Page - 107 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

asserted that there is no human life of faith without images.10 Even though I would disagree with Marty that religious film should focus on finding seeds of the divine Word, I recognize that film can awaken the homo religiosus. According to Marty, cinema binds us again with the poetic and religious expression of humanity, even though subjects that are profane, scientific or areligious; all the more so if it ap- proaches the great experiences such as birth, love, work, hope, fidelity, joy, death or their inseparable opposites treachery, lies, jealousy, hate. Everything that is hu- man, every relationship to the world and to nature, treated artistically by the cine- ma becomes a poem, a tale, a re-reading, a proposal of meaning, a celebration – in short, something that resembles a first religious step. And this step may be blas- phemous, contentious, provocative, pantheist, deist, mythic or revolutionary.11 A series like Vikings provides a secular context for religious meaning, as I will ex- plore below. In ways that are possibly unlike other forms of art, film “summons and supports elements that belong to the religious dimension inherent in every human being”.12 For a start, Vikings mirrors religious aspects of our society. For many peo- ple film-watching has become a religious activity. In a way we could argue that the creed, the religious, belongs to humanity and not just to Christianity. And it is back at the top of the agenda! The popularity of series like Vikings and many others (such as Game of Thrones) suggests, Marty argues, that the religious dimension, too long assimilated to Christianity, remains fundamen- tal for every individual and every culture. Thrown out with the water of Christian baptism, the infant homo religiosus comes back in full force and looks for his points of orientation outside of and far from mother church, in practices and beliefs ranging from the most serious to the most illegitimate, fantastical or dan- gerous. Our society once again rediscovers, painfully, that the religious and the sacred are fundamental for human beings and culture.13 Film as a Specific Embodiment of Religion – Liquefaction of Meaning Film, as in the example of Vikings, is a symptom of a liquefaction of meaning, an idea central to this article and therefore deserving of particular attention. Sociologist Zy- gmunt Bauman distinguished between solid modernity and liquid modernity, with 10 Marty 1997, 132. 11 Marty 1997, 136. 12 Marty 1997, 134–136. 13 Marty 1997, 139. 106 | René Erwich www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 103–126