Unlike communists who believe the individual must sacrifice himself for the collective, Western Civilization is built on Christian values that involve, well, something, you know, admittedly something similar but still different. We believe that the individual still has value, created in the image of God, and a noble sacrifice for the least of these, even in opposition to the collective, is worth celebrating.
Clear as mud, but it covers the ground, yes?
How about: “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for a friend.” That’s the thread for our Film Appreciation Night covering six films chasing the different ways this creed is portrayed.
A Tale of Two Cities (1935) — Sacrifice as Redemption for a Wasted Life
The story: Despite claiming to be about two cities, this is a tale of French Revolution madness, the bloodlust of peasants determined to kill all remnants of the aristocracy, even if they’ve renounced their titles and moved away. A dissolute English lawyer Sydney Carton befriends Charles Darney to be closer to his wife Lucie Manette, until the Reign of Terror threatens the family. Unable to secure Charles’ release, Carton is left with one final, extraordinary use for a life he’s always considered wasted.
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
Dickens didn’t just write the “5th Gospel” (A Christmas Carol), he also personified Christ’s sacrifice in this sarcastic alcoholic hero, Sydney Carton in this 1935 version of A Tale that has yet to be surpassed.
Every character in A Tale of Two Cities is iconic and memorable. I loved Miss Pross taking down Madame De Farge to save the Darnays, but as I mentioned, while Ronald Coleman did a fantastic job, Dickens didn’t quite sell me on Carton’s justification. Had he more to live for, that would be a stronger sacrifice, wouldn’t it?
Why should we care if this this sad sack lawyer switches places with oblivious aristocrat-turned-banker Darney? For Lucie’s love? For any sort of meaning that he’s denied himself despite repeated urging from others?
Except that in the end, Carton comforts the poor innocent girl sentenced to death for being someone’s friend, steadying her with such quiet courage and tenderness that even the venal Barsad scolds the crowd for jeering.
It’s heartbreaking, I get choked up just thinking about it.
Sergeant York (1941) — Sacrificing Pacifism for Duty
The hagiography: Alvin York is an “awe-shucks” hard-living Tennessee mountain man turned devout Christian pacifist. Then the World War I draft board denies his conscientious objector status. His superiors promote York to a leadership role because he’s a crack shot. The internal battle of patriotic duty over private conscience isn’t easy to dramatize but York manages to resolve it when his platoon is pinned down in the middle of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, forcing him to fight to save lives.
While Alvin York’s noble sacrifice of pacifism means revisiting his killer impulses, he’s no William Munny (Unforgiven). York is not who he once was, and has no desire to revert, celebrate his killings, or capitalize on his new fame as a hero.
And yes, I tease this hagiography because it leans into the frustrating and all too American belief that simple faith and homespun platitudes are all the education anyone needs. Why listen to them city folk with their subways and highfalutin ideas when a man can get back to his turf and rely on his inherent goodness and absurdly limited experience?
As a former New Yorker now living in rural America, why, I find that’s nails on a chalkboard. York needed a business manager after the war. This movie as a time capsule of Americana, not a mission statement. To me, York’s ethos is up there with Firefly & Serenity‘s nonsensical, “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe it.”
We must do better, America!
Twelve O’Clock High (1949) — Sacrificing the Desire to be Liked
The story: Brigadier General Frank Savage volunteers to rebuild the 918th Bomb Group into a fighting force capable of proving that daylight precision bombing can actually work — enforcing brutal discipline and deliberately keeping his men at arm’s length, convinced that detachment is the only way to get maximum effectiveness out of them. As the missions and losses mount, his finds himself struggling with his leadership and his own breaking points.
For his team’s success, General Savage sacrifices his desire to be liked by his men, and ultimately, his own psychological stability. It’s a study in fostering pride in one’s work, in team reputation and mission success, and pushes every soldier to do his best (or end up in the leper colony).
It’s a fascinating story of developing team dynamics and I’m surprised it’s not mentioned more often.
I also have notes on a flashback narrative that doesn’t pay off anything later on. I kept wanting another scene that perhaps restores what the needs of combat stole from Savage.
Breaker Morant (1980) — Sacrifice As an Act of Defiance
The story: During the Second Boer War, the British court-martial Australian Lieutenant Harry “Breaker” Morant and two fellow officers for executing Boer prisoners and a traveling priest — killings they claim were carried out under standing orders from British command. As the court-martial unfolds in flashback, it becomes clear the men are being used as political cover, sacrificed to smooth over a diplomatic crisis and protect the officers above them.
Unlike the other movies on this list, where men choose their sacrifice for good, for their comrades and ideals, Morant and his co-defendants get the shaft. The true defendants will never see a courtroom. That’s what the movie wants you to feel.
But there’s more: Morant’s refusal to flee the verdict forces his superiors to face the effects of the Age of Empire. Unlike other colonies where British rule helped develop civilization, halt tribal brutality and pagan superstitions, the Boers had a functioning society. British rule was not as altruistic as they all pretended, and it was sacrificing Morant’s regiment to keep Germany from entering the conflict on the Boer side. They were sentenced to death for doing what they were told!
Morant, who was a renaissance man and poet choses to die with his men. His intelligence officer offers him a horse to escape. Instead of letting his superiors off the hook and seeing the world, he said, “I’ve seen it.”
Morant’s sacrifice belies the British’s “noble” war and court martial.
The Lives of Others (2006) — Sacrificing Ideals for Conscience
The story: East Berlin, 1984. Stasi interrogator and surveillance expert Wiesler is assigned to conduct round-the-clock surveillance on celebrated playwright Georg Dreyman. He believes he may have something to hide, but Wiesler soon discovers that his task really to serve a big wig’s lust for Georg’s girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. As Wiesler listens in on their lives day after day, this socialist’s ideological certainty begins to erode.
Wiesler starts as the ideologically pure machine the state built him to be. But his conscience wakes and refuses to be put aside. He starts to pus his thumb on the scales, to quietly protects the very people he’s supposed to destroy, risking his entire life as he knows it.
More than any other film on this list, The Lives Of Others is the masterpiece, the most relevant today, as our nation struggles with young socialists who refuse to believe that their seemingly pure ideology ends with Stasi-like corruption that crushes the human spirit.
Everything works. The set ups pay off in surprising ways and it’s all heartbreaking. I make the point that like Romeo & Juliet, Wiesler is our moral chorus, reminding us of the dangers of offending the state, of impetuous actions! But she rushes to her death like Juliet, not realizing that Wiesler made a way out.
And Georg finds out the truth years later in a single red blotch on the report. Wow! What a reveal!
The movie also contains a perfect example of the “2 reactions” writing technique. In comedy, what makes a moment truly funny is not an funny action, but reaction to that stimulus. What makes a dramatic moment deeper and more impactful is having different characters exhibiting different reactions to the same stimulus. That is, at the end of that deeply intimate scene where the couple argues over her leaving, we cut to the surveillance room where Wiesler is hushed, sad, and intense (as we are!), and his up-beat shift replacement Udo enters humping the air, crassly hoping the artists are having sex again. That startles Wiesler. It’s both funny and impactful because the audience recognizes how both are invading the privacy of this couple.
The Mission (1986) — The Futile(?) Sacrifice For Love or Defense
The story: Mendoza is a mercenary and slave trader capturing the Guaraní people of South America for profit — until he kills his own brother in a jealous rage. He finds an unlikely path to redemption at the Jesuit mission above the Iguazu Falls, built by Father Gabriel as a sanctuary for the very people Mendoza once hunted. As Mendoza and Gabriel build the mission, colonial politics intervene: Spain trades the Guaraní land to slave-trading Portugal. Gabriel and Mendoza must decide what they’re willing to do to protect their mission.
Closing the series, The Mission refuses to let anyone off the hook. Every character faces the same crisis, and each one answers it differently, according to conscience, faith, and everybody loses.
There were moments during the editing process that I wondered if I had failed The Mission. Was I too critical? Was I too caught up in my head to convey an authentic reaction? Possibly.
What still nags me is why I didn’t have a more emotional response. I mean look: babies in mud! Indigenous people crying! Emote, Bren! What are you made of, stone? Are you emotionally stunted? Did The Lives of Others exhaust your tears?
Part of my problem here was the confusion about why this massacre had to happen. Was it inevitable? Or were there other potential outcomes that made the admittedly tragic end seem futile? As I mention in the video.
Do we really know what Gabriel and Mendoza actually felt about their decision? After all, I’m not a Jesuit and it’s hard to imagine myself a Jesuit! If they felt that dying with the mission was their destiny, that God was calling them to it, would they have regrets or feel oddly fulfilled? I dunno! We don’t get a Gethsemane scene for them, only a kind of “you’re doing it wrong! You should want to love (Gabriel) or defend with arms (Mendoza) ,” and that keeps the argument at an intellectual level.
Lastly, there’s the feeling of being emotionally manipulated. Look, the movie did a great job with the cinematography, and it’s a fairly tight script, but the story feels somewhat calculated, and on-the-nose with its Christian symbolism and fatalistic focus, a dramatized “this is horrible and you should feel bad about it” message movie. “Damn it, babies in the mud! Look, another naked native crying! Have you no pity? No shame?”
And then I realized: the other movies on this list didn’t ask me if I cried enough. And that was information…
Catholic guilt was calling. Except I’m not Catholic. And I escaped St. Mary’s with its hard-of-hearing brothers who were quick to accuse. It wasn’t me, Brother Whatever you name was! You don’t know me! I am still the captain of my soul!
And I’m not responsible for this massacre! Talk to Portugal! Tell that Monsignor to check his soul and Hail Mary. I’m done!
Noble Sacrifice With Many Faces
Somewhere in my studies, I came across a concept — I think it was a kind of Christophany — when a hero sacrifices himself for someone else, becoming like Christ in death, we are able to catch a glimpse back to the mystery, majesty, and grace of our Redeemer on the Cross.
I don’t know if there’s some kind of transference like communion, but I know that when done effectively on film, the response should be the same: reverence.
In different ways, the above movies took a stab at noble sacrifice with varied success. I consciously avoided The Passion, anything to do with Aslan, and similar allegorical stuff, so we could see how other storytellers tackled the subject.
I’m sure I’ve missed everyone’s favorites. Let me know which I should add to this list.
Mine was part of my Knight of the Temple tale, the thing that drew me to the bizarre trial of the Knight’s Templar: Grand Master Jacque de Molay’s final public confession in Paris. He was supposed to recount the heresy of the order, and beg for his life. The Pope had already decided to commute his sentence and allow him to live out his life in a monastery…
But that would mean condemning to hell every other Templar who had not turned himself in for “church discipline.” Molay couldn’t live with that.
So instead, Molay ranted at the abuses of the King Philip the Fair, using the Church courts to condemn innocent knights out of greed to pay for France’s crusades against its neighbors. The present Bishops and the King responded as everyone would expect: they ordered Moly to be burned at the stake!
Before they flames overcame him, Molay cursed his accusers, “I call the King and Pope to meet me before the throne of God! Before the year’s end!.. Spes mea in Deo est! (The greatest Templar motto: My hope is in God)”
That night, the Paris priests gathered Molay’s bones as holy relics.
Within the year, Both King and Pope died.
Anyway, that’s all for the Noble Sacrifice series. Continue the conversation on X or YouTube.