Synopsis
The Song of Bernadette (1943) is Henry King's religious drama, and you can watch online on iFILM. Adapted from Franz Werfel's novel, it follows a poor miller's daughter in Lourdes, France, who claims a quiet, radiant lady appeared to her in a riverside grotto. Jennifer Jones plays Bernadette and took home her first Best Actress Oscar for it.
It opens in cold, coughing poverty. Fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous is gathering firewood near the Massabielle rock when she freezes — a woman in white stands before her, visible to no one else. What follows is less a miracle than a public ordeal. The imperial prosecutor, played with chilly contempt by Vincent Price, and the town officials brand her a hysteric; the local clergy keep their distance even as thousands of pilgrims start filling the streets. Bernadette has nothing to prove her vision — except a spring that breaks from dry ground.
Made at the height of the Second World War, the film wins you over through restraint and long close-ups of Jones rather than spectacle. Beyond her award, it claimed three more prizes — for cinematography, art direction, and Alfred Newman's score. At 156 minutes it moves slowly and prayerfully; it rewards viewers who love old-Hollywood humanism and don't mind a patient pace. Stream The Song of Bernadette (1943) online on iFILM.
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