\nZeffirelli’s <\/span>Brother Sun, Sister Moon<\/i>. And I agree. Zeffirelli, while a brilliant filmmaker, can ruin a
\nsaint. And whatever may be said of Cavani’s work, <\/span>Francesco<\/i> is neither a saccharine nor romantic portrayal of
\nthe 13th<\/span><\/font> century’s radical saint, Francis of Assisi. His sincerity is strikingly beautiful. This movie is based on
\nHerman Hesse’s book <\/span>Francis of Assisi<\/i>. Cavani’s film won three awards and was nominated for a fourth. The
\nlegendary actor\/boxer\/dog lover and practicing Catholic, Mickey Rourke, played
\nSaint Francis. And as a side bar, he credits his Catholic faith to saving his life.<\/span><\/p>\n
Liliana <\/span>Francesco<\/i> is an interpretation of the person of the 13th<\/span><\/font> century Umbrian saint, Francis of Assisi. He died in 1226 and founded what is The period in which Why Cavani deals with poverty Why Francis? Because he points to Christ. His faith, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some have called Liliana Cavani’s Francesco (1989; DVD 1998) a gritty alternative to Franco Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon. And I agree. Zeffirelli, while a brilliant filmmaker, can ruin a saint. And whatever may be said of Cavani’s work, Francesco is neither a saccharine nor romantic portrayal of the 13th century’s radical saint, Francis of Assisi. … Continue reading To live without reservation: what Francis may be pointing to<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1786,2063],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Liliana](\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/Liliana%20Cavani.jpg\")
\nCavani, born in 1933 in Capri, is the director of many television and cinematic
\nproductions. <\/span>Her religious
\ntendencies are basically unknown to me but I did hear that she leans or leaned
\ntoward a communist ideology. But I can’t help wondering what really inspired
\nCavani to direct a film on such a figure as Francis of Assisi. Certainly it
\ncan’t be the wacky-ness that often surrounds the figure of Francis!<\/span><\/p>\n
\ntoday called the Franciscans 800 years ago. What the Franciscans looked like in
\nthe 13th<\/span><\/font> century isn’t what they are today. The movie is a series of
\nflashbacks with various friends telling the story of the man who led them to
\nChrist. Cavani brings out several central questions that all of us have to
\nanswer viz. our Christian faith: To whom do I belong? Do I belong to these
\npeople, or do I belong to Christ? How do I know and why?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe real Francis lived was a chaotic time in secular as well as ecclesial
\nhistory. His world was faced with civil strife, wars, disease, extreme poverty
\nin many sectors, illiteracy not to mention heretical movements tearing the
\nfabric of faith to pieces. And, let’s also not underestimate the wounds of the
\nChurch faced as a result of heresy: lack of true community, negligence of the
\nhuman body, despair, lack of reasonable understanding of the faith and Truth
\nand no reasonable response to the human reality. Hence, the notion of Francis
\nrebuilding the Lord’s Church took on significant importance for many people.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>Francesco<\/i>? It has little to do
\nwith the fact that his October 4th<\/span><\/font> feast day is next Sunday. But it
\nhas everything to do with the fact that in our School of Community (Communion
\n& Liberation’s weekly catechetic meeting) we are reading Father Giussani’
\nchapter on poverty in volume 2 of Is It Possible to Live This Way?<\/i> <\/span>There we are confronting the real, and
\ntruly theological reality, of possessing without possession. Giussani is
\nraising the concern of restraining the possibility of grace in our lives but
\nhow we live our lives. So many of us can’t face life in the manner in which it
\nis given. We create escape mechanisms to mask the real life issues: pain, love,
\nsorrow, faith, hurt, joy, lack of happiness, etc. Francis gave his whole life
\naway to another person. He confused his parents and siblings; his friends and
\ncivil authorities were shocked. All could not understand Francis turning on end
\nwhat was conventually known as “normal.” He found something wonderful among the
\npoor that became a contradistinction to the bourgeois normativity of Umbrian
\nsociety. Renouncing self and possessions and following Christ crucified became
\nhis “normal.” As Saint Clare says in the movie, God spoke to him again and His
\nlove made Francis’ body identical to the Beloved’s.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nin a gritty manner–it is terrifically human. And she never moralizes poverty or
\nreligious conviction. Even when the pope asks Francis “and what are you
\ncriticizing me for” and Francis says “nothing” we can’t believe our ears. Two
\nmen come back to Francis’ family and friends looking to explain what they
\nexperienced and thinking that the men would point out the ugliness of poverty
\nand extreme raw life of Francis, they said, “there’s something beautiful
\nthere.” <\/span>You then realize that
\nFrancis isn’t following “poverty”; he’s following someone; he’s closely
\nadhering to beauty. But it is not ordinary beauty–it is the beauty of believing that he promises of Christ are true.<\/span><\/p>\n
\ncourage and thinking he could live like Christ is what Giussani wants to
\nsuggest is the reason for our life. Giussani asks, quid animo satis? (what can
\nsatisfy the soul?) It has to be the Gospel at it’s word or all is rubbish. Francis, by the way, is the only person the Church calls an <\/span>alter
\nChristus<\/i> among the saints.<\/span><\/p>\n