Cristo si è fermato a Eboli by Carlo Levi

His eyes search off camera, then he shifts his head to gaze at the painting Rosi zooms in on the child’s forlorn face, and Levi remembers. (The image is on the cover of Levi’s book Le parole sono pietre, which means “Words are stones.”) Rosi cuts to Levi’s face with his heavily gray beard and mustache and thick, wavy hair, he resembles a biblical figure. The film opens beautifully, with a shot of one of Levi’s paintings, of a child peering over its left shoulder, mouth turned in sadness, mountains in the background, as Piero Piccioni’s lush, aching score plays underneath. Priest Don Traiella (François Simon) shows Carlo Levi (Gian Maria Volontè) the ruins of his church in Christ Stopped at Eboli Christ stopped at Eboli.” It’s not that Jesus stopped in Eboli he stopped at the edge of the town, without going into this godforsaken place.

In this dark land, without sin or redemption, where evil is not moral, but an earthly sorrow, in all things for eternity. Today the seasons rush past over the toil of peasants, as they did three thousand years before Christ. No one has set foot on this land, except as a conqueror, an enemy, or an uncomprehending visitor. Nor did time, the individual soul, or hope, nor did cause and effect, reason or history. Where the road and the train abandon the coast and the sea, and venture into the wastelands of Lucania,” Levi says in early voiceover narration. Moore (who will introduce the 7:00 screening on Wednesday night). Levi recounted his experience there in his 1945 nonfiction novel, which Rosi adapted into a 150-minute theatrical film and the longer, more in-depth television version the latter has its long-awaited US theatrical premiere April 3 at Film Forum in a glorious 4K restoration featuring a new translation by Michael F. In 1935, Italian writer, painter, intellectualist, and anti-Fascist leader Carlo Levi (Gian Maria Volontè) was exiled to the remote mountain village of Lucania (now known as Basilicata) in the instep of Italy’s boot, where the small community lived much like its ancestors did. Now that he has succeeded in his personal quest for that holy grail, it’s easy to see why: The four-part foray into Fascism, faith, and forgotten peasants is a magnificent masterpiece. Mayor Don Luigi Magalone (Paolo Bonacelli) introduces political prisoner Carlo Levi (Gian Maria Volontè) to his remote Italian village in Christ Stopped at EboliĬHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI (CRISTO SI È FERMATO A EBOLI) (Francesco Rosi, 1979)įilm Forum repertory programming director and Rialto Pictures founder and copresident Bruce Goldstein has spent some 30 years attempting to get the rights to restore and release the 220-minute television version of Francesco Rosi’s 1979 epic, Christ Stopped at Eboli.

Cristo si è fermato a Eboli by Carlo Levi