THE MIRACLE Movie Review

Ways of Love

The great Anna Magnani is the peasant woman who believes that her pregnancy by a shepherd will produce a holy offspring. That the shepherd is played by Federico Fellini (who wrote the story on which the film is based) is but one of the many extraordinary aspects of Roberto Rossellini's stunning, 43-minute parable; The Miracle may have generated more controversy per minute of running time than any motion picture ever made. It was the subject of major censorship battles in many countries, including the U.S., where the Supreme Court finally upheld the public's right to see the film. What was lost in some of the controversy is what an exquisite and delicate piece of filmmaking it is, and how, in its unconventional way, the film is an enormously sensitive and highly reverent piece of work. (Echoes of the film can be found in the “miracle” sequence in Fellini's later La Dolce Vita.)

NEXT STOP … Open City, The Flowers of St. Francis, La Dolce Vita

1948 43m/B IT Anna Magnani, Federico Fellini; D: Roberto Rossellini; W: Federico Fellini. VHS NOS, FCT, HEG