Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast

Thomas Mirus, James Majewski, and Nathan Douglas discuss the new Amazon series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power . The show thus far is not so much offensive as it is bland in ways similar to much popular film and television today. This discussion attempts to understand why the show generally fails to move, focusing especially on its frequent small-mindedness or arbitrariness in character...

Catholic art historian Elizabeth Lev returns to Criteria to discuss two films about Michelangelo. The Agony and The Ecstasy (1965), directed by Carol Reed and starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II, is what Italians call an "Americanata" - an unapologetically bombastic, colorful Hollywood transformation of Italian or Roman history. It focuses on the conflict an...

In his book on film noir, Arts of Darkness , Catholic philosopher Thomas Hibbs writes: "Subverting the rationality of the pursuit of happiness, noir turns the American dream into a nightmare. Noir also undercuts the Enlightenment vision of the city as the locus of human bliss, wherein human autonomy and rational economics could combine to bring about the satisfaction of human desire." Sweet Smell...

Bicycle Thieves , the most beloved classic of Italian neo-realist cinema, would be too easily explained as depicting the crushing pressures of poverty and societal dysfunction in Rome immediately following World War II. But the film transcends any sociological analysis: it has something spiritual to say about how those in poverty can respond to their situation. James Majewski argues that the film...

On the morning of January 15, 1944, Nazis raided a boarding school for boys in Avon, France. The Carmelite monks who ran the school had been hiding some Jewish boys there under false names. As a number of the children and teachers watched, three of their classmates were led away by the Nazis, along with the headmaster, Pere Jacques, who turned back to say only, "Au revoir, les enfants" ("Goodbye,...

James and Thomas introduce one of the most influential genres of Hollywood's golden age: film noir. Noir's distinctively moody chiaroscuro look, suspense-laden plotting, and clever, "hard-boiled" dialogue deriving from popular crime fiction make it a most entertaining style. But why did a genre exploring the cynical, seedy and criminal side of American life thrive in the optimistic years of the la...

James and Thomas attempt to discuss the 1933 film adaptation of Little Women , without the help of a female guest. The film, directed by George Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo March, was included on the Vatican's 1995 list of important films, in the category of Art. Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com This podcast is a produc...

A mere eight years after the 1920 canonization of Joan of Arc, and in the midst of her great popularity as a French national hero, Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer made  The Passion of Joan of Arc . It is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, and is included on the Vatican film list. Two aspects in particular put this film in the canon: first, Renee Maria Falconetti's transcende...

Novelist and critic Trevor Cribben Merrill joins the podcast to discuss one of his favorite recent films, the Coen brothers' Hail , Caesar! This is one of the Coens' most warm-hearted films, and certainly their most Catholic one. It deals with the problem of vocation and the spiritual value of art, although intriguingly, from the point of view of a non-artist: movie producer Eddie Mannix (Josh Bro...

The Vatican film list includes a few different World War II-related films, and Kon Ichikawa's 1956 classic The Burmese Harp may be one of the most unusual, as the story is told from the perspective of a Japanese troop in Burma in the days after the end of the war. Mizushima, the protagonist, serves in a company whose musically trained captain teaches them to sing together to keep their spirits up....

James and Thomas continue their discussion of the Vatican film list with Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece Modern Times , included on the list in the category of Art. Released in 1936,  Modern Times is both Chaplin's last silent film and his first talkie - his character, the Little Tramp, is silent and the only time we hear people talking is when their voices are mediated through technology, such as o...

The new film Father Stu is based on the true story of Stuart Long, a rough-around-the-edges boxer-turned-priest who died in 2014. Mark Wahlberg plays Fr. Stu in an Oscar-worthy performance, and Mel Gibson makes another entry in long list of broken father roles he has played in recent years. James and Thomas review the film, discussing the pros and cons of the film's gritty humor, and the depiction...

Poet, translator and cultural commentator Anthony Esolen joins James and Thomas to discuss one of his favorite filmmakers in the genre of "screwball comedy", Preston Sturges. Sturges wrote and directed eight films between 1940 and 1945, seven of which are regarded as classics. This episode focuses on two of those films: Sullivan's Travels (1941) and  The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). Sullivan'...

James and Thomas interview Yelena Popovic, writer and director of the new film Man of God , about the Greek Orthodox saint Nektarios of Aegina.  Man of God  will be in select theaters in the U.S. on March 21 and 28. At 17, Yelena left Belgrade, Yugoslavia to escape civil war. She went to Italy and then the US, working as a model in New York City, and then to L.A., where she gained experience and t...

A poor, half-witted girl is sold by her mother to be the assistant of a brutal traveling circus strongman in La Strada ("the road"). Federico Fellini's 1954 masterpiece, included on the Vatican film list in the category of Values, attests to the seeds that can be planted by selfless love, even in the face of abuse and rejection.  Condemned by Marxist critics in 1950s Italy for its spiritual view o...

James and Thomas review a new film about the popular Greek Orthodox saint Nektarios, Man of God . Nektarios was slandered and mistreated by his fellow clergy and his patriarch, but bore it all with great meekness. (Mickey Rourke plays a paralytic healed by the saint.) Man of God will be shown in US theaters on March 21 and March 28. Find showings here: https://www.fathomevents.com/events/Man-of-Go...

One of the boldest inclusions on the 1995 Vatican film list comes from an atheist director well known for his anti-clerical films, Luis Buñuel. His 1959 film Nazarin does not seek to discredit the Church by portraying an obviously hypocritical, venal or sensual priest. Rather, protagonist Fr. Nazario is a Quixote figure, unable to make any difference in this miserable world no matter how strictly...

A married couple divorces over mutual suspicion of infidelity - but the two can't seem to leave each other alone, hilariously interfering with one another's attempts to find someone else. This is the plot of The Awful Truth, a classic "comedy of remarriage" by Catholic director Leo McCarey (The Bells of St. Mary's, Duck Soup), featuring brilliant improvisational performances by Cary Grant and Iren...

Elia Kazan's 1954 film On the Waterfront is included on the Vatican's film list in the Values section. The film broke ground in its gritty, realistic production and acting style, particularly manifested in Marlo Brando's unforgettable performance as low-down dockworker Terry Malloy. It offers a striking vision of how we can be transformed by attending to the demands of conscience, articulated in f...

James improvises an impassioned dramatic monologue about the inadequacies of Joel Coen's new adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth , starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Orson Welles's 1948 version, he argues, is aesthetically similar but far superior. Thomas sits and listens. Watch the Orson Welles  Macbeth: https://archive.org/details/macbeth.-1948.-orson.-welles.-103-min Music is Th...

In the 50th episode of Criteria, James and Thomas finally conclude their look at Dekalog , the series of short films inspired by the Ten Commandments which Krzysztof Kieslowski made for Polish television in the late 1980s. Kieslowski concludes his notoriously bleak series on a (slightly) lighter note, the Tenth Commandment against coveting thy neighbor's goods providing plenty of opportunities to...

Jean-Louis, 34-year-old Catholic engineer, lives a quiet life studying mathematics and reading Pascal. One day, he sees a beautiful girl, Francoise, at Mass and decides he will marry her. But this pursuit is interrupted when he spends the night before Christmas at the apartment of a seductive divorcee, the atheist Maud, who tests his moral code. First Things senior editor Matthew Schmitz joins the...

If you haven't seen Chariots of Fire , the classic movie about a Christian and a Jew competing in the 1924 Olympics, you've heard its iconic and much-parodied musical theme. The film offers quite a bit to chew on not just in its primary themes of conscience and using one's gifts for God's glory, but also regarding the importance of the amateur spirit, how sport can be properly integrated into educ...

A knight returning home from the Crusades gets into a chess match with Death. Ingmar Bergman's most famous film, The Seventh Seal , is a searing meditation on death, faith, and the silence of God. But it's far more colorful and entertaining than you might expect from that description. James and Thomas are joined by Irish journalist Ruadhan Jones as they try to figure out whether The Seventh Seal i...

After being diagnosed with permanent impotence, a husband begins to suspect his wife is having an affair. This is the ninth installment of Kieslowski's Dekalog , a Polish film series inspired by the Ten Commandments. The writers of this series yet again return to the theme of weak husbands and fathers failing to claim their rights and therefore to fulfil their duties - in this case, a husband who...