A friend's casual remark suddenly reminded me that I have never seen a movie with Anna Magnani. Now, I know who she was, but besides my friend (whose mother was a fan) I guarantee that none of my other friends, colleagues, acquaintances or proverbial man on the street would know her name. In her time, Magnani was one of the biggest international movie stars in the world and in fact the very first Italian actress to win Academy Award (I think she was the first Italian person, period) - but the dust of time has fallen over her work and she seems quite forgotten nowadays. What strikes me immediately is that in the post-WW2 Europe she was so highly respected for her talent and spirit, but everyone understood she was never a great beauty - that was not the point in actress of her calibre - and decades later, the industry has completely focused on a cellophane so now it is looks, diet, fitness and fashion that what we judge in actresses today - someone like Anna Magnani might not even get a chance today. Perhaps she lived in the time that was perfect for her, perhaps we all do.
"The Rose Tattoo" was a theatre play by Tennessee Williams and as expected, it happens in Mississippi, so the humidity and heat reflect the passions of the characters. Its a story about a jealous and passionate Italo-American housewife who becomes grieving widow and builds a shrine to her grief, in fact she wallows so much in her grief that it suffocates her young daughter and all the neighbourhood. Until young Sicilian truck driver comes her way and suddenly she wakes up from her slumber and becomes flirty indeed. Williams wrote the script himself and insisted Magnani should be casted as Serafina Delle Rose because in his opinion, she would be perfect. I didn't know what to expect at first and was watching Magnani being all theatrical and hysterical and her sexual obsession with her husband (that later grew into another kind of obsession as a widow) was almost like caffeinated Judy Garland - I even wondered, is this was audiences liked in the 1950s? Over the top women who were throwing themselves on the floor and tearing heir hair? Than suddenly, like clicking the fingers, drama becomes a comedy - at one point, when daughter's boyfriend came to visit, Magnani somehow switches from grieving widow into a earthy, sassy Italian mamma and from that moment the movie is all about her being sharp as a nail, while the world turns around her. I don't care about anybody else in the movie, specially not about Burt Lancaster as a feather-brained, lusty young Sicilian truck driver (he gives it his best, but I still think he was all wrong for the role) but my oh my, was she funny!
This was the very first time that I was watching Magnani so I still have to wrap my head around her art - she was not a great beauty, in fact she was not beauty at all - we could perhaps compare her somehow to great Bette Davis in a sense that both had charisma that rules the screen, but where Davis could have been dolled up to be a lady if necessary, Magnani was kind of tired, everyday face that we see behind the counters of the bakery or the supermarket's cash registers. Because she light up so much during her comedy scenes, I have impression she might have been great comedienne who was pigeonholed as dramatic actress too long? I know for sure that women loved her, probably because there was something really earthy, motherly and honest about her face - she was never a treat to other women, but probably represented one of them. Very interesting, because I can't think of any other actress whose looks was so defiantly unglamorous. We are now conditioned to associate term actress with beauty and looks, but Magnani is a completely different species - a serious actress. And a brilliant one. Must find more of her work.
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