The Amazing Grace of
Dorothy Day
Robert V. Lauder
Entertaining Angels:
The Story of Dorothy Day is one of the most Christian and Catholic films ever
made. Some invisible force, I believe, was present during the making of this
film. Moira Kelly as Dorothy Day and Martin Sheen as Peter Maurin both turn in
performances that deserve Academy Award nominations.
The story, told almost entirely in a flashback,
covers the life of Dorothy Day from 1917, when she was a twenty-year-old
journalist and social activist, through 1963, when she was briefly imprisoned
for protesting the nuclear arms race.
The film dramatizes her love affairs, the
abortion of her first child, her common-law relationship with Forster (Lenny Von
Dohlen), the father of her daughter Tamar (Heather Camille), as well as her
conversion to Catholicism, her disciple-tutor friendship with the French
peasant-philosopher Peter Maurin, and her life-long commitment to serve and live
among the poor.
As a team project in which several artists do
their best work, the film reminds me of On The Waterfront (1954). The model for
the priest role in that film, and also a special advisor on the film, was Fr.
John Corridan, S.J. Years later Fr. Corridan claimed that during the shooting of
the film there was an indescribable feeling among those present that a curious
force was helping direct the picture.
In the first scene of Entertaining Angels a
chained African American drug addict is thrown into the same cell as Dorothy,
who has been temporarily imprisoned for her part in the 1963 protest. As the
hysterical addict stretches her chained wrists she momentarily appears like a
crucified figure and, bewildered by the kindness of her cellmate, asks,
"Who are you?" Cradling the sobbing young woman in her arms, Dorothy
softly sings "Amazing Grace."
Early scenes of Dorothy's bohemian life in
Greenwich Village create a claustrophobic atmosphere, as though she is trapped
or imprisoned in her wild lifestyle. The musings of Dorothy's friend, playwright
Eugene O'Neill (James Lancaster), about the transcendent provide a foreshadowing
of Dorothy's encounter with God.
There is an especially touching scene in The
Catholic Worker House on the Bowery in which Peter Maurin is washing a foot of
one of the derelicts. With no conversation at all, Dorothy takes off the
derelict's other shoe and begins to bathe it. As they are washing the man's
feet, Peter and Dorothy smile at one another, providing us with an inspiring
image of two twentieth century apostles following the lead of Jesus at the Last
Supper.
Among my favorite scenes in Entertaining Angels
is the baptismal scene in which Dorothy and her infant daughter join the Church.
With a large crucifix in the background, a nun who befriended the questioning
young social reformer is on one side of the two new Catholics and on the other
is the derelict who had been helped by Dorothy. The composition of the shot
depicting the baptisms succinctly sums up in visual terms the entire film's
dramatization of Dorothy's Catholic commitment to the poor.
The climax of the film and the most moving and
powerful moment in this very moving and powerful film has Dorothy, having
overcome doubts about The Catholic Worker apostolate, giving a stirring talk to
her coworkers on the Bowery, explaining why and how she will spend her life
serving Jesus in the poor. I will not be the only one moved to tears by this
scene.
Just before the film ends, the almost film-length
flashback concludes, and once again it is 1963. Dorothy is in the prison cell
cradling the drug addict and softly singing "Amazing Grace." A very
fitting ending to Entertaining Angels, which I believe is itself an amazing
grace. v
Robert V. Lauder's latest book, Walker Percy:
Prophetic Existentialist, Catholic Storyteller
On the wrong Day
Review
By David Scott
It's too bad the new film biography of Dorothy
Day has only a hearsay acquaintance with her life.
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