Silence In Hitchcock's Massicotte

With the overwhelming power of the media, the power of voice and information is taken from God by the new forms of media. The new generations who grown up with and surrounded by television and cinemas would be unsurprisingly more bonded to such multi sources. Then, what makes the life of the priest now? The prominent representation of the priest who experiences both the Duplessis Era and the years after that is the priest Massicotte in Le Confessional. However, even within the life of Massicotte, the time of his youth separates from his older years due to the change of his career. Lepage combines the two phrases of Massicotte life, as he is a young priest during the time Hitchcock was filming his work I Confess, and he being a politics and

One could argue that the youth of Massicotte works as the transforming stage from the original representation of the true Father presented by Father Logan to the first stage false father as Massicotte is unable to be the father of Rachel’s child. “Massicotte虽非孩子的亲生父亲，却因逐渐爱上Rachel而愿意为她还俗成为孩子的父亲。经Rachel拒绝，使Massicotte成为父亲的希望破灭” (Although Massicotte is not the biological father of Rachel’s child, his affection to Rachel makes him willing to give up the identity as a priest and raise her child as his own. However, Rachel’s rejection on the issue ends the hope of Massicotte being a child’s father) (5 Chiang). Even with all the abandonment that Massicotte presents to his religion, the one last thing that he keeps as a priest is not telling the real identity of Rachel’s son’s father and bearing the wrong accusation of fathering

After all, even the priest Massicotte does not show the same determinant and dedication towards the Catholic religion as Father Logan does in I Confess. Whereas, on the other hand, one could not possibly undermine the social and cultural impact towards the decline of the Roman Catholic Church in general due to the development of the media technology. Therefore, the power shifting of the Catholic Church could never bring the same impact on the individual’s attitude toward his belief. As many other factors would also shake the dominating status of the Catholic religion as the time passing by, this does not guarantee that the changing among the society would be the only reason of one changing his belief