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| Christ Stopped at Eboli | |
|---|---|
.jpg) French poster for the film | |
| Directed by | Francesco Rosi |
| Written by | Francesco Rosi Tonino Guerra Raffaele La Capria |
| Produced by | Nicola Carraro Franco Cristaldi |
| Starring | Gian Maria Volonté Paolo Bonacelli Alain Cuny Lea Massari Irene Papas François Simon |
| Cinematography | Pasqualino De Santis |
| Edited by | Ruggero Mastroianni |
| Music by | Piero Piccioni |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Titanus (Italy) Gaumont Distribution (France) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 150 minutes (1979 theatrical release) 220 minutes (uncut TV version) |
| Countries | Italy France |
| Language | Italian |
| Box office | $82,126[1][2] |
Christ Stopped atEboli (Italian:Cristo si è fermato a Eboli), also known asEboli in the United States,[3] is a 1979drama film directed byFrancesco Rosi,adapted from thebook of the same name byCarlo Levi. It starsGian Maria Volonté as Levi, a political dissident underFascism who was exiled in theBasilicata region inSouthern Italy.
The film was shown out of competition at the1979 Cannes Film Festival[4] and was the first to receive aBAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1983.[5]
It was included in the book1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.[6]
Carlo Levi is a painter and writer fromTurin. He also has a degree in medicine but has never practised it. Arrested in 1935 byMussolini's regime for anti-fascist activities, he is confined toAliano (Gagliano in the novel), a remote town in the region ofLucania, the southern 'instep' of Italy, known today asBasilicata. While the landscape is beautiful, the peasantry are impoverished and mismanaged. They are superstitious and insular; many have emigrated to the United States in search of employment. Since the local doctors are not interested in treating peasants, Levi begins to minister to their health in response to their appeals, establishing a strong relationship with the community.
The film was mostly shot inBasilicata in the villages ofCraco,Guardia Perticara,Aliano and La Martella, nearMatera. Other scenes were filmed inGravina in Puglia andSanteramo in Colle,Apulia.[7]
Christ Stopped at Eboli has an approval rating of 90% onRotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews and an average rating of 8.10/10.[8]AllMovie rated the film 4 stars out 5.[9]
Mira Liehm, in her volume dedicated to Italian cinema from 1942 to the first half of the 1980s, defines Carlo Levi's book on which the film is based as legendary and writes, as regards the aesthetic language, that the film suffers negatively from the intention to satisfy both a television series and the big screen at the same time, so that Lucania, at the time one of the poorest regions of the peninsula, appears as a holiday resort.[10] The Swiss critic Freddy Bauche adds, among other things, that the film, although an excellent technical exercise, does not follow the poetics present in Salvatore Giuliano, something that Levi's book, instead, could have made possible.[11] Gian Piero Brunetta, besides highlighting the excellent interpretation of Gian Maria Volonté, writes by focusing on the aspects most closely linked to Italian politics treated by Rosi: "It is not ultimately a coincidence that, at a certain point in his career, he encounters the work of Carlo Levi (Christ Stopped at Eboli) or that of Leonardo Sciascia (Excellent Corpses is taken from The Context), two authors who, like him, have worked to try to penetrate the heart of things and to explain individual events in terms of a broader logic."[12]
| Award | Category | Recipient | Result | Year | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago International Film Festival | Best Feature | Francesco Rosi | Nominated | 1979 | [13] |
| David di Donatello | Best Film | Won | 1979 | [14] | |
| Best Director | Francesco Rosi | Won | [14] | ||
| Nastro d'Argento | Best Supporting Actress | Lea Massari | Won | 1979 | [15] |
| Moscow International Film Festival | Golden Prize | Francesco Rosi | Won | 1979 | [16] |
| National Board of Review | Top Foreign Film | Won | 1980 | [17] | |
| French Syndicate of Cinema Critics | Best Foreign Film | Francesco Rosi | Won | 1981 | [18] |
| BAFTA Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Francesco Rosi | Won | 1983 | [5] |
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