It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Resurrection (1980), Poltergeist (1982), Beetlejuice (1988), Ghost (1990), Groundhog Day (1993) The Tree of Life (2011)—these are only a few of the influential movies in recent decades dealing with the afterlife. But beyond entertainment, do they mean anything? Authors Lyn and Tom Davis Genelli believe so.
Death at the Movies: Hollywood’s Guide to the Hereafter explores how Hollywood, the western world’s premiere creator and reflector of both our cultural dreams and our everyday reality, has both unconsciously and then, with the west’s comprehensive assimilation of eastern religious/ philosophical teachings, consciously conveyed the deepest truths about death and the beyond to a mass audience through motion pictures - truths which not only serve the common human evolution, but provide guidance for a strange, and often bewildering realm of reality –death.
The authors draw on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Buddhism, and depth psychology to review some of the most spiritually powerful films ever made. Death is, say the authors, at once the most immediate locked door and the ultimate frontier, a staggering paradox that invites us to search for deeper understanding based upon a level of consciousness beyond thought.
The book begins with an introduction to the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the bardo, the twilight region between life, death, and beyond which they refer to as transit; and then artfully analyses 19 popular Hollywood films that deal with this state of being. Readers will never view Casablanca or The Wizard of Oz the same way again.