Title: Léon Morin, prêtre
Authors: Melville, Jean-Pierre, 1917-1973; Ponti, Carlo, 1912-2007; Beauregard, Georges de; Belmondo, Jean-Paul, 1933-2021; Riva, Emmanuèle; Tunc, Irène, 1938-1972; Mirel, Nicole; Grimm, Gisèle; Béhar, Marco; Bertho, Monique; Heyraud, Marc.; Grégoire, Nina; Hennessy, Monique; Grant, Cédric; Lambert, George; Gozzi, Marielle; Gozzi, Patricia; Buhr, Gérard.; Vernon, Howard, 1914-1996; Solal, Martial; Raisner, Albert.; Beck, Béatrix.; Rialto Pictures LLC; Studio Canal.; Lux Compagnie cinématographique de France; Criterion Collection (Firm)
Publisher: The Criterion Collection,
Year: 2011
Subjects: Catholic Church France Clergy Drama.; Widows France Drama.; Priests Psychology Drama.; Man-woman relationships France Drama.; France History Drama.
Abstract: Life during wartime is not simply men shooting at one another, but also women tending to their children. The widow Barny is one, an office worker in a rural village in occupied France, whose child's father was a Jewish man. When genial Italians occupy the village, all is well. Then the Nazis arrive, round up and shoot the Italians, and get down to the business of rounding up Jews. Barny has her daughter baptized as a Catholic for legal certification--and also sends her to hide on a farm in the country. A communist, she takes out her anger at this subterfuge by arguing with the priest, the young Father Morin. The priest and the widow begin a series of spiritually-cum-sexually-charged dialogues. Barny's crush on Father Morin offers a place for the film to examine religious conviction, while exploring the philosophy of belief and its meaning in everyday struggle.
Contents: Opening credits -- A distant war -- Sabine -- A hasty baptism -- Inadvertent absolution -- Citizen-priest, comrade-father -- The dot and the circle -- The French race -- Spiritual adviser -- Little France -- No hard feelings -- "I'm converted" -- Blinded by jealousy -- A country priest's maid -- Change in atmosphere -- A happy childhood -- A stimulating sermon -- As a wife? -- Just one time -- Like a dead branch -- Virgin territory -- Miracles for heretics -- Color bars.