Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Matthew_Capitano Bernadette is a waifish sickly soul, but producer Dave Selznick hired Jen Jones (by 'Special Appointment'... ooooo!!!), to play the part, not because she was any good (she's an untalented big-boned broad), but because Selzie wanted to do her -- and he did (he later married her).Hank King's strange direction confuses the audience and makes it even harder to believe in this fairy tale. Ermadean Walter who portrays Bernie's sister is hot, especially when she lifts up her dress so she can wade across the shallow river... BUTT CHEEKS! Is that a thong she's wearing? YEAHHHHHH! A really long flick. Have a jumbo size amount of popcorn so you don't miss any of the movie -- and a fifth of vodka so you can forget you ever saw it.

nyp01 One of the greatest films of the golden era of Hollywood was a religiously themed film about the private revelations of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette Soubirou, an illiterate peasant girl from the town of Lourdes in the year 1858. It made a star of Jennifer Jones, and won her the Oscar that year. The film was nominated for Best Picture as well as 10 other Oscars, and won for best score (Alfred Newman) and cinematography as well. One of the intriguing things about the movie is how it came to be made. The writer, Franz Werfel was living in Germany with his wife, Alma (the widow of the great composer Gustav Mahler) when they had to escape to France to escape the Nazi terror. Settling near Lourdes in the south of France in the shadow of the Pyrenees, they became acquainted with the 'miraculous' spring of Lourdes, where the Catholic faithful had been coming for nearly a hundred years.Inspired by the faith and hospitality of the French peasantry who flocked to the shrine, Werfel vowed to God to write about them if He saved the couple from annihilation. Though a Jew, Werfel was impressed by the humility and goodness of the people among whom he had settled.Escaping finally to America, and settling in California, he set to work in 1942 writing The Song of Bernadette. Upon publication, it was immediately recognized by David O. Selznick of 20th Century Fox as a great property, and was purchased for the rights to adapt it to the screen.One of the singular things about the film is how closely it hues to the book, which was an historically accurate novelization of the phenomenon of Lourdes. It presents in stark terms the disbelief of the political, religious and scientific leaders of the day, and the grief they caused Bernadette Soubirou and her family. Further, it presents Bernadette's visions without explanation or judgment, and leaves it to the viewer to make his own mind up about them.Made in 1943, at the height of WWII, when the world was in turmoil such as it had never been before, and faith in God was severely put to the test, few films have been as appropriate to their time and place as this was. It is one of the greatest films of all time. It has recently been digitally restored on DVD, with commentary and other extras.

dbdumonteil no explanations is necessary .For those who don't ,no explanation is possible.The lines which opens the film are repeated towards the ending by Father Peyramale.Few legends have been woven from humbler stuff,and this particular encounter between one of the poorest peasant girls in a tiny village of the Pyrenées and "the Lady" led to events that shook not only my native France but the entire Christian world.Lourdes has become the second Christian pilgrimage place in the world after Rome,the second hotel town in France after Paris.Like in the book,the film begins with the humble life of the Soubirous.The first pictures show Bernadette's father taking infectious clothes from the hospital to the dump.And the family was housed in a dark place which the inhabitants of Lourdes used to call "le Cachot" ("The dungeon").Henry King's film is absolutely inspired.Jennifer Jones (who would play another -fictious- French character ,"Madame Bovary" and who would become the par excellence romantic heroine ),thoroughly deserved the AA she won.The characters she would play later in her career ("Duel in the sun" ,"Ruby Gentry" "Gone to Earth" and MInnelli's Flaubert's adaptation)and Bernadette are worlds apart.Her metamorphosis was extraordinary: her portrayal of the young illiterate peasant girl ,her look,her sweet humble voice,her self-denial ("I don't promise you happiness in this world but in the next one") made her the absolute French saint.French words have been introduced in the dialog (Bernadette always uses:"Monsieur" ) To a hostile world (the bourgeois,the Church),Bernadette puts forwards her faith ,her beaming smile and her moving clever answers which will remind you of those of Joan of Arc during her trial;the two heroines were chosen among the humble few.That's what Sister Vauzous (a sublime Gladys Cooper)did not understand : and however,hadn't Bernadette suffered from TB ,her childhood in a room as dark as a dungeon,her humiliations when she was at school ,the exhausting questionings she had to cope with ,wasn't it enough? "The Song of Bernadette" is so intense a movie it can appeal to atheists too.Prosecutor Vital Dutour cannot enter Bernadette's world cause it takes a lot of faith and he realizes that he will die a lonely man too late.Like this ?Try these....(great religious movies about French saints) "Monsieur Vincent" Maurice Cloche 1947 (Saint Vincent de Paul) "Thérèse "Alain Cavalier 1986 (Sainte Therese de Lisieux) "Bernadette" Jean Delannoy 1987 (Although despised by most of the French critics and inferior to KIng's version,it's essential viewing for anyone interested in Bernadette's story;it's to my knowledge the only recent French film dealing with the subject)

zetes Jennifer Jones plays Bernadette Soubirous, the young girl who claimed to see the Virgin Mary at Lourdes. I must say right up front that I am not religious at all. Yet I have been moved by religious films, notably The Passion of Joan of Arc and The Gospel According to Matthew. Obviously both are foreign films. Frankly, I can't think of any Hollywood films offhand that I believe tackle religious matters very well. Pretentious of me? I don't know, maybe. I just think that Hollywood is way too in awe of it. I don't necessarily need the style to be skeptical, just muted. In The Song of Bernadette, there's no doubt whatsoever whether the girl is seeing the Virgin Mary or not (hilariously played by a pregnant Linda Darnell, which, as much as I like her as an actress, is undoubtedly blasphemy, even to an atheist like myself). Everyone who believes Bernadette is a wonderful person. Those who doubt her are mean, though some of them are forgiven by accepting her later on. The worst case of this is Vincent Price's character. You can see the horror movies in his future in this performance. The real-life person he plays, Vital Dutour, was a devout Catholic. As he's the big baddie in this movie, he's made into an atheist. Okay, I should just suck it up. The film itself isn't too bad. It's well directed by Henry King, and very well shot. I wasn't that impressed with Jennifer Jones. This was her first performance under that name, though she had made several films as Phyllis Isely previous to this. She won the Oscar. Ingrid Bergman should have won for Casablanca that year, but instead she was nominated for For Whom the Bell Tolls. She still should have won. Bergman turned a completely useless character, the only flaw in Hemmingway's otherwise masterful novel, into a flesh-and-blood human being. Jean Arthur in The More the Merrier also deserved it more (I haven't seen Joan Fontaine in The Constant Nymph or Greer Garson in Madame Curie). Jones is okay, but her little kid act gets monotonous fast.