L'Ultima Diva: Francesca Bertini
(The Last Star: Francesca Bertini)
Francesca Bertini was Italy's first film star and one of the greatest actresses of the early silent era. She has been described as “a combination of Sophia Loren and Maria Callas,” predating both by a generation. Gianfranco Mingozzi's delightful documentary portrait of Bertini, now in her nineties, shows her to be as feisty and capricious today as she was in her heyday, as she recounts her life in an interview intercut with clips from her surviving films. Bertini was still appearing in films as late as 1976, when she portrayed Burt Lancaster's sister in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900. But her most famous film remains Assunta Spina, a 1915 precurser to Italian Neorealism which she claims to have virtually directed, aided by director Gustavo Serena. The highlight of Mingozzi's tribute is an exploration of Assunta Spina, spiced with the comments of “the last diva” as she re-examines her role in the film and comments on her 23-year-old self: “What a profile she's got!”