#10
Italy | 83 min.
1.33:1 OAR
black & white
monaural
Special Features
- Newly restored transfer of the complete Italian version
- A written appreciation of the film by Martin Scorsese
- A video introduction by critic Maurizio Porro
- New English subtitle translation
- Original restored Italian chapter intertitles
- The non-Rossellini Giotto prologue added for the original US release
- The only remaining images from a deleted scene
- Restoration documentary with Enzo Verzini and restoration demonstration
- 32-page booklet with: a complete version history; an evaluation of the film’s critical reception; a new essay on the life and history of ‘San Francesco’; Martin Scorsese’s specially written appreciation; a message about the film by Roberto Rossellini; rare colour promotional photographs; and a reprinted chapter from the Fioretti di San Francesco.
Catalogue
A Personal Appreciation
by Martin Scorsese, 2005
The first time I saw Flowers of St. Francis in the early 70s, I was genuinely surprised. I had never imagined that a filmmaker would dare to treat the life of a saint with so little solemnity, and with so much warmth and humanity.
There’s one central problem with most pictures about saints: reverence. The aura of reverence is almost always at odds with the way the saints must have felt about themselves. It’s as if they’d already been declared saints in their own lifetime, as if every word out of their mouths had been pre-sanctified. This reverent approach has made for quite a few perfectly nice, well-intentioned movies completely lacking in urgency, either dramatically or spiritually.
What Rossellini did, with such grace and such apparent ease, was to make a movie about a group of men for whom existence is a neverending struggle – a struggle to be good, a struggle to stay true to the word of God. At times, the struggle becomes comic, and I still marvel at Rossellini’s daring in these scenes – the way Francis and his brethren jump through the puddles, or the cooking of the soup, which wouldn’t be out of place in a Laurel and Hardy short. Of course, it’s all done in a very loving manner, and that’s why it is at once so magical and so true. We’re all ridiculous at times – even those of us who are declared saints.
For me, the greatest moment in the film is Francis’ confrontation with the leper. This is compassion at its most terrifyingly direct, without any of the boundaries or filters we’re accustomed to in daily life. Most of us, particularly those of us who live in cities, are confronted with human misery on a daily basis – and most of us, understandably, find a way to compartmentalize it. Francis’ lack of self in that scene never fails to move me – the way he feels the suffering of another human being so completely that he allows it to enter into him and inhabit his own soul. I’ve never seen another film that deals with this basic question of compassion so eloquently.
Many artists throughout the world responded to the aftermath of WWII and the holocaust by going back to basics, simplifying, and, at least for the moment, speaking directly. Rossellini spoke with the greatest and most elemental simplicity to the question of faith – in The Miracle (the wonder of faith), in Germany Year Zero (the absence of faith), in Europa ‘51 (the crisis of faith) and in this extraordinary film about the beauty of faith. I’ve never seen another film quite like Flowers of St. Francis, and I don’t expect to in my lifetime.
About the Author
Martin Scorsese is a filmmaker based in New York City.
