Plot
A young priest arrives at Ambricourt, his new parish. He is not welcome. The girls of the catechism class laugh at him in a prank, whereby only one of them appears to know the Scriptural basis of the Eucharist so that the rest of them can laugh at their private conversation. His colleagues criticize his diet of bread and wine and ascetic lifestyle. Concerned about Chantal, the daughter of the Countess, the priest visits the Countess at the family chateau, and appears to help her resume communion with God after a period of doubt, but she dies during the following night, allowing her daughter to spread false rumors that the priest's harsh words had tormented her to death. Refusing confession, Chantal had previously spoken to the priest about her hatred of her parents.
The older priest from Torcy talks to his younger colleague about his poor diet and lack of prayer, but he remains unable to focus on doing so. After his health worsens, the priest goes to the city to visit a doctor, who diagnoses him with stomach cancer. The priest goes to a former colleague who has lapsed and is now an apothecary and who lives with a woman outside wedlock. He dies in the druggist's house after being blessed by him. Two famous lines from the film include "God is not a torturer" (Scorsese's favorite line) and "All is grace."
Read more about this topic: Diary Of A Country Priest
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
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“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)