Francesco Rosi

  • Francesco Rosi – Il momento della verità AKA The Moment of Truth (1965)

    1961-1970DramaFrancesco RosiItaly

    Quote:
    In the sporting world, bullfighting remains the epitome of contradiction, where grace begets gore and patience rewards ego. Such unsettling dichotomies haunt Francesco Rosi’s The Moment of Truth, a dangerously alive film that jumps down from the stands and into the ring where Spanish toreros dance a prolonged tango with beasts whose one instinct is to gorge whatever body part they can. In an attempt to grasp a sense of immediacy from convention, Rosi leans heavily on a gripping hand-held aesthetic, seemingly pinning his fluid camera to the flamboyant garb of his strutting protagonists as they tempt fate on a daily basis. While much of The Moment of Truth can be surmised within a very generic sports-genre arc (rise and fall, temptation of riches), this is most definitely a film that lives and breathes in the details of experience, and it’s hard not to admire its unabashed dedication to controlled chaos and incompleteness despite the difficult subject matter.Read More »

  • Francesco Rosi – Cristo si è fermato a Eboli AKA Christ Stopped at Eboli [Full TV Cut] (1979)

    Drama1971-1980Francesco RosiItaly

    An elegy of exile and an epic immersion in the world of rural Italy during the regime of Benito Mussolini, Francesco Rosi’s sublime adaptation of the memoirs of the painter, physician, and political activist Carlo Levi brings a monument of twentieth-century autobiography to the screen with quiet grace and solemn beauty. Banished to a desolate southern town for his anti-Fascist views, Levi (Gian Maria Volontè) discovers an Italy he never knew existed, a place where ancient folkways and superstitions still hold sway, and that gradually transforms his understanding of both himself and his country. Presented for the first time on home video in its original full-length, four-part version, Christ Stopped at Eboli ruminates profoundly on the political and philosophical rifts within Italian society—between North and South, tradition and modernity, Fascism and freedom—and the essential humanity that transcends all.Read More »

  • Francesco Rosi – Salvatore Giuliano [+Extras] (1962)

    1961-1970DramaFrancesco RosiItaly

    Synopsis
    In 1950, 28-year-old outlaw Salvatore Giuliano is found gunned down in a Sicilian courtyard. Little is as it seems. The film moves back and forth between the late 1940s, when Giuliano and other reprobates were recruited by separatist politicians to do their fighting, and the days leading up to and following Giuliano’s death. After Sicily’s self-rule is declared, will the outlaws be pardoned as promised? And why does Giuliano order his gang to fire on a peaceful May Day rally? Police, Carabinieri, and Mafia have their uses for him. There’s a trial after his death: will the truth come out or does the code of silence help protect those in power? (IMDB)Read More »

  • Francesco Rosi – Cadaveri eccellenti AKA Illustrious Corpses [24fps PAL restore] (1976)

    1971-1980CrimeFrancesco RosiItalyThriller

    Plot (minor spoilers):
    The film starts with the murder of Investigating Judge Vargas in Palermo, amongst a climate of demonstrations, strikes and political tension between the Left and the Christian Democratic government. The subsequent investigation failing, the police assign to the case Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura), who has firm faith in the integrity of the judiciary. While he is starting his investigation, two further judges are killed. All victims turn out to have worked together on several cases. After Rogas discovers evidence of corruption surrounding the three government officials, he is encouraged by superiors nonetheless to trail the “crazy lunatic” who is murdering the judges. Rogas seeks three men who had been wrongfully convicted by the murdered judges. He is joined by a journalist friend working for a far-left newspaper.Read More »

  • Francesco Rosi – Uomini contro AKA Many Wars Ago (1970)

    1961-1970DramaFrancesco RosiItalyWar

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    On the Italian/Austrian front during World War I, a disastrous Italian attack upon the Austrian positions leads to a mutiny among the decimated Italian troops. (IMDb)Read More »

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