|
Stromboli (1950, It./US) (aka Stromboli,
Terra Di Dio)
In Roberto Rossellini's moving, neo-realistic drama
- in which the original, ambiguous and provocative ending was changed
by RKO studios (and producer Howard Hughes) with added voice-over
narration:
- the depiction of tough life in the primitive and
remote fishing village of the island of Stromboli (off the coast
of Sicily), for newly-married, Baltic-born, Lithuanian Karin Bjiorsen
(Ingrid Bergman) and fisherman husband Antonio (Mario Vitale),
a Sicilian POW, after she had escaped with him (by marriage) from
an Italian refugee internment camp; however, she was immediately
dissatisfied with her shunned, uncomfortable life in his barren
village with a black scorched landscape, and complained to Antonio: "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!... I
can't live like this in this filth! This is no life for civilized
people"
- the extended riveting fishing sequence of Stromboli's
men hauling in a massive catch of giant tuna
- the scene of Karin's desperation about her intolerable
life, told to a Priest (Renzo Cesana): "I can't take a life
like this. Antonio is still a boy. Yes, I love him, but he doesn't
understand how a woman like me feels....Can't he realize that I can't
live here, and that he should take me away?...You can imagine how
I feel here, Father, a stranger. These black rocks, this desolation,
that, that 'terror.' This island drives me mad, Father. Won't you
help us, please?"
- the pregnant Karin's escape to get out of Stromboli
and seek individual freedom - by treacherously walking on foot across
a nearby volcanic mountain to the other side of the island - the
volcano was beginning to erupt with hellish smoke and foul air; she
collapsed from exhaustion and despair, and lost consciousness
- the concluding scene after Karin regained consciousness
- and her dialogue with herself and pleas and cries of help toward
God - the film's final lines: "No, I can't go back. I can't.
They are horrible. It was all horrible. They don't know what they're
doing. I'm even worse. I'll save him. Oh, my innocent child. God,
my God, help me! Give me the strength, the understanding, and the
courage. (weeping) God, God, God, oh my God, merciful God. God, God,
God!"; the last shots of the film were of the cleared morning
sky (the volcano had seemingly subsided), and the return of swooping
seabirds flying in the air
- the film's ambiguous ending: did she return to Stromboli?
did she continue on? did she perish? [Note: In the revised version,
the voice-over narration explained that she returned to rejoin her
husband.]
|
|