Two Women

1960 DramaWar 100 minutes Directed by Vittorio De Sica

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About Two Women

Cesira, a widow who keeps a shop in Rome, leaves the bombing with her daughter Rosetta for Ciociaria. Giovanni stays behind to mind the shop. In the hills Rosetta grows close to Michele, a young intellectual. German soldiers take him, and he is killed. On the road back, Moroccan Goumiers in the French army rape mother and daughter in a church. In Rome, Rosetta goes off and comes back with stockings from an older boy. When she hears that Michele is dead, she breaks, and Cesira holds her.

Cast & crew

More about Two Women

Carlo Ponti produced Vittorio De Sica's film from Alberto Moravia's 1957 novel. Cesare Zavattini wrote the screenplay. De Sica's own writing credit is uncredited on some lists. Adriana Novelli edited. Titanus released it in Italy and Cocinor-Marceau in France. It opened in Milan on 22 December 1960.

Themes

  • A shopkeeper leaves Rome
  • Michele killed
  • Rape on the road home
  • Cesira
  • Rosetta
  • Ciociaria
  • Goumiers
  • Michele
  • Rome
  • 1944

Background

The film is set in 1943–44, when Allied bombing hit Rome and Goumier troops moved through rural Lazio.

Making

Loren's Best Actress Oscar was the first for a performance in a language other than English, and the first for an Italian actress in an Italian-language film.

Look

Gábor Pogány was the cinematographer.

Music

Armando Trovajoli wrote the score.

Preservation

Senses of Cinema records decades of public-domain prints, then a digital remaster in 2017.

Notes

  • The Italian title La ciociara means a woman from Ciociaria.
  • Sophia Loren plays Cesira, Eleonora Brown plays Rosetta, Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Michele, and Raf Vallone plays Giovanni.
  • France recorded 2,030,033 admissions. Italy recorded 9,662,000.
  • Joseph E. Levine pushed the film on the American art-house circuit. Loren dubbed her own English-language version.
  • Senses of Cinema notes that legal slips put the film in the public domain for decades, until a 2017 digital remaster.
  • The story uses the Marocchinate, attacks on civilians in Lazio in 1944.

Awards

  • Academy Award for Best Actress (Sophia Loren)
  • Cannes Film Festival Best Actress (Sophia Loren)
  • BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress (Sophia Loren)
  • David di Donatello for Best Actress (Sophia Loren)
  • Nastro d'Argento for Best Actress (Sophia Loren)
  • New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (Sophia Loren)
  • Bambi Award for Best Actress, International (Sophia Loren)
  • Sant Jordi Award for Best Performance in a Foreign Film (Sophia Loren)
  • Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language
  • Blue Ribbon Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Vittorio De Sica)

Scenes

  • Cesira and Rosetta take shelter in Ciociaria while Michele is still with them.
  • In a church on the way back to Rome, Goumier soldiers attack the mother and the daughter.

Influenced by

  • Alberto Moravia's Two Women (1957)

Also available

  • Internet Archive (two.-women.-1960.1080p.)