avoid suspiria!!

My Top Recommendations

(In no particular order)

Rome, Open City
Miracle in Milan
The Nights of Cabiria
L'Avventura
Blow-Up
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
La Dolce Vita
Divorce, Italian Style
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Seven Beauties
Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow
Open Doors
Cinema Paradiso

Some personal reviews:
8 1/2
Blow-Up
Dolce Vita, La
Intervista
Night Porter, The
Strada, La
Nights of Cabiria
Seven Beauties

*I will do my best to add several more reviews by October 1st. If there is a particular one someone would like covered, please let me know.

**1940's

To me, the 40's were split into two thematic, and not coincidentally chronological, schemes. WWII and the labor class. Prior to the 40's the industry had been well established, and already had a rich history of lavish international productions. But with Mussolini and half of the country bombed out (well, technically not half, but we'll get to that in the 90's) directors with antagonistic messages had little money or any access to material sponsored by the Fascists. Rome, Open City (1945) is the underground efforts almost every big name we associate with the Italian film system. Directed by Roberto Rossellini, and screenplay by Federico Fellini and Sergio Amerdei, the lead actress Anna Magnani went on to be the first import to win an Oscar for best actress in the American production The Rose Tatoo in 1955.

The first time I saw Open City I realized it was a composite of interior shots and a few street scenes. With the exception of two pivotal moments, all the street sceens are shot through windows of houses, looking down and out as tanks grind down into the stones. The film is not ambiguous in the least. It is a harsh critcism of the Fascist and Nazi systems, and follows Magnani and her son through their working class existence and less than political motivations. Of course, one cannot stay nuetral on a moving train, and even their desire to retain personal belongings is interpretted with aggressive implications of anti-nationalism. Meanwhile, a second, and more important story develops around a local priest, Don Pietro, who begins to suffer from more existential questions of humanity whilst working for the more immediate resistence movement.

What I later questioned was how Rosselini and Co. could produce such a scathing work prior to weakening of Fascist rule? I learned from a fellow fan that they couldn't. All materials were aquired via the black market, and all cast/crew involved did so at risk of being caught. So in some respects, I consider this film to be almost a documentary. Many of the street scenes are live shots, and the gritty, low-budget style paved the way for the second, and most well known movement to emerge from Italy (during the 1940's an onwards), neo-realism.

The kind of Neo-realists, Vittorio De Sica, is most well known for his The Bicycle Thief (mistranslated from the Italian "Thieves" for obvious reasons). Thieves set a precedence that has since been picked up by almost every budding industry world-wide. Most noteably the Cubans, and most recently the Senegalese. In Tomas Guiterrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment, the apparent benchmark of Castro's cinema industry foundation, De Sica even gets a bit of mention if I remember correctly. When push came to shove, Italy after the war had no Cinecitta, and no money to prop new infrastructure on. still they were in a hurry to revive the economy and address unrest, and so directors took their cameras into the streets. They filmed the delapitated building that had survived years of war, and the ruined people who remained to wander the streets in search of new life. They typically cast unknown actors and actresses not only in an attempt to avoid salaries (many of the stars left the country as well), but also to "capture" the face of those they were trying to sympathize with. This face was predominantly that of the lower classes.

The Bicycle Thief simply follows a man and his boy as they spend a day wandering the city desperately searching for the man's bike in order to continue working the following morning as a poster man. It is so well known, its hard for me to admit its not my favorite De Sica. That priviledge goes to Miracle in Milan which has far more humour, a bit more contrived of a vision, but still speaks of a similar agenda. To me, Thief is just so motivated by the city's landscape, that I miss the great theatrical tradition that Rome had prior to the war. Thief feels like a complete break (and the War, in fact, was a jarring break from the past as well). Milan sets up the scenes of a young exuberant orphan befriending the city's bums. They hang out in one giant cardboard slum where De Sica has them huddle in a group and chase a ray of light around a field. There's also a wonderous scenes were a couple in love jump between two poles while looking into eachother's eyes. Oh yes...and flying broomsticks. The miracle of Miracle is that it still deals with social unrest, but doesn't resort to the heavy handedness so many other De Sica's do.

Umberto D. apppraised by so many others, has to be the epitome of De Sica's blunt, overly melodramatic, and uncreative side. This is just such a contrived story of a man's gradual demise that half way through I just beg for it to all end. De Sica makes him resort to the most decrepid and pathetic actions just to evince sympathy from the viewer. Regardless of the neo-realist style, its just not enough. There's no grit, just gritty aesthetics and class-generated sob story. Thief, in counterpoint, never resports to real prescripted patheticness. In fact both the father and son are very matter of fact, if a bit dejected, about their day's journey, and its not so sure how it will end. It doesn't end, actually. The sun just sets for the evening.

De Sica is probably the king of the neo-realists, a man often imitated and always most associated with the movement, he paved a way for the 1950's film indistry to both continue and rebuff his style. While the theme of social unrest has yet to really been adandoned in Italy, the by the close of the 50's, Cinecitta was in full swing. Lavish set productions would become equally as reknown as stone streets and cramped living quarters.

**1950's

My second favorite decade in Italian Film production, the 1950's were when the film industry had already found its footing, but Cinecitta had not yet reached its lavish heights. The 50's were marked by a more diverse film landscape, where humour, hope, and the first signs of the topic of disillusionment began rearing their heads. Like the 40's most of the production still took place in the street, and addressed the lower and working classes. But now the realism of earlier De Sica has given way to a more liberal touch at representing reality. There's magic, cynicism, comedy, and dreamscapes.

Federico Fellini has six or seven movies in this decade, including his directorial debut Variety Lights which he co-directed and addressed his long lasting affair with circus performers. Two of his movies are incredibly well known. My favorite, The Nights of Cabiria is about a prostitute who regardless of how many times her ambitions are dashed, against her determination to remain jaded, she keeps finding hope. One of the most beautiful and memorable scenes, she is hypnotized on stage and starts being a young girl picking flowers for her sweetheart. While not technically shot yet in the movie lots, Fellini's Cabiria is the first of his films to begin showing more lavish elements, that he later became known for. His other major film was La Strada about a slightly simple woman who is married off to a circus strongman. Strada was the first movie he received international critical acclaim for, winnning the Oscar in best Foreign Language film; his first of four. Both star Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife, and a gifted facial actress. I always consider her to be the female Chaplin, and one of the most under appreciated film heroines from Italy.

The 1950's also hosts my most and least favorite De Sica movies. Miracle in Milan and Umberto D.. One is incredibly theatrical and light hearted while still adressing urban poverty, the second hits you over the head with it like if yoiu're an obtuse four year old that doesn't understand how rough life can be for the poor. Stick to the former. I really love it and think it gets dwarfed by Bicycle Thief, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, and The Gardens of the Finzi Continis.

The 50's also sees the entrance of one of the most creative and hard to address director's in Italian Film History, Pier Paolo Pasolini. I like him, I really do, but he has a tendency to bite off more than he can chew. An incredibly ambitious director, he was well known not only for his gritty movies, but his larger than life personal history. He was a poet, politicial activist, and an intriguing character. Born and raised ina small town, he was openly gay and had to move to Rome. He was very vocal about not associating with a gay film identity, though there have been heavy gender readings, etc, of his work. He was considered an anarchist, and a scathing post-war voice until he was shot to death in 1975. There are mixed rumours as to weather it was a man whom he associated with, or a political assassination.

He produced a wide range of films, and is most well known for his work in the 60's and 70's, as well as his painful 120 Days of Sodom. I have not seen it, but have selected it as one of the movies I will watch for the festival.

In the 50's, however, his Accatone provides a look at a hustler trying to make a living on the streets of Rome. Not my favorite by him, its sympathetic to unsympethtic characters due to their economic situation. That's what makes it interesting, as well as the gritty black and white images. To me, however, it gets oddly repetitive, and is too grounded to a "realist" (though much darker reality than most directors) aesthetic.

**1960's

Otherwise known as: My Favorite Decade in Italian Film Production

Here it is guys, the most dynamic period of film production in Italy as far as I'm concerned. Cinecitta the Italian equivalency of Hollywood finally revitalized it resources and space. Directors could afford to return to lavish set design and construction, and the past two decades of neo-realism was merged with the sumptious, the scathing, the humorous, and the subtle criticism. While previously directors tended to sympathize with the post-war working class, and grappled with the dark underbelly of reconstruction, only in the 60's did they equally pan and embrace everyone. The "common" folk do not escape criticism, and neither do the men, women, Catholic church, or the fabulously wealthy. At the same time, the Italians were always routed in their neo-realist roots. They were cutting edge in cinematography, breaking conventions, and storyline, but they are rarely unpalateable as a decade and genre. They are not aloof, even when picking at the collapsing and bored aristocracy.

This decade introduces yet another incredibly genius and popular director, Michelangelo Antonioni. Most famous for his British Language film Blow-Up he was always invested in voyeurism, social criticism, and perception. All the movies I've seen, seam to occur within the comprehesion of they're lead characters. That is to say, Antonioni draws a very ambiguous line between what the audiance is seeing and what the hero(ine) is. His The Red Desert focusses on a woman who is slowly going insane in the claustrophobia of her life. She lost a son to an accident and has never been the same, and when she gets into an accident herself, she slowly unravels, has an affair, and starts seeing extremely synthetic colors within a drab, black and white landscape of her industrial hometown. In short, the audiance sees the color as well, and though we follow the heroine in the third person, we often see through her eyes.

The play of audiance perception is a benchmark of 1960's Italian film. Fellini's 8 1/2 is probably synonimous with the discussion. In 8 1/2, a semi autobiographical piece that has often been imitated but never duplicated in spirit (think Open Your Eyes), a washed up director with writers block tries to pull together a sci-fi film. The director, played by the devine Latin Lover Marcello Mastroianni starts to have escapist visions. I don't want to fully give away the experience of the film, suffice it to say that the viewer is never quite sure where reality ands and dream sequence begins. This is also the movie with the infamous "bordello" scene that later sparked Peter Greenway's 8 1/2 Women; a movie about a father and son who watch 8 1/2 and try to recreate it. Mastoianni went on to work often with Fellini, and its clear that whenever Fellini was working with one of his two muses (Masina and Mastroianni) he's at his finest. The two actors even did a movie together for Fellini when they got older. The touching Ginger and Fred.

Antonioni also directed L'Avventura this decade, and its one of his most scathing commentaries on Italian society in general. A couple wealthy, self-indulgent youths go on a yachting trip where one of the young women dissappears suddenly. Out in the middle of the sea, they have no idea where she has gone off to. They pull aside to the nearest island and start searching, only every single one of them loses interest in the search within a day. Only Claudia played by Monica Vitti continues to be obsessed with finding the missing woman. However, the woman's boyfriend quickly starts an affair with Claudia, and she enters the relationship with only marginal hesitation. It's Antonioni's critique of wealth and boredom, lack of investment and aloofness. At the same time Claudia begins to doubt her relationship as it progresses. At the same time as she becomes obsessed with the missing friend, the group arrives in a small poverty stricken community where all the men proceed to oggle the incoming women. Never one to avoid discussions of escapeism, Antonioni explores sexual projection onto Italian women as a depressing and distasteful side of the economic stagnation. The working class's inability to focus on their long term needs, and to displace them into horny gestures and sexually coded distractions. Vitti would go on to do several films with Antonioni, and it seems as with Mastroianni and Masina for Fellini, and later, Giancarlo Giannin and Mariangela Melato for Lina Wertmuller, Vitti was one of Antonioni's muses.

Of course, his Blow-Up is a divine piece of work about a British photgrapher who is approached by a woman demanding film from his camera after he innocently snaps pictures of her and a man in a city park. What unfolds is the photographers developement, both literally and rhetorically, or the film and its contents. I beautiful film parodied in the photography scenes of Austin Powers, I'm one of the few people who disagrees with the general conclusion as to what happened in the park and to the photgrapher. Look for the mimes, an integral theme in the movie and also a beautiful touch aesthetically.

Fellini also did my beloved La Dolce Vita in this decade. For reference, please see my username, review, my avatar, and the several threads about the movie already in the forums, heh.

To note is also Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew. For a man who spent an aweful lot of his time rebelling against both political and religious institutions and who is mostly known for his gritty urban and harsh films, Gospel is an odd diamond in the trough. Simple put, it is the best film version of the Life of Christ ever. I'm not religious, so perhaps the other more dogmatic and scriptural interpretations didn't resonate with me, but Gospel is very real. Pasolini maintains his neo-realist, minimalist film touch, and depicts Jesus more as the sandled peasant that romaed the country side appealing to villagers of a similar background. They move around a stark landscape, and the splicing of angels and visions is so abrupt it actually makes for a more convincing version than the usual puffs os smoke, bathing light, and majestic height. Here, everyone is common, and they survive on faith alone. They are all very human, and the infamous betrayel plays out less as some "inevitable" fate and more like a man trying to do his best and becoming frustrated in a moment of weakness. Likewise the Magdalene's feet washing scene seems a bit cunning, and Jesus' most aggressive line that his faith is not easy and will split families with in-fighting.

Sophia Loren becomes the first women to win an Oscar from another country's film in Two Women. This is a fairly straightforeward story of a woman who does anything necessary to assist her and her daughter surviving through and after WWII. They encounter alot of hardship, troubles, and her daughter is raped. But through it all Loren remains incredibly solid, practicle, and aggressive. She is transformed from a slightly self-intitled woman at the opening into a humble yet strong one by its end. Not my favoite but well worth watching for the acting. Her international breakthrough would trigger the longest love affair with an International actress from Italy. It also sets up her precedence for being a metaphor, in all her movies, for Italy. I've heard that she's an allegorical figure in almost every single movie for decades that she did. The hardship and perseverence were certainly applicable. LLater, she would go on to do Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow with De Sica where he even states outright that she represents regions and eras of Italy in each vignette.

Lastly, my favorite comedy from the Italians pops up in the form of Divorce, Italian Style. True slapstick and high humour mixed together, Mastroianni stars as Ferdinando, a wealthy man who wants to escape his wife and merital status in order to pursue a young attractive blonde cousin. According to Catholic Law (and Italy's for a long time) he could not get a divorce. Of course, he discovers a loophole in the laws that entitles a man to avoid jail if he kills his wife in a fit of rage when she is caught in the arms of a lover. The film, by Pietro Germi, sets up a situation in which Ferdinando tries to arrange for his wife to fall in love with someone else even though she only has eyes for him. he dresses her up and walks her around town for men to look at. He sets her up to be alone at his house with other men. He encourages her to mingle at social parties. She only has eyes for him though, and he becomes increasingly frustrated. There's some great voice overs in this film, and a charming scene where Ferdinando runs off to see a screening of La Dolce Vita on order to leave his wife alone at home with a house painter. The joke is, of course, that Mastroianni was in La Dolce Vita as well. There's a surprisingly entertaining twist in the last seconds of the movie as well, so keep your eye out for it. Probably one of my top ten favorite comedies ever.

The 60's were really a blessing for Italian film. Directors were beginning to explore new styles, narrative approaches, and diversifying their subject matter. At the same time, they hadn't lost their penchant for compelling and tight storyline yet. Later on, they would become more indulgent, and a bit looser in storytelling. That is not to say there aren't great movies from all decades, but the 60's marks the merge of the eno-realists and the first wave of Cinecitta visionaries. Wealth and economic aesthetic. All the major directors worked in this era, and the international market exploded with heavy demand for their films. This allowed them even more liberties. The Italian have won more Oscars than any other country in the "foreign film category" of the Academy here in the states. (I believe France is two shy of them). There was an incredible demand for their voice in the world, and alot of reward for it.

**1970's

The 1970's has a few benchmark additions to the Italian and International Film Industry, but none is so important to me as the controversial emergence of Lina Wermuller. She's very tough to pallate, and may not be as progressive as I read her to be. But the fact of the matter stands she's the first BIG female name in International film since Leni Riefenstahl in the 40's and 50's in Germany. And Wertmuller, like Riefenstahl has some great contributions to film, but some very negative and complex content. Nowhere is this seen more than in her 70's hit Swept Away. The basis of which finds Rafaella (Mariangela Melato) abandoned on an island with Gennarino (Giancarlo Giannini), where he proceeds to hold out food until she comes to him and he technically rapes her. Furthermore, she apparently enjoys it and begs for more for the rest of their stay on the island. I'd be very interested in someone speaking to me about this movie if they've seen it.

What's up for debate is the context in which it plays out. Taken alone, its gross theme, but I tend to view both of them in the light of gender and class discussion. In the beginning, Rafaella is a wealthy woman on a yacht having a party, where all the aristocratic attendees manipulate and flaunt themselves infront of the working class yacht staff. When they're shipwrecked, her wealth and status, her means to power, are taken away from her, and the two play out a gender war stripped of other means in which to excert power. However, once restored to the mainland, she promptly leaves him standing miserable and returned to his horrible life while she is restored to a position of power. So, it's almost like, "she wins." Taking into account what I said about Antonioni in the 60's, and the arguements of sexual distraction to the disempowered, there could be another reading here. But I'll let you guys decide.

Swept Away was not the movie that made her big in the states however. That prestige goes to Pasqualino SetteBellezze (Seven Beauties); a brilliant movie about an Italian in a prisoner of war camp in Germany who tries to seduce the head Nazi officer in order to survive. Its vulgar and insightful at the same time, and Pasqualino (Giannini again) is a pretty despicable and unappealing character. The film plays out with several flashbacks to his life in the village with his seven sisters, all of whom he's not very nice too. He's a poor, lazy, self-entitled, horny (there's that poverty displaced onto sex theme again) wimpy, masogensistic piece of scum. And yet, his endevours to free himself in such an unorthodox way are so pivotal to Wertmuller's commentary on humanity, voracity for life, in the face of automated death. True human spirit.

Seven Beauties stormed the Oscars here in the states. Wertmuller became the first woman ever nominated in the Best Director field where she joined Alan J. Pakula for All the President's Men, Ingmar Bergman for Face to Face, Sidney Lumet for Network, and John Alvidson for Rocky. No other woman had ever been nominated (either American of Foreign) and no other woman would again until Jane Campion for The Piano almost 2 decades later. If you check on the imdb pages for the oscar nominations, you will see they even insert special mention of this significant hallmark. Along with that nomination, Seven Beauties went on to be nominated for Best Actor (Giancarlo Giannini), best screenplay (Wertmuller), and Best Foreign Language Film. Why she's so big in the international scene is probably a mix of her genius and her being in the right place at the right time. A similar reason as to why Liliana Cavani rose in international prominence around that time for her The Night Porter. Another movie that deals with sex and WWII (in Cavani's case, the Holocaust). Porter has also been toted as incredibly inciteful and brilliant by some, I personally feel its a piece of trash, and while being much more austere and dark that Seven Beauties, its content is actually alot more shallow and empty of either spirit or introspection. Regardless, the Italian female directors hit International audiances full force.

Somehow the earlier French female directors (Agnes Varda comes to mind) where missed, but by the 70's, the International community was really desperate to produce post-sexual revolution female figures in high places. Wertmuller's movies are very interesting, and deserve to be as reknown as they are (the first montage of Seven Beauties should be mandatory viewing for everyone ever), but its important to note she was actually never as famous in her home country as she was in America.

The other gems of the 70's include Christ Stopped at Eboli by Francesco Rosi. The story of an exiled doctor, writer, and political activist during the Fascist parties peak. Gian Maria Volente plays Carlo Levi. The doctor rhuminates on the condotions of the small isolated Italian village, which is so poverty stricken and goegraphically removed from the rst of the political upheaval in 1935, that it doesn't even know there's a war going on. Eboli is the city which is the last stop on the train station. This village exists even beyond that, had unyielding crops, and the inhabitants barely subsist from day to day..hence the title that Jesus never made it past the last train stop, and these villagers were left unsaved. Volente is incredibly powerful as the sullen and philosophical Levi. He is better known for all of his work with Sergio Leoni where he played "bag guys" in the Spaghetti Westerns.

Casanova was Fellini's only attempt at an English language film. It starred Donald Sutherland as the infamous ladies man. Fellini hated it, refused to allow it to be released in the US. Eventually someone may buy the copyrights to release it here in DVD, but I've never seen it on video release, and have only seen it because I knew someone who had a bootleg copy. Good luck finding it if you're adventurous. Its quite good actually, and dissappointing that there's restricted access to it. Orchestra Rehearsal was aweful. I don't know what Fellini was thinking as he turned his ridicule on unionized members of the national symphony and the entire movie is just everyone freaking out.

Pasolini's The Decameron is the best film rendition of the celebrated late medieval tales by Boccaccio. I've never been that into tales due to how short each one tends to be, but of all the ones I've seen, Decameron probably handles the short stories the best. This is bacchantal celebration at its finest, and the whole cast just looks like its having a ball. Somehow the movie still retains some of Pasolini's gritty angsty edge though. He could never shed it, heh.

Lastly, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow is one of De Sica's great triumphs and the only movie I know of where he actually used big name actors. Setting aside his neo-realist principles of hiring unknowns this one time, he procurrs a great trilogy of vignettes that all start Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren. As the title indicates, its a commentary on the eras of Italy, and also the regions. The first vignette stars the two as a poverty stricken couple in the south of Italy. In order to keep the wife from going to jail, she must be preganant. So the two proceed to re-empregnate her everytime she comes home with a new child. The humous is that she flourishes and he flounders. The "Today" aspect includes the two as an aristocratic ,disinterested, woman and the reporter who is interviewing her. They drive in a car, converse, and this is supposed to equal equate to the reconstructionist era of Italian history. The last vignette was later made famous for being recreated in Robert Altman's Pret-a-Porter. A man courts a sweet and well intentioned prostitute who constantly evades him. In the meantime she meets a young man who is studing to enter a Catholic order.

Interesting decade where some of the "Old Wave" of Italian cinema begins to fade and alot of new names emerge. By the 80's only Fellini and to a lesser extent Wertmuller would remain at CineCitta. Pasolini dies, De Sica retires, and a larde chunk of the directors including Antonioni, Zeffirelli, Bertolucci would transition into the American and English indistries altogether.

**1980's

The 1980's are a big transition period in style and content for the Italians. Its probably most well known for Cinema Paradiso directed by Guiseppe Tornatore. The names are new, and the directors don't quite develope the massive catalogue of works as their ancestral generation of film makers. To me, the films become noticeably more "modern." I'd say they became more higher budget, but films in the 60's and 70's weren't exactly cheap, and most likely equally as expensive to produce. But the film material, and style feel alot more glossy, stable, and less gritty than earlier ones. Previous directors had adhered to washed out colors or grainy film, Fellini even stuck to black and white decades after the film industry had transitioned. But in the 1980's, the cinema began to have the "feel" we now associate with high budget films.

Cinema Paradiso is of course the story of a young boy growing up in a village, and how he befrieds the local projectionist. Its setting is back when projectionists were highly specialized, and projection machines were somewhat of less questionable safety. Due to government restrictions, all the sexual content of films are spliced out of the reels before presentations. The story is quite touching, and the ending a bit sad. Apparently the re-released Cinema Paradiso, which inclluded footage editted off the first release ending, makes the story close on a far more bitter and depressing, rather than just emotional experience. I have not seen Nuevo Cinema Paradiso which was only released into theatres recently.

The 80's also begin to set a new tone for Italian movies which I find to be more "romantic." NOt so much in the way of love stories "and there are plenty" but also that the stories become less jaded, softer, more "cute" or just less complicated emotional range. Cinema Paradiso is probably the last movie I've seen that exhibitis some bitterness, but jadedness, ridicule, and irony completely leave the scene (of films I've seen that is). We return to the stories that while perhaps having demanding content (some may think later Malena was tough) are handled in a fairly straightforeward narrative fashion. Attention and details are now focussed on style.

Fellini takes a crack at a quasi-opera movie, And the Ship Sails On which is very humorous if not a bit out of place. I know many people who liked it, but I just sat there wondering what he was thinking. It is funny though, since all the aristocracy on the boat is always singing, but its not exactly a well written opera. Could be fun for someone with patience. His City of Women is so well loved by others, but sadly its the one movie of his i couldn't even sit through. Stopped about 40 minutes in. Ginger and Fred which I've mentioned several times already, is a great little gem, and much softer and less scathing than Fellini's mid-career works, it harkens back to his early Masina helmed films. Intervista is also at the forefront of mockumentaries with, apprently, Rob Reiner. This one is even a mock autobiographical documentary. Makes the head spin just thinking about it, but is quite fun, and further fools me into thinking Anita Eckberg really is glamorous 24/7.

There's only one more very big director that emerges after the 80's, and that Roberto Begnini so he'll be discussed next.

**1990's and 2000

The 90's through today procurred a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, the Italians produced a wider range of mass appeal comedies, dramas, and love stories, and the new wave of directors debuted, on the other hand, they produced a wider range of mass appeal comedies, dramas, and love stories...

Amongst the selection though, the big gem is Gianni Amelio's Open Doors. An incredibly introspective and well done film about due process in the courts and the rise of fascist governments under the arguements of public safety. In the film, Tommaso Scalia goes on a rampage one morning killing his boss, his job replacement, and raping a killing his own wife. Now Amelio does you the pleasure of showing you his actions at the opening of the film. So his culpability is never in question. He demnds an expedited trial and the death penalty while simultaneously poking at the court system's need to bypass the system in order to quickly close the case and ease public sentiment. Judge Vito Di Francesco, also played by the striking Gian Maria Volente, refuses because he opposed to Capital Punishment and believes in due process. One juror, Consolo (Renato Carpentieri) also has doubts about the handling of the trial, and Open Doors pretty much follows the juror and especially the judge as they work through the case. My favorite novel The Brothers Karamazov, also gets a moment of screentime too, which is the icing on the cake.

Roberto Begnini really busts out onto the film scene, starring in Federico Fellini's final movie, the mediocre Voice of the Moon. Begnini is actually a huge slap-stick comedian in Italy with several books including one he wrote after {b]Life is Beautiful[/b] gained international reknown. Its called "With You, Life is Beautiful" and no doubt returns to his fun slapstick love comedy style.Prior to Life, he did two comedies that can be found here. Johnny Stecchino and The Monster.

Stecchino, which came first, is actually quite fun. As in all his movies (and a large chunk of Jim Jarmusch's ones, Begnini plays opposite his real wife, the charismatic and sweet Nicoletta Braschi. In Stecchino (Italian for toothpick) Begnini plays two characters. The mob head Johnny Stecchino, and the unfortunate Dante whom the mobsters wife Maria (Braschi) has found to serve as his body double. Dante doesn't realize why people keep trying to shoot at him, or why this lovely woman of his dreams has fallen into his lap and his taking him shopping and on vacations, etc. She's doing it because Johnny is housebound hiding from mad mobsters, and the two believe if Dante is shot, the mobsters will leave him alone thinking they've accomplished their mission. Quite fun and a great role for Braschi, who ends up being the power that runs the fiasco. The Monster is a slight reprieve and not as creative. In it, Braschi is a policewoman who is sent undercover to trail a suspected rapist by pretending to be his girlfriend. Of course its another mistaken identity bit, and Begnini is actually an innocent guy. Both were directed and acted by Begnini.

And of course, there's Life is Beautiful where he realigns his psychsical humour to have the bittersweet emphasis on saving his son from the atrocities of the concentration camps. Alot of people were upset when this movie came out and argued everything from "he wasn't Jewish enough" to "he made the death and work camps into a game." Personally, I think those people really missed the point of the movie. But I'll keep that for discussion for anyone who watches the movie and/or wants to discuss it during the festival.

Other greats were Il Postino by Michael Radford about a postman who delivers mail to the exiled poet and activist Pablo Neruda. The film is charming (a term I too often use once the 90's hit). But what sets it above other movies of the genre is Radford's emphasis on poetry, and the simple postman Mario Ruoppolo (played by Massimo Troisi) discovering the power of the word, a new light kindled in himself, and how to express his love to the local bar worker Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta). Note her name...anyone who knows (almost) original Divine *ahem* Love will know why her name is so apt. Its actually a well done and very interesting film considering the content, and Radford keeps the viewer invested depite the pace and the fact that its pretty much a feature length film which is just dialogue and beautiful landscape shots. Highly recommended as one of the better films of recent times.

Mediterraneo is also a decent film about several sailors sent to invade a Greek Island in WWII. Its a pretty dud mission and the guys end up wondering why they were sent to the adandoned island. Only they discover its not abandoned, its chock full of women and children (all the men have left for war) who were hiding from the unknowns until they decided the sailors wouldn't harm them. The sailors proceed to live out their lives in the isolated but friendly village without much further knowledge of what is going on in the rest of the world. They get inklings of news through a radio, and eventually reality seeps back in and they must decide where their futures lie.

2000 has prduced one decent dramedy and two duds as far as I'm concerned. I won't even begin with The Last Kiss since I saw it in Italy with no subtitles, so may have missed some of the finer nuances. But it makes Lost in Translation seem like a profound relationship, which its not.

Malena otherwise known as "That movie that we first saw Monica Bellucci in if we hadn't seen Under Suspicion[/b] was god aweful. Pretty much the story of a gorgeous woman who moves to a *provicial* town where the men all get erections when she walks down the street, and their wives get bitter and vengeful. Alone, since her husband is in the war, the town goes nuts on her, and when it is declared that her husband is dead, they lose and final reserves and just beat up on her. I guess one could say this is a story of survival of the individual against the gendered cruelty of society, but that would be stretching it.

Bread and Tulips is almost the good story of an unhappy housewife who leaves her family (accidentally) only the husband is so terrible it doesn't really make the arguements about "tearing the family apart" make any sense. Perhaps if he'd been simple, or giving, like in Hedda Gabler, or The Awakening, or even The Piano (sort of). But no. Its still a pleasant look at a woman who hitchhikes to Venice and begins a new life with a makeshift family of locals though.

There are two movies that made pretty big waves in the U.S. which I haven't seen however, but have heard great things about. The first was an Italian suspense/horror film that came out two and a half years ago called I'm Not Scared about a boy who discovers something he shouldn't in the fields of his farmland. The second, which is in theatres right now is called Caterina in the Big City and has 93% Cream of the Crop over at RT. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/caterin ... _big_city/ So if anyone could see either of those two, I'd love to know what you thought.

That wraps up my decade reviews, and I hope I touched on the eras, topics, genres, and content amply. If any topic interested you, even the ones I disliked and you'd want to judge for yourself, heh, please check out the films I assoctiated with it. Ask away for recs, etc, and FILMO has been showcasing the Leone/Marricone due that has given us the *other* vision of the west. I wasn't even aware there were other directors for Spaghetti Westerns! But as he's shown, there are, so if you liked The Man with No Name, I'm sure there are others he did write-ups on that would interest you.

Enjoy!

The only modern Italian film I've seen in recent years was Ricordati di me. It was pretty interesting. I'll try to catch up on a few of these listed above.

I'm always a little confused by how exactly this whole thing works (if only I had the patience to read through) but I've wanted to see certain films in this thread for a while now (8 1/2, Cinema Paradiso, Bicycle Thieves..) but have never gotten around to it. So I guess this might be a good enough time to do it.

Actually, Suspiria launched the entire film festival the first year we ran this. I rather thought it was ok...for a horror movie. Thank makeshift for that "movie night" selection.

I'm always a little confused by how exactly this whole thing works (if only I had the patience to read through) but I've wanted to see certain films in this thread for a while now (8 1/2, Cinema Paradiso, Bicycle Thieves..) but have never gotten around to it. So I guess this might be a good enough time to do it.

I'm worried about the four hour running time on My Voyage to Italy. Does anyone think they would prefer something shorter? I was considering switching it up for Open Doors.

Is it a documentary?

My Voyage in Italy? Yes. Its a documentary Scorsese did shortly after filming Gangs of New york in Cinecitta, where Scorsese discusses five major Italian directors, Visconti, Rossellini, Fellini, Antonioni, and De Sica who made a huge imapact on his own film making.

There's a link a few posts up where I announce the movie (there is a link to Profondo Rosso as well).

Open Doors is not a documentary, but its an excellent movie that I discussed in my above post for the 1990's and I think is particularly important to watch in light of recent, um, decisions to by-pass due process here in the States.

Hmmm... Everywhere seems to report it being a 1999 released film which would be before Gangs, right?

And I can't seem to find Open Doors on Netflix
Could it possibly go by another name?

<center>.Pasqualino SetteBellezze (Seven Beauties)</center>


Lina Wertmuller’s “Seven Beauties” seems both aptly and ironically named. As vulgar and offensive as the pretext of Giancarlo Giannini’s Pasqualino Frafuso wooing his P.O.W SS officer in an attempt to save himself initially is, it taps into a long standing Italian and Roman artistic tradition stemming as far back as the Apollo Belvedere. From the opening montage, scenes of war and atrocity dedicated to both the lovers and the haters, the fools and the wise, to the hero’s and the cowards, Wertmuller’s vision is a poetic onslaught to the senses. This film does not pay homage to the heroism of the individual, it tips its hat to an entire society’s will to survive and endure. Wertmuller’s vehicle for embracing this desire to live is clearly oriented in a rich tradition of themes associated with visual arts and literature.

<center></center>

The first viewing of this film is horrific and disgusting. Frafuso is the antithesis of a sympathetic character. His past, rendered throughout the movie in long flashbacks, places him with 7 unattractive sisters (the Seven Beauties), and yet he is a misogynistic pig, a wimp, and overly confident of his physical presence. Because his past is revealed slowly throughout the film, as his respective situation worsens, the viewer becomes less and less sympathetic to him. One cannot help notice, that by the time he is faced with death, it could easily be delivered with little remorse for the action. He killed one of his sister’s lovers, maneuvers himself into an asylum where he rapes a patient, and then enlists for fighting with the Italian troops in order to avoid a harsh sentence. He is not a heroic soldier either. Once given the opportunity, he quickly deserts, but eventually finds himself starving and abused as a P.O.W. Adding insult to his personality he decides his only chance for survival is to win the affections of the S.S. officer responsible for patrolling him. He wants to save his butt, and he’ll use his butt to do it.

His moments of doubt, which are few, far between and arise from the heroic acts of an anarchist prisoner, are ultimately overshadowed by his raw desire to live. The climatic finale has him, starving and emaciated, crawling all over the heavy, grotesque officer, and trying to stimulate himself in order to please her. The scene borders on slap-stick, but since the context isn’t, the commentary ultimately becomes one of dark humor and disturbing honesty. The shocking realization that Wertmuller has coached a concentration camp experience of subjugation in a comic situation about a man’s penis as his means of survival initially appears disrespectful and low.

<center></center>

On deeper analysis the scene becomes one of the most profound in cinematic history. A perfect junction of historical artistic narratives with a contemporary experience, Wertmuller is a true genius. One need only understand the visual and literary presence of well endowed men to understand the long standing traditions equating life, procreation and vigorous spirit with the physical penis. Yes, all of Michelangelo’s men are naked and proud, yes, Boccaccio’s lover’s revel in sex as a form of disobedience, intelligence, and redistribution of power. The physical act of sex has always been a metaphor for prosperity and life. Wertmuller eventually even acknowledges the entire situation as such when the grotesquely fat and severe officer unfeeling anticipates her (and the Nazi’s) own eventual downfall.

Ultimately insightful and beautiful, the Seven Beauties goes down in history as one of the only films that approaches differently the experience of WWII, and the ability, nay, the desire, of individuals to survive in the face of horrific atrocity. While many films have been sympathetic and exploratory of life and adversity during war, Wertmuller, whether fully conscious of it or not, contextualizes her Seven Beauties in an exceptional way. Appropriating her Italian identity and its long standing history within broader themes of empire, defiance, and sexual identity, she has created a masterpiece so powerful and cerebral that she became the first, and to this date only one of two women to ever be nominated for her directorial efforts at the Academy Awards.

<center>Grade: A+</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/ ... auties.php

<center>8 1/2</center>


In what is largely considered one of the most influential achievements in film history, Federico Fellini’s substanceless semi-autobiographical 8½ (Eight and a Half) makes a point of being about nothing, and in so doing focused instead on a breakthrough cinemagraphic experience that diverged from previous narrative styles. Being as content-void as it is, 8½’s new narrative became the focus of many spin-offs in later decades that haven’t necessarily been traced to their far more competent origin. The story is about a film director who can’t overcome creativity-block in order to produce his next movie. Sound familiar? Fellini had previously filmed eight full-length feature films and one film short, hence the “half” as well as the disturbingly hilarious malaise of the most memorable victim of writers-block, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastoianni). Guido is being pulled and pushed in every which direction and his subsequent confusion and depressed state take to the dreamworld like no escapist had done before. Guido is bored with his wife, can’t stand his frivolous lover, and producers have put way too much money into Guido’s upcoming sci-fi to let him off the hook that easily. What does Guido do? Nothing actually, he just slips into fantasies about women and suicide and his youthful indiscretions.

But alas, Guido is not the kind of man to do anything as drastic as he does in his visions, so instead he continues to get jostled from all directions and his visions becomes more elaborate and plentiful. He never goes anywhere, and neither does 8½, which is why the film is hard to relate to even for a seasoned veteran of writer’s block. One has to wonder if Fellini really had run out of ideas when he stumbled across the new technique of parodying his own situation? 8½ is a series of bickering exchanges coupled with stunning cinematography and comic sexist escapist visions. The infamous “brothel” scene alone has garnered many a spin-off, including Peter Greenaway’s recent 8½ Women, in which a father and son try to recreate a real life version of the brothel on their estate after having watched the Fellini film.

Ultimately what makes 8 ½ so exceptional is Fellini’s constant and indistinguishable fluctuation between the first and third person narrative vision. Fellini was breaking with past techniques in 1963 and to this day no director has done a better job incorporating such style. Often, Guido appears to be viewed from outside of himself, and as he dreams his habit of placing himself within the memory landscape rather than experiencing the memory through his own eyes leads to a clean and unnoticeable transition between reality and dreamland. Only after Guido snaps into reality does the viewer realize that the past sequence was fictional. The camera’s paced and highly stylized sense of movement, especially when drifting through the sci-fi half built wood sets, provides a lyrical and surreal space in the reality sequences that coupled with Fellini’s tradition multiple endings sense of timing is bound to drive a viewer crazy. But after all, is not Guido going nuts? Isn’t Fellini unsure of how to proceed with his next film?

Leave it to the Italian master to create not only a seamless connection between his protagonist’s internal and external spaces, but also a seamless parallel between the three experiences of the film; the man behind the camera, the man in front of it, and the audience who interacts with it.

<center>Grade: A-</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/8half.php

<center>BLOW-UP</center>


When David Hemmings’ fashion photographer Thomas finds his camera in his hand, with its lens trained on a couple fondling in the park, Michelangelo Antonioni finds his magnum opus Blow-Up. Blow-Up, a truly a magnificent film layered in complexity, humor, and scathing criticism of jaded 60’s pop culture, will never slip into oblivion in the collective memory of the film world. It is the hallmark of shifting storylines and introduced information; it is the crowing film of voyeurism and that of voyeurism’s action’s repercussions or lack thereof. Often imitated but never surpassed in excellence, Antonioni’s Blow-Up fluctuates between exploring the relationship between two men, their cameras, and existential questions of perception and reality. Blow-Up is never explicit or dialogue heavy in its ruminations however, instead it blooms like faux-flowers at a photo shoot. All this is accomplished through use of a taught thrilling murder, enthusiastic mimes, and the picturesque lush self-indulgence of the fashion world.

The film opens with Thomas, ruffled and sleepy, exiting a building with men that live the life he is imitating. He has spent the night with them, incognito, shooting their lives like Nan Goldin covering Boston subculture. Thomas is not down and out like his compatriots; however, he is a photographer looking for his next subject. The clash between his reality and those whom he condescends to blend with is the first glimpse of a man who experiences his surroundings and himself through his camera as a distant outsider. Mimes drive by, stuffed into an automobile, answering the age-old-question of how many clowns can fit in an elevator. Their constant presence in the streets of London is a reminder that Thomas mimes his experiences. Thomas does not see his work as the work of a man going through the motions; on the contrary he takes his photo-voyeurism very seriously, and fails to build any self-directed reflections into his actions.

When Thomas stumbles across a couple in the park he begins photographing them from afar sans their permission or even knowledge of his presence. The man is heavy, older, and fairly comely. The woman, Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), is strikingly beautiful. His lack of understanding of the couple’s situation is the springboard for which the film is named after. Jane dashes towards him, demanding the film be handed over at once. Thomas refuses, and walking away he notes Jane running alone in the park, her second half nowhere to be found. With nothing more than initial curiosity, Thomas returns to his studio and darkroom to develop the role of film now so aggressively sought after by Jane.

What he discovers within the frames of his film roll shock him. He notices the couple, hugging awkwardly, he notices Jane looking over her shoulder into the trees beyond, he notices a gun in that cluster of trees. Unsure of his own eyes, he hurriedly enlarges the frames to the point where they are so grainy they are almost indistinguishable. Yes, he sees a gun. He calls his co-worker exclaiming he may have stopped an assassination attempt.

But Thomas’ obsession with the unknown crime is quickly overtaken by his self-indulgent nature. He neither calls the police nor does he continue his investigation. Instead he continues on with his fashion photo shoots, including a famous sequence with then model Verushka, one of the 60’s Twiggy-like aesthetic heroines. Many will recognize this particular moment, as it was excellently parodied in the original Austin Powers movie. Antonioni builds his own internal reflection into Thomas’ actions. The director erects a direct parallel between Thomas’ lens and his own, and the situation is hauntingly beautiful yet painfully aware of its own sense of projection. Verushka is bored and lethargic, barely batting an eyelash as Thomas writhers on the floor and circles her getting increasingly excited about the potential of his own photographs. Antonioni circles around Thomas in equally as self-congratulatory of a way. Blow-Up is a double reflection, as the man with the movie camera reflects on his own projections through the protagonist with his photo camera.

But Thomas is not granted the gift of being a complete savior to the man in the park. Jane shows up at his door, demanding the film once again. Thomas won’t give it to her, and instead the two of them smoke pot and listen to jazz. Once again Thomas’ interest is piqued, but his new findings are somewhat more upsetting. He blows-up yet more film stills and finds the unfortunate man lying dead behind a tree. Or so he thinks. Thomas’ downstairs neighbor’s wife, whom he attempts to play footsies with, arrives at the perfect moment to observe that the grainy photo enlargements look an awful lot like her husband’s spotted Pollock-esque paintings. Paintings are contrived from their producer’s hand and mind, and Antonioni wisely inserts a scene in which the downstairs painter comments about his painting’s lack of content. They are nothing at their beginning but spots and splatters and only as they near completion does he discover some content that he can then elaborate on. Are Thomas’ photographs like his neighbor’s paintings? Simply a frenetic composite of spots that its producer reads meaning into at later stages?

The beauty of Blow-Up is that we, the audience, never knows the truth of the situation, or even if a truth exists. In a drugged-out haze Thomas returns to the scene of the crime only to find no evidence. The body has either been removed, or never existed in the first place. Blow-Up is riddled with introspection into this one critical point. Antonioni’s final scene is even enchanting in its elaboration of perception and projection. As Thomas wonders the park unsure of his own findings, the mimes arrive to play an intense tennis match. Their match, to date, is still one of the most intelligent and insightful moments in cinematic history. Their game becomes so engaging as to illicit Antonioni’s camera’s gaze, back and forth, on the invisible ball. The sound of tennis racquets slamming against their target pierces the silence, and one mime hits the ball so hard the entire group, including the audience, watch the ball fly over the fence towards Thomas’ feet. Thomas smiles to himself, perhaps acknowledging his own miming act in regards to the reality of events captured in his camera, and tosses the ball back to the mimes. As Blow-Up comes to its close, the reality of the tennis ball being hit back and forth outlasts even the final visual frame of Thomas, already redirecting his camera on birds in the park.

<center>Grade: A+</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/Blowup.php

<center>Intervista</center>


In retrospect, it’s often hard to remember how cutting-edge and even revolutionary Federico Fellini’s direction and cinema style were. With dozens of spin-offs of his audience perception manipulating 8½ in the from Abre Los Ojos to Fight Club, Fellini’s ground breaking later work Intervista is often overlooked for both its contribution to cinema narrative and its touching self-reflective and celebratory nature.

At the ripe old age of , perhaps the king of Cinecitta grew nostalgic? When faced with his own and compatriots’ decades of work wearing across their faces and bodies, he returned to the sentimental and sympathetic undertones of his early productions. Gone are the sarcastic cuts at labor in Orchestra Rehearsal, the aloof challenges to wealthy excess so addressed in Satyricon and Roma, or the homage to bored aristocratic playboys frolicking through the Monarch courts or aspiring to the contemporary equivalency on the Via Veneto. Almost all of Fellini’s late productions return to his roots in solemn stage and circus performers’ stories. It is Intervista that stands out as the most intelligent and yet most sentimental of all Fellini’s late works. Truly a space envisioned by his relationship to his cast members, his life as film auteur, his love of location, and of course, oh so many of those theatrical clowns.

Intervista is a mockumentary of the highest degree. Not only does it tap into viewers’ expectations of journalism and “truth,” but in grande style it is an autobiography of his own life (no less). Fellini sets up for a Japanese film crew to come interview him in situ at the studios in Rome; opening up the floodgates for Fellini’s characters to flood forth. All the while he twice over challenges our expectations of photographic realism and the fabricated reality that may lie behind it. For in Intervista all our experience of the man and his myth are actually confirmed. The design sets are a mess, mimicking the chaos of his lush pictures. Random women that “look” like “Fellini Women” even come into the casting agency saying they were referred to the location on bus ride due to their appearances. This is what we expect, nay, what we desire; that his characters are mere extensions of themselves in reality. That the Fellini we see hosting the documentary team is actually the Fellini we know.

The mockumentary, so new in style in the 80’s, was an elaborate style to toy with the distinctions of reality and fantasy. If the suggestion sounds a bit like 8 ½ its because it is along similar veins. His two movies explore similar manipulations but in very different fashion. The two are vastly different and the unique edge of Intervista comes in its self-reflexive nature. Adding his particular twist to the recipe, Fellini plays with his fans expectations of himself and his own entourage.

Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg show up in order to reminisce in an elegant reprieve of their iconic Trevi Fountain frolic. While Marcello quips about his old legs and back, Anita glides around in timeless glamour and an orange gown as though she hasn’t aged a day since the famous midnight dip way back in 1960. But she is older, and she certainly looks it. She knows it as well, as the crowd of old friends project the two’s past acting heroics onto a screen the aged stars slowly dance and look back upon their youth with moist eyes. It’s so real we forget its fake. It taps into our desire to believe Fellini is neurotic, that his characters are sourced in life, that Anita is glamorous, and that Marcello is the charismatic Latin Lover his nickname warrants. We want to believe Cinacitta, like Hollywood, has magic and that it is more than just offices and empty cement lots. And in truth, it is. Or certainly it is to Federico Fellini who established and maintained his illustrious career having never left the studios far from reach.

Yes, Intervista is about the relationship of a man to his camera and the world that both informed and was informed by that friendship. There truly is magic to the eccentric old timers and the environment that birthed all their international careers. Their joy, nostalgia, aging faces, eager reunion, and even the memory of those not present reverberate throughout the interview with increasing gusto. The Japanese journalists look on eagerly, trying to discover the root of the legend and the origin of his international presence. Is Fellini popular in Tokyo? Regardless of if the director is or simply wants us to believe he is makes all the difference in the genius of his film style, and no difference what-so-ever in his fond recollections of a four decade long love affair with film.


<center>Grade: A-</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/Intervista.php

<center>La Dolce Vita</center>


Jesus, or at least his image, gets airlifted from Rome via helicopter as bathing suite clad socialites wave and flirt from their rooftops. And so begins Federico Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita in its exploration of the self-entitled, un-ambitious, Italian bourgeoisie. Marcello Mastroianni’s paparazzo reporter Marcello Rubini builds himself into one of the most sympathetic yet frustratingly empty hero’s ever to grace the screen. What Rubini looks for in his camera is ultimately missing from his own life. He lives day to day exploring the sensations of Rome and stringing them together as a child does newspaper clippings of a long desired future career. Perhaps that is why Rubini is so aggressive in reading meaning into his overly performative subjects?

The famous blonde bombshell Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) arrives at Rome for her next shooting, and in typical Fellini misogyny, Rubini plays out his aspirations on her body, her movements, and her English accent. He escorts her around Rome longing for her lips and meaning in his life simultaneously as she frivolously swoops about dance floors and Vatican City. Fellini, who previously coupled Ekberg with a large feline in The Clowns, opted for matching her up with a small white kitten found in the dark streets of after-hours Rome for this 1960 film. In what will go down historically as one of the finest and most iconic scenes in film history, Ekberg abandons playing with her kitten in order to frolic in the Trevi fountain, letting the streams of Baroque sculpted water coarse down her black evening gown as she gleefully calls out. That Rubini defines this moment as existential in nature further illustrates his inability to apply value outside the immediate moment of gratification. This inability likewise plagues the elite who cruise the Via del Corso seeking their pleasures.

This inability also renders Rubini alienated by everything he sees. He sees children cheat religious pilgrims with exclamations of visions of the Virgin in their backyard, he sees one of his lovers hiding a black eye under shades, he sees his fiancé attempt suicide, and he sees his father in a moment of deep depression, oh yes, and he sees wealth and celebrity at every turn. What keeps Rubini moving through life is his sheer inability to assume he is not worth more than he deserves. He goes to house parties of the rich and famous, and is bored even as he is fascinated by the games that ensue. He plays light love serenade while his toying partner becomes entangled in the arms of another midway through the game.

He is going to write, he is going to be more, he is going to show up to work once again, he is not going to have any material. Rubini never grounds himself either in his own decisions or in the streets of the City so contrasted by the overly indulgent and the desperate underbelly. Eventually he finds himself in a lame party, with his boring and bored friends, and as they attempt to “spice things up” with a striptease of a recent divorcee, Rubini comes to a painful realization. It is not crushing, he does not scream and cry, he exhibits but a little rage and a lot of the usual boredom. He is intermittently caring, lonely, condescending, juvenile, and aged, but only does he conclude perhaps there is nothing more. The symbolism of the final scene is ambiguous but final as party members wind through a forest at sunrise, and a giant sea creature is pulled from the water, as an oddly familiar angelic face turns halo-lit to look out over the sea.

<center>Grade: A+</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/Ladolcevita.php

<center>La Strada</center>


Undoubtedly the film that launched Federico Fellini into the world stage spotlight, La Strada will always lurk in the shadows of the two Fellini films that followed it and never truly get the attention and recognition it so rightly deserves. The story is simple with grainy black and white footage to compliment it. The roaming camera lingers on an Italian landscape all at once grande and dull, rich and poverty stricken. The face of Giulietta Masina’s Gelsomina should be witnessed the world over for its potency. As the mute and slightly challenged Gelsomina, her facial gestures narrate the woman’s experience as no others have done before. Married away for a mere pittance to Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a circus traveling strongman, the couple travels the countryside roads performing for villagers. La Strada weaves together two of Fellini’s most obsessive passions, performance clowns and the poor, and often it is impossible to distinguish between the two.

Gelsomina and Zampano travel and perform for street change, but due to her treatment as an appendage by both her poor family and later her self-indulgent husband, Gelsomina rarely demands attention. She follows Zampano around faithfully and naively and only through miles of dirt roads and years of sojourning in a traveling coach does Gelsomina grow into her own woman. She never speaks, but begins supporting Zampano in every way she can. She is not allowed to perform; he wants to remind himself constantly of his being the main attraction. He pulls chains apart, howls, and gnashed his teeth together while Gelsomina circles the crowd with collection bag extended. She is painted white with thick lashed and a stark red dot on her nose as her eyes beseech the crowd for support where her lips and mind barely comprehend her environment.

But then Gelsomina learns. In typical later Fellini fashion, Federico externalizes the internal and internalizes the external. All the raw and depleted environments Gelsomina explores with Zampano become part of her. Zampano and his actions become part of her as well. In return her internal struggle becomes more external as it plays out on her face and across the screen. She is starving one evening and is given some bread, she smiles happily at Zampano’s hand, the hand that feeds her, as he walks off to spend the night with a local townswoman. And still Gelsomina smiles and waves at them both whilst chewing her bread until the sudden realization dawns upon her of his flagrant infidelity. Her brows pull together and arch up, her forehead becomes deeply furrowed and her mouth pulls down to the bottom corners of her chin. Her next bite of bread has no pleasure in it. And so Gelsomina learns, and likewise the world learns about her.

Gently poetic and set against the unrefined backdrop of a post-WWII ravaged Italy, Gelsomina falls in love with another performer, only to have him point out that she may be displacing her love for Zampano. How has Gelsomina learned to handle and focus her devotion? She follows the street, la strada, with Zampano and finally encounters what the world has to offer outside her small home. Zampano does not change, he remains psychologically self-entitled and takes her for granted yet still he travels with her day in and day out and even becomes accustomed to their life together. But alas, he becomes accustomed to a form of the past when Gelsomina has taken in so much and finally looks to the future. Rough around the edges but sincere in its simplicity and lack of superfluous embellishments, La Strada may not be Fellini’s magnum opus but it is definitely one of his most sincere and strongest works.

<center>Grade: A-</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/Lastrada.php

<center>The Night Porter</center>


Liliana Cavani’s 1974 “classic” generates one of the biggest myths in film history. If the film has intense writing, sharp filming, overly severe acting, and sharp cinematography…it must be deep and profound. It’s a true shame The Night Porter is anything but.

The story of Maximilian Aldorfer’s SS police officer and his slave love bunny concentration camp survivor Lucia Altherton would put tasteless camp figures like Ilsa to shame. Throw in their meeting 13 years later when Aldorfer is a hotel night porter hiding from the law and lacking even an ounce of his previously authoritative identity, and one can’t help point and laugh. Only wait, no one else thinks its hilarious that when the two star-crossed lovers paths meet once more, Aldorfer’s SS buddies think it will jeopardize their undercover hiding operations?

Usually when one throws all these elements into a film, its bound for the rental shelf right in between “Meet the Feebles” and “Ms. 45.” Only both those movies are infinitely better. The former for its humorous use of muppets, and the latter for its mildly more conceivable premises. That’s saying something since the opening 15 minutes of “45” involve a woman getting raped twice on the same day on her way home from work.

How Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde manage not to crack a smile even once while delivering their lines is a true testament to their ability to act. It’s a shame it was so wasted in mopy profound looks and sullen lips that agonize to kiss each other just once more. Even when they’ve been starved out and barricaded into a room by Aldorfer’s SS buddies. Maybe it was the not-so-subtle biblical reference to Salome, or maybe the emaciated Rampling’s ribs almost popping out of her sides are considered attractive? Regardless, the performance of profundity does not a profound movie actually make. I’d give it an F, but that would entail it having stretches of unintentional entertainment … which it didn’t.

<center>Grade: D</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/Nightporter.php

<center>The Nights of Cabiria</center>


Federico Fellini’s early line of films began with exploring the simple man’s life (Variety Lights) and moved on to the existence of the extravagant (Casanova). Spanning the incredible length and breadth of Fellini’s fine film career however, The Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita stand alone at its climax. The former looks up towards the peak, the latter having crossed it, anticipates the valley below. Giulietta Masina’s Cabiria stands as a monument to failed ambition but continued hope, while Mastroianni’s Marcello Rubini represents her antithesis; success with fleeting hope. For this very reason Cabiria stands alone as the most memorable and sympathetic character in the long line of notorious “Fellini figures.” If Fellini himself had not acknowledged his belief that in order for man to survive, one must have hope, the image of Cabiria smiling through a stream of tears would not be nearly so bittersweet. The Nights of Cabiria is ultimately about the reincarnation of dreams with the rise of the moon each evening.

Masina’s nuanced performance brings to light our true foolish heroine like no other actress would be able to accomplish. Masina’s long-standing tradition of playing the “common” woman is only one of the many facets she brings to her character. Masina’s roles stem back to Variety Lights, where she played a philandering ringmaster’s wife and dimming star circus performer. It was her first collaboration with Fellini. Even in these roles, her singular power and futile desires to control and direct her own life is her most classic traits. In Variety, however, she fails to do so is not cognizant of her own failures. In Masina’s later role as Gelsomina in La Strada, she again fails, but as a simpleton walking away from spouse strongman Anthony Quinn’s Zampano, her own understanding of the situation and her future are still very vague. Finally, in Nights the viewer is rewarded with the best of all worlds. Not only is her inability to transcend her position in life apparent, but also her own fluctuations between realization and denial of the futility contribute to her cycle.

Fellini’s handling of the narrative structure of the film is fairly straightforward. The film operates in two loops and also entails several classic “fake” endings. The opening scene depicts the prostitute Cabiria standing by the river with a man whom she has been dating. He steals her purse and pushes her into the river. Cabiria is so embittered when she is pulled from the river that she walks away from her rescuers cursing. Upon returning to her house she promises herself not to be the fool a second time. She assures herself that her dreams of self-propulsion and true affection are myth and continues, resolutely, on her bitter way.

In one of the most powerful scenes ever presented on film, Cabiria is hypnotized on stage during a magician’s performance. Suddenly she is transformed into a giggling, blushing 18 year old, picking flower for her lover. The magician, in a moment of discomfort at her sudden transition from jaded prostitute to naïve youth, breaks his hold on her. When she comes to, she storms out of the performance, aware that she has exposed to the audience and herself her own weaknesses. But alas, the name she calls out while presenting flowers, under the singular glare of a stage light, calls to a young man in the audience. And so, despite her best efforts, she once again finds herself embracing a glorious future of love and professional ambition.

Masina’s particularly expressive facial gestures are second only to Charlie Chaplin in the history of slap-stick acting. But the complexities of her role and the clear lack of any situational humor are at odds with her cocked eyebrows and ever fluctuating, exaggerated grimaces and smiles. It is because of this disparity between her dilapidated environment and her expressive energy that her continued hope of self-improvement is so endearing and humane. But that same contrast is also the reason why the futility of the situation is so simultaneously painfully obvious.

Fellini’s love of the Roman underbelly, circus performers, prostitutes, and the poor but pious individuals take on a whole new dimension. These characters begin to represent the cycle of built and dashed dreams much as the sun always sets and the moon soon rises. Nowhere is this more apparent than when Cabiria yells at religious pilgrims traveling through the countryside in search of health and salvation. Her inability to understand how similar her own position is to those she yells at across the vast field is clear. Or is it? Why she responds so particularly strongly to the sight of their impoverished but faithful band is ambiguous. Does she subconsciously sense it in her own situation? Perhaps. At the close of the film, she does smile through her own tears.

<center>Grade: A+</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/ ... abiria.php

<center>The Passenger</center>


There’s nothing quite like watching a film with two surfaces to clue the audience into realizing one of an Italian director’s middle works is gliding across the screen. No, not style-over-substance per se, but rather a film with interesting visual surface and sadly only a surface treatment of subject. Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger is just one of these films. A breath of fresh air to anyone not familiar with his earlier works, there’s just something about the jaded journalist and jade-eyed, aloof protagonista that feel, well, old.

Antonioni, never a stranger to the disengaged psyche, spent his earlier years serving up sexual distraction and human frivolity in the face of violence. His excellent L’Avventura traced wealthy yacht patrons as they quickly forgot their lost-at-sea friend. His captivating Blow-Up matched shot for shot the inability of a photographer to act upon a potential witnessed murder. His alienated housewife in The Red Desert could only slip further into visions of color and loneliness. And so, what could The Passenger’s journalist David Locke (Jack Nicholson) bring to the big screen years later? Locke quickly switches identities with a dead man named Robertson, whom he encounters whilst traveling through Saharan Africa. When Locke assumes a new self, his actions suggest escapism, and in a rare Antonioni moment; hope. Locke’s reality in Antonioni’s hands however becomes little more than a continuation of the angst backlogged from earlier works. Locke meets up with a sexy architecture student (surprise) who transitions smoothly to accomplice, and along with her small backpack, brings yet more of the same excess baggage.

Locke, now Robertson, opens up to the nameless new woman (Maria Schneider) in his life. He tells her about his washed up marriage, his adopted kid, and his frustrating passivity as a reporter covering horrendous events. She says next to nothing, but her reflective quips are meant to be deeply introspective. At one point, they even are. She encourages Locke to continue performing the deeds of his newly assumed identity, because she senses his hope to achieve more as Robertson than he did in his former self. After-all Locke was a reporter who sympathized with a guerilla cause, and the unfortunate heart-attack victim Robertson was a gunrunner for the very same cause.

The Passenger could have been the story of a man reborn. The film could have been the story of a man attempting to be reborn and once again failing due to his own disposition. Yet Antonioni struggles to breathe life into his narrative and The Passenger just becomes a directionless “could have been…” Jack Nicholson is so well known for his savvy and animation, yet even his performance feels constrained and austere. Schneider grants us one smile in the wind only to return to a pragmatism so void of range that it procures humour unintentionally.

That being said, The Passenger is not a complete failure. Its ambiguous meanderings and low energy are balanced by the finesse in which Locke’s past and present lives are woven together. Through a mix of Locke’s own televised news reports, his own and his wife’s separate flashbacks, voice-overs, and his mad chase from old friends and policemen, Antonioni creates an intriguing story of a man twice born. Locke’s wife watches his old interviews and recounts her experiences visiting him on site. She looks through his own lens as it captures a prisoner put before a firing squad just before we see her chase his contemporary Robertson through the streets of Spain. He remembers his distant past. Locke listens to a recording of a conversation with Robertson as he revisits their brief encounter.

All these time periods are seamlessly mended together to encourage active viewing. They are compelling and engaging against a backdrop of taught architecture and barren landscapes. Its mostly due to technique’s success in recruiting the viewer to “read” the film that one is left disappointed in Antonioni’s inability to be decisive about his characters and climax.


<center>Grade: B-</center>

http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/ThePassenger.php