slow tango into the catholic church’s history
by
Douglas Messerli
Anthony
McCarten (screenplay, based on his play The Pope), Fernando Meirelles
(director) The Two Popes / 2019
I
have to admit that my husband Howard’s insistence that I see Fernado Meirelles' 2019
film, The Two Popes, was first greeted with deaf ears, partly because I
knew Netflix would soon be streaming it, and also because I have little
interest these days in religion, and even less in Catholicism—even though I
have admitted in these pages a couple of times that as a young man, with two
uncles who were Protestant ministers, and a father and mother very involved in
their Presbyterian church, I once imagined becoming a missionary and later, a student
of theology.
Yet, I realized quickly that my desire to
be a missionary had more to do with traveling than with converting people to
any religious perspective, and that my interest in theology had less to do with
any one religious perspective than it had to do with a strong curiosity of why
people believed, an off-shoot of my interest in philosophy. And my own
sexuality certainly mightn’t have encouraged me along that route.
About three decades ago, I abandoned any
religious beliefs, convinced, in part by Norwegian writer Jens Bjørneboe that
religion did more harm over the centuries than good. The heaven and hell at the
center of so much theological thinking no longer accorded with my own rational
thinking. And the good values of believers seemed to be slipping away from
those that I tried to maintain.
Nonetheless, when Howard and my
publishing assistant Pablo Capra pulled me away from my home desk to see the
film, I found it a far more likeable work than I might have imagined. Both of
these Popes are failed human beings, who feel, in different ways, that they
cannot go on in their ministries.
Pope Benedict XVI (the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) is described as a “Nazi” by some followers and given the German church’s unspoken support of Hitler during World War II, might be properly described as one. Certainly, as he later confesses to the Argentinian cardinal whom he has summoned to his summer home, he allowed priests who were known sex-abusers to move from town to town continuing their abuse. Moreover, his top official has just been arrested for financial malfeasance.
His views might be described as those of a
conservative hard-liner regarding his view of church doctrines. Great church
historian he may have been, but change was something Benedict would not allow.
What his opposite, the tangoing,
soccer-loving Jorge Bergoglio argued should be bridges instead of walls (does
this sound familiar?), is met with Benedict’s argument that all change is
compromise and that a sound house needs walls.
Yet, this film also tells us another
story, that of a young scientist who later rises to become the head of the
Argentinian Jesuit order during the military dictatorship of the 1970s, when
hundreds of dissidents were simply “disappeared,” arrested and killed, their
bodies often dropped from airplanes into the ocean.
In order to protect his fellow Jesuits,
Bergoglio visited the dictators and attempted to make a kind of terrible peace
with them; but it was to no avail, as many of his best followers were arrested,
tortured, and killed nonetheless. When the dictatorship is overturned, he is
sent away for a kind of isolated redemption, which he gladly accepts, now
knowing the errors of his ways. If Benedict has not spoken up against the Nazi
regime, neither has Bergoglio openly spoken out against the dictators of
Argentina that murdered so very many of that country’s young and best. He is no
longer the beloved man of poor in his homeland, although he has certainly
attempted to pay his penance.
Indeed, shortly before his summons the
cardinal has brought a ticket to the Vatican, seeking out permission from
Benedict to resign his position, feeling that he might offer more to his constituency
by simply serving as a local priest, hearing the many confessions he has
learned to listen to, and working among the poor.
If the two in conversation, however, may seem to represent such a serious interchange that no one but an intense believer might be interested, you haven’t seen the movie. Writer Anthony McCarten (based on his play The Pope) and director Meirelles’ production is actually a playing out of these opposites as a challenge between two great actors, Anthony Hopkins (as Benedict) and Jonathan Pryce (as Bergoglio) who wryly and humorously fight for their positions, the former favoring the Church’s past, the other the Church’s future. In many senses, Benedict, knowing the weaknesses of his position, and, as he admits, no longer able to hear God’s voice, realizes that he is at a great disadvantage. Without able to say it, he realizes that without rejuvenating the Catholic Church, it will dwindle away to nothing, despite its current millions of members. And there is a sly and often humorous wisdom in his arguments with his far more liberal cardinal.
Benedict is not the major figure here, nor is he the beloved one, but Hopkins knows how maintain his acting superiority simply through the smallest of statements and gestures—a refusal to even eat with his guest, while in a nearby room he eats his Bavarian meatballs while watching his favorite movie, a ridiculous series about a dog-hero; an absolute refusal even to read Bergoglio’s request for release from his duties; an near abandonment of the man he has summoned as he rushes back to the Vatican; and his final admission that he too his seeking a release from his vows, which may compel the reluctant Bergoglio to become Pope, which given what we know of the history is inevitable.
I don’t imagine that all of these events
really occurred quite as McCarten presents them, but like Stephen Frears’ and
Peter Morgan’s 2006 film, The Queen, we believe it all “might” have
happened given the surrounding circumstances.
And the final “switch” wherein Bergoglio’s
confession is heard by the Pope, who then asks the cardinal to hear his
confession is a marvelous transformation of position. Alas, Meirelles doesn’t
allow us to hear the Pope’s full confession, despite the openness of Bergoglio’s
previous statements, and we only get a few glimmers of what he felt guilty
about. But perhaps, once again, that is the difference between the two men: one
an intellect in trapped silence, no longer even hearing the voice of his maker,
the other openly pouring out his guilty heart into the world.
With The New York Times reviewer
A. O. Scott, I agree that the numerous flashbacks of Bergoglio’s youthful life
(played by Juan
Minujín) almost interfere with the heart of this movie, the intense
conversations between the once and future Pope. While I appreciated the
information about the younger Bergoglio in his homeland, facts I had not
previously known, and Minujín credibly enacts a version of the younger Jesuit
who believed, wrongly, that he might protect his order by allying himself,
temporarily, with the dictatorship, I too felt it detracted from the masterful
sparring of the two major actors.
And while it was equally fascinating to
observe the results of these conversations of the Pope and cardinal, we didn’t
really need the film to be extended into the more than a two-hour demonstration
of what we now all know. But the delight of a new Pope who would not dress up
in the papal red shoes, not don the gold cross of God, might have been worth those
last minutes. And, although I don’t believe it for a moment, the representation
of the conservative Benedict dancing a temporary tango with his replacement, it
gave me a kind of slight thrill. Did some member of the young Swiss Guard
observe this, or is it simply the logical imagination of the screenwriter?
I
don’t really care. I’d take the tango over a polka or the Schuhplattler
knee/slap dance any day—although I doubt the young Ratzinger ever danced even
these dances.
Oh, and yes, I loved the pizza just
outside of St. Peters. I’ve eaten from that very small stand.
But
I must admit, despite Benedict’s deep delight as he consumes it, it truly is
not very good piazza!
Perhaps this is another kind of German
joke, not really needing a punchline.
Los
Angeles, December 19, 2019
Reprinted
from World Cinema Review (December 2019).
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