Tom McCarthy says Spotlight did not change the Catholic Church enough
Ten years after “Spotlight” won Best Picture, director Tom McCarthy says the film did not bring enough change inside the Catholic Church.
McCarthy spoke to Variety on Saturday night at the New York Film Festival Variety. His measure was simple. Change, he said, would only be enough when every child is safe.
“Spotlight”, which McCarthy directed, won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016 Variety. The Academy Awards are the United States film industry’s top honours. The film chronicled the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting that exposed the Catholic Church’s systemic cover-up of sexual abuse of children by priests, with an ensemble led by Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo.
The reporting at the centre of the story exposed abuse committed over decades by priests in the Boston archdiocese against young boys and girls Reuters. The news organisation’s Spotlight team is a long-running investigative unit. Its work prompted court cases, public inquiries and further reporting in other cities.
McCarthy has spoken before about his own connection to that world. He is Jesuit-educated America Magazine. He has said he heard whispers growing up about impropriety in the region’s Catholic Church Screen Daily. That background shaped how he approached behaviour inside a closed institution.
He was at the festival with a new film, “A Statement”, led by Paul Rudd Variety. It follows 20 experts trying to reach consensus on a statement to Congress about the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the climate. It is based on a real-life conference held in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1980.
The 64th New York Film Festival runs from 25 September through 12 October at Lincoln Center FilmLinc. McCarthy’s remarks arrive in the anniversary year of his earlier film. He revisited the Globe newsroom to mark ten years since the Best Picture win GoldDerby.
What makes this stand out is the distance between screen impact and institutional reform. The film reached a wide audience and took the industry’s top prize. For McCarthy, that was not the test.
