The Flowers of St. Francis (Francesco, giullare di Dio). Roberto Rossellini, 1950.
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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #293, released 2005. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.
Summary: Much discussion of cutting off a pig’s foot, and the subsequent dumping of the pig’s body by a campfire.
Details:
The film consists of chapters that are individual stories of St. Francis and the other friars in his camp. The chapter entitled “A Pig’s Foot” (33:22 - 40:26) tells how Brother Ginepro misunderstands a friar's request for a pig's foot to eat and cuts the foot off a live pig. The herdsman finds his mutilated pig and brings the dead animal to the friars in disgusted charity.
While we do not see any dismembering, discussion of cutting off the animal's foot runs throughout. When Brother Ginepro finds the Donor Pig he follows it behind bushes, and we see the bushes shake a bit while a pig screams in distress. Ginepro emerges with a clean pig's foot obviously from a butcher's shop rather than the bloody mess that would have been hacked from a living animal with an inadequate knife. The chapter ends with the herdsman dumping a carcass with one amputated leg at the friar's campfire.