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The Miracle (1948, It.) (aka Il
Miracolo) (short) (part of L'Amore (1948, It.) (aka Ways of
Love))
In director Roberto Rossellini's neo-realist short
drama - after the release of the film, it caused considerable controversy
when it was censored and banned; soon, it became a landmark film
in the fight against film censorship after a unanimous Supreme Court
decision in 1952 stated that the New York Board of Regents could not ban
the film - it declared movies a form of free speech. The Court ruled
that "sacrilege" was too vague a censorship standard to
be permitted under the First Amendment:
- in the second episode (scripted by Federico Fellini)
in the anthology film L'Amore, naive, dim-witted, unwed
and homeless young Italian peasant goat-herder Nannina (Anna Magnani)
met a bearded vagabond stranger (with a bottle of wine) on a hillside
where she was shepherding, believing that he was the incarnation
of Saint Joseph (screenwriter Fellini himself) - and delusionally
believing that she was the Virgin Mary
- in the afternoon, the drunken Nannina spent time with
the man - and then seemingly passed out - there was a significant
fade to black (an off-screen rape?); she awakened shortly later with
a goat licking her face, and found that the stranger was gone
Drinking Wine Before Passing Out
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Awakened by Goat
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- the pregnant devout woman was mocked, ridiculed,
ostracized and derided as transgressive by the townsfolk with her
belief that her pregnancy was an immaculate conception; she was
driven from town with people throwing vegetables at her, in a mock
'walk-to-Calvary' scene; at one point, the mob forced her to wear
an empty bowl on her head (a crown of thorns)
- in the concluding scene, she gave birth, all alone,
to her 'miracle' or 'special' child in an empty church located on
a rocky hill outcropping
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Italian Peasant Girl Nannina (Anna Magnani)
Vagabond Stranger: "My dear St. Joseph!"
Mocked by Townsfolk for Believing in Immaculate Conception
Pregnancy
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