Q&A with Joseph Malham, author of Holy Celluloid! The Vatican List of Great Films & Why They Still Matter
1. Q: The first question many people will ask is “if the list was compiled in 1995, why are you writing about it thirty years later?”
A: A valid question and one that I asked myself many times. First, I was amazed to discover that while there were many articles and online discussions, there wasn’t a surfeit of books examining the list since it was comprised by the Vatican for the centenary of the birth of cinema. Second, these films are on the list because they are classical works. And what is a classical work, be it music, art, literature, etc.? It means they are evergreens with no shelf life and therefore can be written about and examined without worrying that their time has passed.
2. Q: What separates this study from others examining the same list?
A: Well, given the origin of the list, namely the Vatican at the urging of Pope John Paul II, all the other studies of the list of films are written for the most part examining their spiritual and theological significance. While all films and indeed all created work can be tied to metaphysical if not mystical impulses and questions, saying that these films are all rooted in religious beliefs and experiences is confining them into a subjective shoebox. It is the variety of experience behind their creation that makes them so universally applicable and pertinent.
3. Q: Still, isn’t it a bit strange that Pope John Paul would call a commission to pick out great classic films, both sacred and secular?
A: No, not really. Remember that the mid-90s was the apex of John Paul’s papacy. He was in peak physical health and that robustness was not only expressed in his constant world travels but in his engagement with the secular world. It was an exciting time of mutual engagement where the pope was curious about the wisdom the Church could learn from the secular world. It was a time when he wrote his seminal “Letter to Artists” and remember the Bono and Bob Dylan concerts in the Apostolic Palace? Examining the lasting impact of great films fits right into this larger embrace of the world.
4. Q: What was your method of research? Did you conduct interviews?
A: Being a compilation of essays, the book didn’t really lend itself to extensive or cursory interviews with film historians, critics or even people who made the films. The first film on the list was made in the early 1900s and the last in 1995 so suffice it to say not many are still around. No, the best research was to watch the films themselves and explore ones I’ve already seen with a new eye and have the primary experience of films I’ve never seen.
5. Q: Did you have communications with the Vatican?
A: Yes. In fact, I reached out to the Vatican Dicastery (Department) of Communications when I began. I asked about the panel convened by Pope John Paul to examine the 45 films that were divided in the categories of Religion, Values and Art. Fifteen in each category. They were very helpful but also very emphatic when they said the pope wanted both spiritual and secular scholars (of all faiths and no faith) to select the films. Apparently, they were scholars, journalists and critics primarily from around Italy.
6. Q: Did the Vatican Dicastery for Communications tell you what the criterion was for selecting the films?
A: Yes, they said the films selected were unified in the universal truths they explored about the human condition and the struggles, failures, triumphs, longings, and aspirations of all people everywhere in all times. They had to address questions of war, peace, poverty, wealth, political, and spiritual struggle, but most importantly love and compassion. Being films, of course, they also had to clear high bars of aesthetic and visual poetry and beauty. They were also emphatic in stressing that this list was neither comprehensive nor magisterial but subjective.
7. Q: Which films did you expect to see on the list and which films surprised you?
A: Honestly, I knew that films that have consistently appeared on the lists of venerable institutions like the BFI’s Sight & Sound, the AFI and Cahiers du Cinema such as Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey and La Grande Illusion would naturally make the list. Some of the surprises were popular American classics like John Ford’s Western masterpiece Stagecoach, It’s a Wonderful Life and The Wizard of Oz. But when you examine those popular products of the Golden Age of Hollywood, even they are not only still visually splendid but carry the common universal themes of love, community, and the powerful human desire to get home.
8. Q: OK, now for the one you probably get asked the most: which is your personal favorite?
A: Yes, I get asked that all the time. Our favorite films arise out of the vagaries of mood at any given time. When we’re in one mood we’ll revisit our favorite comedy and when we’re in another mood it’ll be our favorite drama, horror, love story or adventure. That holds with me but my evergreens on the list would be Citizen Kane, Stagecoach, A Man for All Seasons, Ben-Hur and who doesn’t adore Babette’s Feast? Then I also was introduced to films I had never seen before like The Burmese Harp, Dersu Uzala and Ordet. I fell in love with the visual beauty and cinematic poetry of those films and expect to watch them again and again as well.
9. Q: What do you hope people will still takeaway when they see these masterpieces through the lens of your book?
A: I hope they will contemplate the stories they tell that address the problems we still deal with today. War is not going away anytime soon, and neither is poverty, injustice, hatred, division and racial and religious intolerance. However, love, beauty, faith, family, community and hope will always remain as well. The simplest way to say it is that these films show us how to fight and reject one way and celebrate and embrace another. They do so by inviting us to see deeper truths and reality below the visual surface, which is what all great and enduring art does.
10. Q: Every author has a secret fantasy about their book. What’s yours?
A: Since the book began in the Vatican it would be nice for it to come full circle and return there. Pope Leo XIV is said to be a great fan of classic cinema and no doubt one or several of his favorite films are on the List. What an honor it would be for a copy to land in the hands of the Pope, and, since he’s an American from Chicago’s southwest side and I’m from Chicago’s north side, he won’t need to wait for the translated version.