The Miracle (1948) by Roberto Rossellini
Sunday, November 6, 1983, 8:00 pm
Roberto Rossellini/Douglas Sirk
The Miracle, directed by Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1948, 43 min., B&W, starring Anna Magnani, Federico Fellini, based on a story by Fellini.
Fellini’s influence is felt throughout the early Rossellini masterwork, which also preserves one of Magnani’s most powerful performances. The story is a religious allegory (considered blasphemous by the Church) of a peasant woman who becomes impregnated through what she believes to be a divine miracle.
The First Legion, directed by Douglas Sirk, U.S.A., 1950, 85 min., B&W, starring Charles Boyer.
One of the master director’s (Written On The Wind, etc.) most obscure yet widely admired films, in its first Bay Area screening in many years. A sardonic look at modern religion and its “miracles” as conveyed by a group of Jesuits, filled with Sirk’s richly styled interplay between melodramatic plot and subtle cinematic touches. “To me, Sirk’s greatness goes far beyond his ironies, his parodies, his extreme contrasts… A plot becomes more than just a plot when the style comments on it, expresses ideas about it.” —Fred Camper