This presentation was prepared as a one hour zoom class during the pandemic of 2020 for the Religion and Film course taught by Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski at the University of Dayton. It covers the vocation of the film critic within the vocation of a Catholic sister, a Daughter of St. Paul. It also describes theology and film and ways to seek evidence of God's grace at work in cinematic storytelling.

1. What the movie means:
meeting God at the movies
& how I became a (Catholic) film critic
Sister Rose Pacatte, ©Daughters of St Paul, Pauline Center for Media Studies, Culver City, CA

2. To Seek God’s Face: Theological
Approaches to Film
Rose Pacatte, D. Min.
“Come,” says my heart, “seek God’s face;
your face Lord, do I seek!”
Psalms 28:8

3. Andre’ Bazin (1918-1958)
◦ “Cinema has always been interested in God.”

15. Blessed James Alberione, SSP 1884 - 1971

16. Ven. Mother Tecla Merlo, FSP 1895 - 1964

17. Daughters of St Paul
◦ Italy – 1915
◦ USA - 1932

18. Apostolate:
Evangelization with the Media
• Book bindery - folding machine (3 years +)
• Shipping department (6 months)
• Kitchen (8 months)
• Laundry (5 months)

19. Entered on Saturday … Monday morning …

20. Making “Books Books Books”
16mm film 1978

21. Book stores, book fairs, & exhibits, family visits

22. Writing

23. Film critic/journalist/reviewer

24. Blogger since 2004 now @
patheos (SisterRoseMovies.net)

25. Pauline Center for
Media Studies 25th year
◦ To encourage and
promote media literacy
education/media
mindfulness within the
context of culture,
education, and faith
formation

26. Media literacy certificate program

27. The Best
Mass, Hour of Adoration, Meditation, Personal Prayer, Shared
Prayer

28. The passion, the energy
comes from

29. Matthew 13
◦ And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in
movies?” Jesus answered them, "To you it has been granted to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been
granted.…
◦ This is why I speak to them in movies, though seeing they did not see,
though hearing they did not hear…
◦ Listen then, to what the movie means
◦ Jesus told parables, stories about something else to make a point about
some truth or reality.

30. Parables
◦ 39
◦ Most are in Luke
◦ None are in John
◦ Weeds, treasure, pearl, fishing net, workers, money, sons, wedding feast, unforgiving
servant, wheat, owner of a house, servants, friends at midnight, unjust judge, good
Samaritan, Pharisee and tax collector, rich fool, lost coin, lost son, lost sheep, forgiven
debts, unproductive fig tree, yeast, soil, mustard seed, wicked tenants, faithful servants
◦ 11 of the 39 parables are about money

32. The shortest distance
between the truth and
the human person is a
story
Anthony de Mello

33. Storytelling
◦The history of
grace within the
heart of the world

34. Sacramentality
of cinema
◦ Making invisible realities visible
◦ Grace
◦ Mercy
◦ Calling us to be cultural mystics

35. Cultural Mystics
◦ “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of
the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the
realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I
theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we
were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of
separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

36. ◦ This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a
joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being
man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate.
◦ As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me,
now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it
cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking
around shining like the sun.

37. ◦ Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of
their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin
nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of
their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes.
◦ If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If
only we could see each other that way all the time. There
would be no more war, no more hatred, no more
cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only
believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.”
◦ ― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

38. Stories invite
us to be
cultural
mystics
◦ Empathy for humanity revealed in cinema
◦ Cinema brings the joys and pain of all human living
◦ We find transcendence and grace through the
encounter with these stories when they are authentic;
◦ Our senses are engaged through the gift and work of
the artist,
◦ Our imagination set afire when we are transported to
another time and place to walk in the footprints of
others, and finally, our spirits enriched especially
when the resolution, if there is one, is true.

39. Revelation
◦God’s loving self-communication through Word and
Sacrament; through the action of grace in the world

40. Dostoevsky
◦ The world will be saved by beauty

41. ◦ Cinematic storytelling reveals meaning without
committing the error of defining it.
Hannah Arendt

42. Parables: “The cinema has
always been interested in
God” Andre’ Bazin
◦ Leads us beyond what we see and hear to ask
◦ What the movie means to faith and life – to the life of
faith
◦ What do films tell us about God? The search for God?
◦ What is truly human is truly of the Gospel and what is
truly of the Gospel is truly human (cf. Gaudium et Spes)

43. Why do we love stories (movies,
television, literature – video games)?
To experience the
ineffable

44. To write a review
◦ You must know what you believe in and why
◦ You don’t need to be objective - you need a lens (Catholic social teaching, human dignity, the common good,
solidarity, family), a point of view
◦ If from a faith perspective, know who God is for you (Bruce Almighty)
◦ Life experience also helps, to know your life experience, to integrate it with who you are
◦ What do you look for in a film (or episodic TV series?)
◦ Why do you like one film but not another?
◦ Intertextual reference (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO)
◦ It is not about content, it is about context: what the story MEANS

46. Empathy

47. Contact
info
Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP, MEd in
Media Studies, D. Min.
Pauline Center for Media Studies
390o8 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230
Rose Pacatte @ gmail . com