Stromboli (1950)

Karin, a young woman from the Baltic countries, marries fisherman Antonio to escape from a prison camp. But she cannot get used to the tough life in Antonio's volcano-threatened village, Stromboli.

Director:

Roberto Rossellini

Writers:

Roberto Rossellini (story), Sergio Amidei (collaboration) (as Sergio Amedei)

Stars:

Ingrid Bergman, Mario Vitale, Renzo Cesana

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ingrid Bergman	...	Karin
Mario Vitale	...	Antonio
Renzo Cesana	...	The Priest
Mario Sponzo	...	The Man from the Lighthouse

Storyline

Living in an Italian refugee camp in 1948, the beautiful Karin meets Antonio, a resident of the men's camp. Though not in love with him, Karin marries him and they soon head for his home village, Stromboli. The village is on a remote island at the foot of an active volcano. When they arrive Karin despairs of the barren land and the absence of people, as many have left, mostly for the United States. She doesn't speak the local dialect and is treated with disdain by locals who see her as an exotic foreigner and a loose woman. After Antonio beats her and locks her in their house, she sets off across the mountains to seek her freedom and a better future.

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Plot Keywords:

ferret | rabbit | actual animal killed | octopus | fishing boat | 

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Taglines:

This is IT!

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Italy USA

Language:

Italian English Spanish German French

Release Date:

15 February 1950 (USA)

Also Known As:

Of God's Earth

Filming Locations:

Farfa, Fara in Sabina, Rieti, Lazio, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

$1,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Berit Films, RKO Radio Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min 100 min (Italy)

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the promotional material, Howard Hughes played up the parallels between the character she played and the recent indiscreet behavior of lead actress Ingrid Bergman. He re-cut the film behind Rosselini's back and refused to screen it for the press. The film got talked about before it was seen. It was banned outright in Memphis, and the Roman Catholic church urged its priests not to see it. As a result of the public tempest, the movie opened to phenomenal business, earning nearly $1 million on its first day.

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Goofs

When the police officer is typing the report, he does not strike nearly enough keys to produce the amount of information shown on the paper.

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Quotes

Karin: I don't care about your barley. Or, your vines! Or, your new terra! I want to leave this island and go away, far away! Like all the others who lived here and were born here and went away, far away!
Antonio: ...Listen, this is my home! You are my wife! You stay because I want to!

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Crazy Credits

Opening credits: "I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me." (New Testament, St. Paul's letter to the Romans, Chapter 10, Verse 20)

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Alternate Versions

Several running times exist. The main difference between the 81 min. US version and the 105 min. Italian version was in the ending, with religious themes cut out.

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Connections

Edited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: Une histoire seule (1989)

User Reviews

the adventure before the letter

Or L'AVVENTURA AVANT LA LETTRE, which actually encapsulates the situation of STROMBOLI. Although the recent death of Michelangelo Antonioni brought about many commentators who discussed the revolutionary effect of the first screenings of L'AVVENTURA (Martin Scorsese wrote such a piece which appeared in The New York Times of August 12, 2007), this was a far cry from the disastrous reception that STROMBOLI had in its original release. Of course, part of the problem was the extra-filmic situation, the "scandale" of the Bergman-Rossellini relationship.

But all that's in the past. STROMBOLI must be seen as the revolutionary work that it is. In the past (and this continues today), the film was castigated for its meandering plotlessness, for its seeming aimlessness. These are, in fact, aspects of the film, because the film is not "about" the passions of a woman (though this was how the movie was advertised on its initial release), but about lassitude. In effect, STROMBOLI was the first filmic expression of alienation, literally in the plot device of having Karin (played by Bergman) a displaced person, and metaphorically in scenes such as the one in which Karin is walking through the town and hears voices - she knows that they're talking about her, but she can't understand what they're saying. (The villagers speak in their Sicilian dialect, and Karin speaks in English; there is the scene where Karin redecorates the house, and the women come to stare, but when she invites them to come in, they just stare and skulk away.)

There are so many problems with seeing this film: it was cut and reedited and a voice-over narration was added for its initial American release; the Italian archival version is dubbed all into Italian. The actual version is a multi-lingual (English, Italian, Sicilian dialect) version which runs 107 minutes, with no narrator. In this version, the documentary aspects are fully integrated into the film.

STROMBOLI deserves to be seen in its full version, and deserves to be seen as the precursor of movies such as L'AVVENTURA, Resnais's Hiroshima MON AMOUR and Godard's UNE FEMME MARIEE.