L'amore

An epigraph from Roberto Rossellini calls this two-part film “an homage to the art of Anna Magnani,” but “homage” may not be strong enough to describe a work so deeply in the actress’s thrall. Based on a play by Jean Cocteau, A Human Voice focuses intensely on the voice—and face—of Magnani, alone with the telephone, talking through the end of love. In The Miracle, Magnani is coarse, funny, and unsentimentally touching as a naive goatherd pregnant by a mysterious stranger whom she believes to be Saint Joseph (he is played by Federico Fellini, who cowrote the script).