It’s a wonderful, meaningful life

Studios classify and market films variously as action adventures, dramas, romantic comedies or science fiction, but producer Stephen Simon has identified a genre that he calls spiritual cinema -- inspirational movies that explore the eternal questions of who we are and why we are here.

Simon, a producer on films such as “What Dreams May Come” and “Somewhere in Time,” observes how movies ranging from “A Beautiful Mind” to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” explore the nature of life, love and time in his new book “The Force Is With You ... Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives” (Hampton Roads Publishing).

“Spiritual cinema has been around since at least the 1940s,” says Simon, citing “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” as examples.

“They are movies that look at who we might be when we operate at our very best. It’s important to distinguish ‘spiritual’ from ‘religious,’ because mainstream media almost always use the two words as synonyms, and they’re not.

“Religion pertains to an organization that tells us a specific set of regulations, rules and rituals that we must utilize in order to experience God. Spirituality respects every individual’s path to God, and every individual’s definition of God. The films in the book don’t deal with religious beliefs. They deal with our search for meaning in life.”

Simon examines more than 70 films, categorizing them under cinematic themes such as life after life, enhanced powers and sensibilities, angels, and reality and the concept of time.

“Time travel has a basic fascination for us because it allows us to suspend the rules under which we operate every day and fantasize about what could have been and what could be,” writes Simon, “moreover, I think it resonates in our hearts because (through quantum physics) we now do know that time itself is an illusion.”

Illusion and reality

Films like “The Matrix,” “Vanilla Sky,” “Mulholland Drive” and “Frequency” are used to illustrate the nature of reality and illusion. If we are living an illusion, who designed it and why? Do we create our own reality? Can we change the traumatic events of our past?

“Solaris,” released after Simon’s book was published, “holds a very deep spiritual message, and the 1972 Russian version of it was hypnotic,” says Simon. “The marketing of the remake sold it as everything but what it was, a look at what’s real and what’s not real.”

The author examines the power of love in movies such as “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Forrest Gump,” “Family Man” and “Cast Away.” And yes, Simon acknowledges, Tom Hanks was the leading man in three of those, personifying “who we can be when we resource that innate goodness and strength in all of us.”

The book serves as a reference for those interested in inspiring movie fare and a philosophical treatise on how films can reflect humanity’s search for deeper meaning in life. Simon’s understanding of the movie business, sense of humor and spiritual beliefs combine to create an eclectic point of view.

The author, who’s been involved with 25 films as a producer or film company executive over the past 26 years, gives an insider’s look at how several of the films in the book were made. He explains, for example, how Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel became the setting for “Somewhere in Time,” and shares how a merry-go-round of producing deals saved “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” from the scrap heap.

Current films he categorizes as spiritual cinema include “The Hours,” “Far From Heaven” and “Antwone Fisher.”

“ ‘The Hours’ and ‘Far From Heaven’ fit into films about the feminine ascension in this age,” says Simon. “ ‘Antwone Fisher’ is an extraordinary look at the choices we make to transcend and transform” personal hardship. Furthermore, he notes, “almost the entire cast is African American, but this is a colorblind movie. This movie could easily have been about a white psychiatrist and white child, but it wasn’t.”

A ‘B-minus’ executive

Simon was in town recently for the 90th birthday of his stepfather, Armand Deutsch, a producer for many years at MGM who put together movies like the 1949 version of “Ambush” with Robert Taylor and “Saddle the Wind” with John Cassavetes. Simon’s biological father, S. Sylvan Simon, was head of production under Harry Cohn at Columbia in the 1940s, making movies with Red Skelton and Abbott & Costello, and the author fell in love with filmmaking at a young age.

“I was the president of three different production companies in the film industry, and was fired from all three with total justification,” says Simon, who headed legendary producer Ray Stark’s company, Dino De Laurentiis Communications and New Century Productions. He gives himself “a B-minus grade as an executive. I never understood the politics, and if it’s not in my heart, I can’t sell it.”

Today, Simon lectures on spiritual cinema, traveling and conducting workshops for those who want to write, direct or produce movies in this genre (see www.mysticalmovies.com), and he says he is starting a company to produce low-budget films in the genre.

“The mainstream Hollywood community usually doesn’t want to make these type films unless major stars are involved, like Bruce Willis in ‘The Sixth Sense’ or John Travolta in ‘Michael’ and ‘Phenomenon,’ ” says Simon. “Most executives’ eyes glaze over because they don’t recognize the huge audience there is for this kind of entertainment. There are 50 million to 60 million people in America alone who have a deep interest in spirituality.”

Simon cites the growth of New Age and metaphysical books in the publishing world as a barometer.

“For the last 40 years, we’ve been sold a Madison Avenue concept that all you need is to make a lot of money and drive the right kind of car,” says the author. “Money is a valid measure of success, but it’s not the only measure. Movies in this genre touch people’s lives on a very deep level.”