Rossellini conceived of his two-part film L'Amore as"an homage to the art of Anna Magnani." In return, Magnanigave him two of her finest performances. The Human Voice, Jean Cocteau'sone-character drama about a woman on the telephone to her unfaithfullover, has been described as "an opera without music." Fewother actresses (and what other director?) could both display and keepin check the naked emotions of Cocteau's frantic, fated romanticism.Jose Luis Guarner writes, "The camera draws back to show the womanalone and lost in her room when she thinks that she has been cut off,and her movements and gestures indicate clearly that her talking hasbeen useless. Her words have had no effect, and she is already condemnedto unremitting solitude. From here on, the interest is centered, not onthe dialogue, but on her face and what she does; her grief and sufferingare shown from a moral standpoint...(The film) becomes the pretext for adocumentary on a woman's suffering."