Sorry for my rather long silence. I didn’t finish the DVD by September 1 as I had hoped, because the score was still delayed; I’m happy to say that I’m very close to the end at last; I finally received the rest of the score toward the end of September and it adds tremendously to the effect. My brother was finally unable to do it, so it was composed by a fine musician friend of his named Andy Najera. I only need to finish a few final details, such as the insertion of the subtitles before I can reproduce the DVD. Many people have asked about the subtitles. They will be in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Hungarian.
My leg is still giving me trouble, so my hours at the editing station have been rather limited, but I plan to have the film ready to ship by St. Elizabeth’s feast day on November 17 – and in time for Christmas presents, of course!
In the meantime, you can enjoy some pieces from the score in the final revision of the theatrical trailer that I’ve just put online. (The first one is by Peter Vamos, the others by Andy Najera). You can also hear the character voices for Elizabeth and her husband.
In the meantime you can continue to pre-order the film at
I’m happy to announce that I’m now in the final stretch of the St. Elizabeth documentary I have been working on for almost five years. At long last I have the score in hand and will be able to quickly finish the sound editing and get the DVD master ready to produce. I can’t wait! I know many other people have been waiting a long time as well. Thanks to all of you for your prayers, donations and help. I plan to be able to distribute it by Elizabeth’s feast day on November 17, if not before.
I thought he it would be very fitting to put here these beautiful words on St. Elizabeth from the Holy Father’s sermon in the Domplatz in Erfuhrt, in Thuringia, on September 24:
God’s presence is always seen especially clearly in the saints. Their witness to the faith can also give us the courage to begin afresh today. Above all, we may think of the patron saints of the Diocese of Erfurt: Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, Saint Boniface and Saint Kilian. Elizabeth came from a foreign land, from Hungary, to the Wartburg here in Thuringia. She led an intense life of prayer, linked to the spirit of penance and evangelical poverty. She regularly went down from her castle into the town of Eisenach, in order to care personally for the poor and the sick. Her life on this earth was only short – she was just twenty-four years old when she died – but the fruits of her holiness have endured across the centuries. Saint Elizabeth is greatly esteemed also by Protestant Christians. She can help us all to discover the fullness of the faith, its beauty, its depth and its transforming and purifying power and to translate it into our everyday lives.
Manalive is the upcoming movie based on the delightful and suspenseful comic novel by G. K. Chesterton. it tells the story of a jolly and exuberant man named Innocent Smith, whose passion for life rejuvenates the inhabitants of a sleepy, small-town boarding house — until a police inspector shws up with the claim that Smith is actually a criminal — that he is a thief, an adulterer and possibly a murderer! Naturally he is put on trial — with completely unexpected results.
The sneak preview scene does give away a major linchpin of the plot, but it’s a great scene in itself. The stars are Catholic stage actor Kevin O’Brien and Catholic blogger-extraordinaire-with-a-stage-background, Mark Shea, who is the perfect Innocent Smith.
I’ll put in updates as the film gets closer to release.
“Today I have the joy of being able to meet the people of this lagoon. I come among you to solidify that deep bond of communion that historically unites you to the bishop of Rome, witnesses to which are above all the venerated Pastors of this patriarchal See who have gone on to the see of St. Peter; many of you still have a vivid memory of Patriarch Albino Luciani, son of these lands of the Veneto who became Pope with the name of John Paul I. . .” (Benedict XVI, to the people of Venice, May 7, 2011).
During all the excitement surrounding John Paul II’s beatification, I also had someone else very much on my mind — the little figure who has always stood in the shadow beside John Paul II during his pontificate. — his predecessor, John Paul I. Yet for those of us who actually remember him, he has a light of his own. I am offering here what may burn out to be an ongoing post as Benedict XVI visists Venice.
Deacon Bob Yerhot, who was in Rome for both the election of John Paul I and John Paul II — and in fact carried the cross as acolyte at Papa Luciani’s inaugural Mass — offers some very thoughtul and interesting commentary.
I think most of us . . . expected John Paul II to be an image of John Paul I…. perhaps a completion of what would have been should Luciani have had a longer life. It was only natural, I suppose, given he took Luciani’s name, came out of obscurity (at least to the common person at that time), our ongoing grief and shock over Luciani’s untimely death, and the desire we all had that the Church enter a new era of renewal.
Frankly, it was the perception of many that Wojtyla would be a “liberal” pope. What we got confused was the terms. Wojtyla was a pastoral pope (as no doubt Luciani was) but he was very orthodox (which Luciani was also, despite what may be some ill founded mythology about him). Wojtyla’s pastoralism extended even into his persistence in canonizing saints…. more than any other pope in history. He found sainthood in the common person, in many lay men and women, and he raised them to be honored by the universal Church. I don’t think we can call John Paul II a “liberal” in terms of his philosophy or theology — at least not in the contemporary meaning of the word “liberal” — but he was a man liberal in his use of the papacy for the common good of so many.
Some might protest that Luciani could never have been able to have written so masterfully the encyclicals Wojtyla wrote. I am not convinced of that. Luciani probably would not have written as many, given the age difference, but I suspect a Luciani encyclical would been every bit as rich as Wojtyla’s. Perhaps Luciani would have focused on other themes, but one of the biggest myths surrounding Luciani was he was a intellectual lightweight.
It is my hunch that in fact, we saw lived out in John Paul II the pontificate of John Paul I. I suspect that if Luciani would have been pope for twenty years, the crowds would have as forcefully, if not more so, shouted out at his funeral, Santo Subito!!
I certainly agree with this. In fact, John Paul I and John Paul II have more than one strong connection. Both of them not only unexpected choices for Pope, they few completely under the media radar. They seemed to come out of nowhere. Neither — in contrast to their predecessors and successors — had ever held a post in the Curia or the Church’s diplomatic corps. They spent their whole priestly careers as pastors and teachers. They were both consecrated bishops in the same year - 1958 — just months before Pope John announced in January 1959 that he was calling the Second Vatican Council. Their espiscopates were both strongly marked by the Council, as were their papacies. In spite of the clear differences in appearane and manner, they were alike in many other ways, especially in their common touch, their simplicity and directness in their approach to people, and their almost irreverent attitude to Vatican protocol. Paul VI was a modern man inside (I mean this in the best possible way) who because of his background and many years in the Curia was very reluctant to touch some external papal traditions, even though they caused great misunderstanding to those outside the Church. And he was always very conscious of the solemn dignity of his office, as it was then understood. His successors were both modern men even exteriorly, who understood the media and wanted to modernize those outward traditions to go directly to the people. That is why, among other reasons, John Paul I refused to be crowned the papal tiara and John Paul II refused to ever get on the sedia gestatoria. And they both had the same mischievous look in their eyes. . .
There are many other areas they had in common, for instance, their desire to elevate women through the Church’s teaching. Even in Venice, Luciani anticipated many things in Mulieris Dignitatem. There is strong evidence that he was as committed to the Church’s social teaching and to promoting the dignity of work as his predecessors and successors. I certainly agree he was fully intellectually capable of writing great encyclicals - undoubtedly with a very unusual literary bent. It’s also worth pointing out that given his frienship for and great admiration for Karol Wojtyla that Luciani would have relied a great deal on him as his pursued his action as Pope, just as John Paul II relied on Cardinal Ratzinger. (There is evidence for all this which will be in my book). I think if Papa Luciani had lived, we might well have had much of Wojtyla’s teaching with Luciani’s incomparable communication skills.
Deacon Bob is certainly right about this continuity between them and that John Paul II saw himself a working out the papacy of his immediate predecessor. In fact, in 1985, when he paid a visit to Luciani’s first diocese of Vittorio Veneto, he told the people there that he had not forgotten the example of their former bishop, saying: “His gentle figure is still alive in my heart. And it accompanies me constantly in the steps of the itinerary of universal pastor, that I undertook at the very point at which he had begun it.” (Address of June 15, 1985).
A Related Story: Among the stories I have read so far about Pope Benedict’s visit to Venice, this one stood out for a couple of reasons. It seems that the glass-blowers of Venice are offering Pope Benedict and the other priests officiating at Mass there in Mestre on May 8 some 60 beautiful hand-made chalices patens and cruets for liturgical use. They are made of glass with decorations of 24-karat gold leaf.
Some people have decided that this story is all about whether liturgical rules have been broken by having glass liturgical vessels instead of the traditional gold. But this kind of narrow-minded view really misses the bigger picture. The glasworkers of Venice do wonderful artistic work which is worthy of the dignity of the liturgy. I hope Pope Benedict thinks so too. And I think he may be remembering that the promotion of work and the dignity of workers is also part of Catholic teaching. The Italian web site which announces this reminds us that the glass-blowers of Venice are trying to maintain their thousand-year-old tradition of artistic work in the middle of a world-wide economic crisis.Their gift can be a real contribution not only to the beauty of the liturgy but to the success of their industry as well.
Perhaps I feel this way because the mere mention of the glassbowers of Venice evokes a kind of nostaglia in me — though I’ve never even seen one of their workshops, even on my memorable visit to Venice in 1985. No, this tender memory relates to Pope John Paul I. Hiis father, Giovanni Luciani, worked in a glass-blowing factory in Venice around 1910. He didn’t work so much in glass as in repairing the strong furnaces used to heat it, because he was an expert bricklayer. These were the days when lead poisoning from the red lead used for the glass was frequent and workers often had to be replaced. Giovanni wanted to fight for the rights of himself and his fellow workes for better wages and working conditions. While there in Venice, he met and married Bortola Tancon, and they raised a family, among them, Albino, the future Pope. In 1969, when Pope Paul VI named him Patriarch of Venice, Albino showed his dedication to the rights of the workers, and not surprisingly, the glassworkers of Murano were among his special friends. There is a picture of him (how I wish I could find it!) trying out a technique for blowing glass as the workers look on. So there is a much richer historical tradition behind this story than the nit-pickers could ever guess. I wonder if Pope Benedict will recall it tomorrow?
This type of historical tradition intrigues me. I’ll be looking for more of the same in the next few days.
Update: May 9, 2011
Here is Pope Benedct’s second mention of Papa Luciani during his visist to Venice (my translation from the Italian on the Vatican web site).
“Gratitude and joy therefore are the feelings that characterize our encounter. It is taking place in the sacred space, overflowing with art and memory, of the Basilica of St. Mark, where faith and human creativity have given rise to an eloquent catechesis through images. The Servant of God, Albino Luciani, who was your unforgettable Patriarch, described his first visit to this basilica as a young priest in this way: ‘I found myself immersed in a river of light . . . finally I was able to see and enjoy with my own eyes all the splendor of a unique and unrepeatable world of art and beauty, the fascination of which penetrates deep inside you’ ([Camillo Bassotto], Io sono il ragazzo del mio Signore, Venezia-Quarto d’Altino, 1998).”
Pope Benedict XVI, Assembly for the closing of the Diocesan Pastoral Visit at the Basilica of Saint Mark (Venice, 8 May 2011)
In the last two years, busy as I’ve been with my own film, I’ve written very little about film and nothing at all about the Oscar race last year, which means I also missed out commenting on the big change - raising the number of nominated fims from 5 to 10. This year, I have seen only 3 of the nominated films, which happens to be a much smaller percentage of the honored films than last time I wrote about the awards.
However, I still have something to write about, since it’s widely agreed that it’s going to be a close 2-way race - between The Social Network and The King’s Speech. I could see either winning. I can’t see Toy-Story 3 winning, unfortunately, though I really loved it; for though animated films can be nominated for Best Picture, they never win, especially since they have their own category.
Well, for the top spot, we have a race between two wildly different films. One is an old-fashioned, rousing, crowd-pleasing story with a strong emotional rooting interest in the main character (The King’s Speech). It’s even old-fashioned enough to be about the British monarchy! The other is highly modern, cool and cynical in tone, and focuses on the young people who made Facebook what it is today (The Social Network). A film for youth. The Academy loves youth, perhaps because so many of its older members are chasing it in one way or another. But the films are alike in one way - they are both very unusual tales of friendship, as well as the power of the media, in whatever form it takes.
In The Social Network, the tale of friendship is symbolic of the larger culture. It’s the story of how Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), a skinny, self-absorbed Harvard undergraduate computer geek, invented Facebook, which has become the way most young people now connect. The story is also a tale of Mark’s own social connections — and disconnections. It all begins when Mark’s girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara), having had enough of his arrogance, summarily dumps him, and in revenge, he hacks into the university computer and starts a contest, using Harvard’s online student directory, or “facebook”, to have her rated among the most unattractive girls on campus. When this stunt makes him notorious, Mark is hired by two super-rich frat boys, the Winkelvoss twins, to write some code for their social networking site. Then Mark gets his business major best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, a young actor to watch), to stake him to a $1,900.00 investment to create a very similar site. The web of connections and deceptions grows. The Winkelvosses grow suspicious. Facebook takes off. Then Sean Parker, the former student geek creator of Napster, now an ultra-sophisticated millionaire, arrives on the scene, tempting Mark with some much grander ideas, and creating tension between Mark and Eduardo. Then things really get complicated. The intricate story is told in an equally intricate way, bouncing between dramatic scenes and hearings for the lawsuits that the various principals brought against Zuckerberg.
The movie hinges on the huge irony of the guy who invented “friending” literally ending up friendless in the process. It dissects the driven nature of the creative genius, who is both ruthless and strangely innocent, supremely confident in his powers, and tremendously surprised when people complain about his arrogance (Jesse Eisenberg handles these complicated nuances superbly, better than anyone since Tom Hulce in Amadeus, and he does an even better job of being really unlikeable). The rest of the cast is also terrific, especially Garfield and Justin Timberlake, who is amusingly slick as the hipster devil. The movie is smartly written by Aaron Sorkin, and very enjoyable. But in the end it’’s not as fulfilling an experience as I hoped. Apart from its grand ironies, the movie never really provides much insight into why the computer social networking culture became what it is; more importantly it doesn’t give us an idea of what central relationship, Mark and Eduardo’s friendship, was about, or what made them friends in the first place. Which is in itself ironic, isn’t it?
The King’s Speech is in a wonderful grand tradition of patriotic biopics, as it tells the emotion-laden story of King George VI who stepped into office after his brother abdicated the throne and inspired his nation during World War II. At the same time it takes a mischievous view of the foibles of royalty. In this respect, it seems like an inspired cross between The Queen and The Madness of King George. The madness of King George III (his actual madness, not the film) is even referenced in the script. And Queen Elizabeth herself appears in it as a little girl. So the tradition and family bloodline are out in full force.
George VI started out in life as Albert (”Bertie”), the second son of King George V (Colin Firth), who, in spite of his exalted birth, seems destined never to be very much in life. His older brother, David (Guy Pearce), is set to succeed their father on the throne, and the shy Bertie seems incapable of even the few public duties that “spare” royal sons are asked to engage in, because of his debilitating stutter. He simply cannot give a public speech, much to his father’s (Michael Gambon) frustration and his own. He even has to struggle to tell a bedtime story to his two little daughers, Margaret and Elizabeth (the future queen). Bertie is ready to give up. But his devoted and determined wife Lady Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) continues to search for the right speech therapist and finally runs across Lionel Logue, an eccentric Australian (Geoffrey Rush) who operates out of a very shabby basement office, and insists on seeing his patient only in that office — even after he learns who his patient is.
Bertie agrees to this proposition with the greatest reluctance, and he is immediately appalled when Lionel insists on addressing him by his first name. The future King George, isn’t exactly a genius, but he does have a touch of royal arrogance, which, along with his shame over his affliction, has up to now made it difficult for anyone but his wife to approach him emotionally. Unlike most speech therapists at the time, Lionel understands that a stutter is emotional and psychological in origin, and knows that his patient will have to trust him so that emotional core can be reached. And in the beautifully written scenes, Bertie is eventually dragged across that barrier - but gives and good as he gets all the way. The eventual revelations about Bertie’s family and his childhood make his emotional problems, rage and finally his stutter easy to understand. In the meantime, the flighty David, who has assumed the throne as Edward VIII, decides to abandon it in favor of “the woman I love,” and Bertie is asked to step up to the plate, and face everything that Hitler is about to throw at England. And of course, he is asked to give a rousing speech to the nation over the radio.
The film is dramatic, but just as often unexpectedly funny - as the frequent appreciative laughter in my theater demonstrated. Admittedly, it isn’t too difficult to get laughs when you put actors like Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth in a room and let them react to one another. But the drama is subtle and beautifully nuanced. Firth in particular gives an tremendous, emotionally raw performance, without ever overdoing it. Another huge ingredient in the film’s success is that the screenwriter, David Seidler, is a lifelong stutterer himself, and treats the matter with an insider’s knowledge, as well as great honesty and sympathy. The crowning glory, in a way, is Helena Bonham Carter, who takes the ordinary and frequently dull supportive wife role and lends it wit and sparkle as well as the expected tenderness. The twinkle in her eye matches that of her co-stars and gives the emotions of the story variety and depth. The story of Bertie and Lionel’s friendship goes in some unexpected places and hits unexpected snags and even betrayals and what happens seems very real, and much deeper than anything in The Social Network. The story reminds what it is like to be really taken out of yourself and your narrow world by a friend - and just what the limits and barriers to that journey are. While the trajectory of this film may seem trite and obvious, it’s the simple and obvious that’s so often hard to get right. They certainly got it right here.
The behind-the scenes royal drama about the succession seems choppy and sags in a few places. The film was shot on a very tight budget, and it shows; there isn’t the cinematographic sweep you might hope for. But the drama itself and the performances are more than compensation enough. The King’s Speech is my Oscar pick for Best Picture. It’s been nominated for a total of 12 awards, including Best Screenplay, Best Director, and acting nods not only for Firth as lead, but Rush and Bonham Carter for their supporting roles. It’s up against The Social Network with 8 noms, including Best Actor for Eisenberg, Best Screenplay Adaptation (Aaron Sorkin), and Best Director (David Fincher).
Pausing to look at all the sights on our way to Jerusalem. . . Mainly about faith, the Church, film, writing, famous Christian authors, and anything else I'm interested in at the moment.
The photo above was taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in March 2007.
Quote of the Month
"The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."
Pope Benedict XVI to the German Parliament, Sept 22, 2011.
