by
James Arnold |
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Dorothy Day Film
Courage Under Fire
With God On Our Side
DAENS
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A Time to Kill
Multiplicity
Commercials This Month
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 Dorothy Day Film stars Moira Kelly as the feisty, street-smart servant of the poor who battles for justice in a nonviolent manner. 
ENTERTAINING ANGELS: THE DOROTHY
DAY STORY
(unrated): In an era of extreme consciousness of the role of women,
both in the Church and in popular culture, the time may be ripe
for this semi-biography of the cofounder (with Peter Maurin) of
The Catholic Worker newspaper and the movement. Yet Dorothy
Day will always disturb the comfortable, and middle-class Catholics
of the 1990's may find her as hard to live with as did
their grandparents in the stormy days of the Depression.
Some saints are more countercultural than others, and Miss Day always was a little in advance of the popular and acceptable. In pursuit of social justice, she began on the Left as a Communist, and after her conversion remained committed to workers and the poor, against war and nuclear weapons and "the system." If she was a radical in her lifetime (she died at 83 in 1980), how irritating she might be to the "free market" Catholics of the 1990's. As she puts it in the movie: "If you feed the poor, you're a saint....If you ask why they're poor, you're a Communist." Produced by Paulist Father Ellwood Kieser (Romero) and making huge demands on the supple talents of 27-year-old star Moira Kelly, Angels covers two central chapters in Day's extraordinary life. The first, slow and talky, describes her years as a socialist radical writer and activist in the New York of the 1920's, an attractive firebrand in bohemian literary circles. It's still slow but more photogenic when she retreats to a cottage on the Staten Island shore, resolves to have the baby her lover (Lenny Von Dohlen as Forster Batterham) does not want, and (admittedly, always the toughest change to explain in conversion stories) finds God and her inner core of strength. The second, more convincing part covers the 1930's and has more drama: the founding of the Worker and its crucial early years; her friendship with the gabby, witty, charismatic, uncompromising Frenchman Maurin (Martin Sheen); the horrific conditions of the poor and homeless; the predictable opposition within the Church and even within the staff itself (do they run a newspaper or a soup kitchen?); and final decisions on mission and direction. The film covers nothing of the final half of Day's life, but suggests its essence with a framing device: Dorothy is shown behind bars in 1963 for civil disobedience in an anti-nuke protest comforting a frightened junkie. Dorothy holds her and croons "Amazing Grace"--it's another lovely use in movies of that extraordinary old hymn. Kelly is easy to idealize. (Recall, she was the girl Chaplin never got over in Chaplin.) But caring for the poor and sick (these scenes are honestly grim, to the film's credit) while being constantly heckled by fellow Catholics and hierarchy (the cardinal here is Brian Keith) is probably going to inspire only those of us already inspired. Writer John Wells and director Michael Rhodes (a TV veteran who made the respectable pilot for the Christy series) never quite solve the perennial "religious movie" problems, like how to make "goodness" not only visible but also fresh, or how the heroine will pray (besides walking into a church and talking to statues). Actor Sheen captures Maurin's cheerful and
impractical holiness with considerable charm, and Heather Graham has
a great scene as a combative alcoholic who lashes out at Day. In the
end, Mike Gold, her old leftist friend, probably puts it best. "We
Communists talk about helping the poor," he tells Dorothy, "but
you did it....You made the world a little better. That's not bad for
a Catholic!" A vital fragment of American Catholic history,
respectfully told; recommended for youth and adults. (For
more on the production of this film, visit Paulist.org.
To read Jack Wintz's interview with Moira Kelly, see our September
issue).
Is it balanced? Well, few TV series
other than this one are capable, depending on your viewpoint,
of scaring you or inspiring you. Then again, you can just enjoy
the preaching and the music. (The old hymn "How Great Thou
Art" is the theme.)
With nicely rounded symbolism, it begins
with the postwar Youth for Christ rallies and Billy Graham calling
for "a spiritual awakening." It ends six hours later
with Graham's prayer at the Clinton inauguration and the
statement of Ralph Reed, director of the Christian Coalition,
that Christian political activism is a permanent fixture--"We'll
be there as long as it takes."
En route, with some of the reportorial
style of the classic Eyes on the Prize civil-rights series,
the key events are explored from every angle, using archival footage,
interviews with major figures, clergy, scholars and typical activists
on many sides, and narration by Cliff Robertson. The result is
insight and understanding never provided reliably before in one
place.
Among many aspects memorably covered,
in the first and final episodes: the fear of Communism, the fear
of John Kennedy ("My friend was fairly sure he would rise
from his coffin as the Antichrist"), the 1960's collapse
of morality, the Supreme Court's decisions
on school prayer and abortion, the
sex-education hassle in Anaheim, the
anti-gay-rights and Promise Keeper movements.
At the end, the only questionable interpretation
by producers Cal Skaggs (American Masters, American
Playhouse) and David Van Taylor is perhaps to contrast the
affable Ralph Reed and the confrontational, abrasive Randall Terry
(Operation Rescue) as the two leaders fighting for the soul of
Christian activism. Informative and surprisingly riveting,
a must-see series.
On the other hand, another commercial
(Advantage flea treatment) involving dogs and cats doesn't
cut it. That's the one where the pets cutely bark and whine
along to Handel's Messiah, which somebody (hopefully)
forgot is for many people sacred music.
This Belgian/French/Dutch coproduction,
directed by Stijn Coninx and nominated for an Oscar in 1992 for
best foreign film, belongs on the short list of outstanding movies
about priests. It never played in U.S. theaters and doesn't
have the right audience clamoring to see it. But it's on
video and now can be rented (one source is Facets: 800-331-6197).
Although set in Aalst, Belgium, at
the turn of the century, it has many similarities to Dorothy
Day. It may be
the classic Catholic story, since the hero takes literally not
only the gospel but also Pope Leo XIII's then-new 1891
encyclical on social justice, Rerum Novarum. That gets
him, of course, in
all kinds of trouble inside the Church--with wealthy
laymen and politicians,
fellow clerics and pragmatic bishops and cardinals.
Many of us simply don't know
enough social history. The horrors of child labor that now haunt the Third World
were then rife in Europe. (The factory directors worked women
and children under unbelievable conditions to save money.) Nearly
all the arguments that now divide Catholics on social issues raged
then, when the Church, always organized to resist change, found
itself tested by both atheistic socialism and laissez-faire
capitalism.
Father Adolph Daens (played by the
bluff Depardieu-like Jan Decleir) was
an obscure priest and advocate of
the Catholic Workers Party. He foreshadowed Father Pierre Cardijn
in his compassion for workers and managed to serve two terms in
Parliament. He's presented not as a saint, but as a brave
idealist who loses just about everything in the fight but his
soul. It's done in
Flemish and French with English subtitles. Beautiful and sad
in its re-creation of a nasty era; hard and cynical about the
hierarchy of the time, but overall quite inspiring.
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