Top 5: Ash Wednesday
by John NolteThere are a billion Catholics in what Hollywood calls the worldwide market and today’s Ash Wednesday, one of most important holy days of the faith and the beginning of our Lenten season — and how many films have been produced to tap that market this year? Is “squat” a number? But the profit driven movie business, in keeping with the spirit of that old saying, “the sixteenth time’s the charm,” does have a couple more Iraq films in the pipeline.
So as we enter the next 46 days, during which we’re asked to reflect on our relationship with God and how we can improve on that relationship and as individuals, here are five films about just that, about lost souls who one way or another found their way home.
1. Tender Mercies (1983) – Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, an alcoholic has-been country and western star who wakes up hung-over in a rundown motel run by a widow and her young son. The great Horton Foote’s exquisite, Oscar-winning script understands faith like few others. Sledge doesn’t come back to life through rediscovering music; he rediscovers music after coming back to life. And what brings him to life is the love of a kind and simple woman, her young son, a difficult reconciliation with the past, and in the film’s most touching scene, a gentle dunk in baptismal waters.
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2. The Sign of the Cross (1932) – Cecil B. DeMille directs a lavish spectacle set in Rome during the reign of Nero. After the city burns, Nero puts the blame on Christians and a persecution ensues that leads to an emotionally wrenching climax in the Coliseum. The sets are amazing and the animals’ spectacular in the kind of big budget extravaganza DeMille’s rightly famous for — but all of that is not what “Sign of the Cross” is about. Set within the epic trappings is the simple story of one man’s redemption. Fredric March is Marcus Superbus, a high-level Roman Prefect with a very Roman lust for life. All of this changes when he meets Mercia (Elissa Landia), a Christian woman whose virtuous beauty draws Marcus in and whose quiet decency and dignity ultimately saves him. This story never once turns in the way you expect and I promise you will never forget the final scene.
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3. The Next Voice You Hear (1950) - Directed by the great William Wellman and starring James Whitmore and Nancy Davis (Reagan) as Joe and Mary Smith, this elegantly simple and understated low-budget programmer looks at the effect on an everyday American family after God speaks to the world over the radio. What makes this redemptive story so memorable and special is the lack of melodrama. We can relate to Joe because like most of us he doesn’t beat his kid, cheat on his wife, or drink too much. He loves his family, provides for them, and his sins are small. He despises his boss and turns his co-workers against him; he drives like a jerk and is less than kind to his wife’s family. In other words, he’s not a bad man, but he could be better. The gentle moral of this small gem is not that we are all bad, but that with goodness comes happiness.
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4. The Exorcist (1973) – The single most frightening horror film ever made also happens to be a rich and satisfying story of redemption and the restoring of faith. In his first film, Jason Miller is unforgettable as Father Karras, a Catholic priest who can no longer see God through all the pain and suffering in the world. From here, we all know the events that help to change all that.
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5. Bad Lieutenant (1992) – There’s sin and then there’s sin. Abel Ferrara’s dark, seedy character examination of Harvey Keitel’s deeply disturbed police lieutenant charged with investigating the horrific rape of a Catholic nun is not for everyone. Rated NC-17, and for good reason, our protagonist’s final stab at redemption is complicated and the road there fraught with drug abuse, corruption, adultery, and more than a few sexually disturbing acts. But in the end, this cornered, desperate man tries to make it right with God in an act of self-sacrifice that might be misguided but should count for something.
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73 Comments
When Robert Duvall made his debut in To Kill A Mockingbird, the Great Santini, The Godfather, I've got to place him in my top five favorite actors. In Tender Mercies, his honesty gushed through the screen. Special movie – special guy.
I really thought that In Bruges was interesting with regard to redemption, and I think that Time Bandits is theologically satisfying: "Ah! I think it has something to do with free will."
Let's bring it up to date a bit. "Henry Poole is Here," 2008.
"Be careful with that, it's concentrated evil!"
One drop of that stuff could turn you all into hermit crabs!
"Gran Torino" isn't about the Catholic Experience" per se, but I thought the priest's character was the most sympathetic one of a priest that I've seen in a long while. Also, wasn't one of Flannery O'Connor's novels made into a movie–maybe "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?
"Wise Blood" is the Flannery O'Connor novel that was made into a wonderful film by John Huston. I'll let it kick off my top five:
1) Wise Blood
2) The Apostle (another wonderful film of faith with Robert Duvall)
3) Shadowlands (BBC version)
4) Amazing Grace (2006)
5) Ben Hur
(Oh, and for a retelling of the Gospel story, Philip Saville's Gospel of John is very good with Desmond of Lost as Jesus.)
"C'mon we must get back to creation, they'll think I've lost control again and put it all down to evolution"
Tender Mercies: AWESOME FILM. Love when Duvall tells them the song is NOT FOR SALE. Fantastic.
Happy Ash Wednesday and Lent to all!
Neither a borrower nor a lender be, Mike.
You know what's funny, blucas? If we all agreed with them, you'd produce that as evidence that Catholics are beholden to the Pope, that we haven't a moral agency outside what the Church tells us. Why don't you show us what it says, being internally consistent, about abortion?
I work with several ultra-lefty film-industry individuals. When I discuss with them all the war-themed box-office flops of the last couple of years (Redacted, Valley of Ellah, Lions for Lambs, etc etc) they always say two things:
1. Those films are not "really" anti-American. They might be anti-war, they might be (directly or indirectly) anti-Bush, but they refuse to acknowledge any possiblity that they are anti-American.
2. Anti-American films play very well overseas, especially in Europe and Indonesia, so Hollywood will make a ton of bucks on DVD sales and rentals offshore.
Of course those two points are mutually exclusive, but they can be believed by the same person at the same time through an advanced technique known as "doublethink." See 1984, G. Orwell.
Wow, John. I don't think Bad Lieutenant belongs on this list. Certainly not in the top 5. How about Bella instead?
Fox has a film in pre-production based on a book called The Thieves of Heaven. The book was great not preachy about a thief who steals a st of keys from the vatican to save his wife. The book was awesome and blew DaVinci Code away. In the process the guy rediscovers his faith in a very subtl way.While it was a best seller in the U.S. it was huge around the world.
At least there are a lot of movie that are appropriate to show on Easter Sunday. Not that they are making them today, but at least there was a time Hollywood thought they could make money off Christian religion.
The next time they make an Iraqi war film that is as powerful as Charlton Heston parting the seas will be the first time.
I'm with you 100% on Tender Mercies. One of the few times the Academy got it right and awarded the Best Actor Award to the best actor.
"I was almost killed once in a car accident. I was drunk and ran off the side of the road and turned over four times. They took me out of that car for dead, but I lived. And I prayed last night I know why I lived and she died but I got no answer to my prayers. I still don’t know why she died and I lived. I don’t know the answer to nothing. Not a blessed thing. I don’t know why I wandered out to this part of Texas drunk and you took me in and pitied me and help me straighten out and married me. Why did this happen? Is there a reason that happen? And Sonny's dad died in the war. My daughter killed in an automobile accident. Why? You see that’s why I don’t trust happiness. I never did, I never will."
Bad Lieutenant is 10 times the movie Bella is.
Love "Tender Mercies" and am very happy to see you discuss it.
Another movie with an odd, bassackwards, but for me at least, effective approach to the themes of forgiveness and redemption is "The Butcher Boy" from Ireland.
great list, but gotta say kudos for people naming Time Bandits…it doesnt bash God, but strangely makes him a humble professional businessman…
Supreme Being: I should do something very extroverted and vengeful to you. Honestly, I'm too tired. So, I think I'll transfer you to the undergrowth department, brackens, more shrubs, that sort of thing… with a 19% cut in salary, backdated to the beginning of time.
Randall: Oh, thank you, sir.
Supreme Being: Yes, well, I am the nice one.
but what Evil says gets me everytime…
Evil: God isn't interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!
Robert: Slugs.
Evil: Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?
I'm a sucker for redemption stories. Bruce Almighty and Lilo & Stitch are two that come to mind off the top of my head. And of course the Lord of the Rings trilogy, no question.
Thanks for the list. I haven't seen Tender Mercies yet, looks like I will be seeing it soon!
My first post since migrating from DHP: The Sign of the Cross sounds like Quo Vadis. Quo Vadis (with Tony Curtis) was made in the mid-50s, but the book was written around the turn of the century. I never saw the movie, but the book is fantastic! Can't put it down. The author, Henryk Sienkiewicz, won the Nobel prize for his epic history of the Polish nation. A trilogy that you just can't put down.
Tip to DH: How about a top 5 topic, Movies that are still good to watch even after reading the book, or vice versa. I nominate The Sand Pebbles, The Caine Mutiny, and From Here to Eternity (that's all I've found so far).
Please see Tender Mercies soon! You will love it.
I read the book and I thought it was interesting, but I'm not sure how it relates to Christian themes except insofar as the protagonist's growing skepticism and nihilism is bound up inseparably with his increasing mental disturbance.
Good to see you SDB.
I like the list idea, but unfortunately, I don't read enough fiction (unless you count the NY Times) to do that list justice.
NY Times as fiction! That's funny. True. But still funny.
Tender Mercies kicks ass… if you can say that about a Christian-themed movie.
Haven't read the book, but I see the movie as the story of a boy who desperately wants love, acceptance and a little stability but finds himself surrounded only by misery and rejection. In the end, the only comfort he finds is from the Virgin Mary, even if she is only a figment of his imagination. Just my take……..
(That and the idea that he has become so depraved by the end that only a figure such as Mary could possibly offer him forgiveness.)
One for your list…….."The Man Who Would Be King." I believe this is the best story adaptation I have ever seen (that I know of…….obviously, I haven't always read the book.) Great story, great movie.
I like this site. It reminds me of the that old Lovin' Spoonful song, Do You Believe In Magic? Especially the line that goes —
Do you believe in magic
When the feeling is groovy
It makes you feel happy
Like an old time movie
So, 40 some years later the conservatives are getting groovy. LOLOLOLOL..
I'm sure you didn't want 40 % of your list to be Robert Duvall movies, but The Apostle is simply spectacular, and a better fit than Bad Lieutenant, which probably 5% of your audience would even be able to sit through. Like the creativity of this, though, reminds me of the time I put Die Hard in a Top Ten list of Christmas movies.
Never got through 'Bad Lieutenant'. Just too lewd. Though I'm interested in this redemptive end Nolte speaks of, sitting through the parts that made me flip it off in the past is just not worth it.
I still think The Passion of the Christ is the best Lenten movie. I also would add Magnolia (1999) like Bad Lieutenant, there is some questionable behaviour from the characters but in the end many of these charactors find redemption and learn the power of forgivenss and letting go of old animosities.
Actually, the star was Robert Taylor. The movie was a little hammy, but wonderful. It has been semi-forgotten since it was the precursor for its more famous offspring, The Robe. Still much better than the third installment, Demetrius and the Gladiators.
Dang! "The Next Voice You Hear" isn't available on Netflix. I hate it when that happens. I really wish that Amazon would put a 'wish' list up for people like me who could petition for films we'd love to see on DVD. Hollywood, of course, doesn't listen for beans (which explains the 17th Iraq film) but Amazon actually listens. They're very nice.
BTW, Happy Lenten season to you, Harry. (Uhh, if you're allowed to say that.)
Regarding "Sign of the Cross":
Not to be an insufferable pedant, but given that we conservatives are charged with the preservation and reverence of classical culture, I don't suppose pointing out the following could hurt.
The ancient Roman amphitheater was the COLOSSEUM. There are a number of modern arenas and convention centers that are/were billed as "Coliseum" in the spelling you've used, but the original Flavian Amphitheater of Nero's time was spelled using the same etymology assigned to the word "colossal."
Thanks for giving Tender Mercies top billing, by the way (tho' I agree with David F. that The Apostle needs recognition somewhere).
What about The Magdalene Sisters? That was a really great film.
Great list, although Bad Lieutenant gave me pause before I reluctantly agreed about it.
To those who want to add The Apostle to the list, while it is a GREAT movie and a great morality play on the subject of Faith, it is not a Catholic movie. It is explicitely Pentacostal in its viewpoint. If you are talking films of Faith in general I have no problems with it being on the list (and being a Pentacostal myself I love to see it there), but since my Catholic Brothers and Sisters celebrate the Lenten season much more so than we Protestants, if your list is explicitely Catholic in viewpoint The Apostle doesn't work. Might I suggest The Agony and the Ecstasy as an alternative?
So why is it that "The Ten Commandments" is shown, usually by ABC, on Easter Sunday? It makes sense to show it on Passover and sometimes Passover and Easter occur on the same weekend. But it has been shown on Easter when Passover was weeks earlier.
Bob,
Sorry. There may not be 5 movies that are good to watch after reading the book. Your example "The Sand Pebbles" is a great book and great movie. But the movie leaves so much of the story out. The trouble with most good books is it would take a 10-hour mini-series to portray them faithfully.
I recently saw "The Agony and the Ecstacy" on TCM. Good movie, right? Now I am reading it and, of course, finding so much that could not be put into the film, due to time constraints.
Who kicks ass with more finality than God?
Agreed. Bella is a terrible movie.
I don't usually disagree with Nolte, but I'll pick a bone about "I like the list idea, but unfortunately, I don't read enough fiction (unless you count the NY Times) to do that list justice".
I read a lot of fiction. I know fiction. Fiction is my friend. The NY Times is not fiction. The NY times is political propaganda, no different than "Mein Kampf" or the "Communist Manifesto" (or any right wing propaganda piece — I just can't think of any right now since the only right wing dictators I can think of are Pinochet and Franco and they didn't write "manifestos" or "struggles").
Loved the scene in "The Sign of the Cross" where the little girl asked her father, when they are about to be taken to the lions with the other Christians, where they are going and he smiles and replies, "To join your mother."
John Nolte,
Then what are you waiting for? Go to your local library, Books-a-Million, or Barnes-n-Noble and pick up a book!
Hmm… harsh. I rather enjoyed it. I thought it was well acted and compelling.
Duvall's performance was perfect. As were Betty Buckley's, Tess Harper's, and the other actors. The director was Australian. A sad testament to the incapacity of Hollywood to get rural America is that it took an Australian to capture what rural America looks and feels like.
Go out to TCM.com and look up the film (here it is for your convenience .
They have a feature that shows if it is available on DVD and if not you can vote for it. Currently there are 1095 requests for this one.
The link works. Just appears that my HTML skills are really, really rusty to mess up something that simple.
Actually, when it comes to home video/DVD, those decisions are made by a completely different group of people. And unfortunately, most of the studio home video departments are either a.) cutting back on releasing catalog titles because of the economy, or b.) run by people my age (I'm 26) who don't appreciate classic movies. They seem to believe that if it doesn't star John Wayne or Audrey Hepburn, it won't sell.
You're lucky though. From a quick glance on the IMDb, I believe this is an MGM film from 1950 which means Warner Brothers owns the DVD rights and they're actually a pretty consumer-friendly studio (when it comes to stuff like this). The Home Theater Forum (an excellent website with tons of smart people who'd be able to answer questions you have re: which titles are coming out and when) is hosting a chat with the WB home video reps soon and maybe someone will ask them about this title.
After all, WB Home Video did release a Ronald Reagan DVD boxset so how politically motivated could they be?
Two more:
"Millions" (2005) – The UK is about to switch its currency from Pounds to Euros, giving a gang a chance to rob the poorly-secured train loaded with money on its way to incineration. But, during the robbery, one of the big bags falls literally from the sky on Damian's playhouse, a 5-year old given to talking to saints. The boy then starts seeing what the world and the people around him are made of. Ethics, being human and the soul all come to the forefront in this film.
Oh, the boy talks to saints…and they talk back. The scene with St. Joseph playing a small part in the kid's Christmas play is priceless.
"The Robe" (1953) – Marcellus (Richard Burton) is a tribune in the time of Christ. He is in charge of the group that is assigned to crucify Jesus. Drunk, he wins Jesus' robe after the crucifixion. He is tormented by nightmares and delusions after the event. Hoping to find a way to live with what he has done, and still not believing in Jesus, he returns to Palestine to try and learn what he can of the man he killed.
OMG… the 'Next Voice You Hear'… I remember that when I was a kid, back when they'd show things like that.
Powerful stuff- I also remember a sci-fi film called 'Red Planet Mars' which had Christian messages coming from Mars and causing upheavals in ComBloc nations… Peter Graves, I think… what's the chance of remaking any of these?
One more thing. When it comes to DVD, it depends on many factors. The costs of restoring and releasing a title like this might outweigh the benefits. Unfortunately, many older films don't get released because the materials are in shoddy condition and it would be cost-prohibitive to pay to restore them.
WB just spent a million bucks restoring North by Northwest for Blu-Ray because it's a popular title. They've also lost money on titles as well. The best you could do is send the studio home video department an e-mail.
So someone is still reading the New York Times…Interesting.
I think John was going for more general stories of redemption. After all, Tender Mercies is a Baptist film.
Some of the movies mentioned here remind me of my childhood, when religion wasn't treated in movies as a mental illness or a cover for hypocritical perversion. Back in the day, my favorite "religious" movie was The Lilies of the Field. It's a small, uncluttered story of faith and renewal, driven by Sidney Poitier's charm and humor.
As an adult, I'd vote for The Apostle as the most affecting religion-themed movie I've seen. I'd watch Robert Duvall read the phone book. But he outdoes himself in The Apostle.
And Lefties here in the States repeatedly point to Item #2 as evidence that "the world has a bad image of the US…" Is there any wonder why many other countries "hate America" if what they are exposed to is the steady diet of concentrated toxic hate that Hollywood exports?
Or the opposite…worst adaptions…I'm voting for The Firm and all three Bourne Identities.
I know we're discussing movies, but I wanted to mention the episode of House that aired last week – mostly because I was so disappointed by the article BH linked to that ripped apart the episode for being anti-Catholic. If we think that was an unsympathetic portrayal of a priest, then we're fighting the wrong battles. I thought it was a beautiful episode, especially for House. The writer of the article complained they used the common trope that priests are molestors, but here they flipped it around. The priest was innocent.
You can watch it at hulu right now: <a> http://www.hulu.com/house
How about the movie Ash Wednesday? Edward Burns wrote, directed and starred in this movie about a former enforcer who goes out on a limb to save his brother again. There is a great deal about sin, redemption and self-sacrifice that features prominently in the movie.
The Right Stuff.
First I saw the film, then immediately read the book, then went right back and saw the film in a theatre again.
Each of these three experiences was very rewarding.
Duvall makes a Sammy Baugh reference at the end of Tender Mercies. Nice.
Thanks for mentioning "The Robe". Besides Richard Burton the cast included the beautiful Jean Simmons, Michael Rennie as Peter, Dean Jagger, Victor Mature, Richard Boone and a great performance by Jay Robinson as Caligula. Alfred Newman wrote the beautiful score. It never fails to move me and I've watched it numerous times.
In this "Come to Jesus" moment we ALL find ourselves in, the reminder of Robert Duvall's beautiful humility in Tender Mercies is touching. Thanks!
Sorry, but the latest Bourne movies are a million times better than the turgid, lifeless Bourne novels. (If the directors would lose the silly jumping-around handheld camera work, the movies would be even better.)
As to why movies lose so much of the books' content: books can (and should) have layered storylines, multiple characters and character development, and have all the time/length in the world to do all that.
Can't do that in the movies, inside 100 minutes/100 pages of screenplay.
In fact, the best movies are actually made from short stories (e.g. Psycho, The Birds), not novels.
I guess to each his own…true, the Bourne books were rather lengthy…maybe unecessarily so…but (at least for me), the payoff was always there at the end. Sure, no way you can edit any one of those books down to one movie…I just thought much of what they were about got lost in the translation to Hollywood. I mean, did the movies Bourne Supremancy and Bourne Ultimatum have anything remotely to do with the books of the same name?
Another short short story that made a good movie: 3:10 To Yuma….I prefer the original…but enjoyed the remake too.
The Bourne thing just became a "franchise", so "Supremacy" and "Ultimatum" were riffs on the "Identity" movie, and had they gone with the plotlines of the novels of the same name, the movie sequels would have been incomprehensible.
Don't even get me started on movies butchering decent novels– [20,000-word anti-James Bond movie rant deleted] — because it makes me want to reach for the .45 and blow the TV apart.
Everything about 3:10 To Yuma was brilliant: short story, first movie, remake.
Wow, a blog where Ash Wednesday can be "mentioned". How about that Clint? No PC here at BH! Thanks for the article.
At my location, I attended Mass and the priest's sermon talked about what to consider giving up for Lent. Alcohol was out of the question, (not allowed because of General Order 1), don't smoke, and am not much of a sweets person. Soda, I've already cut back to one-a-day, as it is important to hydrate in theatre. I've been scratching my head trying to figure out what to give up for Lent. Would like to give up on the liberal media, but it is good for a constant laugh, and lord knows I need to keep my sense of humor.
I know, I'll give up scratching my head!
Well, Growl, it was only a joke. No need to fly off the handle.
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