ECCLESIASTES 1:9 TELLS us “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” I used to read that verse with a sense of existential fatigue, but as I’ve grown older, it reminds me that the struggles we face now are different forms of struggles as old as time itself. As hard as things might get, we’re never without hope that good will come back around, because it has before.
Examples of this exist in art as well as scripture. Take, for example, the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter, which addresses religious extremism, hypocrisy, and spiritual abuse. Director Charles Laughton’s dark and impressively modern approach to those ideas didn’t sit well with audiences at the time, but 70 years later, the film has only grown in influence.
Laughton’s film follows Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a Depression-era preacher who funds his “ministry” by marrying widows and killing them for their money. We watch Powell court, manipulate, and murder a guilt-stricken woman, Willa (Shelley Winters). Willa’s children, John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) escape Harry’s clutches and find refuge with Rachel (Lillian Gish), a kind woman who helps them recover from their trauma.
Read the Full Article
