Song of Bernadette (1943)

Song of Bernadette (1943) goes beyond recent professionally produced hagiographies such as Pope John Paul II (2005) and The Letters (2014), where the saint's life proceeds according to a known script, almost as if it had a checklist of challenges and victories. In this film, made back in the day when Hollywood made movies about simple saints like Francis and Juan Diego because it was mainstream, the story is more straightforward and connected: We see all the panoply of human responses to Bernadette's vision -- from faith to concern to doubt to suspicion to scorn to threats and more. Through it all, Bernadette's simple faith carries her through the opposition, which may in time be won over precisely because the girl's faith is utterly pure, and she is not smart enough to produce a ruse. One final discovery by her lifelong detractor, an elderly nun who is a kind of Salieri to Bernadette's Mozart, reveals the true depth of Bernadette's faith, and made this a most moving film for me. I believe Jennifer Jones at age 25, winning the Oscar as Bernadette, may have had something to do with it. Enjoy! 4.5 stars. (5-27-2016)