The recent screening of the film “Teilhard: Visionary Scientist” at the Vatican’s Filmoteca, then at the Jesuit Curia and Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, drew much applause and appreciation. The American filmmakers, Frank and Mary Frost, spoke to Vatican News about the film.
Paul Samasumo – Vatican City
Frank and Mary Frost’s two-hour film, “Teilhard: Visionary Scientist,” is about the life, scientific thought, and spiritual vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit priest who lived from 1881 to 1955.
The film is a compelling human story filled with drama, centred on this priest-palaeontologist and visionary thinker. It focuses on his lifelong struggle to reconcile evolutionary science with Catholic faith and theology.
What has it been like for you, the two of you and your team, bringing the film to special screenings, first of all, right within the Vatican, at the Jesuit General Curia Auditorium, and also at the Pontifical Gregorian University?
It has been an adventure. It has been an honour. It’s been exciting.
We tried to make Teilhard understandable to the world. And so, this allows us to have a very wide exposure, and nothing is higher in our estimation than being accepted in Rome by the Vatican, the Jesuits, and the Gregorian University.
We have to say this has been very exciting because we have had wonderful audiences who applauded, who asked questions.
Tell us something about the story in this film.
It is a story of a French Jesuit palaeontologist who is exiled to China by his Jesuit order. And he never gives up trying to convince them that science and faith need to be reconciled. But he was loyal to the Society of Jesus, the Church and very loyal to his vision.
Of all the many great spiritual figures of the Catholic Church, what inspired you to produce the film about Teilhard de Chardin and what drew you to this man?
What drew me to Teilhard, besides the fact that I had been a Jesuit, was the fact that he was somebody who engaged the world. I grew up understanding that the Church taught me, I thought, that I should avoid the world. And Teilhard was telling me that I must engage the world as a way to Christ, to a spirituality. There is also the fact that his life, once we started looking at it, was a very dramatic story that was really good for television.
Who is the primary audience for this film, and what do you hope audiences who watch the film will take away from it?
It is not intended for a Catholic or religious audience. It was designed to be seen by the general public, people who are, in some way, searching for spirituality, for something spiritual in their lives. Teilhard was a man who had struggled to discover for himself the reconciliation of science and faith.
Take aways from the film?
I guess that they will listen to what Teilhard has to say and see the hope he offers for a kind of new spirituality. Hope is what we want people to take away. We want them to understand that they can, without being rigidly orthodox, pursue their spirituality and hope.
This film took you a long time to put together. What was it like translating Teilhard de Chardin’s complex ideas into a visual and cinematic experience?
It was a challenge. Teilhard lived 100 years before us, and so there were very few images of him. Besides that, we were not trying to just tell the facts about his life. We were trying to capture the drama of his life, his search, his hopes, his discouragements, his achievements. To do that, we had to find imagery that wasn’t necessarily illustrative but was more emotional.
We went looking for archival footage that evoked the places he was in, such as Paris and Peking (Beijing). This was so our audience could understand the context for his drama.
Teilhard de Chardin
How long did it take?
It was about 15 years. Most of that was because of fundraising. We had to raise a lot of money. That took a while.
The film has had some success in the United States already and was nominated for an Emmy.
Yes, it has been. We sadly did not win the Emmy, but we were nominated. That was very exciting to be recognised like that. The film has been translated into eight languages.
Worldwide, it has achieved a certain measure of success as well. We have a direct international streaming link that people can use. One of the interesting things is that the first people who wanted to translate it into their language were the Chinese. It has since been translated into both mainland Chinese and Taiwanese Chinese. So Mandarin was the first language. But secondly, we were surprised to receive requests from satellite broadcasters to air it in the Middle East and North Africa. In these regions, the film has been translated it into Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. That tells the universal appeal of Teilhard.
As a palaeontologist working in China, did Teilhard speak Mandarin?
No, he did not. Kind of for two reasons: One is that he always thought he was going back to France. The second one is that he worked with an international group of scientists, and they all spoke English because some came from Sweden, France, the United States, and probably other countries, as well as Germany. And of course, there were Chinese scientists also. But they had all studied in the United States or England. So even the Chinese scientists spoke English, and that was their common language.
I imagine most of the text and material in your research would have been in French?
That’s true up to a point. Many of his 13 volumes of work had already been translated from French into English. His scientific work was all in English. He had published as much scientifically as he had in the spiritual realm. We therefore had tremendous resources. We set out from the beginning to try to make the film as much as possible in his own voice.
Do you see this film contributing in some way to contemporary discussion on science and spirituality?
There had been, for many years, not only in the U.S., but especially in the U.S., great tension between religion and science. Some scientists mistrust or dismiss religion, and some religious people distrust scientists. We are very happy to see that scientists are beginning to write articles about Teilhard. And I think the religious people are not so much afraid of science. How much impact, we can’t say for sure.
Finally, what’s next for the two of you?
What next? We made this film to have an impact, and the way to do that, we believe, is to get colleges and universities, and other educational outlets, to see this film and use it as a starting point for discussing these issues.
