Six Films About Devout Christianity Even a Godless Heathen Could Love

SCREEN

By Matt Prigge

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Oct. 31, 2007

Into Great Silence

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): Most films about religion tend to be either lavish, lumbering Cecil B. DeMille epics or cynical propaganda, like the Left Behinds or the numerous pious indies that sneak into theaters each year. Movies like Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent classic thoughtfully explore the act of faith--or in this case, one extremely photogenic woman's almost inhumanly unwavering belief, even as she undergoes an assault of close-ups of imperious, scowling men.

Diary of a Country Priest (1951): The first Robert Bresson film in the Robert Bresson style--stripped-down, detailed and monk-like--was this study of a closed-off ailing pastor who struggles, but never quite loses his faith in an interminably unanswering God.

Ordet (1955): Now working with sound, Dreyer--religion's bestest cinematic friend, if you couldn't tell--adapts Kaj Munk's play about a family whose faith runs the spectrum, from atheist to a probably insane brother who thinks he's the reincarnation of Jesus. Religion has rarely been explored as fully, culminating in a moment so well executed it may briefly convert atheists into believers (but only till the credits roll).

The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964): No doubt many priests are pissed that one of the best, deepest felt and most socially conscious tellings of the Bible was made by Pier Paolo Pasolini--not merely the director of the notorious Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom but also a committed Marxist, and therefore an atheist. Whoops!

Breaking the Waves (1996): A devout Scottish woman (Emily Watson) struggles to make herself a martyr because she believes it's God's plan. No shock, surely, that Lars von Trier's biggest cinematic hero is Carl Theodor Dreyer.

Into Great Silence (2006): Newly out on DVD, Philip Gr�ning's doc spends nearly three very quiet and hypnotic hours invading the Alpine digs of the highly ascetic, undrinkable-liqueur-brewing Chartreuse monks, spying on them as they pray, roll rosary beads and sweep halls. Sound boring? You'll see God.