Jesuit Father knows movies and directors best

The Interview, a regular feature of The Catholic New World, is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

FADE IN: EXT. LOYOLA UNIVERSITY — DAY
A sunlit slender, silver-haired man strides toward the Crown Center, a university building.
The man, JESUIT FATHER GENE PHILLIPS, film historian and professor of English at Loyola, opens the exterior door.

INT. CROWN CENTER
Phillips walks past a young man in the lobby toward a receptionist.
He turns back toward the visitor.

“I thought it might be you,” Phillips says to Catholic New World staff writer Michael D. Wamble. “But I was looking for your photographer.”
Images are important for this academician. He knows that a picture can be worth 1,000 words (or more).

Many words on pictures have been penned by this priest on what Alfred Hitchcock used to refer to as the “ci-NEE-mah” and its directors from Jesuit-educated Hitchcock (“Psycho,” “I Confess”) to the late Stanley Kubrick (“Lolita,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “Eyes Wide Shut”).

For the past 30 years, Phillips has taught film studies throughout the United States.

Films have always played a special role in the screenplay of his life since…

FLASHBACK: PENNSYLVANIA MOVIE PALACE — 1940s
A grandfather, father and son sit side by side by side before the silver screen.

“My grandfather was legally deaf and blind, yet when we visited him during the summer, the three of us, three generations, would go to the movies,” said Phillips. “That let me know there must be something important about movies.”

Others might find it odd that this Ohio native’s love for film continued and even deepened after answering his priestly vocation call. A once-over of film history documents that the Catholic Church long has played a part in American cinema.

While a historian, Phillip’s thoughts about film aren’t freeze-framed in the past.

He can be heard frequently offering his opinions on current releases on radio and TV broadcasts in Chicago.

Catholic New World: Was “American Beauty” the best picture of 1999?
Father Gene Phillips: Yes. And it was an interesting choice. “American Beauty” very much follows the vision of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” in examining how people pursue the American Dream. There is the idea that if you have the right social status and wealth you’ll be happy. But, as in the movie, you see with Kevin Spacey’s character [Lester Burnham] the right amount of money and the right social status isn’t always enough. He has both, but he’s still unhappy.

CNW: Many groups, including, it was reported, Academy Award voters, objected to Lester’s lust over a teen-aged girl. Is that criticism too narrowly focused?
FGP: It’s easy to stop there, but I think more analysis is required. His actions toward this girl, in the movie, are less about sex than about showing a regression back to his youth. These are not mature responses he’s acting out. What he [Lester] does is the adolescent thing to do. At the same time, the movie also questions the notion of the importance of material worth. The film has depth and a purpose, unlike “The Cider House Rules.”

CNW: So you don’t view “The Cider House Rules” as a coming-of-age film?
FGP: If “The Cider House Rules” is a coming-of-age film, it is in all the wrong ways. It turns moral values upside down.
John Irving’s screenplay is an attempt to create a sympathetic abortionist. He only aborts when it’s the only possible alternative. Hasn’t that always been the argument to make and keep abortion legal? A film that glorifies an abortionist, portraying him as a nice, friendly old codger is perverse.
And how is the movie’s main conflict resolved? A young man, who has no medical license, decides to continue the work of performing abortions. How is that inspirational?
For myself, and I think for others, it’s quite a surprise to see [that] Michael Caine, who acted in an anti-abortion film in the 1960s, “Alfie,” now would play a general practitioner who is a hero because he performs abortions. It’s unacceptable.
Now, I didn’t mind the Oscar going to Caine for his performance, but when the screenplay won that bothered me because it seemed to endorse the message of the movie.

CNW: Still, at least among Catholics, it was seen as the second most offensive flick last year next to director Kevin Smith’s controversial movie “Dogma.” Is it fair to describe “Dogma” as yet another example of Hollywood’s growing anti-Catholic bias?
FGP: Not really. I was part of a television station’s discussion of the controversy coming from the film. They played a taped comment from one of its stars, Ben Affleck. It was interesting because what Affleck said was that when “Dogma” was scheduled to be released, he thought Protestants would be upset because the film is so Catholic. In a way, he’s right. Its filmmaker [Smith] is a practicing Catholic who, when you look at the movie past its silly humor, comes out in favor of the Catholic Church because it suggests that Catholicism is the one true religion. Other than that, the treatment of real issues within the movie is so lightweight that it doesn’t seem to invite true theological reflection. But I don’t think the film was meant to necessarily embarrass the church.

CNW: When the protests by the Catholic League [for Civil Rights] and other factions began over the film, Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert issued a statement that said such protests “will only serve to give the movie undeserved and unmerited attention.”
FGP: I certainly believe that more people became aware of the film because of the protests.
What I do know is that a lot of young people went to see that film [“Dogma”]. And among students and other young people, it prompted discussion on religious topics. It prompted young people to ask themselves, “What do I believe? And why do I believe this?” It also sparked dialogue. You can’t say “Stigmata,” a movie I found to be blasphemous, did that.
I don’t intend to be critical of the Catholic League, but I would have hoped that groups like it would have chosen to picket “Stigmata” rather than “Dogma” because “Stigmata” is perverse. It confuses having the stigmata, the gift of Christ’s wounds, with diabolical possession.
It’s also very anti-clerical. There is a scene in the movie in which a cardinal, a prince of the church, finds a priest in bed with a girl, and decides to kill her to avoid public scandal. I just don’t understand that.

CNW: It’s certainly not the type of fare that could have been produced under the watchful eye of the Legion of Decency. Or at least that’s the perception many have of the Legion.
FGP: I think that’s right. That is the perception. But that’s not accurate.
Many people think the bishops’ conference founded the Legion of Decency to rate films for the American public. That was not the case. It was for Catholics. But because there was no other ratings systems, the industry understood that other people would use it. Hollywood studios began to seek positive ratings from the Legion to ensure that Catholics and others would go to see their films.
But the Legion never practiced censorship and had no power to censor films.
As years went on, the ratings [coming from the Legion] became benign. There weren’t as many negative ratings. That was because there was a progression in the role of the Legion of Decency from protecting a mostly immigrant flock to informing the flock, particularly parents, of the story content so that they could make informed choices. In the 1960s, the Legion stated that while some films were good films, like “Lolita,” they were for adults.

CNW: “Lolita” was directed by the late Stanley Kubrick, whose last film, “Eyes Wide Shut” was recently released on video and DVD. What happened with that film, commercially and critically?
FGP: The problem was it was presented as a Tom Cruise film. People weren’t prepared to see what was shown on the screen. It doesn’t fit that taste.
I must fault Warner Brothers [the studio that produced “Eyes Wide Shut”] for giving the impression that there is a lot of flesh in the film. There is not. The film then was labeled as a sexy film rather than a thought provoking film.
Although America [Magazine] didn’t like it, the reviews published in The National Jesuit News and other religious magazines correctly identify the film as a story of the trust between a husband and a wife being violated. It is a film that shows us a confession and people asking for forgiveness from one another. It is a film that has a sacramental moment toward its end.
When you look at “Eyes Wide Shut,” I think it comes out four square for marriage.
In film history, I would compare it to “La Dolce Vita,” because like [Federico] Fellini, Kubrick was trying to take the temperature of a sick society. He was trying to show that even where people might think there are high moral values, among the wealthy, there can also be depravity.
Cardinal Montini of Milan, prior to becoming Paul VI, defended “La Dolce Vita” at a time it was being attacked. He stated that it was a serious attempt to investigate issues with a deep moral purpose. I think in time the same will be said of “Eyes Wide Shut.”

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