Society of Jesus - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• The Body 2001 film in which Antonio Banderas plays a Jesuit priest sent by the Vatican to investigate the discovery of the remains of a crucified body in a first century tomb in Jerusalem
• Possessed (2000 film) a film based on a book by Thomas B. Allen (author) concerning the same events that inspired The Exorcist.
• Smaller and Smaller Circles 1999 award winning detective novel by F.H.Batacan about a Jesuit priest who also happens to be a forensic anthropologist as the sleuth.
• The Man In The Iron Mask 1998 Movie in which Jeremy Irons plays Aramis, who is the general of the Order of Jesuits in France.
• Elizabeth 1998 movie in which Daniel Craig plays a Jesuit who arrives as a spy for the Spanish
• Mason & Dixon 1997 novel by Thomas Pynchon about the team of men who surveyed the Mason-Dixon Line, in which the Jesuits are at the center of a vast conspiracy to regain Church control of science.
• The Sparrow 1996 science fiction novel about a Jesuit mission to an alien world. (See also its 1998 sequel, Children of God.)
• Black Robe 1991 film about a Jesuit in the 17th century Quebec and his struggles with the Algonquin tribe.
• The Mission 1986 award winning film in which 18th century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American Indian tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.
• Father Kino, Padre on Horseback (or Mission to Glory: A True Story) 1977 film starring Richard Egan as Eusebio Kino. The movie is available in DVD format.
• The Jesuit 1973 novel by John Gallahue about a Jesuit's mission to 1930s Russia.
• The Exorcist 1971 Novel and 1973 film set at Georgetown University and Fordham University, two Jesuit schools, with two Jesuit priests as exorcists. The novel and screenplay were written by William Peter Blatty, a 1950 graduate of Georgetown.
• Silence 1966 Classic Japanese Novel about Jesuit missionary in 17th century Japan, soon to be made into a film by Martin Scorsese
• A Case of Conscience 1958 science fiction novel about a Jesuit mission to an alien world.
• "The Star" 1955 science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke about a Jesuit who discovers amongst the rubble of a dead star the archival vault of a civilization which paid the ultimate price so that a star could shine above Bethlehem. In 1956, it won a Hugo award for best short story. The New Twilight Zone 1985 episode of "The Star ," based on Clarke's short story, ended in a more upbeat fashion.
• Angélique 1950's and 60's Novel series and films, by Sergeanne Golon, One of Angélique's brothers became an influential Jesuit. While in the later part of the series when Angélique finally reunited with her family in the New World, both she and her husband, Joffrey de Peyrac, were constantly persecuted by the manipulative and fanatical Jesuit Sébastien d'Orgeval.
• Brideshead Revisited 1945 novel by Evelyn Waughin which title character Brideshead at one point expresses the desire to have become a Jesuit.
• The Magic Mountain 1924 novel by Thomas Mann has an intellectual Jesuit named Naphta who represents one side in the book's philosophical conflict.
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1916 novel by James Joyce in which the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus is educated at Jesuit schools Clongowes Wood College and Belvedere College while growing up in Ireland.** Stephen Dedalus returns in Ulysses and is famously called "you fearful Jesuit" by Buck Mulligan.
• The Vicomte de Bragelonne 1850 Novel, by Alexandre Dumas, in which Aramis, once musketeer now turned Jesuit, plays a key role.