The Song: Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb written by Elisha Hoffman
The Film:
The 2017 film First Reformed comes from the mind of frequent Martin Scorsese collaborator Paul Schrader. The film follows the story of a minister named Toller (Ethan Hawke) who has a meeting following a service with a member of his congregation, Mary (Amanda Seyfried). Seyfried is pregnant and worried about her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger) who fears the idea of bringing a child into the world. A heavy fearer of climate change, Michael ultimately commits suicide in a forest in an event that sends Toller deeper and deeper down the same environmental rabbit hole that Michael fell down.
The Scene:
The scene that uses our featured song is a brief one. The song is sung by a children's choir of a neighboring, much larger, church that supports the historic church that Toller is the minister of. He walks in on Esther (Victoria Hill) -- a woman who he has had affairs with -- conducting the choir at their choir practice.
The Usage:
This is vastly different from the more current music I have discussed in my blog posts up to know, but I think it presents an interesting discussion about an interesting film. The easiest connection to make is with the final scene of the movie. Just a warning, especially cause this clip jarred me when watching, this scene features self-harm.
The hymn 'Are You Washed in the Blood' is a joyous hymn that questions whether believers have cleansed their souls thanks to Jesus's sacrifice. This hymn also foretells this final moment of the film. Here we see Toller serve as the 'Lamb' of the song following in the footsteps of Jesus. His white garments are no longer spotless and white as snow though because they are quite literally washed in the blood of the lamb. Toller is deciding, through his action of drinking drain cleaner, to become a martyr for his cause. This final moment is a culmination of both his faith as a minister (which has been slowly declined due to fear upon hearing the quote from Michael in their first meeting "Can God forgive us for what we've done to this world?") and his desire for a better environment for future generations (his church has received patronage from a large local company that harms the environment).
The scene where the song is sung also needs to be acknowledged as well, as it presents a different idea. The key portion of this scene is the exchange where a boy in the back row does something to the girl that is clearly harassment. This is never acknowledged in the scope of the film. The shot before we cut back to the choir is a long take on Toller sitting in the pew before he closes his eyes. The cut from the shot of Toller with his eyes closed to this bit of harassment seems to me to symbolize that often times, especially in small communities, people (especially those in power) can turn a blind eye to bits of harassment.
It also casts a light upon not just adults and the powerful missing things happening, but also the youth. Schrader, in this scene, casts doubt upon the idea that just because a youth is partaking in something like church choir does not mean they act with good moral fiber. The questions in the song can resonate with Toller, but they certainly do not seem to resonate with the choir singing it. Schrader takes the stereotypical "good Christian boy", that can be seen and poked fun at in other movies for being too straight-laced, and flips it by presenting that stereotypical boy as the opposite and as someone who is also capable of committing miscreant behavior as shown here.
To summarize, the usage of 'Are You Washed in the Blood' presents us with two different key focuses. In the moment, we can focus on how just because someone is a (literal) choir boy does not always mean they are as good as their outward appearance may seem. We can also focus on the overarching thematic idea of Toller's journey where he views himself in the ending scene of the film as the 'Lamb' spoken of in the song.
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