| L'amore | |
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 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Roberto Rossellini |
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| Based on |
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| Produced by | Roberto Rossellini |
| Starring |
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| Cinematography |
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| Edited by | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Music by | Renzo Rossellini |
Production company | Tevere Film |
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Release dates | |
Running time | 80 minutes[a] |
L'amore (Love) is a 1948 Italiandramaanthology film directed byRoberto Rossellini, starringAnna Magnani andFederico Fellini.[1][4] It consists of two parts,The Human Voice (Una voce umana), based onJean Cocteau's 1929play of the same title, andThe Miracle (Il miracolo), based onRamón del Valle-Inclán's 1904 novelFlor de santidad.[1][5]
The film had its world premiere in the International Competition of the9th Venice International Film Festival, on 21 August 1948, and was released in Italian cinemas on 2 November 1948.
The second part was initially banned in the United States until it was cleared in 1952 by theSupreme Court's decision upholding the right tofreedom of speech.
An unnamed woman, desperate and alone in her apartment, is having one last conversation with her former lover over the telephone. He asks her to return their letters to him. During their conversation, which is repeatedly interrupted, it is revealed that the man left her for another woman, and that she has just attempted suicide out of grief. As a last favour, she begs him not to take her successor to the same hotel inMarseille where she and he had once stayed.
Nannina, a simple-minded and obsessively religious woman, tends goats at theAmalfi coast. When a handsome bearded wanderer passes, she takes him to beSaint Joseph. Offering his flask of wine, he gets her drunk and she falls asleep. When she awakens, he is gone and she is convinced that his appearance was a miracle. A few months later, when she faints in an orchard, the women who help her discover that she is pregnant. Nannina believes this is another miracle, but to the townspeople she becomes a figure of ridicule, so she flees into the mountains. A single goat leads her to an empty church, where she gives birth to her child.
While Rossellini was preparing his next film,Germany, Year Zero, Anna Magnani suggested to the director to adapt Cocteau's playThe Human Voice which she had already performed on stage in 1942.[2] Rossellini agreed and, because he and Magnani were staying inParis at the time, filmed the first episode in a studio in Paris with a French crew.[2]
In order to enable the short film a regular release, Rossellini had Federico Fellini script a second piece for Magnani, based on Valle-Inclán's novelFlor de santidad,[2] which Rossellini turned into a screenplay withTullio Pinelli.[1]
L'amore premiered in the International Competition of the9th Venice International Film Festival on 21 August 1948. It was released in Italian cinemas, inRome, on 2 November the same year.[1]
Reactions to the film were mostly negative; even French criticAndré Bazin, usually supportive of Rossellini's work, accused the first episode of "cinematic laziness".[2]
For the 1950New York premiere,The Miracle was removed fromL'amore and placed in a three-part anthology film titledThe Ways of Love with two other short films,Jean Renoir'sA Day in the Country (1936) andMarcel Pagnol'sJofroi (1933).[4] While Rossellini's film had passed Italian censors without complaints, its New York screening was condemned by theNational Legion of Decency and Catholic authorities for blasphemy.[2] As a result, the city authorities revoked the license for the film's screening.[2] DistributorJoseph Burstyn appealed the revocation to theNew York Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the state in October 1951.[6] Burstyn then appealed to theSupreme Court of the United States.[2] In its May 1952 decision in the case ofJoseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, the Supreme Court upheld Burstyn's appeal, declaring that the film was a form of artistic expression protected by the guarantee to freedom of speech in theFirst Amendment to the United States Constitution.[7][8]
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