Useless Beauty: Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film

In a postmodern age, life is often perceived in terms of difficult paradoxes and contradictions, which seem irreconcilable with a Christian understanding of human existence. In Useless Beauty, Robert K. Johnston uses film criticism as a medium of dialogue between the ancient and the postmodern, analyzing how both the Book of Ecclesiastes and such contemporary films as American Beauty, Magnolia, and Run Lola Run present life's beauty despite its pain and apparent futility. He argues that the...