The Nun's Story is the spiritual discovery that Audrey Hepburn makes to find out if she's got the right stuff to become a nun. Born in Brussels in a Belgian Catholic family headed by renowned doctor Dean Jagger, young Audrey decides to become a nun and hopes eventually to serve as a nursing sister in the Belgian Congo where her dad is a specialist on tropical diseases.
This is where the spiritual comes into no small conflict with the requirements of the Catholic church to become a nun. Hepburn has both the religious fervor and the medical qualifications for the job. She's lived and worked beside her father and is as familiar as you can get with the medical aspects of the job. Even if she wasn't, Jagger's own influence would assure her of a position in her chosen medical field.
But because the requirements of the nunnery are different she doesn't get to the Congo right away. Audrey's got a great deal of difficulty in getting humility down. I have to confess that as presented to me in the audience, I had a lot of problems with that one myself. At one point one of the reverend mothers tells her to deliberately flunk her examination. I think that was going a bit too far and so did Edith Evans who plays the reverend mother at the abbey Audrey is doing her novice training at.
Audrey Hepburn and gowns by Givenchy are synonymous on the screen and it's different seeing her in unglamorous nun's habit. But Hepburn's performance got her an Oscar nomination, a well deserved one. I'll bet the critics couldn't grasp the humility test, but they and I know an Oscar caliber performance when we see one.
Dames Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft who plays the reverend mother at the Congo hospital got nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Peter Finch who it would have been nice to see a bit more of plays the unbelieving medical doctor at that hospital. Good thing he didn't have to pass a humility test to get his job.
This is the Belgian Congo of the Thirties, a mere quarter of a century after Roger Casement exposed the barbarity of the rule of King Leopold over that colony which was his personal domain as opposed to a government colony. It became a government run colony after Leopold died and was one when this story takes place. The legacy of hatred and barbarism was still there and in another quarter of a century would explode when Africa shed its colonial past. There's an incident in the film where one of the natives kills one of the nuns because a witch doctor told him it would rid the evil spirits. If The Nun's Story was made today, that aspect might not be glorified, but it would be explored more fully from the native's point of view. As it is they have two racially segregated hospitals there.
The climax of the film has Hepburn back in Belgium when the Nazis overrun it in World War II. Things that happen to her country and her family force a lot of soul searching upon her. Part of her problem then is she's a role model for some of the newer postulants.
To see what she does by all mean's catch The Nun's Story.
This is where the spiritual comes into no small conflict with the requirements of the Catholic church to become a nun. Hepburn has both the religious fervor and the medical qualifications for the job. She's lived and worked beside her father and is as familiar as you can get with the medical aspects of the job. Even if she wasn't, Jagger's own influence would assure her of a position in her chosen medical field.
But because the requirements of the nunnery are different she doesn't get to the Congo right away. Audrey's got a great deal of difficulty in getting humility down. I have to confess that as presented to me in the audience, I had a lot of problems with that one myself. At one point one of the reverend mothers tells her to deliberately flunk her examination. I think that was going a bit too far and so did Edith Evans who plays the reverend mother at the abbey Audrey is doing her novice training at.
Audrey Hepburn and gowns by Givenchy are synonymous on the screen and it's different seeing her in unglamorous nun's habit. But Hepburn's performance got her an Oscar nomination, a well deserved one. I'll bet the critics couldn't grasp the humility test, but they and I know an Oscar caliber performance when we see one.
Dames Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft who plays the reverend mother at the Congo hospital got nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Peter Finch who it would have been nice to see a bit more of plays the unbelieving medical doctor at that hospital. Good thing he didn't have to pass a humility test to get his job.
This is the Belgian Congo of the Thirties, a mere quarter of a century after Roger Casement exposed the barbarity of the rule of King Leopold over that colony which was his personal domain as opposed to a government colony. It became a government run colony after Leopold died and was one when this story takes place. The legacy of hatred and barbarism was still there and in another quarter of a century would explode when Africa shed its colonial past. There's an incident in the film where one of the natives kills one of the nuns because a witch doctor told him it would rid the evil spirits. If The Nun's Story was made today, that aspect might not be glorified, but it would be explored more fully from the native's point of view. As it is they have two racially segregated hospitals there.
The climax of the film has Hepburn back in Belgium when the Nazis overrun it in World War II. Things that happen to her country and her family force a lot of soul searching upon her. Part of her problem then is she's a role model for some of the newer postulants.
To see what she does by all mean's catch The Nun's Story.