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Harvey Keitel

Fatima: When Faith Meets Facts

August 29, 2020 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

It’s no surprise that religious faith and scientific inquiry often struggle to see eye to eye. 

Historically, there has always been a tension between believing in Divine miracles and a more pragmatic approach to the world. This division serves as the core of Italian cinematographer Marco Pontecorvo’s latest film, Fatima, which delves into the plausibility of historical accounts of spiritual visions and how that affects the people involved. 

Set in 1917, Fatima tells the story of three young children in Fátima, Portugal who report seeing visions of the Virgin Mary. Committed to their stories, their revelations inspire those who believe but also anger those in power who simply cannot understand how this could have taken place. Although their opponents demand that they recant their stories, the children remain steadfast in their belief. As word spreads of their vision, tens of thousands of religious faithful flock to the site in the hopes of seeing a miracle themselves.

Co-written and directed by Pontecorvo, Fatima is an engaging drama that puts the question of faith and its relationship to history front and centre. Though the narrative moves slowly at times, Fatima wants to take its time in wrestling with the balance between truth and fiction, especially as it relates to the Divine. Beautifully shot in sweeping landscapes, Pontecorvo uses his background in cinematography to accentuate the isolation of the people of Fatima. In doing so, he also makes them small at the hands of their surroundings, visually humbling them in the face of perceived larger spiritual forces. (It’s worth noting that, in present day conversations, scenes are filmed in close proximity which has the opposite effect by giving balance to spiritual and scientific arguments.) 

Given the film’s subject matter, much of the cast does a good job playing their characters with reverence, even if it doesn’t always feel that they have much to do. However, it’s the conversation between present day Sister Lucia (Sonia Braga) and Professor Nichols (Harvey Keitel) that provides the most energy to the film.

By telling the story in flashback, Pontecorvo is able to question the validity of Sister Lucia’s claims from a distance but also with respect. As Professor Nichols continues to press her arguments, he views her stubborn refusal to admit that she has been lying with increasing contempt yet the film does not judge her. Instead, Fatima portrays her with strength and courage for holding on for her convictions. Though Nichols may not believe her claims, what matters most in Fatima is that Sister Lucia believes it. To her, this was an encounter with the Divine and it changed the course of her life (not to mention those who also were present). 

Interestingly, Sister Lucia’s confidence in the Divine seems threatening to Professor Nichols’ more practical worldview. Through his relentless interrogation, he seems bent on pushing her to ‘confess’ not to disprove her story but rather to validate his own skepticism. In other words, as he continues to press, Nichols’ dependence on what is tangible appears rooted in his own fear to acknowledge that there are things in the world that he cannot understand. This tension between the scientific and the spiritual anchors the film and showcases the challenges in finding common ground between the two points of view. (In this way, it’s also worth noting that these conversations also reflect the tone of similar discussions within our modern-day context as well.)

In the end, Fatima is an interesting look at the events surrounding the supposed miracle that took place in Portugal. However, the real power of the film lies not within the full story of the event but whether or not such events ever took place and the consequences of that, if true.

Fatima is on VOD on August 28th, 2020.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: Fatima, Goran Visnjic, Harvey Keitel, Joachim de Almeida, Marco Pontecorvo, Portugal, Sonia Braga

The Comedian – Life Isn’t Always Funny

February 3, 2017 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

The first thing to keep in mind about The Comedian is that it is not a comedy. To be sure there are spots of humor, but it is really a drama focusing on a man at odds with the world—and perhaps with himself as well.

Jackie Burke (Robert De Niro) is an aging comedian who does abusive standup comedy in clubs. He is popular with the public because of a role in a TV series many years ago. He hates that when he takes the stage crowds call out “Eddie! Eddie!”, thinking of him more as that old character than who he really is. Jackie has grown very misanthropic over the years. His comedy routines focus on insulting people. When Jackie discovers a heckler is recording the routine to put online, he assaults him, which leads to a thirty day jail term after he refuses to apologize.

After getting out of jail he must do community service. While working at a soup kitchen for the homeless he meets Harmony (Leslie Mann) who is also doing community service. Despite their difference in age, they hit it off, becoming friends. Both Jackie and Harmony have issues with family. For Jackie it is his brother Jimmy (Danny DeVito) and sister-in-law Florence (Patti LuPone). Florence is especially difficult with Jackie. Harmony struggles with her father Mac (Harvey Keitel) who has the money and connections to get her community service transferred to Florida where he owns a retirement community. After she leaves, Jackie struggles to find work and happiness.

It is often hard to like Jackie. His comedy is crude. He is just as abrasive off stage as on. His struggle to redefine himself after becoming a celebrity has been hard—and the public isn’t cooperative. Our antipathy toward Jackie is by design. We aren’t supposed to laugh at his routines. We are expected to think him boorish. Yet as the film progresses we are able to see the humanity that underlies the rough exterior. Often that happens in the midst of his comedy. While he us often rude, when in Florida trying to impress Harmony and Mac, he performs for the residents in the Senior facility. The scatological routine he develops (highlighted by singing a parody, “Making Poopie”) he is able to connect with the people. Little by little Jackie learns that even though people often love him for who they think he is more than for who he really is, there is something there to love.

Being able to love someone who is abhorrent to us is a difficult task to master. There are so many ways people build walls to protect themselves, but also isolate themselves. For Jackie, Harmony created a crack in the artifice. For many people we meet, we may need to work to discover the way in to meet the child of God within.

Photos courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: AFIFest, Danny DeVito, drama, Harvey Keitel, Leslie Mann, Patti LuPone, Robert De Niro, standup comedy, Taylor Hackford

Youth: Looking to a Shorter Future

December 10, 2015 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

SET DEL FILM "LA GIOVINEZZA" DI PAOLO SORRENTINO. NELLA FOTO MICHAEL CAINE E  HARVEY KEITEL. FOTO DI GIANNI FIORITO
“I’ve grown old without understanding how I got here.”

Youth is a meditation on what it means to have grown old. Writer/director Paolo Sorrentino (who won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for The Great Silence) says in the production notes, “The question I asked myself was, how does one look to the future when one is no longer young?” That kind of existential pondering leads to a film that deals with life as an intersection of past, present, and future, but each has its own pains, joys, and meanings.

Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) is a retired composer and conductor who is spending time at a lavish Swiss spa. He is accompanied by his assistant and daughter Lena (Rachel Weitz) whose marriage is breaking apart. Also at the spa are Fred’s longtime friend Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel), a film director trying to write (with a group of young writers) a script; Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano), a young actor who wants to be taken seriously, but of whom everyone only remembers his early role playing a robot; and an aging former soccer player whose body has betrayed him. The mixture of the aging and the young (including the spa staff) provides contrasts of what life is like at various ages. Much of the film plays out at a leisurely pace but there are stories being told.

The key conflict for both Fred and Mick is to try to understand their place in the world when so much of their life is behind them and the end of their lives seem to be growing closer. It isn’t so much a question of mortality, but of meaning. When an emissary of the queen comes to ask Fred to conduct his most famous work for her, he refuses. He doesn’t give a reason, but he is adamant. That is a part of his past that he does not want to bring to the fore. We later learn that it has a special meaning to him that he is not willing to part with. (Even when we first hear the reason, we still do not really understand. Sorrentino saves full knowledge for later.) He doesn’t seem to be concerned so much about the future as he is about the past. In fact, it bothers him that the past is abandoning him as well. He can no longer remember what his parents looked like. When memories have become what you value in your life, the natural loss of memories becomes depressing.

Michael Caine as "Fred" and Paul Dano as “Jimmy” in YOUTH. Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

Mick, on the other hand, is looking to the future. He wants the script he’s working on to be a “testament”—the culmination of his career and a special vehicle for his longtime muse Brenda Morel (Jane Fonda in one high powered scene). He has a wonderful scene with his young protégés where he has one look through the two ends of binoculars and relates that to the past and future. The future is very much pressing upon him. To lose that future would be to lose any sense of meaning in his life.

This film may not be quite as Felliniesque as The Great Beauty, but there are still similarities. The visual sense of the film still focuses on things of beauty and wonder, including the grandeur of the Alpine setting. Like The Great Beauty this film centers on searching for meaning during later years—a time when one’s attention may shift from seeking fame and fortune to remembering past glories. That takes us back to the question that Sorrentino pondered in this film: looking to the future when one is no longer young.

Michael Caine as "Fred" in YOUTH. Photo by Gianni Fiorito. © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

But while the film may spend its time with those who are growing old, its message is really for those who still look to the future whether they are young or old. That is also a theme that is spoken to in Ecclesiastes:

Even those who live for many years should rejoice in them all; yet let them remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgement.

Banish anxiety from your mind, and put away pain from your body; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. (Ecclesiastes 11:7ff, NRSV)

Ecclesiastes can be seen as a dark wisdom that seems to find life meaningless. But often that darkness is where meaning reveals itself. In Youth there is both darkness and light. And in the interplay between the darkness and light, and the past and the future, the search for meaning goes on.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: Ecclesiastes, Harvey Keitel, Michael Caine, Paolo Sorrentino, Paul Dano, Rachel Weitz

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