Stripping St. Francis: Francesco (1989)

<p>There are two movies about St. Francis of Assisi on the Vatican's 1995 list of important films. The first, discussed in the previous episode, is Rossellini's well-known <em>Flowers of St. Francis</em> (1950). The second is quite obscure: Liliana Cavani's <em>Francesco</em> (1989), starring Mickey Rourke as St. Francis and Helena Bonham-Carter as St. Clare.</p> <p>The best thing one can say about <em>Francesco</em> is that despite being directed by an atheist, it attempts to take its protagonist seriously as a saint; that it is somewhat faithful to the historical trajectory of his life; and that it does not embrace the usual reductive cliches about St. Francis.</p> <p>Those qualities alone do not make for an interesting film, however, and <em>Francesco</em> would be a fairly rote biopic were it not for the casting of Mickey Rourke. But this casting choice is more of a curiosity than it is a strength of the film. For all the sincerity of Rourke's performance, the lovable personality of Francis as universally attested by early biographies is almost totally missing.</p> <p>This may be a deliberate artistic choice to strip St. Francis of a "superficial" charisma, in order to draw our attention to a deeper mystery at his core. But how much of the historical personality<em> </em>of Francis can we afford to lose before the exercise becomes fruitless? And speaking of stripping, while it's true that a few famous incidents in St. Francis's life involved nudity, the way these are handled onscreen is far from edifying...</p> <p>In this episode, James Majewski, Thomas Mirus and Nathan Douglas attempt to make sense of the most dubious selection on the Vatican film list.</p> <p>Music is The Duskwhales, “Take It Back”, used with permission. <a href= "https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com">https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com</a></p> <p>This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! <a href= "http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio">http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio</a