Ripley Home Video have delivered yet another spectacular disc of Mr. Blasetti's classic 1860 (1934). (The film is rumored to have had a major impact on Bernardo Bertolucci). English friendly with an entire second disc of extras.
1860 is a minor masterpiece, and it exerted a fundamental influence on Italian made epic films that came afterwards: Visconti's Senso, Bertolucci's similarly titled 1900, even Sergio Leone's westerns, all owe something to director Blasetti's feel for sweeping popular spectacle somewhat underscored and undercut by irony and melancholy ambivalence. The story charts the desperate attempt of a Sicilian partisan to reach Garibaldi's headquarters in Northern Italy, and to petition the great revolutionary to rescue his besieged land. Along the way, the peasant hero encounters a full spectrum of Italian regional types from all social strata, and holding political opinions of every stripe. A long scene on board a train forces many such folk into close proximity, and is memorable for its humor, and densely packed sociological observation: this uneasy coalition of people who barely speak the same language reminds the viewer of Italy's continuing fragility as a nation. After many picaresque episodes, 1860 resolves with an extended and exciting battle. The style of the film is an interesting, eclectic, and fairly successful mix of techniques learned from the likes of Eisenstein (quick cuts, and odd angles abound), Westerns of the Raoul Walsh variety, All Quiet on the Western Front.
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I had the dvd on my hands last thursday and I did not buy it. Next trip to Italy, I'll get one.
Its price was 16 euros, and a silent film is included as an extra.
The same company has released IL CRISTO PROHIBITO (The forbidden Crist), directed by famous writer Curzio Malaparte, the author of La pelle (The skin). It has got English subtitles. I own it but I've not seen it yet.
There are some notable differences between the 1933 version and the 1951 version of the film not only in the use of a narrator for the latter but also in the addition of completely different footage.
Which do you feel is "better"? And why do two versions exist (or is this covered in the extras)?
Don Lope de Aguirre wrote:Which do you feel is "better"? And why do two versions exist (or is this covered in the extras)?
The 1933 version is clearly the "better" one as far as I am concerned. It is tight and very well-paced. It is also "better" looking as the restored print for it is simply magnificent.
The second version actually has some different footage. To be honest other than the Italian booklet which offers a tiny bit of info on the production history of the two there isn't anything else here to explain what was the motivation behind the second version. As I mentioned in the review however the key lead here to consider is that 1860 was very much influenced by Mussolini' nationalistic policy at the time.
