Year: 2006
Runtime: 118 minutes
Rating: 7.8
Languages: Italian
Country: Italy, France, IMDb Italy section
Genre: Drama
All Genres: Drama, Mystery, Thriller, IMDb Drama section
Colors: Color
Also known as: L' Inconnue,, France The Other Woman, USA (wide-release title)
The Unknown, International (English title)

Tornatore's first film since 2000's underrated Malena is La Sconosciuta, a tense thriller about a violent past catching up with a young serving girl; it's garnered easily the director's most positive reviews since Paradiso. It's the eighth collaboration between Tornatore and Morricone and once again the composer has been inspired to go the extra mile. He has been producing wonderful music on a consistent basis even in the later part of his career, but it's obvious when he feels an extra-special connection with a movie (such as with last year's Fateless or 2003's La Luz Prodigiosa) because that extra something finds its way through to the music.

La Sconosciuta opens with a deceptively-attractive theme, a truly rapturous piece highlighting violin solos which spotlights yet another knockout Morricone melody to add to the impossibly-large collection. This is a very intelligent score which goes on a real journey - after that sumptuous theme, the next few cues remain melodic, but the composer gradually introduces just hints of dissonance and slight disharmony here and there to represent a growing unease. "Giochi Infantili" is a stunner, with a childlike piano line always slightly jarring against the thematic underbelly, creating a brilliant juxtaposition of moods which offers the composer at his best. "Con Scioltezza" follows, and there's no juxtaposition any more - just pure, unadulterated tension with violent string runs and a subtle electronic buzz underneath. For a composer who has written something like four billion hours of suspense music in his time, it's amazing that Morricone has once again found a new way of doing it - this is certainly one of the album's strongest pieces (and this is not an album notable for being bereft of strong pieces).

Morricone is always liable to spring a surprise or two, and so it arrives in "Flauto Violino e Orchestra" whose title is, you might think, somewhat suggestive of what to expect - but instead the Maestro somehow came up with a brilliant modern electronic pop instrumental, aided by Rocco Petruzzi. Into the electronics and samples are mixed some acoustic solos from clarinet and violin to create an extraordinary sound which would easily be at home in a Bourne movie. The 78-year-old composer has crafted one of the finest pieces of modern orchestral/electronic action music I've ever heard, and even I didn't think I'd hear myself saying that.

That's a one-off and things return to normal in "Primo Tempo" - well, as normal as they get, anyhow. Jabbering staccato parts for violin, viola and electric guitar once again create an unbelievably gripping, vivid atmosphere vaguely reminiscent of Ligety. Nobody but Morricone would even attempt something this daring in a film score, yet he pulls it off with such apparent ease it is scarcely believable. The suspense of "Rapido" is perhaps slightly more subtle, with pizzicato strings providing constant choppy accompaniment to an urgent melodic line ingeniously passed between the parts of the string section, but once again hugely-impressive. Morricone is approaching territory here that he hasn't explored often since his stylish suspense scores of the 1970s such as Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion or perhaps certain aspects of The Thing. Investigation particularly comes to mind when hearing "Insopportabile Ansia", a tense but very sexy track.

"Ambiguita" offers a very brief respite from the tension with a reprise of the gorgeous main theme, but the suspense quickly returns, with the choppy "Le Scale Della Casa" yet another highlight. The score's centrepiece is yet to come, though - the breathtaking nine-minute tour de force "Esercizio di Stile". It's similar to other suspense tracks in the score, but Morricone takes the time here to really develop his ideas and combine the ever-increasing tension with the subtlest of interpolations of fragments of his main theme. I love it when the composer runs with an idea like this and creates an extended piece which serves as the great narrative core of the entire work, the pivotal moment when everything comes together. It's vintage Morricone. Naturally, the score receives a proper resolution and we are treated to a hint of a soaring melody threatening to rise in "Andare e Non Tornare" before the finale, "Archi Bianchi", a piece which draws the score to a close in reflective, contemplative style.

This is yet another stunning score from Morricone, and most satisfyingly shows that he is still willing to experiment, still willing to push the boundaries and still willing to write extremely challenging, but highly-cerebral, music for films that few of his peers would ever attempt. This will not be a score for everyone, nor even for all Morricone fans - while the main theme is gorgeous, it is used sparingly, and the bulk of the album's 71-minute running time is taken up by tense, unsettling music. But I think this represents Morricone at his best - daring, pioneering, and entirely unique. La Sconosciuta is a spellbinding, mesmerising, enthralling score. Breathtaking.(see here)

His films touch the soul of Sicily, transcending the ordinary, the conventional, the stereotypical. Giuseppe Tornatore was born and raised in Bagheria (outside Palermo). He started working very young as a photographer, publishing in various photographic magazines. At the age of sixteen he staged two plays by Pirandello and De Filippo. For the cinema he has made various documentaries, including Il Carretto, highly acclaimed at several regional and national film festivals in Italy.

In 1979 be began a long collaboration with RAI (Italy's national television network), for which he directed several programs. From 1978 to 1985, he was chairman of the CLCT Cooperative, which produced Giuseppe Ferrara's film 100 Days in Palermo, with Lino Ventura. Tornatore also co-wrote the screenplay and directed the second unit. In 1986 he made his debut in feature films with Il Cammorrista ("The Gangster"), starring Ben Gazzara. Freely adapted from the book by Giuseppe Marrazzo, this singular motion picture won Tornatore a Golden Globe for best new director.

Rural life is a hallmark of Tornatore's "Sicilian" movies. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, which took place in small-town Sicily, was the film that put Tornatore on the map with international audiences. It won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1990. The Star Maker, set in post-war Sicily, was released in 1995, followed by Malèna in 2000. The social statements of Malèna, an emotional story which takes place in a fictional Sicilian town during the war, are powerfully thought-provoking.

Americans as well as Italians have found Sicily fertile cinematic territory. The eccentric Milanese director Roberta Torre comes to mind. It's difficult to overlook the fact that Tornatore's movies, compared to Francis Ford Coppola's Mafia tales (The Godfather) and Michael Cimino's stories (The Sicilian), depict the real Sicily and real Sicilians. Luchino Visconti's The Leopard, starring Burt Lancaster (based on the di Lampedusa novel), was directed exceptionally well. But Tornatore, a younger director, is not afraid to confront, in a serious way, difficult historical and social issues that most Sicilians themselves rarely discuss --including Fascism and the Second World War-- through the eyes of individual characters and situations. With time, he is earning respect as that rarest of cinematic talents --a "Director's Director."

He rarely gives interviews, preferring to let his work speak for itself. Artistically, that's a solid position. Giuseppe Tornatore's work speaks well of its creator.

Tornatore has never been timid about casting inexperienced actors or even non-professional ones. Here's what he had to say about the subject when The Star Maker (filmed in places like old Poggioreale) opened to rave reviews:

"Deciding to cast a non-professional, or worse still, someone who you don't even know if and where you'll find him or her, is like asking the first person you come across to hold onto your savings. You never know if you'll ever get your money back. The search for non-professional actors has no rule. It can be a question of feeling, or simply luck. It can be fun or excruciating. During the shooting of The Star Maker, one morning we were stuck because an actress hadn't turned up on the set. We thought something had happened to her and that she was delayed but would eventually arrive. We didn't have an alternative shooting schedule. We were in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and it was impossible to find another actress that could take her place. The missing actress finally called. In tears, she told us that she had unexpectedly been called by the Education Ministry for a teaching job --I don't know where-- and if she missed the interview, she would lose the opportunity of a permanent position. She was terribly sorry but, between taking part in a Tornatore film and a 'stable job' she had no doubt which one to choose!"see

Sicilian-born Giuseppe Tornatore proved a prodigy of sorts, beginning his career as a prize-winning still photographer. While in his mid-teens, he began directing, first for the stage and then by making the short film "Il Carretto/The Wagon". Eventually Tornatore caught the attention of RAI television and was hired to hem documentaries and TV-movies. In 1982, he garnered attention for his documentary "Ethnic Minorities in Sicily", which picked up a prize at the Salerno Film Festival. He shifted to fictional features co-writing the script to 1983's "Centro Giorni a Palermo/A Hundred Days in Palermo". Three years later, he debuted his first full-length feature as director, "Il Camorrista/The Professor/The Cammora Murder" (1986), a drama about a journalist who runs afoul of gangsters.

As he began to earn notoriety, Tornatore caught the attention of producer Franco Castaldi who nurtured what became the director's breakthrough film. When "Nuevo Cinema Paradiso" opened in Rome in 1988, it met with a less than stellar reception. The director, who favors long takes, worked under Castaldi's prodding and guidance, to cut and reshape the material. The new version debuted at the 1989 Canned Film Festival where it was met with high praise and picked up a Special Jury Prize. A sentimental but powerful paean to the power of the movies set in Tornatore's hometown, "Cinema Paradiso" depicted the odd friendship between a movie-loving boy and the projectionist at the local theater. Audience around the world responded positively, particularly to its tour de force final sequence of censored clips, and the film went on to win numerous awards and prizes including the 1989 Academy Award as Best Foreign-Language Film. "Stanno Tutti Bene/Everybody's Fine" (1990) proved a slightly disappointing follow-up, however. Trafficking in the director's now trademarked sentimental style, the movie revolved around an aging widower (well played by Marcello Mastroianni) who decides to visit his children and learns that each has been lying to him about their lives. While the intriguing premise of depicting a parent's aspirations for his children offered great potential, Tornatore tended to dilute its power by focusing more on the landscapes of his travels and "Everybody's Fine" was deemed a failure. After contributing a segment to the anthology film "La Domenica Specialmente/Especially on Sunday" (1991), the filmmaker returned to his native area to teach aesthetics at the University of Palermo. Resuming his film career in 1994, Tornatore wrote, directed and edited the fascinating, if eccentric, thriller "Una Pura Formalita/A Pure Formality". Dropping his usual sentimentality, he instead focused on a cat-and-mouse game of interrogation between a police inspector (Roman Polanski) and a suspected murderer (Gerard Depardieu). While the setting was mostly held to a poorly lit room in the local police station, the director managed to make the proceedings interesting not only through his expert editing and fluid camera movement but also by eliciting strong performances from his two leads.

Slipping back into his usual style, Tornatore next fashioned "L'Uomo delle Stelle/The Star Maker" (1995), what many see as a companion piece to "Cinema Paradiso". Returning to the Sicily of the 1950s, the titular character is a con man who preys on the hopes and dreams of villagers by pretending to be a talent scout. Complications ensue when an aspiring actress stows away in his van and the pair embark on a romance. Ravishingly photographed by Dante Spinotti and featuring a lovely score by Ennio Morricone, Despite some mixed reviews (which felt the film was more travelogue than compelling drama), it earned a 1995 Oscar nomination for Best Foreign-Language Film.

For his next major film, Tornatore turned to a one-man stage monologue for inspiration. A modern fable about a musical prodigy who spends his entire life on board the ship on which he was born, "The Legend of 1900/La Leggenda del Pianista sull'Oceano/The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean" (1998) marked Tornatore's first English-language film. Lushly scored by Morricone and starring Tim Roth as the adult musician, it debuted in Italy with a running time of nearly three hours. Critics hailed several of the set pieces (most notably a piano duel between Roth's character and Jelly Roll Morton, played by Clarence Williams III) but felt the overall narrative was too slight to handle the epic-like treatment afforded. Even in its US debut in 1999, with nearly an hour cut and a new title ("The Legend of 1900"), many still felt the simple story was overblown (see here)