9— Una Voce Umana (1947–48)
1. Jean Cocteau, La Voix humaine (Paris: Librairie Stock, 1930), p. 11. Mario Verdone has suggested a possible origin for Cocteau's play in a piece Sacha Guitry did for the troops in 1915, an entire act of nothing but him and a telephone, called Faisons un rêve . (Mario Verdone, "L'amore," Bianco e nero , 9, no. 9 [November 1948], 76.) [BACK]
2. Roberto Rossellini, "Dix ans de cinéma," part 1, Cahiers du cinéma , no. 50 (August-September 1955), 6-7. [BACK]
3. Interestingly, Rossellini has omitted something from Cocteau's version that, in fact, would have turned us against the man even more (but that also would have made the woman appear more victimized). Presumably in the interests of streamlining and focusing the action, the director has removed the occasional comic moments when other callers on the party line break in to the lovers' conversation. Thus, at one point, Magnani's reply to a woman who has been listening in tells us that the woman has apparently castigated the man for his callousness. Magnani searches desperately to soothe his hurt feelings by saying, in lines obviously meant to drip with dramatic irony, that the other woman just does not know him and mistakenly thinks he is just like all other men. [BACK]