Bellissima (1952)
Directed by Luchino Visconti
Film director Blasetti is looking for a little girl for his new movie. Along with other mothers, Maddelena takes her daughter to Cinecittà, hoping she’ll be selected and become a star. She is ready to sacrifice anything for little Maria.
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What critics compared Bellissima to
If Almodóvar looked to Douglas Sirk in "All About My Mother" (although as a filmmaker, he's far wetter and more approachably rumpled than the crisp, buttoned-down Sirk), this time he's casting an eye toward Italian neorealism: "Volver" includes a clip from Luchino Visconti's "Bellissima," starring perhaps the most vital-looking actress of all time, Anna Magnani.
Yes, she's supposed to evoke the va - va-voom of the great European earth-goddesses (a clip of Anna Magnani on a bed in Visconti's "Bellissima" plays on TV), but the strategy is a little more personal for Cruz, too.
Pedro Almod�var is another auteur whose queer eye feasts on eruptions of womanhood, and in Volver, his new work, he name-checks his own cinematic duo (Mildred Pierce arcanely, Visconti's Bellissima explicitly).