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Did you happen to record Monty Python’s Flying Circus when it was shown on PBS back in the 1970s? Do you still have the tapes? Is there a If so, please write to me. Thank you! |
L’India vista da Rossellini(India Seen by Rossellini)
What little I know about this 16mm color documentary is that it
was shot simultaneously with Rossellini’s 35mm feature film, India — matri bhumi,
and that Rossellini returned to the Cinémathèque Française when the authorities
chased him out of India for his scandalous affair with his married scenarist, Sonali Sen Roy Dasgupta.
He still needed to finish shooting the 35mm feature (in studio sets in Europe),
but could only raise the funds by selling the 16mm footage to French television.
So he turned the raw 16mm color Kodachrome footage over to Tinto Brass to edit.
The result was a four-hour ten-part television series broadcast in black and white —
in Italy! — beginning in January 1958,
with Rossellini and the television host discussing the footage as it unspooled.
It was later broadcast on French television from January through August 1959,
with a French TV host interviewing Rossellini in French this time round,
under the title J’ai fait un beau voyage (I Had a Fine Trip).
This documentary has rarely been seen since that time.
We are offering a bounty for a good video of
L’India vista da Rossellini and of J’ai fait un beau voyage.
If you know where we can get these, write to us.
India — matri bhumi(Literal translation: India — Motherland)working title: India ’57 a.k.a. India ’58 a.k.a. India a.k.a. India—senza limiti (India without Limits, 1958) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This young guy is washing some elephants | Un esplosione di gioia |
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| Raimù the Monkey with his human |
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| Click on above images to enlarge. | |
 Paris: Editions Cercle d’Art, 1999 |
VIDEO COMPARISON | |
| Exceedingly rare French VHS issued by the Cinémathèque Française, taken from a dupe of the only known surviving print of the original version of the movie, which appears to have been matted to 1:1.66 at the lab (though the matting may have been done for the video transfer) | Japenese DVD of the Italian version, which retains the Academy 1:1.375 camera aperture |
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| Traditional music is played over the opening credits | Though some Italian prints retain the original backgrounds and music, the print used as the source for the Japanese DVD deletes the backgrounds and has no music at all during the opening credits |
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| For more than a quarter of a century now, I’ve so much wanted to see a genuine shadow-puppet play | |
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| Musical accompanists | |
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| First puppets, then musical accompanists, and now a circus — my kind of movie | |
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| Raimù’s talented new partner thrills the crowd. As for Raimù himself, he was given the most difficult, nuanced, and complex rôle in the film, and he arguably gives the finest, most affecting, and best-realized performance. He and his partner demonstrate beyond the shadow of any doubt that the average monkey is more skillful, more talented, more resourceful, more clever, and more entertaining than the brightest human. | |
| Produced by | Aniene Film, Rome Union Générale Cinématographique, Paris |
| with the aid of | Indian Films Development |
| Format | 1:1.375:1 designed for a 1:1.66 crop, though the current English-subtitled Italian-language print has the subtitles printed so low on the frame that cropping is out of the question • monaural |
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| The incomplete Italian version is available on DVD in Japan, with optional Japanese or Chinese subtitles. It’s in the North American/Japanese system, NTSC, but it’s coded Region 2, which will not play on most US/Canadian equipment. | |
