Through a Catholic lens : religious perspectives of nineteen film directors from around the world

280 Pages·2007·13.69 MB·English

by  Peter Malone

Through a Catholic Lens
Religious Perspectives ofN ineteen Film
Directors from around the World
Edited by
PETER MALONE
Communication, Culture, and Religion Series
•
A SHEED& WARD BOOK
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
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A SHEED & WARD BOOK
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Through a Catholic lens: religious perspectives of nineteen film directors from around
the world I [edited by] Peter Malone.
p. cm. - (The communication, culture, and religion series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-5230-2 (hardcover: alk. paper)
ISBN-I 0: 0-7425-5230-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-5231-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7425-5231-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Motion pictures-Religious aspects-Catholic Church. I. Malone, Peter, 1939-
PN 1995.5.T47 2006
79 l .4302'33092273--dc22
2006031490
Printed in the United States of America
eTtl.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Contents
Introduction
Peter Malone
Part 1 Anglo-Celtic Catholicism
I A Song That Will Not Die: The Films of Terence Davies 11
Maggie Roux
2 Two Films of Neil Jordan: In an Irish Context 25
Michael Paul Gallagher
3 Revisiting the Devil's Playground: The Films of Fred Schepisi 33
Peter Malone
Part 2 Catholicism, Mainstream American
4 Her Household Saints: Nancy Savoca's Saints 47
Gaye W Ortiz
5 Parables on Screen: John Sayles and Men with Guns 57
Greg Friedman
Part 3 Catholicism and the Iberian Peninsula
6 The Mother of All Redemptions: Almod6var's All About My Mother 75
Rob Rix
7 Solidarity, Sharing, and Compassion: Walter Salles's
Central do Brasil (Central Station) 85
Jose Tavares de Barros
8 Observer of Everyday Life: Carlos Carrera and
El Crim en de! Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) 97
Luis Garcia Orso
9 The Son of Man (Facing Southeast):
Jesus Christ in Eliseo Subiela 's Films 103
Ricardo Yci1iez
v
vi Contents
Part 4 Catholicism beyond Europe: Africa and Asia
10 Finding His Place in Society, Local Stories with a Universal
and Spiritual Dimension: Filmmaking by Gaston Kabort! 119
Guido Convents
11 The Legacy of Lino Brocka 131
Nicasio Cruz
Part 5 Catholic, Agnostic, Atheist
12 Sacrilege, Satire, or Statement of Faith?
Ways of Reading Luis Butiuel 's Viridiana 145
Tom Aitken
13 The Christian Moral Vision of a Believing A theist:
Krzysztof Kieslowski 's Decalogue Films 157
Lloyd Baugh
14 Jesus de Montreal: The Vision of Denys Arcand 173
Marc Gervais
Part 6 Catholic-Jewish Relationships
15 Memory's Progress: Ambiguity in Louis Malle's Au Revoir !es Enfants 193
Claire Openshaw
16 Robe1to Benigni as Director: Toward an Analysis of Values 203
Dario Vigano
17 Land of Promise: Reflections on Andrzej Wajda's Merchants of Lodz 209
Jan Epstein
Part 7 Catholicism: Past and Future
18 Following His True Passion:
Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ 225
James Abbott
19 View Askewed in Dogma: Kevin Smith-A Funny Guy? 239
Rose Pacatte
Index 253
About the Contributors 269
Introduction
Peter Malone
When British director Ken Loach was asked what it was like to make five films
with Catholic Scottish writer Paul Laverty, he stated that he had learned a great
deal about the Catholic Church. It was not, as he had previously thought, mono
lithic. For a Catholic, it is often surprising to hear commentators from outside the
church describing it. Some sweeping generalizations are often made by outsiders.
Assertions are voiced about authority and allegiance that are not true at all. It is
assumed that all Catholics think in the same way.
This is a necessary caution to state at the beginning of a book of essays about
film directors who have a Catholic background. Catholicism is not monolithic.
The origins of this book began with interviews with film directors. Initially,
it was surprising to hear their answers to questions about religion. Almost imme
diately they would state that they were not religious or at least had no church
affiliation. But then they would add, almost too hurriedly, that they were spiritu
al. They were generally happy to speak at some length about this spirituality,
about their values, and how these were important in their films. They seemed to
be glad to be asked these questions-instead of questions about budgets or
whether this or that star was temperamental and difficult to deal with.
This was true of directors with Catholic education, especially the questions
about not having a church affiliation anymore. And yet, it seemed clear that their
films reflected their religious education, especially when they wrote their own
screenplays as well. The obvious question to ask was whether their Catholicism,
accepted, rejected, or just simply let go, was a subtext of their work. Critics and
students have no difficulty in searching for all kinds of subtext in films. Is there
a cultural subtext in the films of Hong Kong's Wong Kar Wai? Is there an African
American subtext in the films of Spike Lee? Is there a Scandinavian Reformation
subtext in the films of Ingmar Bergman? The obvious answer seems to be yes. So
why can a Catholic subtext not be discerned?
When I listened to a conference paper by Tom Aitken on Luis Bufiuel,
Viridiana, and Catholicism (included in this book), I was convinced that the sub
ject was worth pursuing. Aitken is not a Catholic and was not trying to prove a
2 Introduction
prior thesis. And Bufiuel was no exemplary lifelong Catholic. His films contain
many an image and plotline that could be construed as vigorously anti-Catholic.
Yet, his Catholic sensibilities pervaded his films for almost half a century. It
seemed, then, worth looking at the work of other directors. It also seemed worth
looking beyond Europe and the United States, although that is where most of the
directors come from. Essays on a wide range of directors were commissioned.
And then Richard Blake's important book, Afterimage, was published in
mid-2000. Blake had been fascinated by the same questions about these directors.
He developed the metaphor of the afte1image to illustrate his insights. When we
look intensely at a light source, he says, and then shut our eyes, the afterimage of
the light remains-even if the source of the light is darkened or removed. So it is
with directors who have been exposed to the light of Catholic upbringing. It
remains even if it has been rejected. This seems to be a useful image to indicate
all kinds of subtexts in film.
Fortunately, for this project, Blake confined himself to six directors who
were American or who had long careers in the United States. The Ame1icans he
chose were John Ford, Frank Capra, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and
Brian de Palma (some hish he1itage but predominantly Italian Americans). He
also included Alfred Hitchcock, who was born in England but spent almost forty
years in the United States.
The directors selected for this study include many European directors as well
as Americans, but they also represent all continents. The Europeans are: Neil
Jordan (Ireland), Terence Davies (England), Louis Malle (France), Roberto
Benigni (Italy), Pedro Almodovar (Spain), and KrzysztofKieslowski and Andrzej
Wajda, focusing on Catholic-Jewish issues (Poland). The Americans (United
States) are John Sayles, Kevin Smith, and Nancy Savoca (reminding us how dif
ficult it is to find Catholic directors who are women). Directors from beyond the
United States are Denys Arcand (Canada), Gaston Kabon~ (Burkina Faso), Lino
Brocka (Philippines), Walter Salles (Brazil), Eliseo Subiela (Argentina), Carlos
Carrera (Mexico), and Fred Schepisi (Australia). There are two other directors
who have double homelands: Luis Bufiuel, Spain and Mexico, and Mel Gibson,
Australia and the United States. This group is obviously representative, not
exhaustive.
Looking at this list reminds us again that the Catholic Church is not mono
lithic. Clearly, the differing cultural backgrounds (Hispanic compared with
Anglo-Celtic) will shape quite different, in fact, vastly different Catholic styles
and practice. Anglo-Celtic liturgy has a long way to go in persuading Mass-goers
to sing, Jet alone with enthusiasm. In Africa, Mass-goers go singing and dancing
up to the ministers holding the bag for the money offerings, and swaying rhyth
mically, they give generously.
To appreciate the different types of Catholicism, it is useful to examine a dis
tinction made by St. Augustine (354-430) about faith: firstly, to believe God's
truth and secondly, to commit oneself to God in action. He was able to use the
Introduction 3
more succinct phrases of Latin: Credere Deum, to believe God, and Credere Deo,
to believe in God.
Credere Deum
For many Catholics, their faith can be a profound belief in the deepest myste1ies
of God, creation, incarnation, and redemption. The tenets of the creed summarize
for a Catholic the religious experience of God's truth. But this is not always the
case. For many who recite the creed, and regularly recite it, their faith is not real
ly moved by these myste1ies, and there is no felt need or conviction to try to
understand them. They are, rather, a ritual fom1Ula that is required to belong to
the Church. The formula is like any other formula of loyalty or belonging to a sig
nificant group. The creed is more an expression of a religious ideology than an
expression of faith. It is the same for attendance at Mass and church services. This
is required, so it is done-although far more loosely and less regularly in recent
decades. This is a formal Catholicism, almost minimal, a code for acceptability
and acceptance.
Credere Deo
This is a lived faith. It involves personal and communal commitment to faith, not
simply fulfilling formal requirements of belonging to be able to place a census
tick in the Catholic box. Committed Catholics take their religion and spirituality
out of the church on Sunday to find ways of living it, especially in charity and
prayer, and witnessing to it in their daily lives. C1itics of the church, including
those who leave it, have high expectations of what this lived faith should be like,
even if they find they cannot do it themselves. This is what some authors call the
Catholic thing, something that pervades and can inspire even those who have
rebelled against it or rejected it. It is often admired by those outside the church
and can be the driving force for those who remain.
Catholicism offers a worldview; it includes personal questions, like destiny,
sin, guilt, and repentance, pervasive in such creative but struggling Catholics like
Graham Greene who knew sin but looked for virtues to admire and to try to Ii ve
by. It provides a sustaining story, history, and even mythology. As Maggie Roux
suggests, a personalized responsibility in mature Catholicism can give a mandate
for fine attitudes and deeds (although can sometimes be bastardized into guilt).
Even a superficial adherence gives a language, a sense of ritual, and an opening
to something transcendent.
Not living the commitment, merely paying lip service to belonging to the
church, brings the frequent charge of hypocrisy. This is especially true if the
charge is made, right or wrong, against those in leadership roles in the church
who are judged not to practice what they preach. It is also true if the charge is
4 Introduction
made, right or wrong, against church people, official or not, who have offended,
been cruel to, or who have abused-with the consequence that the victim, hurt or
angry, has left the church. These are themes to be found in the films of many of
the directors under consideration. Buiiuel, and later Almodovar, have reviled the
Spanish church, especially its clergy. Schepisi experienced the hothouse regime
of a 1950s Juniorate. Arcand went through the upheaval of the Quebec church
throwing off perceived religious shackles. Davies was angry at his treatment by
the church for being gay. Others found that the church they knew was empty and
had nothing to offer them.
This means that in reading about these directors and discerning the sub
texts, we will be discovering different Catholicisms. They all have their roots
in two thousand years of preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of his sav
ing mission. They all have their roots in the history of the church, its grace and
its sinfulness. They all have an experience of liturgy and worship, of religious
education, of a moral foundation, and of a sense of worldwide communion.
However, for some of the directors, the major influence was the cultural dimen
sion of the church. For some, it is the piety, practice, and education that they
experienced when young. For some, it is the power and truth of the church's
teaching. The reader will be alert to this variety in Catholicism in appreciating
how the writers have highlighted particular facets and found these in the text
and subtext of their films.
The chapters were originally set in alphabetical order of surname. However,
on reflection, it seemed more helpful to set up particular groupings and to write
an introduction for each section indicating aspects of faith and church rather than
leave it to a general introduction. The groupings highlight what the directors have
in common: Jordan, Davies, and Schepisi come from the Anglo-Celtic tradition
in Ireland, England, and Scotland and Australia; Sayles and Savoca come from
the mainstream American tradition; from Spanish and Portuguese Iberian
Catholicism in Europe or in Latin America, come Almodovar, Subiela, Carrera,
and Salles; there are three directors who saw themselves as agnostic or atheist
("thank God," said Bufluel), Bufluel, Arcand, and Kieslowski; the "missionary"
Catholicism in colonies from European powers is found in Kabon~ and Brocka;
Jewish-Christian relations and tensions appear in Malle, Wajda, and Benigni. And
how to finish? With two directors who live in the United States and see them
selves as practicing Catholics, Gibson who looks to the past and to traditions, and
Kevin Smith, the youngest of all the directors in this book (born 1971) who shows
something of the Catholicism of the present (certainly not monolithic) and who
looks to the future.
Each of our conttibutors was asked to select one film from their director so
that readers could appreciate the background and type of Catholicism in that
director's work. They locate the director in his or her culture, indicate aspects
of faith and lack of faith, of belief and spirituality-whether the afterimage
metaphor illuminates the film (how pervasive is the Catholicism, how explicit
Introduction 5
or implicit'?) and whether the film illuminates aspects of Catholicism while
challenging it.
That is why the title of this book includes the image of the lens. Film direc
tors use many lenses in their work depending on their vision, the feeling they
want to capture, particular angles, or a different focus. For the directors whose
work is explored here, there is also a Catholic lens.
The reader will put together a Catholicism of the twentieth century, world
wide, strong or weak, as old as Bufiuel and as young as Smith, revealing that with
the history of film, a changing church is revealed, changing spirituality and
belonging. And it will make the reader wonder, would Bufiuel like Dogma'?