How I HEARD THE BELLS Points Viewers Back to God
By Movieguide® Contributor
In an interview with Stephen Atherholt, Movieguide®’s Cheryl Crisp discussed the movie, I HEARD THE BELLS.
According to the Movieguide® review:
I HEARD THE BELLS is a faith-filled Christmas movie that tells the story behind Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s classic Christmas carol, “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day.” Longfellow is often referred to as “America’s Poet.” The movie is set inside Longfellow’s Cambridge home in the 1860s. Tragedy strikes the family when his wife dies in a fire accident. Distraught, Longfellow embarks on a journey of grief that eventually leads him back to God. It also leads him back to his children and the hope that comes through Jesus, who’s the inspiration behind Longfellow’s classic Christmas carol.
I HEARD THE BELLS is incredibly well-acted and produced. Despite grief, the movie champions the gifts of family, faith and hope in the face of the darkness of tragedy and Civil War. The movie suffers from some slow pacing, but it’s a wonderful Christmas movie with scenes of prayer, church, salvation, communion, and song. I HEARD THE BELLS points viewers to the goodness of Christ, and the freedom that comes through Him. Because of some violence and mature themes about grief, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger children.
“How Can Henry Longfellow’s poem from the past leap off the pages and speak to us here today in the present?” Crisp asked Atherholt, the actor who played Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the movie.
“You know, the poem of course became the Christmas carol that I think most people are familiar with,” Atherholt began to explain. “But the poem is a Civil War era time frame and the way that he weaves the journey of his own life into this poem I think people can relate to. You know, hearing the Christmas bells or all of us I think can mean something even if it means hearing them within another song that you’re hearing on the radio.
“But, you know, you hear the bells and what do they mean to you, the church, and they’re familiar with the Christmas time period but then also it goes through the canons thundered in the south and what was happening during that time of war and trauma and stress,” he continued. “Then of course the poem brings you all the way back from that sorrow back to God. He is here. He is not dead and He speaks to us and hopefully through the movie will speak to people as well.”
I HEARD THE BELLS is now streaming on Great American PureFlix. It was previously nominated for a Teddy Bear® Award at the Movieguide® Awards.
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