There 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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