The essential story of Francis of Assisi is deep in human beings everywhere. Movies made from the bare outlines vary strikingly across a wide spectrum of styles and assumptions, choosing from a menu of events. For instance, the 1950 film called “The Flowers of St Francis,” made in 1950 by Roberto Rossellini (while Ingrid Bergman, not yet his wife, carried to term his children -- a major scandal) and written by Federico Fellini, was in the style of Italian black-and-white social realism and a spirit of reform and return to origins that was close to the original spirit of Francis.
“The Flowers” were actually nine incidents chosen from many fables and novels, each with a moral like a parable. The parts were played by actual monks except for the tyrant, who was a professional actor. The film opens with the characters walking in the rain, a theme that shows up in all the movies. As they go, they argue their message. Since one of the 14th century source novels was about Brother Juniper, he is a prominent character. The vignettes are as follows:
Juniper, the “Parsival” or devout fool of the tale, takes the idea of going naked too far. A crazy old man, Giovanni, comes to join them. In this version Clare is a proper nun who comes to visit with her sisters and is welcomed with a bower of blossoms. Juniper makes soup for a brother who is ill but when the patient remarks that the soup would be improved by a pig’s foot, Juniper goes out and cuts the foot off a living pig! Francis encounters a leper and embraces him, which is another basic theme very much evocative of the present plague of HIV-AIDS.
Juniper becomes a problem because he wants to preach and keeps trying to devise ways to shorten up his cooking duties, like cooking everything they have into one big slumgullion that will last two weeks. Juniper does indeed go preaching and gets into awful trouble. He is nearly lynched. In the next to the last chapter, Brother Leone and Francis discuss how to achieve perfect happiness, but Francis rejects all of Leone’s suggestions, which run along the lines of performing miracles, and proposes that being beaten up and suffering is the real perfect happiness. His essential message is converting loss into gain, misery into pleasure, and failure into success through mysticism. The last “flower” is Francis going out into the world to preach.
This movie is confusing to watch on a small screen. There’s a lot of rushing around and since everyone is in the same brown habit, it’s hard to tell them apart, but there are often striking tableaus. The scenery is mostly pasture and the building are little more than stone-walled sheds.
“Brother Sun, Sister Moon” (1972) from Zefferelli is at the extreme other end of the continuum and has remained a much beloved version because of the lush poppies-and-lilies treatment of the landscape, the beautiful childlike main characters, and the extravagant -- rather literally “operatic” since there are songs -- costumes and sets. The final scene in the Pope’s cathedral is like “The Dark Crystal” as envisioned by Gustav Klimpt, a storm of gilt, glitter, brilliant silks, embellishment and strangeness. Waaaay over the top. The Pope literally steps out of all this and comes to Francis in a simple white gown. Clare does the same when her hair is shorn near a rocky waterfall. Rebuilding of the old stone ruin is set against fields of snow. Children, old people and animals abound as extras. The movie is saturated with spiritual ecstasy and the ethos of the Aquarian Age: gentleness and kindness is primary. Somehow the lepers are displaced by suffering cloth dyers, much more photogenic.
“Francis of Assissi” (1961) with Bradford Dillman as Francis, Stuart Whitman as Paolo, and Dolores Hart as Clare is a group that often acted in Hollywood Westerns! The usual sexual tension never allowing contact is strong. This is a respectable version, not quite memorable. Clare’s hair cutting is on a mountain ridge with the wind lifting the strands.
“Francesco” (1989) with Mickey Rourke as Francesco was the second Saint Francis movie made by Liliana Cavani, the same kind of social neorealist as Fellini, Rossellini, Paolo Pasolini but far more inventive. (Her first try was reviled and disappeared.) An early scene shows the naked bodies of young men killed in battle being laid out for a mass grave. Helena Bonham Carter is a feisty Clare who wears pantaloons under her habit, no veil on her frizzy bob: she is one of the guys. The story begins on another windy ridge where the group is putting up a tent for a shelter while they write down the life of their friend. The score is by Vangelis.
All the films begin with the two cherished children, Clare and Francesco, in a time of constant war and terrible suffering. The Catholic church was afflicted by more than a dozen heretical groups. In some versions the land is eroded and harsh, in others everything blooms. In some, Francesco joins the Crusades as a knight, comes back, goes again as a pilgrim and actually tries to talk Saladin out of war. (Saladin says he hates war, but must defend his people.) In a couple of versions Francis is captured by the enemy and languishes in a horrific dungeon for a year, but while he is there discovers a vernacular version of the Gospels which he has not known until then. Both youngsters, like Buddha, wake to suffering and dedicate themselves to sharing and ameliorating it. The church mid-management tries suppression, companions object but are converted, and the Pope finally approves. In some there is a sequence of sharing a pig sty. In some versions Clare is confined to a convent, only noted and seen from a distance.
After watching for a while one can’t help wondering how a Saint Francis would be received today. Forget the “saint” thing -- it’s just a Roman Catholic bureaucratic category. What if a man went through life impoverished, owning no home, giving all his money away to those in the most desperate need (not many lepers anymore -- how about boys with HIV-AIDS?), dressing simply in today’s “habit” (jeans and a t-shirt from a thrift shop), begging for money, spending his days preaching via the Internet, and constantly suffering (that penitento practice of physical and moral pain) -- how would he be received? I can tell you.
Tim Barrus (He will wring my neck for saying so because he thinks virtue signals weakness. But I have nothing to lose.) whose most expensive possession is his own replaced hips (now failing) and whose life is devoted to art -- which is not so different from religion -- has been met with suspicion, contempt, righteous indignation, skepticism and accusations. Most modern literati (the ones who don’t read but write all the time) operate under a hermeneutic of suspicion. They cannot accept that a St. Francis type might be for real. Somewhere there must be an angle. Money must be hidden in a Swiss bank account. He must be after the fame. It’s gotta be a con.
Then they try the smearing. In San Francisco in the days of Act Up parades he ran naked through the streets. (How is that different from Francis stripping?) He was a Harley rider in black leather. (How is that different from Francis in armor on a horse headed to the Crusades?) He associates with diseased people. (We’ve already covered that.) He’s always asking for -- (Yeah, yeah. He’s a mendicant.) He hangs with a group of boy and men. (I think there are a few Poor Clares around.)
In the end I like the “Mickey Rourke” Francis best. Filmed in his pretty boy days when his mouth curled roguishly and his eyes were bright, even today he’s a real-life animal lover, with a special affection for his little dog. But he’s a tough, wicked survivor. In “Barfly” he portrayed Charles Bukowski, who may be Barrus’ version of St. Paul. It’s a reach, but why not reach? I defend it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjneQahhks0 If you don’t know Mickey Rourke, start here. (By the way, “Mickey Rourke” is an alias. I’m not even sure whether he’s Irish.)
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