The Catholic Connection (Part Three of Four)


According to the Joycean scholar Harold Bloom, "it is Stephen's ambition throughout the novel to 'deflower' the Blessed Virgin of Catholicism. He wants to supplant the Catholic Madonna with a profane surrogate, an aesthetic muse rooted in sensuous reality." Through Stephen, Joyce presents a perverse depiction of Mary. In so doing, he implicitly absolves himself, i.e. what exists of him in Stephen, from an obligation to abide by sexual mores.

Likewise Fellini, in Otto e mezzo, attacks the moral fiber of the clergy. He presents the cardinal who advises Guido as a worldly figure. In one of the film's spa scenes, the latter is seen in the acutely physical act of mud-bathing:

414. The Cardinal's suite of anteroom, steam chamber, and mud bath...The noise of the steam becomes louder. With an exaggerated creaking noise, the window is drawn open on two top hinges, revealing the Cardinal's steam bath... 415. a sheet covering Cardinal in three-quarter profile, naked from the waist up.

The emphasis which is placed on the cardinal's humanity creates doubts about the nature of his spirituality. How can this outwardly pious man, who condemns submission to the flesh, indulge his body to such a great extent? In raising this question, Fellini is able to shed new light on the cleric's teaching. The latter emerges as a hollow and hypocritical stance to be advanced by one who is himself only human.

The copyright of the article The Catholic Connection (Part Three of Four) in American Literary Cinema is owned by Emily Woodward. Permission to republish The Catholic Connection (Part Three of Four) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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