Testing The Waters ‘The Apostle’ Wades Into A Form Of Presentation Unfamiliar To Filmmakers Dealing With Religion

It’s one of the crowning contradictions of the movie industry that it purveys all manner of sexual depravity, sadistic violence, vulgarity and moral corruption on the big screen without a sigh of remorse. But when it comes to showing mainstream religion, that same movie industry becomes as timid as a church mouse.

It’s as if Hollywood has somehow confused itself with the government, hewing carefully to a strict separation of church and state.

Of course, movies are made about religion, but most of them have stayed within the confines of some well-known stereotypes. There are the biblical epics (“The Ten Commandments,” “Ben Hur,” “The Last Temptation of Christ”) and the lives of the saints (“The Song of Bernadette,” “Joan of Arc”). We’ve seen the clergy-as-hero (“Becket,” “The Exorcist”) and the clergy-as-villain (“The Boys of St. Vincent,” “Body & Soul”).

Some films seek to plumb the mysteries of faith (“Household Saints,” “Resurrection”) or its loss (“The Night of the Iguana”). In others, religion is a convenient foil for opposites-attract romances (“The African Queen,” “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison”) or comedy (“We’re No Angels,” Monty Python’s “Life of Brian,” “Sister Act”) or cultural anthropology (“Witness,” the IrishItalian-Catholic cycle).

Many of these films introduced great characters to the screen, and were valuable observations of the strengths and foibles of sectarian faith. But rarely is religion of the everyday, churchgoing, unremarkable kind depicted by the movies.

“Dead Man Walking,” in which Susan Sarandon portrayed a nun counseling a death-row prisoner, did a good job of demystifying a nun’s spiritual life, depicting it as unvarnished, if inspired, hard work. There was a wonderful brief scene in “Amistad” that showed a judge praying; for him, worship was as common a part of his life and work as reading law books or debating jurisprudence with barristers.

Such a moment would never be seen in a movie about contemporary life even though more than 50 percent of Americans attend church, synagogue or other worship service at least twice a month.

But one film is bucking that conventional wisdom. In Robert Duvall’s “The Apostle,” religion is not fodder for ridicule or criticism. It is neither a colorful backdrop nor the subject of well-meaning investigation. Rather, the church, specifically the Southern Pentecostal church, is presented matter-of-factly as the all-encompassing reality that enfolds Sonny Dewey, the preacher at the story’s center.

Sonny, played by Duvall, who wrote, directed and produced “The Apostle,” is portrayed as a full human being, just as capable of cruelty and violence as he is of grace and generosity.

When Sonny bounds to the altar of his Dallas church, it’s a magnetic moment, full of the almost erotic energy that characterizes the best religious oratory. This is a man of the cloth who is first a man, with all of a man’s ego, energy and vanity.

Sonny eventually assembles a new church, in the poor, mostly black town of Bayou Boutte, La. There, the services are depicted as celebratory facts of community life rather than the strange rituals of colorful “others.” This is church as social center, safety net, live theater, business, organizing principle, vector of meaning. This is church at its most vital, an organic part of the lives of its parishioners.

Duvall, who first hit on the idea for “The Apostle” while traveling through Arkansas 36 years ago, created the role of Sonny to contradict popular stereotypes.

“I saw clips of ‘Elmer Gantry,’ and it was all patronization-time by Hollywood, putting forth caricatures and these quick, easy images of what really isn’t,” Duvall told Film Comment magazine. “When people would say, ‘Are you gonna make your guy this way?’ I said, ‘No, he’s an honest guy who lives what he believes, but he has weaknesses like anybody else. … no more nor less than any Hollywood producer or guy that runs a studio who are making the decisions about this.”’

Throughout the 13 years that Duvall knocked on studio doors to make “The Apostle,” the guys making the decisions said no. Hollywood is perfectly comfortable with spirituality in its fuzzy-headed saccharine form (“It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Preacher’s Wife”) or its fuzzy-headed New Age form (“Contact,” “Breaking the Waves”) or as the enemy of liberal, secular, humanist values (“Priest,” “Citizen Ruth”).

But the simple idea of people going to church scares Tinseltown to death.

“People are afraid of what they don’t understand,” explained Rob Carliner, co-producer of “The Apostle,” who shopped the project with Duvall for five years before the actor decided to pony up $5 million of his own money to produce the film. “And when you think about the Hollywood-Beverly Hills corridor that defines where the movie industry is primarily located, that’s about as far removed from the way real people are in this country as you can get.

“That’s why there’s this barrier between what people are really like and how they’re depicted by the movie industry.”

Not only were the executives unfamiliar with the material presented in “The Apostle,” but they were also painfully aware of the track records of such films as “Leap of Faith,” the 1992 comedy-drama in which Steve Martin played an itinerant flimflam man dressed in preacher’s clothing. The movie failed at the box office, probably because of its insulting and simplistic depiction of evangelism, as have many movies dealing with religious characters and themes.

“Everybody’s knee-jerk reaction was that it’s about a preacher; it won’t make any money,” Carliner said. “No movie about a preacher has made money and demonstrated that it can appeal to an audience.

“And it’s not like it’s Tom Cruise playing the preacher, either, so when you’re talking about millions of dollars to make and market a film, it’s a big risk.”

If “The Apostle” proves to be a box-office hit, count on the movie business to cook up its own versions of Sonny Dewey (and don’t be surprised if Tom Cruise is attached). But whether Hollywood will do as good a job as Duvall, heaven only knows.