Pope Joan (2009 film)

Pope Joan
Release poster
Directed by	Sönke Wortmann
Produced by	Bernd Eichinger
Written by	Heinrich Hadding Donna Woolfolk Cross (novel)
Starring	Johanna Wokalek David Wenham John Goodman
Distributed by	Constantin Film
Release date(s)	October 22, 2009
Country	Germany United Kingdom Italy Spain
Language	English

Pope Joan is a German, British, Italian, Spanish medieval epic film produced by Bernd Eichinger, based on American novelist Donna Woolfolk Cross's book of the same name. Directed by Sönke Wortmann, it stars Johanna Wokalek as Pope Joan, David Wenham as Gerold, her lover, and John Goodman as Pope Sergius II.^[1] Its world premiere occurred in Berlin on 19 October 2009, going on general release in Germany on 22 October 2009.

Plot

In the year 814, shortly after the death of Charlemagne, a woman called Joan is born in Ingelheim am Rhein. She is the daughter of a village priest who had hoped for a son and is disappointed at the birth of a girl. He also rules his wife and family with a rod of iron, though his Saxon wife still secretly worships the pagan god Wotan. Even so, Joan grows up to be an articulate girl keen on learning and persuades her older brother Matthias to teach her to read. She then intensively studies the Bible. After Matthias' sudden death, their father wants to send his second son John to the cathedral school in Dorstadt, but when the teacher Aesculapius visits them in Ingelheim Joan proves to be far more capable of dealing with the scriptures than John, not only able to understand the Latin text but also of providing a proper interpretation of the parable of the mustard seed. Against her father's wishes, Joan is taught by Aesculapius, who introduces her to literary works such as Homer's Odyssey.

When an inspector comes from the bishop to the school to eject Joan, her father claims there has been a mistake and allows him to ride away with John. Joan flees her home at night and finds her brother, whose companion has been murdered. They reach Dorstadt together, where the bishop reacts to Joan's strong words with great surprise and the teacher Odo unwillingly takes her into his class. Count Gerold, however, supports the now-adolescent Joan by taking her into his home. There Gerold falls in love with her. Soon afterwards, Gerold has to go to war in the army of Lothair I and his wife Richilde takes advantage of his absence to try to arrange a marriage for Joan and thus get rid of her rival for Gerold's affections. However, the Normans break into the city during the wedding ceremony and carry out a bloody massacre, which Joan just about survives.

Due to her experience of the massacre, Joan decides to assume a male disguise, cutting her hair short, binding her breasts and entering the Fulda monastery of Benedictines as "Brother Johannes Anglicus". There she is constantly afraid of being exposed as a woman, but also impresses the other monks with her knowledge of medicine, managing to save an old woman and her children from a dangerous infectious disease. At the same time they recognise the talent of the oldest son, Arn, and allow him to visit the monastery school. One day she is visited by her old father, who suffers a fatal heart attack on realising he is face to face with Joan not John. Shortly afterwards a fever spreads around the monastery and during it Joan manages to avoid a physical examination thanks to an elderly monk, who had realised she was a woman long before the fever hit.

She flees the monastery and is received as a woman by Arn, who has become a manager for a count. Arn gives her temporary shelter and makes her tutor to his daughter Arnalda. After a short time there, she decides to re-assume her male disguise and go on a pilgrimage to Rome and use her medical knowledge to become a "Medicus" there. In Rome she wins a great reputation by curing pope Sergius II of gout with her herbal remedies and he makes her his personal physician then his Nomenclator, even though he knows she is a woman. Finally the pope threatens Lothair I for not confirming his election and Lothair marches to Rome with his army to submit to Sergius. Gerold also comes to town in the army's wake and recognises Joan. Using a hydraulic device once built on a small scale by Joan and Gerold, the great door of the papal palace closed. Pope Sergius then threatens Lothair and his soldiers that if he does not give respect God's wrath will be upon him and his soldiers. Lothair's soldiers take this as a sign from God and all of them knelt and then Lothair follows. Fascinated by what he have seen, Gerold looks out and sees Joan. He follows her and the he reveals his desire to Joan, but she is torn between her male and female identities.

Meanwhile Lothair's ally Anastasius successfully plots to murder Sergius and the people gather to elect a successor by acclamation. Joan and Gerold expect Anastasius to be elected and plan to flee, but suddenly she discovers that it was in fact she herself who has been elected. During her pontificate she presents herself as a charitable pope, helping women and children and appointing Gerold as head of the papal army. Suddenly, however, she falls pregnant and her reign is in grave danger. She tries to hold off the birth until after Easter, but Gerold is killed during the Easter procession by conspirators led by Anastasius and Joan collapses and then dies in childbirth.

Anastasius succeeds her but soon afterwards he is deposed by the Roman people and exiled to a monastery. There he writes the Liber Pontificalis, a list of the popes, from which he omits Joan. Many years later the story of the female pope is made known by bishop Arnaldo, who is revealed to in fact be Arnalda, the daughter of Arn.

Differences from novel

The novel places the pontificate of pope Leo IV between that of Sergius and Joan, but in the film Joan immediately succeeds Sergius. Sergius's brother and deputy Benedict is replaced in the film by Anastasius, increasing the importance of the latter character. In the film Anastasius poisons Sergius - in the novel Sergius dies of gout and natural causes, then Anastasius poisons Leo.

In the novel Joan spends her first night with Gerald in a house where they seek refuge from a flood, whereas in the film it occurs by a river. The film also removes the couple's attempted abortion of their child and the childhood relationship between is only briefly discussed, whereas in the novel that relationship they have a bond via a wolf called Lukas who they both raise. After Gerold's departure Richhild kills the wolf and thus symbolically separates the lovers' last bond for years.

In the film it turns out that Joan's mentor at Fulda, Brother Benedict, knows her true identity - in the novel her identity remains a secret to all the monks there to the end.

In the film the steward Arighis is promoted to papal nomenclator (a role he does not occupy in the book) and does not die, whereas in the book he dies in a fire during Leo IV's pontificate, sacrificed for Leo's building project the Leonine Wall. In the novel Arighis is succeeded by a young man named Waldipert, who works for Anastasius's father bishop Arsenius and Leo - in the film Waldipert is Sergius's valet as well as being in the pay of Arsenius and is not murdered as he is in the novel. In the novel Renatus is the servant of Sergius and not Joan. Similarly Zelestinus is not mentioned in the film, whereas in the novel he is a valet at the papal court.

Particularly striking is the fact that the novel gives Joan's blond hair as her most dramatic characteristic, but the actress playing Joan in the film has brown hair. Joan dies of a miscarriage in both the film and novel but in the novel her lover Gerold dies in her arms shortly before her death, whereas in the film they die simultaneously but in two different places.

In general, many events in the film are arranged in a different chronology to that of the novel. Some events such as Joan's marriage are moved back in time (in the novel she is 14 years old at the time, in the film she is 18 to 19, whilst Gerold's daughters are made much younger in the film than in the novel), whilst others are moved forward, such as the proposal to appoint Nicephoros as a bishop, which occurs in Joan's pontificate in the novel but during Sergius' in the film.

Production

The film's production took a long time and was marked by financial and cast difficulties. The Oscar-winner Volker Schlöndorff's attempt to film the novel began in 1999, at first with the production companies UFA and Senator, until the latter was declared bankrupt in 2004, when he moved to Bernd Eichinger and Constantin Film. The planned principal photography was finally shelved in 2007 by a cancellation by John Goodman. The following summer Schlöndorff wrote a review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung criticising the production for film and television, leading to his dismissal. Sönke Wortmann replaced him as director and shortly afterwards, in May 2008, Franka Potente was replaced by Johanna Wokalek in the title role.^[1]

Shooting began in early August 2008 at Burg Querfurt in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. Other locations were the cloiser of the Landesschule Pforta and the Kirche St. Cyriakus in Gernrode, with the Rome scenes filmed in Ouarzazate, Morocco. Principal shooting was completed in 2008 in Germany and Morocco.

Cast

• Johanna Wokalek as Johanna
  • Lotte Flack as Johanna - age 10-14
  • Tigerlily Hutchinson as Johanna - age 6-9
  • Tabitha Christina Rieger as Johanna - baby
• Iain Glen as Johanna's father, the village priest
• Jördis Triebel as Gudrun, Johanna's mother
• Jan-Hendrik Kiefer as Johannes, Johanna's brother
  • William Stütz as Johannes - age 9-12
  • Jack Flack as Johannes - age 3
• Sandro Lohmann as Matthew, Johanna's brother
  • Lukas T. Berglund as Matthew - age 6
• Edward Petherbridge as Aesculapius, the teacher
• Oliver Nägele as Bishop Fulgentius
• Marc Bischoff as Odo, the teacher
• David Wenham as Count Gerold
• Claudia Michelsen as Countess Richild
• John Goodman as Pope Sergius II
• Anatole Taubman as Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Sergius' Papal Nomenclator
• Oliver Cotton as Arsenius, Anastasius' father
• Nicholas Woodeson as Arighis, Johanna's Papal Nomenclator
• Gerald Alexander Held as Emperor Lothar
• Suzanne Bertish as Bishop Arnaldo, the narrator

Reception

The Guardian noted the film's appearance in the Italian box office top 10 and noted Vatican criticism of the film and L'Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, described it as being of "extremely limited vision".^[2]

Awards

Pope Joan was nominated in four categories in the 2010 Deutscher Filmpreis (Best Supporting Actress for Jördis Triebel, Art Direction, costumes, and sound design).

See also

• Pope Joan (1972 film)
• List of historical drama films

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "John Goodman back in "Pope Joan" after lawsuit". Vancouver Sun. July 30, 2008. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=16aea7cd-7b4c-4a60-adf0-6a6af0c237ed. Retrieved December 14, 2008. 
2. ^ Child, Ben (2010-06-22). "Female pope film sparks Vatican row". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/22/female-pope-film-vatican. 

External links

• Official website
• Pope Joan (2009 film) at the Internet Movie Database