Socrates

Director: Roberto Rossellini

1970 / 120min / DCP

Beginning in the mid-’60s and ending with his death in 1977, Rossellini committed himself to producing a series of films, telefilms, and serial works that would together constitute a narrative of human progress and the history of ideas from aleolithic to present times. Socrates, initiating a tetralogy of works on epoch-defining thinkers, sets its scene in an Athens humbled by Sparta and increasingly irritated by the prickly, prodding philosopher in their midst, finally determined to silence him. Using out-of-vogue in-camera effects to transform an ancient Spanish village into Athens, probing scenes with his customized, remote-controlled Pancinor zoom, and employing a dirge-like electronic score by Mario Nascimbene, Rossellini gives us a singular vision of antiquity, one that’s downright avant-garde.

Part of Classical Cinema