Saturday, January 31, 1998

Duvall presents moving portrayal of Pentecostal evangelist

By STEVE RABEY / Religion News Service

Since his 1962 film debut in "To Kill a Mockingbird," Robert Duvall has played good guys, bad guys and everything in between in films such as "The Godfather," "Apocalypse Now," "The Great Santini," "Tender Mercies" and "Phenomenon."

"It's all in a day's work," said the veteran of nearly 60 films.

But Duvall's latest project is more than just a day's work. Duvall feels a powerful passion for "The Apostle," which has already created an industry stir in small screenings. It opened nationwide Friday.

A moving portrayal of a southern Pentecostal evangelist's gradual fall and ultimate redemption, "The Apostle" has been Duvall's labor of love and his major preoccupation for over a decade.

He researched, wrote, directed, financed and stars in the film, which has already won him Best Actor awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the L.A. Film Critics Association. And in a recent phone interview from his Virginia home, Duvall described how bringing this unique project to the screen was more calling than craft.

"It's something I had to do," he said. "I think in a way it could be a calling, but it's hard to judge in absolutes what that all means."

The son of a Methodist father and a Christian Scientist mother, Duvall inherited a deep respect for "the writings of Jesus Christ, the importance of his niche in this world, and the fact that you gotta practice what you teach."

Today, many of those beliefs still hold. "I believe in one God, and I'm a Christian. But I have an individual outlook. It's a private thing."

With "The Apostle," Duvall's reverence for Christian teaching and his attraction to southern Pentecostal preaching, which he called "one of the true American art forms," have produced a unique and historic film.

For the first time in recent American movie history, the camera lavishes the same kind of respectful attention on a Bible-thumping evangelist that Hollywood usually gives to gun-toting gangsters and stiletto-wielding serial killers.

"We make great gangster movies, so why not make this kind of movie right, too?" asked Duvall, who invested $5 million of his own funds to make "The Apostle" after numerous studios turned him down.

"This is something I've had in the back of my mind for years," he said. "I wanted to do something that I've never seen done without caricaturing these people or patronizing them. I wanted to give them their due and their respect."

In the film, Duvall plays Euliss "Sonny" Dewey, a sincere man who preaches the Word, dances in the Spirit, and saves white, black and brown souls with a consuming zeal.

He does have a weakness for women, but so do many real-life preachers. A 1991 study conducted by the evangelical Fuller Institute of Church Growth found 37 percent of pastors surveyed said they had participated in inappropriate sexual behavior with a church member of the opposite sex. In the film, Sonny's lusts don't invalidate his deep devotion to God.

When his frustrated wife (Farrah Fawcett, in her first independent film appearance) flirts with a younger preacher, Sonny flies into a rage, hitting the minister with a baseball bat in front of his own children and startled friends.

Leaving town and skipping out on his family and flock, Sonny creates a new identity for himself as "The Apostle," which means "one sent out." He baptizes himself, rededicates himself to the cause of the gospel, and pledges to follow God "every step of the way."

This isn't the first time Duvall has taken moviegoers on a tour of sin, salvation and sanctification. He won a Best Actor Academy Award for his touching portrayal of born-again country singer Mac Sledge in Bruce Beresford's 1983 version of Horton Foote's "Tender Mercies."

And it isn't the first time he's directed an anthropologically accurate take on a little understood subculture. His 1977 directoral debut, "We're Not the Jet Set," examined the lives of a Nebraska rodeo family, while 1983's "Angelo, My Love" looked at New York street gypsies.

"When I finished these films, I said I would never do that again," he said. But 13 years ago he visited a small, out-of-the-way church, and it was there the inspiration for "The Apostle" began.

"I first noticed one little church in Hughes, Ark., and that kind of set off the spark," he said.

Since then, Duvall has studied dozens of preachers, including T.D. Jakes of the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff and E. V. Hill of Los Angeles. Duvall was deeply moved by a sermon Hill preached at his own wife's funeral.

His research shows up in numerous scenes which are based on real-life religion. When Sonny preaches to a man injured in a car wreck, he's only following the example of a woman evangelist Duvall knows. And when Sonny confronts a troublemaker played by Billy Bob Thornton, convincing him to accept the Lord instead of bulldozing Sonny's church, Duvall is simply choreographing an event a friend of his experienced.

In addition to professional actors, the film features true believers who've never starred in anything bigger than a church drama. Their zeal brings life to the film's many realistic worship scenes.

Duvall said he isn't trying to preach in "The Apostle," but he is trying to reach two distinct audiences: secular moviegoers who've never seen the power of Pentecostalism, and believers who often accept religious films Duvall considers "very corny movies, very melodramatic movies."

According to early reviews, Duvall may be succeeding.

The New York Times' Janet Maslin called the film "a rare display of spiritual light on screen." While a reviewer in the conservative Christian Movieguide wrote: "There is much to be said in favor of this movie, but most significant is its positive affirmation of God, church and evangelism."

Likewise, the movie's soundtrack recording will be marketed to both mainstream and religious consumers. The album features a duet by Duvall and Emmylou Harris, "I Love to Tell the Story," as well as performances by Christian recording artists such as Steven Curtis Chapman and the Bill Gaither Vocal Band, and mainstream stars like Wynonna, Lyle Lovett, Sounds of Blackness, and Duvall's friend Johnny Cash (whose wife, June Carter Cash, appears in the film as Sonny's mother).

The buzz in Hollywood is that Duvall may even pick up his second Oscar, a prospect he said holds little interest for him.

"Awards mean nothing," he said. "But if there's any award I should ever get, it should be for this, not for my other stuff."

Perhaps like Sonny, Duvall has his eyes on a higher prize.

"There's only one Jesus Christ," he said. "The rest of us are trying to catch up, and probably never will catch up."