In the final phase of his career, Italian master Roberto Rossellini embarked on a dramatic, daunting project: a series of politically minded televisions films about knowledge and history, made in an effort to teach, where the contemporary media was failing. Looking at the western world's major figures and moments, yet focusing on the small details of daily life, Rossellini was determined not to recount history but to bring it back to life, as it might have been, unadorned yet full of the drama of the everyday. In this selection of Rossellini's history films, Eclipse presents Blaise Pascal, the three-part The Age of the Medici, and Cartesius - works that don't just enliven the past but illuminate the ideas that brought us to where we are.
Films Included:
Blaise Pascal
Rossellini's daring outline of the life of religious philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-62), who argued for science and intellect amid an atmosphere of superstition and ignorance, is as visually spare as it is full of intimate drama.
French with Optional English subtitles
129 Minutes
The Age of The Medici
Rossellini's three-part series (The Exile of Cosimo, The Power of Cosimo, and Leon Battista Alberti) is like a Renaissance painting come to life, a portrait of fifteenth century Florence, ruled by the Medici political dynasty. With a lovely score from composer Manuel de Sica (son of Vittorio), the epic Medici films are important works on art, civilization, and politics.
Italian with Optional English Subtitles
255 Minutes, on two discs
Cartesius
Mathematician, scientist, and writer Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is relentlessly determined to establish the primacy of reason in Rossellini's portrait of the travails of the "father of modern philosophy." Cartesius is both entertaining and edifying, and directed with its filmmaker's unerring attention to quotidian detail.
Italian with Optional English Subtitles
162 Minutes
