Isabella Rossellini. Close your eyes and you would swear you were listening to her mother, Ingrid Bergman, speaking. Spellbinding and hypnotic with a measured meter the words roll off her tongue dripping with intellect, insight and emotion. She is the most perfect art I have personally come in contact with during my life. She was here to introduce her parents film, a thought I still cannot honestly understand. How do you grow up the daughter of Ingrid Bergman the actress and Roberto Rossellini the director? His friends Fellini, Hitchcock and Selznick. She already an oscar winner and married to someone else writes him a letter wishing to work with him. Her secret hope to help lift him up from obscurity. They make a film and fall in love. The U.S. senate forbids her re-entry as a moral statement. Later she is readmitted to receive her second oscar for Anastasia. The divorce did not surprise her. Her father was difficult and she adored him. We watch her tribute film made in collaboration with Guy Maddin; My Dad is a 100 years old, in response to what would have been his century of life. Her statement to stem the clamour in the film festival circuit for celebration.
Isabella explains neo-realism, her father's movement, through the eyes of a child. Her father in post world war 2 Italy is afraid that it is becoming the Caribbean of Europe. Vulgar anglo's forgetting the history, culture and romance of his country. The camera must be at eye level and the story captures probable moments in life. It is called the 'Rossellini Framing'. What cinema should be, could be and what it is.
It was a 'wow' experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment