The Personal and Public Spheres in Habemus Papam (2011): A Cinematic “Prophecy” on the Future of the Church
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This piece offers a critical study of Habemus Papam (Nanni Moretti, 2011) at the heel of the unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The film scored international success and won several prizes and a nomination to the Palme d’or at the Cannes Film Festival. It is an unusually successful film on religion which stands out for directly dealing with the divine nature and future of the Catholic Church. The study is conducted by placing the film into a historical perspective and by underscoring its unprecedented political position on the topic of religion and film. It examines the alleged “prophetic” ability the film had in predicting the resignation of the Pope, and the implied critical discourse on the future of the Church. The argument is that the principal theme and forms of Habemus Papam propose a trope of modernism. The demise of religious narratives is predicated on the quality of the mise-en-scène and trajectory of the narrative. The iconography of the cinema replaces that of the sacred, and the turmoil of historical and scandalous events are weathered through forms of individualism and eccentricism afforded by the technical innovations and tools brought about by the modern era. Key words: Film History. Film Ethics. Film Aesthetics. Modernism. Religion. Sacred. Iconography. Catholic Church. Cinema. Nanni Moretti. Cannes. Carol Wojtyla. Benedict XVI. Abstract: Questo saggio offre uno studio critico di Habemus Papam (Nanni Moretti, 2011) in relazione alle dimissioni inaspettate di Papa Benedetto XVI. Il film ha ottenuto un successo internazionale, vincendo numerosi premi e una nomination alla Palme d'or al Festival di Cannes. Si tratta di un successo insolito per un film sulla religione; un film che si occupa direttamente della natura divina e del futuro della Chiesa Cattolica. Lo studio è condotto ponendo innanzitutto il film in una prospettiva storica, e sottolineandone la posizione politica senza precedenti sul tema della religione e del cinema. Si esamina la presunta capacità “profetica” mostrata nel film nel predire le dimissioni del Papa, e il discorso implicitamente critico sul futuro della Chiesa. La tesi che domina questo studio è che il tema principale e le forme di Habemus Papam propongono una metafora del modernismo. La scomparsa o l’indebolimento, delle grandi tematiche religiose sono evinti dalla qualità della mise-en-scène del film e dalla traiettoria della storia in esso raccontata. L’iconografia del cinema sostituisce quella del sacro, e al tumulto derivato da eventi storici e scandalosi si fa fronte attraverso forme di individualismo ed eccentricità, coadiuvati a loro volta dalle innovazioni in materia di tecniche e strumenti presentati dall’era moderna. Parole chiave: Storia del cinema. Cinema e etica. Estetica del cinema. Modernismo. Religione. Sacro. Iconografia. Chiesa Cattolica. Cinema. Nanni Moretti. Cannes. Carol Wojtyla. Benedetto XVI.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".