Volcano

Volcano—set, like Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli, on a volcanic island—was the film Magnani made with Hollywood director William Dieterle as a defiant gesture toward Rossellini, who had transferred his personal and professional allegiance from Magnani to Ingrid Bergman. It is a tale of cruel lives in a harsh landscape, with Magnani in an expressive performance as a prostitute sent by Neapolitan police back to the island of her birth, where she is shunned. “Magnani is the last of the great shameless emotionalists,” Dieterle commented. “You have to go back to the silent movies for that kind of acting.”