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The Catholic Spectator: Cinema and the Church in France in the 1920s

2012; Routledge; Volume: 32; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439685.2012.727338

1465-3451

Cristiana-Georgiana IONIȚĂ,

European Political History Analysis

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Notes 1 On this scandal and the role played by French far-right groups, see Paul Hammond, L’Age d’Or (London, 1997). 2 David Duez traces the history of this anecdote in: Pour en finir avec une rumeur: du nouveau sur le scandale de l’Âge d’or, 1895(32) (2000), http://1895.revues.org/119, last accessed July 20, 2012. 3 See especially Roland Cosandey, André Gaudreault and Tom Gunning (eds) Une Invention du diable? Cinéma des premiers temps et religion (Sainte-Foy, 1992); Pierre Véronneau, Le Fascinateur et la Bonne Presse: des médias catholiques pour publics francophones, 1895(40) (2003), 25–40; Michel Lagrée, La Bénédiction de Prométhée. Religion et technologie XIXe-XXe siècle (Paris, 1999), 292–298. 4 Projections et Eglises, La Vie au Patronage, February 1926, 31. 5 For instance Louis Jalabert, Le Film corrupteur, Études, 169 (1921), 16–40; Édouard Poulain, Contre le cinéma école du vice et du crime, pour le cinéma école d’éducation, moralisation et vulgarisation (Besançon, 1917). On the anxieties provoked by crime films, see Richard Abel, The thrills of the ‘Grande Peur’: crime series and serials in the Belle Epoque, Velvet Light Trap, 37 (1996), 3–9. 6 On social apostolate, see Bruno Duriez (ed.), Les Catholiques dans la République, 1905–2005 (Paris, 2005). 7 Articles on the C.C.C. usually insisted on this national impact; see for instance the presentation from the annual directory Le Tout Cinéma, 1928, 164. However, the C.C.C. attracted international attention and led to the creation of the International Catholic Office for Cinema (l’Office catholique international du cinéma). Established in 1928, it continues to exist today in Brussels. 8 Louis Jalabert, Les Catholiques et le problème du cinéma. Autour d’un récent congrès, Etudes (1928), 549–566. 9 On the geography of this Catholic network, see Dimitri Vezyroglou, Les Catholiques, le cinéma et la conquête des masses: le tournant de la fin des années 1920, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 51(4) (2004), 115–134, especially 121–124. 10 On the political status of the Church during the Third Republic, see Gérard Cholvy and Yves-Marie Hilaire, Histoire Religieuse de la France Contemporaine, 1880–1930, vol. II (Toulouse, 1985–1986). 11 Films ou salles? Dossiers du cinéma 16 (1929), 1. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. 12 Jean Morienval, Orientations, Dossiers du cinéma, 1 (1927), 5. 13 Ultramontanism literally meant ‘from beyond the mountains,’ pointing to the Vatican as the highest authority. See Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism: 1780–1914 (London, 1989), 242–265; Christopher Clark, The new Catholicism and the European culture wars, in: Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser (eds), Culture Wars Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, 2003), 11–46. 14 J. Dassonville, Les Catholiques et le Cinéma, Dossiers du cinéma 1 (1927), 6–7. 15 Notre Critique des Films, Dossiers du cinéma 1 (1927), 9. 16 The current French film-rating system sanctioned by the Ministry of Culture has three age-based categories in addition to the U rating (all audiences): films unsuitable for children younger than 12, 16 and 18. TV shows and DVDs have an additional category for children younger than 10. 17 See Gérard Cholvy (ed.), Le Patronage, ghetto ou vivier? Colloque des 11 et 12 mars 1987 (Paris, 1988) and Henry Phillips, Le Théâtre catholique en France au XXe siècle en France (Paris, 2007). 18 Dominique Dessertine and Bernard Maradan, Patronages catholiques, patronages laïques entre les deux guerres: Les enjeux de la socialisation des enfants, Cahiers d’histoire, 47(1) (2002), http://ch.revues.org/index446.html, last accessed January 12, 2012. Mélisande Leventopoulos offers a quantitative analysis of Parisian Catholic audiences in Fidèles au spectacle: Les Catholiques parisiens, un public en formation (1927–1939), Conserveries mémorielles 12 (2012), http://cm.revues.org/1225, last accessed July 20, 2012. 19 Raymond Borde and Charles Perrin. Les Offices du cinéma éducateur et la survivance du muet (1925–1940) (Lyon, 1992). My broader project compares these Offices with the C.C.C. 20 Chronique lumineuse, La Vie au Patronage, October 1926, 309–312. 21 La Vie au Patronage, a magazine dedicated to Catholic youth clubs, reprinted reviews from Dossiers and sometimes revisited this question of the distinction between P and S. See for instance Chronique Lumineuse, La Vie au Patronage, December 1927, 422. 22 On the history of Catholic charity, see Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism: 1780–1914, 216–218 and Gérard Cholvy, L’homme et la femme d’œuvres, Les Catholiques dans la République, 1905–2005, 217–224. 23 Le Choix des Films, Rapport du R.P. Dassonville, Dossiers du cinéma 25 (1929), 428. 24 Jules Michelet's Le Prêtre, la femme et la famille (1861) was one of the first books to attack the interference of clerics in family life. Historians have recently reexamined women's relationship with religion and argued that religious life gave them more freedom to define their social role; see for instance Caroline Ford, Divided Houses: religion and gender in modern France (Ithaca, 2005). 25 In La Mère au travail et le retour au foyer (1931), Baudouin asked that housework be seen as a profession. In Dossiers she published articles from the perspective of mothers, such as L’inquiétude des Mères, Dossiers du cinéma 2 (1927), 57–58. 26 The term ‘familial feminism’ comes from Karen Offen, Depopulation, nationalism, and feminism in fin-de-siècle France, The American Historical Review, 89(3) (1984), 648–676 and Defining feminism: a comparative historical approach, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14(1) (1988), 119–157. On the Catholic definition of the family, see Susan Pedersen, Catholicism, feminism, and the politics of the family during the late Third Republic, in: Seth Koven and Sonya Michel (eds), Mothers of a New World: maternalist politics and the origins of welfare states (New York, 1993), 246–276; Anne Cova, Au service de l’église, de la patrie et de la famille: femmes catholiques et maternité sous la IIIe République (Paris, 2000). 27 Notre Critique des Films, Dossiers du cinéma 1 (1927), 9. 28 Dossiers du cinéma 9 (1928), 224. 29 Dossiers du cinéma 17 (1929), 66. 30 Dossiers du cinéma 20 (1929), 189. 31 Dossiers du cinéma 21 (1929), 252. 32 Dossiers du cinéma 20 (1929), 185 and 188. 33 Frank Walsh, Sin and Censorship: the Catholic church and the motion picture industry (New Haven, CT, 1996); Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Censored: morality codes, Catholics, and the movies (Cambridge, 1994). 34 The bibliography on family and melodrama is extensive. See for instance the influential essays by Thomas Elsaesser,Tales of sound and fury: observations on the family melodrama, and Linda Williams, ‘Something else besides a mother’: Stella Dallas and maternal melodrama, both in Marcia Landy (ed.), Imitations of Life: A Reader on Film and Television Melodrama (Detroit, 1991), 8–92 and 307–330. Note also Heide Schlüpmann's distinction between melodrama (reactionary) and social drama (emancipatory) in The Uncanny Gaze: the drama of early German cinema, trans. Inga Pollmann (Urbana, IL, 2010). 35 As the film seems to have been lost, the following account is based on reviews from Catholic newspapers and the trade press. 36 On L’Ermite's trajectory, see Yves Poncelet, ‘Pierre L’Ermite’ (1863–1959), un apôtre du cinéma à l’âge du muet, Vingtième siècle, 93 (2007), 165–182. 37 Pierre L’Ermite, A Dieu vat!, La Croix, April 26–27, 1925, 1. 38 Pierre L’Ermite, En pleine pâte, La Croix, January 10–11, 1926, 1. 39 Ibid. 40 L’Ermite, A Dieu vat!, La Croix, April 26–27, 1925, 1 and Un prêtre au cinéma, Les Spectacles, July 3, 1925, 14. 41 Pierre L’Ermite, Le cinéma, La Croix, June 2–3, 1925. 42 Dossiers du cinéma 2, 1927, 108. 43 Comment j’ai tué mon enfant, La Rampe, May 17, 1925, 15. 44 Jean Delumeau studies this ‘pastorale de la peur’ in La Peur en Occident, XIVe-XVIIIe siècles: une cité assiégée (Paris, 1978). 45 Le cinéma tout court, le cinéma tout entier, conférence par M. le chanoine Reymond, Dossiers du cinéma 14 (1928), 135–137. 46 The film is also known as Credo ou la Tragédie de Lourdes, but articles from the time of its release only refer to it as La Tragédie de Lourdes. 47 Pierre L’Ermite, Un film, La Croix, November 18–19, 1923, 1. 48 For an overview of his career, see Alan Williams, Republic of Images: a history of French filmmaking (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 192–198. On Duvivier's right-wing politics, see Simon P. Sibelman, Jewish myths and stereotypes in the cinema of Julien Duvivier, in: Sue Harris and Elizabeth Ezra (eds), France in Focus: film and national identity (Oxford, 2000), 79–96 and David Henry Slavin, Colonial Cinema and Imperial France, 1919–1939: white blind spots, male fantasies, settler myths (Baltimore, MD, 2001), 135–184. 49. See for instance a letter by Duvivier to the newspaper Bonsoir, quoted in the conservative Catholic magazine Romans-revue, January 15, 1925, 74–75. 50. L’Ermite, Un film, La Croix, November 18–19, 1923, 1. 51. Dossiers du cinéma, 9 (1928), 246; Pierre L’Ermite, Un film, La Croix, November 18–19, 1923, 1. 52. Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, melodrama, and the mode of excess (New Haven, CT, 1976). Brooks’ work has been very influential in film studies. 53. G. Michel Coissac discusses Ben Hur’s reception in France in: L’évolution du cinématographe et la réalisation de quelques grands films, Le Tout Cinéma (1929), 15–32. On the novel Ben Hur and its theatrical and cinematic adaptations, see Michel Cieutat, Ben-Hur, une bible américaine, Positif (February 2000), 91–96. See also Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By … (New York, 1968), 179–188 and 385–414. 54. Although it was produced in 1925, Ben Hur was released in France in 1927 and was thus eligible for this contest. Notre Concours. Les Meilleurs Films de 1928, Cinéa-Ciné pour tous, March 1, 1929, 6. On Cinéa-Ciné pour tous see Bruno Quattrone, Regards sur Cinéa-Ciné pour tous, 1923–1932, 1895(15) (1993), 31–55. 55. Pierre L’Ermite, Ben Hur, La Croix, June 26–27, 1927, 1. 56. For the reaction of French Catholic prelates to DeMille's The Ten Commandments, see La Vie au Patronage, January 15, 1925, 218–219. For their response to King of Kings, see La Vie au Patronage, February 1928, 124–125 and December 1928, 448; and for Ben Hur, La Vie au Patronage, Chronique, February 1928, 33–34. 57. For instance, Jean Morienval sur l’action des images mouvantes, La Vie au Patronage, February 1927, 377–378 and Jean Morienval, Orientations, Dossiers du cinéma 1 (1927), 5. 58. For questions related to Judaism and the Biblical epic in the United States, see Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans, Biblical Epics: sacred narrative in the Hollywood cinema (Manchester, 1993), 33–41. For an overview of French Catholic antisemitism, see Robert Michael, A History of Catholic Antisemitism: the dark side of the church (New York, 2008), 119–144. 59. Les Romans, Revue des lectures, July 15, 1927, 702–704. 60. In Biblical Epics, Babington and Evans argue that there are thematic and stylistic differences between the three sub-genres of the Biblical epic: the Roman/Christian epic (Ben Hur), the Old Testament epic (The Ten Commandments), and the Christ film (King of Kings). On the role of Passion-play films in early cinema, see Noël Burch, Life to Those Shadows, trans. Ben Brewster (London, 1990), 143–161. See also the essays on the Passion film in Roland Cosandey, André Gaudreault and Tom Gunning (eds), Une Invention du diable ?, 91–144. 61. Les Romans, Revue des lectures, July 15, 1927, 702–704. 62. An article in the first issue of Dossiers discusses the debate sparked by Ben Hur as proof that it is difficult to interpret artistic intentions, J.R., Les Difficultés de la Critique, Dossiers du cinéma 1 (1927), 8. 63. Pierre L’Ermite Ben Hur, La Croix, June 26–27, 1927, 1. 64. Paul Saint-Hugon, Glanes d’un chroniquer, Le Correspondant, August 1927, 456–464. 65. Ibid. 66. Richard Abel, French Cinema: the first wave, 1915–1929 (Princeton, NJ, 1984), 161–162. 67. On Joan's status at the time, see Michel Winock, Joan of Arc, in: Pierre Nora (ed.), Realms of Memory: the construction of the French past, volume 3 (New York, 1998), 433–482. 68. For more on these attacks, see Maurice Drouzy, Jeanne d’Arc livrée aux bourreaux, Cinématographe, 111 (1985), 62–67; Robin Blaetz, Joan of Arc and the cinema, in: Dominique Goy-Blanquet (ed.), Joan of Arc, A Saint for All Reasons: studies in myth and politics (Aldershot, 2003), 143–174. 69. Echos et communiqués, Cinéa-Ciné pour tous, August 15, 1927, 31; La merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d’Arc, fille de Lorraine, Les Spectacles, April 22, 1927, 12. 70. Jeanne d’Arc à l’Opéra, Le Petit Parisien, April 20, 1929, 5. 71. Maurice Drouzy, Carl Th. Dreyer, né Nilsson (Paris, 1982), 239–265. 72. Léon Moussinac, Le nouveau procès de ‘Jeanne d’Arc’, L’Humanité, November 2, 1928, 4; Gustave Cauvin, Résister. Rapport sur l'activité et le développement de l'Office régional du cinéma éducateur de Lyon en 1929 (Lyon, 1930), 234. 73. Chronique Lumineuse, La Vie au Patronage, December 1928, 448. 74. For a detailed analysis of the film, see David Bordwell, The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer (Berkeley, CA, 1981), 66–116 and his Filmguide to La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Bloomington, IN, 1973). For a perspective from religious studies, see Melanie J. Wright, Religion and Film: an introduction (London, New York, 2007), 33–54. 75. Jean Mitry, Histoire du cinéma: Art et industrie, 1923–1930, vol. 3 (Paris, 1973), 342–395; Charles O’Brien, Rethinking national cinema: Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc and the academic aesthetic, Cinema Journal, 35(4) (1996), 3–30; Abel, French Cinema, 196–199. 76. Notre Concours des meilleurs films de 1929, Cinéa-Ciné pour tous, March 1930, 41. The Jazz Singer was number one that year because it had been widely released in France only in 1929. 77. André Lang, Deux Jeanne d’Arc, La Femme de France, May 26, 1929, 22. 78. Dossiers du cinéma 20 (1929), 190. 79. Ibid. 80. Dossiers du cinéma 12 (1928), 30. 81. Ibid. 82. Raymond Vilette, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, Le Gaulois, October 29, 1928, 4. 83. Sacha, Ce que le public en pense, Cinéa-Ciné pour tous, January 15, 1929, 12. 84. Ibid. 85. Bordwell, Filmguide to La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, 68. 86. Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: the time-image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (Minneapolis, MN, 1989), 172; emphasis in the original. 87. The term ‘commercial avant-garde’ comes from Kristin Thompson, National or international films? The European debate during the 1920s, Film History 8 (1996), 281–296. 88. One notable exception was Gance's J’Accuse, which received a D because of its anti-war stance—the Great War being a crucial moment of redemption in the French Catholic imagination. 89. Vezyroglou, Les Catholiques, le cinéma et la conquête des masses, 119–120. 90. Dr. Paul Ramain, Les idées derrière l’écran. De l’expression musicale et onirique du Cinéma, Cinéa-Ciné pour tous, March 1, 1926, 9–10. 91. See for instance A. Ayfre, Postface: cinéma et transcendance, Le Cinéma et le sacre, Henri Agel and A. Ayfre (Paris, 1953), 111–137. 92. Dudley Andrew discusses Ayfre's work in The Major Film Theories: an introduction (London, 1976), 242–254. 93. Corinne Bonafoux traces the history of Catholic organizations dedicated to cinema in: Les Catholiques français devant le cinéma entre désir et impuissance. Essai d’une histoire du public catholique, Cahiers d’études du religieux. Recherches interdisciplinaires, Special Issue (2012), http://cerri.revues.org/1073, last accessed July 20, 2012. See also Marcel Béguin, Le Cinéma et l’Église. 100 ans d’histoire(s) en France (Paris, Les Fiches du cinéma, 1995), 96–100.