ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BRIGGS ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOTE: below
SOME SURPRISING FILMS made the grade, too, including a few that are R-rated elsewhere.
``Ben-Hur'' made it. ``The Ten Commandments'' didn't. ``Gandhi,'' ``The Bicycle Thief'' and the ``Wizard of Oz'' all made the cut. But not ``Casablanca'' or any film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean Claude Van Damme.
Call it the Vatican's guide to the greatest movies of all time.
In a document marking the centenary of film, a Vatican committee has selected 45 movies - from Charlie Chaplin's ``Modern Times'' to Ingmar Bergman's ``The Seventh Seal'' - that represent the best film has to offer, from the church's perspective.
For those who view religious groups as unrelenting critics of Hollywood, there are a few surprises.
For example, among the movies to which the Vatican gives two thumbs up are a number of films that take a critical look at religion, including Roland Joffe's ``The Mission,'' Luis Bunel's atheistic satire ``Nazarin,'' and the R-rated ``Schindler's List,'' in which nudity and violence are integral to depicting the horrors of the Holocaust.
For pure enjoyment, the faithful are advised to scour their video stores for films ranging from ``It's a Wonderful Life'' to ``The Lavender Hill Mob.''
The Vatican list - modestly titled ``Some Important Films'' - was compiled as part of a larger effort during the 100th anniversary of filmmaking to encourage the faithful to be discriminating viewers of movies, according to Archbishop John Foley, head of the Pontifical Council on Social Communications.
In the United States, the Catholic Communication Campaign last fall launched a toll-free movie review telephone line to help people choose movies and videos for their families. The church's Office for Film and Broadcasting reviews movies for the phone-in line, which logged 100,000 calls in its first four months.
To give some examples of good films, Foley and about a dozen other film experts, including movie librarians and academics, compiled the list, which was sent to bishops' conferences around the world.
Some considerations that entered into the choices included opinion polls and the availability of films. The list is not exhaustive, the committee admits.
``It was not an attempt to canonize films, but it was an attempt to indicate what some good films are,'' Foley said.
The Vatican committee divided the films into three categories: religion, values and art.
Important films on religion, according to the Vatican list, included such familiar pictures as ``Ben-Hur'' and ``A Man For All Seasons,'' the story of Thomas More.
Not all of the movies selected presented flattering portraits of Catholics and members of the church hierarchy. In ``Nazarin,'' hypocritical church members dump their priest for trying to live up to his faith by helping a prostitute. In ``The Mission,'' heroic missionaries in Brazil are undermined by a cynical church leader.
In the category of films that invite reflections on transcendence or spiritual values, the committee selected works including ``Chariots of Fire,'' the story of two runners in the 1924 Olympics, and ``Schindler's List,'' about the effort of one man to save hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust.
Also on the list was Elia Kazan's ``On the Waterfront.''
Finally, the Vatican committee included a third category composed of titles ``which are, simply, masterpieces of cinematic language and art.''
These titles included such films as Walt Disney's ``Fantasia,'' Stanley Kubrick's ``2001: A Space Odyssey,'' John Ford's ``Stagecoach'' and ``The Wizard of Oz.''
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Charleton Heston as "Ben-Hur" 2. and as Moses in "Tenby CNBCommandments." Graphic: Chart. color.