Pope Joan (1972)

Directed by

Michael Anderson

Genre

drama film, LGBTQ-related film, historical film

Country

United Kingdom, United States

Runtime

2h 12m

Rated

PG

Rating

6.1 of 10 from 8 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A woman disguises herself as a man to pursue a religious life and eventually becomes pope in 9th century Rome. The film treats the legendary story of Pope Joan as fact and follows her rise and fall.

historicaldramaticseriousintimateclassicstatelysomber

What happens

Pope Joan is a 1972 British historical drama film based on the story of Pope Joan. Even though modern consensus generally considers Pope Joan to be legendary, in the film her existence is treated as fact. It was directed by Michael Anderson and has a cast which includes Liv Ullmann (in the lead role), Olivia de Havilland, Lesley-Anne Down, Franco Nero and Maximilian Schell. The soundtrack was composed by Maurice Jarre with additional choral music provided by The Sistine Chapel Choir, directed by Domenico Bartolucci. The film was released on DVD in 2003 on Region 1 format disc. It was also re-titled in some areas as The Devil's Imposter, with much material cut. The version of the film released in 1972 differed significantly from the version that had originally been filmed. Anderson's original was made with flashbacks and flash-forward sequences about a modern-day Evangelical preacher who believes her life parallels that of Pope Joan. In this version psychiatrists try to send her back through her past lives to establish if she is the reincarnation of Pope Joan. However, the distributor decided to have all of the contemporary sequences removed and released the film as a straightforward historical drama. In 2009, the film was re-edited: the previously unreleased footage set in the 20th century was re-inserted, while some of the footage of Joan as pope was removed. The film was then re-released under the title She… Who Would Be Pope. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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