Miracles and Sacrilege: Robert Rossellini, the Church, and Film Censorship in HollywoodMiracles and Sacrilege is the story of the epochal conflict between censorship and freedom in film, recounted through an in-depth analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down a government ban on Roberto Rossellini’s film The Miracle (1950). In this extraordinary case, the Court ultimately chose to abandon its own longstanding determination that film comprised a mere ‘business’ unworthy of free-speech rights, declaring for the first time that the First Amendment barred government from banning any film as ‘sacreligious.’ Using legal briefs, affidavits, and other court records, as well as letters, memoranda, and other archival materials to elucidate what was at issue in the case, William Bruce Johnson also analyzes the social, cultural, and religious elements that form the background of this complex and hard-fought controversy, focusing particularly on the fundamental role played by the Catholic Church in the history of film censorship. Tracing the development of the Church in the United States, Johnson discusses the reasons it found The Miracle sacrilegious and how it attained the power to persuade civil authorities to ban it. The Court’s decision was not only a milestone in the law of church-state relations, but it paved the way for a succession of later decisions which gradually established a firm legal basis for freedom of expression in the arts. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 64
... Vatican's Renaissance maps at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, he ascribed the discovery of America to Columbus's Catholic faith, for which 'the whole human race owes not a little to the Church.'5 Isaac Thomas Hecker, raised a ...
... Vatican Council in 1869–70, Pius IX asked the world's bishops to ratify his declaration that all papal pronouncements on matters of faith and morals were infallible. Although many wanted to ask pointed questions or even voice their ...
... Vatican librarian noting that the war was providential in that it would prevent liberal French and German bishops from joining together in a conspiracy against Pius. While that much was true, the French soon abandoned Rome to fight ...
... Vatican on all issues to the predations of 'spies, eaves-droppers, meddlers, and every contemptible species of humanity.' The proposal was successfully resisted until 1893, when Leo Francesco Satolli, archbishop of Lepanto, became the ...
... Vatican's plea to help preserve peace between the United States and Catholic Spain, once war started, he was among those who embraced the Yankee chauvinism of Theodore Roosevelt and W.R. Hearst, openly proclaiming that a war with Spain ...
Contents
5 Protestantism Balkanized | |
6 Reining In Hollywood | |
7 The Production Code | |
17 A Sense of Decency and Good Morals | |
18 The Law Knows No Heresy | |
19 In the Supreme Court | |
20 Candour and Shame | |
Notes | |
12 New Realities | |
13 Visions of Mary | |
14 Mary or Communism | |
8 The Legion of Decency | |
9 The Breen Office | |
10 The Paramount Case | |
11 Cocktails and Communism | |
12 New Realities | |
13 Visions of Mary | |
14 Mary or Communism | |
15 The Priest as Public Figure | |
16 Woman Further Defamed | |
15 The Priest as Public Figure | |
16 Woman Further Defamed | |
17 A Sense of Decency and Good Morals | |
18 The Law Knows No Heresy | |
19 In the Supreme Court | |
20 Candour and Shame | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |