L'imperatore di Capri (Emperor of Capri, 1949)

Director: Luigi Comencini
Starring: Totò, Yvonne Sanson, Marisa Merlini, Mario Castellani
Label:  Dolmen Home Video (2008)
Format: DVD / PAL / Region 2
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 b/w
Audio: Italian (Dolby Digital 1.0 mono/5.1 remix)
Subtitles: English, Italian

Bonus:
* Photo gallery (20 stills)

Available on Amazon.it

What's the film about?

The adventures of a humble waiter who is mistaken for an Arabian Prince. Totò debuted as film actor in 1937, and he remained the most popular Italian comedian until his death in 1967. Comedy doesn't travel well, especially when based on verbal humour, so his films are generally little known outside Italy, but some of his best works should be discovered by international audiences. Directed by Luigi Comenini, Emperor of Capri offers one of Totò's most enjoyable performances, a twisted farce enriched with some black comedy moments and a surrealistic touch.

Recommendations
...if you want a sample of Totò's talent in one of his best vehicles.

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Titanus (1904-2014)

The Retrospective for the 67th edition of the Festival del film Locarno (6–16 August 2014) will be dedicated to the Italian production studio Titanus. Numerous European and American institutions will repeat the program: the Cineteca di Bologna, the Cineteca Nazionale (National Film Archive) in Rome, the National Cinema Museum in Turin, the Cinémathèque suisse, the Cinémas du Grütli in Geneva, the Filmpodium in Zurich, the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, the American Cinematheque and the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles. The retrospective will be accompanied by an English-friendly book, on which I am currently working.
 

Official press release:
http://www.pardolive.ch/it/Pardo-Live/today-at-the-festival/2014/retrospettiva-titanus?sl=en

Inferno (1911)

Directors: Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe De Liguoro
Starring: Salvatore Papa, Arturo Pirovano, Giuseppe De Liguoro
Label:  Cineteca di Bologna (2011)
Format: DVD / PAL / Region 2
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Subtitles: English, Italian

Bonus:
* 1909 short, Il diavolo zoppo (15 minutes, with English subtitles)
* 1910 short, Come fu che l'ingordigia rovinò il Natale a Cretinetti (13 minutes, with English subtitles)
* Excerpt from 1926 Maciste all'inferno (8 minutes, with English subtitles)
* Comparison between the film and Gustave Doré's engravings
* Photogallery

Available on Amazon.it

What's the film about?

Often cited as the first feature-lenght film ever, this version of Dante's Inferno also marked a milestone in Italian early cinema. Entirely framed in Full or Long Shot, the film is pre-Griffithian in pacing and editing, with storytelling heavily relying on titles. Still, composition and lighting are often quite enchanting, clearly indebted to Gustave Doré's works, but also to the visionary cinema of Georges Méliès. The DVD features two different soundtrack: I couldn't stand the modernist "dubbing" by Edison Studio, but the piano score by Marco Dalpane was fine.

Recommendations
Essential for anyone interested in early development of film style.

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1860 (1934)

Director: Alessandro Blasetti
Starring: Giuseppe Gulino, Aida Bellia, Gianfranco Giachetti, Mario Ferrari
Label:  Ripley's Home Video (2007)
Format: DVD / PAL / Region 0
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Audio: Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo)
Subtitles: English, Italian

Bonus:
* Contains both the 1998 restoration (74 minutes) and the 1951 reissue by Blasetti (69 minutes)
* 1934 alternate epilogue (1 minute)

Available on Amazon.it

What's the film about?

A chronicle of the unification of Italy as seen through the eyes of a young partisan. While the film is sometimes (unhappily) labelled as "propaganda", Blasetti's approach can easily be considered as proto-Neorealist because of its attention on popular participation and historical process. Influenced by Eisenstein and Pabst, the style is in fact anti-rhetorical and even anti-spectacular, but also unexpectedly lyrical and touching. Perhaps, non-Italian viewers may prefer to start with the 1951 version, which has a more declared didactic aim.

Recommendations
...well, a must see.

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