Valeria Zurlini essays

Valeria Zurlini essays BAM Cinematek recently chose to feature the films of Italian Director Valerio Zurlini. Zurlini isnt mentioned in many of the putative histories of Italian cinema, yet he is one of the most noteworthy Italian directors of all time. Zurlinis canon of films were most recently screened at The National Gallery of Art, in February of 2001, and have also been screened throughout Canada, and at The Pacific Cinematheque, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and Walter Reade Theater within the last two years. Valerio Zurlini was born in Bologna in 1926 to an affluent family. Prior to directing films, Zurlini studied both law and art history. Zurlini said that studying art helped him to develop an intuitive approach to the composition of images, and that going to the movies on a regular basis instilled in him an understanding of cinematic rhythm, presumably reinforced and deepened by his long-standing collaboration with composer Mario Nascimbene (Moller). Zurlini believed that art alone could provide insight into human nature, inspiration, truth and the possibility of redemption, since art endures long after its creator is gone. In relation to Italian film history, Zurlinis films fall in between Rossellini, de Sica, and Zavattinis Neorealism and Bertolucci and Belloccios Young Cinema. Neorealism came in the wake of the Liberation and post WWII democracy. Young Cinema, connected to the student revolt, would occur some twenty years after Neorealsim. As the Neorealists were filming their vision of how the world should be, (Moller) Zurlini was fighting with the Italian Liberation Corps from the fall of Mussolini in 1943 until the Liberation in 1945. Unfortunately for Zurlini, his films would fall in between these political events, and therefore be somewhat ignored outside of Europe. Zurlinis body of work consists of twelve short films and eight feature length films. four of his feature length films, and on...