Have you seen Francesco, giullare di Dio [="buffoon or clown of God?"] AKA The Little Flowers of St. Francis (1950) by Roberto Rossellini (a raw neorealist gem somewhat in the vein of Pasolini's Gospel According to St. Mathew, screenplay coauthored by Fellini with a priest)? It develops the idea of the saint as holy innocent/holy fool. Maybe also you'd see that as " string of episodes that don't add up to a substantial portrait," but I thought The Little Flowers of Saint Francis, itself just that, a "sting of episodes," was a seminal representation in Italian of the saint's personality, one of the most popular pictures of how we know him and his companions, anyway. What about Francesco, with Mickey Rourke and Helena Bonham Carter, another odd project of Liliana Cavani (1989)? I have'n't seen the latter but would like to. Of it someone has said "Brother Sun and Sister Moon it ain't." After the surfeit, hubris, and provocation of Gibson's Passion, I'm hungry for religious stories on film that are humble in every sense. Perhaps The Passion of St. Francis would have this quality too; I haven't seen that one either. Was it made under the influence of Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc? But what a difference between Francis and Joan!