General Della Rovere

General della Rovere
Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Written by Sergio Amidei
Starring Vittorio De Sica
Hannes Messemer
Release date
 September 1959 (1959-09) (VIFF)
7 October 1959 (1959-10-07)
Running time
 138 minutes
Country Italy
France
Language Italian
German
Hebrew

General della Rovere (Italian: Il generale Della Rovere) is a 1959 Italian film directed by Roberto Rossellini. The film is based on a novel by Indro Montanelli which was in turn based on a true story.

Plot

The film tells the story of a petty thief Emmanuele Bardone (played by Vittorio De Sica) who is hired by the Nazis to impersonate an Italian resistance leader, General della Rovere, and infiltrate a group of resistance prisoners in a Milan prison. Gradually, Bardone loses himself in his role and not merely pretends to be a hero of the resistance but actually becomes one, first encouraging his fellow prisoners to show courage and eventually accepting death by firing squad rather than betraying another imprisoned resistance leader.

Cast

Awards

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Cultural influences

The transformation of Emmanuele Bardone, the film's protagonist, from a Nazi collaborator into a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance, has been compared by Spanish political commentators to the life story of Adolfo Suárez, the Spanish prime minister who oversaw the dismantling of the Franco regime in the late 1970s. In particular, Javier Cercas devotes the last chapter of The Anatomy of a Moment[1] to exploring the parallels between Bardone and Suarez.

References

  1. ↑ Cercas, Javier (2011). The Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty-five Minutes in History and Imagination (1st U.S. ed.). New York: Bloomsbury. pp. 310–314. ISBN 978-1-60819-491-9.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.