Visconti’s La Terra Trema (1948)/Bellissima
(1951/E1 DVDs)/Conversation Piece
(1974/Raro Video Blu-ray + DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/B- & C+ Sound: C+/C+/B-
& C+ Extras: D/C-/C+ Films: B/C+/C+
Luchino
Visconti only made so many feature films, but he left a lasting impression on
world cinema. The following three films
including two of his early ones and his next to last one…
One of
his big early successes is La Terra
Trema (1948), it became a the Neo-Realist classic by telling the story of
fishermen and their families in Sicily working very hard just to survive and
often risking their lives to survive.
Using mostly non-actors (a signature of Neo-Realism), dealing with the
plight of the poor (these films often are left of center ideologically) and focusing
on the male characters (especially ones Visconti apparently considered
attractive), it became a classic with its semi-documentary feel, how it
captured Sicily
and the many unique and special moments in the film.
However,
it is somewhat of a fantasy. Yes, they
do not speak Italian in Sicily,
but Sicilian and fishing (especially at the time before environmental factors
and corporate fishing moved in) was like this.
However, the effects of WWII and even WWI are not even acknowledged. You would think the island was in the middle
of nowhere untouched by the world. Also,
despite the strong criminal Mafia types and even the corruption of The Catholic
Church (we only see some Catholic statues and the like), the only trouble we
get are from mean people with money who do not want to pay fair value for the
fish caught, so the Marxist slant is visible as it is naïve.
However,
the film flows well with hardly any problems and despite the illicit appeals to
pity for the groups oppressed here, it is an exercise in pure cinema that
worked well. There are no extras.
A much
more commercial venture for Visconti was Bellissima
(1951) with Anna Magnani as a neurotic, funny, ambitious mother who is
determined no matter what to make her young daughter a movie star by getting
her an audition at the then thriving Cinecitta Studios (possibly closing as you
read this!) so she can be a star and they can all make money. The mother is not exploiting her daughter
outright, but the film eventually deals with that, but not before it offers its
various degrees of comedy, a someone satirical look at filmmaking and how it
excites everyone around when it looks like her daughter might be the big pick.
Suddenly,
people come out of the woodwork to “help” including an older woman who is much
more forward and aggressive than she should be, the father is not sure how to
deal with his daughter in the spotlight and mom says just about anything that
comes to mind, which is usually bad since she has very little control in what
she says and it is usually inappropriate.
The
result is mixed, even though the film was likely fresher in its time. Despite some interesting observations of
human nature in the various situations presented and a nice, rare look at the
great Cinecitta Studios, some of this becomes repetitious and other segments
play like what we would now consider a TV sitcom. However, Magnani is unstoppable here and
there is enough of a sense of Neo-Realism here for the film to qualify. It is worth a look. A trailer is the only extra.
Visconti
had a serious stroke when he made Conversation
Piece (1974) reuniting him with Burt Lancaster a few years after their
international success with The Leopard
(unreviewed, but now on Criterion Blu-ray) and reportedly directed this one
from a wheelchair. Lancaster (as a Visconti surrogate) lives in
an apartment building peacefully surrounded by a life of what he loves, books
and especially furniture and art.
However, he makes the mistake of letting some other people rent the room
above and they, as well as anyone with them, take an inch for several miles and
start disrupting his world and personal sense of peace.
Helmut
Berger is among the solid supporting cast and the film is a drama with darkly
comic overtones and a few surprises.
That Lancaster’s character puts up with any of this like he does despite
complaints almost stretches believability, but it reflects the inner thoughts
and being of a man in solitude having that world breached in ways that are
unchangeable, especially early when the building’s interiors literally start to
become damaged and collapse. The film
has more good moments than bad and I had not seen it in a very long time, but
it only is so effective and though I think it too is worth a look, it is not
one of Visconti’s best films despite being a personal one.
Extras on
both versions of Piece include
another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative text from
Raro, while the disc versions add the original theatrical trailer and an
interview featurette with film critic and screenwriter Alessandro Bencivenni.
The 1.33
X 1 black and white image on Trema (lensed
by DP G.R. Aldo, who also did the same on Visconti’s Senso; see link below) and
Bellissima (co-lensed by Piero
Portalupi (The Biggest Bundle Of Them
All) and Paul Ronald) are not bad for the format and the prints are in good
shape for their age, but Trema shows its age more and could use some more
work. Otherwise, I do not see these
looking too much better on DVD and expect a Blu-ray sometime down the line. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Piece is the best
looking of the four discs here and was shot in real anamorphically-shot 35mm
film with the underrated Todd-AO 35 lens system usually used for large screen
genre epics like Logan’s Run, Grizzly, The Getaway and Flash Gordon
(1980) to name a few, but Director of Photography Pasqualino De Santis (The Moment Of Truth, L’Argent) uses the widescreen frame to show
us the large private space and also to show how in encloses everything. De Santis had lensed some of Visconti’s
recent films before this too. The
anamorphically enhanced DVD version is weaker, but as good as it is going to
get in that format. The Blu-ray looks
better.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all three DVDs sound good for their age, but Trema
again sounds a bit more aged and like the image, part of it could be the
circumstances in which it was made. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 Mono lossless mix on the Piece Blu-ray is the best-sounding of all as expected, outdoing its
DVD counterpart and is as good as this theatrical mono film is likely ever
going to sound.
For more
on Visconti, try this link for his 1954 costume drama Senso which followed Bellissima
as his next film, on Criterion Blu-ray at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10821/Fellini%E2%80%99s+The+Clowns+(1
- Nicholas Sheffo
