Movie Review: Why Hollywood

Still Can’t Teach Us to Pray

By Bill Bray, CIS News

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia (March 6, 2024) – Hollywood has secretly tried in vain to teach America how to pray now for over 100 years. Even in the days of silent film, the movie industry has tried to portray prayer as men and women reach out to God for comfort, forgiveness, favor, and strength.

          Terry Lindvall, the producer director of Hollywood, Teach Us to Pray has painstakingly collected nine hours of feature film outtakes that attempt to show how Hollywood portrays prayer on the silver screen. He finally edited it down to this one sensational, 98-minute documentary in 2022.

In an opening scene of the film, Olive Penderghast, played by Emma Stone in Easy A, goes into a confessional booth to set the premise of the movie.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she begins. “I think that’s how you’re supposed to start these things. I’m really just going off what I’ve seen in the movies.”

          Produced in association with the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, the film is an amazing feat of research and scholarship worthy of any PhD dissertation. The film clips in this thought-provoking movie touch on all the theological mysteries and enigmas involved in mankind’s attempts to reach out to heaven.

          However, Hollywood, Teach Us to Pray cannot seem to find its intended audience. It may well turn out to be one of the most controversial underground films in years and it is being widely viewed in the academic world.

It deals with religion, and Hollywood’s fear and fascination with the subject, in a very prophetic way. Yet it remains unseen by theatrical audiences.

It seems that the last taboo on the frontiers of freedom in the world of moviemaking are films that deal with faith – be it faith in Allah, God, Jehovah or even Jesus Christ.

But it’s not that Hollywood hasn’t tried over the years, and that is the irony revealed in this fascinating movie. Despite hundreds and perhaps thousands of attempts to portray prayer on the big screen, as evidenced by this amazing film, it remains underground.

For the time being, this film is still being privately screened and circulated – mostly in the academic world, at drama and film departments of universities across the country.

Meanwhile, this amazing documentary still awaits an opportunity to be seen by mass audiences. So far, it has failed to find a theatrical or television audience. Perhaps, hopes Terry Lindvall, it will find just such a place on PBS or another TV network.

Meanwhile, Hollywood, Teach Us to Pray is still limited to sneak preview audiences and those who can find bootleg copies of the film copyright by the Newington Cropsey Foundation. (ends)

© 2024 by Bill Bray, Released for general use with proper attribution to the author.

BACKGROUND ON THE WRITER/REVIEWER: Bill Bray is an editor and writer with CIS News. He began his career as a foreign corresponded and missionary in 1966 with Operation Mobilization in Calcutta, India. He founded Christian Information Service in 1967 while working at the Bangkok World newspaper in Thailand. He was named president of Overseas Students Mission by Robert V. Finley in 2008, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization serving indigenous leaders.  To contact Bill Bray, you may write to him at bray.william@gmail.com