Not the Sunniest Path: Finding Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in Art

As Catholics it is fair to ask ourselves what kinds of books, movies, or music, we should be pursuing. In my own musings over this question, the most common answer I found is that we should seek out entertainment that promotes the good the true and the beautiful. At first, I saw this as restricting or impossible. How does one only pursue works of such caliber? You might as well stick to only reading the Bible or listening exclusively to hymns. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but it is a restrictive thought.

I believe that the entertainment piece as a whole does not have to be solely good or true or beautiful but must arrive, in its ending, at something that is purely good or true or beautiful. Sometimes the path to achieve such an end is difficult, ugly, and dirty. Growth towards goodness can be a painful process. The human experience is a painful process and not all people arrive at good ends.

This is why there should be a greater importance placed on stories with unhappy endings. Unhappy endings are a reflection of life we do not often wish to see but one which we experience frequently. These unhappy endings are neither good nor beautiful, but they can still arrive at truth. Truth is not always pleasant but ignoring it for the sake of only looking at the good or the beautiful does a disservice to the complexities of life itself.

What does art or entertainment do? Among other things, it reflects life. Seeing as life is imperfect, it is only fair that art’s reflection of it would include the imperfect messy parts as well as the good parts.

War movies are a great example of this. They document the harsh, violent realities of war while still showing the goodness of some of the men striving to survive such times while still doing their best. Movies such as Saving Private Ryan, 1917, Hacksaw Ridge, and Dunkirk are not exactly beautiful and have difficult moments of gore and violence but, ultimately, tell the story of ordinary men doing what little good they could during trying times. There is something good, true, and beautiful in these kinds of movies and these qualities are only enhanced by the dirt, blood, and gunfire.

So yes, happily-ever-after-endings are important, necessary even, but to fill your life with nothing but these happy endings would be to give yourself a skewed view of reality. Now neither extreme is a good thing. Only watching the purest of films is no good, while only watching sad or difficult movies is not desirable either. There should be a balance.  

As Catholics we should strive to find this balance using our best judgement to pursue art that arrives at some worthy end by exploring the true, the good, and the beautiful. God desires for art to teach us about the world in both its better parts and its unsavory aspects. We would do well to keep this in mind when choosing art to help form our minds. We should find entertainment that highlights the good the truth and the beautiful even if the road to get there is not always the sunniest path.