Film Review
The on-screen pyrotechnics that
Stromboli
promises to deliver are as nothing compared with the off-screen
fireworks display that accompanied its production and release in
1950. Public reaction to Ingrid Bergman's affair with Roberto
Rossellini during the making of the film, followed by her decision to
abandon her husband and child so that she could marry the Italian
cineaste, was overwhelmingly negative, to the extent that Bergman was
forced into exile in Europe for the next five years. Hitherto,
Bergman had been one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, one of the
best loved and most respected of all screen actresses. After her
Italian whirlwind romance she was reviled, and it would not be until
1956, when she returned triumphantly to Hollywood with
Anastasia,
that she would be forgiven. If only she hadn't written that
famous letter to Rossellini, begging him to use her in one of his
films...
As it turned out, Ingrid Bergman was the ideal actress to play the
female lead in
Stromboli.
Originally, Rossellini had signed up Anna Magnani (his mistress at the
time) for the part, but she would have been hopelessly miscast, too at
home in the director's harsh neo-realist landscape to be
convincing. Bergman, by contrast, is perfect as the outsider, a
statuesque beauty who looks like an alien from another planet when she
sets up camp alongside the rough-hewn villagers (all played by
non-professional actors) that make up the sparse island
community. At Rossellini's insistence, RKO allowed Magnani to
headline a film that ended up as a subtle form of revenge, another
volcano-themed melodrama,
Vulcano (1949), directed by
William Dieterle.
Where Rossellini's
Stomboli
succeeds and Dieterle's
Vulcano
fails (albeit only just) is in combining the severe aesthetic of
Italian neo-realism with the emotionally overcharged false reality of
Hollywood melodrama. As both films demonstrate, it is an
impossible marriage and the only reason Rossellini gets away with it is
because his star actress possesses a unique ability to straddle both
worlds. Bergman may look every inch the Hollywood glamour girl,
but beneath the gloss there is a raw, bitter truth that is every bit as
stark as the austere volcanic backwater she is thrown into. The
fact that Bergman had to improvise many of her scenes in the film (as
Rossellini disliked the enforced rigour of scripts) allowed her to turn
in a far richer, far more nuanced performance than she could ever have
done in a conventional Hollywood set up. And who can fail to be
moved by the fate of her character as she makes her hopeless attempt to
traverse the sulphurous fumes of the volcano in a desperate bid for
freedom?
Had the critical climate been a little kinder to Bergman, Rossellini
and the vagaries of the human heart,
Stromboli
would have been received in a far more positive light. As it was,
carelessly trimmed by its American backer RKO (at the insistence of
producer Howard Hughes) from 107 to 81 minutes, and then released amid
a storm of controversy as Bergman married Rossellini and gave birth to
his son, the film didn't stand much of a chance. To this day, it
is considered an inferior example of Rossellini's work, overshadowed by
his neo-realist masterpieces:
Roma, città aperta
(1945),
Paisà (1946) and
Germania anno zero
(1948). Yet, not unlike Bergman's real-life union with
Rossellini,
Stromboli does
achieve a kind of magical synthesis between two seemingly ill-matched
opposites. Rossellini would subsequently make five more films
with Bergman (including
Viaggio in
Italia,
Giovanna d'Arco al
rogo and
La Paura),
but none of these has quite the daring and emotional power of
Stromboli.
Here, Rossellini films his domestic melodrama in a way that makes it
appear every bit as real and brutal as the harsh lives of the peasant
folk on his lava-showered island. Scenes such as those depicting
fishermen at work (strikingly similar to those in Luchino Visconti's
La Terra trema, 1948), at first
appear disconnected from the world in which the heroine lives, one
founded on empty dreams of a better life far away. But, as the
film nears its devastating climax, the two separate realities (one
external, the other internal) fuse and become one, with the heroine
finally realising (perhaps) that true happiness is to be found in the
home that Fate has granted her, not in some distant, unattainable haven
on the other side of the volcano. For Bergman, things would turn
out differently. Seven years on, her marriage to Rossellini over,
she would be back in Hollywood, as if she had never been away.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Roberto Rossellini film:
Les Sept péchés capitaux (1952)
Film Synopsis
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, a young Lithuanian refugee,
Karin, meets an Italian fisherman, Antonio, in a camp for displaced
persons. The two marry and agree to settle down in Antonio's home
village, on the volcanic island of Stromboli, off the coast of
Sicily. Almost immediately after their arrival on the sparsely
populated island Karin feels alone and alienated. Her only
friends are the village priest and a man who works at the nearby
lighthouse. Not long after she learns she is pregnant, Karin
makes up her mind to leave the island, but Antonio refuses to let her
go...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.