‘How kindly he hears my confession:’ A thought experiment for teaching Hitchcock’s I Confess (1953) in the context of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm

Abstract

While not often ranked amongst Alfred Hitchcock’s most popular or critically lauded films, 1953s I Confess is a compelling work for many reasons, including its ability to provoke thoughtful questions about Catholicism. In this paper, I describe a particular assignment I give in an undergraduate course called Catholicism on Film, and argue for its usefulness as a means of integrating the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm into a course taught at a secular institution, that examines the role of Catholicism in popular cinema. As well, this paper contends that cinema, as an artform, has a unique ability to explore Catholicism, and that Hitchcock's film is a particularly strong exemplar of how movies, an inherently empathetic medium, can shift our perceptions of each other, and something as seemingly rigid as dogmatic laws.

Keywords:

• Ignatian pedagogical paradigm
• Alfred Hitchcock
• catholicism
• film studies
• I Confess (1953)

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 In the most resent iteration of the course (Fall 2021) the syllabus included the following films in order: Lady Bird (2017) Dir. Greta Gerwig; Dogma (1999) Dir. Kevin Smith; I Confess (1953) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock; On the Waterfront (1954) Dir. Elia Kazan; Doubt (2008) Dir. John Patrick Shanley; Corpus Christi (2019) Dir. Jan Komasa; Spotlight (2015) Dir. Tom McCarthy; We Were Children (2012) Dir. Tim Wolochatiuk; Jesus of Montreal (1989) Dir. Denys Arcand; The Song of Bernadette (1943) Dir. Henry King; Silence (2016) Dir. Martin Scorsese; Lilies of the Field (1963) Dir. Ralph Nelson.

2 This interview would later be collected and published as the book Hitchcock/Truffaut, a now seminal volume of both Hitchcock studies and film studies in general.

3 The full slate of questions are: ‘To what degree can instructors and students of various faith traditions (including agnostic and atheist) seek to transform the historically established signature pedagogy of Jesuit education for 21st-century U.S. classrooms? And to what degree might a distinctively Ignatian pedagogy seek to transform students and instructors? Furthermore, to what degree is the signature pedagogy of a very specific institutional type relevant to other institutions and to the disciplines that cut across all institutions?’ (Mountain and Nowacek 2012, 130).

4 See the importance of reflection in ‘Ignatian Pedagogy: A Practical Approach,’ 379.

5 It should be noted that the absolutism with which Hitchcock speaks must be taken with a least a few grains of salt, as the director has a tendency, throughout his lengthy interview with Truffaut, to dismiss the films he sees as failures with pithy excuses and walk back statements when Truffaut challenges him.

6 ‘Objections to I Confess came from a variety of sources, including religious officials, publishers, and members of the public. As a consequence, every aspect of the project was subjected to a series of negotiations long before production began. Ironically, however, these attempts to eliminate potentially offensive material had the unintended result of suppressing anything that might convey a sense of the character's spiritual life’ (Lawrence 2007, 58).

7 A walk down Rue des Rampart, for example, reveals hundreds of decommissioned canons lined up facing the St. Lawrence River the way they would have been centuries ago to protect the city from attack by invaders in the waters below.

8 Blake calls the shot ironic because he claims Logan is no longer innocent because he is ‘in flight from authorities,’ even though he is on his way to turn himself in for the crime he did not commit, meaning that he is in the same position as Christ during the passion, which is what the statue depicts (Blake 2000, 67–68).

9 Wood, 83. This is the shot that Wood calls ‘pretentious’ but his argument on this detail, as with most of his writing about the film, is unconvincing (Wood 2002, 83).

10 O’Brien takes both Blake and Wood into consideration in her more detailed reading which convincingly refutes their claims (O’Brien 2014, 26–28).

11 Incidentally, Hitchcock himself shared a similar view, telling Truffaut that ‘I think it's a fundamental fact: Any priest who receives the confession of any killer becomes an accessory after the fact’ (Truffaut, 203).

12 Despite its age, the IPP fits well with current pedagogical trends away from rote repetition, toward a more thoughtful engagement with what is being taught, making it a perfect paradigm for the assignment (‘Ignatian Pedagogy: A Practical approach’ 2017, 379)

13 What the Secretariat for Education calls ‘the four Cs … the pillars and background for Jesuit Education’ (Secretariat for Education, 579).

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Notes on contributors

Timothy Penner

Timothy Penner is an adjunct professor in the Department of Catholic Studies and a research fellow at St. Paul's College at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, where he teaches courses on representations of Catholicism in film and literature.