Beaubourg, centre d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou [Beaubourg] (Roberto Rossellini, 1977)
Jan
31
1977
Rossellini on site. DPs: Néstor Almendros, Jean Chiabaut & Emmanuel Machuel.
“What mystery, what beauty.”
Stromboli (Terra di Dio) [Stromboli] (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)
May
8
birthdays
Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman on set on Sardinia. In the background the house Bergman's character moves into with her husband. DP: Otello Martelli.
May 8 is both director Rossellini and Bergman's character Karen's #birthday.
– Karen
“The madwoman has received your grace.”
L'amore (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
Apr
22
alms
Nannina (Anna Magnani) in “Il miracolo”, ascending a staircase while eating her alms. DP of this segment: Aldo Tonti; DPs “Una voce umana”: Robert Juillard & Otello Martelli.
– Nannina
“I don't care about your barley. Or, your vines! Or, your new terra!”
Stromboli (Terra di Dio) [Stromboli] (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)
Jun
27
tuna (fresh)
Karen (Ingrid Bergman) looking miserable at a small kitchen table. A huge tuna covers most of its surface. DP: Otello Martelli.
Posted while deciding on my film dinner. Eventually I went with Tourneur's La Main du Diable (1943).
– Karen
“Here we are, poor wretches, in this hell, Condemned to tyranny.”
Stromboli (Terra di Dio) [Stromboli] (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)
Jun
27
Decide To Be Married Day
Antonio (Mario Vitale) and Karen (Ingrid Bergman). DP: Otello Martelli.
Karen – “Karin” in the opening credits – is a displaced Lithuanian woman in an Italy-based refugee camp. She meets an Italian military man bivouacking on the other side of the barbed wire and decides to say yes when he proposes. When the newly-weds leave for home, she finds to her dismay that he's a poor Sicilian fisherman from #Stromboli; a magnificent active volcanic island home to a small Catholic parish. Again displaced, Karen is confronted with herself more than with the others that share her faith.
– Antonio
Roberto #Rossellini's Stromboli (Terra di Dio) is a peculiar melodramatic Italian/American hybrid that seems to strongly dismiss the Italian aspect. The significance of Struògnuli – the Sicilian name for the volcano – and the people's faith connected to the volatile mountain and the surrounding sea is presented as primitive superstition. That the Sicilian dialogue – song, prayer, life – remains untranslated and the locals' broken English is used as comic relief adds insult to injury.
Otello Martelli's photography excels when he manages to tear himself away from Bergman's face. Only when we're confronted with the magnificence of Struògnuli, the gifts from the ocean, and the greatness of nature we'll be able to understand why the island is man's home.
– I don't go to school anymore. – Why not? You don't like the new teachers? – I have to work now.
Germania anno zero [Germany Year Zero] (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
Feb
6
National Sickie Day
Edmund (Edmund Köhler) walking through rubble in a post-apocalyptic Berlin. DP: Robert Juillard.
Twelve-year-old Edmund – the oldest kid to survive – works to support his whole family including his sick bedridden father while the remains of what was a thousand-year empire lies in rubbles around them.
Following Roma città aperta (1945) and Paisà (1946) of #Rossellini's unofficial war trilogy.