Director: Bernardo
Bertolucci Year: 1962 Country: Italy Gender: Drama / Mystery Score: 08/10
Cast: Francesco Ruiu, Allen Midgette, Gabriella Giorgetti, Giancarlo de Rosa, Marisa Solinas, Vincenzo Ciccora and Romano Labate
In a park in Rome is discovered the body of a murdered prostitute. Police arrest those who passed by that night, including the marginalized (thieves, vagabonds, pimps) and is interrogating one by one. The versions of what happened differ and even contradict openly, for all suspects (especially the murderer) have something to hide. After a year of working as an assistant to director Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film, "Accattone" (1961), Bernardo Bertolucci assigned with Sergio Citti making a script based on a story by Pasolini. Tonino Cervi as the producer was impressed with the script, this offered the young Bertolucci (aged 22) the opportunity to direct the film. During the film, Bertolucci changed the script several times because he was uncomfortable with a story that dealt mostly with low-class characters, and is set in the streets of Rome, which was quite different with environment from which he came, the bourgeois spaces of Parma, "Little Paris" located in northern Italy. For this reason, Bertolucci began looking for space to come closer to its provincial roots while trying to compress the city of Rome in a sort of large provincial town.
Bertolucci The main change he made to the script, was the inclusion of police questioning, and have selected a type episodic narrative style to tell this tale of crime and punishment, which recalled more than one way the master Akira Kurosawa's film, which is their wonderful work "Rashomon" (1950). Bertolucci presents a series of police interrogations with their flashbacks, in which each of the suspects and witnesses, they tell each of the moves that made the day of the crime, and ended up taking them to the place where he committed the murder. The suspects are thieves, prostitutes, vagrants, or pimps, all of which tell stories of poverty, little and have nothing to do with the crime being investigated. However, "Sterile Harvest" is a story about the concept of time, according to the same Bertolucci, "The images attempt to communicate the basic idea of \u200b\u200bthe passage of time, the passing of the hours, the quiet work of death." The then young Italian director temporarily league each of the stories by heavy rain which is repeated on every occasion. Whenever it starts raining, the principal advantage of showing the actions of the last day of life of the prostitute.
When the rain stops, Bertolucci takes up the story of the respective suspects. In this way, the director manages to compress all the stories between the time a woman wakes up in his apartment located in the middle of nowhere, after which he prepares for what will be his last night, until his death. The interviews appear only as a pretext to use the narrative style chosen by Bertolucci; of Indeed, in order to differentiate this film from Hollywood works of a similar theme, the director stands on a stage interrogations abstract, almost theatrical, where we see the suspect surrounded by an environment shrouded in darkness, and where we can only hear the voice the inspector in charge of the investigation. "Barren Harvest" research shows without a central star, where in addition there is no clear moral discourse. At times we could say that the streets of Rome are the real star of the film, which is dedicated to hosting this series of unusual characters who are involuntarily involved in a murder. Likewise, it is clear the influence of Pasolini The film, which is mainly manifested in the study of more humble strata of society, and the use of non-professional actors in real locations.
Perhaps the greatest failure of making the film is the fact that one expects the different testimonies help us to discover who the real murderer, none of the witnesses provide data about life victim, and in almost all cases what they tell contradicts what actually happened. In addition, the director decides to hide the testimony of the only true witness to the murder to make way for a relatively surprising final. In this dynamic of truth / lies, leaving some unfinished details in each of the stories. The completion of this film must have been a very difficult process for young then Bertolucci, a debutant director, who still lived with his parents and was the youngest member of the crew. In fact, according to the same Bertolucci, "could not think of the first day of shooting without feeling chills when a cameraman asked me where he was ceremonially positioned the camera, I experienced one of the most tense moments of my life." Despite the great pressure he felt, the director did a great job that earned him international critical acclaim, that labeled with Bertolucci as a major young talent. However, a number not less than critics charge noted that the tape had too many similarities with the Pasolini film, despite the efforts of Bertolucci to develop a distinctive style.
"Sterile Harvest" Bertolucci brought fame to the scene of Europe's most international filmmakers, and not yet settled in the controversy later films as " Last Tango in Paris " or incursions of Hollywood " The Last Emperor." Despite the limited dialogue, the film at any time it becomes tedious. The soundtrack by Piero Piccioni, Carlo Rustichelli, is well used by the director to emphasize certain situations in each of the stories. As mentioned above, one of the things that strikes the film, is the way in which Bertolucci is responsible for presenting the city of Rome, interspersed with desolate places tourist sites and slums. Although none of the actors had any experience in film, the interpretations are completely credible, causing much of the characters prove to be obnoxious, especially the soldier who is by far the strangest character and perhaps the most interesting. "Barren Harvest" is a interesting film, with some imperfections of the work of a first-time director. Anyway, this is a film of black Italian film highly recommended and is a good starting point to begin to know the work of this renowned Italian director.
"Great debut of one of the most controversial directors"
0 comments:
Post a Comment