Czech-born poet, playwright, and novelist, whose central themes were religious faith, heroism, and human brotherhood. Franz Werfel's best-known works include The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933), a classic historical novel that portrays Armenian resistance to the Turks, and The Song of Bernadette (1941). The latter book had its start when Werfel, a Jew escaping the Nazis, found solace in the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, where St. Bernadette had had visions of the Virgin. Werfel made a promise to "sing the song" of the saint if he ever reached the United States. He died in California in 1945.
During his flight from the Nazis, he and his wife stopped at Lourdes, the French city in which Bernadette Soubirous lived and reportedly saw the Virgin Mary. He vowed to write a book about her if he and his wife escaped safely. The result was the novel, "The Song of Bernadette", which became an international success and a film classic.
MGM wanted to make a film of Franz Werfel s international bestseller "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" in the 1930s. Clark Gable was in talks to star in the big-budget epic. However, in 1934, the Turkish ambassador to the United States, Munir Ertegun, protested to the State Department about the purchase by MGM of the film rights to Werfels best-selling novel. Ambassador Ertegun threatened that if the film were released, Turkey would consider it a hostile act that would damage relations between the two countries and result in a Turkish boycott of American films. After a series of exchanges between the two governments, the State Department yielded to Turkeys demand and got MGM to drop the project.
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.
Which road, which road did you takeThat brought you here at last?No road, no road did I take. I leaped, I leaped from dream to dream.
failure is also the stern parent of truth. (p525),Everything in this world is primarily a matter of morals, and only very much later one of politics.
The old sporadic fanaticism of religious hatred had been skillfully perverted into the cold, steady fanaticism of national hate.
Religion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God. Art is its soliloquy. .
