St GeorgeThe story of St George was popularised by James of Voragine, a Dominican contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas. It seems extravagant at first, but once we cotton on to James’s style of story-telling, we find his account is far from Read More
Dealing with StuffJim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother ends with a scene in which two twins stand before a garage that is full of the things of their parents, mysteriously deceased. Considering the relics of these two lives and of their own heritage, Read More
Humanisation‘Without [a] demanding educational effort, passive adaptation to dominant paradigms will be mistaken for competence, and the loss of freedom for progress. This is all the more true in light of the spread of artificial intelligence systems, which increasingly shape Read More
St GeorgeThe story of St George was popularised by James of Voragine, a Dominican contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas. It seems extravagant at first, but once we cotton on to James’s style of story-telling, we find his account is far from implausible. ‘It was, however, the symbol of George, what he represented, that made him so well loved throughout the Middle Ages. Quite how he came to be patron saint of England we do not know, but he was honoured here long before the Norman Conquest. It is wonderful, I think, that England has as its patron a native of Cappadocia; in other words, a Turk. The choice shows what mattered to Englishmen of old when they constructed their identity: not ethnic criteria or narrow-minded jingoism rallying round a cricket team, but the generous living out of Christian faith through charity to the poor, help to those in need, and fearless confession in the face of secular might. These values are hardly less relevant today than they were in the third century. And I would say St George compares favourably to many a contemporary role model. If we put him alongside Justin Bieber or the Spice Girls, we may conclude that the medievals weren’t so silly after all.’ From Entering the Twofold Mystery.
Dealing with StuffJim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother ends with a scene in which two twins stand before a garage that is full of the things of their parents, mysteriously deceased. Considering the relics of these two lives and of their own heritage, one asks: ‘What’re we gonna do with all this stuff?’ The other replies: ‘I can’t deal with it.’ So they pull down the garage door, lock it, and walk away, fragmenting, by a cunning camera effect, as they withdraw. The film is made up of three perfectly composed visual short stories that explore the dynamics of unprocessed family tensions. There’s a cynical note to the movie, but it is also fond, at times funny. It’s beautifully realistic, one of those films that absorb you to such an extent that you feel a little lost when you step outside the cinema. We’re shown that the construction of family is ongoing work, at once an ascesis and an art. Deep connections, an interpenetration of colour, remain even in the face of estrangement.
3. Sunday of EasterThis homily was given at a confirmation Mass at Stiklestad. Acts 2.14, 22-23: You have made known to me the path of life. 1 Peter 1.17-21: Through Christ you now have faith in God. Luke 24.13-35: Did not our hearts burn? It is a venerable Catholic tradition to take a confirmation name. Why? Surely we’ve carried a perfectly serviceable name since baptism? That’s true; and in fact our confirmation name doesn’t replace our baptismal name. Rather, we take a confirmation name in addition, as a sign that we’re entering a new stage of life. It may be useful to look briefly at the distinction between these two names. When a baby is born, friends and family immediately want to know what it will be called. Mum and dad look at the adorable creature and ask: ‘Little human being, who are you?’ They try to find a name that fits. Names were long hereditary. One was named after one’s father’s father or mother’s mother. A child was by name the carrier of a lineage. The current tendency is rather for parents to look for unusual names. When I was growing up, this country debated whether one might lawfully make up names for kids, to call them Kichen-Roll or Meadow, stuff like that. Such was the experimentalism of the 70s. We see it expressed still in curious, draughty, often impractical buildings from that time. Well, my point is this: the name given in baptism expresses a heritage, others’ vision for us. That’s a treasure. To be human is to grow out of something. In order to grow we need soil. The soil may be nourishing or sandy, but it is ours, our point of departure. If we want to grow up and become free, it’s vital to learn to say ‘Yes’ to our origins. A confirmation name works differently. We choose it. It stands for what we want to become. We chose a saint’s name. If you ask AI how many saints there are, it’ll estimate 11,000. I think that estimate too small. An immense choice is laid before us. Among the saints we find all sorts: women and men, religious and seculars, scientists and artisans, outgoing people and shy people. What unites them is the fact that in each the mystery of God is perceptibly radiant. The saints have let themselves be formed by faith. They have followed their call coherently. Thereby they have found themselves. A saint is someone who, through friendship with Christ, has become fully authentic. We choose a saint as our model and ally in order that we, too, may become authentic. This, my friends, touches the core of the sacrament you will receive today. It is rightly called confirmation. You confirm assent to the grace received in baptism. You assume responsibility for it. You say ‘Yes’ to your Christian origin, to your first, original name. At the same time you confirm with a ‘Yes’ that you wish to proceed. To be at your stage of life is to stand before vast choices. You ask: ‘What shall I do with my life? What profession will I choose? Will I find someone to love, who will love me as I am? Does God call me to some particular service?’ These questions may make you dizzy, perhaps a little afraid. But there is joy, too, in standing before an open horizon, in the wind, with rucksack and staff, knowing: I’ll be setting the course from now on. I’ll choose the name that, by my other choices, I wish yo live up to. And of course, you do not walk alone. To be confirmed is to say ‘Yes’ to a community. It was when the apostles received the Spirit that the Church emerged. Till then, faith in Jesus had been a private business. The disciples had stuck to themselves, nurturing the memories of all they had learnt, all they had lived through. At Pentecost the doors burst open. The apostles go out into the world with everything they carry within. Our reading from Acts tells us how Peter experienced the day of Pentecost. He speaks of joy in the heart. Joy is a sign of the Spirit’s gift — and I hope that you who are confirmed today will be bearers of joy into an often bleak time. Peter next points towards a hope he carries in the body. We live in body-conscious times. In Trondheim it’s impossible to go anywhere at all without being run over by joggers; there are fitness centres on every corner; there is much nakedness in the media, and constant talk about sex. But who can tell us what the body means? Who can tell us that the body is more than an instrument for hunger and satisfaction, which leads at once to new hunger? The gift of the Spirit lets us know the hope implanted in the body so that we may live hopefully. ‘You have shown me the path of life’, says Peter. Today you, too, affirm: ‘Yes, I want to live, live fully and beautifully!’ Living like that you will be sources of life for others. The Catholic Church is a community of persons hungry for life. In the Church we are nurtured by him who is Life. At Emmaus he let himself be known in the breaking of bread. We can know him that way still, at Mass. It is his, Christ’s, Spirit you now receive. The Spirit comes to you as a friend. To each of you he whispers a new, essential name that God alone knows, a name that expresses your unique calling and task. By learning that name you will find your way to a happy, fruitful existence. Listen carefully, then! That is my heartfelt wish for all of you.
Why Watch Films?As the home cinema replaces theatres with fold-down seats, a curtain, and popcorn, how is our experience of movies changed? Can sanctity be caught on celluloid? Can films prepare us for contemplative living? What does it do to us, in the long run, to watch violence in films? These were some of the questions addressed in an enjoyable exchange I recently had with Thomas Mirus and James Majewski on the Criteria podcast. Our conversation touched on a number of specific films, ranging from Casablanca to Pulp Fiction, from The Madness of King George to The Mysteries of Lisbon, from the Apu Trilogy to the Bourne series. We spoke about Tarkovsky and Kieślowski, Malick and Moretti – and Bergman, of course. You can watch the conversation here or pick it up as a podcast here. Ingmar Bergman and his crew during the filming of Fanny and Alexander. *** Below is a transcript of my conversation with Thomas and James, generously provided by a kind Canadian Benedictine. Thomas Mirus: Hey everybody, welcome back to Criteria. I’m Thomas Mirus, and as usual, I’m here with my co-host James Majewski. Hello, James. James Majewski: Hey, Thomas. Hello, everyone. Thomas Mirus: And we’re doing something a little bit different today. Most of our episodes are focused on just one particular film, and today we’re going to have a more general conversation about cinema, because we’ve got a very special guest with us: Bishop Erik Varden. He is the Bishop of Trondheim, Norway, and a Trappist monk. He recently preached the Lenten retreat for Pope Leo and the Roman Curia. He is the author of several books, including most recently Towards Dawn: Essays in Hopefulness, as well as The Shattering of Loneliness, and a book on chastity, which I interviewed him about on the Catholic Culture Podcast a while back. Your Excellency, Bishop Varden, thank you so much for coming on our show. Bishop Varden: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thomas Mirus: I was thinking of having you on because you’ve mentioned films at various times in your books and in your lecture on translation that you gave for First Things recently in New York. You always have these very erudite film references, and I thought it would be worth digging into that. Just to get our bearings, since we don’t know very much about your general background with this art form — could you say a few words about your relationship with the art of cinema, and perhaps some of your tastes or any formative experiences you might have had with that art? Bishop Varden: Well, first of all, I’m aware that for some it might seem a contradiction to introduce someone as a Trappist monk and as a lover of cinema. But I think the two can coexist. I was born in 1974, so I grew up with a television at home and a cinema not too far away. Films were just part of daily life. Growing up, I experienced cinema as entertainment. One went to watch suspenseful films, funny films, romantic films. My awakening to cinema as art happened at a precise moment when I was at secondary school in Wales, in my Russian class. We had a very good Russian teacher from Bulgaria who was interested in cinema. She put a cinema module on our syllabus. We watched a number of classics of Russian cinema. Among those films was Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice. I had just never seen anything like it. To realise the density and purity of expression, the poetic depth, and the intelligence of that film — which I’ve since watched many, many times — caused a sort of revolution in me. I realised, Goodness!, there was more here than I’d ever realised! That got me hooked, so when I went on to university, my friends used to say they always knew where to find me: if I wasn’t in the university library, I’d be at the cinema. James Majewski: That’s fantastic. And this was before your discovery of your vocation as a Trappist. Has your being a Trappist informed your perspective on cinema since then? Bishop Varden: Yes, not least because the years I spent in the monastery were, to a large extent, years of cinematographical fasting. As a community, we would watch a few films in Eastertide and Christmastide as part of the recreational week, but not much. I had something of a counter-experience when I joined the monastery. One of the things that happens when you enter is that you find yourself cut off from the constant stimuli that surround you outside. When you don’t have that constant exposure to the radio, television, films, and so on, it feels very peaceful for a while — a couple of weeks or so. Then you realise just what is going on in your interior cinema in terms of what you remember. During those months, even years, I came to see just how powerful visual impressions are. I found I remembered scenes from films I wished I didn’t remember. I remembered some beautiful things, but also ugly things — scenes of violence, scenes of death, the sort of scenes that are an ordinary matter of course in any action film. I realised that those things I hadn’t really noticed, and might even have found objectionable when I watched them, had lodged themselves in my memory. I understood that one has to be cautious about what one watches, because it doesn’t just go into some great interior recycling bucket — it stays there. At some point you have to deal with it. That’s made me quite discerning with regard to what I watch. Thomas Mirus: That’s interesting, because on this podcast we’ve had occasion to speak a fair amount about the depiction of sexuality or nudity in film and to do a moral and aesthetic analysis of how that all functions. One thing we’ve been wanting to get into, but haven’t quite felt we had the wherewithal to think through properly, is the issue of violence. Typically when the Church makes comments about cinema — I can think of addresses by John Paul II on the topic — when they warn about kinds of images that can be degrading, they usually warn about sex and violence together. On the surface, at least to many Americans, they seem like very different types of depictions: when you see a naked body on screen, it really is a naked body, whereas violence is completely simulated. So we were curious to ask you a bit more about this depiction of violence on screen because that seems like maybe a subtler question in some ways, or harder to get a handle on morally or the effect it may have on the view. Perhaps to earlier ages it wouldn’t have seemed so difficult, but we’re desensitised to it now. Do you have any thoughts on the depiction of violence on screen as a moral issue? Bishop Varden: Well, I think you’ve touched the raw nerve there. The most important thing is this: not to get into a position where we take it for granted and accept it uncritically. The first step is having the realisation — which my particular circumstances enabled me to have — that such images aren’t indifferent. They do make an impact on memory, on your sensibility, and thereby potentially on your way of relating to the world and to other people. As you said, Thomas, when we watch violent content over time, we become desensitised to it. And what we are desensitised to in the virtual world or the world of fantasy may come to be a desensitised issue also in real life. We may find ourselves adopting violent ways, be it simply in the way we speak to people. I think it is also good to ask ourselves what it is about us that takes pleasure and finds excitement in the depiction of violence. Obviously, that excitement is as old as humanity. When we read that the old Roman emperors distracted people with bread and circuses, those weren’t circuses with just clowns — they were scenes of enacted violence, as we read about in many of the lives of the martyrs. If we turn the lens around and put the camera, as it were, on ourselves, we may have to ask: where is the violence within me that finds satisfaction in seeing it acted out on the screen? Thomas Mirus: Right. And not just action, but violence per se. There seems to be a distinction between the enjoyment of action — the enjoyment of the depiction of a contest, a battle, a struggle — and the thrill of seeing violence done to a human body. James Majewski: And then there’s also, I think, a distinction between delight in the violence itself, as would happen in perhaps an action movie, versus delight in aversion to the violence or anticipation of it, as would happen in a horror film. I don’t know whether in the final analysis that makes so much of a difference with regard to the impact on the imagination, or how these images live inside us. But do you think it colors the interaction with the image differently if you recognize these different modes of engaging with violence? Bishop Varden: I think it can. And even when violence is used ironically, or employed in film as a kind of symbol of something. I think of a film like Pulp Fiction. That is one of the rare occasions when I’ve left a film halfway through. I normally tend to sit them out, but I just found I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t understand afterwards how friends could have gone to see it and found it entertaining. I still haven’t worked that out. Thomas Mirus: I can understand that. Tarantino has a very particular relationship to violence, and it seems to be one that ultimately trivialises it. Bishop Varden: In some ways that’s what I found most objectionable — and quite shocking. Thomas Mirus: Now, you’re a very classically educated person, and I may be misremembering this, but I seem to recall that the word “obscene” itself comes from Greek theatre, and refers to things that would not be depicted on stage — things that would happen implicitly offstage. This included not just the sexually obscene — though there may have been some of that on stage at certain points, as we know from the Church Fathers — but violence as well. The scene of Jocasta putting her eyes out is not depicted on stage in Oedipus Rex, for instance. There is an interesting question there about how we view the human body: the human body is simply not meant to be seen in a certain state. We are not supposed to see what is on the inside of the human body coming out of it. I don’t know if that brings up any further thoughts. Bishop Varden: No, I think that’s an extremely relevant comment, and the etymology is correct. The fact that something can happen offstage and we can still feel the impact of it viscerally stimulates a kind of perception — a subtlety of perception — that is lost when everything becomes explicit. That, I think, is a problem with much of contemporary media content, which is simply vulgar. It makes us deaf and blind to hints, allusions, subtle references, and thereby leaves us a bit stunted, which isn’t a happy lot. James Majewski: Well, speaking of theatre and Greek theatre — we’ve already mentioned the Church’s caution with depictions of violence and sex, but on the whole the Church has seemingly been very encouraging of cinema and filmmakers, especially in the past century. This is very different from the Church’s traditional attitude toward theatre and the actor, which very early on was quite hostile. I recall reading somewhere that actors used to have to disavow their career upon being baptised and brought into the Church. Thomas Mirus: And this was true in the age of Molière as well — just a few hundred years ago in France, actors were excommunicated automatically. James Majewski: Wow. I didn’t know that. So do you have any familiarity with this legacy of hostility, or at least suspicion, from the Church toward theatre? And do you have any thoughts about what may account for the apparent shift in the way cinema is treated? Bishop Varden: I think the bias in antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and even into early modernity had to do with the fact that the acting profession was connected with immorality — that an actor was somehow a loose person, someone who was not dependable and who dealt shadily. One even finds, in certain literary associations, actresses linked with prostitution. That was probably true at given times in history, but it was a label that stuck. Obviously that shifts over time. I think of Marcel Proust and his great novel À la recherche du temps perdu: by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the actress has become a sublime being. The theatre itself is emerging as a vehicle of sublimity. Some of that was transferred into cinema. From the Church’s point of view, there has been awareness that cinema has a side which is potentially banal, uninteresting, even grotesque — but that it also has this capacity to render very high content. The fact that people could see, from quite early on, just how powerful the moving image was, made the Church also see that this is a medium that could potentially be extremely valuable in the communication of the Good News. Thomas Mirus: That leads me to a question about the unique qualities of cinema as opposed to other storytelling art forms. Part of the reason for this podcast is to introduce Catholics to the great diversity of what cinema can be, which includes straightforward storytelling in the classic Golden Age of Hollywood mode — you mentioned Casablanca, I think, in your recent First Things lecture, and that’s a great example. But I think a lot of people, and certainly in the Church, when speaking about using cinema to glorify God, think of it simply as a way of delivering stories, a popular means of telling a story. That’s part of it, but that’s not all of it, it doesn’t tell us what distinguishes cinema from theatre or from the novel in a deeper, formal sense, other than the fact that it is delivered on a screen. Given your love of many art forms, music, literature and cinema, do you have any thoughts on what the deeper distinctive vision or truth that cinema in particular is able to capture or express things in a way distinct from, say, a literary approach? The Sacrifice, which you mentioned as formative, is obviously very different from Casablanca. Bishop Varden: There is obviously an extremely close and necessary link between cinema and theatree. To a certain extent, cinema is a privatised and mobile form of theatre. Even the way we watch films has changed in just the last ten years. People still go to the cinema, but increasingly films have become something brought into our homes — streamed, watched on DVDs, or via home cinema setups. The fact that the experience is privatised and brought into the home, into my living environment, makes it extremely intimate and impactful. That too, I think, invites reflection: what precisely do I want in my living room? I went to the cinema last year and watched — what’s the title? — the film about the director of Auschwitz… Thomas Mirus: The Zone of Interest? Bishop Varden: Yes, that’s right. It was a devastating film. Extraordinary and very powerful. I went with two of the priests from the parish. We watched it. We left the cinema in silence. At the end of the road, where normally we would have said, “Shall we go and have a beer?” we just nodded to one another and said goodnight. It was so necessary to have that space between the cinema and my home. That’s not a film I would wish to watch at home. And I think that’s one of the particularities of cinema: it has that immediate impact, particularly now, with the awareness that I could purchase a film and watch it again, put it in my pocket, make it my own — it makes it almost unbearably close and intimate at times. Thomas Mirus: What do you think about the relationship between cinema and contemplation, and how it differs from literature, theatre, or other visual art forms? Bishop Varden: Potentially, cinema can be a huge distraction to contemplation, because it fills your mind with images that crop up when you would like your vision to be focused on the supernatural and the timeless and the eternally true, good, and beautiful. At the same time, cinema can potentially help us to see. Tarkovsky is a great example of that. Kieślowski is another director who is a great example: there are certain scenes in his films that remain within you as a kind of blessing, because he has enabled you to see something in a new way and to lift up your gaze and your heart. We simply need to exercise a lot of careful discernment there — and, as I said earlier, not to be neglectful of the fact that negative imagery will also leave its mark and will need to be dealt with somehow. James Majewski: Before we move on, I want to stay with this comparison and contrast with theatre for just a moment. Hearing you talk about this privatisation of theatre, but also your experience of going to the cinema with a couple of brother priests — it’s making me think that one of the essential differences between theatre and cinema is this aliveness, this live quality that accrues to theatre, the de facto community that emerges every time theatre takes place: the community of the cast putting on the play, and the audience that has gathered to see it. Cinema, by contrast, can be something I engage in purely in a solitary mode at home. Do you have any thoughts about the relative strengths of these two different ways of engaging with cinema — by myself or with others? And when I view cinema with others, does it approach the same level of social union or communion as the experience of theatre? Bishop Varden: I think the theatre is different because it is live. There is a transaction going on. The people on stage are giving you something, and at the end they appear and expect to be thanked for it. You applaud them. The applause itself marks a boundary — it formalises an act that says, “Now we’ve cut. The performance is finished. Now we’re back in real life.” That doesn’t happen in the cinema. It is very rare that people clap at the end of a film. And when you watch a film on your own, obviously that line is not there at all. You might be left with a sense that the film has somehow entered you. James Majewski: That’s something I’ve certainly experienced. Bishop Varden: It can be wonderful, but also quite uncanny — and on occasion, scary. Because somebody else’s imaginative world comes to inhabit you. James Majewski: Yes. I hadn’t actually thought about this before. I tend to be more interested in theatre — I’m a theatre artist myself — and I have this bias against film for being a dead letter, essentially: that there is no life here, that this was capturing something that was at one moment alive, but is now a kind of simulacrum and so it’s capacity to be a part of my life is diminished. But this is a very interesting thought about its ability to get under the skin and stay with you. It seems like the credits rolling is almost a ritual of detachment. I need to see the credits roll, to read the names of the people who performed these roles, to be brought back gradually to real life. I need the music to send me out. It’s one of the reasons I feel so offended by streaming platforms today that will so often immediately rush you into another film — the countdown timer begins and you have to frantically click to stop it so that you can just sit with the movie for a moment. But this is an angle I never quite considered before. Thomas Mirus: Bishop Varden, I want to talk a bit about Catholic cinema. There is a lot of discussion right now about trying to have some kind of revival — I’m not sure that’s exactly the right word, since there have been great Catholic films, but I’m not sure there’s ever been a stable community of Catholic filmmakers across the decades. But there is a discussion about what makes for a Catholic film, and in particular about a particular genre: what makes a good saint film? Many of the Catholic films people try to make are saint films. We’ve seen many poor examples of this, but also some very good ones — The Flowers of St. Francis, A Hidden Life, and a wonderful recent American example, Triumph of the Heart, about St. Maximilian Kolbe. Do you have any thoughts about the unique challenges of the saint film, or Catholic cinema in general — the question of how holiness or prayer can be portrayed on screen, and any thoughts you might offer to would-be Catholic filmmakers? Bishop Varden: I think the question of the saint film really touches the more global point of the cinematographic biography — the attempt to portray a life in cinema. That is always difficult because a life is long and a film is short! How can you expect to conjure up a lifetime in an hour and a half, or even two and a half hours with a patient audience? When you’re dealing with saints’ lives, you have the added challenge of trying to convey not just the complexity of human existence, but a supernatural inspiration. And I think in order to have any chance of conveying that, you need somehow to have been there. We see the same in written biographies and in portraiture — there must be some deep affinity. That affinity doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a saint yourself or have had the same sort of experiences, but that you’ve touched some of the same depths. Therefore I think it’s a wonderful and continuously mysterious fact that the greatest saint film I can think of — a film about the greatest saint of all — is Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Pasolini was certainly not a saint, but he was someone who knew the pain of life, the earnestness of life, and the thirst for love and truth. The sheer courage he had in picking up the Gospel and saying, “I’ll put this on the screen” — the anxieties that caused in the Catholic community, where many were convinced he would produce something blasphemous — and then this pellucid, pristine, clear, sharp portrait appears, dedicated to the Pope and crowned by all sorts of Catholic awards. I think it says something about that depth-calling-to-depth factor which must be there before you attempt to make the life of a saint. Thomas Mirus: Are there any other saint films that you find to be outstanding examples of the genre? Bishop Varden: I can’t say I’ve seen all that many outstanding ones. I did watch a film about Bakhita a few years ago that I thought was quite good. I quite enjoyed the first of the two films released under the title Karol, about John Paul II. I’m aware those films take considerable liberties with historical truth and are not particularly reliable in their documentary dimension. Still, in the first film there is a portrayal of a vocational maturing that seemed to me quite convincing. But no, I can’t think of all that many good examples, actually. James Majewski: Perhaps — I’ll be honest, Your Excellency — the first time I saw The Gospel According to Matthew, I was a bit underwhelmed. I didn’t respond very favourably to it, so I haven’t returned to it. It being the final weeks of Lent, this may be a good time for those who are interested to take another look at that film. Do you have any comments that might help someone approaching that film for the first time, or someone like me who wants to approach it with a view to appreciating it more deeply? Bishop Varden: I’d say, first of all, that my experience was like yours — the first time I watched it, I left the cinema thinking, “What was the point of that?” And yet I found that as time passed, there were scenes in that film that stayed with me: iconic scenes. I realised it really had a contemplative dimension and had enabled me to see certain aspects of the Gospel story in a new light. Then I returned to it, and I watched it again and again. I realised that it’s built on a twin process of estrangement and immediacy, because in some ways it’s like a Greek play — it’s not a realistic film. The scenes are obviously staged; there are discourses being proclaimed. And at the same time, there is this deep human credibility. The fact that Pasolini largely made it with his friends, with his mother as the Virgin Mary, and members of his family — I can’t quite imagine what the atmosphere among the cast must have been. I also found that it offers a kind of dispassionate, realistic reading of the Gospel narrative. One thing that provoked me when I first watched it — and that I initially found objectionable — was the fact that Jesus is constantly presented as being in a hurry. He walks extremely fast like an Italian machine-gun actor. But then, you know, we hear the Gospel read at Mass in these digestible, short snippets, and we try to have devout sentiments about them. But when you read the Gospels continuously, you find a great deal of reference to swift movement. He had so much to convey that was so essential, and he knew that the time was short. And I think something that Pasolini manages to convey in that film is the urgency of the message and the urgency of response — because you haven’t got much time. He’s here now, he’s talking, he’s calling, and then he’ll be off. What will you do? Will you stay, or will you follow? To my mind, that corresponds deeply to the evangelical message. Thomas Mirus: I remember when we discussed the film, James had noted the scenes early on where we just see Jesus walking through a field, walking past someone, not even stopping — just saying, “Repent and believe in the Gospel” as he walks by. That is quite striking. You gave a talk on translation as the Erasmus Lecture for First Things recently. You were talking about your experiences with different languages and literature. I wanted to ask about this in the case of cinema: is there a sense in which cinema doesn’t need to be translated, because it is such a visual medium? And, more broadly — and this is a very leading question — why should American Catholics consider watching more foreign films? Bishop Varden: Because they’re good! Some of them, anyway. There is potentially a kind of universalism to cinema. You can watch the Apu trilogy, set in rural India in a world that is culturally eons away, and yet be utterly absorbed by it, provided you have some sense of what the dialogue means — though sometimes that’s not even necessary. At the same time, cinema is obviously conditioned by particular and local sensibilities, the way any art form is. I’m by no means a systematic cinemagoer — I’ve never watched everything a particular director has made or spent months watching films from a particular country. But I always find it interesting to watch films recommended to me from different cultural contexts, remaining alert to both similarities and contrasts. As with other art forms, but perhaps in a particularly intense way, one of the blessings of encountering great art is precisely that it confronts us — in a non-menacing way — with what is foreign to us. Not just in the sense of coming from a foreign country, but with different sensibilities, different temperaments, different perspectives. And thereby, potentially, our own capacity for seeing, and even for empathy, can be enhanced. That, to my mind, is a good thing. Thomas Mirus: I want to open things up very generally: what are some of your favorite films? You mentioned The Sacrifice and The Gospel According to Matthew, but can you talk about any other films that have had a significant impact on you? Bishop Varden: There are so many, and not all of them are Russian and full of existentialism. I love The Sound of Music. James Majewski: Great. My children do too. Bishop Varden: Yes. And a few years ago I watched the Bourne films with great interest. Thomas Mirus: The Jason Bourne films? And what did you think about the use of violence in those? Bishop Varden: That was at times a difficult aspect — because I find, particularly in the wake of my monastic experience, that I simply can’t take violence very well. I would occasionally close my eyes. But what I found interesting in those films was the way they engage with the question of identity: who am I, and how can I know who I am? Other films — one I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is The Madness of King George, based on a play by Alan Bennett and directed by Nicholas Hytner. James Majewski: I’m not familiar with that film. Bishop Varden: It was made in the 1990s, about King George III, who went through a kind of breakdown and was declared mad. Issues of dynastic succession arose, and those are portrayed in the film. But what is really portrayed, based on Alan Bennett’s brilliant play, is the inner soul crisis of a king who is aware of being not just an individual in pain and in crisis, but the symbolic figurehead and, in some ways, the embodiment of a nation. It’s a fantastic film. I believe it must have been something of an implicit influence on Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam, about a papal election and about someone elected pope who simply cannot bear the burden of the office and goes into a searching soul crisis. Moretti’s film was released while I was living in Rome, roughly coinciding with either the beatification or canonisation of John Paul II. Again, various media were very skeptical and said it would be a grotesque attack on the Church. I didn’t find it that at all. It’s a humorous film — it really does make you laugh, and sometimes it goes a bit far in what it draws on for humor — but it is reflective, humane, intelligent, and touching on that question of what it is to deal with a deep soul crisis when you are at the same time entrusted with an unimaginable responsibility. Another film I love, of a totally different kind, is Raúl Ruiz’s Mysteries of Lisbon, a Portuguese film from about ten or fifteen years ago, which plays on that point of intersection between the realistic in cinema and the conscious artificiality of theatre. James Majewski: Right. Bishop Varden: And then there are many films by Ingmar Bergman, who is probably my favourite director, if I were to name one. Some of his films are extremely hard to watch — Persona, which I watched in a cinema in Paris when I was there doing research twenty-five years ago, I’m not sure I’d have the courage to watch again. Thomas Mirus: Any favourites by Bergman? Bishop Varden: Fanny and Alexander, I think, is just extraordinary. And I love Autumn Sonata — another very difficult film to watch, but the acting is exceptional. What it says about parenthood, about filial relationships, about the demands of art versus the demands of family, about vocational and maternal responsibility — all of that is very powerful. My favourite of all is The Magic Flute, the production he made for television. In the midst of all of Bergman’s existentialism and bleakness, there is in The Magic Flute a lightness, a delight, a sense of humor, colour, and innocence. I think those qualities are always somehow present in his other films as well, but he simply permitted himself, in making The Magic Flute, to make them all explicit. So if I feel discouraged or I’m down in the dumps, I may watch half an hour of Bergman’s Magic Flute and I’m right again. Thomas Mirus: That’s wonderful. We’re always looking for recommendations of what films to cover next on the podcast, and there were a few you mentioned that I haven’t seen or even heard of — not the Bergman films, but the Portuguese film and a couple of the others. Very exciting. If you don’t mind, I’d like to name a few directors and see if you have any thoughts — and if you don’t, that’s fine. You mentioned Tarkovsky — do you have anything more to say about him? Bishop Varden: One could talk about him for hours. I haven’t seen everything, but I know The Sacrifice and Andrei Rublev well — I’ve watched each of them many times, and I find I need to return to Andrei Rublev every two or three years or so. I’ve seen Nostalgia and Solaris, which impressed me and which I feel I should watch again, but I just haven’t had the energy to watch again. The Sacrifice in particular is one of those films that just keeps living within you. Thomas Mirus: What about the American director Terrence Malick? Bishop Varden: Again, I haven’t seen everything. The first film of his I watched was The Thin Red Line, which I thought was extraordinary. I simply wasn’t prepared for it . When I watched it I’d heard Malick’s name, but I hadn’t got too precise ideas of who he was or what he was doing. I watched A Hidden Life, which cinematographically is wonderful and very powerful. I wasn’t entirely convinced by the characters. When you read the correspondence of the Jägerstätters — both were, as I recall, Secular Franciscans — there is an explicit and even somewhat Baroque devotion that seems fundamental to who they were and to the relationship they formed. I felt that got a little lost in the Sturm und Drang of their intense love for one another, which is certainly also true. But I felt something supernatural was missing. Jägerstätter dies at the end as a martyr to his conscience — but does he die as a martyr to his faith? That was the question I was left with. Thomas Mirus: Yes. I think that’s right. Bishop Varden: But it’s an extraordinarily beautiful film. James Majewski: Yes, we had many of the same questions when we discussed the film on the podcast. Thomas Mirus: Have you seen The Tree of Life? Bishop Varden: I’ve seen half of it — it was being shown at the house I was living in in Rome, and I walked into it and was sort of mesmerised. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to watch it whole and undiluted. You remind me that I should do that. Thomas Mirus: It’s my favourite film. And you mentioned Kieślowski before — the Polish director. Bishop Varden: Yes, I admire him greatly. There are the Three Colours trilogy — Red, White, and Blue — a remarkable body of work. There is also The Double Life of Véronique, which I’ve watched several times. I remember once coming across, on late-night television — and to reassure you, this was before I entered the monastery — a documentary about Kieślowski, a conversation with him. I’ve been trying to find that documentary ever since, without success. But I remember him saying that after The Double Life of Véronique had been showing in cinemas across the world for a few months, he received a letter from a young woman who simply said, “Thank you for making that film. Watching it made me realize that I have a soul.” Thomas Mirus: Wow. Bishop Varden: I can’t think of any higher compliment to pay an artist. Then there is his exceptional series on the Ten Commandments, The Decalogue, which I have watched in its entirety, some of the films several times. Kieślowski is another director able to touch, through cinema, both the deeply human and the transcendent. Thomas Mirus: Any parting words to Catholic filmmakers out there? Bishop Varden: Just keep at it. And remember your responsibility — because potentially you can help people come to the realisation that they have a soul. Thomas Mirus: Indeed. Well, Bishop Erik Varden, we are so grateful that you came on our little podcast, straight after preaching to the Pope. Thank you very, very much. Bishop Varden: Thank you for having me. All the best. Thomas Mirus: God bless you. Bishop Varden: And you. Criteria is a production of CatholicCulture.org. Check out our other podcasts, including Way of the Fathers, an early Church history podcast hosted by Jim Papandrea; Catholic Culture Audiobooks, bringing to life classic Catholic writings; and the Catholic Culture Podcast, an interview show exploring Catholic arts, culture, and issues. You’ll find all of this, as well as Catholic news, commentary, liturgical resources, and much more at CatholicCulture.org.
Humanisation‘Without [a] demanding educational effort, passive adaptation to dominant paradigms will be mistaken for competence, and the loss of freedom for progress. This is all the more true in light of the spread of artificial intelligence systems, which increasingly shape and permeate our mentality and social environments. Like every great historical transformation, this too calls not only for technical competence, but also for a humanistic formation capable of making visible the logic behind economics, embedded biases and forms of power that shape our perception of reality. Within digital environments — structured to persuade — interaction is optimized to the point of rendering a real encounter superfluous; the otherness of persons in the flesh is neutralized, and relationships are reduced to functional responses. Dear friends, you, however, are real persons! Creation itself has a body, a breath, a life to be listened to and safeguarded. It “groans and suffers” (cf. Rom 8:22), just as each one of us does.’ From Pope Leo’s life-giving discourse pronounced at the Catholic University of Central Africa this afternoon.
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