The Strange Case of "The Miracle"

by BOSLEY CROWTHER

1

IF IT weren’t that it actually has happened — if it weren’t for the record of events by which the Italian film, The Miracle, has been hamstrung and harassed in New York — it would be hard to believe that such oppression could occur in this country at this time, especially in a great enlightened city and over a minor piece of motion picture art. Yet the case of The Miracle has snowballed amid the tensions of recent months as an unmistakable demonstration of the vehemence of a campaign waged by powerful elements ol the ( atholic Church to restrain the subject matter of films shown in this country.

That observation is not impulsive. Neither is the campaign. The Catholic Church has been putting moral pressure upon our movies for many years, often with the full support, and blessing of nonCatholic religious and social groups. And in large and important areas of production and exhibition of films it has generally succeeded in achieving adherence to its dictates and desires. In fact, it has brought its moral influence to bear so firmly upon Hollywood, theatres, censor boards, and citizen watch-groups, that one wonders at this sudden bold barrage against one small Italian film.

Why should a foreign-language picture, being shown in a chic art theatre in New York to an obviously intellectual audience of mature sensibilities and tastes, be made a target for the bludgeoning of the License Commissioner of New York? Why should a fragmentary picture, less than forty minutes in length, having to do with the pitiful aberrations of a poor Italian peasant woman’s faith, call forth from New York’s Cardinal Spellman a denunciation of extraordinary heat and induce mass demonstrations by Catholic lay groups? And why should the challengeable structure of movie censorship in New York State - and, indeed, in our democratic system— be exposed to scrutiny because of this one film?

The answers to these questions are not satisfactorily revealed in the Catholic condemnation of the picture as “blasphemy” and “sacrilege.”There have been other motion pictures which the Catholic Church has decreed of a sacrilegious nature, yet the lid wasn’t blown offover t hem. Neither is it realistic to assume that The Miracle affair has been a spontaneous uprising to compel the suppression of one film. While there is no positive evidence that all the strange occurrences in thee case were engineered in a predetermined pattern, the facts clearly indicate that The Miracle became the recognized issue for a calculated showdown test of strength.

To understand it fully, it is necessary to keep in mind that, the Catholic Church, through its Legion of Decency, established in 1933, has been the most forceful and consistent arbitrator of the “morals” of films in this land. It keeps a watchful eye on film production — and, indeed, the Production Code, by which Hollywood censors its own product before it goes out, was largely authored by a Catholic priest.. Through its weekly grading of pictures, the Legion has a powerful device of consumer influence. And, of courses in those larger communities where the Catholic Church has considerable strength and voice, the Legion is able to impress its wishes upon theatre managers through personal channels. In short, the authority of the Legion is so broadly and firmly applied that American producers and exhibitors generally accede to it, rather than run lie* risk ol si rile and boycotts.

There is one area, however, in which the Legion has not yet imposed its will. That is the marginal area of foreign-language films. The reasons for this are simple. The producers of these films, particularly the Trench and the Italians, are not conditioned to our rigidly charted morals, even though the Motion Picture Association has earnestly tried to indoctrinate them in the philosophy and the rulings of our Production Code.

Further, most foreign film production is on a basis of individual enterprise, with the artists choosing their own subjects and making them as they wish. Since the interests and ideas of foreign artists are often original and bold, the consequence is that they turn out pictures of occasional incisiveness and power which look at life in its rawness and reality, without disguise. Such films have proved eminently attractive to limited segments of the American audience, so naturally a considerable commerce in them has evolved. By the time they have run the gantlet of the Customs Office and the New York State censors, they have been pretty well pruned of “obscenity” and “indecency” in concrete forms. But, of course, there are often in these pictures both subjects and attitudes which are not in accord with the Legion’s philosophy of entertainment or code of morals, and many of them have been condemned or rated low by the Legion.

The Miracle was not challenged by the New York State censor board, which passed it on two occasions prior to its opening in New York. It was first passed without English titles early in l949 and again, with English titles, when it had been assembled as one of three parts of a film called Ways of Love, which Joseph Burslyn, an American importer, arranged for distribution here. The other two parts of Ways of Love are Jean Renoir’s A Day in the Country and Marcel Pagnol’s Jofroi.

Perhaps it would be misleading to attach much importance to the fact that The Miracle was produced and directed by Roberto Rossellini, the man who, prior to this, had done Open City and Paisan, two distinguished post-war Italian pictures, and who made himself rather conspicuous in the American eye two years ago when he wooed and won Ingrid Bergman, first as his acknowledged mistress and then as his bride. Resentment against Rossellini no doubt contributed to this case, as Cardinal Spellman himself indicated in his public denouncement of the film, when he gratuitously observed that “the picture should very properly be entitled, ‘Woman Further Defamed,’by Roberto Rossellini.”But it was incidental, at best.

The most logical assumption, on the face of the evidence, is that The Miracle became an issue after it opened in New York, and that the Catholic artillery was assembled in mounting arrays as it was seen that the distributor and the theatre were far from minded to heed the special objections of the Church. The steps in the campaign and their nature have an ominous significance of their own, but first let us get some things in order, including the literal contents of the film.

2

The Miracle opened at the Paris Theatre, uneventfully, on December 12. The press reaction to the omnibus program, Ways of Love, was generally enthusiastic, with response to The Miracle considerably “mixed,” as the saying goes. Some of the newspaper critics frankly felt it to be “sacrilegious” and “distastefulot hers, while noting that it. might be offensive to the scrupulously religious, felt that it had compassion and basic faith. A sense of beauty and uplift was indicated by a few. Unfortunately, the digests of the story which were given in the reviews — and later in many publications — trimmed it to such bare details that a sadly misleading comprehension of the contents was imparted by them. And thus those who haven’t seen the picture and haven’t had a chance to judge for themselves are likely to have peculiar notions about it, which the heated controversy hasn’t helped.

This is the story of The Miracle, stated without prejudice: —

A poor, simple-minded girl is tending a herd of goats on a mountainside one day, when a bearded stranger passes. Suddenly it strikes her fancy that he is St. Joseph, her favorite saint, and that he has come to take her to heaven, where she will be happy and free. While she pleads with him to transport her, the stranger gently plies the girl with wine, and when she is in a state of tumult, he apparently ravishes her. (This incident in the story is only briefly and discreetly implied.)

The girl awakens later, finds the stranger gone, and climbs down from the mountain not knowing whether he was real or a dream. She meets an old priest who tells her that it is quite possible that she did see a saint, but a younger priest scoffs at the notion. “Materialist!” the old priest says.

There follows now a brief sequence — intended to be symbolic, obviously — in which the girl is reverently sitting with other villagers in church. Moved by a whim of appetite, she snitches an apple from the basket of a woman next to her. When she leaves the church, a cackling beggar tries to make her share the apple with him, but she chases him away as by habit and munches the fruit contentedly.

Then, one day, while tending the Village youngsters as their mothers work at the vines, the girl faints and the women discover that she is going to have a child. Frightened and bewildered, she suddenly murmurs, “It is the grace of God!” and she runs to the church in great excitement, looks for the statue of St. Joseph, and then prostrates herself on the floor.

Thereafter she meekly refuses to do any menial work and the housewives humor her gently but the young people are not so kind. In a scene of brutal torment, they first flatter and laughingly mock her, then they cruelly shove and hit her and clamp a basin as a halo on her head. Even abused by the beggars, the poor girl gathers together her pitiful rags and sadly departs from the village to live alone in a cave.

When she feels her time coming upon her, she starts back towards the village. But then she sees the crowds in the streets; dark memories haunt her; so she turns towards a church on a high hill and instinctively struggles towards it, crying desperately to God. A goat is her sole companion. She drinks water dripping from a rock. And when she comes to the church and finds the door locked, the goat attracts her to a small side door. Inside the church, the poor girl braces herself for her labor pains. There is a dissolve, and when we next see her sad face, in close-up, it is full of a tender light. There is the cry of an unseen baby. The girl reaches towards it and murmurs, “My son! My love! My flesh!”

That is Rossellini’s The Miracle, and, without comment upon the drama itself, we might say that Anna Magnani, the famous actress, gives a tour-deforce performance in the principal role. In explaining the film to Cardinal Spellman in a letter, Rossellini said he wanted to show that “men are still without pity because they still have not gone back to God.”

3

AN estimation of the whole program of Ways of Love was published by the Legion of Decency twelve days after its opening in New York. This estimation condemned it as “a sacrilegious and blasphemous mockery of Christian and religious truth.” And with that the assaults upon the picture publicly began.

The first blow came from a quarter whence it was least expected to come, and it came on the day preceding the publication of the Legion’s report. New York’s License Commissioner, Edward T. McCaffrey, informed the management of the Paris Theatre that he found The Miracle “officially and personally blasphemous” and ordered it removed from the screen on penalty of having the license of the theatre revoked. The next day, the Saturday before Christmas, the theatre complied. It is interesting to note that McCaffrey said that he was acting personally because he “felt that there were hundreds of thousands of citizens whose religious beliefs were assailed by the picture.” McCaffrey is associated with the Democratic political machine in Bronx County, New York, and is a former State Commander of the Catholic War Veterans.

Immediately, outraged citizens protested this action against the film, and Joseph Burstyn, the picture’s distributor, took the case to court, challenging the right of the License Commissioner to revoke a theatre license for such a cause. Two weeks later, he obtained an injunction from Supreme Court Justice Aron Steuer, who ruled that the License Commissioner or any other city official has no right to prevent the showing of a film which has already received a license from the State censor board. This ruling has been appealed by the city. The Miracle went back on the screen, after being forced off during the period of the Christmas holidays.

Two days after the Justice’s ruling, however, the second and major blow fell. On Sunday, January 7, there was read at all Masses in St. Patrick’s Cathedral a statement from Cardinal Spellman calling upon the devout not only of the New York Archdiocese but in all the 1 nitod States to stay away from The Miracle or any 1 heat re showing it. The Cardinal stated that the picture “blasphemously and sacrilegiously implies a subversion to the very inspired word of God’ and that., secondarily, it is “a vicious insult to Italian womanhood.''

With that command to boycott, the (’ardinal directly conveyed what has usually been the most effective weapon in the Church’s arsenal to compel theatre operators to accept the Legion’s decrees. In November, 1047, for instance. Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia instructed all (’at holies in his diocese not to patronize the Fox Theatre there because it was showing Forever Amber, which the Legion had condemned. ( ardinal Spellman also issued a warning at that time against the film. Shortly after, 1 he producers of i he picl ure cut it and changed it sufficiently to relieve it of the Legion’s condemnation and the boycott and threats were withdrawn.

On the Sunday afternoon that Cardinal Spellman called for a boycott of The Miracle, a. delegation of pickets representing the Catholic War Veterans and ol her organizat ions of Cat holic men began to march in front of the Paris Theatre. And every evening thereafter, at (P.M., the pickets showed up in front of the theatre bearing placards which said such things as “This Picture Is an Insult to Every Decent Woman and Her Mother” and “This Picture Is Blasphemous.”

It must be said, incidentally, that ihe characteristics and circumstances of this picket line were among the most distasteful and disturbing aspects of the case. An ugly and fanatic spirit was often apparent among the marching men as they shouted in the faces of people lined up to buy tickets, “Don’t enter that cesspool!” and “Don’t look at that filth !" A grim sort of jingoism was also confused m their cries, “This is a Communist picture!” and “Buy American! ”

And then another thing happened. On a busy Saturday night, January 20, the theatre received an anonymous telephone call threatening a bombing of the theatre. The police were notified and a few minutes later a detail entered and ordered the theatre cleared. The audience was turned out, the house was inspected, and a half hour later the audience was allowed to return, with some natural confusion occurring among the customers. At this point, Fire Lieutenant Edward Coughlan served a summons on the house manager, charging him with permitting people to stand in the aisles and in the back. This was the first time the theatre had ever been charged with an offense of fire regulations.

The following Saturday night, a police detail again emptied the theatre. This time, the police said, somebody had called the department reporting that “two men had been overheard talking in a bar” about throwing a bomb at the theatre.

Meanwhile, a side development was occurring In the case. On Deeember 27, four days after the McCaffrev ban but before any other developments, the New York Film Crities, composed of the film reviewers of the New York daily papers, voted Ways of Love the best foreign-language picture of the year and prepared to give it an award, along with awards to other selections, in a ceremony on January 28 at the Radio City Music Hall.

But on January 19 the management of this theatre received a call from Martin Quigley, a him trade paper publisher and an influential lay Catholic, who advised — “as a friend,” he said later — that the theatre might be subject to boycott if it permitted its stage to be used for the presentation of an award to Ways of Love. Mr. Quigley, it should be added, is well known as a spokesman for the Church and for the Legion of Decency in the film industry. He was also one of the framers, along with Father Daniel A. Lord, of the industry Production Code. His advice caused the Music Hall anxiety. And when the Catholic Chancellery in New York let it be understood, in response to inquiries, that such a ceremony would incur the disfavor of the Church and of the Cardinal, the Critics voluntarily withdrew from the Music Hall and gave their awards elsewhere. They chose not to embarrass their hosts.

Withal, it was notable that attendance at the Paris did not decline during the picketing and demconstrations at the theatre. Indeed, the excitement seemed to draw customers — and many were obviously attracted who would not have seen the picture otherwise. Full houses throughout the picketing were the tokens of public curiosity. After three weeks, the picketing was voluntarily stopped.

4

OPERATIONS were launched on yet another level to seek a revocation of the license of the film. In New York State, the censors, who pass upon and license the films that may be shown, are a division of the State Education Department, of which the Board of Regents is the top directorate. On January 19 the Regents made it known that they had received “hundreds” of protests against the picture and, in an unprecedented move, they ordered the distributor, Mr. Burstyn, to show cause why the film’s license should not be revoked.

Burstyn’s lawyers took the position that the Regents are not empowered to revoke the license of a film, once it is granted by the censor board, unless some act is committed which violates the license itself. They refrained from participating in a hearing. Whereupon the Regents viewed the film in a body on February 15, agreed unanimously that it is “sacrilegious,” and revoked its license the following day. The Miracle was again removed from the program at the Paris, and Burstyn’s lawyers went to the Appellate Division of the New York courts. precipitating what will probably be a lengthy litigation over the film.

If was significant that Cardinal Spellman, in his denunciation of The Miracle. proclaimed, “If the present law is so weak and inadequate to cope with this desperate situation, then all right-thinking citizens should unite to change and strengthen the Federal and State statutes so as to make it impossible for anyone to profit financially by blasphemy , immorality and sacrilege.” And right after the reading of the Cardinal’s statement, the auxiliary bishop of St. Patrick’s Cathedral said that the Catholic Welfare Conference of the State of New York would ask the Legislature to “strengthen” the State censorship laws.

If, in fact, the issue is brought to a legislative stage — or if the whole question of censorship is opened up in the courts then will come an opportunity for interested parties to inquire why there should be any authority for the practice of censorship on the grounds of sacrilege. Already many Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis, educators, and civil-rights groups have challenged the moves to suppress The Miracle because it is said to violate the religious standards of one group.

Allen Tate, poet and critic — and a Catholic himself — put the matter crisply in a letter to the New York Times:

“The charge against The Miracle is sacrilege, a theological category different in kind from that of public morals or public decency . The question then arises: Is there any institution in the Lnited State’s, civil or religious, which has the legitimate authority to suppress books and motion pictures, however disagreeable they may be to certain persons on theological grounds? In my opinion, there is no such institution under a system that separates church and state.”

The anomaly of divided opinion among Catholics themselves as to how much sacrilege or blasphemy there is in The Miracle has, in fact, forcefully appeared, both in this country and in Italy, only making more pointed the peril of permitting anyone the authority of determining a matter of this sort. When The Miracle opened in Italy, it was condemned by Catholics of the so-called “rigorous” group, as well as by the Italian counterpart of the Legion of Decency, but it was ardently* admired and supported by Catholics of the so-called “lax” group. Oddly enough, the film was allowed to show in Italy without any repressive maneuvers on the part of the Vatican — which conspicuously presents the anomaly of its being tolerated in a Catholic land and repressed in a sovereign state of this country where freedom of religious thought is a postulate.

This thought leads directly to a question as to how much protection from possible hurt by motion pictures should be afforded by censorship to minority groups. This has come up in discussion of The Miracle rase, with reference made, incidentally, to the case of the British film, Oliver Twist. This film, though passed by the New York censors, has been withheld from release in this country for more than a year because of the objections of certain Jewish groups which maintain that the characterization of Fagin might cause prejudice against Jews.

In this cause there is apparently no workable basis for official censorship, let alone legal justification. It has been widely remarked that if solicitude for the sensibilities of all minority groups were insisted upon, the only person you could offend with impunity, because he would have no minority protection, would be the white Protestant, nativeborn !

Obviously the emotion that has been roused by The Miracle case has only increased the confusion in the public mind about film censorship. And the difference between legitimate Catholic protests and the forceful methods which certain Catholics have employed to obtain restraint has been neglected in the thinking of many who hold to the highest American ideals.

This points the ultimate question which may remotely be settled by this case: How legitimate, actually, is film censorship in the United States? For, oddly enough, the extension of the First Amendment of the Constitution to cover the screen has not been requested and tested in the Supreme Court in recent years. While our American film industry has justifiably boasted of the growth in the artistry and cultural stature of motion pictures, it has somehow neglected to request the same freedom for its medium that is enjoyed by the over-all press.

It would be an irony, indeed, if the freedom of the American screen should be accomplished on the issue of a foreign film called The Miracle.