STIGMATA MOVIE BOOK REPORT
The movie Stigmata makes heavy use of color as a way of contrasting
the characters' different points of view. The female lead Frankie is
often shown surrounded by the full prism of colors as found in
flowers, greenery, and textiles. She wears bright, radiant colors that
stand out against the film's otherwise drab set design. By contrast,
the male lead, a priest, is surrounded by darkly monochrome
backgrounds. He wears all black, and seems to be most comfortable
working and living in the shadows. He stands out against Frankie's
chromatics.
This atmosphere of color is used to show how the character's lives are
shaped by their beliefs. Lack of color is meant to symbolize the
priest's life of boundary and restraint, doctrine and secrecy. The
priest has faith in his religion, but the mechanism of this faith is a
filter that prohibits certain sensations from his experience of
life. In effect, he sees and surrounds himself with a limited range of
colors in his life. By contrast, Frankie's saturation of color is
meant to symbolize her life of openness. She denies herself no
sensation, she filters no thought or feeling. Her openness heightens
her senses, allowing her such feats as sympathy and inquiry into the
priest's life of doctrine, or communing with a bird on her appartment
window sil.
IMG Still from Stigmata showing contrasting atmospheres of color
I first noticed the atmospheres of color in a scene where Frankie
walks through a busy Pittsburg street and market. She is dressed in
brilliant colors of high chroma. A decorative motif of a heart is
shown across her top. The music is upbeat, she appears content, and I
got the impression she feels unity with herself in the world. The
crowd around her is dressed in drab colors and stiff clothes. Her
chroma pops against the dark monotones. She appears unaffected by how
differently she inhabits the world. Eventually, Frankie rendezvous
with the priest. He wears his usual dark, priestly clothes. They talk,
and the conversation moves between his doctrine of restraint and her
expressions of free-self. He explains his choice of celibacy,
exchanging "one set of problems for another." As they talk, the colors
in the set shifts to mirror threads in their conversation. In one
instance, Frankie is inquiring into the priest's desire. He is framed
with the colorful market flowers behind him. These colors surround
Frankie, giving me the impression the atmosphere is used to show her
world extending itself outwards to him, who briefly inhabits it,
though he struggles to rectify his beliefs with hers.
Another scene, the priest is taking photographs of Frankie's
appartment wall, upon which she scrawled words from an esoteric
language she has no knowledge of knowing. Frankie is across the room
near an open window, where she engages a small bird that has perched
upon the window sil. Between the flashes of the priest's camera,
Frankie playfully engages the bird. But when the flashes roar across
the appartment, she and the bird startle, becoming increasingly
agitated. Eventually, the bird is so disturbed by the flashes it flys
away and Frankie is left in a state of disorientation. This all
occured unbeknownst to the priest. He was fully taken by his desire to
document and decipher. He missed life itself, for he was too taken by
its shadow. (He lives in shadows and darkness).
To me, the film portrays a harsh contrast between a life of restraint
and a life of freedom. Frankie is sometimes shown reaching for
"sinful" objects like cigarettes, beer, soft drink. She has no remorse
for her desires. Whereas the priest reaching for his feelings of
desire for Frankie are shown as taxing, trying, and troubling for the
man. And even when Frankie's life descends into the chaos of
possession, she rebounds with an ever stronger zeal to understand the
feelings that possess her. Whereas the priest when possessed by his
feelings for Fraknie seems to seep deeper into contradiction, divided
by his religious doctrine and his desire for Frankie. Interestingly,
Frankie would seem to be capable of dispossessing him of his burden of
faith, if only he would not filter the feelings he allows into his
heart.
The priest seems to want to torture Frankie, though he does not
realize this intent. She is shown as being possessed to some degree,
which is the central conceit of the movie: she has been stigmatized,
marked with symbols that purport to identify a person as wanting to
experience Christ's suffering. These possessions are the projections
of the priest. Whereas she is the object of his desire that he denies
himself, she must be tortured, decried, and seen as in possession of
something that is heretical to his faith. The movie even makes so
blunt a point as to say the Church simultaneously vilifies and reveres
women (revered so long as they are virgin, anyways.) This idea is
dramatically performed when the priest's boss (the "boss priest", if
you will) performs an exorcism on Frankie. She is held down, thrashing
in resistance, screamed at and splashed with holy water. At the apex
of her possession, the boss priest's hands are gripped around her
neck. He wants to kill her. Frankie's life of brilliant color and
radiant openness threatens the sancity of the church's cloistered,
limited view of the world. Her life must be filtered out, first by
proclaming her "possession", and finally by her attempted expulsion
through death.
I must wonder if my musings here bear some similitude to the musings
of the priest. My thoughts are seeking to decode the film, like the
priest seeks to decode Frankie's stigmata. In this way, I might be so
caught up in these aspects of the film that I miss an entirely
different set of ideas. Or, I might be so possessed by these ideas
about the film that I miss some impact it might have or is having on
my life. To be sure, I don't always go this deep with my thoughts
after watching films. I was feeling receptive during the viewing, so
that must have encouraged me to identify and symbolize the film in
this way, through its atmospheres of color. I believe in a life lived
in full color, denying no chroma. But often I struggle to make
colorful choices. And so, watching a movie like Stigmata and
reflecting on contrasts between lives lived openly in the sun and
those lived in the shadows, I remember how beautiful life can be when
there are no filters, when all sensations are felt and expressed. I
wish to live like this, in full embrace of my thoughts, feelings, and
desires.