Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast

Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) bring us back to a very different period in American culture, where the immensely popular singer Bing Crosby could make a movie playing a priest of essentially spotless character, and that movie could win six Oscars and be popular enough to get a sequel with the same character.
But is that enough to make a great Catholic film, or to make midcentury Hollywood a model of what edifying cinema should be?
These films, both directed by the great Leo McCarey, are entertaining to be sure, and heartwarming in their way. But as a portrayal of the Catholic Church and the priesthood, they are pretty shallow – holding up as ideal a young, hip priest because he sings, plays ball with the kids, and is kind and charismatic, without anything particularly spiritual about his actions or motives. A New Yorker review at the time said these films portrayed the Church "as a kind of settlement house where good works and jollity provide a lively substitute for religion".
While we can enjoy these films for what they were, when we talk about a Catholic movie today, we are looking for something with more existential heft, spiritual and artistic depth, rather than something which pleases us simply because it portrays the Church in a positive and sentimental light (but in a way that is in no way challenging to the culture). In retrospect, these films remind us of the dangers of a too-Americanized religion, and indicate that the Catholic influence on midcentury Hollywood, celebrated with much nostalgia by some today, was fairly shallow to begin with.
Links
Watch The Bells of St. Mary's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPkBwJiN4-M
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Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com

In the 1996 British comedy-drama Secrets & Lies, Hortense, a young middle-class black woman in London, having lost both of her adoptive parents, decides to seek out her biological mother - who turns out to be a working-class white woman named Cynthia.
Director Mike Leigh is known for collaborating in depth with his actors to create vivid, deeply realized characters and performances. Secrets & Lies is an outstanding specimen of a lost genre: a kitchen-sink drama that relies entirely on its rich humanity to keep us watching. Andrew Petiprin joins Criteria to discuss the movie.
Links
Spe Salvi Institute https://www.spesalviinstitute.com/
Article about the displacement of Cockneys, "Indigenous London" https://firstthings.com/indigenous-london/
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Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com

James, Thomas, and Nathan Douglas conclude their journey through Terrence Malick's filmography (thus far) with a discussion of the film that introduced him to many Catholics: A Hidden Life, about the Austrian martyr Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, who was killed for refusing to swear loyalty to Hitler. Coming after Malick's avant-garde phase of the Weightless Trilogy, A Hidden Life is a more conventional narrative but retains much of the stylistic and formal development of his past few films.
Links
Original episode on A Hidden Life https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-58-hidden-life-film-review-w-james-majewski/
 New Polity podcast on Bl. Franz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD04XvxBLkE
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 Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com

Anthony D'Ambrosio directed, wrote, and produced the outstanding new film Triumph of the Heart about St. Maximilian Kolbe. In this inspiring interview, he discusses the difficult path he and his team charted to produce this independent film with a low budget, high artistic standards, and deep Catholic spirituality.
Film is an expensive medium. Since a high budget requires one to calculate mainstream appeal in order to make one's money back, a low budget can leave more room for artistic and spiritual integrity. Though the production faced many hardships, it was buoyed up by the hope that the project could break a new path for other Catholic filmmakers to follow.
Triumph of the Heart is available to screen at your parish, and will start streaming on its official website November 1.
Links
Show Triumph of the Heart at your parish https://www.triumphoftheheart.com/
Our review of Triumph of the Heart https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/triumph-heart-is-film-worthy-its-subject-st-maximilian-kolbe/
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Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com

Roberto Rossellini's 1946 World War II film Paisan has a unique structure: six vignettes following the American troops north from their landing in Sicily through Naples, Rome, Florence, Romagna, and the Po Delta. However, the film takes the perspective of the Italians, with the Americans more often than not naive outsiders. It is a fascinating exploration of the clash of cultures in the tragic scenarios of war and foreign occupation. One segment in particular will be very interesting to Catholics: an American priest serving as an army chaplain visits a Franciscan monastery along with his Protestant and Jewish chaplain counterparts and encounters a more intense and less ecumenical religiosity than he is accustomed to.
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Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com