December 4, 2002

George Bush’s “faith-based initiative” has generated fierce debate at every turn—in the courts, in Congress and in public opinion. Yet in some respects, the initiative is already in place. The “Charitable Choice” provision included in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act is still the law of the land, and faith-based offices in five federal departments are quietly bulldozing roadblocks to government partnerships with religious groups.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

Incarnation. God con carne. God in the flesh. Jesus. For Christians, the meaning of the dance of life comes to this: Jesus of Nazareth, Mary and Joseph’s son, is Immanuel, God with us. The poet T. S. Eliot has spoken of incarnation as “the still turning point, the intersection of time and timelessness.”

If you knew what was going to happen to you in the morning, you'd never get out of bed," declares Phil (Timothy Spall) early in Mike Leigh's All or Nothing. Phil, a cabbie, does have a hard time rousing himself in the morning, so his workday is truncated. And he's always behind financially; he has to borrow money from Penny (Lesley Manville), his common-law wife, and even from his unemployed son Rory (James Corden).

To understand and appreciate the revisionist genius behind Far from Heaven, directed by Todd Haynes, one needs to appreciate the cinematic impact of Douglas Sirk (1900-1987), a  director whose jaundiced view of American life played out in a series of films in the 1950s that have been rightly celebrated for their panache.