Forgive me if this question has been asked before, but how long has she been a nun? This is one of my all time favourite movies, I have seen it so many times and after watching it today I wondered how long she has actually been a nun.
Does anyone know?
Thank you kindly!
It would seem that she was at least appox 20 years in the convent. Look at the final scene--- she attempts to pick up the skirt to go down the stairs-- however, there is no need any more becuse her skirt does not touch the ground. She acts from instinct.
shareI remember that the nun had an affair with a soldier, who, I'm sure, was played by Roger Moore. Am I confusing this movie with another? When I went, my friend, a Catholic, had to sit in the lobby because it was forbidden by the church to see the movie. If this isn't the movie I'm thinking of, what was?
shareI believe the movie you recall was The Miracle (1959), in which Carroll Baker's nun had an affair with Roger Moore's soldier. No such incident occurs in The Nun's Story.
shareYou know, I got out my copy of the original book and I don't see any dates.
Like the other poster, I figure about 20 years. The story ends towards the end of WWII so that's 1945.
Sister Luke is recalled from the Congo to Belgium when WWII starts in 1939, so that's a year.
She's in the Congo for about two years.
She's in the insane asylum for about a year.
She's studying to become a nurse. How long did it take in the 1930's? Four years?
The postulate-novice-temporary vows preparing a nun takes two to four years depending upon the order. Final vows come later.
So twenty years sounds about right.
Motion pictures tend to truncate time, which is understandable. I'm reading Franz Werfel's wonderful SONG OF BERNADETTE. (I found a 1942 edition in a thrift store.) The movie makes the events seem like they happened in just a few short years but I think the real St. Bernadette was in the convent for about fifteen years.
According to the book The Complete Films Of Audrey Hepburn (by Jerry Vermilye), Gabrielle van der Mal was a nun for 17 years, from 1927 to 1944.
shareIt's 1930 when she goes in, and around 1944 at the end, so about 14 years.
shareActually, she enters the cloistered life long before 1930. When Sister Luke is first glimpsed in the School of Tropical Medicine, the year is 1930 - and as the following scene makes clear, she has been attending the school for five months. But she wasn't admitted to the school until after taking her first vows, and the film isn't specific about how long afterward. But prior to taking the first vows, she went through a six-month period as a postulant, and a year-long period in the Mother House as a novice. So 1927 does seem a possible starting point.
Besides, Marie Louise Habets (on whom Sister Luke is based) lived behind convent walls for 17 years, entering in 1927 and leaving in 1944. See link below -
http://www.camp-wildflecken.de/dp-camp-wildflecken/habets.htm
Thanks Murph, I didn't word it right, she wasn't a full fledged Nun until 1930 (in the movie), but I guess as a postulant and novice should also count.
shareI understand that the book is different, but I had the distinct impression from the movie that she left quite early in the war, 1939 or maybe early 1940. I figured she was a nun about ten or eleven years.
share