A Downright Account: The Life And Work Of John Henry Newman

This two-part British production, filmed a decade ago, combines interviews with church historians and academics, and readings of Newman's work by actors, to provide what Newman himself hoped for someday: "a downright account" of his life. Born in 1801, John Henry Newman would certainly leave enough original source material behind (publishing some 40 volumes during his lifetime, and drafting some 21,000 personal letters), for scholars to work with. Biographer Joyce Sugg talks about the temperament of the early Newman, an overachiever who constantly overworked himself, and suffered the consequences in exhaustion on many an occasion. Drawn to the church at an early age, he was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1825. In 1843, Newman gave his last sermon as an Anglican priest, and converted to Catholicism. In the mid-19th century, Roman Catholics were a somewhat suspect minority in England, and one of the supreme achievements of Newman would be to pave a more welcome road for Roman Catholicism in the predominantly Protestant England. A serious, yet often humorous man (at least in his prose), Newman tackled charges from a number of quarters (including the journalistic invective of novelist Charles Kingsley, whom Newman roundly trounced in his most famous work, the Apologia pro Vita Sua). Eventually, Newman would be made a Cardinal (in 1879), and became the first who was not required to live in Rome (a place, Newman had once noted, where people "spit, a lot.") Since his death in 1890, ongoing efforts have been made to have him canonized as a saint. A bit stodgy and stilted in sections, A Downright Account is a good program, overall, and recommended for libraries with larger religious collections. (Available from: Gateway Films/Vision Video, 2030 Wentz Church Road, Box 540, Worcester, PA 19490; and Baker & Taylor Video.)