Seite - 20 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 06/01

tween the two lead characters, Abe (David Sullivan) and Aaron (Carruth) in Primer, and Kris (Amy Seimetz) and Jeff (Carruth) in Upstream Color. Before turning to a deep reading of each film, let us apply Ricoeur’s hermeneutics to parable and sci-fi cinema. I have previously explored Ricoeurian cinematic parables in horror films, via mother! (Darren Aronofsky, US 2016), and superhero films, via Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, US 2018).2 Ricoeurian Cinematic Parables In his 1975 Semeia article “Biblical Hermeneutics”, French philosopher Paul Ricoeur describes the genre of parable as the conjunction of a narrative form and a met- aphorical process. This narrative-metaphor points to a third element, an external reference beyond the parable which Ricoeur labels “limit-experiences”.3 Limit-ex- periences are human encounters with the horizon of knowledge, imagination, and material reality, immanence nearing or breaching the transcendent. As a nar- rative-metaphor addressing limit-experiences, a parable is a heuristic fiction which redescribes the religious dimension of human existence without resorting to overtly religious language.4 It is a story which refers to something beyond what was literally told in the narrative, even as that story remains coherent in itself. While some bibli- cal scholars like C. H. Dodd have described this external referent in parables as the “kingdom of God”, Ricoeur appears broader in his suggestion that the referent is “human reality in its wholeness”.5 Thus, in summary, Ricoeurian parables are (1) a realist narrative form in conjunc- tion with (2) a metaphorical process referring to (3) an existential limit-experience which provokes a possible transformation within the audience. John Dominic Cros- san summarizes Ricoeur’s threefold description as narrativity, metaphoricity, and paradoxicality.6 While Ricoeur applies this description of parable to literature, the translation from text to cinema will become evident in my application of Ricoeur’s concepts to Carruth’s films, even as I aim to steer clear of literary text-based trap- pings so common in theologians’ and biblical scholars’ interpretations of cinema.7 2 Mayward 2017, Mayward 2019. 3 Ricoeur 1975, 30, 33. 4 Ricoeur 1975, 32. 5 Dodd 1935, Ricoeur 1975, 127. 6 Crossan 1980, 2. 7 Melanie Wright wonders if this frequent conflation of film with texts in film analysis by religious scholars is due to the privileging of sacred scriptures over and above other media; I think she rightfully questions whether such text-based approaches are truly engaging with film qua film at all. See Wright 2007, 21–22. Parabolic Transcendence in Time and Narrative | 19www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 17–36