La Terra Trema [1948]

This is a wonderful release of a film central to the history of the early stages of cinematic modernism. La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles) is one of Luchino Visconti's greatest achievements and here it gets a pin-sharp absolutely faithful transfer from BFI which showcases Aldo Graziati's astounding deep focus photography and strikingly beautiful compositions to great effect. One caveat - the disc could do with a couple of extras. The prospect of a neorealist semi-documentary made in 1948 featuring an amateur cast going about their everyday lives as fishermen isn't likely to set the average viewer's pulse racing. A decent documentary explaining the historical context and the reasons why this film is so highly revered together with an intelligent commentary along the lines of the one provided for BFI's own release of The Leopard would have been helpful here. I mustn't grumble though - at least the film has English subtitles which is more than the showing I saw at the NFT 20 years ago had! So why is this film so celebrated? First and foremost is its place in the Italian neorealist movement. People usually associate neorealism with Roberto Rossellini (Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero) and Vittorio De Sica (Bicycles Thieves, Shoeshine), but actually Visconti beat both of them to it with his first feature Ossessione (Obsession) in 1942. That film was a bootleg adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice. Unlike the later smoother Hollywood versions, this film features grimy real locations and shows a sordid very authentic view of the Italian countryside. The film caught the imagination of the Italian public who were bored with the artificiality of the rich life shown in the 'White Telephone' Italian films and in Hollywood products of the time. Suddenly they had something which appealed directly to them and their everyday socio-economic travails. Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Fellini, Rosi, Zeffirelli and lesser lights all banded together to form a neorealist movement, a movement devoted to a new cinema that would be for and about the lives of working class people. Big stars, studios and heavily detailed melodrama would be down-played in favor of the use of amateur actors, real locations and semi-documentary improvised methods designed to showcase the poverty that afflicted so many in Italy, particularly in the Mezzogiorno (the South). In fact, most of these neorealist films were heavily compromised which made people particularly in the Hollywood system skeptical. Rome Open City (1945) was made in the ruins of the nation's capital and is a fine film, but the Nazis are stereotyped as homosexuals and the film is heavily scripted melodrama with Anna Magnani achieving star status with it. Bicycle Thieves (1948) also may be very moving, but the melodrama is manufactured to a large degree and we are as manipulated emotionally by the music and the sad story as we are by superior Hollywood studio products of the time. La Terra Trema stands out from the rest as being the film which most embodies the tenets of the neorealist manifesto. A semi-documentary (the commentary voiced by Visconti himself), shot on location, featuring an amateur cast, focusing on the trials and tribulations of local fishermen, using local dialect as opposed to straightforward Italian so that rich Italian audiences in the North needed subtitles as much as foreigners did, avoiding deliberate emotional manipulation (the use of music is kept to a minimum) and relying on reaction shots of real people in real situations (especially children), La Terra Trema is an extraordinary statement for the time - one which really opened up people's eyes worldwide as to the possibilities of what cinema could do. Of course Visconti, Fellini and De Sica were later to shake off their neorealist roots in pursuit of more modernist inquiries, and it was this journey that would inspire the explosions of modernism that later took place in the shape of the French New Wave, the New German Cinema and other modernist experiments of the 60s. La Terra Trema is an extremely important film in cinema's swing from 'film as popular entertainment' to 'film as artistic inquiry', in this case a documentation of social conscience. Rooted in the everyday concerns of a poor Sicilian fishing community and told with the bare minimum of directorial manipulation, the film is as honest an artistic statement as there ever has been in cinema outside the world of the documentary. It's always surprising to me that such a film for the people was made by an aristocrat. Count Visconti (to give him his proper title) was a communist and La Terra Trema was part financed by the Italian communist party and finished with money Visconti got from selling off some of his family's assets. It was initially meant as the first part of a trilogy gradually leading up to a revolution. The fact that only the first part was shot means that instead of ending on a forced communist propagandistic note of triumph at the end of part three, it ends at the end of part one on quiet defeat, but with the dignity of the afflicted (in this case the poor Valastro family) kept intact. Visconti keeps his cameras largely distant and respectful so that we have the feeling that he is honoring his subjects. Traces of politics do remain, a fascist sign on the wall behind the wholesalers clashing with the hammer and sickle shots shown outside their office, but Visconti avoids the pitfalls of stereotyped propagandizing to produce a moving picture of working people downtrodden by circumstances beyond their control. Visconti chose to adapt Giovanni Verga's novel I Malavoglia (The House by the Medlar Tree) and visited Aci Trezza, the fishing village in Sicily where the novel is set. Noticing that the village had barely changed since the 1880s he chose to shoot the film on location right there. The only time we leave the village is to go fishing with the boats and then in the minds of the Valastros who have to go to Catania to mortgage their home. The film is the very simple story of how the fishermen are manipulated by the wholesalers and kept in poverty by their fierce demands. 'Ntoni Valastro decides to break away and set up his family on their own. Initially, things go well with other villagers supporting them. But one day they have to put to sea in a storm. Their boat is ruined and then everything falls down around them. They are forced to sell their fish to the wholesalers they despise, the family grandfather dies and personal relationships in the village sour as the family are ostracized. The bailiffs evict them from their home and the family are mired in poverty worse than ever before. The film finishes with 'Ntoni giving into the wholesalers' demands and putting to sea with another crew so that he can support the family. Visconti's conclusion would appear to be that an improvement in the fishermens' lot will only happen if they all unite and throw off the control exerted by the wholesalers. The fact that nobody follows 'Ntoni's example dooms him to ruin, but the film honors his noble efforts for trying. It's hardly the triumphant victory over the bosses that the communist party wanted, but the conclusion catches just the right note of defiant nobility that Visconti was aiming for. La Terra Trema may be based on a novel with the central story of class rebellion and there is a hint of melodrama as Visconti digs for an audience reaction to the plight of the Valastros, but that is as far as artificial manipulation from the film-makers goes, Visconti's spoken narration putting everything at a correct distance. The film is mostly devoted to simply recording the everyday lives of the fishermen. Takes tend to be lengthy, long shots of the sea dominating your memory long after the film finishes, especially those famous shots of women on the rocks awaiting their men to come back from the storm, the silhouettes standing out strikingly against the white background of the sky. Visconti is not afraid to employ medium close-ups for action sequences depicting the fishermen fighting. Fades and dissolves are deployed judiciously to give the impression of time passing slowly, languidly. 'Ntoni's youngest brother watches his elders fight and their tragedy echoes silently and with great effect across his face and the faces of other children in the village. Visconti never underlines or exaggerates emotions as he was prone to do in his later more operatic works. Instead we have beautiful images of noble despair as the Valastros battle against the elements and the society of the village. 'Ntoni's brother Cola shows a different response to the poverty trap by choosing to leave for the rich North. This exodus from poverty was an avenue Visconti was later to explore in Rocco and his Brothers (1960) where a similar family mired in poverty migrate north to try their luck in Milan. By that time though, Visconti had turned his back on neorealism. He may have spoken of Rocco and his Brothers being a sequel to La Terra Trema, but the film-making styles are really poles apart. I strongly urge anyone interested at all in neorealism and the origins of cinematic modernism to buy this film and see what the fuss is all about. Initial viewing expectations might be dark and grim, but believe me, once seen, this is a film you'll never forget.

Luchino Visconti shot this remarkable neorealist movie with amateur actors, who played their role sublimely. He tells a brutal story of a naked struggle for survival of a family in a village of fishermen in Sicily. The fishermen are confronted with a buyer's monopoly of a bunch of wholesalers, who give them a minimum price for their catches (`the poor always pay'). One fisherman tries to break the monopoly by creating his own business. But, therefore he has to mortgage the ancestral house. Luchino Visconti's movie is a Malthusian story: only the prosperous can love and marry. His movie is also a Marxist story. It sets the wholesalers (the capitalists) against the fishermen. When the wholesalers pool their money and buy new boats, the fishermen's only choice is to sell their labor force. Now, they don't even own the fish they have caught. The movie has a main message: only solidarity among the laborers can be a basis for a society of free associates. Luchino Visconti was the assistant director during the shooting of the movie `Toni' in which Jean Renoir used amateur actors. `Toni' paints also the fate of (Spanish) journeymen in France. But, there is an essential difference between Jean Renoir's and Luchino Visconti's movie: Toni doesn't transcend the personal level of his characters (their love lives), while in `La Terra Trema' the lives of the protagonists are embedded in a real general socio-economic environment. Luchino Visconti shot a most memorable social drama, maintaining throughout the movie a most impressive emotional and typically local atmosphere. A must see.

An interesting portrayal of life shortly after the Second World War,demonstrating the poverty and living conditions of the fishermen who were exploited by the fish buyers.

Another great release from Radiance . Fast save delivery by Amazon

Why do some people get copies with subtitles, and some not. ? The film requires subtitles; not even Italians can understand the Sicilian dialect, so it was first shown in Italy with Italian sub-titles. I could have understood them, but my copy did not have them, or any English, - only subtitles in two languages: - Dutch and one other rather similar language (perhaps double dutch ?). Fortunately I know the film well enough to enjoy it even without subtitles, but for most English people who are unfamiliar with the film this copy will be very frustrating. Amazon should clarify the position so that buyers will know what they will be getting.

The acting of these non professionals from this village was natural and refreshing, that is, up until nearing the end of the movie.....they were clearly under the impression that they had to actually 'act'.....they're efforts were so contrived as to become unconvincing...pity really.

Ce Blu-Ray Radiance (La Terra Trema, de Luchino Visconti) peut poser problème à certains utilisateurs selon le matériel et le logiciel utilisés. Commencons par le positif : avec un PC sous Windows 11, un lecteur de Blu-Ray Pioneer BDR-X13EBK et les logiciels Cyberlink PowerDVD ou Leawo, il n'y a aucun problème, tout fonctionne parfaitement (son et image). Par contre, avec un lecteur de Blu-Ray Sony haut de gamme, le son peut poser problème. Il suffit d'aller dans le menu HOME (en appuyant la touche HOME de la télécommande), puis de choisir SETTINGS, puis AUDIO. Une fois dans AUDIO, cliquer sur AUTO, puis choisir PCM.

Visconti in höchst Form! Es gibt kaum ein Mensch die solche Filme machen kann. Er hatte eine Epoche des italienischen Films geprägt wie keiner andere.

Era un regalo y mi padre quedó encantado, ¡y muy económico!

Bellissima questa versione con due DVD e un libretto. Il secondo DVD contiene un film giornale del 1970 (che mostra come a distanza di 22 anni dal film la condizione dei pescatori sia rimasta invariata), la galleria fotografica e "i ricordi di Pietro Ingrao, Francesco Rosi e Turi Vasile". Molto interessante il librettino di 16 pagine che racconta l'avventura della produzione del film, la mancanza di fondi e le proteste dei siciliani, concretizzatesi con un botta e risposta sui quotidiani dell'epoca. Ottima edizione da collezione. Consigliato!

C’est une date dans l’histoire du cinéma néo-réaliste italien. Tout cinéphile qui n’a pas connu cette époque sera intéressé par ce film sans vedette et réalisé sur les lieux mêmes où se déroule l’action.