Screen
Alleva, Richard
(I have tried that with some of them) they would not add up to At Christmas of 1961, Pope John XXIII issued an apostolic a compelling...
...portunity...
...Finally, it seems to be less a dramatSTAGE ic presentation of an important theme than a vehicle for three A GOOD HAUL 'SOMEONE' & 'FAITH HEALER' CONCILIUM The Theological Journal of the 90s Now Available from Orbis Books I is one of the platitudes of theater criticism that straight plays-selected comedies excepted cannot survive on Founded in 1965 and published six times a year, Concilium is a world-wide journal whose contributors embody a "who's Broadway...
...silence will cost him any chance of upward mobilichallenge to any writer of a catechism who would use the new ty...
...There is no vithe common people that does justice to the human and the di- sion in the script, except the vision of a great performance...
...person as a child of God, establishes a basic fraternity, teach- The set-up of the action is pure pasteboard...
...he then added: "The substance of the anbe possible, for instance, to write a coherent short Christology cient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing and the way from the short affirmations and illustrate them with selections it is presented is another...
...institution...
...In 1993: The Messiah in History, Is There Room provised cell, in an unidentified country in the Middle East...
...intel- Bo Goldman's script is nothing but a collection of opportuniligence and emotion...
...suppler efforts of the amateur...
...Paper $4.95 of liturgy for successful evangelization...
...The title of the movie is the the outcome of their Pacino deftly manages the old acting trick of simulating blind- investigation: a cure for the disease that has saved many afness: the actor seems to be staring inside himself at some inner flicted children over the last decade...
...But he does...
...That's the fundamental reason why it's such is a kind of humanism that "radically affirms the dignity of every a lousy script...
...And what is it in matters are more than merely touched upon by this splendid Charley Sims's character that finally stirs the better angels of film...
...They weren't striving for existentialist dignity but for suclater dissolves into fatherliness...
...found any cure, they certainly wouldn't have felt any exaltaPacino gets everything right: the contempt for the boy that tion...
...There is something almost abstract in these survival turns as if a master of haiku had learned how to employ his art to as though Someone were a cousin of Waiting for Godot or an narrate a long novel...
...Please return this form with your payment...
...I have tried that with some of them) they would not add up to At Christmas of 1961, Pope John XXIII issued an apostolic a compelling text...
...Genesis and comparing it to an interpretation of that Paper $12.95 same story by "young earth" Creationists...
...It's scape...
...Too much of what they say and do seems to come not it heartwarmed titters from the audience, no poignant by-play from their need but from the playwright...
...It consists of brief scenes-bridged by Ella Fitzgerald's combine to make him seem, at times, clownish, bizarre, even recording of the title song-in which the three men try to surunhinged...
...Paper $10,95 Evangelism, Frank C.Senn...
...They [ ] Individuals $60.00 [ I Institutions $75.00 have apparently been picked up at random, but the playwright, Single volumes @ $12.95 each, + $3.00 postage...
...It's a voice so revved up by bellowing at un- a great enterprise, while Pacino's work is the enderlings that it can roar even when Slade is perfectly relaxed...
...more calculating than the hostage holders, has clearly selected the three men for their nationalities as well as their personali- Please specify titles: ties...
...And would you like to speculate on how 12: 12 March 1993 Commonweal CONF1R141AT101: f ITIMA...
...spirit and body...
...And even Frank Slade isn't so much a characdefends Charley against the headmaster during an unlikely school ter as a series of emotional stunts bundled under the name of convocation...
...Without this parTucked into a small print section of the new catechism ticular actor, the ignition wouldn't fire...
...A scholarship es people how to encounter nature and understand work, and boy in an ultra-ultra prep school is pressured by his headmasprovides reasons for joy and humor even in the midst of a very ter to rat on some of his rich schoolmates after they perpetrate hard life...
...When helpers, paid or voluntary, can't collaborate on this great enterprise at her demanding and self-demanding level, she dismisses them from the Odone ranks-of-the-faithful...
...But Miller games, movie games, music games-and they share fantasies, has blazed this story onto the screen in short, economical seg- as when the Irishman and the Englishman fly away home, takments, with each shot, each cut, each pan or dolly, every place- ing turns spotting identifiable images on the imaginary landment of light and shadow revealing the core of the episode...
...The current catechism is not anchored in any- For there is neither great glory nor outward show in their kind thing like real life...
...It energetically en- Frank coerces and cajoles the boy into accompanying him to capsulates the full vision of Pope John Paul 11 without the turgidity Manhattan so that the bitter Slade, a bon vivant who can idenof the stylus curialis...
...It would of modern thought...
...Nolte never lets us forget that the center of this man vive...
...I'd be curious to know how the Odones feel about the muscles in his face were reenacting the moment of explo- this...
...to Christ and his mother...
...Guess who teaches this boy such a statement) while taking into account that we are deal- about Life...
...Cloth $29.00 Cloth $26.95...
...Let that tify a woman's perfume with one sniff and a wine's vintage be the deep background of any attempt to write a statement of with one sip, can spend his last hours on earth savoring the joys faith that would do justice to the need for an intelligent pres- of flesh before blowing his brains out...
...The author explores the creationist in small faith groups, making decisions as a group, phenomenon by examining the story of creation in and discerning what the group's call to service is...
...It was his insistence 14: 12 March 1993 Commonweal that he and his wife explore the facts of their son's illness as if reading the Bible, and exercising regularly in the hopes that he they were learning a foreign language that led to their success...
...the nihilistic self-hatred that cess, and they found it...
...On the evidence of this movie, I'd guess that if they hadn't sion...
...the dangerous But one of the thrilling things about Lorenzo's Oil is the way physicality and the voluptuous physicality that alternately pull its superb script (by Miller and Nicholas Enright) doesn't conthis man toward death, toward life...
...Superb...
...a vicious joke...
...but there is in it great good and also the best of serof the timeless about it...
...faith and homeland...
...In that document the pope said that the aucally shorter than the present one...
...Fiercely loving...
...The film (or play) the audience the catechism hopes to persuade and what strate- is said to be "a vehicle" for the star...
...In this moving tale, a the church growth movement in some Protestant young girl copes with her grandmother's death and churches and calls for a return to the fundamentals learns to turn her grief into joy...
...Paper $12.95 PAULIST PRESS 997 Macarthur Blvd., Mahwah, N.J...
...Guess whether or not Frank commits ing with real people who live real lives...
...Zorba the Greek learns that It's a "Frank Slade" and presented to Pacino as a golden Oscar opWonderful Life during a rally of the Dead Poets Society...
...No verbal comment, no coy side glances to elic- ation...
...A readable, WE ARE HOME, A Spirituality of the Environment, innovative study that brings scripture to bear on our Shannon Jung...
...the contrasting responses of peoBut what is the substance of Slade's bitterness that is acti- ple similarly afflicted...
...Pacino has found not only an accent he's never used before wo more virtuoso performances are on display in (upper-class Southern polished to a high sheen by West Point George Miller's Lorenzo's Oil, but the brilliance and many hours spent drinking in the Officers Club) but an en- of Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon contributes to tirely new voice...
...Yet Frank McGuinness's Someone Who'll who" of theological scholars...
...An extraordinarily clear and readable GETTING DOWN TO EARTH: A Call to Christology textbook that explores key ideas, scenes, Environmental Action, John Heidtke...
...A collection of studies on Luke-Acts by THE WITNESS OF THE WORSHIPING exegetes of different fields that addresses itself to COMMUNITY, Liturgy and the Practice of topics of contemporary concern...
...person alongside them than to stereotypical images that they George Miller could have directed his script with all the plod- carry in their heads...
...But this abrasiveness is the byproduct of her love, and it is a high achievement of Sarandon's performance that she keeps the flame of this woman's love always visible to us, so that we remain on her side even when she offends or alarms people...
...Paper $18.95 THE POOR AND THE GOOD NEWS: A Call to COLLEGE CATHOLICS, A New Counter-Culture, Evangelize, edited by Tom and Lyn Scheuring with Michael J. Hunt, C.S.P...
...The Englishman is prim, buttoned-up, his natural stand- MCNISA orders accepted...
...mean writer of catechisms, said: "One ought to regard those Other strategies might well suggest themselves but a suc- teachers as the best and paragons of their profession those who cessful approach must reflect the actual condition in which most present the catechism well...
...Call 1-800-258-5838...
...A Lutheran pastor criMY LETTER FROM GRANDMA, Ruth V. Cullen, tiques the free-form worship and evangelism styles of illustrated by Emil Antonucci...
...entation of the authentic faith (and there is a crying need for Now put on your thinking caps...
...07430 1-201-825-7300 Available at your local bookstore the student body and faculty react when Father Figure Slade true character...
...The Irishman is garrulous, mixing jokes and whines, a bit randy, a man who has moved around the globe seeking not only Name jobs but release from the confines of the domesticity he now Address City/State/ZIP misses...
...The lousiness is a precondition of Pacino's perdelivered the virtuosic goods...
...Each issue focuses on a single theme of known in this country, has set his play in a basement, an im- vital importance...
...Uh huh...
...The a skilled barber, Pacino gives a quick shudder of delight as the limitations of sheer professionalism vs...
...At one point, having received a haircut from ed themes to be developed in the course of the story...
...It does not strike me as impossible to say definite things about what we believe as Christians while, at TWO CURES the same time, giving some sense that we struggle to articulate 'SCENT& 'OIL the deep mystery of our faith, its paradoxical nature, and the challenges of a pluralistic world...
...The American, the character with whom the playwright is least comfortable, is direct, straightforward, Commonweal 12 March 1993: 15...
...can keep sound in mind and body until his release...
...Nolte's achievement parallels Sarandon's...
...SCREEN Such a catechism must also avoid the olympian tone of the self-assured teacher...
...And the vegy is to be utilized in that teaching...
...But much more exciting and unnerving is the manic look his theme at the beginning with a caption that quotes an African that possesses Slade's face every so often...
...Paper $11.95 LOOKING FOR MORAL GUIDANCE, Dilemmas and the Bible, James A. Fischer, C.M...
...ment which ever uttered the word humor...
...Director Miller announceso wall...
...Paper $11.95 English, S.J...
...From Asia, Africa, North and Watch over Me, which I saw in early December, is still South America, and Europe, Concilium reflects the many facets playing...
...Let us also have the Jesus who has been re- 1961.• trieved by liberation theology, historical critics, and our con- It will be a daunting task...
...Nothing...
...offishness heightened by his mourning for his wife, whose death in NYS call collect (914) 941-7687 has led him to sign on as a teacher far from his comfortable ORBIS BOOKS, Dept CLM, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0308 English surroundings...
...hicle must be custom-built, too...
...That wisdom, the catechism rightly says, ties for the actor...
...His training was economics, hers in languages ly released, leaving the Englishman crouched and alone, chained, and literature...
...searchers...
...See this movie...
...She not only wants Lorenzo to survive but to survive on a high plane of dignity...
...Y ANJ Paulist Press t WE ARE HOME New Titles ANGELA OF FOLIGNO, Complete Works, translat- PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH, Folk Spirituality, edited ed with an introduction by Paul Lachance, O.F.M., by Richard E. Wentz...
...This is an ideal handbook on using the GENESIS, CREATION, AND CREATIONISM, Ignatian Exercises for strengthening communal life Lloyd R. Bailey...
...ment called Al Pacino...
...In one silent to catch the horror of open-ended incarceration, isolation withscene, the camera travels around the supper table as each out the promise of escape, although the activities that the men Odone matter-of-factly eats spaghetti with the fingers just as devise to sustain themselves undermine the pain of their situLorenzo does...
...in the second act by an Englishman (Alec McCowen...
...In moments of rage, Pacino's Frightened and outraged by how little is being done to underaccent reverts to the streets of Brooklyn but his vocal timbre stand this heartbreaker, the Odones become their own renever fails him...
...Just one sample: Lorenzo's nerve degen- old-fashioned play dressed up in modernist clothing...
...Centuries ago Martin Luther, no temporary contemplatives...
...With a television set on six hours a day mons, because in this teaching there is comprehended, in brief, in the average household and the human imagination fueled by all of Scripture...
...This book pro- and episodes in the gospel story in order to help vides step-by-step exercises to help teenagers and everyday readers better understand the story of young adults develop their own ecological values...
...It may be the only Roman docu- companion of a blinded ex-military man named Frank Slade...
...Exactly...
...The voluptuousness is par- fine itself to illustrating one theme but allows many connectticularly well done...
...If the script weren't so shallow, Pacino wouldn't be film, we know nothing more about the human condition, but doing a star turn (undeniably dazzling and enjoyable) but definwe sure know a lot more about the finely tuned acting instru- ing a human being in a real story...
...D the visual, it simply will not do to write in an unvisual assertive style...
...vies with Slade's pride in his military service...
...communion and Scent of 'a Woman is Al Pacino's vehicle, pure and simple...
...Classics of Western Spirituality Series.] Explores the spirituality of the Spirituality Series.] The complete writings of Angela Pennsylvania Dutch and provides insight into the of Foligno (c...
...today, along with a cri- Ignatian View of the Small Faith Community, John tique of their practice...
...terpri se...
...the less informed but aftershave lotion is patted on...
...Given the machine-like predictability of the script, what an The lousiness of Scent of a Woman isn't mitigated by Pacino's embarrassment this movie would have been if Pacino hadn't performance...
...Paper $12.95 O'Connell...
...Odone, as played by Sarandon, is a supremely loving woman...
...A fascinating inquiry into the Marybeth Greene, foreword by John Cardinal enigmatic faith life of Catholic college students on O'Connor...
...It should be written in a thentic doctrine of the church should be studied and expoundmore accessible style and, more importantly, it should take ed through methods of research and through the literary forms into account the concrete reality of people's lives...
...just as often, they play games together-verbal Oil still would have gripped because of its substance...
...One recent commentator has said that the catechism now has the authority of a magisterial document of the teaching church...
...In this script, and blast human relationships: these and many other human blindness is a substitute for characterization...
...McGuinness, an Irish playwright not widely of the world church...
...His prima- TALKING ABOUT JESUS TODAY, An ry purpose is to let the Bible speak for itself...
...There is none...
...Jesus and to discover what our Christian faith is Paper $9.95 built on...
...let us have more Dorothy Day we will need further, more strenuous, efforts to present that subor Flannery O'Connor or Gerard Manley Hopkins and fewer stance in any way close to the vision set out by the pontiff in papal allocutions...
...As for Christ in Asia?, The Spectre of Mass Death, Resurrection or Reincarnation?, Migrants and Refugees, and Mass Media...
...sometimes two of them join forces to atding literality that we see in most TV movies and Lorenzo's tack the third...
...vine...
...the way catastrophe can both solidify vated by his accidental blinding...
...A faith-filled, readable invitation to ethical decision making...
...An analysis of the seven different models of Confirmation that one finds in contemporary SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COMMUNITY: An liturgical practice in the U.S...
...Sources of American preface by Romana Guarnieri...
...Yet this same voice loses its charge and becomes convincing- Nolte and Sarandon play the Odones, whose little son is strickly soft and clouded when Slade gets emotionally unmoored by en with a disease, A.L.D., which is rare, lethal, and incurable...
...It is one of the few places in the entire document Charley just happens to be spending that holiday as the paid that comes close to real life...
...Sims is only a sounding board, not a But one theme could not have been realized but for those splendid performances by the lead players: how the fight against catastrophe can so marshal certain traits and energies in one's nature that the overall personality becomes unbalanced, or even seems to reverse itself...
...Their exploit was amazing considering that neither had a med- Although the American is killed and the Irishman eventualical background...
...You got it...
...If his wife is fiercely loving, Odone is fiercely rational...
...Paper $9.95 consider human beings as an integral part of the LUKE AND ACTS, edited by Gerald O'Collins, S.J...
...Thus, Mrs...
...compendium...
...Just a new turn in Lorenzo's illness and sumably wants to make some kind of statement about the abiljust another display of his family's solidarity...
...constitution (Humanae salutis) announcing the opening of Any catechism based on this compendium should be radi- Vatican II for 1962...
...They quarrel with one another, often reacting less to the is supremely reasonable even when his exterior is fraying...
...This man lost his proverb that values any struggle to achieve something over the sight in an accident with a grenade and, at times, it seems as if mere results...
...people live today...
...It attempts eration makes him incapable of holding a fork...
...Introduction to the Story Behind Our Faith, William Paper $14.95 Reiser, S.J...
...person and community...
...the play begins there are two prisoners-an Irishman (Stephen Rea, recently nominated for an Oscar in The Crying Game) and a black American (James McDaniel)-and they will be joined Subscribe Now...
...It has an air partially intended I suspect- of teaching...
...An anecdotal account of the founding of campus-what they believe in and how they look at LAMP ministries, a Catholic lay organization dedithe church...
...CONFIRMATION, The Baby in Solomon's Court, Paper $9.95 Paul Turner...
...One could hardly quarrel with There is an expression we use when an actor is much that judgment but the question before us is how teachable is greater than his or her material...
...Although the play preor heartrending mime...
...Some are glad to go...
...Slade's nature...
...By the end of the formance...
...It also recognizes the vox populi...
...1248-1309), one of the most brilliant workings of this uniquely American folk culture...
...But, as he crams in libraries and networks at as they all have been, to his corner of the cell, the play has very conferences, Odone's intensity, desperation, and lack of sleep little plot...
...RICHARD ALLEVA narrowness, the essential seriousness of their situation does not rub off on the play itself...
...but such teachers are rare birds...
...He has a Thanksgiving weekend to ponder the choice...
...suicide...
...ity of men under stress to transcend their societally imposed Don't cheat yourself...
...The (#1676) is a wonderful description of the Catholic wisdom of material exists only to serve and exalt an actor...
...thoughts of his impending death...
...Right again...
...biosphere that they share with God, other people, and Gilberto Marconi, translated by Matthew J. animals, and plants...
...Paper $9.95 cated to bringing God to the poor in America's cities...
...This catechism gives us one from people whose deepest reflections might resonate with vision of the substance of the faith (and much more) but, alas, authentic religious experience...
...representatives of Franciscan mystical tradition...
...Betrayal will earn Charley Sims entrance to That small paragraph could well serve as an invitation and Harvard...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 5
