Moments of Truth: Italian Cinema Classics

11/29/08 to 12/21/08

This small but mighty collection forms a tribute to neorealism and its inheritors in Italian cinema. Works by Rossellini, Fellini, Visconti, De Sica, Olmi, and others.

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  • Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, December 19

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Open City

    Saturday, November 29 8:00 PM
    A Rossellini/Magnani classic-as moving and agonizing today as it was in 1945.
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  • Umberto D.

    Sunday, November 30 5:15 PM
    De Sica's “simple, almost Chaplinesque story of a man fighting to preserve his dignity is even more moving for its firm grasp of everyday activities. . . . A truly great film.”-Chicago Reader
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  • The Battle of Algiers

    Friday, December 5 6:30 PM
    “Because of its perfect fusion of form and content, one of the most strikingly successful subversive films ever made.”-Amos Vogel
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  • Rocco and His Brothers

    Wednesday, December 10 7:00 PM
    A southern Italian family seeking a better life in Milan mirrors the transformation of postwar Italian society in Visconti's masterwork starring Alain Delon. “The emotional sweep of a Verdi opera and the narrative density of a 19th-century novel.”-N.Y. Times
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  • The Moment of Truth

    Saturday, December 13 6:30 PM
    Francesco Rosi's definitive cinematic treatment of bullfighting, “rendered with vivid brilliance by this uncommonly unsentimental director.”-Time Out
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  • Sandra

    Sunday, December 14 6:30 PM
    Visconti's mood piece is an Elektra story in a family haunted by secrets and the shadow of the Holocaust.
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  • Il Posto

    Thursday, December 18 6:30 PM
    Ermanno Olmi's humane and heartbreaking portrait of a young man embarking on his first job in Milan captures the alienation of the working world.
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  • The Fiancés

    Thursday, December 18 8:30 PM
    This love story prompted critic Stanley Kauffman to remark, “Olmi moves through film like a bird through the air.”
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  • Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

    Friday, December 19 8:45 PM
    Rarely shown, Elio Petri's suspense-thriller staring Gian Maria Volonté is a “potent study of power as pathology.”-Village Voice
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  • Zabriskie Point

    Saturday, December 20 6:30 PM
    Antonioni filmed the '60s war between radical and straight cultures in L.A. and Death Valley. “A sorrowing, stranger's-eye view of modern America.”-Time
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  • La dolce vita

    Sunday, December 21 3:00 PM
    A sell-out in our summer widescreen series, this Fellini masterpiece eddies around Marcello Mastroianni's definitive performance as a jaded reporter drawn to the decadence he sensationalizes.
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