Generale Della Rovere, Il (1959)
General Della Rovere
Director: Roberto Rossellini – Story: Indro Montanelli – Screenplay: Indro Montanelli, Fiego Fabbri, Sergio Amidei – Director of photography: Carlo Carlini – Film editor: Cesare Cavagna – Production design: Piero Zuffi – Set decoration: Elio Costanzi – Costume design: Piero Zuffi – Music: Renzo Rossellini – Production: Zebra Film – Country: Italy/France - Running time: 132’
Cast: Vittorio De Sica (Giovanni Bertone), Hannes Messemer (Colonel Müller), Vittorio Caprioli (Aristide Banchelli), Nando Angelini (Paolo), Herbert Fischer (Walter Hageman), Maria Greco (Vera the Madam), Bernardino Menicacci (screw), Lucia Modugno (partisan), Luciano Pigozzi (the dustman prisoner), Giuseppe Rossetti (Fabrizio), Linda Veras (German woman), Kurt Polter (Müller Assistant), Leopoldo Valentini (Giuseppe Di Castro), Roberto Rossellini (Man in the waiting room of Kommandantur), Giovanna Ralli (Valeria)
The film:
“I don’t need any schemes or habits when I shoot a movie. The inspiration, for me, is coming on the spot. For example, my work on the script of General Della Rovere, has consisted of drawing the lines of the plot broadly and imagining very closely the character of the protagonist. Before shooting, I don’t have any preconceived ideas; it is the first frame that determines the whole film.”
[Roberto Rossellini, 1959]
The film restoration:
The restoration of Il generale Della Rovere was conducted by Minerva RaroVideo Group and the Cineteca Nazionale with the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino and the Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee della Biennale di Venezia, on the occasion of the Roberto Rossellini Birth Centenary.
The restored print is congruent with the original version which was distributed in the movie theater in 1959 (3.606 meter-long; 132 minutes). The photochemical restoration was based on the original negative print with optical soundtrack. The film was remastered and restored in high definition at the LVR laboratory with the technical supervision of Aldo Strappini (Minerva RaroVideo Group) and Roberto Taruffi (Cineteca Nazionale), with the expert advice of Adriano Aprà and the contribution of Sergio Bruno (Cineteca Nazionale).
The restoration was carried out in 2006 at the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna and it was presented as a preview at the 63rd Venice Film Festival.
The Minerva RaroVideo Group published a DVD of the restored film, featuring extra material such as a presentation of the restoration and an interview with Adriano Aprà and Renzo Rossellini.
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