Purpose-Driven Cinema: A Talk with Orlando Bloom

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN LINKS
—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—Spiritual Connections

After Troy, a lot of Orlando Bloom fans were really worried whether the young star had lost his groove. Many critics went a lot further, suggesting that Bloom’s groove was an illusion in the first place. “So he was plucked out of film school to make The Lord of the Rings?” one colleague groused some months ago. “He should have stayed there and learned something.”

Well, Kingdom of Heaven demonstrates that he’s learned at least one thing by working in the real world: how to carry a major film. And don’t think that Bloom wasn’t aware that the stakes for Heaven were high. Naturally, he could have done worse than work with Ridley Scott; so his instincts there are obviously good, too.

In Kingdom of Heaven Bloom plays Balian of Ibelin, an ordinary man who becomes three things: first, a widower; second, a fugitive; and third, a knight. Now anyone who’s ever seen films or read books about knights knows that there’s good ones and bad ones. There’s nothing any more magical about being a knight than there is about being a cowboy; all you’ve got to know is who’s got the white hats on and who’s got the black hats on and you’ve got it all figured out.

But wait a minute... Kingdom of Heaven actually has something pretty old-fashioned to say on that topic. In Ridley Scott’s film, there sure enough are villainous knights: those pesky old Knights Templar; and there sure enough are the White Hats, too: King Baldwin, Balian, Balian’s father Godfrey, and others. But Orlando Bloom is enthusiastic about pointing out that, when the chips are down, Scott’s film makes no bones about the fact that being a knight does make a man better.

First, there’s the fact that you’ve got purpose—that you know what you stand for.

Second, there’s an acknowledgement that everything’s not about you.

Third, there’s a slap in the face to remind you that you’ve taken an oath—and that oaths count for something!

Bloom emphasizes that this frame of mind—a frame of mind based on and cultivated by a distinctly Christian world view—is still relevant in this day and age: that “what you do each day” really matters. And this is Bloom talking, too, not just Balian the Blacksmith, whose forge is overshadowed by the rhetorical question, “What kind of man does not try to make the world a better place?”

Isn’t that romantic? Isn’t that quaint in this cynical age? Perhaps. But Bloom, for just one among many, is apparently not afraid to be romantic or quaint. He really does “hope that people have the capacity” to make the world better. And Buddhism is apparently Bloom's preferred avenue toward that end.

Now, don’t get Bloom wrong: he’s realist enough to know that even knights can go bad. But you wouldn’t get him to agree that there’s no point in trying. Better some purpose than no purpose at all...

Continue:
—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—Spiritual Connections