{"id":29817,"date":"2014-02-12T17:24:42","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T22:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=29817"},"modified":"2016-09-30T15:58:14","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T19:58:14","slug":"director-of-popes-favorite-film-babettes-feast-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2014\/02\/director-of-popes-favorite-film-babettes-feast-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Director of pope’s favorite film, “Babette’s Feast,” dies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Details:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Gabriel Axel, a director whose 1987 labor of love, \u201cBabette\u2019s Feast,\u201d received the first foreign-language Oscar awarded to a Danish motion picture \u2014 and heralded a growing popular interest in all things food \u2014 died on Sunday in Copenhagen. He was 95.<\/p>\n

His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the Danish Film Directors Association.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mr. Axel struggled for more than a decade to find backers for a film in which the characters shared equal billing with plates of ravishingly beautiful blinis, truffles and pastry-crusted quail. He wrote his first draft of the script, based on a short story by the Danish-born writer Isak Dinesen, in 1973.<\/p>\n

Working steadily on French and Danish television and movie projects in the 1970s and early \u201980s, Mr. Axel doggedly pursued his vision for 14 years before the film was completed and released.<\/p>\n

\u201cBabette\u2019s Feast\u201d<\/a>\u00a0was a surprise Oscar winner as best foreign-language film \u2014 it beat the heavy favorite, Louis Malle\u2019s \u201cAu Revoir les Enfants\u201d \u2014 partly because of\u00a0rave reviews<\/a>\u00a0and word-of-mouth support, and partly because of\u00a0new rules<\/a>\u00a0adopted in the early 1980s by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences requiring voting members to actually see the films they voted on.<\/p>\n

Mr. Axel was a week shy of his 70th birthday when he took the podium in Los Angeles in April 1988 to accept the award. After saying his thank-yous, he quoted a line from his film: \u201cBecause of this evening, I have learned, my dear, that in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBabette\u2019s Feast\u201d tells the story of Babette Hersant, a Cordon Bleu chef in 19th-century Paris who flees political upheaval and personal tragedy to find sanctuary in rural Denmark. There Babette, played by the French actress St\u00e9phane Audran, works as a housemaid and cook for a pair of aging, unmarried sisters living ascetic lives as wardens of a pleasure-shunning, Puritan-like community founded by their father, who is now dead.<\/p>\n

The story\u2019s climax involves a five-star meal of many courses prepared by Babette that serves as a kind of revelation, opening the palates (and souls) of her mistresses and their flock to the communal joys \u2014 spiritual and sensual \u2014 of a shared meal, lovingly prepared.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s spiritual overtones made it a favorite of both dedicated epicures and the devoutly religious. In 2010 Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina \u2014 later to become Pope Francis \u2014 told journalists that \u201cBabette\u2019s Feast\u201d was his favorite film. The film\u2019s success coincided with, and helped propel, a broadening popular interest in haute cuisine. In the next decade there would be a proliferation of cookbooks, television shows and movies catering to epicurean tastes \u2014 including\u00a0\u201cLike Water for Chocolate\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(1992), \u201cBelle \u00c9poque\u201d (1992),\u00a0\u201cThe Wedding Banquet\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(1993),\u00a0\u201cEat Drink Man Woman\u201d<\/a>(1994) and\u00a0\u201cBig Night\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(1996).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Details:\u00a0 Gabriel Axel, a director whose 1987 labor of love, \u201cBabette\u2019s Feast,\u201d received the first foreign-language Oscar awarded to a Danish motion picture \u2014 and heralded a growing popular interest in all things food \u2014 died on Sunday in Copenhagen. He was 95. His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the Danish Film Directors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"yoast_head":"\nDirector of pope's favorite film, "Babette's Feast," dies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Details:\u00a0 Gabriel Axel, a director whose 1987 labor of love, \u201cBabette\u2019s Feast,\u201d received the first foreign-language Oscar awarded to a Danish motion\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2014\/02\/director-of-popes-favorite-film-babettes-feast-dies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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