The Papacy: Art Invents What Few Really Know By ELAINE SCIOLINO Published: April 14, 2005
... Steeped in ritual, shrouded in secrecy, the sealed forum in the Sistine Chapel where the world's cardinals elect the pope is probably the oldest and most mysterious electoral body in the world. Laymen hungry to know more must rely largely on novels, films, television docudramas and speculative nonfiction. The accounts range from imaginative distortions of reality to scholarly tomes that can be informative yet dull. ...
Distortions are inevitable, given the Vatican's secrecy, and some who have struggled to capture the church's inner workings said they felt a strong responsibility to get it right.
"You hope and pray you will be given inspiration, because you're dealing with such a sacred subject," said Michael Anderson, the director of "The Shoes of the Fisherman," who was given extraordinary access by the Vatican in making the [1968] film. "The challenge was to keep the wording and the teachings accurate and at the same time convey the sense of drama."
At one point, he said, Mr. [Anthony] Quinn [who played the pope] had to be talked out of quitting the film when he felt that a swelling of his eye had been a curse from God.
"The swelling wouldn't go down, and we had to shoot around him for 10 days," Mr. Anderson recalled. "Tony found something in Holy Scripture called 'Monk's disease,' which was an affliction of the eye for those who pretend to be holier than they were. He said: 'I am me. I'm not the Pope. I'm being punished.' It was a solemn moment." ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/books/14shoes.html?hp>
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