Resurrecting the Champ
The verb “resurrect” always seems to appear in the passive sense. In his letter to the Romans, Paul instructs his readers that Jesus Christ “was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (4:25, TNIV). In the previous verse, Paul identifies the actor behind this passive verb: the first person of the Trinity, “who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” Why do Paul and his modern co-believers substitute “raised” for “resurrected”? Why do we use the word “resurrection” exclusively in the passive tense?Rod Lurie’s film “Resurrecting the Champ” explores, albeit indirectly, the question of active and passive roles involved in any sort of resurrection. The “champ” in question is Bob Satterfield, a one-time boxing contender now living on the streets in Denver. Erik Kernan is a young sports writer, working for the Denver Times and trying to impress his young son (living with Kernan’s wife since their separation) with stories about fictitious friendships with the boy’s athletic heroes. When Kernan accidentally meets Satterfield, he plans to write an article called “Resurrecting the Champ,” a sports story that will save him from his frustrating, prospect-less job and raise him into new arenas of power and pecuniary reward.
Kernan also hopes to raise up, or “resurrect,” Satterfield to a position of familiarity and sympathy by his article. The film implies (and Kernan assumes) that the homeless has-been can do nothing to help himself. Although in this sense the film encourages a passive reading of the resurrection event, we see that Kernan believes that he can resurrect his own career and self-worth through careful negotiations, brave schmoozing, and good writing. In other words, the journalist designs to resurrect himself as well as the Champ – to be both the active cause and passive recipient of that verb.
Indeed, this active, self-reliant message comes to us from the first moments of the film, when we hear Kernan’s voice proclaim, “A writer, like a boxer, must stand alone.” And Lurie’s film mostly adheres to this sad, solitary gospel. In Satterfield’s case, we see that Kernan’s attention, pity, money, and even his article make very little difference in the ex-boxer’s life. Satterfield must still make his own decisions and defend himself to the best of his abilities. Kernan, in fact, cannot resurrect his homeless acquaintance. But although his self-resurrection does not flow as smoothly as he had planned, he can affect his career and his family life for the better by his choices and actions.
The film is a good one, full of beautiful performances by Josh Hartnett as Kernan, Alan Alda as his boss at the Denver Times, and especially by Samuel L. Jackson as Satterfield. It raises questions about the influence of family relationships on our behavior, the importance of truth, and the human desire for respect. But very little in the film challenges the individualistic creed that Kernan preaches at the beginning of the film. According to this Hollywood morality tale, if you keep pulling on your own bootstraps, you’ll eventually pull yourself all the way up to heaven.
We see a different, more corporate view of resurrection in Black Snake Moan, also starring Samuel L. Jackson, now available on DVD and VHS. This gritty parable is set in a poor community in the South, where the carefully-named Lazarus (played by Jackson) has been left by his bored, cheating wife. Rae, a young and troubled girl (acted boldly by Christina Ricci), has lost her boyfriend, who decided to enlist in the army. Driven by loneliness, Rae turns to drugs and sex, only to be beaten and left for dead on Lazarus’ property. How, biblically literate film watchers may wonder, did Lazarus make his way into the parable of the Good Samaritan? Samaritan or not, Lazarus decides to both heal and cure Rae of her addictions, feeling called by God to resurrect the lost girl placed in his way. Rae, understandably, protests this unsought “cure,” particularly as it involves being chained to the radiator to prevent her escape.
It is clear from the start that these two broken souls will actually resurrect one another: Rae listens to Lazarus’ story of betrayal and gratefully accepts his care in a way his wife never did, while Lazarus treats Rae with a dignity she no longer expects from men. Being raised up by each other, Lazarus and Rae are then able to heal others around them, including the boyfriend who was rejected from the army because of panic attacks. In this film, all resurrection is communal, involving both the local church (represented by R.L.) and the town bar (where Lazarus shares the restorative power of his blues guitar). Although Lazarus confesses to Rae, as he removes her chains, that people can’t actually help or make decisions for one another, we see that to be untrue. Rae’s subsequent lonely attempt to confront her mother and her troubled past only ends in violence and heartache. She returns willingly to Lazarus’ home because she finds her salvation in company with him. The anthem of this salvation, sung by Rae with childlike joy, is “This Little Light of Mine” – an ode to sharing resurrection with one another if ever there was one. Black Snake Moan shows us a community where members gently unwrap strips of linen burial cloth from one another, acknowledging recent death but cautiously celebrating improbable life.
Possibly the most remarkable resurrection between these two films is that of Samuel L. Jackson’s career. I was first struck by Jackson’s incredible intensity in Jungle Fever, where his performance provides the film’s greatest interest. Many of his more recent films, unfortunately, left him little scope for his great talent (Snakes on a Plane? The Man? Kyrie eleison!) and left his fans wondering whether he had taken leave of his senses for good. With Black Snake Moan and Resurrecting the Champ, we see the return to life of an actor with the chops to tackle a variety of characters with depth and subtlety. And no matter who takes the credit for this resurrection, film fans everywhere can only give glory to God.