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Editor's note: The 2003 film Luther releases to video today. Since Christianity Today magazine already reviewed the film when it hit theaters, we asked Peter Chattaway to compare and contrast three different film versions—from 1953, 1973 and 2003—about the famous Reformer.

It can be very fascinating to see how filmmakers approach the key people and moments of the past—especially when several films are made about the same historical subjects, yet portray those subjects in such vastly different ways. When the films in question are produced decades apart from one another, they become documents not only of the historical eras they explore, but of the times in which they were made. Three films about Martin Luther produced over the past half-century offer an intriguing case in point.

Martin Luther(1953)
directed by Irving Pichel

This film, released last year in a 50th-anniversary DVD with a few bonus features, was produced by American Lutherans at the dawn of the Eisenhower era, at a time when films such as The Ten Commandments and A Man Called Peter reflected the heightened religiosity of the United States, and at a time when audiences were willing to be educated about the past, sometimes through films that adopted fairly didactic forms.

To put Luther's story into a broader and perhaps more familiar historical perspective, the film packs in as many references as possible to contemporary persons and events, such as Columbus's recent discovery of America, the painters Michelangelo and Raphael, the martyrdom of Jan Hus a century earlier (as well as the martyrdoms of Wycliffe and others), and the role that Philip Melanchthon played in developing early Lutheran theology.

The film was directed by Irving Pichel, whose next project, Day of Triumph, was the first feature-length film about the life of Christ to be made in English since the silent era. Luther himself is played by Niall MacGinnis, an Irish actor who was evidently good at playing Germans; several years earlier, he had played a Nazi who considers joining the Hutterites in The 49th Parallel. For the most part, MacGinnis's Luther is calm and reassuring, and many scenes and characters exist mainly to give him a chance to spell out his theology.

For example, the film devotes ample time to a debate between Luther and Catholic scholar Johann Eck, which the other films omit. Later, as the Reformation begins, iconoclasts storm into a church, where they are intercepted by Luther; without moving a muscle, Luther stands there and chides the peasants verbally, after which they all lower their eyes, ashamed, and meekly skulk away. When the Peasants War—more on this violent historical episode in a moment—takes place a few years later, Luther gently reprimands his parishioners in a short sermon that makes frequent use of the word "love."

Luther (1973)
directed by Guy Green

A very different sort of Reformer takes the screen in Luther, Guy Green's 1973 adaptation of the John Osborne play. This film, released as part of a series of adapted plays, came out at a time when filmmakers were questioning the myths and heroes that previous generations had upheld, and it presents a more disturbing version of Luther partly by patterning much of its dialogue after Luther's own writings.

As performed by Stacy Keach, this film's Luther is aggressive and cunning, but deeply conflicted, and the filmmakers are more interested in probing his psychology than in taking a stand for any particular form of theology; a lengthy sequence near the beginning explores Luther's relationship with his father (Patrick Magee), and hints at the effect this may have had on Luther's own ways of looking at God. This film's Luther also refers regularly to flatulence, excrement and outhouses—as indeed the historical Luther did.

The film looks at Luther's life and teachings through the prism of the Peasants War, an uprising that was partly inspired by Luther's opposition to church authorities, yet was stamped out when Luther—who still believed in social and ecclesiastical order, even if he disagreed with the forms they took under Catholicism—called on the German princes to "smite, strangle, and stab" the peasants, "just as when one must kill a mad dog."

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Related Elsewhere:

Turning Point: Luther's Lost Opportunity	Printer view
At Marburg, the last hope of a united Protestantism ran aground on the Last Supper.

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What Luther Said	Printer view
When Martin Luther stood up for his ideas at the Diet of Worms, did he really say, "Here I stand"?