An Overlooked Gem
Less than a week to go before the Oscars now, and the mood seems to be . . . a little flat. A few voices are suggesting that the nominees selected by Hollywood insiders might really have been the best offerings this year. As several writers have pointed out, the nominees this year tend toward a few works that politically correct (and increasingly insular) Hollywood finds significant, while audience-pleasing films like The Chronicles of Narnia or or Batman Begins are all but ignored. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all films that are popular deserve nominations. In fact, there were some wonderful gems out there this year that never found much of an audience - or nominations. So I’ll talk about some of those this week, as well as some of the nominated films. But new DVD releases are coming out every week — and not just of this year’s films. I’d love to urge everyone to see one recent release in particular.
Roberto Rossellini’s 1950 film Francesco, Giullare di Dio, known in English as The Flowers of St. Francis, became available last fall on DVD from the Criterion Collection (b+w, in Italian, with English subtitles). The film celebrates the life of St. Francis of Assisi and his brothers. The DVD release was practically unheralded, but this is nothing new. Italian neo-realist director’s work was panned by critics and all but ignored by audiences when it first appeared in 1950. But it has since come to be known as “one of the masterpieces not only of Italian cinema, but also of religious cinema,†as film critic Father Virgilio Fantuzzi, S.J. notes in the extras on this beautifully produced DVD.
The film is a series of vignettes based on The Little Flowers of St. Francis and other early Franciscan sources. They realistically show Francis and his brothers suffering from rain, cold and hunger, as well as the suspicion and misunderstanding they arouse among the townspeople of Assisi. It portrays their inner spiritual struggles, their asceticism (even those aspects uncongenial to modern viewers) and the contrast between their poverty and humility and the violence of their time. Most of the roles, including St. Francis, are played by real Franciscan friars. Rossellini treats Francis’ story with warmth and insight, and is faithful to his sources. One of the film’s highlights shows the simple Brother Juniper being tortured by the tyrant Nicolaio,but bearing it so patiently that the brutal man is eventually overcome with remorse and converted. Love overcoming violence is an especially strong theme in this film completed not long after World War II.
Along with the interview with Father Fantuzzi about the film and his relationship with Rossellini, the extras also include a delightful interview with the director’s daughter, Isabella Rossellini, who says that her father chose St. Francis as a subject because “he is loved by everyone, even non-Catholics. His was a simple way of being good that anyone can reach.†She adds that this simplicity was in perfect accord with her father’s filmmaking style; he preferred to observe with the camera rather than use much editing or rely on the studied performances of professional actors. With the friars, he captured genuine spirituality on film. “The innocence in their faces is something that an actor cannot play,†she said.
Father Fantuzzi recalls that though Rossellini claimed not to be religious, religious themes of “good and evil and redemption.†often occur in his work. This moral quality adds to the excellence of this film. Don’t miss it.