Country: Italy
Year: 1957
Duration: 105'
Squarciò is a poacher who practices dynamite fishing; he lives with his family in a house he built through his own efforts and he clashes with the other village fishermen, friends, and childhood companions who are trying to organize themselves in a cooperative. Resolute and anarchic, Squarciò is a fascinating man of the sea and a family man, but in the end he is solitary, crushed between his battles and his risky livelihood.
Biography
film director
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo (Pisa, Italy, 1919 - Rome, Italy, 2006) after starting his career with a few documentaries in the early 1950s, he made his feature debut with La grande strada azzurra (1957). Pane e zolfo received the Best Documentary Award at the Karlovy Vary Festival in 1959. He followed it up with Kapò (1961) and its Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film. His most famous film, The Battle of Algiers (1966), received three Academy nominations, a Golden Lion and the FIPRESCI Prize in Venice. He received an award for Best Director at the David di Donatello for Queimada (1969), and again for Ogro (1979). He became one of the curators of the Venice Film Festival in 1992, and directed it in 1996 and 1997. During that time, he also participated to the Torino Film Festival in 1995 with the ensemble short Roma dodici novembre 1994, receiving a Special Mention.
FILMOGRAFIA
Missione Timiriazev (doc., 1953), Giovanna (cm, 1955), La grande strada azzurra (1957), Gli uomini del lago (cm, doc., 1959), Pane e zolfo (doc., 1959), Kapò (1960), La battaglia di Algeri (1966), Queimada (1969), Ogro (1979), L’addio a Enrico Berlinguer (doc., 1984), 12 registi per 12 città (coregia/codirectors aa.vv., 1989), Roma dodici novembre 1994 (coregia/codirectors aa.vv., cm, doc., 1995), Un altro mondo è possibile (coregia/codirectors aa.vv., doc., 2001), Firenze, il nostro domani (coregia/codirectors aa.vv., doc., 2003).
Declaration
film director
“Maybe the film should have been harsher, truer, terser in everything, just like there was supposed to be that odor of truth which I think is in all my other movies and which can only occasionally be sensed here in this film. I shot La lunga strada azzurra very quickly and on a very limited budget. I was always working between two fires: the crazy and unrepeatable love you always have for your first movie; and, on the other hand, anger at not being able to do what I wanted.”
Cast
& Credits
gillo pontecorvo
LA GRANDE STRADA AZZURRA
Italia-Francia-Germania-Jugoslavia/Italy-France-Germany-Yugoslavia, 1957, 105’, col.
la grande strada azzurra
regia/director
Gillo Pontecorvo
soggetto/story
dal romanzo/from the novel Squarciò di/by Franco Solinas
sceneggiatura/screenplay
Franco Solinas, Ennio De Concini, Gillo Pontecorvo
fotografia/cinematography
Mario Montuori
montaggio/film editing
Eraldo Da Roma
scenografia/production design
Piero Gherardi, Mirko Lipužič
costumi/costume design
Lucia Mirisola
musica/music
Carlo Franci
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Yves Montand (Squarciò), Alida Valli (Rosetta), Francisco Rabal (Salvatore), Federica Ranchi (Diana), Umberto Spadaro (il maresciallo/marshal), Peter Carsten (il comandante di capitaneria/coast guard officer)
produttore/producer
Maleno Malenotti
produzione/production
GE.S.I. Cinematografica
**
contatti/contacts
Museo Nazionale del Cinema
cineteca@museocinema.it
www.museocinema.it
LA GRANDE STRADA AZZURRA
Italia-Francia-Germania-Jugoslavia/Italy-France-Germany-Yugoslavia, 1957, 105’, col.
la grande strada azzurra
regia/director
Gillo Pontecorvo
soggetto/story
dal romanzo/from the novel Squarciò di/by Franco Solinas
sceneggiatura/screenplay
Franco Solinas, Ennio De Concini, Gillo Pontecorvo
fotografia/cinematography
Mario Montuori
montaggio/film editing
Eraldo Da Roma
scenografia/production design
Piero Gherardi, Mirko Lipužič
costumi/costume design
Lucia Mirisola
musica/music
Carlo Franci
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Yves Montand (Squarciò), Alida Valli (Rosetta), Francisco Rabal (Salvatore), Federica Ranchi (Diana), Umberto Spadaro (il maresciallo/marshal), Peter Carsten (il comandante di capitaneria/coast guard officer)
produttore/producer
Maleno Malenotti
produzione/production
GE.S.I. Cinematografica
**
contatti/contacts
Museo Nazionale del Cinema
cineteca@museocinema.it
www.museocinema.it
