Hesburgh

Hesburgh (2019)

He counseled presidents and popes, served on corporate boards and infuriated Richard Nixon. He was one of the only friends to whom Ann Landers turned for advice. During his 35 years as president of the University of Notre Dame, Theodore Hesburgh became one of the most influential and inspiring people of the 20th century.

Date of release
2019-04-26
TMDB
7.3 / 10 (3)
Runtime
1h 44m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Patrick Creadon

Casting

Interesting facts

Hesburgh is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Patrick Creadon. The film follows the life of Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame from 1952 through 1987, particularly during his time working on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The film is drawn from archival footage, as well as interviews with family, colleagues at Notre Dame, politicians, journalists, and historians. Maurice LaMarche provides the voice of Hesburgh, narrating the documentary with words drawn from Hesburgh's writings and tapes.

Production and release

Director Patrick Creadon attended Notre Dame during the last years of Hesburgh's presidency, graduating in 1989, and was aware of his prestige. "But being a documentary filmmaker, I always have a little bit of a skeptical eye," Creadon said. "And I really wanted to see for myself if his work really lived up to his reputation.

The production team did extensive research, referencing newspaper articles, personal letters, and film footage to make the documentary, although Creadon said he avoided reading Hesburgh's autobiography, God, Country, Notre Dame, which helped him maintain an objective perspective. Voice actor Maurice LaMarche provided the first-person narration, drawn from Hesburgh's writings and interviews.

Creadon said that the filmmakers were worried that the film would struggle to find an audience outside of a Notre Dame audience, but they were encouraged by a sold-out Washington, D.C. premiere at AFI Docs in June, 2018. The film was released on April 26, 2019, in Chicago and South Bend, Indiana.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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