e-borghi travel 10, Cinema and villages

“The Great Beauty”. The cult motion picture by Paolo Sorrentino is much more than a movie, it’s an anthology of oral and visual aphorisms that turn the movie into pure aesthetics where the contents and the form are perfectly overlapped. The same spirit features the Italian villages whose beauty becomes the set of full movies or single scenes, the backstage which is the protagonist of this issue of e-borghi travel: we paid homage to the landscapes through the cinema because they are part of a shared memory. It’s a connection that was born with the Neo-realism, it left the theatres and entered into an International film production. Starting with the Medieval village of Bevagna, in Umbria, the list of movies, TV movies and fictional stories that have been set here is very long. Paul Verhoeven, the director of “Basic Instinct” shot “Blessed Virgin” in Bevagna, the movie is going to be released at the end of 1999 with the name of “Benedetta”. Along the Ionian coastline of Calabria we’ll lead you at the discovery of Le Castella: the scenes of some of the most famous Italian movies like “The incredible army of Brancaleone” that was awarded with three silver Ribbons and the “Gospel according to Matthew” by Pier Paolo Paolini where shot around the massive Aragon stronghold of Le Castella. So Calabria becomes a stage region and emphasises the connection between the landscape and the characters. We continued our journey towards Craco in Basilicata where the horizon is a rugged series of hills and valleys: the scene of Judah’s hanging from "The Passion" written and directed by Mel Gibson was shot there as well as other famous movies like "Christ stopped at Eboli" by Francesco Rosi. The “tasty week-end” is focused on a sort movie tour in the area of Mantua where “Novecento”, the masterpice by Bernardo Bertolucci was set. On the other hand, beyond the border, the attention has been focused on Great Britain where the first moving images were developed on a film in London in 1889. This e-borghi travel issue dedicated to the art week is the container of special effects to be read and to be discovered. It’s not by chance that the outsider Claude Lelouch stated «Cinema is for all those whose curiosity is the greatest flaw».

Luciana Francesca Rebonato
Publishing Editor