The Station (La stazione)

"La stazione" was, in absolute terms, the first example of 'cinéma-vérité',

many years ahead of the birth of this style.

This documentary was shot in 1 month,

always at dawn, and it surprised, from life,

the deep reality of Italy that has not changed:

poor people sleeping in third class waiting rooms,

southern Italians waiting for the train that take them to North to look for a job,

and all the blank and secret life,

of this beautiful and just inaugurated station.

It was live shot, recording lost voices who spoke

in all dialects and all accents, with no narrative plot

and without requiring the unconscious heroes of these cold mornings

to take any attitude, stealing images, sounds, calls,

loneliness and the hope of poor impatient people to live:

the camera didn't invent anything, it was just an attentive witness

which accurately showed so much humility and so ungrateful destinies.