A little break from my fantasy travelogue of Wudang, my Netflix DVD delivery this week was Franco Zeffirelli's Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a film I never saw when it was released in 1972 (the day before my birthday, but I wasn't really doing film that decade). Some years later it was recommended to me, maybe in the early '90s, by a guy who loved it, and who in retrospect, looked a lot like the character of St Francis of Assisi in the film. (Indeed, he was a kind and sensitive Catholic.) It appears to be one of those films that is rated as "my most favorite movie ever" by some folks.
When it popped up on a "recommended" list in my Netflix queue another couple decades later (OMG, am I that old?), I thought I might revisit it. Looking really good on my new 50" plasma TV, better than the videotape I rented in the early '90s, it's a pretty film, perhaps a little contrived, about the life of St. Francis, which, as interpreted by Franco Zeffirelli, probably had great hippie appeal in 1972. And the soundtrack/music by Donovan is a little too much like the "guitar masses" of contemporary Catholic liturgy; I thought they ended in the '70s, but not. (I have a high-church-Anglican taste for Renaissance music with my bells and smells.) Not that there's anything wrong with Donovan, but, I can never hear him without thinking of the scene in Don't Look Back where Dylan pretty much demolishes him.
Still this movie, almost 40 years old, is fresh and beautiful and full of appealing message. It's not a "Catholic " film except historically (although Catholics may beg to differ) and presents a pure Gospel message that is very in line with Taoism--Brother Sun, Sister Moon, all that lilies of the field stuff? Or maybe Buddhism --a lot of caring for lepers and loving-kindness. (A book I have on the lives of the saints also attributes the "serenity prayer" to St. Francis, in addition to the "Canticle of the Sun.")
The best part is at the end: Alec Guiness as Pope Innocent kissing Francesco's feet. Ah, Alec Guiness who once planned to become an Anglican priest... but how he owned his roles: a Pope, Obi-Wan Kenobe, Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia, Adolf Hitler, George Smiley, Sigmund Freud, to say nothing of movies he wasn't in but seemed like he was, like Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter...I get him confused and conflated with Richard Harris, Ian McKellen, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier. Well, what an awesome group for confusion! Like St. Francis and his band of Brothers and Sisters.
1 comment:
Aloha, Baroness,
Sorry you're feeling poorly and hope you're back to feeling like yourself soonest. Perhaps the weather is channging. Before a major rain I get a nagging headache. Think it's latent as my mother and her brother had the same aches. Oy!
I really smiled when I read that you attended a similar type school. People look at my like I've got six heads when I say there are nothing but warm memories from that period. So many were poor, but without designer stuff and gadgets we just went to school, learned and had fun doing so. It was probably the same at your school.
Anyway, I loved how you tied together the spirituality of Catholicism and Taoism. Brother Sun...Sister Moon...yes, much is there.
Sir Alec Guiness, oh my goodness, what an actor! And, yep, what a confessional that would have been.
Take care of yourself! Be well soon.
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