ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on key concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book is grounded in an understanding of European holy foolishness as rooted in its various Christian cultures. In the light of the understanding a cultural history of the phenomenon through a selection of its most pertinent theoretical accounts and figures: either real practitioners, as framed by the hagiographic writings from Antiquity to Middle Ages, or fictional polemic characters as conceived in philosophical and literary texts are sketched. It discusses Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians in which the weak and the foolish of this world are exalted over their opposites. The religious connections are less explicit in the case of the Dogme 95 films, but the idiot figure becomes an emblem for the back-to-basics film-making adopted by the directors. The representation of the holy fool in European cinema has been a critic of the social, political and spiritual status quo.
