Directed by Roberto Rossellini • 1950 • Italy, United States
Starring Ingrid Bergman, Mario Vitale
The first collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman is a devastating portrait of a woman’s existential crisis, set against the beautiful and forbidding backdrop of a volcanic island. After World War II, a Lithuanian refugee (Bergman) marries a simple Italian fisherman (Mario Vitale) she meets in a prisoner of war camp and accompanies him back to his isolated village on an island off the coast of Sicily. Cut off from the world, she finds herself crumbling emotionally, but she is destined for a dramatic epiphany. Balancing the director’s trademark neorealism—exemplified here in a remarkable depiction of the fishermen’s lives and work—with deeply felt melodrama, STROMBOLI is a revelation.
Up Next in James Gray’s Adventures in Moviegoing
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James Gray on ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS
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Rocco and His Brothers
Directed by Luchino Visconti • 1960 • Italy
Starring Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Renato SalvatoriLooking for opportunity, five brothers move north with their mother to Milan. There, Simone and Rocco find fame, in the boxing ring, and love, in the same woman. Jealousy mounts, blood is shed, and...
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James Gray on TUNES OF GLORY