Luther

Guy Green’s faithful rendering of John Osborne’s play is an extraordinarily intimate film about religious experience. Better, it must be said, than the recent, more “cinematic” version starring Joseph Fiennes. Edward Anhalt, who adapted the screenplay, omits most of the references to Luther’s debilitating constipation (which functions in the play as a physical manifestation of his spiritual blockage), but retains most of the scenes with Luther’s father Hans (played by the great Patrick Magee), which depict a relationship commonly referred to as “Freudian.” Steady, self-possessed, respectful of its subject and fervent without being pious, the film charts Luther’s turbulent spiritual journey from his early, unhappy years as an Augustinian monk, to his rise as an enlightened theologian at Wittenberg, and on through the Peasants’ Revolt, which turned him into a revolutionary hero despite his strong objections to rebel violence. Keach (a seriously underrated actor who was once compared to Olivier) holds all of his close-ups extremely well, and nails all the difficult lines (my personal favorite: “Papal decretals are the devil’s excretals!”). Even those who aren’t believers (Osborne considered himself an agnostic) will have a difficult time resisting Luther’s spiritual plight, which is always treated as severe and conflicted—complex. The film is unapologetically stagy (having been financed by the American Film Theatre), but also shapely, beautifully written and elocuted, purposeful, and above all moving.