The Tree of Wooden Clogs
A painterly and sensual immersion in late nineteenth-century Italian farm life, Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs lovingly focuses on four families working for one landowner on an isolated estate in the province of Bergamo. Filming on an abandoned farm for four months, Olmi adapted neorealist techniques to tell his story, enlisting local people to live as their own ancestors had, speaking in their native dialect on locations with which they were intimately familiar. Through the cycle of seasons, of backbreaking labor, love and marriage, birth and death, faith and superstition, Olmi naturalistically evokes an existence very close to nature, celebrating its beauty, humor, and simplicity but also acknowledging the feudal cruelty that governs it. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1978, The Tree of Wooden Clogs is intimate in scale but epic in scope—a towering, heart-stirring work of humanist filmmaking.
The Tree of Wooden Clogs was restored by the Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata, with funding provided by The Film Foundation.
Special Features
- New 4K restoration, created in collaboration with The Film Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata and supervised by director Ermanno Olmi, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Alternate Italian-language soundtrack
- New introduction by filmmaker Mike Leigh
- Ermanno Olmi: The Roots of the Tree, an hour-long 1981 episode of The South Bank Show, featuring an interview with Olmi on the film and a visit to the farm where it was shot
- New program featuring cast and crew discussing the film at the Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna, Italy, in 2016
- Interviews with Olmi from 1978 and 2008
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Deborah Young
New cover by F. Ron Miller
Special Features
- New 4K restoration, created in collaboration with The Film Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata and supervised by director Ermanno Olmi, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Alternate Italian-language soundtrack
- New introduction by filmmaker Mike Leigh
- Ermanno Olmi: The Roots of the Tree, an hour-long 1981 episode of The South Bank Show, featuring an interview with Olmi on the film and a visit to the farm where it was shot
- New program featuring cast and crew discussing the film at the Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna, Italy, in 2016
- Interviews with Olmi from 1978 and 2008
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Deborah Young
New cover by F. Ron Miller
Cast
- Luigi Ornaghi
- Batistì
- Francesca Moriggi
- Batistina, his wife
- Omar Brignoli
- Minek, the student
- Antonio Ferrari
- Tuni
- Teresa Brescianini
- The widow Runk
- Giuseppe Brignoli
- Anselmo, the grandfather
- Carlo Rota
- Peppino
- Pasqualina Brolis
- Teresina
- Massimo Fratus
- Pierino
- Francesca Villa
- Annetta
- Maria Grazia Caroli
- Bettina
- Battista Trevaini
- Finard
- Giuseppina Langalelli
- Finard’s wife
- Lorenzo Pedroni
- Grandpa Finard
- Felice Cervi
- Ustì
- Pierangelo Bertoli
- Secondo
- Brunella Migliaccio
- Olga
- Giacomo Cavalleri
- Brena
- Lorenza Frigeni
- Brena’s wife
- Lucia Pezzoli
- Maddalena, the bride
- Franco Pilenga
- Stefano, the groom
- Guglielmo Badoni
- Stefano’s father
- Laura Locatelli
- Stefano’s mother
- Carmelo Silva
- Don Carlo
- Mario Brignoli
- The landlord
- Emilio Pedroni
- The foreman
- Vittorio Capelli
- Frikì
- Francesca Bassurini
- Sister Maria
- Lina Ricci
- Woman of the Sign
Credits
- Director
- Ermanno Olmi
- Written, photographed, and edited by
- Ermanno Olmi
- Director of production
- Attilio Torricelli
- Set design
- Enrico Tovaglieri
- Costumes
- Francesca Zucchelli
- Sound
- Amadeo Casati
Edition introduction to The Tree of Wooden Clogs
