POPE JOAN/ DIE PAPSTIN
Germany, 2009, 149 minutes, Colour.
Jojanna Wokalek, David Wenham, John Goodman, Iain Glen, Edward Petherbridge, Anatole Taubman.
Directed by Sonke Wortmann.
Michael Anderson directed version of the Pope Joan legend in 1972 with little women in the central role and a strong international cast. It was presented as a psychological study, a woman who imagined she was the Pope and flashbacks to the story.
A quite lavish re-make in 2009, was directed by Sonke Wortman and starred Johanna Wokolek with Iain Glen as her priest father and John Goodman as an unlikely pope, Sergius. In pre-obligatory celibacy times, the priest was married and leader of the community in both daily activities and religious life. He is a very stern man, a grim priest in grim times and grim surroundings. He is severe on Joan, wanting his sons to be educated but she is the intelligent child and studies the Bible in detail. She flees to the city where she attends classes from the educated clergy.
When Vikings attack, she enters a Benedictine monastery in disguise where she lives for some years, working as infirmarian. This eventually leads her to Rome and the wealth and decadence of the Papacy. She has many encounters with Pope (Goodman) and is able to heal his gout. He is the target of jealous and ambitious cardinals and bishops who murder him. And, then, comes the legend as Joan becomes Pope, and an effective Pope but appointing her lover from old times to head the army. When she is found to be pregnant, she is deposed and exiled. Her successor, Anastasius, is also deposed and in exile writes a list of Popes – omitting Joan.
1. The legend of Pope Joan? Its history, speculations?
2. German production, international? Cast, locations, period? The village, cities, study areas, the monastery, the Viking invasion, Rome, the city, the Papal court, wealth and intrigue? The musical score?
3. Life in the village, Joan and her family, her father the priest, pre-celibacy, his wife and her religious views, the status of Catholicism, Christian beliefs? His sons, his daughter? The priest as leader, favouring his sons, their work, getting them to study, his forbidding Joan? Her studying, the visiting scholar, knowledge of the Bible, languages? The priest sending his son to study, Joan escaping, travelling, finding her brother dead on the road?
4. Joan, her character, background, study, the Bible, Aesculapius and his teaching her? Taking her to the city?
5. Boarding in the household of Gerold and his wife, the attraction, the wife upset, the love and relationship? His character, warrior, the attack by the Vikings, his command?
6. Joan, escaping the Vikings, going to the monastery, her disguise as a man, not checked as regards her gender? Her skill in impersonating a monk, at work in the infirmary, community life, learning?
7. Escaping from the monastery, going to Rome, travel in those years, her hopes, arriving in the city, finding friends?
8. Rome, its look, the role of the church, wealth, the papacy, the characters of the Popes, Pope Sergius and his personality, ebullient, his gout? Joan and her treatment, skill as an infirmarian, the care and the cure?
9. Pope Sergius, as a person, wine drinker, the good life, leadership, meetings, the government the church, his friendship that work with Joan, his becoming the target of jealous prelates?
10. Anastasius, ambitious, his colleagues, Roman families, the papacy, the plots, employing assassins, the death of the Pope?
11. Joan, her reputation in the city, Pope by acclamation? The details of her rule, just? Gerold as head of her military, the relationship with him?
12. Her pregnancy, the reaction of the people, Gerold, her being sent into exile?
13. Anastasius, succeeding as Pope, his rule in the church, the role of the families, his being deposed?
14. His going into exile, writing a list of the Popes and excluding Joan? The Bishop, female, writing and alternate list and including Joan?
