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FILM REVIEW:
THE APOSTLE
January 23, 1998 Episode no. 121
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BOB ABERNETHY: Later this month, a new movie opens that has already received rave, even awed, reviews. It is Robert Duvall's THE APOSTLE, about a Pentecostal preacher in the rural South. As a moviemaker, Duvall is fascinated by the country preacher as a unique American type. So his story is not a caricature but an exuberant and respectful portrait of one man's sin and redemption. From California, Martha Bayles is our reviewer.
MARTHA BAYLES: It's hard to walk down the street here in Burbank, California, without seeing a lot of movie posters. This is where many movies are made. And the posters show everything under the sun. One thing they don't show very often, however, is Pentecostal Christians.
It takes someone like Robert Duvall, one of America's most respected actors, to bring a character like Sonny, the apostle, to vivid life. For 15 years, Robert Duvall has been working on THE APOSTLE, a film that he wrote, directed, produced, financed, and starred in himself. I asked him whether he had grown up in the Pentecostal Church.
ROBERT DUVALL (Actor): No, but it always fascinated me. Years ago when I was traveling across the country, I happened to go to this small town to do a little research and I happened to go to this one little church one night. It was a nice revelation. I'd never seen anything like this, either culturally or spiritually or whatever. The American preacher -- one of the few true American art forms. So I always wanted to try to do it right. I'd seen it done wrong. I'd seen it done -- what I sensed was -- in a patronizing way.
BAYLES: All of that research certainly benefited Mr. Duvall's performance, which is already being talked about for an Oscar. But I couldn't help being curious about his character, a white man preaching to a mostly black flock. Do black and white really mix in the Pentecostal Church?
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Mr. DUVALL: Jerry Skelton in Dallas -- a friend of mine who was in the movie, he and his wife -- they're white Caucasians and they have an all-black congregation. Reverend Jacques, the great preacher from Dallas, a black gentleman. He has maybe 30 percent, 40 percent of his congregation is white and the rest black. So there is always, to my knowledge, always has been in the cities, in the North but also in the South in the holiness churches, integration process. So I didn't make that up.
Each preacher has his own style. The black preacher hoops the note and holds it.
And the white preacher has more of a cadence that sometimes they overlap. It is a distinct difference, but it's definitely a kinship.
BAYLES: Despite all the preaching, THE APOSTLE is not preachy. Hollywood has a way of forcing these things. But Robert Duvall has the confidence of the true artist. One of the best things he did was invite some of the churchgoers he met to play themselves in the film.
Mr. DUVALL: By turning it around and letting it come from them and my not trying to dictate what's to come from them, I think that helps this process, because it's coming from their world and they know what that world's about.
BAYLES: What is that world about? Well, it's about people struggling with the same things all of us must struggle with.
Sonny is no angel, but neither is he a hypocrite covering his sins with pious sermon.
Mr. DUVALL: He's a good guy, but he has faults. And he errs and he does look for a certain redemption by physically, spiritually, and emotionally going out and building a little church that's like a testimony of goodness.
BAYLES: What I liked best about THE APOSTLE is its portrait of an imperfect man trying to live a moral life. I'm Martha Bayles.
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