Why is this movie titled 'Shadowlands'?

I don't remember the quote exactly, but there is one part when he talks about a story he wrote called "Shadowlands." He talks about how this world is just a mere shadow of something greater, or something along those lines.

In order to understand why this movie is called "Shadowlands" you need a.) to know that C.S. Lewis was a solid Christian "brought into the Kingdom of God kicking and screaming", b.) that his not-so-much-for-children-only-series "Narnia", where the term "Shadowlands" is taken from, are filled with allusions to the atoning work of salvation by Jesus Christ, Aslan in Narnia representing Jesus Christ, and c.) that "Shadowlands" refers to earth, i.e. a "shadow of things to come", the "real thing" being Aslan's kingdom --> God's Kingdom (Heaven) and anything on earth, no matter how good, only being a shadowy image forecasting the real goodness which is in Heaven. If you read the end of the last of the books of the Narnia series, "The Last Battle", you'll see that Aslan says to the children "...there was an accident; you, and your parents, are, as they call it in SHADOWLANDS, DEAD..."
No doubt that C.S. Lewis got this idea from the Bible, namely, the Book of Hebrews, chapter 9: There you can find a description of the Old Testament Tabernacle and sacrificial system as being "shadows of the REAL temple which is in Heaven", also, the sacrificial animals being "shadows" of the real, perfect, eternal sacrifice for our sins: Jesus Christ.

To my understanding, what Lewis meant when he wrote of "Shadowlands" in The Last Battle is that Narnia (and, subsequently, this world) are but mere shadows and imitations of something greater. This means that the world is just a filtered image of the true world as it will be once Christ returns and reestablishes the world without sin and suffering. Only then will the true "pure" world be seen as it was meant to be, not just the shadowlands that we perceive.....

Shadowlands is a play by William Nicholson, first shown as a television play in 1985, starring Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom. The play was first performed on stage in the West End in 1990. Lewis was played on stage by Nigel Hawthorne and Joy was played by Jane Lapotaire.The movie version was released in 1993. Lewis was played by Anthony Hopkins and Joy by Debra Winger. The story follows Lewis as he meets an American fan, Joy Gresham, whom he befriends and eventually marries. The story also deals with his struggle with issues of personal pain and grief, as Joy becomes afflicted with cancer and eventually dies. Lewis finds that the simple answers he had preached no longer apply when it is his own loved one who is suffering.



The story is a fictionalized account of part of the life of writer C. S. Lewis. The title of the play takes its name from C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. In the series, the world as we know it and other worlds like it are referred to as the shadowlands, because they are only a shadow of what is to come.

The Title of the movie / play comes from a book called "The Last Battle." "The Last Battle" takes place in the land of Narnia. Narnia, as all its inhabitants knew it, was coming to its end, and Aslan was calling all his true followers "further up and further in" to his own country. When his followers got further up and further in, they realized that the new country was just like Old Narnia, only it was lacking all the bad things that ever existed. The Old Narnia was the Shadowlands; now they had come to their real home in Aslan's Country.

Lewis called our world “the shadowlands” because it is tainted by evil, and, thus, it is not fully real; it only bears the shadow of the fully real. Our longing for the fully real inspires a bittersweet asceticism, a painful abstinence from the less real, as we wait in joyful expectation for the coming consummation of the fully real...which will be in Heaven.

Because "Gone With the Wind" was already in use.

Because Lewis said the life we live on this earth, this side of eternity, is lived in a shadowland.

In Lewis's Biblical view, the earth God originally gave man was perfection. Man through his sin, however, lost that perfect world and, under the curse of sin, is left with only this shadowland.

The great reality, the perfect world, for which we were intended is found on the other side of death.