Paper short abstract:

This presentation looks at the orchestration of only apparently disjunctive topics—religious devotion, comic materialism, and political activism—to show how Khyentse Norbu's The Cup combines them into satisfying whole.

Paper long abstract:

The joke about The Cup is that it is about football rather than religion, and this comic displacement generates thoughtful cinematic representations of religious ideas and practices, even while seeming to undermine religious beliefs. The film seems to focus on the worldliness of supposedly spiritual monks as opposed to Tibet's political situation, but the film actually addresses this relationship in a number of key scenes. This presentation looks at the orchestration of only apparently disjunctive topics—religious devotion, comic materialism, and political activism—to show how Norbu combines them into satisfying whole.