![]() ![]() His Bergman cycle, for instance, is dominated by the theme of the Northern woman coming south and undergoing a spiritual crisis, from which she emerges with a kind of religious faith. Thus we find at the centre of his work the antagonistic couplets North v. The humus from which his themes spring is that of traditional Catholic (superstitious and semi-pagan) Southern Italy about to be sucked into the vortex of Northern Europe, with its entirely different kind of civilization, cultural and social. Rossellini’s themes are fundamentally Italian, indeed Southern Italian. He has persevered on his own path sporadically this has criss-crossed with the stampede of popular and critical taste. ![]() Nevertheless, looked back on now, from the near peak of his achievement, The Seizure of Power by Louis XIV, his work shows a remarkable consistency, thematically and stylistically. In part this has been because of the nexus between politics and film criticism in Italy, in part because of changes in fashion and taste, in part because of the personal scandals which have punctuated Rossellini’s career. R ossellini’s reputation has ebbed and flowed more perhaps than that of any other leading director. ![]()
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