I Heard the Bells
Friday, December 23, 2022 6:40:57 PM | (Age Not Specified)
I do not go to many movies, but I am glad I saw this one. It is a good movie that I recommend to you this Christmas season.
I Heard the Bells tells the story of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), an American poet that rose to national prominence before the Civil War. The movie tells the story of his life just before and during the war, plus a brief scene years later. Its focus is his poem, written in 1863, the year of bloody battles at Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga. Much later, it was put to music as the Christmas carol we hear and sing today.
Before going to the movie, I knew little about Longfellow. Afterwards, I looked into him a bit, and it appears that the movie was quite faithful to his life and events through the time covered. Not knowing about him, the opening scenes seemed a bit overdone to me, but I now accept them as a reflection of Longfellow's wealth and esteemed place in Massachusetts society.
Christian movies have a reputation for poor quality, but I Heard the Bells was, to my eye, well done. The Longfellow household is shown as a place where faith in Christ is both real and important in life, but it does not sugarcoat the tragedies of this sinful world. Reality in this life is well-expressed by Longfellow's words in an opening scene:
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
Unusually, the final movie credits were followed by information on its production by Sight & Sound Films, which has been making Christian films and other products since 1976. I never heard of any of them, but based on I Heard the Bells, I left the theater hoping the movie is a box office success, giving the company resources for future movies. Otherwise, I was pleased to leave behind the other shows, with their godless stories of this or that. Ugh.
