Stromboli (film)

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Stromboli

Directed by	Roberto Rossellini
Produced by	Roberto Rossellini
Written by	Roberto Rossellini
Starring	Ingrid Bergman Mario Vitale
Music by	Renzo Rossellini
Cinematography	Otello Martelli
Editing by	Jolanda Benvenuti Roland Gross
Release date(s)	1950
Running time	107 min
Language	Italian
IMDb profile

Stromboli, aka Stromboli, terra di dio, is a 1950 Italian film by Roberto Rossellini and featuring Ingrid Bergman. It is considered a classic example of Italian neorealism.

The film is the result of a famous letter from Ingrid Bergman to Roberto Rossellini, in which she wrote she admired his work, and she wanted to make a movie with him. However, the film is best remembered for the affair between Rossellini and Bergman that occurred during this time, as well as the resultant child out of wedlock. In fact, the affair caused such a scandal in the United States that Bergman was denounced on the floor of the US senate by Colorado senator Edwin C. Johnson. Furthermore, her Hollywood career was halted for a number of years, until her Oscar-winning performance in Anastasia).

[edit] Plot

Bergman plays Karin, a Lithuanian prisoner of war in Italy, who escapes the internment camp by marrying an Italian POW fisherman (Mario Vitale), whom she met in the camp on the other side of the barbed wire. She soon discovers that his home island of Stromboli is very harsh and barren, and the people traditional and conservative. They act with hostility towards this strange, foreign woman. Karin speaks little Italian adding to her difficulties. Karin becomes increasingly despondent and eventually she wants to escape the volcano island.

The film also features documentary-like segments about fishing and an actual evacuation of the town after an eruption of the volcano. Most villagers are played by actual people from the island, as is typical of neorealism.