Story courtesy of Kari

CURTAIN RAISER ON AN ODD VIEW OF CATHOLICISM

BY JESSICA CALLAN, Entertainment Reporter, in Cannes

LINDA FIORENTINO showed more of her legs than she intended at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday when Ben Affleck, her co-star in a controversial new film about Catholicism, pulled up her skirt.

Miss Fiorentino appeared happy to indulge the antics at the photocall for Dogma, Kevin Smith's comedy fantasy in which Affleck and Matt Damon play two fallen angels on a killing spree as they try to re-enter paradise from earthly exile in Wisconsin. The femme fatale in The Last Seduction, Fiorentino turns good girl in Dogma as Bethany, the unknowing descendant of Mary and Joseph who leads a ragtag band on a mission to foil the rebel angels.

Alan Rickman plays the graphically sexless herald angel who summons Bethany, Salma Hayek a muse who strips; and Kevin Smith appears in his usual role as Silent Bob. The film is punctuated by four-letter words and toilet humour. When the $10 million Miramax film was shown to Disney executives, they deemed it "inappropriate" for the company as it seeks to re-establish its family-friendly status. The script was also condemned by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Smith explained what inspired him to make the film. He said: "I made it because I had become disenchanted with the Catholic Church and I had a crisis of faith. A lot of people have a crisis of faith from one time to another. I went to see a priest and I told him when I was young I had a lot more faith. He explained to me that when I was a child, I was like a glass and it was easy to fill me with beliefs but as I got older I needed much more liquid. The priest said he could only go so far. I now have my own version of Catholicism.

"I went to confession last year and told the priest I was making a film and he told me Jesus was a story-teller so I'm in good company. But no one can mistake the film for any sort of time or text. The absurdity of the characters sticks a pin into any didacticism." The American film is one of 20 in competition for the top Cannes Film Festival prize, the Palme d'Or.

Later Affleck, who has an on-off relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow, revealed that he and Damon are finding their Oscar-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting a hard act to follow. He said: "We are working on a script and we should be finished with it this summer. I am sure everyone will say, 'It's not Good Will Hunting', but it is actually going to be very different from what we did before. I am very excited about it."

Asked whether he and Damon had written roles for themselves, he said: "Why would we write roles for anyone else? There's enough competition out there."