Luchino Visconti's second film (following Ossessione) is a monumental work combining elements of neorealism with a lyricism that Andr?Bazin has termed "operatic." Shot in the Sicilian village of Acitrezza, it is the story of fishermen trying to free themselves from the poverty forced on them by exploitative wholesalers. The Valastro family, led by the impassioned young N'toni, attempt to overcome this oppression. In a climactic scene, N'toni leads the workers in seizing the wholesalers' scales, symbols of te capitalists' injustice, and hurling them into the sea. The importance of La Terra Trema as a work of art goes beyond the political aspects of the story itself: not only is the film shot on real locations, but all the roles are enacted by inhabitants of the village, who eloquently portray their lives for the camera. They speak more or less spontaneously in their own Sicilian dialect, Visconti often simply explaining to them the mood or content of a scene rather than having them memorize lines. By contrast, as film historian Georges Sadoul notes, "Visconti planned many of his shots very carefully in advance and draws from G. R. Aldo's photography an almost classical visual quality." Hailed by critics at the Venice Film Festival in 1948, La Terra Trema was a box office failure in Italy; it was cut for release and its Sicilian dialect suppressed. (We present the original version.)