Christ Stopped at Eboli (film)

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Christ Stopped at Eboli
Christ Stopped at Eboli (film).jpg
French poster for the film
Directed by Francesco Rosi
Written byFrancesco Rosi
Tonino Guerra
Raffaele La Capria
Produced byNicola Carraro
Franco Cristaldi
Starring Gian Maria Volonté
Paolo Bonacelli
Alain Cuny
Lea Massari
Irene Papas
François Simon
Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis
Edited by Ruggero Mastroianni
Music by Piero Piccioni
Production
companies
Rai 2
Vides Cinematografica
Action Films
Distributed by Titanus (Italy)
Gaumont Distribution (France)
Release date
  • 23 February 1979 (1979-02-23)
Running time
150 minutes (1979 theatrical release)
220 minutes (uncut TV version)
CountriesItaly
France
Language Italian
Box office$82,126 [1] [2]

Christ Stopped at Eboli (Italian : Cristo si è fermato a Eboli), also known as Eboli in the United States, [3] is a 1979 drama film directed by Francesco Rosi, adapted from the book of the same name by Carlo Levi. It stars Gian Maria Volonté as Levi, a political dissident under Fascism who was exiled in the Basilicata region in Southern Italy.

Contents

The film was shown out of competition at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival [4] and was the first to receive a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1983. [5]

It was included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die . [6]

Plot

Carlo Levi is a painter and writer from Turin. He also has a degree in medicine but has never practised it. Arrested in 1935 by Mussolini's regime for anti-fascist activities, he is confined to Aliano (Gagliano in the novel), a remote town in the region of Lucania, the southern 'instep' of Italy, known today as Basilicata. While the landscape is beautiful, the peasantry are impoverished and mismanaged. They are superstitious and insular; many have emigrated to the United States in search of employment. Since the local doctors are not interested in treating peasants, Levi begins to minister to their health in response to their appeals, establishing a strong relationship with the community.

Principal cast

Production

The film was mostly shot in Basilicata in the villages of Craco, Guardia Perticara, Aliano and La Martella, near Matera. Other scenes were filmed in Gravina in Puglia and Santeramo in Colle, Apulia. [7]

Reception

Critical response

Christ Stopped at Eboli has an approval rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews and an average rating of 8.10/10. [8] AllMovie rated the film 4 stars out 5. [9]

Mira Liehm, in her volume dedicated to Italian cinema from 1942 to the first half of the 1980s, defines Carlo Levi's book on which the film is based as legendary and writes, as regards the aesthetic language, that the film suffers negatively from the intention to satisfy both a television series and the big screen at the same time, so that Lucania, at the time one of the poorest regions of the peninsula, appears as a holiday resort. [10] The Swiss critic Freddy Bauche adds, among other things, that the film, although an excellent technical exercise, does not follow the poetics present in Salvatore Giuliano, something that Levi's book, instead, could have made possible. [11] Gian Piero Brunetta, besides highlighting the excellent interpretation of Gian Maria Volonté, writes by focusing on the aspects most closely linked to Italian politics treated by Rosi: "It is not ultimately a coincidence that, at a certain point in his career, he encounters the work of Carlo Levi (Christ Stopped at Eboli) or that of Leonardo Sciascia (Excellent Corpses is taken from The Context), two authors who, like him, have worked to try to penetrate the heart of things and to explain individual events in terms of a broader logic." [12]

Accolades

AwardCategoryRecipientResultYearRef
Chicago International Film Festival Best FeatureFrancesco RosiNominated1979 [13]
David di Donatello Best Film Won1979 [14]
Best Director Francesco RosiWon [14]
Nastro d'Argento Best Supporting Actress Lea MassariWon1979 [15]
Moscow International Film Festival Golden Prize Francesco RosiWon1979 [16]
National Board of Review Top Foreign FilmWon1980 [17]
French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Best Foreign FilmFrancesco RosiWon1981 [18]
BAFTA Awards Best Foreign Language Film Francesco RosiWon1983 [5]

References

  1. ↑ "Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979)". Box Office Mojo . IMDb . Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  2. ↑ "Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979)". The Numbers . IMDb . Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  3. ↑ John Anderson (April 26, 2019). "A short history of 'Christ Stopped at Eboli': A 'holy grail' of classic Italian cinema". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
  4. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Christ Stopped at Eboli". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-25.
  5. 1 2 "Film Foreign Language Film in 1983". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  6. ↑ "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". filmsquish.com. Archived from the original on 2013-01-15. Retrieved 2017-04-14.
  7. ↑ "Cristo si è Fermato a Eboli". Italy for Movies (in Italian). Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
  8. ↑ "Christ Stopped at Eboli (Cristo si è Fermato a Eboli)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  9. ↑ "Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979)". AllMovie. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
  10. ↑ Liehm, Mira (1984). Passion and Defiance: Italian Film from 1942 to the Present. University of California Press. pp. 258–259. ISBN   978-0-520-05744-9.
  11. ↑ Buache, Freddy (1979). Le cinéma italien: 1945-1979 (in French). L'Age d'homme. p. 336.
  12. ↑ Brunetta, Gian Piero (1982). Storia del cinema italiano dal 1945 agli anni ottanta (in Italian). Editori riuniti. p. 260. ISBN   978-88-359-0024-5.
  13. ↑ "Chicago International Film Festival 1979". mubi.com. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  14. 1 2 "David di Donatello". daviddidonatello.it (in Italian). Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  15. ↑ "Cristo si è fermato a Eboli - Premi e Nomination". movieplayer.it (in Italian). Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  16. ↑ "11th Moscow International Film Festival (1979)". moscowfilmfestival.ru. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved January 16, 2013.
  17. ↑ "1980 Award Winners". nationalboardofreview.org. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  18. ↑ "Liste des prix du meilleur film étranger depuis 1967". archives.semainedelacritique.com (in French). Retrieved May 20, 2019.
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