He did encounter some difficulty, ironically, with a specifically religious film. Wastag doesn't get to see as many films as he would like and is put off by high ticket prices. But he reads reviews and rents movies as soon as they hit the Blockbuster shelves. Since then, Oscar has been kind to those playing roles in religiously themed films. And in 1961, Burt Lancaster took home a statuette for playing the fictional evangelist Elmer Gantry.
Contemporary films are more likely to approach religion as a subplot or background story.
Though Wastag did not have enough participants to hold a recently scheduled cinema retreat, he wants to conduct them in the future. It's the human side of such movies that intrigues the priest. Charles Austin covers religion for The Record. Bergen Record Corp.