BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON
UK, 1972, 113 minutes, Colour.
Graham Faulkner, Judi Bowker, Alec Guinness, Lee Montague. Valentina Cortese, Adolfo Celi, Kenneth Cranham.
Directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
Brother Sun, Sister Moon is Franco Zeffirelli's third film. His previous films, The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet, were noted for their visual beauty. This film at times looks almost too exquisite - fields of flowers, papal pomp - and yet the sequences in the dank atmosphere of the Bernardone dye factory are also horrifyingly moving. Zeffirelli's St. Francis is a strange person. out of tune with the popular attitudes of his time, not quite in touch with the world around him, an idealist, a dreamer, an inspirer. The story of Francis is a criticism of the status quo values of his world, values criticised today. Indeed the film seems a saintly justification for antiwar, anti-parents, anti-wealth, anti-institutional religion, pro-simplicity, pro-authenticity attitudes of youth today.
1. Was this film too beautiful to look at or was its visual beauty an important contribution to the film? How did Zeffirelli's style of focusing on faces, hands etc., contribute to the mood and impact of the film?
2. Was the beginning of the film successful with its picture of the sick Francesco and the intercutting of flashbacks? Initial impressions of Francesco? What did the flashbacks add? a typical young man of Assisi, going to the war, clothes' fittings, friends, Clare and the lepers, chasing girls, relationships with his mother and father, wealth?
3. What effect did the illness have on Francesco? His going on the roof after the bird? His lone wanderings? Reflecting on the war and his life? What were his reactions to his parents and their way of life - the significance (and visual impact) of his going through the factory and encountering the people there, his weeping? Mass attendance with the rich, the poor at the back?
4. How convincing was his conversion, its religious content, his experience of the Cross at Mass, the ruined Church of San Damiano, the influence of Clare? What was your reaction to his throwing his father's goods away, to his speech before the Bishop and the townspeople, to his stripping off everything and going away to freedom? Were his ideas of freedom authentic?
5. What kind of man was his father - How much governed by appearances, how loving, how ambitious (his store of wealth), how self-righteous (taking his son to the Bishop and disowning him)? His relationship to his wife? Her suffering when Francesco left?
6. How did Francesco change in character after his conversion, love for the poor, sick and suffering, rebuilding San Damiano, his poor habit etc?
7. How important for the film was Bernardo's return from the Crusades, his encounter with Francesco, his disillusionment with society and his joining Francesco, other friends joining Francesco? The significance of the friend being fearful and then defying the Emperor Otto?
8. Was the picture of the early Friars an attractive one - their singing and begging, Francesco going to his home, the encounter with Clare and the bread, Silvestro's temptations (and Francesco's advice to him to marry - how reasonable and perceptive was this?); working in the fields and sharing food, the work at San Damiano? What were they doing? Trying to achieve? Did they have peace of mind? The significance of Clare joining them? The dedication of San Damiano?
9. The opposition and hatred in Assisi, the machinations of Paolo, the soldiers' attack on San Damiano. Why did this mystify Francesco? Why did he need to go to Rome?
10. Religion, the Bishop of Assisi and his eating (after Lent), the squabbles with officials about honours in meeting the Emperor? Were the criticisms valid? Overdone? why did Paolo interfere with Francesco's visit to the Pope?
11. What was the visual impression of the Papal court - the censers. enthroned and bejewelled bishops, the remote Pope (and the different photography angles of Christ in the apse mosaic)? What comment did the contrast of Francesco and the friars with the Papal court ? dress, Gospel message, religion? offer?
12. What kind of man was Innocent III? What happened to him after Francesco's visit? Why did he call him back? Speak to him as he did? Kiss his foot? How ironic was his retreating back to and being locked into his vestments? What effect did this Papal guarantee give to Francesco?
13. The film attacked formalistic religion but made Francesco a hero. What kind of religious hero was he? Was his behaviour explicable only by his faith in Christ? How Christlike was Francesco, how did the film keep highlighting this? Did this Christlike picture of Francesco have much to offer to modern audiences?
14. The characters, incidents and style clearly paralleled modern situations - disillusionment with war, society and its values, parents, officials of church and state, dropping out, prophetic action, natural and musical worship of God (contrasting with the rich in their isolation in the Cathedral), commune living etc. Was this objectively presented or overloaded against the establishment? Why?
15. What did Donovan's songs and music contribute?
16. Why should Francis of Assisi be popular and worth making a film on today, over 700 years after his death?
