Movie Review: The Liviu Mocan Story
Robert Cousins
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“Death is something that I don’t like, I don’t want, but am searching for,” says Liviu Mocan. “At the end of earthly life, God will come and say, ‘When you were on the earth, I made you a sculptor, not only for that life there, but here, too. So, do you see that space in the universe? I want you to create there a few planets and use your talents now, in this new life, at the greater level of your existence.’”
Liviu Mocan, a Romanian sculptor, is the subject of The Liviu Mocan Story, the debut film from Via Affirmativa. Via Affirmativa is a group dedicated to the support and advancement of Christian artists; its founder, Gary Bradley, served as executive producer for the project. Produced by Rochelle de Sá, the film is a thirty-minute documentary-style piece about the life and work—but mostly the work—of Mocan. The filmmaking is neat and unpretentious; Ms. de Sá and Mr. Bradley take great pains to ensure the focus is not on their handiwork but on Mocan’s. Despite clocking in at just under half an hour, The Liviu Mocan Story is an insightful look at a too-often-neglected medium of Christian expression.
The film alternates segments of voiceover—mostly by Mocan—and interviews with family members, scholars and other citizens who have been affected by his art. It opens with a brief sequence in which Mocan introduces himself and his philosophy toward art and Christianity. “I am a sculpture,” he says, and as the ensuing twenty-six minutes emphasize over and over again, he is a man who considers his life, his faith and his art inextricably linked.
When Romania was under a Communist dictatorship, Mocan's wife explains, there was a strong movement against the intelligentsia by the government. “They beheaded the society,” she asserts, and Liviu adds that he was forced to submit all of his work to a board of censors before he was allowed to display it. In order to get around that, he says, he had to create art on two levels. One level would be superficial, aimed at satisfying the censors. But beneath that was another, hidden layer of meaning, to which anyone could have access “if they had the code, a clue.”
Mocan never actually says what that code is, although he hints around it in several places. His wife mentions at one point that he creates “Pieces to express what his beliefs are,” which is interesting, but also comes across as more of a code than a key. What is clear, however, is that Mocan views his life and his work through the lens of his faith. Many Christians endeavor to live out their faith in their lives, but Mocan seems to see the world around him as a natural extension of his faith. For instance, when commenting upon the violence surrounding the fall of the Communist regime in Romania, Mocan simply quoted John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Liviu Mocan has an interesting perspective on the inherent challenges and rewards of being a Christian and being an artist. He finds it difficult to gain simultaneous acceptance in art and Christian circles. He can either gain acceptance as an artist and receive wary looks from Christians, or be welcomed in his church and be treated as an outsider by the art community.
He attributes this in part to the historical de-emphasizing of artists in the Christian tradition. “The church focused our attention on prophets, kings and heroes . . . where are the artists in the Bible?” Mocan goes on to point out that “theology is audio, almost never visual.” This creates an unfair prejudice against what is seen, he believes, rather than what is heard. He further opines that the Bible, while obviously of great importance, is not an end in itself. “God is the end,” he says, and He works through nature, beauty and image just the same as He works through the Bible.
Although Mocan is not a Catholic, he does hold Protestantism responsible for further devaluing art in religion. He feels that the Protestant Reformation, in its desire to separate itself from the visual opulence associated with the Roman Catholic Church, promulgated a sense that “Images are wrong; only the Word is good.” Among other things, Mocan comments wryly, “This led to four hundred years of ugly churches.”
The film concludes with a short soliloquy regarding Mocan’s approach to creating art and his attitude toward resolving the artist-Christian dichotomy. “First, I am a son of God. Then [a] husband, father, friend and only then [an] artist.” When he enters his studio to work, he does not set about sculpting right away, but instead prays that he could assist God in making what He would like to see created. “I am an assistant, not a master, in my studio,” Mocan says.
Ultimately, he considers art a way for God to communicate with people from every tribe and language and people and nation. “The Creator of words is also the Creator of images. When the image is well done, it speaks.” So says Liviu Mocan, visual theologian.
To purchase a copy of this DVD, e-mail: gary@viaaffirmativa.com