OSV STORY FOR OCTOBER 13

'Entertaining Angels'

The story behind The Dorothy Day story

By Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda

Premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 8, "Entertaining Angels: the Dorothy Day Story" has been rolling out for several weeks in theaters across the country.

The film, starring Moira Kelly as Day and Martin Sheen as her Catholic Worker co-founder Peter Maurin, and cameoing Brian Keith as the cardinal-archbishop of New York, traces the spiritual journey of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, servant of the poor and champion of nonviolent conflict resolution.

Though written by John Wells ("ER") and directed by Mike Rhodes ("Christy"), the movie will debut without the aid of a major studio.

"Paulist Pictures is distributing this movie because the major Hollywood studios did not think something this spiritual could also be commercial," said Paulist Father Ellwood Kieser, producer of the film. "They don't think a movie that challenges the American ethos as strongly as this one does, as strongly as Dorothy Day does, will make money. That's why they turned it down."

The movie's star, Moira Kelly, added, "Hollywood tends to look for the obvious, and Dorothy's life is not an obvious one."

Hollywood writer and producer John Prizer agreed that the movie business is "very skeptical" of religious themes. "They are scared of organized religion, personally," he said. "And they don't think they're going to make money with those type of stories."

Although Prizer emphasized that Hollywood today is not any less moral or less religious than it was 40 years ago, the change is in how the studio executives look at American culture -- they don't think Americans will "buy" religious films.

The U.S. bishops' chief film reviewer, Henry Herx, compared the new Dorothy Day film with "The Spitfire Grill," another independently produced movie touted for its spirituality.

" 'The Spitfire Grill' deals with a secular story in spiritual terms," said Hertz. "Something like 'The Spitfire Grill' is really a spiritual journey much the same as Dorothy Day. The difference is that one film has the label of 'Catholic.' Dorothy Day is a Catholic. She is talking about Catholic matters, Catholic doctrine, Catholic or Christian virtues -- and the other film is not at all using religious terms."

In his enthusiastic review of "Entertaining Angels," Herx called it "a compelling drama of one woman's path to faith and Christian commitment."

Still, the film has the potential of appealing to secular viewers with little experience of religion, Herx believes, "because it's about a woman who lived in an era in which socialism, bohemianism, communism, and the exploitation between the rich and the poor was very obvious -- and she sided with the poor as a secular woman."

Father Kieser faces the daunting task of getting the film into as many of the country's 25,000 theaters as he can, without the help of a major distributor or the $20 million that is rountinely spent to promote a major motion picture.

But he is un-daunted, and the movie has been well received. Father Kieser believes Day's story will speak for itself.

"Dorothy Day tells us that life is incomplete until you find God," he said. "She tells us that the only sincere way of expressing your gratitude to God for the faith He has given you is the service of other people, particularly those in the greatest need -- the poor and marginalized."

Dorothy Day worked face-to-face with the poor until her death in 1980. A champion of nonviolence, she was jailed repeatedly for protesting the nuclear-arms race and the war in Vietnam.

The result of Dorothy's life was the Catholic Worker movement, which, since the 1930s, has continued to minister to the hungry and the homeless on the skid rows of the nation's largest cities. More than 100 Catholic Worker soup kitchens and hostels for the homeless now carry on her work.

"I think we really caught her spirit, her passion and her faith in the portrayal of her," Kelly said. "It is a Catholic film -- but her message is universal. As my mom used to tell me, I can't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, but I can make a difference. A lot of people feel like they have to make a large difference or they're making no difference at all.

"But it really does take just one person that you affect, one person that you help -- and you do affect the world."

Scaperlanda writes from Norman, Oklah.