Visconti's Bellissima

Visconti's Bellissima (1951), currently in revival at Film Forum, is "romantic neorealism." It’s an obvious vehicle for Anna Magnani whose operatic flourishes make one cry. It’s about the depredations of cinema albeit in their most melodramatic form. At one point Magnani beautifully and simply says that acting is being someone else, but the plot centers around a contest. You’ve seen the crowd scenes and screaming mothers in other films particularly In Pasolini’s Mamma Roma and Fellini’s Roma. Here the histrionics reach the level of farce since all the mothers including Magnani are promoting their 5-8-year-old daughters. Spoiler Alert: Magnani is depicted in her usual desolate state, but the little girl who has been the subject of ridicule gets the part—in fact because of her lack of beauty and ability (she can’t even blow out the candles on a cake). It's meta to the extent that the film is about the film, the casting of an Italian Shirley Temple. American films are everywhere with Magnani and her husband watching a John Wayne western on a huge screen put up on their neighborhood street and one of the would-be child stars lifting her skirt to do a Lana Turner. You may feel the film is not the Visconti at his best while appreciating the set pieces which include some wonderfully sublime portraits of Magnani's face.

read "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star