Documentary filmmaker says monks showed him a new side of Catholicism

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- If you accept the maxim that the Catholic Church thinks in terms of centuries, then documentary filmmaker Philip Groning’s dealings with a Carthusian monastery in France moved at lightning speed.

Groning first approached the monks in 1984 with the idea of filming a documentary about their life in community. He got a reply saying the request had come “too early,” and that perhaps in “10 or 13 years” the monastery would be ready. Eventually, 16 years would pass before Groning got word that the monks were ready to discuss the possibility.

“The question I asked myself was, ‘Does this project still fit in with my life?’” Groning told Catholic News Service Feb. 7 in a telephone interview. He was in a New York City taxi heading to an airport for a flight to his native Germany after doing some pre-release publicity for the film, “Into Great Silence.” He added, “I reread the outline from 1984 and I thought, ‘This is a fantastic outline.’”

Groning said he was born and raised Catholic, but that he “had a big problem with that when I was growing up. One of the reasons I made the film was to understand where I came from and get reattached to the religion that I left. And in a certain way, I did.”

Asked to explain, Groning said his Catholic upbringing in the 1960s was “very much about guilt and sin and confession. In the monastery, very much of the other side showed. ...

“It’s all about divine grace, divine providence, about completely trusting God, completely trusting that God will lead you,” Groning said. “This is a side of Catholicism I had not lived when I was a child. The religion was not as dark as I had thought. ... Being a Christian is a joyful thing.”

Groning adopted the lifestyle of the Carthusians. They take a vow of near-total silence -- hence the film’s title -- at their monastery in the French Alps, Le Grande Chartreuse. He filmed there for six months over three separate trips. He was his film’s director, writer, producer, executive producer, cinematographer, sound editor and composer, although most of the music is Latin chant sung by the monks.

Despite the vow of silence, “Into Great Silence” is hardly a silent movie. The ringing of bells, the shuffling of feet, even the ambient sounds of nature all can be heard with great clarity.

“When it’s so quiet, you hear sounds you don’t usually hear. ... You don’t hear the water dripping that way, or if you do you couldn’t record it,” Groning told CNS. “In the monastery you can hear every event separately.”

The absence of words also means there are few characters to follow in the 169-minute movie. The few who are distinct are two novices, one of whom is from Africa, who are welcomed into the monastery -- the ritual, with words in French, is included -- and an elderly blind monk interviewed near the movie’s end who speaks about life, the end of life and his own life.

Groning said it was “a very deliberate choice” on his part not to focus on anyone in particular. “It’s clear that if you follow one person along, you don’t drift into the plot.”

“Into Great Silence” has proven quite popular in France. It will get its U.S. premiere Feb. 28 in New York City, with prints of the film fanning out throughout the country later in the year.

“Out of the revenues I have for the film, half of the revenues will be going to charity,” Groning said. “If people crowd to see this film as they did in France, they go not because they love the film (but because) they love the life of the monks.” To keep all the money for himself, therefore, “would go completely against the lives and the morals of the Carthusian order,” he added.

“I think it’s important for viewers to know the monastery is not a monastery as a dark and encumbered place,” Groning said. “That’s not true. It’s a place of great inner liberty, great inner strength. They are not hiding. They are not suppressed. They are not getting away from the world. ... I am glad that people get that (message) out of the film.”