Category: Daily Dispatch

Every once in a while, when faced with the challenge of programming film music for Easter, I try to shake it up a bit, so that I’m not playing Biblical epics every year. With this in mind, the focus on this week’s “Picture Perfect” will be on four scores from films about nuns and missionaries.

“Black Robe” (1991), directed by Bruce Beresford, is based on a novel by the Irish Canadian writer Brian Moore. The film tells the tale of a Jesuit priest who treks through 1500 miles of Canadian wilderness on a mission to convert the native tribes of the Huron and the Algonquin. The evocative score is by Georges Delerue.

The Powell-Pressburger classic, “Black Narcissus” (1947), is one of those amazing films that just sort of sneaks up on you. Psychological and emotional tensions abound in a tale of repressed nuns struggling to maintain their composure in a voluptuous Himalayan valley. Somehow it manages to inspire a kind of awe in the viewer, as the wheels begin to spin off the tracks.

The stunning cinematography is by Jack Cardiff. Incredibly, the entire film was shot in England, mostly on soundstages, at Pinewood Studios. Brian Easdale (of “The Red Shoes” fame) wrote the music.

Audrey Hepburn gave one of her most impressive performances in Fred Zinnemann’s “The Nun’s Story” (1959). A young woman enters a convent of nursing sisters and undergoes many trials in the hopes of becoming a missionary in the Belgian Congo. The film also features Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, and, in a memorable early role, Colleen Dewhurst. The music was by Franz Waxman.

We’ll conclude with selections from one of Ennio Morricone’s best-loved scores, that for “The Mission” (1986). Jeremy Irons plays a Jesuit priest, who penetrates the South American jungle to convert the native Guarani to Christianity. Robert DeNiro plays a reformed slave hunter. The moving score has received a great deal of exposure over the years through its use in television commercials and by figure skaters, who have made “Gabriel’s Oboe” a recognizable hit.

I hope you’ll join me for music from films about nuns and missionaries this week on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.