Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
L'Amore
Roberto Rossellini’s controversial two-part anthology film showcasing the manifold talents of his then-wife Anna Magnani.
Drama 1948 80 mins
Director: Roberto Rossellini
Overview
Roberto Rossellini’s controversial two-part anthology film about blind devotion is a showcase for the manifold talents of his then-wife Anna Magnani. In the first part, A Human Voice - scripted by Jean Cocteau - Magnani gives a tour-de-force performance as a lover desperately trying to salvage her relationship over the telephone. The second, The Miracle, is written by Federico Fellini, who also stars as a mysterious ‘Saint’ who impregnates a naïve peasant woman (Magnani).
The film’s distribution history, particularly in the US, has been notably tortuous. Due to legal complications over the Cocteau section, the film was originally distributed in America containing just the Fellini story. But this caused a scandal when it was denounced by the church as sacrilegious, resulting in a First Amendment courtroom clash eventually won by the film’s distributors.
- Director
- Roberto Rossellini
- Featuring
- Anna Magnani MiciaFederico Fellini Peparuolo
- Genres
- Drama
- Certificate
- Scenes of emotional upset
- Released
- 1948
- Country
- Italy
- Language
- English
Related
Drama
The Seventh Seal
Fantasy 1957 96 mins Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.
The Square Circle
Drama 1996 108 mins Director: Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar’s groundbreaking film follows the journey of young woman who reinvents herself as a man after she's kidnapped and attacked.
Rocco and His Brothers
Drama 1960 179 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Italian maestro Luchino Visconti’s epic drama follows a mother and her five sons who move from a small town to Milan, changing their lives forever.
La Grande Bouffe
Comedy 1973 130 mins Director: Marco Ferreri
Marco Ferreri's provocative and controversial satire about four friends who retreat to a country mansion with the intention of eating themselves to death.
Wind from the East
Drama 1969 93 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin's radical film deconstructs both a factory strike and the Hollywood western - simultaneously.
Struggle in Italy
Drama 1969 60 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's case study of an Italian girl's inner struggle to reconcile her revolutionary intent with her ingrained bourgeois tendencies.
Love
Underground
Romance 1928 93 mins Director: Anthony Asquith
The BFI National Archive restoration of one of Anthony Asquith's finest silent films set in London's Underground, with a new score.
A Farewell to Arms
Romance 1932 89 mins Director: Frank Borzage
Based on the best-selling 1929 novel by Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper stars in Frank Borzage's Oscar-winning adaptation of the tragic Great War romance.
Uncle Silas
Drama 1947 98 mins Director: Charles Frank
Gothic chiller based on the novel by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Jean Simmons stars as an heiress pursued by her unbalanced uncle and his perverted son.
The Red Shoes
Drama 1948 135 mins Director: Michael Powell
Moira Shearer’s ballerina is torn between love and her career in Powell and Pressburger’s hugely influential melodrama.
Rosebud
Drama 1991 14 mins Director: Cheryl Farthing
A lesbian couple arouse the interest of their new neighbour in this erotic tale of voyeurism, power dressing and fantasy.
That Hamilton Woman
Biopic 1941 120 mins Director: Alexander Korda
Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier bring Hollywood glitz to the love affair between Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton in the midst of political turmoil.
Featuring Anna Magnani
Rome, Open City
War 1945 103 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini’s landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made.
Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Journey to Italy
Drama 1954 86 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini's acerbic but finally very moving masterpiece about marital crisis boasts great performances from Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders
Germany, Year Zero
War 1948 73 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
The concluding part of Roberto Rossellini’s celebrated War Trilogy, set amid the war-torn ruins of Berlin.
Fear
Drama 1954 83 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini’s film with Ingrid Bergman exploring the inner turmoil of a woman pushed to the edge through the guilt of her infidelity.
Rome, Open City
War 1945 103 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini’s landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made.
PAISÀ
War 1946 126 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini’s ambitious and enormously moving follow-up to his breakthrough Rome, Open City.
Stromboli, Land of God
Drama 1950 100 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
In her first collaboration with Roberto Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman stars as a refugee who marries a fisherman and moves to a barren island.
New
Lek and the Dogs
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2017 92 mins Director: Andrew Kötting
Andrew Kötting returns with an emotionally affecting and politically resonant multi-genre adaptation of Hattie Naylor’s play.
The Seventh Seal
Fantasy 1957 96 mins Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.
The Square Circle
Drama 1996 108 mins Director: Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar’s groundbreaking film follows the journey of young woman who reinvents herself as a man after she's kidnapped and attacked.
Rocco and His Brothers
Drama 1960 179 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Italian maestro Luchino Visconti’s epic drama follows a mother and her five sons who move from a small town to Milan, changing their lives forever.
La Grande Bouffe
Comedy 1973 130 mins Director: Marco Ferreri
Marco Ferreri's provocative and controversial satire about four friends who retreat to a country mansion with the intention of eating themselves to death.
Wind from the East
Drama 1969 93 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin's radical film deconstructs both a factory strike and the Hollywood western - simultaneously.