'Bellissima' [size=2]Luchino Visconti, 1951
[/size]When speaking of the great Italian actresses many names spring to mind. Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale, two sirens of the screen who mixed smouldering beauty with a certain theatrical talent to enjoy long careers. Then perhaps the jaunty Giulietta Masina, whose charm at the side of the great Federico Fellini won her the hearts of many. One actress that usually escapes mention is Anna Magnani, the fiery Roman actress who rose to fame with Roberto Rossellini's 'Roma, Cittā Aperta' ('Rome, Open City') and went on to win an Academy Award for her performance in 'The Rose Tattoo'. Short in stature and with dark, sunken eyes Magnani is quite the force of nature. Unlike the three listed above she lacked the conventional beauty and glamour most were used to, though many were attracted to her including Rossellini - the pair had an affair that lasted several years. In Luchino Visconti's dramedy 'Bellissima' Magnani played a stage mother named Maddalena who becomes convinced that her daughter Maria can win a "Prettiest girl in Rome" contest. The two go along to Cinecittā for the preliminaries which are hopeful enough, and Maddalena stumbles across an child's acting coach as well as a new love interest on the way. Young Maria has both a stutter and a lisp that don't help her terrible shyness, yet still her mother tries. Eventually and through the brutality of showbusiness Maddalena realises that she is selling her sweet child to follow her own desperate dream and comes around to see the error of her deluded ways. Anna Magnani is unforgettable here as the insatiable Maddalena. She is a woman incapable of taking a breath, filling every other second with involuntary commentary so as to assure herself. She is the working-class equivalent of a whirlwind who sets herself to the unenviable task of escaping poverty through her own daughter. This idea of overcoming poverty will not have been strange to the actress who was raised in a poor area of Rome herself. So mesmerising is Magnani's extraordinary performance in her native tongue that little else had much of an impact on me while watching 'Bellissima'. I see and appreciate the satire it aims at the industry but on reflection it is a weak attempt. More effective is the arc that Maddalena travels, her insistence, lack of patience and eventual crippling realisation. In terms of bringing great characters to the table Visconti was often unrivalled in Italian cinema, and you can see his influence here. Or perhaps lack of influence would be a better way to describe it, as he allows Magnani to run away with the script and create a personality that by all accounts wasn't too far away from her own. The overbearingly nosy neighbours, the demandingly grumpy husband, the enthusiastic young suitor, the guffawing studio executives, the feeble swipe at showbusiness, the tongue-in-cheek plugging of Cinecittā itself; all of these are just distractions. For at the core of 'Bellissima' is just Magnani and her Maddalena. 6/10 :fresh:
July 14, 2008
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