Saffian in “Shall We”
COURTESY | “Shall We”
“Shall We?” is the most ambitious project Hillsdale’s Film and Production Club has ever undertaken. It took a year of production and editing, it deals with one of the touchiest subjects on Hillsdale’s campus. Boy oh boy, does it deliver.
The half-hour film on Valentine’s Day, “Shall We?” is the latest addition to the star-crossed lovers genre — it follows Protestant Ethan (played by sophomore Nate Shackelford) and his Roman Catholic President’s Ball date Katherine (played by sophomore Maggie Saffian).
It’s beautifully filmed and full of rich, warmly-colored scenes. Throughout the film, the camerawork is well-executed and engaging: from an intricately choreographed dance scene at Swing Club to close-up focus shots of actors’ faces, “Shall We?” draws viewers into a bright-lit, ballroom vision of familiar Hillsdale. The film’s big question, of course, is that which many generations of Hillsdale students have been forced to confront: can Protestants and Roman Catholics date one another?
The writing, storyline, and acting are convincing — perhaps even convicting. The moment when Saffian casually lets slip that she goes to Mass on Sunday and Shackelford’s world begins to crumble apart is very nearly perfect. I, along with much of the rest of campus, was only too familiar with the Hillsdale trope of the Roman Catholic homeschooled girl meeting a Protestant, small-Christian-liberal-arts-schooled boy. Saffian and Shackelford are graceful, photogenic, and deliciously fundie: the pair expertly skewers their roles as Hillsdale stereotypes.
Many of the questions, dilemmas, and observations that “Shall We?” presents are well known, perhaps even perennial. Like its early cracks at homeschoolers and private-Christian-liberal-arts-ers who had a “Formal Dance” but no traditional high school prom growing up, the film’s presentation of a Protestant boy and a Roman Catholic girl struggling with the question of whether to date one another is familiar to Hillsdale viewers.
Mercifully, “Shall We?” does not attempt to answer the question: the film would lose its magic if it did. It is in no way a polemic — proponents and detractors alike of Protestant-Roman Catholic dating will find scant ammunition here with which to wage war. Instead, the denouement of “Shall We?” is an affirmation of the fundamental goodness of honesty and integrity, without which no relationship can well survive.
“Shall We?” reinforces the goods of respect, honor, and even — mirabile dictu — dating. Shackelford’s apology for disrespect in the film’s final scene may be inexorably, delectably fundie, but that doesn’t take away from its merit. Even as “Shall We?” upholds the delicacy (or perhaps overthinking?) which characterizes so much of so-called Hillsdating, it shows that the fundies don’t have it completely wrong.
Dating is serious, “Shall We?” reminds its viewers, but so is courtesy, and a Prez Ball date is far from the estate of marriage. In fact, to blow a first date out of proportion is ultimately to detract from its true importance.
“We must play,” C.S. Lewis wrote in “The Weight of Glory.” “But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously.”
This is the message of “Shall We?” A Protestant boy and Roman Catholic girl may disagree on meritorious works, marriage, and Mary, but it is nevertheless possible for them to make merry on a date without marring the serious sanctity of romance.
The Hillsdale College Film Club has done more than deliver an elegantly-crafted and aesthetically-pleasing half-hour of entertainment in “Shall We?” It has given campus a work of art: imperfect, perhaps, as even Michelangelo’s Pietà must be, but nonetheless valuable, laudable, and worth seeing.
The sheer number of Hillsdale students involved makes the film’s credits impressively long for an undergraduate film. “Shall We?” is the brainchild of junior Charlie Cheng, who wrote, co-directed, and edited the film. By my count of the film more than 50 Hillsdale students and faculty were involved in the final product.
“Shall We?” will have another showing in the Plaster auditorium this Friday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. If you haven’t seen it yet — if you’re a pushover for rom-coms, Roman Catholics, or reasonable discussions of the Council of Trent — if you long to see the magic a really good friend in the Lord can bring to life, stop on by for the half-hour showing. Bring a friend, even…as long as he or she is a friend from church.
There are many potential answers to the questions raised by the film: “Shall We?” merely pops the question.
