The Flowers of St. Francis

The Flowers of St. Francis in Italian, Francesco, giullare di Dio, or Francis, Gods Jester is a 1950 film directed by Roberto Rossellini and cowritten by Federico Fellini. The film is based on two books, the 14thcentury novel Fioretti Di San Francesco Little Flowers of St. Francis and La Vita di Frate Ginepro The Life of Brother Juniper, both of which relate the life and work of St. Francis and the early Franciscans. I Fioretti is composed of 78 small chapters. The novel as a whole is less biographical and is instead more focused on relating tales of the life of St. Francis and his followers. The movie follows the same premise, though rather than relating all 78 chapters, it focuses instead on nine of them. Each chapter is composed in the style of a parable, and, like parables, contains a moral theme. Every new scene transitions with a chapter marker, a device that directly relates the film to the novel. When the movie initially debuted in America, where the novel was much less known, on October 6, 1952, the chapter markers were removed.

The movie commences with an introduction to the Franciscan friars. This first part serves as a precursor to the main chapters, nothing more than an introduction of the humble Franciscans as they trudge through the mud in the pouring rain to their hut. They reach the shelter, only to find it occupied by a man and a donkey. Despite the Franciscans best efforts, the old man insists the donkey remain with him in the shelter. He drives the Franciscans from their own hut, screaming that they have stolen the shelter. Thrust into the rain without shelter, the monks rejoice in their suffering, loving their vocation even more and discerning this to be the call that they are to follow Francis.The rest of the film is divided into nine chapters each covering an incident in the life of St. Francis subsequent to his vocation. ........

Source: Wikipedia