James improvises an impassioned dramatic monologue about the inadequacies of Joel Coen's new adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Orson Welles's 1948 version, he argues, is aesthetically similar but far superior. Thomas sits and listens. Watch the Orson Welles Macbeth: https://archive.org/details/macbeth.-1948.-orson.-welles.-103-min

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This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

In the 50th episode of Criteria, James and Thomas finally conclude their look at Dekalog, the series of short films inspired by the Ten Commandments which Krzysztof Kieslowski made for Polish television in the late 1980s.

Kieslowski concludes his notoriously bleak series on a (slightly) lighter note, the Tenth Commandment against coveting thy neighbor's goods providing plenty of opportunities to poke fun at human silliness. The absurdity is compounded when the thing being coveted is a stamp collection.

Though Dekalog: Ten begins with one of its main characters singing a song that encourages the breaking of all 10 commandments, with the refrain "everything is yours", in this episode the protagonists are less the chief transgressors against the tenth commandment than they are stuck in a world shaped by the covetousness of those around them.

These two brothers inherit a valuable stamp collection from their father, who neglected them in order to pursue his obsession. Along with the stamps they inherit, for a dangerous moment, his vice of covetousness, and in doing so, come to understand that that he craved was not so much the stamps as the escape from all problems and responsibilities provided by this juvenile quest.

Thus the final Dekalog film continues the series' continual examination of the sins of fathers, and through this subject matter, Kieslowski's preoccupation with the terrible responsibility of human freedom and the stark consequences our actions have in the lives of others. For nobody has more responsibility than a father.

In this case, the sons find some degree of reconciliation with the dead father who wounded them - or at least, they arrive at understanding through solidarity in weakness. The film's rueful observation is that we often understand and compassionate our parents only after falling into their same vices.

Watch this discussion on YouTube:

Dekalog can be difficult to find. It can be streamed online with a (relatively cheap and surprisingly legal) subscription to https://easterneuropeanmovies.com—the best viewing experience, however, will be the recent restored edition on Blu-Ray/DVD from Criterion. https://www.criterion.com/films/28661-dekalog

Older editions on Blu-Ray and DVD are available for considerably cheaper on Amazon and elsewhere, and you may have luck borrowing Dekalog from your local library.

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This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Jean-Louis, 34-year-old Catholic engineer, lives a quiet life studying mathematics and reading Pascal. One day, he sees a beautiful girl, Francoise, at Mass and decides he will marry her. But this pursuit is interrupted when he spends the night before Christmas at the apartment of a seductive divorcee, the atheist Maud, who tests his moral code.

First Things senior editor Matthew Schmitz joins the podcast to discuss Catholic director Eric Rohmer's highly influential 1969 breakout film. My Night at Maud's is the fourth entry in Rohmer's series Six Moral Tales.

Extensive moral dialogues have never been so masterfully directed and acted; the film is fully entertaining though packed with ideas. Is Catholicism just a moral code or something more? Is sainthood for everyone? How do we recognize God's grace in the chance happenings of life? What is true conversion?

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mAeBRM5ky7U

Links

Matthew Schmitz on Rohmer, "The Anti-Romantic" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/the-anti-romantic

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This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

If you haven't seen Chariots of Fire, the classic movie about a Christian and a Jew competing in the 1924 Olympics, you've heard its iconic and much-parodied musical theme. The film offers quite a bit to chew on not just in its primary themes of conscience and using one's gifts for God's glory, but also regarding the importance of the amateur spirit, how sport can be properly integrated into education and life as a whole, and how a great civilization must value the achievements of those who came before.

Chariots of Fire is included on the Vatican's film list under the category of Values.

Thomas and James discuss the film with actor, director and producer Peter Atkinson. Peter is the director of the Merry Beggars, Relevant Radio's new entertainment division, which is launching with a 25-day "Advent calendar" production of A Christmas Carol.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vSXDOqRvFd8

Links

The Merry Beggars https://themerrybeggars.com/

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This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

A knight returning home from the Crusades gets into a chess match with Death. Ingmar Bergman's most famous film, The Seventh Seal, is a searing meditation on death, faith, and the silence of God. But it's far more colorful and entertaining than you might expect from that description.

James and Thomas are joined by Irish journalist Ruadhan Jones as they try to figure out whether The Seventh Seal is basically nihilistic, and why it might have been included on the Vatican film list under the category of "Values". Ruadhan offers some thoughts on the Marian dimension he believes is missing from Bergman's approach to faith.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RoM6B0Vaz50

Links

Ruadhan Jones https://twitter.com/ruadhanj

The Catholic Index https://thecatholicindex.wordpress.com/home/

Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

After being diagnosed with permanent impotence, a husband begins to suspect his wife is having an affair. This is the ninth installment of Kieslowski's Dekalog, a Polish film series inspired by the Ten Commandments.

The writers of this series yet again return to the theme of weak husbands and fathers failing to claim their rights and therefore to fulfil their duties - in this case, a husband who does not protect the exclusive fidelity of the marriage bond.

But central to the episode is the question of whether love and sex can be separated in marriage - as well as sex and procreation. It suggests that when a married couple chooses not to have children, the door is opened to other kinds of selfishness as well.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/S8tuHErUFeQ

Links

Dekalog 50% off at Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-dekalog/35930490?ean=0715515185615

Pius XI, Casti Connubii audiobook https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/pope-pius-xi-casti-connubii-on-christian-marriage-pt-1/

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This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Fr. Brendon Laroche joins Thomas to review Denis Villeneuve's film Dune: Part One. Fr. Brendon, who knows the original novel by Frank Herbert well, gives his thoughts on how the film fares as an adaptation, and on what Catholics ought to make of the religious elements of Herbert's novel.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8wB7-jPIHPM

Links

Discussion of Catholic sci-fi author Gene Wolfe with Fr. Brendon https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-77-gene-wolfe-catholic-sci-fi-legend-sandra-miesel-fr-brendon-laroche/

Fr. Brendon on Twitter https://twitter.com/padrebrendon

Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation is a landmark of world cinema and arguably gave birth to Hollywood on an economic level. A technical masterpiece said to have established the grammar of cinema, it is also an astonishingly racist film (and was considered so even in 1915), portraying black people as subhuman and the Ku Klux Klan as civilization-saving heroes.

Griffith's follow-up, Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages, was even more ambitious, telling four stories in four different time periods: the fall of Babylon, the life and passion of Christ, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and a modern love story. While the film condemns intolerance, it is not Griffith's apology for Birth of a Nation, but rather his self-defense against his critics.

In this episode James and Thomas discuss both films, trying to understand what sort of artist Griffith was and what his Founding Father status in Hollywood history might tell us about cinema as a medium of entertainment and emotional manipulation.

The Birth of a Nation is an exceedingly well-crafted but fundamentally immoral work which offers some food for thought about the power of cinematic rhetoric. Intolerance is included in the Values category of the Vatican film list, but James and Thomas find it to be an incoherent, empty spectacle whose attempt to attribute all of human tragedy to the single vice of "intolerance" falls laughably flat. (And it also has its immoral side, if less fundamentally.)

We hate to say it, but the earlier film is the superior one on the level of storytelling craft. If you don't want to choose between racist and incoherent, though, watch Griffith's later melodrama Broken Blossoms, which unlike Intolerance, actually does contradict the racism of his most famous film.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JawFbn-b7B0

Links

The Birth of a Nation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN_o3zeD81g

Intolerance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIMpKXR83pg

Broken Blossoms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQXb89LXuJo

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This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Oratorian brother and visual artist Joshua Vargas joins Thomas and James to discuss Season 2 of The Chosen. The series continues to set a high imaginative standard in its portrayal of the Twelve Apostles, each of whom has a distinctive personality and several of whom have beautifully fleshed-out backstories (the calling of Nathanael being one of the standout episodes of this season). Jonathan Roumie continues to shine in his performance as Jesus, and we also find the filmmakers stretching their cinematic chops and experimenting with various methods of storytelling.

The Protestant-written show also ventured into more problematic theological territory this season, so a review would be incomplete without an evaluation of its controversial treatment of the Virgin Mary and of Jesus' human knowledge. While falling short of a Catholic view, these allow for some nuance; but the portrayal of John the Baptist is purely disappointing.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iREGf8C6_tM

Links

The Chosen, Season 1 discussion https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/chosen-education-in-meditation/

Thomas's interview with Jonathan Roumie on the Catholic Culture Podcast https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-76-playing-jesus-on-chosen-jonathan-roumie/

Buy Brother Joshua's work on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtbyJoshuaVargas

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This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

In 1943 Warsaw, a little Jewish girl is brought to the home of a Catholic woman who has offered to provide her a fake baptismal certificate so she could be safely settled with a Catholic family. Upon her arrival, though, the woman turns her away, saying it is against the principles of her religion to lie.

This scenario sets up the events of Kieslowski's 1988 film Dekalog: Eight, in which decades later, that little girl, who had escaped to America and survived, returns to Warsaw to confront the woman in order to make sense of what happened to her. What ensues is an exploration of what it really means to bear false witness.

We see a variety of ways in which Polish people learned to cope with the trauma of the years of Nazi occupation and Communist rule, and to reconcile with themselves and others after making various moral and psychological compromises to survive.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8aFQcgmUvzo

Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio