Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

At RCIA last Tuesday the topic was confession and the 1953 Hitchcock film, “I Confess” was brought up.  Having not seen it, my wife decided to pick up a copy at the library.  While watching it last Sunday night, several thoughts came to mind.

First, as is often said, it occurred to me that there is no way that a movie like this, i.e. one that is  sympathetic to the Catholic faith, could come out of Hollywood today (here is a summary of the plot in case you have not seen it).  Clearly, the failures of some of our priests in the last decade has not escaped Hollywood’s attention.  While they* now have evidence that priests are in fact human, the problem is their false understanding of humanity.  Namely, they believe that the human person is so compelled by his sexual appetite that he has not the capacity to master it.  In fact, they are afflicted with the Freudian myth that suggests that those who attempt to master their sexual urges will ultimately damage themselves.  This distorted understanding man makes a sympathetic treatment of the Catholic faith unlikely.  After all, that is their biggest beef with the Church.

There are many aspects of the 1953 film that will be beyond the reach of today’s Hollywood. Of course, the Hollywood wisdom dictates the need for some sex, or at least sexual tension, in such a film for economic considerations and perhaps also for the sake of a distorted view of artistic merit.  There is the bias against the Catholic faith, especially because she dares to continue to loudly proclaim the reality of sin.  As suggested above, from Hollywood’s perspective the sexual sin she warns against cannot be tolerated. However, even if we could get over these issues, there are other other fundamental problems.

The first thing that comes to mind is the way that the relationship is depicted between the main character Fr. Michael Logan, played by Montgomery Clift, and the leading lady, Ruth Grandfort, played by Anne Baxter.  In the movie, the two had a romantic relationship before he became a priest.  While Ruth continued to love Fr. Logan even after his ordination, there was no time afterward in which Fr. Logan ever doubted or seemed to struggle with his vocation.

Hollywood culture ensures their inability to deem credible anyone who possesses such a strong, supernatural sense of his vocation and the full self-possession of a handsome young man such as Clift plays in the film.  For directors, producers, screenwriters, such self mastery is not something of which they could make sense.  For those coming from a culture in which there is no reason to attempt to fully possess oneself, at least in terms of the sexual urge, the thought that it might be possible for anyone does not even arise.

Another aspect of the film that they would not know how to deal with in a credible manner is the issue of the seal of the confessional.  The idea of sacramental confession has been so caricatured by Hollywood that they lack the intellectual framework necessary to gain an authentic understanding of confession.  They are completely lost as to why there should be such a solemn obligation for silence on the part of the priest.  Perhaps the closest they might come is patient/client privilege, but even this the courts have ultimate jurisdiction over.  Moreover, they have not the capacity for sympathy needed to understand how a priest might be willing to suffer the punishment due to another to protect the confession of the very man to whom the punishment is due.  Completely beyond the pale would be the willingness to suffer this fate for the very man who is trying to frame the priest for the murder.  Rather than see this as heroic virtue they could not but see it rather as misguided folly.

A third element of the plot that would get no sympathy would be Ruth’s husband, Pierre.  Pierre is treated rather ruthlessly by Ruth who is more committed it seems to her still burning love for Fr. Logan than for her marriage commitment and the feelings of her faithful husband (something much more reasonable for Hollywood). Pierre continues to stand by her even when she tells him that she has really never loved him and that she is still in love with Fr. Logan.  Rather than seeing Pierre’s actions as virtuous in exhibiting this spousal fidelity to the marriage and a strong commitment to reconciling, they would rather cast him as a lovelorn sap.

I suppose at root the issues that cause Hollywood’s animus toward the Catholic Church are the same that would make them unable to be sympathetic to those things I mention above.  That is, again, the problem of the human person.  The recognition that there is such a thing as a virtuous character that is achieved through always choosing the right and rejecting the wrong, even the recognition that there is a right and wrong in the realm of sex, are truths that the Hollywood culture has long ago abandoned.  I do not think they are even capable of being open to anything sympathetic to true religion any longer.  But perhaps I am wrong.  I confess, I would be happy if I were.

* – O.k, I admit that I am painting with a rather broad brush.  Nevertheless, I do believe it is a relatively accurate depiction of the predominant Hollywood ethos, if I may use that term here.