Word: rosi
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...that is what happens in an utterly mindless but totally endearing fairy tale, starring Omar Sharif as the prince and Sophia Loren as the girl. It was directed by Francesco Rosi, who is best known for his harrowing bullfight epic, The Moment of Truth. That anybody would bother these days to make so slender and fanciful a film is a miracle in itself; to do it with such a profusion of visual beauty is More than a Miracle. Which, by the way, is its title...
Critics have contended that Rosi's message in Moment of Truth amounts to a thorough disgust with bullfighting. I, for one, think his target is more specific. Rosi is clearly enraptured with the gracefulness of the sport, and he takes pains to elaborate on the courage of Miguelin which allows him to rise above the other would-be matadors. Rosi also seems to enjoy the ritual which goes along with every bullfight and which accounts for the extraordinary beauty of his film...
...Rosi is foremost a social critic, and I believe that modern bullfighting for him serves as one example of a malaise which he observes in present-day society. The thrust of his film is directed not against bullfighting per se, as evidenced by his highly sympathetic portrayal of an idealistic old matador, but against the kind of professionalism which Miguelin represents...
...Rosi, in other words, is attacking the Horatio Alger type of matador like Miguelin. Such a matador enters the ring for the first time late in adolescence and proceeds to tailor his style to the crowd. He has not grown up on a bull farm and he has little knowledge of the animal he must fight. Thus when the first wound comes, there is only the threat of the poorhouse to sustain him in the ordeal of his comeback...
...Rosi, then, is doing battle with pretension in Moment of Truth, the pretension which has made the ritual hollow and which allows such men as Miguelia into the bullring only to meet their tragic end. The candor and the earnestness which the director brings to the film perfectly counter-points his basic message. The elemental power which he achieves will very likely make you an aficionado of Francesco Rosi, if not of bullfighting itself...