Two New Movies Concern the Church
Diocesan Press Service. June 7, 1963 [XI-20]
(This interested me - perhaps you can use it or write a review yourself.)
Two movies having much to do with the Church have come to the United States. One stars Peter Sellers, the other produced by Ingmar Bergman - they are both assured of certain box office success.
Many persons will see them as pure entertainment, but this writer feels the Church is made the subject of a public forum. Bergman's Winter Light opens with a celebration of the Holy Communion on a certain Sunday in the life of a Lutheran pastor and closes with Vespers. The New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, has written that a film like this by any other producer "could be a simple commentary on a topical theme. " He continues, "But not in a film from Mr. Bergman. He has so often and forcefully shown - and indeed, in his writings and statements he has so candidly proclaimed - that he 'tries to tell the truth about the human condition' on a symbolic and philosophical plane that I feel it is impossible to view this picture as any other than an allegory of the poverty of the human soul."
Heavens Above, Boulting Brothers' latest satire on British institutions, takes off after the Church of England. Peter Sellers plays the role of the gentle, loving vicar whose preaching and teaching in a small English community fills the church but wrecks the social and economic life there. The movie ends with the new vicar sweetly preaching to a handful. Crowther commented "It's like Bergman's Winter Light - with jokes. "
See them both and ponder. JCC