Freely adapted from Cesare Pavese’s novel, Tra Donne Sole (1949), the film opens with a long, slow pan across Turin from above which ends, fatally, on the Mole Antonelliana, the most symbolic of the city skyline’s architectural features. Clelia has returned to Piedmont’s capital to open a branch of the fashion business she worked for in Rome. The very central Piazza San Carlo is the setting for Clelia’s meeting with Carlo. They are later joined by Cesare Pedoni, the architect commissioned to design the atelier which is located close by, beneath the portico with granite columns, at 282 via Roma.
The three meet again at Caffè Torino, a long-established bar-restaurant on the city’s main square and a meeting place for intellectuals during the Risorgimento, whose statues, expensive marbles and plasterwork decorations are still intact today. Antonioni shot both inside the famous cafè with its extravagant mirrors and chandeliers, and outside, following Clelia as she walks through the porticoes after an animated discussion with the architect. She is being followed by him, hoping to make peace with her, and by Carlo: behind them is the piazza, identified by its porticoed buildings and the central equestrian statue of Emanuel Philibert of Savoy (Carlo Marochetti, 1838), with the Duke sheathing his sword after victory in the Battle of San Quintino on 10 August 1557.
In the central part of the story, Clelia and Carlo go to a shop in the porticoed arcade of Piazza della Repubblica to choose furniture for the atelier. Leaving there, they stroll through the surrounding area where Clelia comments, somewhat melancholically, on the neighbourhood of her childhood, showing Carlo courtyards and residential buildings, until they reach Piazza Don Paolo Albera. Shooting moved a little further south to a restaurant on the corner of Via Conte Verde and largo IV Marzo for the dinner which follows the successful first fashion show and features most of the cast.
The River Po is a constant presence throughout the film, whether glimpsed through the windows of a restaurant, or the setting for important scenes, for example for Rosetta’s declaration of love to Lorenzo, the failed painter who can’t handle the success of his wife, Nene, and who has painted her portrait. The scene takes place in Corso Achille Mario Dogliotti, very close to the riverbank. In another sequence, the lovers walk through the gardens of Piazza Cavour, stopping at a little sweet stall and the Monument to Carlo Felice Nicolis, Count Robilant, Risorgimento politician and diplomat, by Giacomo Ginotti (1896-1900). The building in the background of the scene is taller today than it was in 1955 as two storeys have been added. The river features again in Rosetta’s decision to kill herself, her state of mind having been central to much of the film. Her suicide takes place in its waters although the moment is described visually only when her body is recovered on the Murazzi of the River Po, recognisable thanks to the wide staircases that bridge the difference with the higher Lungo Po Armando Diaz.
A fact worth noting is that her first suicide attempt, which takes place off-screen at the start of the film and causes her admittance to hospital, was shot in the Hospital San Filippo Neri on via Trionfale in Rome. Equally far from Turin is the seaside trip, a key scene, which was a significant addition made by Antonioni and splendidly written for the screen by Suso Cecchi d’Amico. While the place is not clearly identified, the characters take a short train ride to a location on the Tyrrhenian Sea near the Pontine city of Sabaudia.
Freely adapted from Cesare Pavese’s novel, Tra Donne Sole (1949), the film opens with a long, slow pan across Turin from above which ends, fatally, on the Mole Antonelliana, the most symbolic of the city skyline’s architectural features. Clelia has returned to Piedmont’s capital to open a branch of the fashion business she worked for in Rome. The very central Piazza San Carlo is the setting for Clelia’s meeting with Carlo. They are later joined by Cesare Pedoni, the architect commissioned to design the atelier which is located close by, beneath the portico with granite columns, at 282 via Roma.
The three meet again at Caffè Torino, a long-established bar-restaurant on the city’s main square and a meeting place for intellectuals during the Risorgimento, whose statues, expensive marbles and plasterwork decorations are still intact today. Antonioni shot both inside the famous cafè with its extravagant mirrors and chandeliers, and outside, following Clelia as she walks through the porticoes after an animated discussion with the architect. She is being followed by him, hoping to make peace with her, and by Carlo: behind them is the piazza, identified by its porticoed buildings and the central equestrian statue of Emanuel Philibert of Savoy (Carlo Marochetti, 1838), with the Duke sheathing his sword after victory in the Battle of San Quintino on 10 August 1557.
In the central part of the story, Clelia and Carlo go to a shop in the porticoed arcade of Piazza della Repubblica to choose furniture for the atelier. Leaving there, they stroll through the surrounding area where Clelia comments, somewhat melancholically, on the neighbourhood of her childhood, showing Carlo courtyards and residential buildings, until they reach Piazza Don Paolo Albera. Shooting moved a little further south to a restaurant on the corner of Via Conte Verde and largo IV Marzo for the dinner which follows the successful first fashion show and features most of the cast.
The River Po is a constant presence throughout the film, whether glimpsed through the windows of a restaurant, or the setting for important scenes, for example for Rosetta’s declaration of love to Lorenzo, the failed painter who can’t handle the success of his wife, Nene, and who has painted her portrait. The scene takes place in Corso Achille Mario Dogliotti, very close to the riverbank. In another sequence, the lovers walk through the gardens of Piazza Cavour, stopping at a little sweet stall and the Monument to Carlo Felice Nicolis, Count Robilant, Risorgimento politician and diplomat, by Giacomo Ginotti (1896-1900). The building in the background of the scene is taller today than it was in 1955 as two storeys have been added. The river features again in Rosetta’s decision to kill herself, her state of mind having been central to much of the film. Her suicide takes place in its waters although the moment is described visually only when her body is recovered on the Murazzi of the River Po, recognisable thanks to the wide staircases that bridge the difference with the higher Lungo Po Armando Diaz.
A fact worth noting is that her first suicide attempt, which takes place off-screen at the start of the film and causes her admittance to hospital, was shot in the Hospital San Filippo Neri on via Trionfale in Rome. Equally far from Turin is the seaside trip, a key scene, which was a significant addition made by Antonioni and splendidly written for the screen by Suso Cecchi d’Amico. While the place is not clearly identified, the characters take a short train ride to a location on the Tyrrhenian Sea near the Pontine city of Sabaudia.
Trionfalcine
A young woman returns to her hometown of Turin to open a fashion business. Here she starts dating a troubled woman and her friends.
