Crowd-sourcing Pope John Paul II's statue in Rome

2011 statue

2011.  "It looks like a phone booth from this
angle," says Bill.  "Maybe a direct line
to the Pope."

This is the John Paul II statue in front of Stazione Termini (the main Rome train station) as it was unveiled, and as we saw it, in 2011.  Looked okay to us.  Yes, modernized; yes, stylized.  But decent modern sculpture, imho.  We certainly wouldn't consider it for our Worst Public Sculpture series.

But the critics - likened to ubiquitous soccer team critics in a NYT article - came out in force.  The NYT reported some called the statue a urinal.   Others a "bomb"and a "sin." (Imagine if it had gotten attacked on Facebook!)

close up of the Pope's head on the statue:
before the remake

Most of the criticisms focused on the head: not smiling enough, no neck, some said. Not representative of the beloved Pope, who is to be canonized Sunday, April 27 (2014).  We were in the crowds in 2005 in the days after he died - those crowds that shouted "Santo Subito!" "Saint Now!"

Crowds in Circo Massimo for John Paul II funeral services in 2005

2012, modifications in progress

We scootered by the statue in 2012 - now there's a real urinal, or port-a-potty, nearby, and the statue was so covered we couldn't even peak inside.  The powers that be, or the sculptor, weren't going to let the crowd come in on this one.

2013 - not much different, in our opinion

2013

smiley face - 2013

He is viewed now as smiling more, and with a bit more of a neck. His arm is straightened, they say, the greenish hue evened out, and the statue has its own pedestal.

The sculptor, Oliviero Rainaldi, said he has simply "corrected some mistakes." That the statue now more closely resembles his original vision.  Yeah, that and a bunch of soccer critics formed into a committee by the then right-wing mayor no doubt made him see these "mistakes" more clearly.

The critics seem appeased, but we don't see much difference.  (Bill: much improved cape, gently parting rather than squared off.)  And, the idea of crowd-sourcing a sculpture somehow rubs us the wrong way.



In any event, you can stop by and see for yourself, when your train comes in.



Dianne
PS - for more on preserving Popes, saints and their bodies, see Theresa Potenza's marvelous piece in the New York Post (and titled, per that paper's style), "Vatican's secret, and deadly, project to mummify saints."



2013

"Habemus Papam" - We Have a Pope - or do we? Inside the Conclave with Nanni Moretti

We have a Pope - "Habemus Papam" - is Nanni Moretti's prescient 2011 film, released in the U.S. last year.

The newly elected Pope in Moretti's film has a crisis of conscience and confidence (to put it mildly) and spends days deciding if he will even greet the public after the white smoke puffs come out of the Sistine Chapel and after the head of the Conclave announces to the crowds gathered in St. Peter's square "Habemus Papam" or "we have a Pope."  The elected one here is a dark horse choice (in fact, 90:1 per the odds-makers, Moretti's film later tells us) when no one else even wants the job.  "Lord, don't pick me!" is the common prayer of the cardinals.

Moretti's film seems to take us right to today, as the cardinals proceed into the Sistine Chapel (while a pushy newsman, remarkably like Geraldo Rivera, attempts to interview them).  In the backdrop of the Sistine Chapel (recreated for the film), and particularly the entire wall covered by Michelangelo's Last Judgment (no sloppy choice of walls here), the cardinals write out their ballots like high schoolers, peaking at one another's votes.



Michel Piccoli as the just-elected, and
totally shocked, Pope

The first 20 minutes of this quiet film will give you as close a feeling as you can get to what the Conclave must be like.

I won't do a spoiler alert for the film, but will say it has many comic moments - the cardinals playing volleyball on geographically determined teams (underrepresented Oceania only has 3 cardinals), under the supervision of the psychiatrist - played by Moretti - brought in to help the Pope get up his gumption; the Swiss Guard ordered to stand in for the Pope, gorging in the Pope's apartments while the Pope is MIA.  And the film grabs us with the Pope's wistfulness at the life he could have had - as an actor, quoting Chekhov with an actor's troupe, and multilingual, recalling Pope John Paul II.   The last speech of this just-elected Pope sounds like it's out of Benedict's mouth in 2013.

Swiss Guards under the Last Judgment in
Habemus Papam

Television crews are set up at the end of via della
Conciliazione facing St. Peter's - part of the Pope watch

The film takes some odd turns and has some puzzling moments, perhaps one reason it hasn't been rated as highly as some of Moretti's other films.  "The Son's Room" won the Cannes Palme d'Or in 2001; Moretti won Best Director at Cannes for his 1994 Caro Diario ("Dear Diary"), and he chaired last year's Cannes jury.  Habemus Papam has been reproached for not being critical enough of the church (Moretti is a leftist and an atheist), or not being comedic enough.  And it has been praised, with good reason, for the magnificent performance of Michel Piccoli as the Pope-in-waiting or the Pope who keeps us waiting.

Piccoli was a leadingman of French noir and has appeared in more than 200 roles .  We just this week saw him in the 1971 Claude Sautet Max et les Ferrailleurs ("Max and the Junkmen") at our local Tarantino-owned theater.  Now 85, Piccolo's performance alone is worth watching the film.  All criticisms taken, I just watched Habemus Papam again, and found it even more compelling against today's news than I did when I saw it a year ago.



Crowds in St. Peter's square in 2005, awaiting news of
a new Pope

Habemus Papam is now available on Netflix, Amazon, Amazon instant video, etc.  To get yourself in the mood for this Conclave, rent or buy it now.  In Italian with English subtitles.

We were in Rome when John Paul II died and Benedict XVI was elected.  Those 2005 photos give a feel for what Pope-watching is like in Rome.

Another Rome tidbit - The Palazzo Farnese filled in for the Vatican for much of the film. These days, it's almost the only way you can see the Palazzo, which houses the French embassy in central Rome.


View from St. Peter's square back
to the TV stands at the end of
via della Conciliazione (the bright
lights)

Dianne

Crowds watching an outdoor screen set against the Coliseum
for Pope John Paul II's funeral in 2005

Crowds in Circo Massimo, with the Palatine Forum in the
background, large screens and speakers set up for
Pope John Paul II's funeral in 2005

Centocelle: Rome's New Rochelle

We doubt that any of our readers have been to Centocelle, the mid-20th century suburb
located about 7 km to the east of Rome's Centro, between via Casilina on the south and via Prenestina on the north. Nor had we until recently, perhaps because the name (literally, one hundred cells) led us to imagine a degraded, high-crime community characterized by enormous, sterile apartment buildings. We went anyway, attracted by a photo exhibit (now closed) on Centocelle, brought to our attention by a friend (thanks, Jennifer!). The exhibit was mounted in a 1935 church, in Piazza San F. da Cantalice, just off via Casilina. The center of community life, if not in the center of the community, the church ushers one into town from the south (see photos of the exterior of the church soon after construction, and the interior, then undecorated). What we found was more like New Rochelle than the South Bronx.

Although aerial photos in the exhibit show the site sparsely populated in 1934
(the church is in red, Rome to the right, via Casilina at top), and densely populated by 1977, our walk revealed several examples of buildings constructed in the 1920s, some marked with the Roman numerals of the Fascist system, and others built in the early 1930s, including the school below right, with its Anno EF XI (Fascist Era Year 11) dating, above the arches.

The town's inviting, tree-lined main street (via del Castani), running northward off the front of the church, is filled with shops of all kinds, including, on the left (heading north) and in the first block, a high-end gift shop ensconced in small structure whose facade still features the faded mosaics fashioned when the place was built around 1930.

Further down, the circular piazza (Piazza dei Mirti) that only recently was doubtless the center and hub of Centocelle's community and commercial life is suffering from the construction of Metro Line C, whose opening will surely be delayed longer than any of us can imagine. Perhaps in anticipation of the line, a trendy apartment building was recently completed nearby (below right). The area is currently served by streetcar.
A block west, mixed-gender youth soccer teams were having a spirited game on a small, fenced-in pitch.

Our visit featured intermittent rain. Waiting for it to subside (we were on the scooter), we spent a pleasant half hour over glasses of wine
(available only in small bottles) in Bar Gelateria, across from the church, where a dozen locals, many sitting in the covered area outside, had also taken refuge. That's Dianne's back in the photo.

Celebrities don't flock to Centocelle any more than tourists do, but Pope Giovanni Paolo was there, probably in the 1990s; the photo exhibit revealed the community's rich religious life. And Centocelle's airport, a busy place in the 1930s,
saw Charles Lindbergh passing through and witnessed an historic--and fateful--encounter between Hitler and Mussolini on May 4, 1938. Neither, we're sure, ever got to New Rochelle.

Bill

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