The film is one of suspense in that the viewer does not know what will happen and as the priest is sought by the police and himself walks to the police station, he passes a film theater showing a crime picture in which a criminal is arrested (we see a film photograph), then passes a store with a man’s suit in the window (if the priest left the priesthood, leaving his vows, he would be freer to tell the police what he knows of the murder), and then the priest passes a sculpture of Christ carrying his cross, an emblem also of the priest’s martyrdom. None of them understand the character of the priest that is, they disbelieve what he says about himself, and discount his actual behavior, and misinterpret him. The police cannot tolerate their own ignorance, and open cases, and they construct a narrative that explains the crime, just as other characters in the film construct false narratives involving the priest: the police think the priest killed a corrupt lawyer to protect a married lady friend, the woman who was his lover before he went to war and whom the lawyer was blackmailing and the priest’s former lover believes that the priest is still in love with her despite going to war, despite becoming a priest and the murderer, a married church caretaker who wanted to steal money from the lawyer he killed and has confided in the priest, predicts to his wife that the priest, out of fear of arrest, will betray the murderer’s secret guilt to the police. It is one of those times that most viewers can relate to, when you point out the lack of evidence or logic and expect that to be the end of the matter-and then it is not. When Clift as Father Michael Logan is interrogated by a detective played by Karl Malden, the friendly but suspicious and stern detective tells Logan very directly that the priest’s withholding information creates a mystification in which Logan is ensnared, and the detective and priest have a calm conversation about the danger of jumping to conclusions with inadequate evidence. Michael Logan seems like a man who has found a way of being himself by being a priest: he is alert, direct, frank, moral, and sensitive, contemplative, sacrificing, and of service. Clift’s performance is austere and sensitive, and he is so deep inside his character that one cannot see a false moment or move. Michael Logan is a war hero who returns to become a priest, and when he hears a confession of murder from a church servant, Father Logan maintains the sanctity of his vows and of the confessional and keeps that secret-which means that he himself becomes the target of the police probe. Montgomery Clift was the most beautiful of men, making it easy for him to embody an ideal and in Alfred Hitchcock’s black-and-white film I Confess, Montgomery Clift plays a man nearly too good to be true, and the very worst is thought of him. In the films I Confess and From Here to Eternity, Montgomery Clift plays men of difficult integrity, the kind of men who are obviously able, attractive, and intelligent, with the potential for social success, but whose personal principles give them an eccentricity, mystery, and tenacity that make it likely that they and their actions will be misunderstood: men who might be seen as angels are read as rascals if not demons. From Here to Eternity, directed by Fred Zinnemann
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