The Nun’s Story

The more we see of the work of Fred Zinnemann, the more we find to admire. His best-known pictures are  From Here to Eternity,  High Noon and  A Man for All Seasons, but Zinnemann’s commitment to honesty, justice and human values is just as striking in  The Search,  The Sundowners and  The Day of the Jackal. Catching up with Zinnemann’s  Behold a Pale Horse, we found it to be far better than its reputation. The Warner Archive (in its wisdom) has been reviving a good number of Raoul Walsh movies lately … Fred Zinnemann would be an excellent choice for another director focus.

How many serious movies have there been about nuns?  Hollywood relegated them to stern-faced teachers in Catholic schools, or hospital nurses of exaggerated virtue. The two most enduring filmic impressions of nuns are Ingrid Bergman’s slightly sexualized Sister Mary Benedict in  The Bells of St. Mary’s and Peggy Wood’s singing Mother Abbess in  The Sound of Music. The typical use of nuns in film is as clowns — pixies in habits riding motorcycles and playing cute practical jokes.

Fred Zinnemann’s 1959 The Nun’s Story takes on a serious challenge. Robert Anderson’s adaptation immerses us in the demands of a cloistered life, and emerges as perhaps the director’s most accomplished film achievement. Zinnemann and his star Audrey Hepburn communicate the emotional conflicts of aspiring to a seemingly unattainable goal — to become a selfless, sacrificing non-person for whom the love of God takes precedence over every mortal concern. The secular world does not cooperate with that mission — trouble comes from conflict within the religious order, in a hospital in the Congo, and in a country torn by war.

It’s difficult to think of a movie with so many interesting actresses in worthwhile roles. The Nun’s Story also has a lot to say about women committed to a mission, in a social system at least partly run by women.

Gabrielle van der Mal (Audrey Hepburn) takes the vows of a holy order even though it means dire hardship and a severe way of life. Her decision all but breaks the heart of her father (Dean Jagger). As Sister Luke she finds academic success in nursing school but suffers from perceived sins of pride, along with a headstrong mindset inconsistent with her calling. An overzealous superior judges her too harshly, keeping her from her goal of nursing in the Congo. She is instead assigned to help in a dungeon-like asylum.

When Sister Luke is finally sent to Africa, more disappointment awaits: she is assigned to help Dr. Fortunati (Peter Finch) in the white hospital when she really hoped to work with the natives. Sister Luke distinguishes herself and wins the admiration of all but still is not convinced that she is at all successful. Sent back home for a scheduled rest, she is prevented from returning to Africa by the outbreak of WW2. She is soon ignoring all the rules, helping a novice carry out resistance work.

Forget lovable nuns, amusing nuns, flying nuns and lovesick nuns: this intense picture is the closest Hollywood has come to considering what choosing a religious life really means. Audrey Hepburn became a movie star because she was transparent — beneath the glamour and fashions we always knew that she was a clear-eyed, honest young woman. In The Nun’s Story she uses that quality without any make-up, literal or figurative. Gabrielle’s father is a noted surgeon who may have hoped she would become a doctor. He instead must watch as she leaves for a life of self-denial and servitude. She rejects a young man when she becomes a nun; we see her happily abandon his ring with everything else she possesses. She does take a golden pen with her, indicating a flaw in her mindset, an eye for worldly things.

Robert Anderson’s epic script is structured in three major acts. Gabrielle’s indoctrination is a process of discipline and training to fulfill the solemn vows of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience. The same strength of character that inspired her to become a nun now hinders her efforts. As Sister Luke, she readily leaves the material world behind. But she cannot shake her essential pride — which surfaces as a competitive spirit in her biology class.

It’s difficult to understand how a competitive spirit in a biology class can be a bad thing, but a superior (Ruth White) sees the need to break down and rebuild Sister Luke’s personality. She is instructed to rearrange her priorities by purposely failing. This she cannot do, proving that she’s an individual first and a nun second. A model nun in every other respect, Sister Luke’s inherent flaw becomes obvious in the asylum when she disobeys instructions and is almost killed by a schizophrenic patient (Colleen Dewhurst).

Try as she may, Gabrielle cannot entirely strip away The Self and become this abstract concept. Some may call the process a form of voluntary brainwashing, but it’s common enough in other disciplines requiring a high level of conformity. The Nun’s Story would make a fine comparison piece with Stanley Kubrick’s  Full Metal Jacket.

Sister Luke learns more harsh lessons in the Congo, where she becomes a nurse under the charge of Peter Finch’s Dr. Fortunati, “a genius and a devil.”  She becomes his top assistant and a fine medic. Yet she repeatedly takes a leadership initiative without consulting her superiors. She excels at everything except being the humble, obedient non-entity defined by her superiors.

It’s important to note that, after her novice period is over, these supposed flaws bother Sister Luke more than her overseers. In service, the order is both understanding and forgiving. Sister Luke has exemplary qualities: dedication, courage and forgiveness. She attracts a Catholic convert through her example. But in her heart Sister Luke knows she’s a failure. She connives with Dr. Fortunati to hide a health issue that by rights should send her back to Belgium.

When circumstances do take Sister Luke back to Europe, the war puts too much pressure on her commitment to the vocation. She cannot forgive the enemy and defies a mandate to maintain neutral in the struggle. The end of the film focuses on Gabrielle’s grim divorce-like exit from the order. It’s a self-imposed exile into an unknown future in the Nazi-occupied outside world.

Audrey Hepburn is perfectly suited to The Nun’s Story. Because we are already familiar with her extremes of emotion, we scrutinize her close-ups for signs of stress or glimmerings of forbidden pleasure. Understanding the order’s life of obedient restraint becomes stressful for us as well — wanting to share in her success, we have as hard a time as she does resisting ‘self oriented’ emotions.

Zinnemann’s somewhat impersonal style is also a good fit — his focus is on the material, not his status as a name director. The film predates the influence of the French New Wave, yet possesses a muted experimental quality. Passages of time are depicted with hard cuts. The historical context of the WW2 conflict are represented by austere shots of nature, not the expected montages. Zinnemann also doesn’t indulge sentimental excess. Sister Luke’s warm leave-taking from the Congo is a moment of personalized tribute contrary to the order’s principles. A master angle from a moving train reveals smiling nuns, patients (including a priest whose leg Sister Luke has saved) and finally Dr. Fortunati. The display is not encouraged, but it cannot be suppressed.

Zinnemann surrounds Hepburn with a remarkable cast, a Who’s Who of professional actresses. Edith Evans (The Importance of Being Earnest), Peggy Ashcroft (A Passage to India), Mildred Dunnock (Baby Doll), Beatrice Straight (Patterns,  Network), Rosalie Crutchley (The Haunting), Patricia Collinge (Shadow of a Doubt) and Ruth White (Midnight Cowboy) are Sister Luke’s teachers and superiors. Colleen Dewhurst (Annie Hall) makes a brief but spectacular appearance as the murderous asylum inmate known as ‘Archangel Gabriel.’ In this particular context, we wonder if her mental problem started by trying too hard to reconcile spiritual values with the real world.

Peter Finch is a formidable temptation as Dr. Fortunati, while Dean Jagger is appropriately subdued as Gabrielle’s understanding father. Lionel Jeffries (First Men In the Moon) has a fleeting but effective moment as a biology teacher. Niall MacGinnis (Night of the Demon) is Father Vermeuhlen, a Priest working far upriver in the deepest Congo. Vermeuhlen impresses us as a Conradian Kurtz figure — he spent years in sin with a native woman, yet returned to his calling to care for unfortunates in an isolated leper colony.