Saw this earlier this week and thought it was fantastic. The bulk of the movie takes place over a couple days - chronicling the true story of how Pope Benedict XVI formed a surprising friendship with the future Pope Francis - but is spliced with flashback sequences throughout (especially and effectively toward the end). It's a story of dogma vs. progressiveness that I just found endlessly captivating. Think Linklater's Before trilogy, only with two popes debating religion (minus the love affair, of course). It won't be for everyone, but it'll easily be in my top ten of the year. That, and it's looking like either Hopkins or Pryce could see an Oscar nomination, if not both, potentially.

The Two Popes hit theaters in limited release on November 27, and hits Netflix on December 20...

That still shot of Hopkins in the first link just looks to my like Hannibal Lechter in papal garments. Quite creepy, but I'm intrigued!

They really should've gotten Ian McDiarmid for Pope Benedict.

I'm super curious to see how the RCC folks feel about it.

the ol high sparrow has converted to catholicism i see

Reminder that this hits Netflix late tonight/tomorrow.

Two Popes, Too Many Untruths
By John Waters | First Things

Documentaries are photographs. Movies are paintings.

swimmerbabe11 said:

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I'm super curious to see how the RCC folks feel about it.

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I'm on guard with suspicion of outsiders and heathens as always.

Jonathan Pryce always looked like the obvious choice to play Francis. I'm curious how much of this is based on actual real-life conversations and recorded history, and how much is based on what outsiders wanted to see in the transition.

If so, the makers of this film should not have opted to use the completely wrong pallet of colors in portraying Benny.

I don't know why this matters or what it really evens means, but ok?

TCTTS said:

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I don't know why this matters or what it really evens means, but ok?

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You were the one using the painting metaphor, yes? According to the review of the film I posted, it completely misportrayed Pope Benedict.

I think you missed the metaphor. Documentaries are for depicting real life. Movies are impressionistic and meant to examine themes by whatever means best serve those themes, not to be a 1:1 reflection of real life.

TCTTS said:

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I think you missed the metaphor. Documentaries are for depicting real life. Movies are impressionistic and meant to examine themes by whatever means best serve those themes, not to be a 1:1 reflection of real life.

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Well maybe they could have explored these themes and still be little more gracious toward Pope Benedict but I guess themes are more important than truth.

Have you actually watched the movie for yourself yet or are you only basing your opinion on that article?

TCTTS said:

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Have you actually watched the movie for yourself yet or are you only basing your opinion on that article?

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No I have not, have you read the article I posted?

Yes, I did. Which is why I directly commented on it, and don't really agree with its base issue.

TCTTS said:

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Yes, I did. Which is why I directly commented on it, and don't really agree with its base issue.

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OK, what don't you agree with? For example, is this a misrepresentation of the film -

Quote:

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Things are not helped by the fact that, in terms of physique and kinesiology, Hopkins is utterly unsuited to playing Benedict. He depicts a bullish, lumbering man, puffed about the face, eyes like those of a dipso with a bad hangover. Everything is wrong; every graceful quality of Joseph Ratzinger is absent: the bearing, the diffidence, the passion for ideas. Neither the shyness nor quiet dignity is there.

Hopkins is also dissatisfying in that he portrays this man one of the most brilliant Europeans of the past half-century as a dogged doctrinalist obsessed with homosexuality and clerical celibacy.

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or this

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In another scene, late in the evening, Pope Benedict sits at his piano trying to think of something appropriate to play for his guest. Suddenly he asks: "Do you know the Beatles?"

"Yes, I know who they are," Bergoglio responds. "Eleanor Rigby?"

"Who?" Pope Benedict asks, "I don't know her."

This is harmless in its way. But for what it is worth (not much), it is untrue that Pope Benedict is ignorant of pop music, as intimated on several occasions by the script. In fact, he knows a great deal about the music, possibly from hearing it for many years blaring in every caf in Rome. He just doesn't like it. It concerned him that, as he said in his address to the International Church Music Congress in Rome in November 1985, such music "lowers the barriers of individuality and of personality," "repealing the limits of the everyday," creating the illusion of "liberation from the ego." These are not the words of a man who has never heard of ABBA, who does not "know" Eleanor Rigby.

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or this

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There follows a sequence that goes beyond crimes of falsification, deceitfulness, and cheating. In the course of his "confession," Benedict becomes agitated and starts to relate some hitherto unrevealed "sin" from his past. As he does so, his voice is drowned out as though by some kind of interference. We see his lips move; we see the shocked face of Bergoglio. When the sound comes back up, Benedict seems to be finishing some account of his negligence while Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith. It is intimated that he failed to act against a Mexican priest, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ: Marcial Maciel Degollado, a sexual abuser of boys. When he is finished, Bergoglio does something a trained priest would never do: He stands up and begins to remonstrate with the penitent who has just unburdened himself.

To the extent that this scene seeks to uphold the calumny that Pope Benedict in some way collaborated in the cover-up of clerical child abuse, it is false and grossly libellous. It was Ratzinger who, as Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith, altered the canonical procedures to make it possible to remove those using the priesthood to prey uponmostly teenage boys. As Pope Benedict, he kicked hundreds of such individuals out of the priesthood, including Maciel. In fact, it was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger who in 2001 authorized an investigation into the accusations against Maciel. This investigation continued until 2006, by which time Ratzinger had become Pope Benedict XVI and his successor, Cardinal William Levada, decided"taking into account both the advanced age of Father Maciel as well as his poor healthto drop the canonical process and invite him to a reserved life of prayer and penance, renouncing all public ministry." Pope Benedict approved these decisions. Maciel died in 2008, the highest-ranking priest ever disciplined because of sexual abuse allegations.

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As I said, I "don't really agree with its base issue."

I'm not disputing the facts. Of course the facts are the facts and the changes are the changes.

My argument is something different.

I'm saying that it's not the film's job to stick to the facts 100%. A film is not an official documentation of a real person's life that is officially submitted for any kind of official record. It's art. That's it. Literally every movie that has ever been made about a real person or event has been fudged to some degree, and that's done for a reason. And yes, the theme - the central thesis the movie is examining - is sometimes more important than being 100% accurate to real life.

I get exploring themes. One of my favorite movies all time is Apocalypse Now. As a history lesson it sucks, using the war in Vietnam to explore deeper themes it is fantastic. The difference between Apocalypse Now and Two Popes is the first does so without defaming a very real person.

And I would argue that this doesn't "defame" Benedict. Granted, I'm not incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to the Catholic church, but this film isn't nearly the smear job that article makes it out to be. Yes, Francis is depicted as being in the "right," but I would argue that Benedict is depicted as "oppositional" or "right adjacent," not necessarily as being in the "wrong," if that makes sense. It's such a good movie with such a positive, redemptive message in the end - one in which Benedict shows incredible amounts of grace, poise, and understanding - that it seems so incredibly petty to me to want to sh*t on it in this matter. Given the subject matter, it's not surprising, but it is disheartening.

If it depicts Benny as being an obstacle in trying to clean house with the sexual abuse scandal when facts are that is not the case, that is defaming in my book. Frankie has far more to answer for on this than Benny.

Dude.

Watch. The. Movie.

I can't believe I'm having this argument with someone who hasn't even seen it yet.

The sexual abuse stuff literally makes up like 2% of the narrative, if even that. I hardly remember it even being mentioned, save for like a 10-second newscast and then another little exchange. There might have been more, but the point is I can't even recall, which goes to show how much this movie dwells on it.

If you want to keep litigating something you haven't yet seen, and sitting on your high horse saying which Pope should answer for what, be my guest. But for now, I'm done with this discussion until you've actually seen the movie for yourself.

Rick Dalton said:

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I always find it odd when somebody on this board posts a single movie review/article, blindly accepts what's in it and then wants to have a debate about the movie without even watching it. It's easily one of the most absurd and laughable things that happens around here.

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Maybe TCTTS is correct that the overall product surpasses its flaws and the review is overly harsh in its criticism of the film but I did point out several points that raised red flags for me in the review and TCTTS did not dispute them.

TCTTS said:

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If you want to keep litigating something you haven't yet seen, and sitting on your high horse saying which Pope should answer for what, be my guest. But for now, I'm done with this discussion until you've actually seen the movie for yourself.

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Sigh, I simply posted the review as a counterpoint that the film may not be an evenhanded depiction of events and most certainly mostly a fictional account. Is that not fair even if I have yet seen the film? When I asked if the review accurately depicted that aspect of the film (sexual abuse scandal), you did not dispute it. You later went on to say that the film portrayed Pope Francis in a more favorable light than Pope Benedict but I'm not allowed to question the filmmakers motives for this until I watch the film? Um OK, I guess.

First Things is a publication I would trust above most for thoughtful and serious commentary. It's not some reactionary newsletter seeking out heresies or blasphemy.

This was a very well done movie with superb acting.