Back in 2004 I rewatched the Poseidon Adventure with Yumi, and then wrote the following comments on the Nichiren Shu Yahoo group. Seeing as how a remake of the Poseidon Adventure is coming out this year I am reposting my comments regarding the original cinematic classic of American existentialism:

Hi all,
Just a week or so ago, my wife and I watched the Poseidon Adventure. Yumi loves disaster movies, suspense, thrillers, etc…and we had gone to see the Day After Tomorrow and were not so thrilled. I then told her about the Poseidon Adventure and she had to see it. Now that movie we both really liked.

Now I hadn’t seen that movie since I was little, and it was being shown on t.v. Seeing it again I was struck by one of the major themes of the movie – it was all about the Death of God theology which was popular back in the 60s and early 70s. Death of God theology was the work of liberal theologians who were trying to express Christianity in a world where Nietzche’s declaration that “God is dead” seemed to have captured the minds of many modern people (maybe more in Europe than in the States). The priest character played by Gene Hackman in the movie typifies (maybe even caricatures) this kind of theology. He preaches that God wants
people to get off their asses and save themselves, that God has no time to look out for everybody. Basically he is saying that as far as we should be concerned, God taught us to take care of ourselves and we should do so because God is not going to look out for us. The ship’s chaplain objects to this kind of teaching, insisting that it is not very comforting. Ultimately he objects because it is a teaching that is meaningful only to the strong and not to the weak.

The test of their respective theologies or approaches to life comes after the Poseidon has capsized and the two priests are trapped in the upside down ball room of the sinking ship with a few dozen passengers. Hackman’s character insists on taking those who are willing and trying to find a way out by going up to the bottom (now the top) of the ship. The chaplain insists on staying behind with the others and awaiting rescue (even though he concedes that this is highly unlikely – but he choses solidarity with those unable or unwilling to help themselves). When Hackman and his group barely escape the flooded ballroom and the others all die, it seems as though his view is vindicated in the movie. But is it? Not all those who follow Hackman make it (including Hackman himself but more on that later), whereas the chaplain may have shown a more self-
sacrificing compassion in staying with the others. But this dilemma is not solely a Christian one nor only a modern one. It is basically the old argument between salvation by faith or by works. In Japanese Buddhism it became an argument between tariki (salvation by the Other-power of the Buddha’s grace) and jiriki (salvation by the self-power of one’s own efforts to attain buddhahood). Typically Pure Land Buddhism is identified as tariki, wherein people recognize the inability of the self to undo selishness and instead rely entirely on Amitabha Buddha’s power to enable them to be reborn in the Pure Land. Zen is typically identified as self-power as Zen practitioners imitate the silent meditation of the Buddha to attain enlightenment through their own contemplations. But really, if you ever press a Zen or Pure Land practitioner on this point, they will conceded that ultimately there is neither self-power nor Other-power. There is just non-dual realization. Getting back to the Poseidon, how do things work out for Hackman’s priest character and those who follow him? One interesting twist is that Ernst Borgnine plays a cop named Mike Rogo who has a lot of trouble following Rev. Scott (Hackman). Ultimately he does, and in the end he overcomes his own despair and rage to do the right thing and follow through on Rev. Scott’s lead (and ultimate sacrifice). Which makes an interesting point – even the way of Death of God or self-power requires faith. So it is not as though faith vs. works is the same thing as faith vs. disbelief. The other twist is that there was something that Rev. Scott missed in preaching the save yourself version of Christianity. If one looks upon Jesus as an example to follow and not as someone who is going to save us in spite of oursleves, than that means taking up the cross oneself and not just saying that Jesus bore it for us. Rev. Scott seems to learn this at the very end when he rails against God for all the death and for not only being absent but for seemingly working against them. After this post-modern equivalent of “God why have you forsaken me?” he leaps to his death (and strangely his death is a combination of scalding, falling, fire, and drowning) in order to save the others. He himself, in rejecting grace has had to assume the cross himself but in doing so has provided the salvation he promised to the others. Not to leave out any angles, there are a lot of Jewish motifs in this film as well, and perhaps Rev. Scott is also a kind of Moses who brings his people almost to the promised land but is unable to enter himself. The final twist is that after all this, the survivers are still trapped within the upside down hull. They get out because a rescue party outside the hull hears them banging on the inside. Those on the outside cut their way in and then fly the survivers to safety. So ultimately, after exhausting their own efforts and coming to a dead end (the unbreached) hull – they must still call out to be saved by those on the other side. Self-power (which got them that far) has given way ultimately to Other-power. The Death of God has resolved itself into an imitation of God (Rev. Scott) and finally a calling out to God (knock and you shall receive – knocking on the hull). In terms of Buddhism, I have noticed that even the Pure Land founders like Shinran and Honen had first exhausted every self-powered effort to change themselves and had ultimately come to what they felt was a dead-end. It is not as though they copped out and found a loophole in the Law (Dharma) without trying. The Zen Masters, on the other hand, also seem to exhaust their efforts, and ultimately their enlightenment comes from (as Dogen put it) “dropping body and mind.” So even in the lives of the founders of the seemingly dichotomous paths of self-power and Other-power one sees the confluence of both. Nichiren also realized this and wrote that the Lotus Sutra seems to teach self-power but is not self-power because the self contains all the ten worlds and in fact all life and so is not just the self, and seems to teach Other-power but is not Other-power because the buddhas are all within ourselves and so not simply Other. The Poseidon Adventure, then, is like a metaphorical illustration of this confluence.

Note 4/19/06 I really hope the remake doesn’t suck, but I would be very surprised if the new version carries over the metaphorical and even parable like nature of the Gene Hackman version. If they just present it as a CGI enhanced remake of an adventure/disaster movie and miss the underlying theme of the Death of God, they will have missed the whole point of the first film. On the other hand Death of God is not really on the cultural agenda anymore, it’s more like God will be the Death of US, or at least “His” (sic) fanatical believers will be.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei