The Shoes of the Fisherman

Infobox_Film
name = The Shoes of the Fisherman


director = Michael Anderson
writer = Morris West
starring = Laurence Olivier
Anthony Quinn
John Gielgud
Oskar Werner
producer =
distributor = MGM
released = 1968
runtime =
language = English
budget =
imdb_id = 0063599

"The Shoes of the Fisherman" is a 1963 novel by the Australian author Morris West, as well as a 1968 film based on the novel.

The book reached #1 on the "New York Times" bestseller list for adult fiction on June 30, 1963, and became the #1 bestselling novel in the United States for that year, according to "Publishers Weekly".

Plot

Set during the Cold War, "The Shoes of the Fisherman" opens as protagonist Kiril Pavlovich Lakota, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Lviv, is unexpectedly set free after twenty years in a Siberian labor camp. He is sent to Rome, where the elderly fictional Pope Pius XIII raises him to the cardinalate in the title of St. Athanasius. (The novel has him as a bearded Ukrainian, but the movie has him as Russian.)

When the Pontiff dies, Lakota finds himself elected Pope when the Cardinals cannot decide between the leading candidates. But as Pope Kiril I (using his baptismal name), he is plagued by self-doubt, by his years in prison, and by a Western world he knows little about.

The world is in a state of crisis: a famine in China is exacerbated by U.S. restrictions on Chinese trade and the ongoing Chinese-Soviet feud. Can he find a solution before it is too late?

Morris West's protagonist Lakota is inspired by the life of Ukrainian Catholic Cardinal Josyf Slipyj. Coincidentally, Slipyj was released by Nikita Khrushchev's administration from a Siberian Gulag in 1963, the year of the novel's publication, after political pressure from Pope John XXIII and United States President John F. Kennedy. He arrived in Rome in time to participate in the Second Vatican Council. In another coincidence, John XXIII died on 3 June 1963, the day the novel was published.Tony Stephens, "Last Writes", Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum, 3 June 2000]

A major secondary plot in the novel and the film is the Pope's relationship with a theologian and scientist, Father Telemond (Jean Telemond in the book, David Telemond in the film), who is clearly based on the controversial French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Pope becomes a close personal friend of Telemond. To his deep regret, in his official capacity, he must allow the Holy Office to censure Telemond for his heterodox views. To the Pope's deep grief, the shock of the censure combined with his chronic medical problems kills Father Telemond.

He realizes, however, that if the troubles in China continue, the cost would be a war that could ultimately rip the world apart. Knowing this he must seek to convince the Western World as well as the Catholic Church to open up its resources to aid. He states in the movie he is willing to do this even if it means bankrupting the Catholic Church itself.

Cast

* Anthony Quinn as Kiril Lakota
* Laurence Olivier as Piotr Ilyich Kamenev
* Oskar Werner as Fr. David Telemond
* David Janssen as George Faber
* Vittorio De Sica as Cardinal Rinaldi
* Leo McKern as Cardinal Leone
* John Gielgud as The Elder Pope
* Burt Kwouk as Peng
* Arnoldo Foà as Gelasio
* Leopoldo Trieste as Dying Man's Friend

Production

The film was originally a project of the British director Anthony Asquith but he became ill and was replaced by Michael Anderson (Asquith died in 1968).

Real world events

Pope John XXIII died on the day the novel was published, 3 June 1963.

Ten years after the release of the film, in October 1978, a Slavic cardinal from a Marxist-dominated country, Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła from Poland, was elected John Paul II.

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0063599|title=The Shoes of the Fisherman