Showpeople: film festival folk

Antonioni and Fellini in 1982; below: Fellini, Jeanne Moreau and Antonioni at the Cannes festival in 1960 when L'AVVENTURA and LA DOLCE VITA caused a furore; Visconti and Losey at the 1971 Venice festival when both were competing - Losey got the main prize for THE GO-BETWEEN so they created a special prize for Luchino for DEATH IN VENICE.

Below: two shots of Sophia Loren, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider at the 1962 Cannes Festival (all that talent and glamour in the back of the car, Ponti is in front with the driver); plus Vitti, Delon and Schneider in 1960.

L'Avventura again, and again

Here is an early post of mine from 2 years ago, on Antononi's L'AVVENTURA:

The late English film critic and writer Alexander Walker [whom I used to see around town regularly] was very perceptive in his movie reviews and his biographies on the likes of Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, Garbo and the silent era. His Thursday reviews were essential reading.

Here are his comments from a recommendation on a screening of L'AVVENTURA:

"Not all great movies, as Pauline Kael tartly observed, are received "in an atmosphere of incense burning". Michelangelo Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA was greeted at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival with a storm of cat-calling and booing. Yet within the year it had become the most fashionable film in European arthouses, and one that set the tone of other bleakly visionary film-makers. It begins with an almost glossy magazine depiction of the affluent Rome middle-class on a yachting holiday in the Lipari islands. Tensions are perceptible, but enigmatically conveyed. Then, as they prepare to leave an island, one woman (Lea Massari) is found to be missing. A search is mounted. With marvellous sleight-of-hand, Antonioni misdirects our attention: gradually we realise that instead of being looked for by her friends, she is being forgotten as two of them fall in love. The film changes key subtly, yet again to suggest how the emotions of a social class have become deadened and selfish. Monica Vitti made her name with this puzzle picture. The last sequence in a Taormina luxury hotel became notorious for her apparantly endless walk through the midnight corridors to discover her treacherous lover (Gabriele Ferzetti). It tried the patience of the black-tie crowd beyond endurance; yet The Walk soon became the trademark of other heroines, in other movies, who exemplified the sick soul of sixties Europe."

L'AVVENTURA was though the most problematic of the Antonioni films for me, I much preferred L'ECLISSE but now I have seen L'AVVENTURA a few more times and suddenly I think its wonderful in all its stark beauty. Our arty film channel Film4 ran it again last week, and despite having the Criterion dvd, I recorded it and found myself returning to it several times. It is pure cinema and I can now lose myself in it repeatedly. The first section on the island is brilliant - the photographs here show what a difficult shoot it must have been on the island in that magic year 1959. Monica Vitti is mesmerising and its a very multi-faceted performance: her anguish on the island searching for Anna, then trying to evade Sandro and finally giving in to her feelings and being deliriously in love and then that climax at the hotel in Taormina in that cold dawn ... a gold plated classic then and as I said in other posts on it, it and PSYCHO usher in that new modern world of 1960, both in their way about a woman who disappears and the people looking for her.

Eve Arnold, from A (Anouk, Antonioni) to V (Vitti)

More on the late Magnum photographer Eve Arnold - she certainly moved in the best circles, here she is with some of my favourites, showing her great eye for composition:

One of Arnold's great mid-50s Monroe shots.
Joan Crawford in 1959 in front of that marvellous 40s portrait of her.
Dirk Bogarde and Ingrid Bergman in 1964 - Ingrid was his houseguest when she did her stage run in A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY, one of the first plays I saw, in 1965.
Sophia Loren with Chaplin on the set of THE COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG, 1966
(I really need to re-see that, I have totally forgotten it!).
Anouk Aimee on the set of JUSTINE, 1969.
Monica Vitti on the set of MODESTY BLAISE, 1966.
Joe Losey in Paris, with Eve's reflections in the mirror as she takes the picture.
Michelangelo Antonioni on the set of BLOW-UP, 1966, what a great shot.
- all from her terrific book "Film Journal"

Interestingly, Yul Brynner's photographs are now on exhibition and there should be a book, these fascinating candid photos of his colleagues at work and play have not been seen before. I particularly like that nice shot of Ingrid Bergman on the set of GOODBYE AGAIN. Yul always had a camera around his neck.

Italian Vanity Fair celebrates Monica Vitti's 80th birthday

Belated birthday wishes to Monica Vitti - 80 years old on November 3 ! Nice to see that Italian "Vanity Fair" is celebrating her with a cover and feature, mentioning "the silence of a long illness" (which may be Alzheimers, which would explain why she has not been seen in public for some years, not even at Antonioni's funeral in 2007).

http://amagazine10.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-356.html

Click images to enlarge, no English translation though ! and thanks to Kraechnor II for link to this terrific YouTube montage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6uR6eELMLA

Good to see renewed interest in one of the '60s great stars, as per all my posts on her here, the art-house goddess of the Antonioni films with the mesmerising face and voice, and all those delicious comedies she did later ..... others may hate it but I simply love MODESTY BLAISE. I wouldn't say she is one of the "largest" Italian stars though, as the blurb at the link puts it! One of Italy's biggest stars certainly, but not largest !

The Italian "Vanity Fair" may not be available here in the UK (unless in specialist shops in Soho) but I can at least print out and translate the relevant pages. Its a nice spread of 7 pages with lots of pictures - Monica always looks stunning, particularly in those '60s creations...

A gentleman of course does not dwell on a lady's age, but I see a lot of Italian films so all these Italian ladies seem ageless to me; hard to believe that Gina in her 80s, Monica now 80, Sophia 77 and Claudia a mere 73 ! Next Antonioni review: THE OBERWALD MYSTERY.

Monica as Celia ?

A nice feature on Celia Birtwell in the weekend papers - she is of course the textile designer known for her distinctive bold, romantic and feminine designs, which draw influences from Picasso, Matisse and from the classical world. Celia and her late husband Ossie Clark began in the 1960s when they dressed all the stylish stars of the day, Mick Jagger and the rest. After Ossie's death Celia continued with her shop in London and has now come into her own again, with a splendid new coffee-table book on her designs, and collections of fabrics and textiles in her distinctive style for stores like John Lewis. She is also of course well known as her friend David Hockney's muse, David has painted and drawn her so many times over the years, as shown in all those books on him. She also featured in Jack Hazan's fascinating 1974 film A BIGGER SPLASH following Hockney and his friends over the course of several years.

When asked who should play her in a film she said Monica Vitti - who looks rather like her and whom she liked in those 60s films with the likes of Alain Delon. Here's Celia and David in front of that large popular painting "Mr and Mrs Clarke with Percy" - Celia with Ossie and their cat Percy, one of the Tate's most popular works.

Italian Rarities: Vitti, Mangano, Sordi x 2 + Bette Davis !

IL DISCO VOLANTE (THE FLYING SAUCER) Sometimes one has to go back and take another look at something one had dismissed out of hand - thanks to my IMDB pal Jorge's rave review for this 1964 Italian comedy, presumably made for the domestic market - I had never heard of it despite my passion for Monica Vitti and Silvana Mangano - until I got a copy (from another IMDB pal Jerry) last year. It is a throwaway farce with Italy's great comic star Alberto Sordi in several roles. The lunatic plot features a flying saucer which lands in a peasant community in Italy and the havoc it causes. I can see that its attraction now is the cheesy special effects: the saucer, the plastic outfits of the Martians - and the great comic turns it affords Sordi; as the local priest, the lover out in the car with a comic Vitti, the local police commander, and a rather camp nobleman. Mangano is also drolly funny as the peasant woman with a flock of children .... It is a Dino De Laurentiis production, directed by Tinto Brass.
Here is what Jorge says about it: Working with an acidic script by Rodolfo Sonego, Brass takes joyful stabs at the big triumvirate – Church, Family, State –, employs, at first, faux documentary techniques, and then goes full Commedia all’italiana, with some brilliantly funny vignettes, and with a cast to die for (Sordi in four roles, including a gay count very interested in the male aliens, and beauties Silvana Mangano, Monica Vitti and Elonora Rossi Drago in screamingly funny roles). One of film’s absolute highlights are Gianni Polidori’s designs for the saucer, and for the aliens’ costumes, including this sexy one for the female invader (with Sordi taking a peek at her attributes):

it is genuinely (and mordantly) funny. Silvana Mangano as a peasant woman with a handful of small children to take care and no husband to provide (and thinking how to have some profit with the male alien she just kidnapped!), or Monica Vitti maliciously insinuating herself into Sordi (as the police chief) whilst she crochets, are some of the many funny moments. In short: the Martians wish they had landed elsewhere because those Italians won't make their life (and their invasion) easy!

THE SCIENTIFIC CARDPLAYER (LO SCOPONE SCIENTIFICO). An Italian oddity from 1972, featuring 2 Americans and 2 Italian stars, in a so-so comedy about card-playing, directed by Luigi Comencini. Each year a rich old lady – Bette Davis, for it is she – arrives in a small Italian town with her companion Joseph Cotton (on autopilot here) to play cards with local poor couple Peppino and Antonia (Alberto Sordi and Silvana Mangano). Each year the couple dream of winning but the old lady always outwits them. This year though things are different – the poor couple are on a winning streak and keep winning, but the rich old lady will not give up and wants to keep on playing, even when supposedly at death's door, doubling up the bet each time. Peppino and Antonia will be ruined if they lose …. It is amusing and keeps the attention, as the whole village gets involved, along with their 5 children. Davis though dubbed is still very Bette – it is in Italian with English subtitles and the there is a neat play-off at the end. Interesting to see Davis and Cotton together again twenty years plus after BEYOND THE FOREST! Sordi and Mangano shine in two well-developed roles, he of course was terrific in those early Fellini's like I VITELLONI and THE WHITE SHIEK, and those comedies like TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA with the young Loren, or NERO'S LOST WEEKEND or LA FATE (also reviewed, Italian label), among so many others.
1972 was a busy year for Bette in Europe - she also made MADAME SIN in England and did that lecture/Q&A session at London's National Film Theatre, which I attended - as per my report to Davis label.

My Voyage to Italy - Martin Scorsese

The perfect documentary for me is Martin Scorsese's MY VOYAGE TO ITALY, I missed this whenever it played on television - did it ever play here in the UK? - but at least the dvd is now avalable. Scorsese of course as an Italian-American is the ideal guide through Italian cinema, he grew up watching these films and they have inluenced his work. It is a given that he would have loved Fellini's I VITELLONI (which I raved about here a while back), it is a major influence on his MEAN STREETS.

This four hour documentary charts the landmark films and directors of the post-war era, including Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rosselini and Michelangelo Antonioni, good to see the usually neglected Rossellini given his due here. Given Marty's wealth of knowledge and infectious passion, just watching this DVD is like attending the best film class. He knows what he’s talking about and gives precise, eloquent descriptions of each movie, using his years of experience in front of a screen as well as behind the camera. Most of all this is 246 minutes of one of the great US directors imparting his passion about some of the most important films of the 20th century. It makes one want to go back to the movies and experience them all over again, particularly Visconti's great SENSO, De Sica's UMBERTO D, and those Fellini and Antonioni masterworks. I VITELLONI for instance remains a timeless pleasure and makes me want to see those other early Fellini films.



If you care about the medium, then it is an essential purchase. Scorsese introduces various segments and through judicious use of clips and an informed, eloquent voiceover takes us on a journey of the following films:

• Paisà (1946))
• Rome, Open City (1945)
• Stromboli (1950)
• Europa ’51 (1952)
• Shoeshine (1946)
• Bicycle Thieves (1948)
• Umberto D (1952)
• The Gold of Naples (1954)
• Ossessione (1943)
• La Terra trema (1950)
• Senso (1954)
• I Vitelloni (1953)
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
• Voyage to Italy (1954)
• L’avventura (1960)
• L’eclisse (1962)
• 8½ (1963)

His focus of course is on classic Italian cinema, but a broader view would encompass the sword-and-sandal peplum films popular in the late 50s/early 60s (like GIANT OF MARATHON, Leone's rather good THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII and the Steve Reeves spectaculars, APHRODITE, MESSALINA (see Belinda Lee label), and the giallo thrillers by the likes of Mario Bava and Dario Argento (Jean Sorel label), as well as the popular Loren-Mastroianni films and the delicious comedy films of Monica Vitti, Alberto Sordi et al (BOCCACCIO 70, LE BAMBOLE, LE FATE etc); and those films from the works of Alberto Moravia (TIME OF INDIFFERENCE (Claudia Cardinale label), TWO WOMEN), Georgio Bassani (THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINI'S) and those intriguing novels by Natalia Ginzburg (DEAR MICHAEL (CARO MICHELE), FAMIGLIA etc). Other strands of Italian cinema I liked are those Lina Wertmuller films like SEVEN BEAUTIES, the Taviani's PADRE PADRONE and new comedies like LOOSE CANNONS (review at Italian label), and the lesser known films by Alberto Lattuada (THE TEMPEST, DOLCI IGNANNI), Mauro Bolognini (GRAN BOLLITO, METELLO), Monicelli etc; Visconti's 1952 BELLISSIMA and 1965 operatic melodrama SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE D'ORSA) being my recent re-dioscoveries. I will have to comment separately on the polarising works of Bertolucci and Pasolini!

I have written about these in more detail at Italian, De Sica, Antonioni, Fellini labels ....plus at labels for Loren, Vitti, Valli, Cardinale, Magnani, Mangano, Mastroianni. We sure love those Italians!