La terra trema: Episodio del mare (1948)

Director:

Luchino Visconti

Writers:

Antonio Pietrangeli (dialogue)
Antonio Pietrangeli (screenplay)

Release Date:

1957 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.

Plot Keywords:

Sicilian | Boat | Sicily | Fish | Fishermen

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

  (Cast)

Antonio Arcidiacono	...	Ntoni (uncredited)
Giuseppe Arcidiacono	...	Cola (uncredited)
Venera Bonaccorso	...	La vecchia che ride (uncredited)
Nicola Castorino	...	Nicola (uncredited)
Rosa Catalano	...	Rosa (uncredited)
Rosa Costanzo	...	Nedda (uncredited)
Alfio Fichera	...	Michele (uncredited)
Carmela Fichera	...	La baronessa (uncredited)
Rosario Galvagno	...	Don Salvatore, il maresciallo dei carabinieri (uncredited)
Agnese Giammona	...	Lucia (uncredited)
Nelluccia Giammona	...	Mara (uncredited)
Giovanni Greco	...	(uncredited)
Ignazio Maccarone	...	Maccarone (uncredited)
Giovanni Maiorana	...	Un bambino (uncredited)
Antonino Micale	...	Vanni (uncredited)
Maria Micale	...	La madre (uncredited)
Concettina Mirabella	...	(uncredited)
Angelo Morabito	...	Un cliente dell'osteria (uncredited)
Pasquale Pellegrino	...	Pescatore (uncredited)
Amilcare Pettinelli	...	Voce narrante (uncredited)
Antonio Pietrangeli	...	Voce narrante (uncredited)
Alfio Valastro	...	Bandiera (uncredited)
Antonino Valastro	...	Pandolla (uncredited)
Francesco Valastro	...	Afro (uncredited)
Lorenzo Valastro	...	Lorenzo (uncredited)
Raimondo Valastro	...	Raimondo (uncredited)
Salvatore Valastro	...	Il pignoratore (uncredited)
Santo Valastro	...	Santo (uncredited)
Sebastiano Valastro	...	Il padre (uncredited)
Giuseppe Vicari	...	Piccola (uncredited)
Salvatore Vicari	...	Alfio (uncredited)
Luchino Visconti	...	Voce narrante (uncredited)

Also Known As:

La terra trema: Episodio del mare
The Earth Trembles
The Earth Will Tremble

Runtime:

160 min | France:152 min | Germany:92 min (video version)

Country:

Italy

Language:

Sicilian | Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:S | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Aci Trezza, Aci Castello, Catania, Sicily, Italy

Company:

Universalia Film

Trivia:

When financing fell through, Visconti was forced to sell some of his mother's jewelry and one of the family's apartments in Rome to finish the film.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Scorsese on Scorsese (2004) (TV)

Little more than drab, disguised propaganda

Is it a Neorealism drama about the tough lives of poor fishermen and their families in a small Sicilian village or a documentary about the Law of Murphy?

Everything bad that could happen to Antonio's family here, does happen; the collective misery is not enough, each family member must have their own personal plight as well, and by the end of the movie everything is back the way it was when it started, except Cola, Lord knows what was he up to, concretely. Don't you think this is a story about fighting for survival toward hardship or one's rights or that Visconti was trying a new movement of Neopessimism. Despite some laughably evil wholesalers, "La Terra Trema" is a pro-Communism movie and everything in it seems just a build-up for the propagandistic message. The reason why that's annoying is because it initially sets out to do something very different that it actually turns out to be, and so the viewer feels kind of cheated.

Sure, that was sixty years ago, you can get over it now. But the movie itself is timelessly dull.

It is beautifully filmed though.