Italian
Articles and Essays on Italian Films
Gospel According to St. Matthew, The (1964)
Only Pier Paolo Pasolini, an artist who was an atheist, a Marxist, and a homosexual could have made such an authentic and effective film on the life and death of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it was because the story was adapted by a nonbeliever who did not preach, glorify, sentimentalize or romanticize the famous story; and instead did his best […]
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Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
Rocco and his Brothers is one of the most operatic melodrama’s of all time, involving a modern Italian family and their personal experiences when moving to the city of Milan one cold winter. Italian director Luchino Visconti was an aristocrat, a homosexual, a Marxist, and a director of theater and opera, becoming one of the major […]
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Red Desert (1964)
Red Desert came out in the year 1964, which was almost twenty years since the end of the war, by which that time Italy had recovered from the devastation that was caused by that catastrophic event, and was on its way towards a modern prosperity; the years stretching from 1954 to 1964 were those of the […]
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Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso is one of the most enchanting and magical tales about the love and nostalgia of going to the movies. Its an epic story about a young boys childhood love for films in the village of Giancaldo, Sicily and how he spends every waking moment at the local movie house titled Cinema Paradiso, which in a way […]
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Amarcord (1973)
If there ever was a film that was made entirely out of nostalgia, joy and straight from the heart it would have to be Federico Fellini’s Amarcord, which was the winner of the Foreign Language Oscar in 1973 and considered by many to be Fellini’s last ‘great film.’ Amarcord means ‘I remember’ which is in the dialect of Rimini […]
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