How to make a movie that features a specific environment: Collect up all the weird bits and pieces (from different times and places) and put as many of them together as you can, to create a composite. Now I know nothing about the inner workings of the Catholic Church, so naturally that's what I shall pontificate upon. The reformist impulses in Vatican II were nothing new. It doesn't matter whether you're Saint Francis or Pope Francis, you want to have a church that does God's work. Work, not just theological navel-gazing or introverted anguish. As I write this, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is in the process of publishing "From the Depths of Our Hearts," so the film "Novitiate" is of ongoing relevance. An example from Vatican II: A Church that works for and with the people will do its work in the languages of the people, and not conceal itself behind a thicket of liturgy and doctrinal pronouncements in medieval Latin.
"Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" is a line from Anglican hymn-writer John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811-75). So the highest form of service to God is found in a withdrawal from the world into a reclusive monastic piety and purity? Meanwhile the laity slog on as best they can, each family with a goal: to "sacrifice" a son or daughter to the "religious life" (one of the characters in the film speaks about "sacrificing one daughter"). No doubt that's the way some catholics understood their "duty" to the Church, but even before Vatican II this must have been a rather small minority. Most nuns were always going to be engaged in practical service: nursing, teaching, organising charities and missions, and caring for orphans, the poor, the elderly and the disabled. And also in scholarship. In the movie we hardly ever see the novices studying, sitting at desks doing what would look pretty much like high school. But in real life the Church is quite clear about this: you must know the reason for your faith - so get reading.
But instead of brainy stuff, "Novitiate" gives us emotional stuff. After all, it's what movies are good at: providing a platform for the presentation of relationships and feelings and angst. There is an overemphasis on a nun being a "bride of Christ," which doesn't quite ring true; and the novices are also supposed to become "perfect" - which doesn't even sound like Christianity. They're supposed to be "perfect wives of Christ"? In contrast I suppose to all the imperfect wives found everywhere outside the convent? I wouldn't dare ask the feminists what they thought of that angle. No, anyone as smart as that Reverend Mother would never allow a whiff of faux sexuality to enter the relationship between a nun and her God. And are we to understand that any attachment to other human beings would vitiate the total monogamous commitment to the Divine? - the film makes far too much of this notion. And (correct me if I'm wrong) the Christ-husband has a rival betwixt the bedsheets, a bodily organ designed to generate ecstatic experiences when (inappropriately!) stimulated? Whew!
Let's face it, any sort of human life will have its tensions and contradictions. This film is about the nature of motherhood: the over-perfect spiritual Reverend Mother contrasted with the imperfect, irreverent natural mother. There's only one daughter, and they both want her! Well, we always knew that politics begins in the family. Making the family sacred rather than profane doesn't change things. Motherhood, love and sacrifice: what is to be the nature of this love, what is to be the nature and extent of the sacrifice - these are not trivial themes.
All right, the film has its imperfections. It strays some distance from what we might call "the facts." But for all that, our experience as viewers is that the world and the people presented here on our screens are real, what they do is significant, and what they feel is authentic. That is the art of good storytelling, to draw us into an unfamiliar environment, and make it feel familiar, and personal.
"Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" is a line from Anglican hymn-writer John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811-75). So the highest form of service to God is found in a withdrawal from the world into a reclusive monastic piety and purity? Meanwhile the laity slog on as best they can, each family with a goal: to "sacrifice" a son or daughter to the "religious life" (one of the characters in the film speaks about "sacrificing one daughter"). No doubt that's the way some catholics understood their "duty" to the Church, but even before Vatican II this must have been a rather small minority. Most nuns were always going to be engaged in practical service: nursing, teaching, organising charities and missions, and caring for orphans, the poor, the elderly and the disabled. And also in scholarship. In the movie we hardly ever see the novices studying, sitting at desks doing what would look pretty much like high school. But in real life the Church is quite clear about this: you must know the reason for your faith - so get reading.
But instead of brainy stuff, "Novitiate" gives us emotional stuff. After all, it's what movies are good at: providing a platform for the presentation of relationships and feelings and angst. There is an overemphasis on a nun being a "bride of Christ," which doesn't quite ring true; and the novices are also supposed to become "perfect" - which doesn't even sound like Christianity. They're supposed to be "perfect wives of Christ"? In contrast I suppose to all the imperfect wives found everywhere outside the convent? I wouldn't dare ask the feminists what they thought of that angle. No, anyone as smart as that Reverend Mother would never allow a whiff of faux sexuality to enter the relationship between a nun and her God. And are we to understand that any attachment to other human beings would vitiate the total monogamous commitment to the Divine? - the film makes far too much of this notion. And (correct me if I'm wrong) the Christ-husband has a rival betwixt the bedsheets, a bodily organ designed to generate ecstatic experiences when (inappropriately!) stimulated? Whew!
Let's face it, any sort of human life will have its tensions and contradictions. This film is about the nature of motherhood: the over-perfect spiritual Reverend Mother contrasted with the imperfect, irreverent natural mother. There's only one daughter, and they both want her! Well, we always knew that politics begins in the family. Making the family sacred rather than profane doesn't change things. Motherhood, love and sacrifice: what is to be the nature of this love, what is to be the nature and extent of the sacrifice - these are not trivial themes.
All right, the film has its imperfections. It strays some distance from what we might call "the facts." But for all that, our experience as viewers is that the world and the people presented here on our screens are real, what they do is significant, and what they feel is authentic. That is the art of good storytelling, to draw us into an unfamiliar environment, and make it feel familiar, and personal.