To celebrate the start of the weekend here are couple of the more entertaining snippets I have come across recently. 
- If you are in New York between April 16 – 26, 2009, you could go to see a dramatic new musical called ‘Shadows of Vesuvius’ at the 42nd Street Moon theatre. Billed as a ‘saga of Romans living in the seaside village of Pompeii in AD 79’, the musical was written by R.C. Staub and K. Herrmann and will feature a cast of nine actors.
- Catch up with Capitan Ventosa's adventures in modern Pompei, including a UTube video.
As a piece of weekend fun (yes, I am that sad), can you tell me which famous people you have either seen personally in the scavi or have seen pictures of? I recently found photos of Peter O' Toole and Petula Clarke at Pompeii during the filming of 'Goodbye Mr. Chips' in 1968. It got me wondering about other famous visitors to the excavations in recent years. I have this photo of Picasso in my collection ...
4 comments:
I'm not sure whether this was what you had in mind but Roberto Rossellini's film Journey to Italy (1953) has an extended scene at Pompeii with the two lead characters, played by Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders. They get shown the uncovering of a couple of plaster bodies and then have quite a long walk through various buildings and streets on the way back to their car parked near the amphitheatre. Some of it looks as if it might be in a studio but quite a bit looks as if they are actually wandering through the excavations.
Fantastic! There is a clip of them walking through the Large Palaestra - propped up with scaffolding, and only excavated 10 years or so before the film was shot - on UTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFGb5MHTBJI. Can you imagine being able to park your car right outside the Amphitheatre? I haven't found a clip of the plaster bodies (yet!). But it does look like it was shot on site. Thank you, Hilary!
I had in mind this sort of thing, and also just general sightings of famous people being tourists.
You can get the whole film as a DVD. The BFI has re-issued it. It is an interesting film for various reasons, not least (for sad people like me) because the whole thing is set against various archaeological and historical sites in and around Naples. At one point Ingrid B visits Cumae for example.
In November 2008 I met the Spanish filmmaker Samuel Alarcon working in the scavi on a film considering Rossellini's Viaggio Italia (Journey to Italy). We spent a few days together filming in Pompeii, along the Costiera Amalfitana and attempted to do some further work at Cuma but were thwarted by staff who didn't want to recognise his permessi. This work is certainly something to see and when it's production is finished shortly I'll post more info on the blog.
Other recent bits on Pompeii on television have included Dr Who (David Tennant) and a diary where he tours the site as well. Great episode, even if a bit of artistic license is employed!
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