Page - 158 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

practice of darshan (a devotional practice in which the devotee connects with the deity through an extended exchange of gazes), Plate argues that cinema can enable a form of identification with the other person as the other, with consequent shifts in perceptions and attitudes: “As the viewer becomes conscious of her or his sensing body perceiving words, music, and images, she or he also becomes conscious of the self’s relation to, and dependence on, others” (150). The third part (chapter 6) focuses on the afterlife of films in real life, and on the way that films can influence religious rituals (such as Star Trek–themed Bar/t Mitzvahs) or become the source of their own ritual performances (such as those surrounding screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show [Jim Sharman, GB/US 1975]). Plate’s underlying thesis about the necessary blurring of neat distinctions between film and reality is most clearly developed in this part in the investigation of how filmic narratives, characters, even whole filmic universes become a part of the everyday-life worlds and communities of their viewers. Plate’s volume offers important contributions to the development of theory and analytical methods in the field of religion and film. Especially his attention to the em- bodied reality of viewers and the role of body in meaning making and worldmaking are important contributions to an emerging conversation. His careful analysis of a film itself, its reception and the ways in which it becomes incorporated in the lives, rituals and myths of the world of its viewers vastly expands the scope of scholarly focus in the field and opens up new and exciting avenues for research. Plate shows how studying film contributes to our understanding of religion, while studying reli- gion allows us to better understand film. In particular, his analysis of the lived prac- tice of film watching and ritual making contributes to the further development of the concept of “religion”, shifting the attention from teachings or theologies to lived practices, a shift that is already being theorized in the field of religious studies but is given a new dimension through the focus on film. Given this broadened understanding of religion and Plate’s attention to the re- ligious function of secular rituals, the Durkheimian distinction between sacred and profane which Plate evokes does not seem to provide a very helpful theoretical frame to understand how religion is lived in the continuum of filmic and afilm- ic reality. A shift in theoretical framing might provide further inspiration and the language and tools to develop some of Plate’s broader ideas – for example about space or the connection between the body of the film and that of the viewer – with a similar degree of detail as in the case of his analysis of myth in film and religion. It would also be interesting to see Plate’s argument developed beyond the classical categories of religious studies of myth, ritual and space, departing perhaps instead from important categories of filmmaking, such as rhythm, light or mise-en-scène. Book Review: Religion and Film | 157www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 155–158