luther_movie_10603

Posted: 9/25/03

Joseph Fiennes, who plays Martin Luther in the new movie about the Reformation leader, posts his 95 Theses on the Wittenburg church door (left) and watches preparation for a scene during filming. The movie was backed by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

Striking a balance in 'Luther' movie wasn't easy

By Ted Parks

Associated Baptist Press

LOS ANGELES (ABP)–It starts with a young German law student belly-down on the ground begging God to save him from a lightning storm. It ends with the spiritual, cultural and political transformation of Europe.

In between comes the tumultuous life of religious reformer Martin Luther, whose story is the focus of a new movie starring Joseph Fiennes and Peter Ustinov.

Partially funded by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a large Lutheran financial management and support organization, the bio-pic "Luther" tells about the religious leader's role as catalyst for the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. The movie opened in theaters Sept. 26.

The movie opens with the young Luther, played by Fiennes beneath a violent sky, cutting a deal with heaven to save his life. But even after becoming a monk, Luther cannot find peace with God.

"I live in terror of judgment," Luther tells his mentor in the Augustinian religious order, Father Johann von Staupitz (played by Bruno Ganz). The order sends him to pursue a degree in theology, hoping the young monk finds the answers he's searching for in advanced study.

As Luther struggles at the university to understand history, tradition and Scripture, he changes his views. Sent to Wittenburg to teach in that city's university and serve as priest, Luther calls his parishioners to trust God's mercy rather than cower before God's wrath.

"Those who see God as angry do not see him rightly," he proclaims. "To see God in faith is to look upon his friendly heart."

Meanwhile at the Vatican, in order to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the pope has authorized the sale of indulgences, documents granting purchasers release from divine punishment. The film portrays indulgence-seller John Tetzel (Albert Molina) as a manipulative marketeer of divine mercy for a price.

When Tetzel's preaching impacts the people of Luther's own parish, the monk reacts by drafting his famous "95 Theses." After Luther nails the document to the church door in Wittenburg, the reformer's ideas spread across Germany like wildfire, the flames fanned by the recent invention of the printing press.

In the film, Luther's ideas put him in conflict with church and state, forcing him to seek refuge from the friendly German prince Frederick the Wise, played by Ustinov. Summoned before the political and religious leadership, Luther refuses to recant his ideas.

"My conscience is captive to the word of God," he says before uttering the now-famous line from church history: "Here I stand. I can do no other."

The new film was the dream of Thrivent Financial, according to Dennis Clauss, Thrivent corporate projects leader and executive producer.

When the Aid Association for Lutherans, an organization that later merged into Thrivent, wanted to celebrate its 100th birthday, some leaders suggested a movie honoring Luther. Thrivent then entered into an agreement with Neue Filmproduktion in Berlin, Germany, to produce the film. The Lutheran organization contributed slightly less than a third of the film's financing, Clauss said, estimating the final costs of production and distribution to be between $30 million and $35 million.

The producers' aim was not a religious niche film but a movie about a major historical figure that would have broad audience appeal, Clauss explained.

"A religious-specialty film (is) the kiss of death," Clauss said. The makers of "Luther" wanted "to remain true to the integrity of the story and the person and the message," while avoiding the stereotypes of a made-for-Christians movie, he added.

But striking the balance wasn't easy, Clauss acknowledged, calling the process "a very, very difficult tightrope."

The film's portrayal of Luther as always triumphing over his religious foes is troubling to Barbara Nicholosi, a Roman Catholic and the director of Act One: Writing for Hollywood, an organization helping Christian screenwriters sharpen their skills.

Rather than showing Luther as a human being with a full range of strengths and weaknesses, Nicholosi says the moviemakers heroized him.

"They had to … get rid of all his rough edges," Nicholosi said. She called the film a "missed opportunity" to say something about the universal themes in Luther's life by allowing his life, in all its complexity, to speak for itself.

Luther scholar Guy Erwin, professor of religion and history at California Lutheran University near Los Angeles, pointed out that Luther himself had moments of doubt as he wrestled with the momentous changes cascading around him. At the end of his life, Erwin added, Luther felt "thoroughly disillusioned" as he watched the message he thought would liberate believers fall prey to strife and bloodshed.

For Erwin, a far-reaching message in Luther's work is his defense of the freedom of individuals to make their own moral decisions. The reformer's contribution to history was the conviction that "the last arbiter of right is one's own conscience," Erwin explained.

In Hollywood terms, Luther could even be seen as a "Jimmy Stewart-like character," the professor said–"a person standing up and calling the system wrong."