Vatican II: This time it's personal.

'The Agony and the Ecstasy' (1965) ****

'The Shoes of the Fisherman' (1968) **

'The Pope Must Die' (1991) *

'Angels and Demons' (2009) ***

'Foul Play' (1978) ****

'Sister Act' (1992) ***

Pope Benedict XVI: A big Farrelly Brothers fan

Pope Benedict XVI visits Britain this week with much controversy surrounding his trip. Not only has there been widespread incredulity over the reported £12 million cost to British tax-payers for the visit, there is also expected to be a number of protests relating to the child sex abuse scandal that the Catholic Church is engulfed in. The current Pope’s reputation has always suffered in comparison to his charismatic predecessor, John Paul II who, though no more progressive on ethical issues relating to contraception, abortion and homosexuality, tried to foster good relationships with other faiths and had what might be called the common touch which he user to great effect on his extensive travels across the world. Benedict seems rather stuffy and awkward in comparison. He seems to have a dreadful habit of saying the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time and tends to fan the flames of dissent when trying to defend and promote Catholicism, which, lest we forget, is the primary responsibility of his role. His handling of the many child sex abuse scandals has been particularly poor with reluctance to fully condemn the actions not only of those responsible for the abuses but also those who helped cover them up, who had knowledge of the crimes but didn’t act and particularly those in high office who merely re-deployed those guilty into different jobs, some even taking roles that had direct contact with children.

This blog is primarily about films – watching them, criticising them, discussing, thinking, reading and talking about them, and most importantly loving them – and it is also supposed to be fun. However, when an organisation that has so much to say about morality fails to deal swiftly and satisfactorily with heinous abuses carried out by the representatives of their church, it stirs even the most laid back of us into some sort of action, even if it’s protest as mild as this one. You will all doubtless be sick of reading about these subjects in by now so all I will say is that the Catholic Church needs to wake up from the slumber it has been in for so long. An organisation run by old men with old ideas who promote doctrine and dogma above the core beliefs the religion was founded on and preach hypocrisy can only fall into an irreversible decline. It may already have entered that state.

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Anthonty Quinn as Pope Kiril, the fast-track pontiff.

So, back to movies and in keeping with the papal theme I’ve been looking at some Hollywood Popes. They are pretty rare in comparison to movies about priests but I guess the ratio of Popes to priests is always going to be low. From Spencer Tracy to Paul Bettany via Bing Crosby, Robert Donat and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, plenty of actors have donned a dog collar but very few have got the Ring of the Fisherman on their finger.

The most famous portrayal of a real Pontiff is probably Rex Harrison’s turn as Julius II in the 1965 epic ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’. The film, which was a box-office disaster on release, tells the story of the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Harrison’s irascible warrior-Pope locks horn’s with Charlton Heston’s Michelangelo who paints the ceiling only out of a sense of duty to God. In what is essentially a two-hander, both actors do a rather good job in making the film entertaining as neither character is particularly likeable and they spend much of the film arguing and being generally pig-headed before coming to realise that they are similar in many ways. In their weaker moments, the two men seem racked with self doubt and seem acutely aware of their personal failings whilst their public faces are arrogant, bullish and totally impervious to criticism. In the end we discover that both men are driven by their faith as they believe that their talents (as a leader and artist) are God-given. ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’ is a very interesting and enjoyable movie. It is much shorter than most epics of the period and deserves a better reputation than as a flop that cast granite-jawed Charlton Heston as the effete dwarf Michelangelo. It was directed by the great Carol Reed, who spent half his time making peace between the warring co-stars, and it looks fabulous. Not quite as fabulous as the real Sistine Chapel but still pretty good.

We move next to a far from arrogant, far from bullish and very reluctant Pope – Kiril Lakota in ‘The Shoes of the Fisherman’ (1968). Like ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’, ‘The Shoes of the Fisherman’ is adapted from a best selling book, is an expensively assembled picture designed to be a showpiece for the studio that produced it, and failed to pull in the crowds. This is one of my cinematic guilty pleasures. I know it’s slow and has an overblown sense of its own worthiness but there is something really fascinating about it, not least because it actually has some interesting things to say about the way the Catholic Church is run. Anthony Quinn is a Russian priest (Lakota) who is released from a Siberian prison camp just in time for Pope Pius XIII (John Gielgud is full ‘rent-a-Shakespearean-actor’ mode) to make him a cardinal. Lakota is reluctant enough at this juncture so imagine his surprise when the ham Pope dies and, after a lengthy conclave, he is chosen as the new Bishop of Rome. The rest of the film concerns itself with tackling three points: Church opposition to progressive theology (Kiril is friends with a radical priest and must censure him), the lack of interaction between the laymen and those high up in the Catholic hierarchy (Kiril is told that he cannot go out around Rome at night, but he goes anyway) and whether a wealthy religion can do more to help those in need (the new Pope uses his coronation to vow to use every penny he can raise to help the world’s hungry and poor). Anthony Quinn is probably better in roles that let him express his personality more than this. Here he wanders around with a permanent harrowed look on his face, which is perfectly understandable for a man who has gone from hard labour in the wilderness of Siberia to be head of the Catholic Church in a matter of weeks. However, it does make for a pretty miserable central character and in the hands of a worse actor the movie would have really stunk. Laurence Olivier appears as the Russian premier with an accent straight out of a Vodka advert. Olivier was in that period where he turned up in massive Hollywood productions, normally to play a foreigner, and basically took the piss out of the whole thing before running off to the bank with his enormous pay packet whilst the film’s producers slapped each other on the back for brining their movie some gravitas.

All of that sounds pretty negative but there are some good things about it too, not least the supporting turns from Leo McKern and Vittorio DeSica. The best thing about it is the way the film uses all the rituals, mystery and drama of the conclave as the major set-piece of the movie’s first half. I find all of that pretty exciting and Michael Anderson, the director, stages the whole process very well. Admittedly the final third of the movie seems very dated but it is worth remembering that the book was written at the height of the Cold War.

Papal elections are central to the woeful Robbie Coltrane vehicle ‘The Pope Must Die’ (1991) which came off the back of the surprise international success of ‘Nuns on the Run’ (1988). I won’t dwell on this film too much as it’s very poor and extremely unfunny. The plot centres on a simple parish priest being elevated to the papacy by virtue of a mistake in announcing the name of the Mafia’s preferred candidate. Vatican conspiracies also feature heavily, of course, in the literature of Dan Brown and ‘Angels and Demons’ (2009) features the selection of a new Pope as background to the story of violence towards the favoured cardinals. ‘Angels and Demons’ is pretty good despite being totally nonsensical. It’s exciting and that is all you can ask from this type of movie.

On final point: Hollywood Popes all seem to be in danger. All of the films mentioned here involve the death, near-death or murder of a Pope so they are obviously seen as a disposable breed by film-makers. Even the finger-tapping, Gilbert-and-Sullivan-loving Pope visiting San Francisco in the wonderful comedy-thriller ‘Foul Play’ (1978) is the target of assassins, though he seems to enjoy himself as even more than his counter part in ‘Sister Act’ (1992) who was probably praying to the good Lord to end his life before the annoying, timid one let loose.