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Theology and Sexuality, Vol. 13, No. 1, 63-78 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1355835806069785

Ingrid Bergman—A Modern Magdalene: ‘Saint to Whore and Back Again’ in Casablanca, The Bells of St. Mary's and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness

Maureen Sabine

Ingrid Bergman's life on and off screen shows the face of a modern Magdalene who transgressed the traditional divide between the saint and the whore. Even in early films like Casablanca(1942), where she projected the aura of a wartime Madonna as the self-sacrificing Ilsa Lund, or The Bells of St. Mary's(1945), where she embodied the romance of the perfect nun as the beautiful Sister Benedict, Bergman sympathetically interpreted the Magdalene iconography triangulating feminine sexuality, sin and sorrow. The star's adulterous affair with Roberto Rossellini would lead to a public fall from grace as the ‘Virgin Mary of film’. However, with her return to the screen as a Christian missionary in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), Bergman recuperated Mary Magdalene's early church role as independent woman, courageous witness and passionate disciple of Christ.

Key Words: Ingrid Bergman • Magdalene • sexual ideology • nuns • Chinese missionary


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