Why did Catholics respond so vehemently to The Miracle? Could there have been more going on than what was reported in the newspapers and discussed at press conferences and in court briefs?
Perhaps.
Consider something that happened just before Burstyn brought The Miracle to New York.
Perhaps.
Consider something that happened just before Burstyn brought The Miracle to New York.
The Miracle's director, Roberto Rossellini, was famous as an Italian auteur and he had had an equally infamous affair with the star of his film Stromboli. That star happened to be Ingrid Bergman--famous not only for her acting, but for the roles she had been playing--film nuns.Many American Catholics had come to think of her as their favorite movie star. When they read in their fan magazines that she she was leaving her husband and son to live with Rossellini, they could only imagine that she had been seduced by the Italian director. Rossellini was reviled in the United States.[1]
And there may have been another reason--the way that Joseph Burstyn exhibited The Miracle. Because Rossellini's film was only 40 minutes long, Burstyn had to package it with other short films to make a feature-length production. He had two other short foreign films in his stable, so he looked for a common theme--love--and stitched them together. To make this theme clear, he titled the triptych Ways of Love and introduced each film with a different definition of love. The first part of Ways of Love, called A Day in the Country, was about the beginning of a love affair. Burstyn introduced this part with the definition of love as "tender and passionate affection for one of the opposite sex, also an instance of love, a love affair." The second film, Jofroi, was about a farmer's passionate devotion to his land. That film was introduced with this definition: " love of country, love of the soil, deep attachment." So far, so good. But then, to introduce Il Miracolo, Burstyn used this definition of love: "ardent affection, passionate attachment, man's adoration of God, sexual passion, gratification." [2]
Was Burstyn attempting to provoke controversy with this final defintion of love? Unfortunately, he left no documents behind, nor did he apparently speak with anyone about this who did leave documents behind, so we will probably never know, But this could explain much of the visceral reaction of the devout to exhibition of The Miracle.
[1] For an excellent treatment of this story, including several attempts to rescind exhibition licenses for Stomboli because of the Bergman scandal, see William Bruce Johnson, Miracles & Sacrilege: Roberto Rossellini, the Church, and Film Censorship in Hollywood, University of Toronto Press, 2008, 264-269.
[2] Defintions quoted in Thomas M. Pryor, The New York Times, December 3, 1950
And there may have been another reason--the way that Joseph Burstyn exhibited The Miracle. Because Rossellini's film was only 40 minutes long, Burstyn had to package it with other short films to make a feature-length production. He had two other short foreign films in his stable, so he looked for a common theme--love--and stitched them together. To make this theme clear, he titled the triptych Ways of Love and introduced each film with a different definition of love. The first part of Ways of Love, called A Day in the Country, was about the beginning of a love affair. Burstyn introduced this part with the definition of love as "tender and passionate affection for one of the opposite sex, also an instance of love, a love affair." The second film, Jofroi, was about a farmer's passionate devotion to his land. That film was introduced with this definition: " love of country, love of the soil, deep attachment." So far, so good. But then, to introduce Il Miracolo, Burstyn used this definition of love: "ardent affection, passionate attachment, man's adoration of God, sexual passion, gratification." [2]
Was Burstyn attempting to provoke controversy with this final defintion of love? Unfortunately, he left no documents behind, nor did he apparently speak with anyone about this who did leave documents behind, so we will probably never know, But this could explain much of the visceral reaction of the devout to exhibition of The Miracle.
[1] For an excellent treatment of this story, including several attempts to rescind exhibition licenses for Stomboli because of the Bergman scandal, see William Bruce Johnson, Miracles & Sacrilege: Roberto Rossellini, the Church, and Film Censorship in Hollywood, University of Toronto Press, 2008, 264-269.
[2] Defintions quoted in Thomas M. Pryor, The New York Times, December 3, 1950