Scenes from a Parish - great new film by James Rutenbeck
Exterior of St. Patrick Catholic Church, in Lawrence, Mass, the poorest town in the state
Jim Rutenbeck came to West Virginia in the early 1980s, directing his first documentary, “Company Town” in 1983. This film is about Widen, Clay County, one of the most famous company towns in America during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, controlled by legendary coal miner operator J.G. Bradley. ( Not even his IMDB listing includes this film. It does list “Raise the Dead,” his 1998 film that ends in War, McDowell County, WV. ) Since then he has worked on many great films including “Lulu in Berlin,” “Unnatural Causes,”(20 
and a slew of “American Experience” episodes produced by WGBH-Boston where he works full-time. Recently he has completed a new feature film, “Scenes from a Parish” that explores the life of a contemporary Roman Catholic parish in Lawrence, Mass, the poorest town in the state.
Rutenbeck directed “Company Town” while still a film student at MIT. He graduated with his Master of Science in 1984, studying with legendary filmmaker Ricky Leacock.
Interior shot of St. Patrick Catholic Church
This new film, “Scenes from a Parish,” presents a parish, St. Patrick, in a declining mill-town in Massachusetts. A new pastor, Paul O’Brien, has come to town after receiving his Harvard education. The film focuses on the construction of a new center to feed and shelter the homeless members of the community. The film interviews traditional, older Irish-American type church members as well as various new Latino members. One sub-story focus on a Latino mother who has struggled all her life to care for herself and her children. Another explores the life of a Latino member who is an outstanding singer. When she quits, a meeting with the choir director leads to the singer revealing that she left the parish because she married a woman. Massachusetts was one of the first states to legalize homosexual marriage.
One of the more humorous plots involves Father O’Brien’s connection to TV celebrity Conan O’Brien who attended Harvard at the same time. Father O’Brien uses his friend’s fame to sell products that promote awareness of negative attitudes. Conan even shows up at the dedication of the new homeless shelter, complete with TV crews.
The central figure, Father O’Brien, is shown in all of his human glory. He says something that I myself really believe is true - God reveals himself many times in the humble people that are seldom honored. For once, the main message of the carpenter’s son, Jesus, is shown without the mega-structures created by his billions of followers.
I found the film extremely well made. The cinematography, editing, music, and most importantly, the shifting narration kept the film interesting. I have to say that it truly showed the positive side of being a religious person in the 21st century, and I think that he accomplished his goal of exploring what it means to be in a religious community in our age. I was going to see the new anti-religious film, “Religulous,” but stayed home and watched “Scenes” with my wife and pooch. After seeing it, I was tempted to bring it down to Sacred Heart and loan it to Monsignor Sadie who loves films. Unfortunately for him, he is too busy to watch films. I am sure than when this film shows on POV or elsewhere on cable, he will be able to finally watch it.
One added note. A good friend of mine is Sandy Berman, a world-famous librarian who is also a super-atheist. He has campaigned against Christian-centric cataloging of library materials in American libraries. We often discuss if religion is any worse of a human institution than any other - like government, the media, etc. He is also founder of the American Library Association Taskforce on Hunger, Homeslessness and Poverty.I think that he will greatly enjoy seeing how this poor congregation of St. Patrick’s joined together to do something important for people in even worse economic condition. ( I myself am a Roman Catholic, and I know that the Catholic Church is the second largest source of help for the poor, only after the State itself.)
Below is a statement that Rutenbeck wrote and handed out recently before showing this film at a Politics and Film” class at U Mass/Lowell.
U Mass
Lowell23 October 2008Scenes from a Parish
Few would contest the essential place of religion in American life. While we hold dear the principle of separation of church and state, it’s impossible to understand life in this country without considering both. Religious ideals are bound up in the very fiber of our American identity. At Saint Patrick’s Parish in Lawrence—the place where this film takes place—parishioners come together as one body of faith, yet they sometimes feel alienated from one another, driven apart by the pressures of ethnic tension, language barriers and generational change. Whether or not a common faith can overcome these obstacles and generate a true feeling of community is the film’s central question. As an American and a Catholic, this is a question I care about, and the attempt to find an answer has sustained me through the five years of this film’s making. When I was first thinking about this film, I was inspired by these words of Dorothy Day:
We have all known the long loneliness and have learned that the only solutionis love and that love comes with community. I have thought long and hard about what “community” actually is, and I have realized how elusive and fragile it can be.
Five years ago, filmmaker in me was looking for was looking for a challenge. I wanted to make a film with multiple characters and story strands. Some would say that this is the hardest kind of film to make. But I also felt a deep need to be part of a community. I had a wonderful family and a stimulating career.
And my faith life had led me to a strong sense of connection to people around me—in particular people who were struggling to make ends meet or who lived on the margins—like the employees at Stop ‘n Shop who stocked the produce shelves and the people who arrived at six to clean the offices where I worked. n my career I have worked with a diverse group of creative people, making interesting social relevant documentaries with independent filmmakers, some independent and many for PBS—many that explored issues of race.
But I was always aware at how rarefied my professional world was. And how deeply separated I was from those people I didn’t know but to whom I felt so close. I have always been aware of how empty my spiritual life was in the face of this feeling of separation.
Dorothy Day:I had heard many say that they wanted to worship God in their own way and did not need a Church in which to praise Him, nor a body of people with whom to associate themselves. But I did not agree to this. My very experience as a radical, my whole make-up, led me to want to associate myself with others, with the masses, in loving and praising God Christ is the head and we are the members. And the illness of injustice, hate, disunion, race hatred, prejudice, class war, selfishness, greed, nationalism, and war weaken this Mystical Body, just as the prayer and the sacrifices of countless of the faithful strengthen it.
St. Augustine says that we are all members or potential members of the Mystical Body of Christ. Therefore all men are our neighbors, and Christ told us that we should love our neighbor whether they be friend or enemy (The Catholic Worker, October 1939). So the making of this film was an ambitious aesthetic challenge, but also my way of finding community. The scenes from this parish in film you are about to see, however small and intimate, are not the fantasy of a filmmaker. They are real. At times they seem to resonate beyond the parish grounds as a kind of statement our country at the start of the twenty first century. Life at Saint Patrick’s anticipates what lies ahead for all Americans: how we perceive each other, whether we choose to withdraw or engage, whether we can forge a community from disparate constituencies. All of these are matters of consequence that will shape the future of our country. As filmmaker, I sought to explore the question of community through a cinematic exploration of character and place. The big issues of the film appear in quiet encounters that grow out of the rhythms and texture of everyday life. My intent is to instill these small moments with a resonance that reaches beyond the parish grounds, to reveal something about my country at this moment in time.
