On the big screen—the genius of Mary Baker Eddy

Recently, the Sentinel’s Managing Editor, Ingrid Peschke, moderated a conversation with actor Val Kilmer and Mary Baker Eddy Library researcher Mike Davis. Kilmer is researching the lives of Mary Baker Eddy and Mark Twain and writing a screenplay about them, which he plans to make into a major motion picture.

Below is a written transcript of portions of the interview as printed in the December 14, 2009 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.

Ingrid Peschke: Val, I know you were raised in a Christian Science household, so you must have learned some things about Mary Baker Eddy at an early age. But how have your perceptions of her changed over the years, especially since you’ve started doing some more research on her life in preparation for your film?

Val Kilmer: Yes, I wouldn’t say more, but really intense research on her life—with help from Mike and The Mary Baker Eddy Library. And my journey with writing a movie about her life came as a result of the Library.

Mike Davis: And a statement from her that helped inform the vision for the Library was something she wrote to one of her students, Edward Kimball: “For the world to understand me in my true light, and life, would do more for our Cause than aught else could.”

Ingrid: Was there a moment when you just knew you wanted to make a film about Mary Baker Eddy?

Val: I’d say there was probably a moment where I realized that I wanted to tell the story of Mary Baker Eddy in a movie. But what I remember is a period of time—about six or seven years ago—of just really looking at the Church, and my life in relation to church, and wanting to be more active. I asked myself the question, How can I do the most good? I know how to make movies, I know how to act. And so I came up with the idea of Mark Twain and Mary Baker Eddy. The idea of seeing both of these giant characters in historical context, it makes it real then.

In my movie I have Mark Twain as a narrator. And there’s a scene where he’s arguing about the relevance of Mary Baker Eddy’s life against his editor and he gives her definition of God, and he says, “I couldn’t write that, could you write that?” [see Science and Health, p. 587]. It’s a legitimate way to identify her genius.

Ingrid: If you have just a short window of time to explain to somebody why they should be interested in Mary Baker Eddy’s life and why it’s worthy of a big cinematic production, what do you say?

Val: She was a genius by any definition. Her life was so dynamic. It so uniquely represents this crucial time in America’s history and in the world’s history. The way that she lived, and what she suffered personally is an exact barometer of our affections, our emotional state as a nation. Mrs. Eddy represents, to me, a kind of robustness and strength of character that’s exactly representative of the United States, particularly. She’s an American heroine. And, for many, a heroine beyond US borders.

Mike: She was very multifaceted, and it seems like there have been other people in history who have been religious visionaries or even written about their religious experiences, but Mrs. Eddy not only had the revelation and wrote a book about it, but founded an institution to carry it on. She was an editor, a publisher, a lecturer, a teacher, a healer. She just did it all.

Val: That’s it. It’s something that’s hard to imagine now with business enterprising and branding, but she, in a way, could be seen as the first franchise company—that the Reading Room was the first time an exclusive product, her books, were sold at her stores.

Ingrid: And in the early days I think she actually told her students to go out and sell the book.

Mike: Yes, they even went door to door—and her writings were also sold in bookstores. She had these great executive abilities that she exercised right through her last years.

Val: Yeah, that to me, is very film-worthy—the tenacity of her character. When she was 44 years old, and her life had just been a constant physical trial—and then she was being told it was finished after her fall on the ice—when in fact, it was just beginning.

Mike: Yes, the minister told her she was at the point of death, and that’s when she turned to the Bible and was healed. Everything she accomplished—there was always this dimension of turning to God. It wasn’t only just her human talents, but it was feeling that her many accomplishments were being impelled by God.

Val: I love that the major achievements of her life began when, especially back then, most people’s lives were just ending. And she went on to be probably the most famous woman in the United States.

Ingrid: So, what’s your premise for the film—and why Twain?

Val: I want to establish that Mary Baker Eddy is the most famous woman in America and Mark Twain is the most famous American in the world—and their two worlds kind of intersect in that way. Twain is fascinated with her to the point of distraction, really. He’s supposed to be finishing his autobiography that he’s worked on for years—his editor is asking him about it—instead, he’s writing about Mrs. Eddy. He even wrote a whole book about her.

Ingrid: Sort of a love/hate thing, right? And was he religious?

Val: In all the biographies that I’ve read so far (I’ve read a lot of them) because he was so funny about religion, he gets called an atheist or an agnostic, and I don’t think he was at all. He was very accurate about most religions. I think he was also jealous of Mrs. Eddy, because he was a phenomenally inept businessman. He lost fortune after fortune. He was terrible and she was, by any account, brilliant or a genius at business. I mean just imagine being an author like Mark Twain and having to go by a Reading Room!

Ingrid: They were really kind of a symbol of her publishing success! Mrs. Eddy didn’t exactly shy away from challenges, so why do you think she never met with Twain?

Val: I think it has more to do with her sense, just like everyone else in the field that was working to liberate mankind from the pain of physical or mental ailments, that she kept refining her priorities.

Ingrid: Did Twain read Science and Health?

Val: Yeah, many times.

Mike: In fact, at one point he even said that she hadn’t really written it because it was so good—but of course he knew that wasn’t the case!

Ingrid: She had so many challenges that confronted her in life. In one of her biographies, Christian Healer, it says: “No matter what the world threw at her feet—disease, storms, insanity, death, or a legal attack that threatened everything she’d worked to establish—Mary Baker Eddy treated them all as occasions for healing” (p. 265, Amplified Edition). You could say she’s not at all concerned about who she is as a famous person. She’s more concerned about being a healer and sharing that with the world. Val, you described Mrs. Eddy as an American heroine. How is she like the quintessential American—even today?

Val: That we have within us the best—a principle of government that is not fixed. It’s an aspiration. The United States is a dream. It’s the best words that any human culture, society, has put together about what it means to be free, what it means to be an individual, what our rights are. We’re a center of idealism on the planet. And what she represents is this—and what a film can do in a unique way is dramatize the living out of that liberty, that sense of freedom.

Val: That we have within us the best—a principle of government that is not fixed. It’s an aspiration. The United States is a dream. It’s the best words that any human culture, society, has put together about what it means to be free, what it means to be an individual, what our rights are. We’re a center of idealism on the planet. And what she represents is this—and what a film can do in a unique way is dramatize the living out of that liberty, that sense of freedom.

And I think very unique in religious history is that her Church is designed to celebrate the individual. I’ve studied most religions, but I don’t know any other that has this unique design to assist you and your relationship with God.

Mike: It certainly is very much oriented towards the healing of the individual, and then of course that spreads out for the healing of the whole world, and ultimately, the universe. I like how in the Bible, it talks about in Jesus’ life and ministry and how the kingdom of God is breaking into human experience, and that’s shown in his healing actual people who have diseases, and the other works that he did. And then Mrs. Eddy, in bringing Christian Science, really showed the kingdom of God today by healing individuals.

Val: That’s, I think, at the core of her great contribution—the magnitude of her personal commitment to celebrating freedom and liberty.

For my movie I want a wide audience to see this film and be entertained. That’s the first priority. If you’re entertained, you’ll be interested. You’re coming out celebrating life. You’re filled with the spirit that you’ve seen dramatized that this woman represents. And then it would be a logical byproduct of this film that you’ll be interested in the subject that she was interested in.

Mike: I think Mrs. Eddy really saw Christian Science as being for everyone. And actually the explosive growth of the Christian Science movement in her time really came about because of healing. It wasn’t just another philosophy. People were having these radical healings where they’d been suffering for years, or even terminally ill, and then they were just completely healed very quickly, and sometimes instantaneously. And people just flocked to that. It was revolutionizing their lives.

Ingrid: Val, what are some of the things that you’re going to bring out in the film as far as healing is concerned? Do you have some specific episodes in her life?

Val: Well, her own healing, to start with—I think that’s the first, really dramatic one [when she fell on the ice and was expected to die].

Ingrid: What kind of actress do you have in mind to play the role of Mary Baker Eddy?

Val: Someone with poise. That’s just required. A really key point, too, is a lack of pride and ego. Strength—and I don’t think there’s any question she was a genius. So that’s a very hard thing to act. I think there’s a kind of dynamic soul to her that you can’t fake. The thing that you feel about Mrs. Eddy when you get into her life is this energy. It’s not any kind of staid organ music before a church service. She’s dynamic and a great, once-in-a lifetime character to play in a movie—what I think will be a real vital part of the film’s success.

Ingrid: You know, Mrs. Eddy was so famous she had the “paparazzi” of her day following her. I’m sure you can relate to that on some level—people recognize you for your accomplishments.

Val: Sure. I’ve lived out in the country a long time for just that reason.

Mike: I think, too, that Mrs. Eddy was very sensitive to the mental environment that she was in, and to have all of this attention placed personally on her, was often draining to her.

Val: And she was busy—like redoing and redoing certain phrases and chapters in Science and Health—just this one book.

Mike: Mrs. Eddy revised her book from 1875–1910. She was constantly working on it. There were several that are considered to be major revisions. But many of the editions—and there were over four hundred in her lifetime—have at least small changes in them.

Ingrid: To understand Mary Baker Eddy as a woman in her time period, do you think it will be important for whoever plays her to be familiar with her work—Science and Health for instance?

Val: Sure. You could play Shakespeare without reading all of his works, but why would you try? There’s so much of his life that’s in there.

Ingrid: I’m curious, what will people think of Mrs. Eddy in a hundred years?

Val: They might reflect on her Church. I think the way she organized the Church indicates how she could see into the future.

Mike: In one sense, I think, the way she set up the Church and the services; it’s so simple. There are some basic elements there, and they’re capable of being expressed in many ways. And really, the outward way we express them can change with the times, and yet the same, important basic elements are always there.

Ingrid: Val, has your understanding of Mary Baker Eddy helped with your understanding of Christian Science?

Val: It’s not really possible to completely understand Christian Science without appreciating her life. She is an example of the modern application of living with healing, living with the Bible, living the Christ. As a concerned citizen, I’ve sought out and been privileged to meet Mandela, Gorbachev, Mother Teresa, Bob Dylan, and some other characters who are going to be remembered for thousands of years. And I think Mrs. Eddy’s among those great, great people because of her singular conviction and contribution.

Update on www.twaineddyfilm.com

To learn more about the film and share your ideas, go to: twaineddyfilm.com.

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