Miracles and Sacrilege : Robert Rossellini, the Church, and Film Censorship in Hollywood

Tracing the development of the Church in the United States, Johnson discusses the reasons it found __The Miracle__ sacrilegious and how it attained the power to persuade civil authorities to ban it.

Miracles and Sacrilege is the story of the epochal conflict between censorship and freedom in film, recounted through an in-depth analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down a government ban on Roberto Rossellini's film The Miracle (1950). In this extraordinary case, the Court ultimately chose to abandon its own longstanding determination that film comprised a mere 'business' unworthy of free-speech rights, declaring for the first time that the First Amendment barred government from banning any film as 'sacreligious.'

Using legal briefs, affidavits, and other court records, as well as letters, memoranda, and other archival materials to elucidate what was at issue in the case, William Bruce Johnson also analyzes the social, cultural, and religious elements that form the background of this complex and hard-fought controversy, focusing particularly on the fundamental role played by the Catholic Church in the history of film censorship. Tracing the development of the Church in the United States, Johnson discusses the reasons it found The Miracle sacrilegious and how it attained the power to persuade civil authorities to ban it. The Court's decision was not only a milestone in the law of church-state relations, but it paved the way for a succession of later decisions which gradually established a firm legal basis for freedom of expression in the arts.

Miracles and Sacrilege is the story of the epochal conflict between censorship and freedom in film, recounted through an in-depth analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down a government ban on Roberto Rossellini's film The Miracle (1950). In this extraordinary case, the Court ultimately chose to abandon its own longstanding determination that film comprised a mere 'business' unworthy of free-speech rights, declaring for the first time that the First Amendment barred government from banning any film as 'sacreligious.' Using legal briefs, affidavits, and other court records, as well as letters, memoranda, and other archival materials to elucidate what was at issue in the case, William Bruce Johnson also analyzes the social, cultural, and religious elements that form the background of this complex and hard-fought controversy, focusing particularly on the fundamental role played by the Catholic Church in the history of film censorship. Tracing the development of the Church in the United States, Johnson discusses the reasons it found The Miracle sacrilegious and how it attained the power to persuade civil authorities to ban it. The Court's decision was not only a milestone in the law of church-state relations, but it paved the way for a succession of later decisions which gradually established a firm legal basis for freedom of expression in the arts. "Miracles and Sacrilege is the story of the epochal conflict between censorship and freedom in film, recounted through an in-depth analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down a government ban on Roberto Rossellini's film The Miracle (1950). In this extraordinary case, the court ultimately chose to abandon its own long-standing determination that film was merely a 'business' unworthy of free-speech rights, declaring that the First Amendment barred government from banning any film as 'sacrilegious.'" "Using legal briefs, affidavits, and other court records, as well as letters, memoranda, and other archival materials to elucidate what was at issue in the case, William Bruce Johnson also analyses the social, cultural, and religious elements that form the background of this complex and hard-fought controversy, focusing particularly on the fundamental role played by the Catholic Church in the history of film censorship." "Tracing the development of the Church in the United States, Johnson discusses why it found The Miracle sacrilegious and how it attained the power to persuade civil authorities to ban it. The court's decision was not only a milestone in the law of church-state relations, but paved the way for a succession of later decisions that gradually established a firm legal basis for freedom of expression in the arts."--Jacket Contents 7 Introduction 9 1. ‘A Business Pure and Simple’ 17 2. The Church, ‘Modernism,’ and ‘Americanism’ 28 3. A Church of Immigrants 45 4. A New Catholic-American Culture 63 5. Protestantism Balkanized 80 6. Reining In Hollywood 95 7. The Production Code 111 8. The Legion of Decency 126 9. The Breen Office 136 10. The Paramount Case 157 11. Cocktails and Communism 175 12. New Realities 204 13. Visions of Mary 223 14. Mary or Communism 236 15. The Priest as Public Figure 249 16. ‘Woman Further Defamed’ 262 17. ‘A Sense of Decency and Good Morals’ 303 18. ‘The Law Knows No Heresy’ 327 19. In the Supreme Court 342 20. Candour and Shame 354 Notes 381 Bibliography 465 Index 499