When filmmaker Todd Komarnicki was first approached to write and direct a film about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he refused. But then, after much prayer and encouragement, he changed his mind.
“To be able to tell the truth about a man who lived the truth was too humbling to avoid,” Komarnicki, who is perhaps best known for producing the 2003 movie “Elf,” told a packed theater following an early screening of “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” in Washington, D.C., in late September.
The new movie about Bonhoeffer, a 20th-century German Lutheran pastor and theologian who was killed for his opposition to the Nazi regime, hits theaters nationwide on Nov. 22. The film from Angel Studios brings Bonhoeffer’s story to life by weaving his time in captivity with flashbacks from his past. Along the way, it shows his faith ignited at a church in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood and suggests that the racism he witnesses in the U.S. impacts his response to the antisemitism in his own country.
The two-hour, 12 minute film rated PG-13 stars German actor Jonas Dassler as Bonhoeffer.
A Christian living in the Garden of Gethsemane
“He’s a Garden of Gethsemane Christian,” Komarnicki said of Bonhoeffer while referring to the Bible passage where Christ suffers in agony ahead of his crucifixion. “And my faith started in the garden.”
Komarnicki revealed that he read one of Bonhoeffer’s most famous books, “The Cost of Discipleship,” when he converted to Christianity from atheism in his early 20s.
“When I first started to want to crawl out of the blackness and I encountered the story of the garden … I thought, ‘This is the savior? This is the creator? This is the one who is the center of everything?'” he remembered.
He was struck, in particular, by Jesus asking God the Father of his upcoming suffering and death: “If this cup could pass from me, please let it. But not my will, your will.”
“I was so blindsided by the power of that and by the humanity of that,” Komarnicki commented. “I thought it was so compassionate and honest — and not just the ring of truth, but the truth.”
He saw this also in Bonhoeffer’s life, he said.
“He was a guy who continually knew what he was supposed to do and then looked at the cost and felt it too much,” Komarnicki said. “And then got strength from God and went and did the thing he had to do — and looked at the cost and found it too much. All the way to the end.”
“And in his last moment, he knew, in a way he had not known before, that he had made the right choice,” Komarnicki said, “and that’s why he was free at the end.”
Drawing inspiration from Bonhoeffer
John Scanlon, a producer of the film, expressed excitement over Komarnicki’s work on and involvement with the film. He told Our Sunday Visitor that the film began 12 years ago, when the lead producers became interested in Bonhoeffer’s life.
“When they reached out to me and described their vision for the film, it just sounded irresistible,” Scanlon, a lawyer based in Pinedale, Wyoming, said. “We wanted to do a wide release major motion picture type of film, and we wanted to do it in … the highest level of excellence.”
He called Bonhoeffer, whom he learned about growing up, someone who always inspired him.
“He’s a hard read because he’s not like a lot of modern preachers,” Scanlon described. “He’s not sort of preaching that God has a comfortable and happy life plan for you.”
One Bonhoeffer quote in particular, he said, has impacted his life: “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”
Scanlon called Bonhoeffer a “very intelligent, extremely well educated” man, and spoke about Bonhoeffer’s first visit to the U.S., when he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City and met his friend, Frank Fisher. In the movie, Fisher, a fellow student who experiences racism for being Black, introduces Bonhoeffer to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem that sparks his faith.
Bonhoeffer “realized that there was a group of people who were actually living their faith out in a way that had never occurred to him, in the context of struggling for justice and other people’s rights,” Scanlon said.
He expressed admiration for Bonhoeffer’s openness to this new approach to faith.
“If there’s anything about Bonhoeffer that inspired me, it’s that kind of attitude of always wanting to continue to learn and always wanting to continue to go down roads that it’s clear God has marked out for you,” he said.
A message for viewers
For his part, Scanlon shared what he hopes viewers take away from the film.
“There are moments in each of our lives where we need to be uncompromisingly brave,” he said. “There are things we can confront, things we can do to fight for justice and good in our world.”
He added: “What I hope people come out of the film with is a desire to be … the best versions of themselves and to really rise to whatever occasion God has called them to.”
He wanted it to encourage people to “be Bonhoeffer brave.”
“That’s going to look different, I think, frankly for everybody as well as every generation and every time — but it’s something we all have an opportunity to do,” he said. “We may not wind up facing down a Hitler or trying to end a Nazi regime … but there’s always a moment that God calls us to where we have to rise above ourselves with his help and do something great in our own lives.”