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March 29, 2007
Film Version of Hildegard of Bingen? Hmm.
Google news is wonderful - where else would I come across a story from Variety? Not my usual reading. Trotta tracks back to middle ages / Vet to direct Bingen bio. That means that an experienced director is doing a movie on Hildegard! Here's the director's imdb page (or, as Variety calls her, the helmer).
If you don't know about Hildegard I hardly know where to tell you to start, other than DON'T GOOGLE HER. Goodness knows she's been poorly served. Maybe the old Catholic Encyclopedia? It's certainly sound, as far as it goes. There was some very silly stuff done with Hildegard in the 1980s by Matthew Fox, ex-O.P., et al. Part of the problem there is that medieval medicine, in its dependence on classical theory-driven medicine, is a lot like modern new age medicine (or 'traditional healing' everywhere). You know - the power of gems to heal, the life force of plants, etc.* An important reason to reject in the Bear & Co. edition of Hildegard's great Scivias ** (link goes to a better version) is that though the translation was pretty good someone (the publisher? Then-Fr. Matthew?) chose to leave out a lot of chapters. Now I'm the first to agree that there's nothing duller than most medieval mysticism, and the book is over 400 pages without the material, but it was telling which chapters they left out. You see, they printed a list of those chapter headings in the back. And excluded chapters cover LOTS of things about Sin and Damnation and Judgment that didn't line up very well with Matthew Fox's whatever-it-was-he-called-it. Creation Spirituality?
So be cautious using great ones - other ones have piggy-backed on their words.
* the relationship between pre-modern non-Western medicines is much more complicated than that, but lemme tell you - if I don't get tenure and I want to stay in Upstate New York (though why the 2nd part of that equation would be true I couldn't tell you) I could make a living in Ithaca selling my knowledge of 4 Humors Healing. "Here, ma'am - give little Johnny leeks for that jitteriness - they'll cool him down!"
** well, besides the fact that I had to buy my copy at an alternative bookstore and it STILL after all these years smells of patchouli
Posted by CrankyProfessor at March 29, 2007 11:50 PM