Speaking of religion in the movies

Here's a Detroit Free Press article highlighting new DVD releases out today. Schindler's List is the big one, but also out today is

Far more tasteful is 1972's "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" (TWO STARS out of four stars, Paramount, $14.99), from director Franco Zeffirelli. This is a flower-power biography of St. Francis of Assisi, the ascetic who riled up the Catholic church by contending that God was all about love, that materialism was bad, and Mother Nature was cool. That's at least according to this version, which leaves out the part about his going to the Middle East to convert Muslims. The photography is soft-focus, and so is the soundtrack by Donovan, peace be with him.

I know, I know, this movie is totally lame, I guess, but it had a HUGE impact on me when I saw it in college. All of us who were involved in the campus ministry went to see it at the student center, and we came out, arm in arm, singing the Donovan song they sing after San Damiano has been complete, and everyone comes in with their livestock and their vegetables...

If you want your dream to be Build it slow and surely. Small beginnings, greater ends. Heartfelt work grows purely.

If you want to live life free,
Take your time, go slowly.
Do few things, but do them well.
Simple joys are holy.

Day by day, stone by stone,
Build your secret slowly.
Day by day, you'll grow, too,
You'll know heaven's glory.

And we were so inspired, so jazzed, so determined that we could live like that, too....

You know, there are actually some rather powerful scenes in that film. When Francis happens upon Clare tending to the lepers, "Brothers! Brothers!" she calls, and they emerge from the woods. His moment in the chapel when the eyes of Christ on the cross, formerly closed, open, and gaze at him fiercely. When Francis has started rebuilding San Damiano in the snow, and his friends slowly move from thinking he's just whacked to throwing off their shoes and joining him as well.

You know, I take it back. It's not totally lame. It's sort of goofy, in its total effect now, I guess, and it's not a tenth of what St. Francis was, but... Here I take my stand. I can do no other.

Here's a review of the DVD from Christianity Today

Comments

[al]

Zeffirelli said some pretty scandalous things about the Passion

[Jason]

I've never even heard of "Brother Sun, Sister Moon". I'll have to rent it.

A movie I did like was "The Little Miracle of Assisi", I think it was called.

[Martin]

I liked "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" too, Amy, it was a great movie. If I remember right, Lina Wertmuller was one of the writers on that film. I also loved the songs by Donovan. I can't believe you remembered those lyrics! The movie is a classic. Call me what you will...

[amy]

Martin...I didn't remember them (except for the "If you want to...." and "go slooooowly"

The wonders of Google.

[charlie]

Wow! A movie that I really liked NOT totally trashed and destroyed on the internet! This is a good day indeed!

[David]

Here's a link to a Donovan site:

http://www.sabotage.demon.co.uk/donovan/main.htm

I only remember Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man".

'Tis then when the hurdy gurdy man
Comes singing songs of love
Then when the hurdy gurdy man
Comes singing songs of love

[LP]

Gibson and some of the other cast members didn't get along well with Zeffirelli on the set of Hamlet.

[Barb N]

Amy likes Brother Sun, Sister Moon...

Trying to deal with this...Trying to deal...

[Bill]

I wonder if Gibson has a special devotion to St. Francis. That would be an interesting movie (think: St Francis Receiving the Stigmata!)and it would sure keep the Gibson-Zeffirelli feud going.

[Mark Shea]

Amy:

I'm with you. I've always liked this movie. Yes, it's a period piece full of the whiff of grooviness, but it does manage to capture something of Francis nonetheless. I get tired of people dissing it. In particular, I was impressed with Alec Guiness' performance as Innocent III. But what I love best about the film is simply how it capture the youthfulness of the Franciscan movement. Yes, it leaves much out. It's not meant to be a full biography. But there's a loveliness about the film that I think it's churlish to jeer at.

[Phil]

In the minority again. When I saw "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" in the 70s, most of my friends loved it, but to my own disappointment (I wanted to like it) I found it much too sappy and sweet. I didn't see his "Jesus of Nazareth".

I thought Zeffirelli's Hamlet was pretty good. And I thought that Mel Gibson was a good Hamlet. If Zeffirelli's recent comments on Gibson are true, then Gibson indeed has a creepy fascination with death and blood.

[Daniel Baker]

Hmmm, a movie about St. Francis with a soundtrack by Donovan. At first glance, I thought it was some kind of parody. I'm thankful I was born in 1975. (I do admit to being old enough to recall vestiges of the Church's hippy days at the parish I grew up in back in the 80's. We had a guitar-strumming Joe Cocker wannabe who warbled the Alleluia.) "Peace be with you, man."

[Tom]

Mark,

Ain't no whiff of grrrrooooviness, there, partner. It's full on parfum!

"I'm just wild about safron!"

"Way down, below the ocean's where I wanna be."

(More Donovan, doncha know...)

[Sean Gallagher]

I guess it isn't as bad as Francesco with, of all people, Mickey Rourke in the title role.

[Tim Ferguson]

"Brother Sun, Sister Moon" is one of my guilty pleasures. As a credentialed neo-conservative Gregorian chant loving radical traditionalist, I probably shouldn't like it, but it had a big impact on me when I first saw it too, in the college seminary. I had always had an aversion to St. Francis - always thought he was a bit too mushy for me - but the warmth and joy from the movie was contagious and got me over my initial prejudices about St. Francis. One of my principles when I was working in a parish was "do few things, but do them well."

[Mark Shea]

There's more to the film than the soundtrack which is, admittedly, cringeworthy.

[amy]

See!!!

I am not alone, I am not alone....

I like that Tim...a "guilty pleasure." yup.

And oh my, I had forgotten all about Francesco.

[melissa]

I saw this movie on the afternoon of my Confirmation back when I was 14. I remember loving it, although it was also a great excuse for all the teenagers to get out of a house full of aunts and uncles and annoying younger cousins for the whole afternoon. It will be interesting to see it now and see if it measures up to what I remember of it.

[Ralf]

Hmmm, I actually liked "Francesco" with Rourke. It was shown to me first by German Franciscans (I'm from Germany, too, as you can see from my weblog and Email), as a matter of fact from the province I will probably join. To fully enjoy "Francesco", one has to be pretty familiar with the original sources, though.

[Victor Morton]

Actually, there was a GREAT movie about St. Francis of Assisi made by Roberto Rossellini in 1950 in Italy -- THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS (a k a, FRANCESCO, GIULLARE DI DIO or FRANCIS, GOD'S JESTER). John Paul the Great put it on the Vatican list of 45 Significant Films and one of the many things that it is about is how happy the monks always are regardless of their particular circumstance, which changes wildly throughout the film. FLOWERS is one of the few religious films I've seen that really gets under many secular film critics' skin (in the good sense), and I think that is the reason. The monks' beatitudo seems so unreasonable from a secular POV that the critics don't know quite how to handle it -- "is Rossellini making fun of the monks?" they ask (and there *are* several scenes in the film that are unquestionably comic and some of Francis' followers are drawn in clownish terms).

[David]

Victor,

did you know Federico Fellini wrote the screenplay for that Rossellini film?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042477/

[David]

Here's a link to a review of Rossellini's film:

http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/rossellini.html#francis

[Maclin Horton]

Maybe this is one of those things you need to experience in youth. I didn't see it until a few years ago when I was nearly 50 and was didn't care much for it. But I still love the Donovan albums that I listened to in high school and college.

One point about the film: among the things I didn't like were that it seemed to downplay Francis' actual religion, that his motivation seemed rather vague, and that the Church was portrayed somewhat negatively. I only saw it the one time, maybe five years ago--am I being unjust? Was I just feeling old and curmudgeonly that night?

[Michael Tinkler]

Yet another reason to be glad to be a convert and to have missed a Catholic youth, it sounds like....

[Bill]

The movie is interesting from a liturgical perspective. There is a scene in which Francis attends Mass with his family in Assisi. Naturally, he wears a helmet and nearly faints, presumably because of because of its stilted and artifical nature of the service and the hypocracy of those running the show. (Parents just don't understand.) Towards the end of the movie there is a liturgy at San Damiano, which is like Drop City East -- everyone is in touch with his feelings (and the Donovan tunes). The movie is a celebration of the then recently imposed Novus Ordo Mass. I doubt that St Francis was as pleased with the Mass circa 1972 as was Zefferilli & Co.

[Nathan]

I'll have to see it.

[chris k]

Fr. Groeschel's order of Franciscans is supposed to be starting a petition drive this week on their website to ask Mel to have for a follow up to his Passion, a life of St. Francis. Been watching for it to sign up. Maybe he can really capture the little man, talking to his bugs rather than swatting them away, etc. Now just who would you all suggest for such a role???

[Father Wilson]

I haven't seen Brother Sun, Sister Moon for years, but there is one moment in it -- do I remember this correctly, or am I mixing this up with another movie??

Pietro Bernadone had just dragged his good-for-nothing son, who had given his bolts of cloth away for the poor, to the piazza before the bishop's palace. And they do a counterpoint between the scene in the piaza, the angry dad, the humiliated son, the gathering crowd... and the interior of the bishops' palace, where he and his buddies are GORGING themselves on filet mignons and lobster tails.

Someone finally convinces the bishop. A riot is developing. He needs to do something.

And the Lord Bishop storms out and yells, "Who DARES disturb Us as We are engaged in the holy Mysteries??"

A whole row of seminarians burst out laughing at that line, back in, when? 1978?

What the hell we were laughing at, since we were getting into this, I don't know. I'd love to see that scene again. I'm going to rent the movie.

And if anyone calls to Disturb The Sacred Mysteries while I'm watching it...

[Bill Cork]

The line is a little closer to, "How dare they disturb us while we are in the middle of saying our office!?"

I confess. I like it. :-) But I like most Zeffirelli films, from "Romeo and Juliet," to "Jesus of Nazareth," to "Tea with Mussolini."

I'd like Zeffirelli to do a follow-up, on the last years end of Francis' life -- with the same actor, if he's around.

[Victor Morton]

David:

Yes, I did know that Fellini wrote the FLOWERS script, though the film also gives co-script credit to two priests. At the time, Fellini was often a scriptwriter for Rossellini and sometimes an actor (he was the stranger who slept with Anna Magnani in Rossellini's condemned segment IL MIRACOLO).

Fellini's other notable bit of religious work with Rossellini was the comically eccentric fifth segment of PAISAN, which has three WW2 American chaplains -- a Catholic, a Protestant and a Jew -- travelling with US forces and coming upon an Italian monastery. Fellini is nobody's idea of a devout or pious man, but in some sense that's what made his religious-themed work moving. Like a lot of Italians of his generation, he loved a good priest joke and sometimes danced on the edge of mockery -- his film ROMA has an ecclesiastical fashion show that is a total hoot, and one of the famous sequences in LA DOLCE VITA has some children giving dubious accounts of a Marian vision. But Fellini never made fun of Christ, God, holiness or piety, but of men's (or man's) failures. In fact (and FLOWERS and the PAISAN segment are the best example of this) even ridiculous priests have moments of piety that bring about epiphanies in themselves and others.

[Lynn]

I well remember that scene, Fr Wilson. ("Who DARES disturb Us as We are engaged in the holy Mysteries??") I was sitting next to a priest friend. He was very embarrassed by the scene and said, "It wasn't ever that bad."

[amy]

bill:

I don't think I can agree with your interpretations. First, Francis faints at that moment because he senses he is being judged. The wealthy of the town, of which he is one, are all in the front of the church, the poor are crowded in the back, Jesus on the cross has his eyes closed, and then, as the service progresses, the intensity builds, and at a crucial moment, Francis sees that the eyes of Jesus are open, blazing, really, at the scene before him.

It's sort of a riff on the San Damiano cross experience, but sort of not.

And as for the San Damiano scene...remember that St. Francis of Assisi was not a priest, so, of course, did not say Mass.

[Karen H.]

The CFR petition is up on their website (http://www.franciscanfriars.com/). I don't get the impression that they particularly care for Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

[Bill]

Amy,

It's been a few years since I've seen the movie and I did not remember the opening of Christ's eyes on the cross, but I think I'll stand by my original take on the Mass scene. The scene is more than just a critique of the treatment of the poor in society or of the Church's regard for the poor. The scene is more of a generalized criticism of hierarchies, even of the idea of dressing up for Mass. While it is certainly true that formal worship can degenerate into mere formalism, the message of the scene (indeed, of the movie) is that it must necessarily so degenerate. There are no images that I can recall in the movie which extoll the benefits of formal prayer. The antedote to formalism, according to the movie, is the horizontal liturgy at San Damiano. The fact that St Francis is not a priest only serves to emphasize this further. In a true horizontal liturgy, there is no need for a priest, since it is the members of the community celebrating their love for eachother that is what is pleasing to God. It is more than just the movie's soundtrack that is stuck in 1972.

[Mark Cameron]

I've been looking for Zeffirelli's negative remarks re. Gibson and The Passion, but haven't had any luck. Can anybody point me to an article?

[Phil]

Mark,

Here is a link:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/fwd/20040226/en_fashion_fwd/zeffirelli_1

Maybe Zeffirelli said what he said because of envy, but maybe not. I don't know what kind of person he is, but if what he says is true I was particularly bothered by this claim:

++
The veteran Italian director also
recounts his own curious experiences
of working with Gibson, recalling one
scene in Hamlet where Gibson intervened
on the set when British actor Ian Holm,
playing Polonius, acted out his
character's death with his eyes closed.
Zeffirelli recalls Gibson saying: "A
wounded animal about to die does not
stay with a fixed look, but rolls its
eyes in the final spasms, first together,
then in the opposite direction, like a
cross eyed person. It's almost funny."
"And how would you know?" responded
Holm, according to Zeffirelli.
"I've seen plenty die,” replied
Gibson, Zeffirelli claims. “When I can,
to relax, I go to my farm and kill a lot
of calves on the days when they are slaughtered."
++

[Sandra Miesel]

There was a FRANCIS OF ASSISI film in 1961 starring Bradford Dillman that I remember as dull. Delores Hart, who played his St. Clare, soon after became a nun and wonder of wonders, still is.