Can the movies rescue America?

And in our present state, is the success of "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" really something to aspire to? I'm not saying that the thoroughly insincere (from both sides) talk about healing needs to play itself out in our movies. I'm not saying that strong voices need to be less strong or "tempered." But the idea that attempting to reach a broad audience necessarily entails compromise, i.e., bland meaninglessness -- an idea as prevalent in the arts as it is in politics -- is a false one.

"Ray" proves just how false an idea it is. The movie understands that when Ray Charles began singing country western and show tunes and Beatles songs in the '60s he wasn't selling out but laying claim to as much of American music as he could, saying, in effect, "I belong here, too. As an American, that's my right." Before his "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" how many R&B fans thought they'd ever hear country music as cousin to the blues, how many C&W fans thought they'd ever hear the ache of country in the growl of R&B?

There's much more than our current national political division for movies to overcome if they are to realize the once and future dream of an enthused (as opposed to presold), diverse and united mass audience. The single most powerful and insidious thing preventing movies from having the chance to build an audience (and preventing any substantial political discussion in our media) is the here-today, gone-tomorrow effects of marketing in the 24-hour-everything cycle. In this system, all, from the latest summer blockbuster to Abu Ghraib, is disposable.

There is no hope for movies as a communal experience and a popular art form if we can't even talk to one another, if liberals no less than conservatives treat "the other" as having no place in their separate notions of America. I've heard it said that the strong public reaction to "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" should at least encourage us that movies still have the ability to make an impact. I think there's a good chance that something like "The Incredibles," which doesn't appear to be addressing any issue (while stirring up lots of conflicting emotions), will affect audiences more deeply and prove more lastingly the power of movies to get under people's skins.

There's a wonderful irony in the fact that "Gone With the Wind," a romanticization of the bloodiest divide in our nation's history, made hash of that divide by creating an audience all over the country that was dying to see it. One of the great things about movies is that they can, at least for a few hours, make the damnedest companions. It's time for the red states and the blue states to get up the nerve to ask each other, Maybe we're not ready to go steady, but would a movie be out of the question?

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