I could not resist adding a Review of the Film: "Stromboli" after the Travel Report.
Both the Island and the Film are Tempestuous
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JUST BEING ON STROMBOLI IS AN ADVENTURE
Chicago Sun Times
By Frances D'Emilio
June 6, 2004

STROMBOLI, Italy -- On this explosive island, you can have an adventure vacation by lounging in your beach chair.

Just being on Stromboli, with its rock-spitting, fiery innards, means you accept the risk of cohabiting with one of the world's most active volcanoes. Stromboli is the northernmost of seven islands in the Aeolian archipelago north of Sicily.

By day, it's easy to forget that Stromboli is the tip of a volcano protruding through clear, dark blue Mediterranean Sea.

Against a sun-bleached sky, the flaming lava and chunks of rock being belched from the crater, some 660 feet elow the summit, are practically invisible.

Often the only reminder that you are walking on the surface of a bubbling, churning brew is what seems to be a giant powder puff hovering over the mountain top. The cloud is really vapor rising out of the volcanic cauldron.

By night, there's no mistaking Stromboli's fiery force.

Shell out $23 to one of the guys at the kiosks near the port, and he'll show up after nightfall in a small wooden boat on a black sand beach and let you hop aboard. You can hang out for an hour a few hundred yards off the island, waiting in inky blackness for Stromboli to start showing off.

Sometimes Stromboli is generous, and boaters ooh and aah at showers of flaming lava shooting high in the air every few minutes. Other nights, Stromboli is stingy; a half-hour may pass before the night sky is pierced by orange flames.

In late 2002 Stromboli experienced a rare effusive eruption -- an outpouring of lava without the volcano's characteristic explosive activity -- that was its first in 17 years. A few days later, landslides went tumbling down a wide, uninhabited slope known as the Sciara del Fuoco, crashing into the sea and setting off a kind of tidal wave.

In spring 2003, Stromboli sent hardened lava raining down on some of the settlements nestled in the folds of the island's velveteen green slopes. A few chunks crashed into houses.

The tantrums intrigued scientists. Stromboli's frequent but mild explosions usually allowed it to let off steam without a heavy outpouring of lava. These small outbursts had been so long characteristic of it that the term ''Strombolian'' is used to describe similar activity by volcanoes worldwide.

But early last summer, shedding its predictable image, Stromboli poured out a constant river of lava, running down Sciara del Fuoco and sliding into the sea with a steamy sizzle.

More than one guide book has described Stromboli's nighttime scene as apocalyptic. Out at sea, it's easy to fancy oneself a modern-day spectator of another Pompeii.

Experts have scarce historical records to help them understand Stromboli's moods. For centuries, Stromboli was mainly a place for fishermen who didn't write down what fearsome sights they probably saw.

The lava flow stopped in July 2003.

''The classical Strombolian activity has returned, with some moments of particular intensity,'' said Antonella Scalzo, a geologist with the state Civil Protection
Department.

But until experts feel more confident the volcano has regained its old equilibrium, a ban remains until at least the end of 2004 on tourist treks to the crater, which is 660 feet below the 3,050-foot-high summit, a three-hour trek up a slippery, sandy trail.

Before the ban, guides like Lorenzo Russo, who works at a trekking company called Magmatrek, would lead hikers to the crater. Now, Russo, who spent childhood summers on Stromboli, takes his charges as far up as 1,300 feet to see the glowing lava. Without a guide, while the ban is in force, tourists are only allowed to hike up to around 960 feet.

Trying to climb the summit without a guide is risky -- ban or no ban. A German who camped near the crater died after falling into the volcano a few years ago.

After taking in the volcano's nocturnal fireworks, visitors can sample a tiny but lively night scene.

One of the best seats in town is free. From a ledge lining the main square in front of San Vincenzo church, you can gaze a mile across the sea to Strombolicchio, a towering chunk of basalt rock that is topped by a lighthouse.

If nights are thrilling, days seem remarkably tame. Heat-induced laziness prevails.

Strombolani, barefoot or shuffling along in opened-backed slippers called ''ciabatte,'' make their way to the one bakery for semolina-yellow bread. A few natives sit outside their gates selling dried spices like thyme, or capers, in salt-filled jars. Capers are the fruit of the white-flowered plant that colors much of the landscape.

Strombolani will point you to smaller, more inviting coves, which, depending when the shade arrives, appeal to different tastes. Once, a woman selling pareos outside the church suggested a cove down some stairs hewn out of lava rock at the end of a narrow lane; a visitor had walked by the spot many times without realizing the sunbather's paradise was so near.

Caves at some coves keep people and picnic baskets cool. A good spot to catch sunsets is the long beach where the last houses, with their thick, white, heat-resisting walls, end at a grassy hill past the hamlet of Piscita.

Kayaks, pedal-boats and other small craft can be rented. For a negotiable fee, fishermen will take you in their boats to swim at otherwise unreachable spots. Other possibilities include scuba diving off Strombolicchio or a sail to one of Italy's tiniest hamlets, Ginostra.

Ginostra tumbles across a hillside halfway around the island from the cluster of Stromboli's other hamlets. In winter, when storms often make it impossible for the ferry to call, the 30-or-so year-round villagers go for long stretches without supplies or mail.

There is something strangely comforting about the simplicity of life on Stromboli. If the boat doesn't go anywhere, you don't either.

Sailing to Stromboli is itself a delight. The overnight ferries from Naples, slower, cheaper but above all more dependable and smoother-sailing than the hydrofoils, call at Stromboli about 5 a.m.

Even if another island in the Aeolians is your destination, you should set your alarm, tumble out of your cabin and stagger sleepily onto deck as the ferry nears Stromboli.

>From miles away, you can already spy Stromboli's blazing bowels throbbing in the night sky and be as awed as seafarers who sailed these waters in millennia past.

Summer is peak season but the water is warm enough for swimming as early as May and as late as October. Overnight ferries leave from Naples several times a week in summer and also from the Sicilian port of Milazzo. The Siremar ferry company in Naples can be reached at 39-081-317-2999. In rough seas, ferries are more likely to sail than hydrofoils, which link Naples to Stromboli in four hours. Naples reservation center for SNAV hydrofoils is 39-081-428-5555.

One house rental service is House Service at 39-090-981-3169 or www.houseservice.it. Strom-boli's hotels are simple; many are open April through October only. The family-run hotel Villaggio Stromboli, perched over some of the best beaches, can be reached at 39-090-986-018 (winter: 39-090-981-1312). Hotel La Sciara, near the Scalo dei Balordi, a popular beach, is at 39-090-986-004 or visit www.lasciara.it. Hiking guides Magmatrek can be reached at 39-090-986-5768 or www.magmatrek.it. (AP)

Just being on explosive Stromboli is an adventure
http://www.suntimes.com/output/travel/tra-news-volcannew06.html
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STROMBOLI: The Movie
Starring Ingrid Bergman, and Directed by Roberto Rossellini

Volcanic is the perfect word to describe the emotional landscape of Stromboli (1949), Ingrid Bergman's first film with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Not only is the film set on an isolated island in the Tyrrhenian Sea with an active volcano but the scandal that arose from the subsequent production sent resounding tremors through the Hollywood community. Bergman fell in love with her director during the filming, left her husband and daughter Pia, and became pregnant, bearing Rossellini a son. The public's outrage, fanned by unforgiving gossip columnists, helped end Bergman's career in Hollywood for many years and greatly tarnished her image as the wholesome Swedish beauty who had won a Best Actress Oscar for Gaslight (1944) and achieved screen immortality as Ilsa, opposite Humphrey Bogart's Rick, in Casablanca (1942).

Bergman's relationship with Rossellini began when she saw two of his films, inspiring her to write a letter. According to her autobiography, Ingrid Bergman: My Story, the note read, "Dear Mr. Rossellini, I saw your films Open City [1946] and Paisan [1946], and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who, in Italian knows only "ti amo" I am ready to come and make a film with you." The letter was sent to Rossellini's attention at Minerva Films in Italy but soon after its delivery the studio was destroyed in an accidental fire. Strangely enough, Bergman's note was found intact in the ashes and delivered to Rossellini.

No one was more surprised than Bergman to receive a response to her half serious suggestion. "Dear Mrs. Bergman," Rossellini replied. "I have waited a long time before writing, because I wanted to make sure what I was going to propose to you. But first of all I must say that my way of working is extremely personal. I do not prepare a scenario, which, I think terribly limits the scope of work...I start out with very precise ideas and a mixture of dialogues and intentions which, as things go on, I select and improve." The director went on to describe the plot of Stromboli (the working title was After the Storm) which depicts the plight of Karin Bjiorsen, a Lithuanian war refugee who marries an Italian fisherman in order to escape an interment camp: "She followed this man, being certain she had found an uncommon creature, a savior...instead she is stranded in this savage island, all shaken up by the vomiting volcano, and where the earth is so dark and the sea looks like mud saturated with sulfur." Unhappy in her new life and unable to fit in with the islanders, Karin becomes desperate to escape after learning she is pregnant. A lighthouse keeper agrees to help her, leading her out of the village and over the mountaintop where they are threatened by a volcanic eruption. In the dramatic resolution to the story, Karin reconsiders her actions and returns home to her husband.

The actual filming of Stromboli on a primitive island with no modern conveniences proved to be a physically exhausting experience for Bergman and her co-workers. It was also frustrating for an actress used to working with Hollywood professionals. Now she was acting with amateurs who rarely knew their lines or when to deliver them. "So to solve it," Bergman wrote in her autobiography, "Roberto attached a string to one of their big toes inside their shoes. Then he stood there, holding this bunch of strings, and first he'd pull that string and one man spoke, and then he'd pull another string and another man spoke. I didn't have a string on my toe, so I didn't know when I was supposed to speak. And this was realistic filmmaking! The dialogue was never ready, or there never was any dialogue. I thought I was going crazy."

For Bergman, who was already pregnant by this point, the most difficult scene to shoot was her climactic emotional breakdown on the top of the crater. In As Time Goes By: The Life of Ingrid Bergman, biographer Laurence Leamer wrote, "Ingrid got on one mule, and she and Roberto and the film crew set off for the volcano. The mules struggled upward, jumping across the smaller gullies, scratching for a foothold on the black gravelly surface. Roberto had the camera set up near the cone of the volcano. For her scene walking up to the volcano, Ingrid wore thin sandals, scant protection against the black lava sands, as hot as a tar roof on a summer afternoon...Roberto was usually fond of quick takes, but he rehearsed this scene over and over. Repeatedly Ingrid struggled upward, through the fumes and the stench of sulfur. She was soaked with sweat...When Ingrid and the others returned to the village at noon, they were on foot. To save time, they had slid two thousand feet down the mountain on their behinds. Their faces were black and sweat-streaked." Yet they would return to the volcano repeatedly for more scenes and one production executive, Lodovici Muratori, was eventually overcome by the fumes and died from a heart attack.

Initially, Rossellini planned to film Stromboli with Anna Magnani (his mistress at the time) until Ingrid Bergman entered the picture. Yet, he still insisted in his contract with RKO that he wouldn't direct Stromboli unless the studio also financed a film with Magnani. So, RKO produced Volcano (1949), directed by William Dieterle and starring Magnani as a prostitute from Naples who returns to her fishing village on an island near Stromboli. The film even ends with a similar volcanic eruption.

RKO Studios (under the ownership of Howard Hughes) was unhappy with Rossellini's final 117 minute cut of Stromboli and released it in a drastically cut version (81 minutes) in the U.S. Most critics panned the film (in some cities it was boycotted by religious groups), choosing to focus instead on the scandalous behind-the-scenes relationship between Bergman and Rossellini (the couple were legally married in 1950). Audiences, who attended Stromboli out of curiosity, found the film both depressing and decidedly un-erotic. Seen today, however, Stromboli is clearly a pivotal film in both Rossellini and Bergman's careers, representing a unique fusion of the documentary form with Hollywood melodrama. The rugged landscape of the volcanic island provides a truly spectacular setting and the scene where Karin observes the fishermen catching tuna at sea is one of the most visually remarkable sequences in Italian cinema. Bergman and Rossellini would go on to film five more movies together with Viaggio in Italia (aka Voyage to Italy, 1953) generally considered their best collaboration.

Producer/Director: Roberto Rossellini
Screenplay: Roberto Rossellini, Sergio Amidei, Gian Paolo Callegari, Renzo Cesana, Art Cohn
Cinematography: Otello Martelli
Film Editing: Jolanda Benvenuti, Roland Gross
Original Music: Renzo Rossellini
Principal Cast: Ingrid Bergman (Karin Bjiorsen), Mario Vitale (Antonio), Renzo Cesana (The Priest), Mario Sponzo (The Lighthouse Keeper).
BW-107m. Closed captioning.

by Jeff Stafford
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies This Month Article
http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/ThisMonth/
Article/0,,60059%7C60074%7C60080,00.html
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Only for those who thrive on cinematic analysis, and are eaten with curiosity as to how Rossellini broke with the conventions of the classical narrative form which had dominated dramatic film from the introduction of sound in the late 1920's.
Stromboli
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/8/cteq/stromboli.html