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Movie Review: The Nun’s Story (1959) [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-19
SPOILER ALERT!
All I know about nuns is what I have seen in the movies. The movies in question would be those like The Song of Bernadette (1943) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), where nuns play a prominent role, as well as movies where nuns are featured only in minor roles like Airport (1970) and Year of the Dragon (1985). Not to be left out are movies where nuns are portrayed humorously as in The Blues Brothers (1980) and Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010). I confess I never quite managed to get myself to watch The Singing Nun (1966).
I never watched The Nun’s Story when it first came out in 1959 either, but TCM featured it recently. It apparently was nominated for several Academy Awards, so I decided to take a look. It is based on a true story. It begins in Belgium in the late 1920s, where Dean Jagger, who plays a prominent surgeon, reluctantly watches as his daughter, played by Audrey Hepburn, joins a convent for nuns that want to be nurses too. Hepburn wants to specialize in tropical diseases like leprosy and then be allowed to serve in the Belgian Congo.
In other words, unlike the other nun movies I have seen, this one takes us through all the steps a woman must go through to become a nun. Whether all nuns have to go through something like this, whether all convents are like the one in this movie, I cannot say. What I can say is that I was overwhelmed.
The restrictions placed on Hepburn and others are too numerous to list in full, but the basic idea seems to be that of giving one’s life to God through acts of self-denial. It must suffice to mention just a few. For example, Hepburn and others are told, “Your hands must learn to stay still and out of sight except when they're needed for nursing or prayer.” Presumably, meals would be an exception too.
Speaking of meals, they are told, “We, of course, never ask for things for ourselves. Each sister is alert to the needs of her fellow sisters.” If no one offers you a biscuit, I guess you just don’t get a biscuit.
There is something called the Grand Silence, “from after chapel at night until after chapel in the morning,” during which they are not supposed to talk. Even apart from that, they are supposed to avoid “useless conversations,” using sign language instead, especially during meals.
But more than that, they are supposed to strive for “interior silence.” It is not enough to suppress bad thoughts, apparently, but all thoughts whatsoever, such as, “I wish someone would offer me a biscuit.”
As postulants, they are told they must detach themselves from friends and family. Upon becoming novices, they must detach themselves from their memories. Furthermore, instead of writing in a notebook any faults of which they are guilty, as novices they must proclaim their faults to their sisters.
Fine. But then there is this: “If any sister has observed you in an external fault which you have not proclaimed, it is her duty to proclaim you in charity so that you may be aware of your errors and correct them.” This reminded me of George Orwell’s 1984, in which children are encouraged to spy on their parents and report any disloyalty to Big Brother.
About this time, while you are thinking there is no way you could submit to all these rules, Sister Simone tells Hepburn that she is giving up. They have become best friends, but that’s not allowed, so they have to do penance for their attachment to each other. Of course, she breaks the Grand Silence to say goodbye, but she’s leaving, so what does she care? In so doing, however, she leads Hepburn into the sin of also breaking the Grand Silence, for which she must do penance. Simone offers to shake Hepburn’s hand in farewell. Hepburn starts to extend her hand, but touching another nun is forbidden, so she withdraws it. Anyway, though we never see Simone again, yet the scene gives us some emotional relief. At least someone is getting out of there!
[Note: I watched this movie twice all the way through and, in writing this review, often returned to sections of the movie as needed. Every time I got to the scenes where the postulants were being instructed on how to behave and made to participate in various rituals, I got the same creepy feeling I had when I watched Eyes Wide Shut (1999). I kept telling myself that this was a notion peculiar only to me and that I should keep it to myself. But it kept coming back to me with such force that I finally decided to mention it here, for what it is worth.]
Hepburn takes her vows and is sent to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. Owing to what her father had already taught her, she excels among the other sisters hoping to be sent to the Congo as well. One of the other sisters, Sister Pauline, resents Hepburn and goes to see Mother Marcella, accusing Hepburn of thought crime. I mean, sin of pride.
Hepburn admits that she sensed that Sister Pauline did not like her, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Mother Marcella tells Hepburn that it would be a great act humility on her part if she were to purposely fail the examination.
At this point, there should have been an intermission. A few minutes were needed to let that sink in.
Anyway, Hepburn is stunned. She says she would be willing if the Mother House knows of this and approves. Literally speaking, the Mother House is a building, so I assume this is a metonym for the Mother Superior.
Mother Marcella says that would be “humility with hooks,” in which Hepburn would have the satisfaction of knowing that the Mother House would be impressed with her sacrifice. In short, Mother Marcella continues, no one else can know that Hepburn failed the examination on purpose. She tells Hepburn to talk it over with God.
At this point, I wanted Hepburn to come back the next day and say, “I talked it over with God, and he says he wants the best nurse to go to the Congo, and that’s me.” Nothing like that happens, of course. Besides, if God really cared, there would be no such thing as leprosy.
Hepburn can’t bring herself to purposely fail the examination, coming in fourth as she does in a class of eighty. Nevertheless, it is Sister Pauline who gets to go to the Congo, while Hepburn is assigned to work in an insane asylum. When she gets there, she is told that the practical nurses only put in four-hour shifts, but the sisters put in eight- to ten-hour shifts. As we learn this, we are taken to a room full of women restrained in bathtubs, where they kick and scream without ever letting up. Over in the corner, there is a nun, sitting on a chair, silently putting in her eight-to ten-hour shift.
Eventually, Hepburn makes her way to the Congo, where she hopes to find God’s cure for God’s disease. However, she is devastated to learn that instead of tending to the natives, she will be working in the hospital for white Europeans. The chief surgeon there is played by Peter Finch. She is warned not to linger to discuss a case with him after surgery, which would mean being alone with him, because he is a bachelor atheist, and her habit will not protect her. After all, we learned from watching Black Narcissus (1947) just how sexually arousing a bachelor atheist can be for a nun.
That ominous warning notwithstanding, the only danger Finch poses to Hepburn, even when they are alone in a room together, is his irreligious witticisms. One of the rules Hepburn learned was never to look into a mirror. Shortly after her arrival, she opens a cabinet with a glass panel, in which she accidentally sees her reflection. As she gazes at it spellbound, Finch walks into the room and says, “You will say six Aves and a Pater Noster for that bit of vanity, Sister.” When asked if she has ever assisted in an operation, she tells him who her father is, attributing much of her ability to him. Finch replies, “You'll say another five Aves and beg your soup for that little display of pride, Sister.” Hepburn is not amused.
At one point, he casually asks her if she’s ever gone fishing. She does not reply, remaining silent. “It's impossible to talk to somebody,” he says with disgust, “who's not allowed to remember.” The restrictions that were placed on her, such as detaching herself from her memories, seemed bad enough while she was in the convent, surrounded by other nuns, but they really seem excessive now that she is out in the real world.
Eventually, Finch starts having serious discussions with her, telling her she is too tense, the sign of an exhausting inner struggle. When she says nothing in reply, he snidely remarks, “The Grand Silence?”
In exasperation, she replies, “Do you realize that every time you talk to me like this, I should go down on my knees before my sisters and proclaim my fault?”
He tells her he is sorry. But on another occasion, he tells her she is a worldly nun, one who is good with patients, but who will never be the kind of nun her convent expects her to be.
It becomes necessary for her to escort a mental case back to Belgium. Then war breaks out. Her father is killed by the Germans while treating members of the resistance. Her desire to help those who are in need becomes more important to her than the rules of the convent. She is told in response, “You entered the convent to be a nun, not to be a nurse. The religious life must be more important to you than your love of medicine.”
Hepburn realizes that she can no longer be a nun. She asks to go through the procedure for leaving the convent, something so serious that a cardinal has to get involved. After the paperwork is done, she is told to go into the portress room. When she is ready, she is to press the button.
In the portress room are the clothes she wore when she entered a convent for the first time. She changes into those clothes, picks up her suitcase, and presses the button. I thought that someone would come in and say goodbye to her, saying things like, “We enjoyed having you with us as a sister,” or “Not everyone is meant to be a nun,” or “There is more than one way to serve God.”
But no. Instead, a door automatically opens to the street, effectively saying, “Don’t let it hit you in the ass when you close it behind you.”
We see her walk down the street, turn the corner, and disappear.
And so, that’s the way it is. At least, I think that’s the way it is. But then, all I know about nuns is what I see in the movies.
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