New Movie on Pope's Life Premiers
Daniela Petroff - Associated Press
Oct 15, 2008
VATICAN CITY - A movie on the life of Pope John Paul II, based on the recollections of his longtime private secretary, premiers at the Vatican on Thursday, the 30th anniversary of the Polish pontiff's election.
John Paul's successor Benedict XVI will view the all-Polish production, narrated by British actor Michael York, on a huge screen set up in the Vatican's modern audience hall, along with cardinals and bishops present for a special meeting on the Bible.
"It was my duty toward John Paul. I had to pay back his goodness, which put up with me for 39 years," Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz told a Vatican press conference introducing the movie. Dziwisz, now archbishop of Cracow, served the pope from his years as bishop in Cracow to his death in Rome in 2005.
The movie, called "Testimony" and based on Dziwisz's book titled "My friend Karol" in its English translation, was filmed in both Poland and the Vatican. It features some of John Paul's personal effects, including the portable altar he took with him on hiking trips while he was a bishop in Poland, liturgical vestments, cassocks and even a belt.
York, who was present for the film's premiere, said he had the feeling he was meant to get the lead role.
"This job was heaven sent," he quipped, referring to the fact that he was in Warsaw on another assignment when he was approached. He said his being an "outsider" - neither a Pole nor a Catholic - brought a fresh perspective to the movie.
The producers describe the movie as a "dramatized documentary" tracing the life of Karol Woytila from his birth in 1920 in Wadowice near Cracow, through the German occupation of Poland in World War II, to the years as priest, bishop and cardinal in postwar Communist Poland, to his election on October 16, 1978 and his subsequent 26 years as pope.
It is based on Dziwisz's recollections in diaries over the years.
"The movie is meant to be a bridge which unites the testimony of Cardinal Dziwisz to the context of the man who became pope," said producer Przemyslaw Hauser.
The film is not the first on the life of this pope. "John Paul II" starred Jon Voight, who won an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of the pope.
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Copyright 2008 by Associated Press
