. But yeah, there were lots of things that - lots of movies and conventions. I really set out - one thing because I was just going to have fun - and I thought, you know, I love the Western so much. Why not embrace every single cliche I can think of from, you know, the breaking of horses to the train robberies to the two guys facing each other in the street - all of that stuff? The mysterious loner - why not find a way to put them all in here and see if I can do it in some sort of different way?GROSS: Well, another example of that - I mean, Sergio Leone in his westerns is famous, among other things, for those iconic close-ups of faces. And you have, like, a couple other shots, one with the hero of (laughter) the series and one with the heroine. And I can't say I've seen that Sergio Leone shot on a woman's face before.FRANK: And he was probably the single biggest influence for me. I probably stole more from him than, say, John Ford (laughter). Those movies were a huge part of my childhood. And later, when Clint Eastwood began directing, obviously he was hugely influenced by him as well, but - movies like "High Plains Drifter" and certainly "Unforgiven," which is I think a masterpiece.GROSS: Yes.FRANK: But I watched all those movies over and over. And the language and the rhythm - he's not afraid to slow down to make everything take longer. And yet I was never bored in those movies even when I was very young. I was riveted because of the composition, because of those close-ups - were so powerful. And they were always really well-scored as well. And I was very mindful of that.The problem today is that the close-up is probably the most overused shot. So you know, you have to be careful how you use it. And luckily, if you're outside in a place like New Mexico, you can do a close-up but shoot it with a wide-angle lens. And you have not only their face but all this beautiful information and vista behind them.GROSS: But did you think to yourself, I'm going to do that really macho Sergio Leone iconic close-up, but it's going to be with a woman?FRANK: Yes, yes. All the time, they're shot - the way they look down the rifle, the way the camera looks up the rifle towards them, they're all shots that are normally used with men. And I don't know that I said, now I'm going to do it with a woman so much as that's who the character was, and that's the shot that was right for that particular character.GROSS: So a good Western needs a good villain. And, boy, did you create one...(LAUGHTER)GROSS: ...In a character that's played by Jeff Daniels, Frank Griffin. So what were your ingredients to creating a great villain?FRANK: Well, I think you want a great villain who means well (laughter), who believes they're doing a good thing. I'm more interested in that person than the person who wants to, you know, destroy the world - but somebody who actually thinks they're doing good, who thinks they're doing the Lord's work, who believes that he's creating a family for someone, who believes that he's been a good father and who feels betrayed because he has always felt that he's done right by the people around him.And a big theme for me has always been, you know, the family you choose versus the family you're born into. And Frank, you know, pretty much expresses that. So that's the first place for me to start - is, how can he be in the gray area? He's sort of not all bad and not all good.GROSS: In the first episode, Frank has been shot in the arm. And he gets his arm amputated of course without any kind of anesthesia. We don't see it, but we hear him. And he's a pretty stoic guy. We hear him cry out in pain. And for the rest of the series, he's, you know, on his horse with one arm. Why did he have to be, like, a one-armed bad guy? Is that - is there, like, a history of that in Western literature?FRANK: No, although there might be (laughter). I haven't read a lot of it, of - read a lot of that or seen it a lot, let's say. But he felt more powerful being that way. He felt more powerful by overcoming all of that. It seemed to me that he was a stronger, more frightening man not because he was missing a limb but because of how he thought about that missing limb. I mean, he carries it with him. That arm is on his saddle right above his rifle. There it is. He takes his...GROSS: Yeah. There's just a - he wraps up his arm in, like, a blanket or a cloth - yeah, puts it on his saddlebag and (laughter)...FRANK: And continues to carry it with him. So that's a very - I thought that just made for a very particular kind of guy. And...GROSS: Well, I kept wondering, why is he doing that? Why did you have him do that?FRANK: Because he's nuts (laughter)...GROSS: Yeah, OK - good answer (laughter).FRANK: ...Is my easy answer. But I think that it's just such a scary idea. And so visually, I thought it would be (laughter) just - you know, just this side of funny. And I think it's OK to go there. And he will do anything. And he'll ride his horse into a church. He'll carry his arm with him. And there's a big, you know, theme throughout the story that anything can happen to anyone at any time, and that was sort of the beginnings of that.GROSS: One of the first things we see in "Godless" is an entire small settlement that has been massacred. We see their bodies. We see the dead horses. We see overturned wagons. And we know right from the start that part of the series is going to be who did this, and why? And what's going to happen to them? Will there be justice? And everything kind of rolls out from there.It's quite a dramatic way to start. And I have to say, it kind of hooked me. But I also know it could also turn people off who might think, like, wow, this is just going to be really violent and bloody; I don't want to see it. So it was a kind of major choice to make. So I'm interested in that choice.FRANK: Yes, and I was very worried always, even during shooting that sequence. I would joke, you know, between setups or after certain takes. I would say, and the sound you now hear is the sound of a million television sets all turning off.GROSS: (Laughter).FRANK: Because I just - I knew that we were playing with fire, and I knew it was humming a very specific key that isn't necessarily the entire show. But from a storytelling standpoint, it - I felt it was the exact right way to open because you want to know that's hanging over all of the proceedings.You know La Belle could look like that at some point. And you know that what happened here was real and awful and terrible. And the trick was to not sort of marinate in it for too long and to have it play more like an introductory grace note, (laughter) say, than really kind of linger in it.GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Scott Frank. He wrote and directed all seven episodes of the new Netflix series "Godless." We're going to take a short break and then be right back. This is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is Scott Frank. And he wrote and directed the new seven-part Netflix series "Godless." It's a Western that I have to say is really terrific.So "Godless" is a Western. Westerns have to have great dialogue. It's just - it's not going to be good without the great dialogue. And it has to be kind of, like, snappy and both dark and threatening and kind of witty at the same time. And you adapted two Elmore Leonard books into screenplays, "Out of Sight" and "Get Shorty." And he's just, like, a master of that kind of, like, snappy dialogue 'cause he's writing about, like, small-time criminals. So are there things you learned from working with Leonard - with Elmore Leonard material that you were able to apply to writing this?FRANK: Oh, absolutely. And he wrote a ton of Westerns as well. He began by writing Westerns...GROSS: Oh, right. That's right.FRANK: ...Yeah, short stories for magazines and so on. And then "Hombre" was a great Western. "Three-ten To Yuma" was one of his. And so he - and they're all great reads. They're all just terrific to read. And yeah, you do - you learn a lot because there's such specificity to his dialogue. You know, the fun thing about dialogue is when you can make it so singular, when you realize, oh, that's really a person. That person is talking in a way that other people aren't talking, and yet it doesn't feel self-conscious.And Western dialogue is really tricky. And I was very worried about catching the ear and figuring out how to write it. So I read tons of Western novels where they had great dialogue to see how they did it. Thomas Berger - you know, "Little Big Man" has spectacular dialogue in it. And there are great lines in "Hondo." And I was really looking for telling phrases, phrases that describe things that I hadn't heard before that I could use.GROSS: What's an example?FRANK: Same with the letters, where how people talked about horses - tireless, sure-footed and mean. You know, I'd never heard anyone describe a horse that way. Someone being called a dead gun - I'd never heard that before. And you get people describing their rifles. You know, a rifle can be mighty comprehensive in a situation like that - and so studying other authors to see how they were specific and, you know, deciding how are we going to be specific in this story and sort of - kind of learning, catching it and then making it your own.GROSS: Like a lot of great Westerns, there's some incredible panoramic vistas. And you shot in New Mexico. And there's great shots of just, like, you know, desert and mountains. And some of it is kind of reminiscent of the Monument Valley that John Ford shot his Westerns in.FRANK: We shot all over the place. We shot in - on reservations. We shot in national parks. We shot in a ski resort at one point. We were shooting all over the state, everywhere. And the easy thing is that wherever you look, it's beautiful. And the sky is, like - that's their ocean, you know? In New Mexico, it's just so pretty. No matter when you look up, it's always changing, which is both good and bad for when you're shooting, but it's always beautiful.And the challenge is just what time you're going to shoot, just to watch, you know, for the light, when the light's coming and where it's going to be because you can lose the landscape, too, very quickly. And the weather is tricky. For many months, we were shooting in what they call monsoon season. And you lose, you know, hours and hours to lightning and rain that's just - and wind that you can't shoot in. But it is gorgeous.The trick is shooting in places that no one has shot before, that not everyone has shot in. We would go scouting, and you would hear, yeah, "Magnificent Seven" shot here, and "True Grit" shot here. And you'd look at the buildings or the background. You'd go, oh, I remember that. I've seen that. I've seen that. And so you're trying to push. And the location scouts are trying to make it easy for us - you know, easy access. And you can park the vehicles over here, and you can get in and out. But what you're really looking for as a filmmaker is something that people haven't seen before and something that seems different.(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GODLESS")UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As character) The Trinidad girl...GROSS: My guest is Scott Frank, the writer and director of the 7-part Netflix western series "Godless." After a break, we'll talk about horses, the church and a beautiful poem. I'm Terry Gross. And this is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GODLESS")UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As character, singing) The Trinidad girl is a haughty thing. If she kisses at all, it's on the wing.UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As character, singing) The Catskill girl is the one to collar - kisses you good for half a dollar.UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As character, singing) The E-Town girl gives a kiss so sweet.UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESSES: (As characters, singing) The poets all fall down at her feet.UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As character, singing) There's the Red River girls, all two for a song...UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESSES: (As characters, singing) ...Kissing for meal tickets all day long. But don't forget; the girls of La Belle won't kiss even mama for fear she'll tell.UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Yeah, yeah.UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESSES: (As characters, singing) The Beaumont girls from way down South shall kiss the gold out of your mouth. The Sedona girls...(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Scott Frank, the creator, writer and director of "Godless," a seven-part Western series on Netflix. Frank also wrote the screen adaptations of the Elmore Leonard novels "Get Shorty" and "Out Of Sight" and the Philip K. Dick story "The Minority Report.""Godless" is set in the 1980s in a fictional frontier mining town in New Mexico called La Belle. The town is run by women because most of the men died in a mining accident. The main villain, Frank Griffin, is looking for Roy Goode, an orphan who Frank took into his gang and thought of as a son. But after Roy became an adult, he broke away. Frank is looking for him and willing to destroy any person, any town that harbors Roy or stands in Frank's way, and Roy may be in La Belle. The townspeople of La Belle are building a church and have been waiting a long time for their first pastor to arrive.I have to ask you about the church. I'll remind people the series is called "Godless" because it seems like at times God must be absent with what's going on. But you could tell how important the church is in people's lives. So I guess I'm wondering what religion means to you in terms of this story and also in terms of your life.FRANK: I think in terms of the story, I felt that it wasn't that - necessarily that God wasn't present for these people. It's that you can't count on God and that Frank calls out the Norwegian settlers in saying, you know, there's no point in counting on God. He's not here. He's not going to look out for you. And that's the truth. There's no God here. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't believe in God. But people were using religion even then and forming their religious beliefs for all sorts of reasons - some to rationalize bad behavior, some to help them through the incredible struggle that they were going through in order to move West and then civilize wherever it was they ended up.And there were stories in all directions at that time. There - you know, the Mountain Meadows massacre, which Frank references was, you know, based on a wagon train from Arkansas that was trying to make its way through Utah and was massacred by some Mormon settlers disguised as Paiutes. And they stole all their belongings. And the way Frank tells it is, I believe, close to what happened.And so those were men of religion behaving badly. And I was very inspired by - when I was reading Sally Denton's book, mountain - "American Massacre," I was reading about all the men who led that massacre and various quotes they had. And Frank came from that for me because there was - they were using religion in a way that I felt was destructive and, again, to sort of rationalize their own bad behavior, whereas the priest who shows up at La Belle has come just to bring comfort to these poor souls. That's all he wants to do. And he does show up late, but he shows up. And so I think that that for me was - I didn't want to say that all religion is bad. But I did want to say that men use religion in different ways, and they sometimes use it in bad ways.GROSS: Did writing "Godless" your religious or non-religious life at all?FRANK: I have never really been particularly religious. I'm fascinated by the stories that come from religion and by the rituals of religion and the beauty and the art that's all come from religion. But I believe that we all have a spiritual side. But I don't necessarily believe that it's tethered to a god.GROSS: So there's a poem that the preacher reads after he shows up. And it's a beautiful poem. I expected him to be reading from a Bible. And I thought, like, gee, that's not from the Bible, I don't think (laughter). Scott, where does that poem come from?FRANK: It comes from a Jewish poet in either late-11th century or early 12th century named Yehuda Halevi. And I hope I'm saying that right. And I had stumbled across that poem a year or two after I had completed the feature script for "Godless." And I had been trying to get it made and was having trouble getting it made as a movie. And I just thought, if I ever go back into the script, this would be a great thing to have in the story.And what I'd really written down on a card was, tis a fearful thing to love what death can touch. That phrase itself was enough for me. And I thought maybe I'll put it on a headstone. I'm not sure how I'm going to use it. But it's such a beautiful phrase. I need to put it somewhere in the story. It just seems so right.Cut to many years later, and I'm now turning the story into a miniseries. And I'm still not sure where I'm going to use it. But now I've unearthed the entire poem, which is easy to find. And I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to put it. And I realize that I want to use it for one of the funerals that are in the story later in the day. But I don't want anyone to know about it because it's such a powerful poem. Every time I read it, I would get incredibly emotional.GROSS: It's just such a beautiful poem, yes.FRANK: It's gorgeous. It's just - it's perfect. And it's one of the best poems about grief and faith and love that I had ever seen. And it's short and just so powerful. So I didn't want to put it in the script because I was worried it would lose all its power once it dropped into the script.GROSS: You didn't want the actors to see it.FRANK: I didn't want them to see it. So about a week before we were going to shoot that scene, I called the actor who plays the pastor to the set and gave him the poem. He had never seen it. He'd auditioned with the shorter version of the scene. And so I gave him the poem. And I talked to him about how he might read it and the tone of it and how the scene was going to lay out and how I was goin