Anna Magnani: Eternal Soul of Italian Cinema

September 25–December 4, 2016

A series spotlighting Italian actress Anna Magnani, who brought a unique combination of exuberance, empathy, and intelligence to all the parts she played.

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Teresa Venerdi
Many Dreams Along the Way
Bellissima
Mamma Roma

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

The Golden Coach
- Saturday, November 5 5:30 PM
- Sunday, December 4 4 PM
Jean Renoir
France, Italy, United Kingdom, 1952
Renoir’s graceful comedy revolves around Magnani as the star of a commedia dell’arte troupe in eighteenth-century Peru. François Truffaut called it “the noblest and most refined film ever made.”
Mamma Roma
- Sunday, November 13 4:30 PM
- Saturday, December 3 8 PM
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1962
Pasolini captured Magnani “like a found object” (Village Voice) in her role as a spirited prostitute; her downtrodden exuberance embodies Rome itself.
Wild Is the Wind
- Sunday, November 27 4:30 PM
George Cukor
United States, 1957
Cukor, Hollywood’s finest director of actresses, takes on the great Italian film diva in this Nevada-set melodrama costarring Anthony Quinn.
1870
- Saturday, November 26 5:45 PM
Alfredo Giannetti
Italy, 1972
Magnani appears opposite Marcello Mastroianni in this Risorgimento period drama. Her final starring role is a reprise of and tribute to every passionate woman of the people she ever created.
The Passionate Thief
- Saturday, November 12 5:30 PM
- Friday, November 25 8 PM
Mario Monicelli
Italy, 1960
Magnani is marvelous as a hapless would-be actress in this beloved comedy, also featuring Totò and Ben Gazzara. “Like a long night of champagne without the hangover” (Time Out New York).
The Rose Tattoo
- Sunday, November 20 7 PM
Daniel Mann
United States, 1955
Magnani won an Oscar for her American film debut as a widow whose repressed emotions are rekindled by big-hearted lummox Burt Lancaster. Tennessee Williams created the part for Magnani.
The Fugitive Kind
- Saturday, November 19 5:30 PM
Sidney Lumet
United States, 1960
Magnani meets Marlon Brando (and Maureen Stapleton and Joanne Woodward) in this smoldering adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s Orpheus Descending. Followed by a Magnani-themed dinner at Babette ($40/person).
. . . And the Wild Women
- Sunday, November 6 4 PM
Roberto Castellani
Italy, 1959
Imported Print

This women-in-prison picture features Magnani at her most pungent as a brazen jailbird who takes innocent new inmate Giulietta Masina under her wing.
Bellissima
- Saturday, October 8 8:15 PM
- Saturday, October 29 6 PM
Luchino Visconti
Italy, 1952
Magnani is magnificent as a mother prepared to sacrifice everything for her little daughter’s shot at stardom in Visconti’s satire on urban life and movieland ambition.
Rome Open City
- Friday, October 14 8:15 PM
- Thursday, October 27 7 PM
Roberto Rossellini
Italy, 1945
Digital Restoration
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

Magnani gives an indelible performance as the pregnant lover of a Resistance worker in this neorealist classic, as moving and agonizing today as it was in 1945.
Volcano
- Sunday, October 23 4 PM
William Dieterle
Italy, United States, 1950
Magnani’s retort to Roberto Rosellini’s Stromboli is a tale of cruel lives in a harsh landscape, with Magnani as a Neapolitan prostitute sent back to the volcanic island of her birth.
Many Dreams Along the Way
- Saturday, October 22 6 PM
Mario Camerini
Italy, 1948
Magnani is comic and affecting in this tale of a Roman housewife who thwarts her luckless husband’s efforts to make a dishonest living. Costarring Massimo Girotti (Ossessione).
The Bandit
- Saturday, October 15 6 PM
- Friday, October 21 6:30 PM
Alberto Lattuada
Italy, 1946
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

A former prisoner of war becomes entangled with the seductive, ruthless Magnani and her criminal gang in this drama set amid the turmoil of war-torn Italy.
Angelina
- Sunday, September 25 7 PM
- Sunday, October 16 4 PM
Luigi Zampa
Italy, 1947
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

Magnani won Best Actress at Venice for her funny and formidable portrait of an accidental activist from the impoverished suburbs of Rome in this populist comedy.
The Peddler and the Lady
- Sunday, October 9 4:30 PM
Mario Bonnard
Italy, 1943
Magnani created the first of the raucous working-class characters that would become her trademark in this comedy starring Aldo Fabrizi (Rome Open City) as a lovestruck fishmonger.
Full Speed
- Sunday, October 2 4:30 PM
Mario Mattoli
Italy, 1934
Magnani has a small but spirited part as a maid in this delightful comedy of errors starring Vittorio De Sica as a repressed young professor.
Teresa Venerdì
- Saturday, October 1 8:30 PM
Vittorio De Sica
Italy, 1941
Magnani plays a showgirl involved with playboy pediatrician Vittorio De Sica, who is also pursued by an heiress and a comely orphan, in this “screwball romantic comedy of the first rank” (New York Times).

Anna Magnani: Eternal Soul of Italian Cinema

September 25–December 4, 2016

“When I die, when people think of me, they must know Magnani never lied to them. They must be sure that Magnani never betrayed them, and that Magnani never betrayed herself.”—Anna Magnani

Today, seventy years since Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City introduced Anna Magnani to international audiences, her performances remain as radical and arresting as when her films were first released. Bringing a unique combination of exuberance, empathy, and intelligence to the parts she played, Magnani transcended the stereotypical female roles that were, and for the most part still are, the norm. As her agent and friend Gene Lerner said, “If there is a motion-picture star in film history who should be looked upon as epitome of the struggle of women for identity and dignity, it unquestionably would be Magnani.” She played wives and lovers, widows and workers, actresses and mothers, imbuing each of her characters with exceptional authenticity. A hilarious comedian, she infused her dramatic roles with wit and humor and lent a gravitas to her comedy. Magnani routinely portrayed strong, passionate women, and she possessed the rare ability to convey the vulnerability at the core of these powerful characters.

Magnani began her career performing in nightclubs and cabarets as a teen, paying her way through acting school in Rome, before embarking on dramatic roles in the theater and ultimately onscreen. While Magnani continued to appear on the stage throughout her career, her work in cinema with some of the greatest directors of her time—including Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Jean Renoir, George Cukor, and Pier Paolo Pasolini—has become her lasting legacy. In the 1940s she was the female embodiment of Italian neorealism in films such as Rome Open City, Alberto Lattuada’s The Bandit, Luigi Zampa’s Angelina, and Visconti’s Bellisima. The uncompromising veracity of her performances continued in the 1950s and sixties in such stylistically varied films as Jean Renoir’s magical marriage of cinema andcommedia dell’arte The Golden Coach and Mario Monicelli’s raucous Roman comedy The Passionate Thief.

The 1950s also brought Magnani to Hollywood, where she continued to represent the soul and strength of Italian womanhood with roles depicting immigrants making their way in a new world. Magnani’s friend Tennessee Williams wrote The Rose Tattoo for her, and the actress won an Academy Award for her performance in the film adaptation. She was nominated for a second Oscar for George Cukor’s Wild Is the Wind before returning to Williams’s material in Sidney Lumet’s The Fugitive Kind. For Magnani, acting was a lifelong passion, and she continued working until her death from cancer at age sixty-five. This series exemplifies the range of her brilliance, from her roles in rarely screened gems to iconic classics.

Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator

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Copresented by BAMPFA and Istituto Luce Cinecittà, Rome. Our thanks to Camilla Cormanni, Paolo Ruggiero, and Marco Cicala, Istituto Luce Cinecittà; Paolo Barlera, Istituto Italiano di Cultura San Francisco; The Department of Italian Studies, UC Berkeley; The Italian Society at Berkeley; and Amelia Antonucci, Cinema Italia San Francisco. There will be a one-day celebration of Anna Magnani’s films at the Castro Theatre on September 24, presented by Cinema Italia San Francisco.

Copresenter

Istituto Luce Cinecittà