For many, Italian film begins and ends with the neorealists. The advancements, and lasting influence, of Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti, play an integral role in the exalted narrative of cinema history—a defining piece, certainly, of the puzzle that would haphazardly emerge as the Nouvelle Vogue. But after the small success of Fellini and Antonioni, descendants of the former tradition, new waves of cinema were all but plugged up. This is the problem with exalted narratives: the before and after, or rather, the pieces left behind. Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, a week-long program at the Film Society Lincoln Center (June 1-8), hopes to mend the loose strands, forming a clearer and more robust image of the country’s cinema.
Gianni Di Gregorio's 'The Salt of Life'
The program celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Risorgimento, the long period in Italian history which represents the unification of the various states into a reformed whole, concluding with the Franco-Prussian War. To mark the occasion is a screening of a 16mm print of Alessandro Blasetti’s blistering pre-neorealist epic, 1860 (June 5). It’s said that many of the later-deemed neorealists watched the film over and over again in a small screening room at the Centro Sperimentale, and it’s influence clearly bled through. Blasetti focuses his historical epic, a fascist-tinged version of the Spedizione dei Mille military campaign, on the Sicilian peasants, played by a host of non-actors, in real locations. The composition and camera movement is stylized, most notably in a few breathtaking tracking shots across the broken landscape, as well as sharp editing in a battle sequence which resonates with echoes of Soviet montage.
In last year’s Vincere, Marco Bellocchio used the country’s political history to frame the story of Mussolini’s supposed first wife, Ida Dalser, who was banished by the dictator, along with the son he fathered, resulting in madness and ultimate death. In his latest film, Sorelle Mai (June 3,7), the director uses personal and cinematic history to frame the story of a family falling apart. The film is experimental in nature, composed of chapters shot over a ten year period as part of the Fare Cinema workshop, which Bellocchio organizes annually in Bobbio, the town in which he was raised and filmed his first feature, Fists in the Pocket (1965). Sorelle Mai returns the director to the very house in which that film was shot, and is, in a loose way, a sequel. Both films are bracing personal statements, possibly the most personal statements Bellocchio has made in a long and storied career; many of non-professional actors are members of his family, who seem to be portraying variations of themselves. One of the best things about the film is the performance by Bellocchio’s daughter, Elena Bellocchio, who we literally see grow up over the course of the film.
One of the most intriguing films in the series, The First Assignment (June 6), evokes neorealism’s focus on class distinction but with a more severe, Antonioni-esque use of environment to convey drama. Almost deviously simple at first glance, the film follows self-educated Nena as she leaves her upper-class, intellectual fiancé to take a teaching position in a small village far away. The difference in values, along with traumatic changes to her life, cause her to loathe and feel attached to the village in equal measure. The film deftly handles questions of class and family, city and country, life and art with concentrated care, carried by a remarkable performance by Isabella Ragonese. The debut film from director Giorgia Cecere, it offers a promising path for the new Italian cinema to take: always looking to the past, pushing forward toward the future.
