This week’s MATM column comes from Paul Francis Matthew Zahl:

In January, Criterion/Eclipse released its long-awaited collection of Roberto Rossellini’s French/Italian tv movies from the early 70s. We just saw the “Blaise Pascal”. I cannot recommend this one highly enough — it’s easy to Net-Flix.

The humility and utter Christian power of the portrayal of Pascal, with Rossellini’s camera that never ever comments but lets the viewer interpret and feel the material, is moving. I think the final long scene, shot in one long take from one spot that is never interrupted, conveys the definition of Christian humility.

As usual with Rossellini, he leaves you on such a transcendent tragic (supernal) moment that it is almost unbearable. This “Pascal” is the opposite of glitz, and conveys what the Jansenists were about. In fact, I bet it is the only movie on Jansenism ever done that we could ever see. The actor, too, who portrays Pascal, is the image of what the saint actually looked like.

This is consummate.

The last two things that Rossellini did were a 12 hour television version of “Acts of the Apostles”, which is supposed to be very fine; and his odd and very zoom-lensish life of Christ entitled “The Messiah”. He died right after finishing the last, and no one knew whether to bury him as an Italian Red or as a devout Catholic. So they buried him in two different services…

COMMENTS

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3 responses to “Mockingbird At The Movies: Rossellini’s Blaise Pascal”

1. John Stamper says:

   02/21/2009 at 1:10 am

   Thanks Paul. I’ll add this to my queue. I’m a big fan of Pascal.

   Reply
2. PZ says:

   02/21/2009 at 1:43 pm

   May I just add that these late Rossellinis basically just set up the camera, and then record the people talking, and talking… and then talking again. The “Blaise Pascal” is the best of them, although the “Cartesius” informs us that Descartes became an Orangemen when he lived in the Netherlands.
   If you’re not quite in the mood for eight-hour history lessons, it is excellent news that R’s “General Della Rovere”, from 1953, is coming out in March from Criterion. ‘General’ is about imputation, how an unscrupulous swindler is conned into posing as a great hero of the Resistance in Nazi-occuped Turin; and actually becomes the hero.
   This movie is heavenly Mockingbird.

   Reply
3. dpotter says:

   02/21/2009 at 6:25 pm

   Thanks Paul…I am embarrassed that I know very little about Rossellini, I need to familiarize myself with his work. However, I think he may have also had a hand in shooting ‘Hell Town’ as well as Browder’s infamous ‘Mini Mall’ commercial, but I may be wrong about that.

   Reply