THE ROSE TATTOO: Blu-ray re-issue (Paramount, 1955) Kino Lorber
Burt Lancaster
and Anna Magnani come a cropper in director, Daniel Mann’s The Rose Tattoo
(1955) another blistering descent into Tennessee Williams’ dystopian Southern
Gothic sincerely flawed humanity. No bones about it. Williams’ darkly
ritualized portraits of moral decay remain riveting fodder for the stage and
screen. Alas, still trying to assess the executive logic over at Paramount, photographing
the picture in B&W VistaVision – the studio’s patented motion picture
hi-fidelity widescreen format, as much of the mise en scene in The Rose
Tattoo takes place within the cramped and sweaty little Southern Florida
hovel of seamstress, Serafina Delle Rose (Magnani). With few exceptions to
‘open up’ Williams’ original stagecraft, all the pivotal drama takes place in
two rooms. And while Magnani manages to
navigate these claustrophobic interiors with a genuine voracity for the
expressively ravaged Serafina, the picture’s Achilles heel is Burt Lancaster’s
off-kilter caricature of earthy Italian truck driver, Alvaro Mangiacavallo. Lancaster
has taken his cue from the Chico Marx school of Little Italy stereotypes,
mercilessly to foot-stomp and pummel every loaded line of Williams’ dialogue
into a rare, but truly rancid pesto. It takes almost an hour before Lancaster’s
character intrudes on the tormented Serafina’s good will. But when Lancaster’s
Alvaro appears, he reveals what a cheap little imitation it is, butted against
Magnani’s real thing.
It likely helps,
Magnani's parentage and birthplace remained shrouded in mystery. Some sources
place her in Rome. But director, Franco Zeffirelli claims Magnani was born to
an Italian-Jewish mother and Egyptian father in Alexandria, Egypt. Magnani
acknowledged her parents’ marriage in Egypt, but held fast to Porta Pia as her
birthplace. Whatever the truth, Magnani learned Catholic contrition and piano
at a French convent school in Rome. And while Magnani’s grandparents lavished
her with praise and gifts, she preferred to ally with the tough kids on the
block, later adding, “I hate respectability. Give me the life of the
streets, of common people.” To pay
for her furthering education at Eleonora Duse Royal Academy of Dramatic Art,
Magnani hit the nightclub and cabaret circuit, earning the moniker, ‘the
Italian Édith Piaf’. Though she was never to formally study, her
instinctiveness ingratiated her to audiences almost by chance. Discovered by
Goffredo Alessandrini (later, her husband), Magnani played for some of Italy’s
most noteworthy directors, Nunzio Malasomma, Vittorio De Sica, Roberto
Rossellini and Luchino Visconti.
The Rose Tattoo is Magnani’s
American debut. Yet, despite winning high praise from critics, and a Best
Actress Academy Award, the picture was not a lucrative gateway to bigger and
better things in America. After only two more efforts in Hollywood, 1960’s The
Fugitive Kind, and 1969’s The Secret of Santa Vittoria, Magnani
retired from acting and returned to Italy, appearing only once more before the
cameras, this time for Federico Fellini in Roma (1972). The true majesty
in Magnani’s acting is intangibly indefinable. She is an entity of life itself,
expressing, with considerable ease and devout faith, some deeply tortured
wellspring of her own transgressive and raw sexuality, panged bitterness at
humanity, and, desperation to escape the chronic pain of existing. When she
smiles, it is with the radiant joy of a thousand suns. And when she weeps, it
truly is monsoon season on the screen. Never is there a moment in which these
titular highs or staggering lows devolves into even a flicker of affectation.
She simply ‘is’ in and of the moment, in tandem, earth-shatteringly vivacious
and tragic. It hurts to watch her. It is a pleasure to watch her. It is a
distinct and sublime joy to experience such a spellbinding presence on the
screen, strangely and only indirectly, to draw attention to herself. As such,
we feel for her alter ego almost as an afterthought, forgetting they are
extensions of Magnani – the woman.
Indeed,
Tennessee Williams was over-the-moon to have Magnani as his star, stating
publicly that she “…was magnificent as Serafina…as unconventional a woman as
I have known in or out of my professional world, and if you understand me at
all, you must know that in this statement I am making my personal estimate of
her honesty, which I feel was complete. She never exhibited any lack of
self-assurance, any timidity in her relations with that society outside of
whose conventions she quite publicly existed...she looked absolutely straight
into the eyes of whomever she confronted and during that golden time in which
we were dear friends, I never heard a false word from her mouth.”
Once having seen
Magnani in the screen’s Rose Tattoo it is difficult, if not entirely
impossible, to imagine Maureen Stapleton as Serafina on Broadway – the role she
originated as Magnani's English was deemed too rough around the edges at the
time Williams launched his stagecraft. And while Magnani towers in the film
version, there are at least two other performances in the picture worth noting.
The first belongs to Marisa Pavan as Rosa Delle Rose, Serafina’s daughter,
struggling to be free of her father’s reputation and her mother’s bitterly
ruptured piety and passion. The twin sister of Pier Angeli, Pavan – 90-yrs.
young and still very much with us - entered into a Paramount contract without
any formal training. Although her American debut preceded Magnani’s by nearly 3
years, Pavan’s success in The Rose Tattoo likewise earned her an Oscar
nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She lost to Jo Van Fleet in East of
Eden, but was similarly nominated and won the Golden Globe. And finally,
there is Hartford-born, Ben Cooper as Rosa’s shy and empathetic love interest,
Seaman Jack Hunter. A fresh-faced 22 at the time, Cooper’s efficiently
dispatched wholesomeness in The Rose Tattoo serves as a romantic bridge
by which the violated and now violently mistrusting Serafina is reminded, not
all who appear to genuinely love are merely out for all they can get. Largely
relegated to supporting roles in westerns thereafter, Cooper’s performance in The
Rose Tattoo is unpretentious and wholehearted, especially when he
acquiesces to Serafina’s demands to humble himself before the Holy Mother and
confide his lack of amorous experience to her.
We are
introduced to Serafina Delle Rose, a Sicilian seamstress, living in a sweaty
hovel near the Gulf of Mexico. Pregnant with their second child and furiously
devoted to her truck-driving husband, Rosario (Larry Chance), Serafina is too
blind to see Estelle Hohengarten (Virginia Grey) as Rosario’s lover. Estelle asks Serafina to make a silk
rose-colored shirt for her guy while she runs off to get a rose tattoo on her
chest to match Rosario’s. Despite Serafina’s quiet protestations he should
remain home this evening, Rosario departs and is killed when his truck
overturns and bursts into flames while attempting to elude police on a
smuggler’s run. When Father De Leo (Sandro Giglio) and a contingent of the
local women arrive to break the news, Serafina collapses and miscarries. Fast
track, three years later, and the once vibrant Serafina has become a veritable
recluse in her home, much to her daughter, Rosa’s embarrassment. While Father
De Leo and Rosa’s school teacher (Dorrit Kelton) desperately try to get
Serafina to come out of her shell, a local woman, Bessie (Jo Van Fleet) exposes
Rosario's infidelity for all to hear. Shamed, Serafina confronts Father De Leo
who refuses to corroborate or deny the claim. In the meantime, Rosa becomes
enamored with shy seaman, Jack Hunter who, under Serafina’s rigid
interrogation, confesses he is still a virgin. Serafina forces Jack to vow this
before a statue of the Virgin Mary, and further, to respect Rosa's innocence
from now on.
At a local fete,
Alvaro takes pity on Serafina’s enduring grief, driving her home in his banana
truck. To compensate his time, Serafina offers to sew his torn shirt. Serafina
also loans Alvaro the rose silk shirt. The two agree to a cordial détente later
in the afternoon. Unaware of its significance, Alvaro returns, having
impulsively tattooed a rose on his chest.
Disgusted, and believing this to be a blatant insult, Serafina attempts
to throw Alvaro out of her home, but then, demands he drive her to the seedy
nightclub where Rosario and Estelle first met and became lovers. Estelle
reveals her own tattoo to Serafina. The two women fight, but are pried loose
from one another by Alvaro, who takes Serafina home. Realizes her whole life’s
deification of Rosario to be a tragic lie Serafina destroys the urn containing
his ashes. She also invites Alvaro to visit her again. This time, he arrives
severely intoxicated. Humiliated, Serafina leaves Alvaro to sleep off his
drunken stupor on her sofa.
Returning home
in the middle of the night, Rosa is surprised by this stranger sleeping on the
sofa and Alvaro, still drunk, mistakes Rosa for Serafina, attempting to kiss
her. An outraged Serafina drives Alvaro from the house. But the following
morning, she is surprised to discover Alvaro seated atop of a boat mast outside
her home, playfully begging for forgiveness. Serafina and Rosa are embarrassed
by this public display. Jack returns, sincerely to ask for Rosa’s hand in
marriage. It is willingly given and the young couple rush off together to begin
their lives anew. Reconciling her own heart, Serafina calls Alvaro down from
his perch, putting the morbid curiosity of her neighbors to shame by suggesting
to Alvaro they ‘pick up’ where they left off the night before. As Serafina and
Alvaro enter the house, the player piano strikes up a lively tune, eclipsed by
their laughter.
Despite its
illustrious pedigree and Magnani’s luminous central performance, The Rose
Tattoo is a wet noodle on the screen. VistaVision does not enhance this
presentation and neither does Daniel Mann’s thoroughly static direction – too
cleverly devoted to the proscenium of Tennessee Williams’ original stagecraft.
While there are some interesting and occasionally vibrant vignettes scattered
throughout the picture, these never entirely gel into one cohesive and
narratively satisfying bit of passionately wrought conjecture and
contemplation. Rather than building on Magnani’s groundswell, the story just
seems to run on – and on – with intermittent splashes of brilliance arriving
well ahead of the thoroughly predictable dénouement. After the initial setup,
Mann just settles into the play without any pictorial embellishment to move the
plot along. The best moments revolve around the tug-o-war between Serafina,
Rosa and Jack’s burgeoning acceptance by Serafina as the man who will take over
from her. But again, it’s not enough to make The Rose Tattoo anything
better than a diverting and occasionally dull and stilted exercise in finding
love and understanding where only moments before each appeared to be in very
short supply.
The Rose Tattoo
gets reissued to Blu via Kino Lorber, cribbing from the identical transfer Paramount
peddled to Aussie indie label, ViaVision’s Imprint two years ago. Nothing to
see here, folks. The 1080p transfer is better than expected, but not nearly as
good as it might have been. Given this is VistaVision, the results here are
solid without ever rising to a level of impressiveness. This is an ‘old’ master,
marketed for third-party distribution without the added care applied to truly
make it outstanding. The grayscale has been solidly reproduced. Fine detail is
there. But again, it’s not as razor-sharp as it could have been. Age-related
artifacts are limited. The image is generally smooth but never entirely crisp.
One wishes Paramount had taken the high road here. The 2.0 mono is adequate for
this dialogue-driven plot. Extras include an audio commentary featuring Julie Kirgo and
Peter Hankoff. This replaces the one by Alan K. Rode on the ViaVision. We also
lose ViaVision’s featurette, featuring filmmaker, Rob Nilsson extoling the
virtues of Magnani’s acting. Bottom line: The Rose Tattoo on Blu is
recommended for fans of the grand Magnani. The Blu-ray is competently rendered.
Others may wish to steer clear of its languid melodrama. It’s just not that
good of a movie. Regrets.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
2.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
1
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