Viva L’Italia is a well made, albeit government-sponsored, biopic on Giuseppe Garbaldi, and shows off strong performances and rich production and costume designs.
Viva L’Italia
(1961)
Genre(s): Drama, History
Arrow Academy | NR – 129 min. – $34.95 | January 30, 2018
Date Published: 02/04/2018 | Author: The Movieman
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ABOUT THIS RELEASE |
| To celebrate the centenary of Italy, the Italian government commissioned Roberto Rossellini to make a biopic of Guiseppe Garibaldi, one that would follow his exploits with ‘the Thousand’ and their role in the country’s unification. Rossellini presents a spectacle-filled recreation of the period, while maintaining the approach of his earlier The Flowers of St. Francis, presenting his characters in neo-realist mode. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 2.5/5 |
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Along with a 22-page booklet, this comes with reversible cover artwork. The features aren’t exactly plentiful, but does include Garibaldi, the alternate shorter cut of the film originally prepared for the US market; a new Interview with Ruggero Deodato, Roberto Rossellini’s assistant on the film; and “I Am Garibaldi” Visual Essay by Tag Gallagher. |
VIDEO – 4.25/5, AUDIO – 3.75/5 |
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Arrow Academy distributes Viva L’Italia onto Blu-ray presented in its original 1.66 widescreen aspect ratio and a 1080p high-definition transfer. The picture did undergo restoration where the original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 2K resolution and where thousands of instances of dirt, debris and scratches were repaired or removed. This indeed does look fantastic showing off excellent detail and colors are fairly robust. The Italian and English PCM Mono tracks also were restored using the optical sound track negative. It’s not entirely vigorous or anything but does output dialogue rather nicely and even the action scenes come through the center channel with fine depth. |
OVERALL – 3.25/5 |
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Overall, Viva L’Italia is a well made, albeit government-sponsored, biopic on Giuseppe Garbaldi, and shows off strong performances and rich production and costume designs. This Blu-ray release from Arrow Academy includes good video/audio transfers and an okay selection of features. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.