Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director and screenwriter, credited as the inventor of the Spaghetti Western genre. Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots, his movies include the sword and sandal action films The Last Days of Pompeii and The Colossus of Rhodes, the Dollars Trilogy of Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Born in Rome, Leone was the son of the cinema pioneer Vincenzo Leone and silent film actress Edvige Valcarenghi. During his schooldays, Leone was a classmate of his musical collaborator Ennio Morricone for a time. After watching his father work on film sets, Leone began his own career in the film industry at the age of 18 after dropping out of law studies at the university. Working in Italian cinematography, he began as an assistant to Vittorio de Sica during the movie The Bicycle Thief in 1948. Leone began writing screenplays during the 1950s for the'sword and sandal' historical epics, popular at the time.
He worked as an assistant director on several large-scale international productions shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, notably Quo Vadis and Ben-Hur, financially backed by the American studios. When director Mario Bonnard fell ill during the production of the 1959 Italian epic The Last Days of Pompeii, starring Steve Reeves, Leone was asked to step in and complete the film; as a result, when the time came to make his solo directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes, Leone was well equipped to produce low-budget films which looked like larger-budget Hollywood movies. In the mid-1960s, historical epics fell out of favor with audiences, but Leone had shifted his attention to a subgenre which came to be known as the "Spaghetti Western", owing its origin to the American Western, his film A Fistful of Dollars was based upon Akira Kurosawa's Edo-era samurai adventure Yojimbo. Leone's film elicited a legal challenge from the Japanese director, though Kurosawa's film was in turn based on the 1929 Dashiell Hammett novel, Red Harvest.
A Fistful of Dollars is notable for establishing Clint Eastwood as a star. Until that time Eastwood had been an American television actor with few credited film roles; the look of A Fistful of Dollars was established by its Spanish locations, which presented a violent and morally complex vision of the American Old West. The film paid tribute to traditional American western films, but departed from them in storyline, plot and mood. Leone gains credit for one great breakthrough in the western genre still followed today: in traditional western films, many heroes and villains looked alike as if they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine, with drawn moral opposites down to the hero wearing a white hat and the villain wearing a black hat. Leone's characters were, in contrast, more'realistic' and complex: usually'lone wolves' in their behaviour; the characters were morally ambiguous by appearing generously compassionate, or nakedly and brutally self-serving, as the situation demanded. Relationships revolved around power and retributions were emotion-driven rather than conscience-driven.
Some critics have noted the irony of an Italian director who could not speak English, had never visited the United States, let alone the American Old West single-handedly redefining the typical vision of the American cowboy. According to Christopher Frayling's book Something to do with Death, Leone knew a great deal about the American Old West, it fascinated him as a child, which carried into his films. Leone's next two films, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, completed what has come to be known as the Man with No Name trilogy, with each film being more financially successful and more technically accomplished than its predecessor; the films featured innovative music scores by Ennio Morricone, who worked with Leone in devising the themes. Leone had a personal way of shooting scenes with Morricone's music ongoing. In addition, Clint Eastwood stayed with the film series, joined by Eli Wallach, Lee van Cleef and Klaus Kinski. Based on the success of The Man with No Name trilogy, Leone was invited to the United States in 1967 to direct Once Upon a Time in the West for Paramount Pictures.
The film was shot in Almería, Spain and Cinecittà in Rome. It was briefly shot in Monument Valley, Utah; the film starred Henry Fonda, Jason Robards and Claudia Cardinale. Once Upon a Time in the West emerged as a long, dreamlike meditation upon the mythology of the American Old West, with many stylistic references to iconic western films. Audience tension is maintained throughout this nearly three-hour film by concealing both the hero's identity and his unpredictable motivation until the final predictable shootout scene. Unsurpassed as a retribution drama, the film's script was written by Leone and his longtime friend and collaborator Sergio Donati, from a story by Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, both of whom wen
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest simply called Eurovision, is an international song competition held among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the winner. At least 50 countries are eligible to compete as of 2018, since 2015, Australia has been allowed as a guest entrant. Winning the Eurovision Song Contest provides a short-term career boost for artists, but results in long-term success. Exceptions include ABBA, Bucks Fizz, Celine Dion, all of whom launched successful careers. Based on the Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy since 1951, Eurovision has been broadcast every year since its inauguration in 1956, making it the longest-running annual international television contest and one of the world's longest-running television programmes, it is one of the most watched non-sporting events, with audience figures of between 100 million and 600 million internationally.
It has been broadcast in several countries that do not compete, such as the United States, New Zealand, China. Since 2000, it has been broadcast online via the Eurovision website. Ireland holds the record for most victories, with seven wins, including four times in five years in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996. Under the current voting system, in place since 2016, the highest-scoring winner is Salvador Sobral of Portugal who won the 2017 contest in Kiev, with 758 points; as a war-torn Europe was rebuilding itself in the 1950s, the European Broadcasting Union —based in Switzerland—set up an ad hoc committee to search for ways of bringing together the countries of the EBU around a "light entertainment programme". At a committee meeting held in Monaco in January 1955 with Marcel Bezençon of the Swiss television as chairman, the committee conceived the idea of an international song contest where countries would participate in one television programme to be transmitted across all countries of the union; the competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy and was seen as a technological experiment in live television.
In those days it was a ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network. Satellite television did not exist and the Eurovision Network comprised a terrestrial microwave network; the concept known as "Eurovision Grand Prix", was approved by the EBU General Assembly in a meeting held in Rome on 19 October 1955, it was decided that the first contest would take place in spring 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland. The name "Eurovision" was first used in relation to the EBU's network by British journalist George Campey in the London Evening Standard in 1951; the first contest was held in the town of Lugano, Switzerland, on 24 May 1956. Seven countries participated—each submitting two songs, for a total of 14; this was the only contest in which more than one song per country was performed: since 1957, all contests have allowed one entry per country. The 1956 contest was won by Switzerland; the programme was first known as the "Eurovision Grand Prix". This "Grand Prix" name was adopted by Germany, Denmark and the Francophone countries, with the French designation being Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne.
The "Grand Prix" was dropped in 1973 and replaced with Concours in French and in 2001 with the English name in German, but not in Danish or Norwegian. The Eurovision network is used to carry many news and sports programmes internationally, among other specialised events organised by the EBU. However, in the minds of the public, the name "Eurovision" is most associated with the Song Contest; the format of the contest has changed over the years, though the basic tenets have always been thus: participant countries submit original songs, performed live on a television programme broadcast across the Eurovision Network by the EBU to all countries. A "country" as a participant is represented by one television broadcaster from that country: but not always, that country's national public broadcasting organisation; the programme is hosted by one of the participant countries, the programme is broadcast from the auditorium in the host city. During this programme, after all the songs have been performed, the countries proceed to cast votes for the other countries' songs: nations are not allowed to vote for their own song.
At the end of the programme, the song with the most points is declared as the winner. The winner receives the prestige of having won—although it is usual for a trophy to be awarded to the winning songwriters, the winning country is formally invited to host the event the following year; the programme is invariably opened by one or more presenters. Between the songs and the announcement of the voting, an interval act is performed; these acts can be any form of entertainment. Interval entertainment has included such acts as the Wombles and the first international performance of Riverdance; as national broadcasters join and leave the Eurovision feed transmitted by the EBU, the EBU/Eurovision network logo ident is displayed. The accompanying theme music is the prelude to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum; the same logo was used for both
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards known as the Oscars, are a set of awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership; the various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more referred to by its nickname "Oscar". The award was sculpted by George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons. AMPAS first presented it in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; the Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now seen live worldwide, its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2018, was held on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, California.
The ceremony was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,072 Oscar statuettes have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 90th ceremony, it was the first ceremony since 1988 without a host. The first Academy Awards presentation was held on 16 May 1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people; the post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period; the ceremony ran for 15 minutes. Winners were announced to media three months earlier; that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards; this method was used until an occasion when the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began.
The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier. At that time, the winners were recognized for all of their work done in a certain category during the qualifying period. With the fourth ceremony, the system changed, professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on 27 March 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced; until foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Traditionally, the previous year's winner for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor present the awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, while the previous year's winner for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress present the awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
See § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated bronze on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in tall, weighs 8.5 lb, depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Directors and Technicians; the model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons' design; the statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years the bronze was abandoned in favor of Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy, plated in copper, nickel silver, 24-karat gold. Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones; the only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base.
The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C. W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, which contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes. From 1983 to 2015 50 Oscars in a tin alloy with gold plating were made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R. S. Owens & Company, it would take between four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes. In 2016, the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to Walden, New York-based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the statuettes retain their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal. Cast in liquid bronze from 3D-printed ceramic molds and polished, they are electroplated in 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York–based Epner Technology; the time required to produce 50 such statuettes is three months. R. S. Owens i
Cleopatra (1963 film)
Cleopatra is a 1963 American epic historical drama film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with a screenplay adapted by Mankiewicz, Ranald MacDougall and Sidney Buchman from the book The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero, from histories by Plutarch and Appian, it stars Elizabeth Taylor in the eponymous role. Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, Martin Landau are featured in supporting roles, it chronicles the struggles of Cleopatra, the young Queen of Egypt, to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome. The film achieved notoriety during its production for its massive cost overruns and production troubles, which included changes in director and cast, a change of filming locale, sets that had to be constructed twice, lack of a firm shooting script, personal scandal around co-stars Taylor and Burton, it was the most expensive film made up to that point and bankrupted 20th Century Fox. Cleopatra was the highest-grossing film of 1963, earning box-office of $57.7 million in the United States and Canada, yet lost money due to its production and marketing costs of $44 million, making it the only film to be the highest-grossing film of the year to run at a loss.
It received nine nominations at the 36th Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, won four: Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Costume Design. After the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, Julius Caesar goes to Egypt, under the pretext of being named the executor of the will of the young Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra's father. Cleopatra convinces Caesar to restore her throne from her younger brother. Caesar, in effective control of the kingdom, sentences Pothinus to death for arranging an assassination attempt on Cleopatra, banishes Ptolemy to the eastern desert, where he and his outnumbered army would face certain death against Mithridates. Cleopatra is crowned Queen of Egypt, begins to develop megalomaniacal dreams of ruling the world with Caesar, who in turn desires to become King of Rome, they marry, when their son Caesarion is born, Caesar accepts him publicly, which becomes the talk of Rome and the Senate. After he is made dictator for life, Caesar sends for Cleopatra.
She wins the adulation of the Roman people. The Senate grows discontented amid rumors that Caesar wishes to be made king, anathema to the Romans. On the Ides of March in 44 BC, a group of conspirators assassinate Caesar and flee the city, starting a rebellion. An alliance between Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, Mark Antony, Caesar's right-hand man and general as well as Marcus Ameilius Lepidus put down the rebellion and split up the republic between themselves. Cleopatra is angered after Caesar's will recognizes Octavian instead of Caesarion as his official heir, angrily returns to Egypt. While planning a campaign against Parthia in the east, Antony realizes he needs money and supplies, cannot get enough from anywhere but Egypt. After refusing several times to leave Egypt, Cleopatra meets him in Tarsus; the two begin a love affair, with Cleopatra assuring Antony that he is much more than a pale reflection of Caesar. Octavian's removal of Lepidus forces Antony to return to Rome, where he marries Octavian's sister, Octavia, to prevent conflict and enraging Cleopatra.
Antony and Cleopatra marry, with Antony divorcing Octavia. Octavian, reads Antony's will to the Roman senate, revealing that the latter wishes to be buried in Egypt. Rome turns against Antony, Octavian's call for war against Egypt receives a rapturous response; the war is decided at the naval Battle of Actium on September 2, 31 BC, where Octavian's fleet, under the command of Agrippa, defeats the Antony-Egyptian fleet. Cleopatra assumes orders the Egyptian forces home. Antony follows, soon defeated. Several months Cleopatra manages to convince Antony to resume command of his troops and fight Octavian's advancing army. However, Antony's soldiers abandon him during the night. Antony tries to goad Octavian into single combat, but is forced to flee into the city; when Antony returns to the palace, not believing that Antony is worthy of his queen, convinces him that she is dead, whereupon Antony falls on his own sword. Apollodorus confesses that he misled Antony and assists him to the tomb where Cleopatra and two servants have taken refuge.
Antony dies in Cleopatra's arms. Octavian and his army march into Alexandria with Caesarion's dead body in a wagon, he discovers the dead body of Apollodorus. Octavian receives word that Antony is dead and Cleopatra is holed up in a tomb. There he offers her his word that he will allow her to rule Egypt as a Roman province in return for her agreeing to accompany him to Rome. Cleopatra knows her son is dead and agrees to Octavian's terms, including a pledge not to harm herself. After Octavian departs, she orders her servants in coded language to assist with her suicide. Octavian realizes that she is going to kill herself and he and his guards burst into Cleopatra's chamber and find her dressed in gold, dead, along with her servants, while an asp crawls along the floor; as the story of Cleopatra had proved a hit in 1917 for silent-screen legend Theda Bara, was remade in 1934 with Claudette Colbert, 20th Century Fox executives hired veteran Hollywood producer Walter Wanger in 1958 to shepherd another remake of Cleopatra into production.
Although the studio or
Forced displacement
Forced displacement or forced immigration is the coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region and it connotes violent coercion. Someone who has experienced forced displacement is a "forced immigrant", a "displaced person" also a "displacee", or if it is within the same country, an internally displaced person. In some cases the forced immigrant can become a refugee, as that term has a specific legal definition. A specific form of forced displacement is population transfer, a coherent policy to move unwanted groups, for example, as an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Another form is deportation. Forced displacement has accompanied persecution, as well as war, throughout human history but has only become a topic of serious study and discussion recently; this increased attention is the result of greater ease of travel, allowing displaced people to flee to nations far removed from their homes, the creation of an international legal structure of human rights, the realizations that the destabilizing effects of forced immigration in parts of Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, ripple out well beyond the immediate region.
The concept of forced displacement envelopes demographic movements like flight, evacuation and resettlement. The International Organization for Migration defines a forced migrant as any person who migrates to "escape persecution, repression and human-made disasters, ecological degradation, or other situations that endanger their lives, freedom or livelihood"; the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration defines it as "the movements of refugees and internally displaced people as well as people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects."According to Alden Speare, "in the strictest sense migration can be considered to be involuntary only when a person is physically transported from a country and has no opportunity to escape from those transporting him." Movement under threat the immediate threat to life, contains a voluntary element, as long as there is an option to escape to another part of the country, go into hiding or to remain and hope to avoid persecution."
However this thought has been questioned by Marxians, who argue that in most cases migrants have little or no choice. Causes for forced displacement can include: Natural disaster: Occurrence of a disaster – such as floods, landslides, earthquakes or volcanoes – leads to temporary or permanent displacement of population from that area. In such a scenario, migration becomes more of a survival strategy, as natural disasters cause the loss of money and jobs. For example, Hurricane Katrina resulted in displacement of the entire population of New Orleans, leaving the community and government with several economic and social challenges. Environmental problems: The term environmental refugee has been in use representing people who are forced to leave their traditional habitat because of environmental factors which negatively impact his or her livelihood, or environmental disruption i.e. biological, physical or chemical change in ecosystem. Migration can occur as a result of slow-onset climate change, such as desertification or sea-level rise, of deforestation or land degradation.
Man-made disasters: Examples are industrial accidents and accidents that involve chemicals or radioactivity, such as in Chernobyl, Bhopal or Fukushima. War, civil war, political repression or religious conflicts: Some migrants are impelled to cross national borders by war or persecution, due to political, ethnic, religious reasons; these immigrants may be considered refugees. Development-induced displacement: Such displacement or population transfer is the forcing of communities and individuals out of their homes also their homelands, for the purposes of economic development, it has been associated with the construction of dams for hydroelectric power and irrigation purposes but appears due to many other activities, such as mining and transport. The best-known recent example of such development-induced displacement may be that resulting from the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China; this type of forced migration disproportionately affects ethnic minorities. According to estimates, between 90 and 100 million people were forced to leave their homes due to development projects in the 1990s.
Human trafficking and human smuggling: Migrants displaced through deception or coercion with purpose of their exploitation fall under this category. The data on such forced migration are limited since the activities involved are clandestine in nature. While migration of this nature is well covered for male migrants, same cannot be said for their female counterparts as the market situation for them might be unscrupulous; the International Labour Organization considers trafficking an offence against labor protection and denies them the opportunity of utilizing their resources for their country. ILO’s Multilateral Framework includes principle no. 11 that recommends, "Governments should formulate and implement, in consultation with the social partners, measures to prevent abusive practices, migrant smuggling and people trafficking. Slavery: History's greatest forced migration was the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade during the 15th through the 19th centuries. Of the 20 million Africans captured for the trade, half died in their forced march to the A
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo, was an Italian theatre and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films Ossessione, Senso and His Brothers, The Leopard and Death in Venice. Luchino Visconti was born into a prominent noble family in Milan, one of seven children of Giuseppe Visconti di Modrone, Duke of Grazzano Visconti and Count of Lonate Pozzolo, his wife Carla, he was formally known as Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, his family is a branch of the Visconti of Milan. In his early years, he was exposed to art and theatre: he studied cello with the Italian cellist and composer Lorenzo de Paolis and met the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. During World War II, Visconti joined the Italian Communist Party. Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality, his last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film The Damned. Berger appeared in Visconti's Ludwig in 1973 and Conversation Piece in 1974, along with Burt Lancaster.
Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli, who worked as part of the crew in production design, as assistant director, other roles in a number of Visconti's films and theatrical productions. Visconti smoked 120 cigarettes a day, he continued to smoke heavily. He died in Rome of another stroke at the age of 69. There is a museum dedicated to the director's work in Ischia, he began his filmmaking career as an assistant director on Jean Renoir's Toni and Partie de campagne through the intercession of their common friend Coco Chanel. After a short tour of the United States, where he visited Hollywood, he returned to Italy to be Renoir's assistant again, this time for La Tosca, a production, interrupted and completed by German director Karl Koch. Together with Roberto Rossellini, Visconti joined the salotto of Vittorio Mussolini. Here he also met Federico Fellini. With Gianni Puccini, Antonio Pietrangeli and Giuseppe De Santis, he wrote the screenplay for his first film as director: Ossessione, the first neorealist movie and an unofficial adaptation of the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.
In 1948, he directed La terra trema, based on the novel I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga. Visconti continued working throughout the 1950s, but he veered away from the neorealist path with his 1954 film, shot in colour. Based on the novella by Camillo Boito, it is set in Austrian-occupied Venice in 1866. In this film, Visconti combines romanticism as a way to break away from neorealism. However, as one biographer notes, "Visconti without neorealism is like Lang without expressionism and Eisenstein without formalism", he describes the film as the "most Viscontian" of all Visconti's films. Visconti returned to neorealism once more with Rocco e i suoi fratelli, the story of Southern Italians who migrate to Milan hoping to find financial stability. In 1961, he was a member of the jury at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival. Throughout the 1960s, Visconti's films became more personal. Il Gattopardo is based on Lampedusa's novel of the same name about the decline of the Sicilian aristocracy at the time of the Risorgimento.
It starred American actor Burt Lancaster in the role of Prince Don Fabrizio. This film was distributed in America and Britain by Twentieth-Century Fox, which deleted important scenes. Visconti repudiated the Twentieth-Century Fox version, it was not until The Damned that Visconti received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. The film, one of Visconti's better known works, concerns a German industrialist's family which begins to disintegrate during the Nazi consolidation of power in the 1930s, its decadence and lavish beauty are characteristic of Visconti's aesthetic. Visconti's final film was The Innocent, in which he returns to his recurring interest in infidelity and betrayal. Visconti was a celebrated theatre and opera director. During the years 1946 to 1960 he directed many performances of the Rina Morelli-Paolo Stoppa Company with actor Vittorio Gassman as well as many celebrated productions of operas. Visconti's love of opera is evident in the 1954 Senso, where the beginning of the film shows scenes from the fourth act of Il trovatore, which were filmed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.
Beginning when he directed a production at Milan's Teatro alla Scala of La vestale in December 1954, his career included a famous revival of La traviata at La Scala in 1955 with Maria Callas and an famous Anna Bolena in 1957 with Callas. A significant 1958 Royal Opera House production of Verdi's five-act Italian version of Don Carlos followed, along with a Macbeth in Spoleto in 1958 and a famous black-and-white Il trovatore with scenery and costumes by Filippo Sanjust at the Royal Opera House in 1964. In 1966 Visconti's luscious Falstaff for the Vienna State Opera conducted by Leonard Bernstein was critically acclaimed. On the other hand, his austere 1969 Simon Boccanegra with the singers clothed in geometrical costumes provoked controversy. Giorni di gloria, documentary, 1945 Appunti su un fatto di cronaca, short film, 1951 Siamo donne, 1953, episode Anna Magnani Boccaccio'70, 1962, based on the episode Il lavoro in Boccaccio's Decameron Le streghe, 1967, episode La strega bruciata viva Alla ricerca di Tadzio, TV movie, 1970 Notes Sources Ardoin, The Calla
Rome
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2, it is the country's most populated comune, it is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber; the Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been defined as capital of two states. Rome's history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe; the city's early population originated from a mix of Latins and Sabines.
The city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, is regarded by some as the first metropolis. It was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, the expression was taken up by Ovid and Livy. Rome is called the "Caput Mundi". After the fall of the Western Empire, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome fell under the political control of the Papacy, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance all the popes since Nicholas V pursued over four hundred years a coherent architectural and urban programme aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world. In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city.
In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city. In 2016, Rome ranked as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, the most popular tourist attraction in Italy, its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The famous Vatican Museums are among the world's most visited museums while the Colosseum was the most popular tourist attraction in world with 7.4 million visitors in 2018. Host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is the seat of several specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development; the city hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean as well as the headquarters of many international business companies such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo S.p. A. and national and international banks such as Unicredit and BNL.
Its business district, called EUR, is the base of many companies involved in the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, financial services. Rome is an important fashion and design centre thanks to renowned international brands centered in the city. Rome's Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies. According to the founding myth of the city by the Ancient Romans themselves, the long-held tradition of the origin of the name Roma is believed to have come from the city's founder and first king, Romulus. However, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was derived from Rome itself; as early as the 4th century, there have been alternative theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. Several hypotheses have been advanced focusing on its linguistic roots which however remain uncertain: from Rumon or Rumen, archaic name of the Tiber, which in turn has the same root as the Greek verb ῥέω and the Latin verb ruo, which both mean "flow". There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from 14,000 years ago, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.
Evidence of stone tools and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence. Several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age, each hill between the sea and the Capitol was topped by a village. However, none of them had yet an urban quality. Nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city developed through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine; this aggregation was facilitated by the increase of agricultural productivity above the subsistence level, which allowed the establishment of secondary and tertiary activities. These in turn boosted the development of trade with the Greek colonies of southern Italy; these developments, which according to archaeological ev
.jpg)
_(5856188558).jpg)
_(5855733721).jpg)
.jpg)
_(5855634417).jpg)
_(5855634035).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
