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Hesburgh (film)

Hesburgh is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Patrick Creadon. The film follows the life of Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame from 1952 through 1987, particularly during his time working on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The film is drawn from archival footage, as well as interviews with family, colleagues at Notre Dame, politicians, journalists, and historians. Maurice LaMarche provides the voice of Hesburgh, narrating the documentary with words drawn from Hesburgh's writings and tapes.

Synopsis
Along with archival footage, Hesburgh consists of dozens of interviews with friends and family members as well as prominent figures such as Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Mary Frances Berry, former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson, journalist Ted Koppel, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and university presidents Fr. Edward Malloy and Fr. John I. Jenkins. The film begins with Hesburgh's early life, showing that he had felt called to the priesthood from the age of six. He wanted to be a military chaplain after being ordained a priest in 1943, but instead he was sent to get his doctorate and return to Notre Dame to teach and serve as a chaplain to returning World War II veterans on campus. In 1952, he was appointed president of the university at the age of 35. President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him to the National Science Board in 1954, and he was the Vatican City's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. At conferences, delegates from the United States and the Soviet Union did not want to speak with each other, but they trusted Hesburgh, and he became friends with both sides and tried to bridge the divide in an effort to defuse the nuclear arms race. Hesburgh details a number of examples of his commitment to freedom of expression. Several times he was chastised by Catholic Church leadership at the Vatican for these views; he refused Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani's demand to censor an essay by John Courtney Murray on freedom of religion, and in 1967 he led the International Federation of Catholic Universities in publishing the Land O' Lakes statement saying Catholic universities should be free from the Church's authority. ==Production and release==
Production and release
in 2004 Director Patrick Creadon attended Notre Dame during the last years of Hesburgh's presidency, graduating in 1989, and was aware of his prestige. "But being a documentary filmmaker, I always have a little bit of a skeptical eye," Creadon said. "And I really wanted to see for myself if his work really lived up to his reputation. And it did." The production team did extensive research, referencing newspaper articles, personal letters, and film footage to make the documentary, although Creadon said he avoided reading Hesburgh's autobiography, God, Country, Notre Dame, which helped him maintain an objective perspective. The film was released on April 26, 2019, in Chicago and South Bend, Indiana. ==Critical reception==
Critical reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Hesburgh has approval rating over reviews, with an average rating of . On Metacritic, the film has an weighted average score of 83 out of 100 based on five reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Writing for The New York Times, Glenn Kenny praised Hesburgh as "consistently smart about its subject" and noted it would be a welcome respite for Catholics to see a film about a "genuinely heroic"—not scandal-ridden—priest. Michael Rechtshaffen also offered a positive review in the Los Angeles Times, calling the film "informational as it is inspirational" and "thoroughly engaging". ==References==
Source: Wikipedia ↗
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