Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What makes a film Catholic?


Here is an intelligent article from Michael Foley via Spirit Interactive discussing the nature of a Catholic film. It mentions many of my favorite films: The Mission, Lilies of the Field, The Passion of the Christ, The Sound of Music, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. In his discussion of the implicit Catholicism of Alfred Hitchcock, he forgot to mention one of my favorites, I Confess. It's drama is caused by the priest's refusal to break the seal of the confessional, though it may cost him his freedom. Another one of my favorite Catholic films is The Scarlet and the Black about the true story of Msgr. O'Flaherty(Gregory Peck), "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican", who defied the Nazis (played by dashing Christopher Plummer) and rescued downed American pilots and Jewish refugees, hiding them in the Vatican till they could be sent to safety.
This weekend I hope to attend all or part of Act One's Screenwriting Weekend in suburban Washington DC. I want to learn more about the craft of filmaking to improve my movie reviews, and my screenplay. I will be blogging about the weekend when I get home.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another recent movie is "Return to Me" with David Duchovny and Minnie Driver. The Catholic themes are subtle but they are there!

Leticia said...

I certainly agree with you, Rebecca, it's one of my recent favorites, and I review it here:
http://causa-nostrae-laetitiae.blogspot.com/2007/02/romantic-film-for-st-valentines-day.html