I’ve filmed inside a lot of houses of worship this year.  In Vietnam I visited countless Buddhist pagodas.  In Ecuador, it seemed I was in a Catholic church just as often as I wasn’t.  And here in Thailand, there’s a Buddhist wat on every corner.  So it may sound strange when I say that despite the number of hours I’ve spent filming the Christians and Buddhists who use these spaces (see Quito episode 6), it still makes me deeply uncomfortable to do so.  It has little to do with my own beliefs, except maybe this one:  Respect the spirituality of others.

Sadly, I think this makes me a bad fit for my job.  I can’t help but feel that I’m intruding on something deeply personal when I point my camera at a person in prayer.  There’s a great scene in Waking Life when filmmaker Caveh Zahedi tries to summarize the position of the Christian film critic Bazin by saying, “Film is like a record of God or the face of God, or of the ever-changing face of God.”  It’s a beautiful thought, and one that should strike terror into the hearts of any god-fearer with a camera phone.  Still, we don’t have to share Bazin’s beliefs to recognize that the strangers I’m filming DO believe, and that if ever there was a moment when they might fear me capturing their god on camera, this is it.  (For the record, Bazin never called it a “holy moment,” as Caveh claims.)

They don't build 'em like they used to.

So why do I film someone when I’m worried they’ll take offense?  (more…)