pope leo's big four
What we can learn about the man from his favorite films
Like the Big Three in astrology, people’s Top Four films also illuminate certain qualities and characteristics about them. Ask anyone with a Letterboxd, those four rectangles at the top of your profile matter. Does the guy you’re hooking up with include Wolf of Wall Street or 500 Days of Summer in his favorite movies? That’s your sign to walk calmly away. Does the girl you met at a friend-of-a-friend’s gallery opening list Girl, Interrupted or Suspiria (2018) among her favorite watches? She’s probably hot and collages in her free time.
Pope Leo doesn’t have a Letterboxd, but he did proclaim his favorite films of all time in an official clip from Vatican Media. So what can we deduce about him?
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
A Frank Capra classic with the inimitable Jimmy Stewart. Stewart plays an ambitious young man who progressively becomes a jaded, slightly older man. Despite having helped scores of people over his life and settled down with a loving family, Stewart’s George Bailey regards himself as a failure and contemplates taking his own life only to gain perspective with the help of his guardian angel.
The Sound of Music (1965)
I’m starting the rumor that Pope Leo is a musical nerd, or maybe he just has a taste for the greats as both It’s a Wonderful Life and The Sound of Music made it on American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time list. In case you don’t know this one (though I’d be shocked), Julie Andrews stars as a novice nun in Austria who becomes a governess to seven children. They sing, dance, warm their strict father’s cold heart, and ultimately escape the Nazi regime.
Ordinary People (1980)
Funnily enough, this movie takes place in Chicago’s North Shore suburbs where I’m from. Perhaps this is a nod to Leo’s own Chicagoland roots? It follows a splintering family in the wake of one of their son’s accidental deaths and the other son’s attempted suicide as the remaining family members connect, separate, and grieve.
La Vita Bella (1997)
This is the one movie on Pope Leo’s list that I haven’t seen, but a quick search tells me it’s about a father and son interned in a Nazi concentration camp. The father, played by Roberto Benigni, makes many sacrifices and creates a game for his son in an attempt to shield him from the horrors.
It’s interesting to me that the volatility of family dynamics feature heavily in all four of these movies as well as the nature of sacrifice, especially for loved ones. What are we willing to give up in service of others? Though generally these movies are hopeful, they aren’t all “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,” as Scott Simon remarked on NPR. Each film offers a nuanced portrayal of the inherent suffering we experience in life and the darkness that can creep up within humanity. But there is joy to be found even in moments of great pain. Though that may sound overly simplistic and trite, these films remind us that hope, faith, call it whatever you want, is critical especially in times when hopelessness threatens to swallow us whole.
No doubt these uncontroversial films were carefully selected with the help of the Vatican’s PR team, but I’d like to think they are also somewhat representative of Leo’s own taste: popular, middle-of-the-road, dramatic, and maybe something of a 20th-century history buff. If I saw these movies listed as someone’s Top Four on Letterboxd, I would think they are concerned with palatability but harbor a desire to flex their cinematic knowledge. These movies are all considered “great.” Can’t believe Leo didn’t include Conclave though.
What do you think these movies tell us about Pope Leo? Let me know in the comments.