Nerone, o La caduta di Roma | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Luigi Maggi, Arturo Ambrosio |
Screenplay by | Decoroso Bonifanti , Arrigo Frusta |
Based on | Nerone by Pietro Cossa |
Produced by | Ambrosio Film |
Starring | |
Music by | Giovanni Vitrotti |
Release date |
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Running time | 14 minutes |
Country | Italy |
Languages |
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Nero, or The Fall of Rome (Italian : Nerone, o la caduta di Roma) is a 1909 Italian short silent Epic film directed by Luigi Maggi and Arturo Ambrosio, based on the eponymous 1872 drama by Pietro Cossa. This is one of the oldest surviving Italian epic films about Ancient Rome. [1]
One day emperor Nero leaves his palace accompanied by his wife Claudia Octavia and meets a charming patrician named Poppea. With the help of his freedman Epaphroditus he finds her at a party she is attending and brings her back to his palace.
Nero presents Poppea to the people as the new empress and repudiates his wife. Octavia asks him to restitute the empire which he had received as her dowry, but the emperor harshly chases her away. Later, Nero is convinced by Poppea to have Octavia killed. One of her maidservants swears revenge and goes to Rome where she spreads the news of the assassination. The people, already tired of Nero's exactions and whims, decide to revolt against the emperor.
Informed of the danger of an imminent popular uprising, Nero orders to set fire to the city, which he watches from a terrace, rejoicing and playing his lyra.
Abandoned by all and sentenced to death by the Senate, he is beset by visions of the massacres he ordered. He flees with Epaphroditus seeking refuge at the villa of the freedman Faonte. Discovered and chased into the woods together with Epaphroditus, he kills himself with his sword.
The film was a success both in Italy and on foreign markets. Nearly 300 copies were sold abroad at the time of the original release. [2]
The scene where Nero is beset by bad conscience, having a vision of the Christians he had sent to martyrdom (shown by a red-toned double exposure shot), had a strong impact on the audience. The reviewer for the Moving Picture World wrote on 6 November 1909 that the film possessed "such a marvellous realism of affect that as we sat and watched this colored part of the film, we seemed, as it were, to hear the cries of the victims". [3]
The film received the First Prize at the first edition of the World Competition of Cinematography in Milan (Italian : Primo Concorso Mondiale di Cinematografia di Milano). [4]
A parody of Nero, Tontolini Nerone, was released in 1910. [5]
The film is composed of 13 one shot scenes, with 6 intertitles. It is characterised by lavish sets and costumes and a cinematography which is still very close to theatre representation, with a succession of tableaux vivants filmed by a static frontal camera. All but two sets are indoors sets very similar to theatre sets including painted backdrops giving an illusion of perspective. Two shots are filmed outdoors in a garden. [1]
Maria Wyke mentions Nero as "one of the first tentative experiments in the screening of Roman history made by an Italian production house", remarking that it bases its plot on "a vastly condensed synthesis of the Italian dramatic tradition for Nero - from grandiose production of Claudio Monteverdi's opera L'incoronazione di Poppea (first performed in 1642) to recent stagings of Pietro Cossa's popular tragedy Nerone". Regarding the cinematographic style, she writes: "Highly dependent still on the conventions of the Italian stage, almost every scene of Nerone (...) operates as a self-contained unit within which the actors playing Nero, Octavia or Poppea, planted before papier mâché backdrops and facing their unseen film audience, gesture majestically". Only the scene mentioned above on Nero's vision is regarded as a "celebration of the innovatory powers of cinema". [3]
Valeria Messalina was the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius. She was a paternal cousin of Emperor Nero, a second cousin of Emperor Caligula, and a great-grandniece of Emperor Augustus. A powerful and influential woman with a reputation for promiscuity, she allegedly conspired against her husband and was executed on the discovery of the plot. Her notorious reputation probably resulted from political bias, but works of art and literature have perpetuated it into modern times.
Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero is a historical novel written by Henryk Sienkiewicz in Polish.
Poppaea Sabina, also known as Ollia, was a Roman empress as the second wife of the emperor Nero. She had also been wife to the future emperor Otho. The historians of antiquity describe her as a beautiful woman who used intrigues to become empress.
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi. It was Monteverdi's last opera, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, and was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1643 carnival season. One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times.
Claudia Octavia was a Roman empress. She was the daughter of the Emperor Claudius and Valeria Messalina. After her mother's death and father's remarriage to her cousin Agrippina the Younger, she became the stepsister of the future Emperor Nero. She also became his wife, in a marriage between the two which was arranged by Agrippina.
Nero is an Italian-British-Spanish television film, part of the Imperium series; it was made film available on DVD as of November 2005 in the U.S. and Canada. Produced by EOS Entertainment and Lux Vide for RAI and Telecinco.
Nerone may refer to:
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus and his reign have featured in music, literature, the arts, and in business.
Nerone (Nero) is an opera in four acts composed by Arrigo Boito, to a libretto in Italian written by the composer. The work is a series of scenes from Imperial Rome at the time of Emperor Nero depicting tensions between the Imperial religion and Christianity, and ends with the Great Fire of Rome. Boito died in 1918 before finishing the work.
Quo Vadis is a 2001 Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz based on the 1896 book of the same title by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It was Poland's submission to the 74th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not nominated.
Mio figlio Nerone, released in the US as Nero's Mistress is a 1956 Italian historical comedy film directed by Steno and starring Alberto Sordi, Vittorio De Sica, Gloria Swanson and Brigitte Bardot, with cinematography by Mario Bava. It depicts a visit by the Roman Emperor Nero and his entourage to a coastal villa.
Gianfranco D'Angelo was an Italian actor and comedian.
Nerone (1930) is an Italian comedy film, directed by Alessandro Blasetti. It stars Ettore Petrolini as the main actor. It has been described as a "Roman farce", a genre which was popular in Italy at the time. It is a parody of the Roman Empire and of the notorious Roman emperor, Nero. It was shot at the Cines Studios in Rome.
Ettore Petrolini was an Italian stage and film actor, playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is considered one of the most important figures of avanspettacolo, vaudeville and revue. He was noted for his numerous caricature sketches, and was the "inventor of a revolutionary and anticonformist way of performing". Petrolini is also remembered for having created the "futurista" character Fortunello. His contribution to the history of Italian theater is now widely acknowledged, especially with regard to his influence on 20th century comedy. His iconic character Gastone became a byword in Italian for a certain type of stagey snob. His satirical caricature of the Roman Emperor Nero was widely perceived as a parody of Benito Mussolini, although it may itself have influenced the mannerisms of the Fascist dictator.
Phaon was an imperial freedman and confidant of the Roman emperor Nero. He, with Epaphroditus, Neophytus and Sporus, took Nero to his own villa in the suburban area of Rome where the emperor would commit suicide subsequently.
Quo Vadis is an Italian film directed by Enrico Guazzoni for Cines in 1913, based on the 1896 novel of the same name written by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It was one of the first blockbusters in the history of cinema, with 5,000 extras, lavish sets, and a lengthy running time of two hours, setting the standard for "superspectacles" for decades to come.
Nerone is a 1977 Italian comedy film directed by Castellacci & Pingitore. It parodies real life event of the Roman emperor Nero.
Nero is a 1922 American-Italian silent historical film directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starring Jacques Grétillat, Sandro Salvini, and Guido Trento. It portrays the life of the Roman Emperor Nero.
Nero and the Burning of Rome is a 1953 Italian epic historical drama film directed by Primo Zeglio and loosely based on real life events of Roman emperor Nero. It was based on the novel Nerone e Messalina (c.1949) by Harry Bluhmen.
The Theatre of Nero was the private theatre erected in Rome by Nero, the Roman emperor between AD 53 and AD 68.