Thomas Merton - A Film Biography.avi

Thomas Merton
A Film Biography
1999
57 minutes
Source: DVD
xvid

74 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
A compelling film biography of the Catholic social criitic, October 13, 2002 By Lawrance M. Bernabo "Chicken Hat Theater Improv" (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

Thomas Merton was a widely read Catholic author and social critic who lived as Father Louis as a member of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance the Trappists from 1941 till his death in Bangkok in 1968. In his book "No Man is an Island" Merton wrote: "Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in His Kingdom. Each one of us is called to a special place in the Kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy. For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be."

"Merton: A Film Biography" provides a look at the man who was hailed as a prophet and also censured for outspoken social criticism and anti-war views. In addition to a popular autobiography, "The Seven Storey Mountain," Merton wrote over sixty books on the pressing social issues of his time. Passages from Merton's writing and combined with scenes from significant places in his life during in this 57 minute video. There are also interviews with those who knew Merton, from the Dalai Lama and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti to Nicaragua's Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardneal and folk singer Joan Baez. For those who have just begun to read Merton's folk, this film biography provides a solid introduction to his overall body of work.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Light treatment of a complex life, January 9, 2007 By Kevin Clothier "Kclo" (Los Angeles, Ca.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Merton - A Film Biography (DVD)
This documentary gives an important albeit superficial account into the spiritual development of a man who is arguably the most influnential Catholic figure of the twentieth century. Its structure is conventional as might be expected. However, for those who have followed the life and times of Father Merton it supplies important visual images of Merton, his friends, peers, and, perhaps most interesting,the hermatige of Gethsemene and its surroundings within which he spent a large portion of his life. Missing is mention of many of his most important correspondences such as his relationship with D.T.Suzuki.
Still the footage of Merton giving his final thoughts to a group of fellow contemplatives and monks just hours before his death is well worth the price of the DVD
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
"Christianity rebels against the alienated life...", July 3, 2008 By Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Merton - A Film Biography (DVD)
So said Thomas Merton in the last talk he ever gave, the famous Bangkok lecture delivered the morning of his death. The talk didn't go over very well. Some thought that Merton had drawn too intimate a comparison between monasticism and Marxism; others felt that his closing insistence that "from now on, everyone must stand on his own feet" was too harsh a criticism of religious institutionalism.

The ambivalence that greeted Merton's speech was something he'd gotten used to during his life, and director and writer Paul Wilkes does a good job in a short amount of time of sketching that life in "Merton: A Film Biography." Merton's confused childhood and youth, his conversion and entry into Gethsemane monastery, his early penetrating but sometimes frustratingly orthodox spiritual writings, his later realization that the contemplative life was inseparable from social and moral responsibility and his consequent advocacy of nonviolence, civil rights, disarmament, and the end of the Viet Nam conflict, his immersion in eastern spirituality; his own personal battles to integrate contemplation and activism, as well as to reconcile his deep need for community and his deeper need for solitude: at each stage of his spiritual journey, Merton surprised people, inspired those who were looking for their own path, and saddened and even infuriated those who thought he was betraying theirs.

In everything he did and wrote, though, he was rebelling against the alienated life. In one of his earliest books, he wrote that "we're at liberty to be real or unreal; but we can't make the choiced with impunity. Choices have consequences," and this is very much in the spirit of his final words about alienation. One of the forms of alienation that he personally fought against was his own fame, as the film makes clear. He intensely desired "not to be turned into a Catholic myth."

Other reviewers have criticized the film for what they see as its simplistic handling of a complex subject. While I appreciate their concerns, they seem to me to miss the fact that Wilkes' "Merton" intends to be an overview rather than an exhaustive study. I think it succeeds in that admirably. The photographs are intriguing, it's fantastic to see clips of Merton's final lecture, and the people interviewed--for example, Jim Forest, Robert Lax, John Eudes Bamberger, Robert Giroux, Naomi Burton Stone (Merton's agent), James Laughlin (Merton's New Directions publisher), Ernesto Cardenal, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the Dalai Lama, and Thich Nhat Hanh--all shed light on his work and personality.

For newcomers to Merton, this is a good introduction. For those who've read and loved Merton for years, this is an opportunity to see some pictures of an old friend and to hear his pals share stories about him. He truly did change the face of monasticism and spirituality. Like his Buddhist fellow-monk Thich Nhat Hanh, he helped all of us realize that social responsibility wasn't antithetical to contemplation. Social responsibility, if entered into properly, IS a form of contemplation.