Bishop Barron on "To Rome With Love"

who would have thought 20 years ago that Woody Allen would emerge as a defender of traditional morality but I don't know way to avoid that conclusion having watched his most recent offering called to roam with love it's a movie that's in continuity with his recent ones which have been based in great European cities think of Match Point based in London Vicky Cristina Barcelona a course in Barcelona last summer we had midnight in Paris and now we have to roam with love so they're all about these you know grand European cities and this one shares with midnight in Paris a certain kind of whimsical surrealism but what I found most interesting was the hit it presents a defense of of love and not love in a superficial way but love is the real you know focus of life to Roma's love features a number of narratives none of which were the interweave at the level of the story but all of which have a certain thematic unity because they're about the ways we get tempted away from the path of love and how we're called back to authentic you know integrity the first story has to do with a fellow named Leopoldo very ordinary man who's played by the great Italian character actor Roberto Benigni who when they asked her a few years ago and Leopoldo one day for no apparent reason finds himself the object of intense media scrutiny and attention his car is surrounded by cameras and by reporters wherever he goes he's hounded he's asked questions about his shampoo and his favorite shaving cream women present themselves for his sexual gratification he is like all of the the perks of of media Fame you know he turns to a friend of his to ask what's going on the friend says well you're famous for being famous so Woody Allen is clearly lampooning our sort of celebrity obsessed Kardashian culture where people are famous for no apparent reason but he's making a deeper point too because what becomes clear is poor Leopoldo had become addicted to all this attention when the media turned to another ordinary person they turned away from him he suddenly missed it in fact he missed it so badly that he he danced on one foot in the middle of the street to attract attention at which point his wife intervened to kind of you know calm him down and take him home and Leopoldo realized that all this fame was just you know was nothing it was all fleeting and even essent and what really matter was the love of his wife and his kids the second story has to do with Milly and Antonio they're a young Italian a couple newlyweds who have come to Rome for their honeymoon and Milly wanders off to find a hairdresser and then she gets utterly lost in Rome which she doesn't know at all and the course of her wandering around she finds this set to a movie and I'm the movie set is this famous leading man actor whom she's admired for many years and the leading man takes her back to his hotel room begins to seduce her at which point this becomes typical Woody Allen sort of farce a thief emerges the thief frightens away a leading man but then she has sex with the thief because it's such an exciting thing so she's a newlywed woman but she's caught up in all this excitement suddenly in the meantime while she's gone her husband Antonio meets this prostitute played by Penelope Cruz and he'll make a long story short but she manages eventually to seduce him and so in a matter of hours this newlywed couple each is given in to this kind of ephemeral but exciting of sexual opportunity but when they come back together they realize that all of that is is for naught that they really want to return to their home city they want to start a family and they want to stay married and in love so it's a return to the basic values the last story is one that Woody Allen himself stars in and it's a it's a goofy farcical story - about this man who's an opera singer but he sings well only ways in the shower and woody discovers him and woody is playing a retired opera producer so he arranges that this man will appear in the great operas you know probably in the other ones but he appears only in the shower and sings they're so silly story but of course the critics love this singer he's a wonderful singer a combination of you know Caruso and Pavarotti and they sing his praises at which point he faces the temptation of you know leaving his home life and his family to go in search of fame and fortune but he decides that he won't do it that he'll stay with his ordinary job and his ordinary family and and be happy now here's the thing as those stories are linked together somatically Thomas Aquinas long ago reminded us that real joy comes from union with God we're all wired for God as I often say well whose God God is love which is why the life of love in its simple form the life of love is the life of joy what happens to us Aquinas says is we get distracted from that path by wealth pleasure honor and power all the goods of the world what do you see in this Woody Allen movie but people who are lured away from the path of love precisely by that by wealth power pleasure and honor all these characters in different ways are lured by the goods of the world and each one of them realizes at the end of the day that none of those will satisfy them that they will be satisfied only by walking the path of love now as I say who would have thought at 20 years ago but you know I think in terms of of making this argument about what makes life happy I don't think Thomas Aquinas really could have said it better than Woody Allen says it in this movie

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 19,797

Rating: 4.9162302 out of 5

Keywords: Fr. Robert Barron, Word On Fire, To Rome With Love, Woody Allen, Penelope Cruz, Roberto Benigni, Thomas Aquinas, Catholicism, Catholic Church, Christianity, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit

Id: 9N1bY8a45uQ

Length: 6min 35sec (395 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 09 2012