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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
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TALK ABOUT MOVIES
May 2005
MY FATHER'S GLORY
Directed by Yves Robert. Starring Philippe Caubere, Didier Pain, Julien Ciamaca. 105 minutes, color, France, French with English subtitles, 1990. Available at Kensington Video.
Matthew: Joseph makes a speech to his students about how the 20th century will be a wonderful century of progress, with science marching on and superstition being left behind. But the 20th century was the bloodiest in history.
Ernie: Not only because of the mass destruction that science made possible, but also because people thought that scientific advances allowed them to dispense with God.
Matthew: All that "superstition" was rejected in the name of humanism, and we ended up with terrible inhumanity.
* * *
Matthew: I think it's telling that Joseph is sort of a wise man in the city; he's the schoolteacher who knows about science. When he's offended by the notion of the Eucharist, it's on something like scientific grounds — how can God's blood be in 10,000 cups all over the world at the same time?
Ernie: But the hill country is more the land of Catholic Uncle Jules. He's the one who knows his way around the landscape, and the hunting. The step back into the country from the city is a step back from modernity into the simpler, more wholesome world.
Matthew: The country is more real than the city. It's more human, and it makes Joseph more human.
Ernie: I'd say the countryside is more divine than the city — God's creation as opposed to man's creation — and being there makes Joseph more human. In the city, Joseph has those goofy scientific theories about how wine is bad for you; he's divorced himself from simple gifts. But Uncle Jules wins him over and they drink freely in the country. And Joseph has his moment of vanity in the country — posing with the birds he shot, and it's all after he had mocked the man who posed with the fish for being vain. And it's the priest who takes his picture — as if the Church is helping him out of his philosophical self-absorption. By the end, Joseph seems to realize that maybe there's more than the strict scientific existence he's trying to live.