Film Screening
The Earth Trembles (La terra trema)

Although Luchino Visconti initially conceived The Earth Trembles (1948) as a documentary, he ultimately made a fictional film about a rural Sicilian fishing family and their daily challenges in overcoming poverty and exploitation. Like films by other Italian neorealists, Visconti’s were influenced by the documentary form—as seen, for example, in Man of Aran, a 1934 production by groundbreaking ethnographic filmmaker Robert Flaherty, which depicts a fishing family on Ireland’s Aran Islands. The director of photography was G.R. Aldo, who had worked as a studio and set photographer in France, and who was also DP on Visconti’s Umberto D and Senso. 160 min. In Italian with English subtitles. Introduced by Pegi Vail, Center for Media, Culture and History, NYU, with short clips from Man of Aran.

Co-sponsored by NYU’s Center for Media, Culture and History; Department of Cinema Studies; Glucksman Ireland House; and Grey Art Gallery.