Word: realism
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DIED. MICHAEL GAZZO, 71, actor, playwright and screenwriter; of complications from a stroke; in Los Angeles. Gazzo's A Hatful of Rain was a mid-'50s stage hit that depicted a drug-addicted Korean War veteran with sympathy and, for its time, compelling realism. The work enjoyed a second life as a praised film in 1957. Gazzo's screenplays included the Elvis Presley vehicle King Creole. Gazzo also made his mark in front of the cameras, portraying a succession of screen heavies and winning an Oscar nomination in 1974 for his appearance as the turncoat mobster Frank Pentangeli...
...temptation to call "The Secret of Roan Inish" an outrageous bit of Irish Blarney is difficult to resist. This movie swings from realism to fantasy as it portrays the shenanigans of an isolated family in Northwest Ireland when they start believing their own far-fetched lore...
Unfortunately, the audience can't always comply. The audience accepts, for example, that Fiona's ancestors were half-seal, but cannot accept that two children are able to completely refurbish a cottage in a single summer. The transitions between realism and fantasy in this movie are not smooth enough for the audience to tolerate both...
...Secret of Roan Inish" succeeds if viewed as a myth, the kind of far-fetched tale for which Ireland is reknown. Its problems arise only when director John Sayles is unwilling to let it be just that. The movie's realism leaves the audience unsure how to react when the more fantastic elements take over...
...film features one-time prostitute Mamma Roma (played by Anna Magnani, one of the most popular actresses of neo-realism, with whom Pasolini had ideological as well as artistic disputes, but who nonetheless plays exquisitely what she had called "the most important role I have played so far"). After her former pimp, Carmine (Franco Citti), marries a well-to-do lady from the countryside, Mamma Roma attempts to lead a respectable life, selling vegetables in an open air Roman market. More importantly, she brings her son, Ettore (Ettore Garofolo), to Rome, with the hopes of providing him a good education...