ITALIAN MOVIE DIRECTOR
FRANCESCO ROSI

One of the foremost filmmakers of Italy's postwar period, Francesco Rosi began as assistant director for Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema (l948) and went on to take neo-realism in important new directions. He is the founder of the cinema politico genre in Italy, where the collusion between the state, economic special interests, and organized crime was subject to unrelenting critical scrutiny. Though still concerned with socio-political themes, his cinema moved into a more lyrical, aesthetically rich mode in the late l970's, including adaptations of literary works (Carlo Levi's Christ Stopped At Eboli, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle Of A Death Foretold), and even opera (Bizet's Carmen). His most recent film, an adaptation of Primo Levi's post-Holocaust saga, La Tregua (The Truce) is the culmination of his historical-political and artistic development to date.