Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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politics is not simply a matter of parties and elections but also a matter of culture, and it
looks towards fundamental issues of life and death.
In an interview for the Catholic magazine, New Zealandia, Ward discussed his interest
in religion as gradually evolving to become a “very rich resource” for him to explore as
a writer. While he was at art school he was interested in films by Fellini and Bergman,
but “it had never occurred to me that I would ever make use of Catholicism in my films
[…]. I thought that Catholicism and its icons were the very last thing I would ever
depict”. 829 The change in Ward’s attitude had partly to do with his experience in
making In Spring One Plants Alone, which he describes as “a harsh experience, but also
almost a religious experience […]. I had a strong sense of [Puhi’s] incredible faith and
belief which has sustained her in a life that was frequently difficult”. 830 Ward’s
changed perception of what filmmaking was about (“exploring who you are and where
you come from”) was also partially responsible for his wanting to explore the religious
aspects of his own background, as he had begun to do in Vigil. Clearly, however, he
saw religion as a resource, as a possible language, as an area to explore, rather than as a
set of ready-made answers.
The Navigator focuses particularly on Celtic Christianity:
I liked the idea of using more directly Catholic imagery – not through the
disturbed psychology of an eleven-year-old girl, but straight out of our own
background […]. The film is consciously built on classic Catholic imagery –
crosses, Celtic crosses, forging crosses, the spire, aspiring Gothic architecture
and ideas of faith and belief, of self-doubt, of insecurity, of scepticism and
cynicism. 831
Ward sees the differing attitudes to faith of the fourteenth and twentieth centuries as
reflected in their contrasting architecture. “The cathedral’s architecture contains
implicit ideas of aspiring towards something, of a finger to God”, as opposed to the
pragmatism and scepticism reflected in the black mirror-glass boxes of late twentiethcentury
architecture. He adds that the film explores issues of faith but can not be seen as
“a statement of faith”. He was more interested in exploring “those alternations between
829 Ward quoted in Denham, "Profile: Heaven's above, a Religious Filmmaker," 39.
830 Denham, "Profile: Heaven's above, a Religious Filmmaker," 40.
831 Ward quoted in Denham, "Profile: Heaven's above, a Religious Filmmaker," 41.