Sicily on Page & Screen - Sicily - page 604

Sicily on Film
The rich emotional, psychological and physical landscapes of Sicily have inspired some of
the world's best film-makers.
Visconti's two classics, La Terra Trema (The Earth Shook; 1948) and Il Gattopardo
(The Leopard; 1963), illustrate the breadth of Sicilian tales - the former a story of grinding
poverty and misfortune in a benighted fishing family, while the latter oozes the kind of
grand decadence that one imagines preceded the French Revolution.
Antonioni's enigmatic mystery L'Avventura (The Adventure; 1960) focuses on the dis-
appearance of one member of a group of bored and spoiled Roman socialites on a cruise
around the Aeolian Islands, and though its existentialist plot has been described by many
critics as impenetrable and pretentious, its stunning visuals are universally admired.
In Rossellini's Stromboli: Terra di Dio (Stromboli: Land of God; 1950), the explosive
love affair between a Lithuanian refugee and a local fisherman is aptly viewed against the
backdrop of the erupting volcano, while the hypnotic beauty of Michael Radford's Il
Postino (The Postman; 1994) seduces viewers into a false sense of security, which is
shattered by the film's tragic denouement.
However, it is Francis Ford Coppola's modern masterpiece, The Godfather trilogy (Part
I, 1972; Part II, 1974; Part III, 1990), that really succeeds in marrying the psychological
landscape of the characters with their physical environment. The varying intensities of light
and dark superbly mirror the constant undercurrent of quivering emotion and black betray-
al. The coup de grâce is the final scene of Part III, where Mascagni's opera, Cavalleria
Rusticana, a foreboding story of love and betrayal, is interspersed with scenes of Michael
Corleone's final acts of murder that ultimately lead to the death of the person he loves
most, his daughter.
Other directors who have worked here include the Taviani brothers, who filmed Kaos in
1984, seeking to reproduce the mad logic of Sicilian-born author Luigi Pirandello's uni-
verse. The aptly named film is a series of tales about loss, lust, love, emigration and death
played out through fantastical story lines. The film's title comes from the village near Agri-
gento where Pirandello was born (although it is spelled with a 'C').
Sicilians enjoy a good guffaw, and Pietor Germi's Divorzio all'Italiana (Divorce, Italian
Style), set on the island, was a big hit here when it was released in 1961. More recent com-
edies include Roberto Benigni's Il Piccolo Diavolo (The Little Devil; 1988) and Johnny
Stecchino (Johnny Toothpick; 1991).