of Francesco Lampone
As for Assisi's cinematographioc image, the last quarter of the century does not stand up to the standard of the previous 25 year period, which had made a gift to the city, in Francis's name, of no less than four films each, in its own way, of incontestable value, under the note-worthy direction of Roberto Rossellini, Michael Curtiz, Liliana Cavani, and Franco Zeffirelli. The period opens timidly, in 1976, with Oh Serafina!, with which Alberto Lattuada brings to the screen the psychiatrist/narrator Giuseepe Berto's 'ecological fable of love and a madhouse' of the same name. This is far from one of Lattuatda's better efforts, but he is able, nonetheless, to bring out the best in a splendid Dalila Di Lazzaro and an extremely lively Renato Pozzetto. The Milanese comic who has not yet sunk to the depths of the abysmal Italian comedy of the 80's, is here committed to a variety of dialogues with birds of every size and color; these result both in his being sent to an asylum and in a visit to the place of origin of his most illustious predecessor, Saint Francis. Once again, it is more the city's stereotype than the city itself which triumphs here, but it is also the first time that we get to see, on film, the phenomenon of the pilgrimage's exploitation, both economically, and as mere tourism. A part of our history, forgotten by most, that of the discrete courage of the Assisians who, during the last war, hid and saved numerous Italian Jews, rescuing them from the Nazi-Fascist persecutions, is brought to light again in 1984 with Alexander Ramati's Assisi Underground; Ramati had already written a book by the same title. We have here a rather rich production (thanks to the funds from American Jewish lobbies) which recruits an international cast, a bit tired but pretigious, (James Mason, Maximilian Schell, Irene Papas) and a rising star soon to set (Ben Cross), in short, one of those cocktails which normally guarantee a mediocre result, artistically speaking, and a satisfying box-office success. Unfortunately, the film doesn't manage to produce either of these. Ramati turns out to be incapable of keeping his actors and the various parts of his story together; the latter drags itself boringly along from one narrative or cinematographic commonplace to another, and ends up at a standard below avaerage. For Assisi, given that this is its first true scenographic affirmation, the film really represents a lost opportunity. Scarcely two years later, a very small film, independently produced, Before Dawn Comes, fares no better. Although an absolutely minimal budget is a contributing factor (This results, incidentally, in the use of nonprofessional actors who do,however, rise to the occasion.), the director, Enrico Bellini, is not able to bring off an interesting subject, suspended poeticallly between the uncertainty of the present and an undefined nostalgia, the work of two Assisians (Piero Mirti and Franco Frascarelli) and of a Perugine (Antonio Carlo Ponti). The story deals with a small business man who falls into a sort of existential 'trance' and breaks off all contact with his family; his family then throws itself into a disorderly and exhausting hunt which ends up transforming itself into a sentimental and spiritual education for all of the film's characters. Assisi's Mount Subasio, with its incongrous and charming meadows, is the backdrop for this courageous and ill-fated cultural adventure. Evidently not content with the results of her film debut in 1966, Liliana Cavani decides to mobilize, twenty three years later, much more impressive productive means, for a new narration of the life of the saint of Assisi. Her new Francesco is an audacious gamble, but its substantially unfortunate outcome depends, in large part, not so much on the comparison with the first film, as on the choice, much misguided, of its protagonist, a choice too-much determined by an anxiety to find a new escape route from the traditional Franciscan hagiography. Mickey Rourke, although he certainly guaranteed the film's commerical success (which is something in and of itself) and gave one of his last acceptable performances, brought along with him a sexual baggage and an overwhelming physicallity when lend themselves none to well to the role of Francis; so much so that the saint's simplicity seems too often to become simply the man's humiliation. Issuing statements to the press, Cavani noisily refuses to film scenes in Assisi, which she deems too commercial and no longer true to its nature. The city then, in this last (up until the present) film on its saint, is relegated to an ideal backdrop, evoked by a cinematogrpahic montage of various and sundry places. Francesco, however, is not the last film about Assisi which, in 1991, is chosen by the young Perugine director Maurizio Angeloni for The Ballad of Ren-Ham. Realized with public funds, this film, never made the rounds of the movie halls, but appeared only at festivals (without any success) and a few times on late-night t.v. on the Mediaset channels. The narrative point of departure, rather tired to tell the truth, is the ups and downs of a theater group's rehearsal sessions with various instances of the participants' personal and existential growth. Unfortunately for Assisi, the realisation is for the most part sloppy, nor does the story which is recounted connect itself convincingly with its Assisi setting, which seems almost haphazard. Nonetheless, the film is valuable in that it happens, in passing, to document several aspects of life in Assisi in eveidence until ten years aga but now no longer to be found, devoured up as they have been by tourism's moloch of exploitation; it also preserves the first appearance on the screen of the young Assisian actor Andrea Cagliesi, immature at the time, but not for that any less interesting or effective.