Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Roberto Rossellini's 1954 movie is a cornerstone of Italian neo-realism, and became a key inspiration to the French new wave. On the surface, it's a portrait of a marriage in eclipse.
An English couple (Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders) travel by car to Naples to oversee the sale of an inherited villa. Thrown into unfamiliar proximity, they seem to realise that they are virtual strangers to one another.
He is patrician, impatient, aloof; she is skittish and wistful about an old flame, and buries her discontent in visits to the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, where death glowers back at her.
Hauntingly shot in black-and-white, the film has a high reputation that may baffle. Rossellini's working methods were chaotic, and he barely establishes any flow between one scene and the next.
The script was apparently notional, and neither Sanders nor Bergman (the director's wife, soon to be divorced) look at all comfortable with improvising. The closing scene, in which the couple are caught in a Catholic street procession, is preposterous.
There are flashes of feeling, mostly in Bergman's weepy performance, but Sanders looks as though he might be in a different movie altogether, and according to set reports wished that he had been.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments