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Only an actor with the skill and range of D’Onofrio could pull off a role as peculiar as Robert E. Howard and help us understand what Novalyne Price saw in him. Michael Scott Myers based his expressive screenplay on her memoir One Who Walked Alone.

Zellweger is equally believable as the teacher who hasn’t experienced much of life as yet but finds herself in the thrall of Howard’s company—even though each time they get together, she doesn’t know what to expect. They develop a deeply felt friendship even though it (apparently) never becomes a sexual partnership.

Incidentally—or not so incidentally—the film was made in Texas, where it takes place, and where Zellweger got her first film and television experience in locally made features like Dazed and Confused. Little did she dream that this modest film would finally reach theaters the same month as the Hollywood movie that would change her life. Yet the experience of making The Whole Wide World stayed with her: when she won her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award years later for Cold Mountain she thanked D’Onofrio for “teaching me how to work.”

The Whole Wide World also changed the life and career of Dan Ireland. The cofounder of the Seattle International Film Festival, he was determined to parlay his lifelong love of film into a career behind the camera. He has shown great care in his choice of projects and while he’s never had a box-office smash, he has made some excellent films. You’ll find another one of them, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, elsewhere in this volume.

147. THE WIDE BLUE ROAD

(1957)

Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo

Screenplay by Ennio De Concini and Gillo Pontecorvo

Based on the novel Squarciò by Franco Solinas

Actors:

YVES MONTAND

ALIDA VALLI

FRANCISCO RABAL

UMBERTO SPADARO

PETER CARSTEN

FEDERICA RANCHI

MARIO GIROTTI (TERENCE HILL)

RONALDINO BONACCHI

GIANCARLO SOBLONE

During the 1950s Americans were introduced to great films from France, Italy, Sweden, and Japan. It was during this period (which extended into the 1960s) that many people got hooked on foreign films. Yet Gillo Pontecorvo’s La Grande Strada Azzurra, or The Wide Blue Road, never received theatrical distribution in the United States. The director went on to make such notable films as The Battle of Algiers (1966) and Burn! (1969), but his early effort was virtually unknown on these shores until Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Film and Video resurrected it (in a beautifully restored print) in 2001, with the support of Dustin Hoffman and filmmaker Jonathan Demme.

Yves Montand stars as a prideful, stubborn man named Squarciò who lives in an insular Italian fishing village off the Dalmatian coast. He refuses to obey the law and sets off dynamite charges in the water to guarantee a big haul every time he goes out to fish. This puts him in conflict with his family, his neighbors, and one determined Coast Guard lieutenant.

The Wide Blue Road is a moving and robust slice of life that’s both original and completely unpredictable. Montand was never more handsome or charismatic. (Never mind that a Frenchman is playing an Italian fisherman.) Pontecorvo wrote the screenplay with Ennio De Concini and Franco Solinas, whose novel Squarciò was its source material.

The director has acknowledged that the classic Italian neorealist films of the 1940s and ’50s were an inspiration, and while this film has well-known leading actors (Montand and Alida Valli) and is beautifully shot in color, it still pays homage to that style of filmmaking in its vivid depiction of everyday life in the village. And one could never find faces like the ones in this film at Central Casting.

148. WINTER SOLSTICE

(2005)

Directed by Josh Sternfeld

Screenplay by Josh Sternfeld

Actors:

ANTHONY LAPAGLIA

AARON STANFORD

MARK WEBBER

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

ALLISON JANNEY

BRENDAN SEXTON III

RON LIVINGSTON

EBON MOSS-BACHRACH

For some people, taking in a quiet, subtle film like Winter Solstice