c. 2003 Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES _ The publicity poster for the movie “Amen” is an eerie combination of a red crucifix emblazoned across the swastika. The image has offended many European Catholics, prompting one French church leader to describe it as “odious and perverse.”

But “Amen’s” director, Constantin Costa-Gavras, shrugs off the controversy. To him, the poster merely shows what the movie is really all about.

“(The poster) says that for more than 10 years, both churches _ the (German) Catholic and Protestant churches _ left the cross of Christ to cohabitate, to live together, with the swastika,” says Costa-Gavras, who will turn 70 in February.

“Amen” opens in Los Angeles on Friday (Jan. 31) and will open throughout the country in February.

The Greek director, who now lives in Paris, is no stranger to controversy. Many of his previous films such as “Z” (1969), “Missing” (1982), and “The Music Box” (1989) have explored heroic resistance to political violence.

With “Amen,” Costa-Gavras tackles the thorny issue of whether the Catholic Church could have done more to prevent the Holocaust. To be sure, the movie also condemns the complicity of the Allies _ namely, the United States and Sweden _ and the German Protestant churches. Another complication is that the pontiff viewed Stalin as a greater threat than Hitler.

But “Amen” appears amid the recent controversy over Vatican World War II documents relating to Pope Pius XII. When the movie opened in Europe last year, the Vatican had announced that it would partly open its pre-World War II archives by 2003, which cover the church’s relations with Germany from 1922 to 1939.

“But the problem is, especially up to 1939, Pius XII is not the pope,” Costa-Gavras says during his recent visit to Los Angeles to promote “Amen.” The director was raised Greek Orthodox but does not identify himself with any particular religion.

“That period, the pope is Pius XI, who was against the Nazis and the Fascists, and he did a couple of encyclicals against them. He was preparing another one in 1939, and he died, and Pius XII completely hid this one and it never came out,” he says.

Although some of the Vatican’s World War II documents have previously appeared in 11 published volumes, Costa-Gavras believes opening all documents from 1939 to 1945 would shed far more light on Pius XII and his relations with Germany.

“During that time, the pope had exchanged with the German bishops (approximately) 136 to 145 letters. So, it would be nice to see all the letters he received and the answers he gave to them,” he says.

How much Pius XII could have intervened to save the Jews is the subject of “Amen.” The movie is based on Rolf Hochhuth’s controversial 1963 play, “Der Stellvertreter” (“The Deputy”), which denounced Pius XII for his failure to speak out against the Nazis’ anti-Jewish policies.

Costa-Gavras says he made considerable changes to the original play. The movie includes the true-life character of Lt. Kurt Gerstein, a Nazi SS Officer who witnessed the extermination of Jewish prisoners and pleaded with Pius XII to intervene. Gerstein was not in the play.

“The play is based essentially on the pope and the Vatican,” Costa-Gavras says. “(In the movie), the pope is a secondary character. The most important character for me, the interesting character, was Gerstein.”

Gerstein, says Costa-Gavras, spoke out against the Holocaust while in a very difficult situation.

“The idea was to respect the play _ not the letter of the play but the meaning,” he says.

Years ago, Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel had seen “The Deputy” in Paris and wanted French filmmaker Claude Chabrol to direct a screen version. But according to Costa-Gavras, Spiegel first asked if Pope Paul VI would agree with the movie. The pope said no, and the movie was never made.

“In those days, the movie without the approval of the Vatican could be a catastrophe for the box office (in Europe),” the director says.

One of “Amen’s” crucial moments is during the pope’s Christmas radio message of 1942. In the movie, Gerstein receives assurances that Pius XII will address the plight of the Jews. The pope did actually say that he regretted that people of certain nationalities and races were being destroyed, but he never specifically mentioned the Jews.

Much debate has focused on the ambiguity of that Christmas radio message.

“The Jews didn’t have a nationality at the time,” Costa-Gavras says. “So, it was not very clear he spoke about the Jews, and he didn’t say anything about the camps or the extermination. And he didn’t condemn the Nazis.”

Whether Pius XII could have changed the course of history by speaking out is yet another matter.

“The pope at that time (World War II) had a lot of power,” Costa-Gavras explains. “The problem is, he was a spiritual leader who shut his mouth during a period of tragedy for human beings. The same pope, four years later in 1949, excommunicated the Communists. But he never excommunicated the Nazis.”

DEA END ALEISS