Cinema and the sacred;
the female effect

Cinema and faith is a union that has existed since the birth of the Seventh Art at the end of the 19th century. Invented in France by the Lumière brothers, this medium was destined to impose itself with increasing incisiveness on social life and on the collective imagination.

In the history of cinema, the first “film” with a religious subject was a very short documentary made in 1896. The film was shot inside the Apostolic Palace, with Pope Leo XII as protagonist filmed in the act of blessing the crowd. Since then, throughout the twentieth century and then into the new millennium, spirituality has been a constant protagonist on the screen. Directors such as Carl Theodor Dreyer, Georges Méliès, Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, Andréj Tarkovsky, Luis Buñuel, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Ermanno Olmi, and Krzysztof Zanussi were the masters of a cinema oriented toward the sacred. Instead, echoes of religiosity, which was more or less the result of a conscious decision, was often perceivable in other filmmaker’s admittedly secular vision; for example in the work of Roberto Rossellini, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Liliana Cavani, Franco Zeffirelli, Luigi Comencini, Alessandro D’Alatri, Jean Delannoy, Norman Jewison, David Greene, Robert Hossein, Pupi Avati, and Alice Rohrwacher, the latter here the most highly regarded Italian filmmaker throughout the world today. Today, biographies of saints, reconstructions of the Passion, denunciations, scandals, biblical epics, miracles and martyrdoms are often told even in a colossal, provocative or musical key continue to hold sway in films, with more or less appreciable results.

In this scenario, and throughout different eras, female figures have played a leading role, be that as saints, nuns, or the Virgin Mary. As the protagonists of countless films they have left their mark, perhaps even aroused scandal or at the very least debate. The truth be told, both when the author’s intent was specifically hagiographic or when the spirit of denunciation prevailed, the religious figures on the big screen have not strayed too far from the traditional, sometimes stereotypical representation and religious iconography. However, the evolution of society, the ever-increasing awareness of women and the urgency of restoring centrality to the female presence even in the spiritual and ecclesiastical sphere have given rise to a new way of portraying saints, consecrated women and the Virgin Mary herself on the screen. In sum, this tendency captures women in an everyday context, which is not one that is subordinate to their counterparts, but rather conscious protagonists of their own destiny.

A film that best testifies to this trend is Maternal, directed in 2019 by Maura Delpero. A young nun in Buenos Aires is the central figure of the movie; she is committed to assisting troubled single mothers, while confronted with her own repressed instinct for motherhood, which she feels very deeply, though considers it to be in conflict with her vocation.

The director has portrayed the inner torment of the protagonist respectfully and delicately, without pursuing sensationalism or scandal. This is a positive step forward compared to the cinema in the past, which had looked at the female religious world with sometimes morbid curiosity. In addition, directors often sought employed clichés, in their search for the picturesque or the sensational. For example, we have had investigative, dancing and singing nuns in The Sound of Music; Sister Act; and Dominique, scandalously hysterical in The Devils, comically wicked in The Blues Brothers, even in horror as depicted in The Nun or in a perverse vein in Benedetta, directed by Paul Verhoeven (who was coincidentally the director of the film Basic Instinct). In addition, there have been nuns whose Christianity has been at the service of the irredeemable in Dead Man Walking, or inhuman as in Magdalene, torn by moral dilemmas in The Doubt, and even prey to visions and disturbances that are investigated by a psychiatrist in Agnes of God. Monsignor Davide Milani, the president of the Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo and director of Rivista del Cinematografo explains, “A film like Maternal represents an entirely new look at consecrated life at a time when the figure of the nun is disappearing from the social horizon, or becoming the protagonist of controversial advertisements (for example, the disrespectful commercial, withdrawn following widespread protests, because a nun replaces the consecrated host with a potato chip). The director recognizes a social role for the protagonist who, by taking the veil, renounces an important aspect of her femininity, namely the possibility of having children, but at the same time inaugurates a different way of being a mother because she welcomes the maternity of others. The theme of the body is therefore not denied but becomes part of a very embodied spirituality that, in a profoundly Christian key, is expressed not only in prayer but also in choices”. In the history of cinema, films dedicated to saints are too numerous to count. The strength and purity of Joan of Arc have inspired no less than 17 pictures, from Execution filmed in 1898 to Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman (1916) to the first true masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Theodor Dreyer (1928); while the great Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman embodied the Maid of Orleans twice, first in 1948 in Victor Fleming’s Joan of Arc and then in 1954 in Rossellini’s Joan of Arc at the Stake. Otto Preminger, Bresson, Jacques Rivette, even Besson, who made the warrior-saint into a vampire with the look of a star in Milla Jovovich, would later bring her to the screen. Bernadette Soubirous, Lourdes’ little saint, has also had several film versions made about her, but the best known is the Hollywood picture that premiered in 1943 with the diva Jennifer Jones (Bernadette, directed by Henry King) as protagonist. Thérèse of Lisieux has inspired more than one director. The best of them all was the French director, Alain Cavalier, who in Thérèse, a film released in 1986, rendered her with simplicity and rigour. In addition, the director captured the depth of the saint’s mysticism, who had discovered her vocation aged 15, and died at only 24 after consecrating her existence to God.

Two years ago, a female -and feminist- reappraisal of spiritual themes produced the film Chiara, which is dedicated to the saint from Assisi. The film director, Susanna Nicchiarelli, was able to count on the advice of the medieval historian Chiara Frugoni in the production process. About the film, Don Milani comments, “I consider this film very successful. The director did not start from faith but from her secular vision of the world to approach the saint, which concludes, after Nico 1988 dedicated to the German rock singer and Miss Marx on the heir of the father of socialism, her interesting trilogy dedicated to significant female characters in the modern era”. Nicchiarelli told Chiara’s story at a particular historical moment, namely the Middle Ages, in which women were protagonists neither in society nor in the Church. Nevertheless, the Saint manages to subvert the rules of the time by carrying out a genuine revolution that was to change the Church and leave an indelible mark on history.  The director also highlights the theme of sisterhood, which is very important in Chiara’s spiritual and human parable. She has respected the mystery, and tackles the theme of miracle very well. In addition, Susanna Nicchiarelli made an excellent choice by having the actors perform in the dialect spoken by the ordinary people.

Mary has been a source of inspiration for cinema on several occasions. In The Gospel according to Matthew (1964), Pier Paolo Pasolini entrusted the role of Christ’s mother to his own mother Susanna Colussi. She plays a simple woman marked by the pain of losing her son, who in real life is the writer’s brother killed during the Resistance. Another film steeped in suffering is The Passion of the Christ, by Mel Gibson that caused much discussion in 2004. In the film, Israeli actor, Maia Morgenstern, plays the Madonna. The provocative intent of director Jean-Luc Godard is certainly evident in his 1984 Je Vous Salue, Marie, which is a reinterpretation of the Immaculate Conception (the film was confiscated for its religious vilification). A more recent release is Vangelo secondo Maria [Gospel According to Mary], directed by Paolo Zucca. The piece is dedicated to a larger than life Virgin, who is thirsty for knowledge and flees the impositions of patriarchy. A reconversion of the Holy Scriptures from a feminist perspective and linked to today’s dominant thought. The film is in fact inspired by the novel of the same name by Italian writer Barbara Alberti, which caused a scandal in 1979.

Those were the years of militant feminism and Alberti imagined a protagonist so in line with the times that she rebelled against God’s plan, believing it to be a destiny not to be sought after. However, the film, which was shot on location in the most archaic and savage of Sardinia’s landscapes, has a different epilogue and Mary (played by Benedetta Porcaroli) ends up accepting it with the help of Saint Joseph (played by Alessandro Gassmann) whom she chose to be her master of life and knowledge. According to Don Milani, “the desire to recount Our Lady’s humanity is interesting, but if we apply ‘alien’ suggestions and ideologies to the Virgin, the result will take us far from the starting point. Moreover, we will no longer be able to speak of the Gospel according to Mary. As with the apocryphal gospels, the film sets out to tell stories that we do not know, but it revolves around a woman who is not the Virgin Mary and with the mother of God has only vague connection”. According to the Ente dello Spettacolo’s president, “it is a current and all in all legitimate trend to want to humanize figures linked to the divine, but we must be careful not to domesticate them, and distorting them as we do so”.

According to Linda Pocher, a Salesian theologian, who wrote about it in the Osservatore Romano, “The most precious dowry that Joseph offers Mary is the ability to promote her autonomy, to respect her and treat her as an equal, thus offering a space for expansion to her proto-feminist claims. In this couple, however distant from our common religious imagery, the film realizes the re-composition of the alliance between man and woman that has always belonged to God’s creative project. If this were the only good news about the film, it would be sufficient enough to screen it in parish cinemas and film forums”.

Finally, when we think about the secular perspective on spiritual characters and themes, two directors come to mind who have approached the sacred as non-believers. From the past, there is 91-year-old Liliana Cavani, who has dedicated two films and a TV miniseries to the figure of Saint Francis and the documentary “Clarisse” to cloistered nuns. More recently, there is the 42-year-old Alice Rohrwacher, who has gained recognition both domestically and abroad. With Corpo Celeste (Heavenly Body), centered on catechism lessons, La Chimera, which is suspended between life and the afterlife and dedicated to the sacredness of memory, Rohrwacher has consistently explored the transcendent dimension of existence. The director also shot the short film Le Pupille (The Pupils), which was nominated for the Best Live Action Short Film, at the 95th Academy Awards.

By Gloria Satta