rome

Il Boom

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Italy 1964, 2017)

For some reason — I can’t find an answer — Il Boom was not released in the States until this year. Madonne! Better late than never, and I’m glad it made it because it reaffirms my love of midcentury Italian cinema.

Giovanni Alberti (Alberto Sordi) lives large. His fabulously modern apartment in Rome features a gorgeous patio for entertaining. He employs a housekeeper and sometimes a wait staff. His beautiful and frivolous wife, Silvia (Gianna Maria Canale), has expensive taste. Every night, they go out on the town for lavish dinners and fancy cocktails, dancing and partying in the most chic and trendy clubs.

A game of footsie under the table suggests that his bourgeois crowd is into some naughty stuff on the side, but Giovanni loves Sylvia way too much for that.

Life is grand, but that’s the problem: Giovanni lives above his means. Unbeknownst to Sylvia, who continues to spend gleefully, he’s over his head in debt and about to be publicly humiliated on “the registry.” He can’t get another loan because his credit is shot. Desperate, he suggests a simpler lifestyle, which Sylvia simply ignores. He can’t bring himself to tell her why.

Giovanni fails miserably to convince a number of friends and associates to invest in his land development plan, which may or may not be a scam. His last hope is one-eyed real estate mogul Mr. Bausetti (Ettore Geri), who like everyone else turns him down. Mrs. Bausetti (Elena Nicolai), however, makes a proposal behind her husband’s back: she offers to buy Giovanni’s left eye. He can name his price.

Il Boom is a lot of fun. The title refers to the postwar economic boom in Italy and elsewhere. Director Vittorio De Sica and writer Cesare Zavattini are critical of consumerism, and there’s definitely a moral. However, they avoid getting on a soapbox and simply make fun of it. The story moves along breezily, and quite a few scenes — the dinner party, the hospital — are memorably offbeat and funny. Sordi is perfect as the hapless Giovanni, displaying a mercurial energy and general uneasiness that keeps you watching. His reaction to Mrs. Bausetti’s offer is priceless. I left with a smile.

Armando Nannuzzi’s cinematography is beautiful in luminous black and white; I can’t imagine Il Boom in color. Billy Vaughn’s super cool “Wheels” plays throughout the film; man, does it stick in your head. I’m humming it now.

With Alceo Barnabei, Federico Giordano, Antonio Mambretti, Silvio Battistini, Sandro Merli, John Karlsen, Ugo Silvestri, Gloria Cervi, Gino Pasquarelli, Maria Grazia Buccella, Mariolina Bovo, Felicita Tranchina, Franco Abbiana, Rosetta Biondi

Production: Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica

Distribution: Rialto Pictures, StudioCanal

88 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B+

http://www.rialtopictures.com/catalogue/il-boom

Love & Anarchy [Film d’amore e d’anarchia, ovvero ‘stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza…’]

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Italy/France 1973)

The premise of Lina Wertmüller’s Love & Anarchy [Film d’amore e d’anarchia, ovvero ‘stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza…’] has the ring of something from Federico Fellini or maybe Pedro Almodóvar (though Fellini makes a lot more sense because she actually worked as his assistant for a spell).

Freckly yokel farmer Tunin (Giancarlo Giannini) learns that his friend was murdered. Why? Because he was an anarchist who was plotting to assassinate “ll Duce” Benito Mussolini. What’s more, Mussolini’s fascist police killed him. To avenge his friend’s death, Tunin takes up his cause.

Tunin ends up at a brothel in Rome. He spends a night with Salomè (Mariangela Melato), who reveals that she’s a co-conspirator for her own reasons. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that the coup is a harebrained idea.

Salomè takes Tunin to a rural spot just outside Rome with her and another prostitute, Tripolina (Lina Polito). Salomè distracts Spatoletti (Eros Pagni), the head of Mussolini’s police, while Tunin checks out the area; they then devise a plan to execute the mission.

Meanwhile, Tunin and Tripolina fall in love. Convinced that he isn’t going to make it past the assassination alive, he persuades Tripolina to spend the next two days with him.

The same radical spunk that Wertmüller exhibits in The Seduction of Mimi is just as prevalent in Love & Anarchy; this film is loaded with decadent, sexy hijinks. However, it also its share of some really tender moments—that surprised me. Love & Anarchy turns out devastatingly sad—I left the theater literally bummed out. For all its ridiculous sociopolitical and sexual shenanigans, it’s a far more powerful film.

With Pina Cei, Elena Fiore, Giuliana Calandra, Isa Bellini, Isa Danieli, Enrica Bonaccorti, Anna Bonaiuto, Anita Branzanti, Maria Sciacca, Anna Melato, Gea Linchi, Anna Stivala, Roberto Herlitzka

Production: Euro International Film, Labrador Films

Distribution: Peppercorn-Wormser, Kino Lorber

120 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B

https://www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/1306

Cleopatra

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1963)

Joseph Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra takes me back to high school Latin class, where I saw it the first time. One of the most expensive movies ever made—adjusted for inflation, its budget of $44 million amounts to roughly $336 million today (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056937/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv)—Cleopatra is a straightforward albeit very glamorous and maybe not entirely accurate history lesson. Everything about it, like ancient Rome, is impressive, excessive, and just plain epic. The characters are practically real-life deities, and the actors who play them—Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra), Richard Burton (Mark Antony), Rex Harrison (Julius Caesar)—are legendary. The sets are huge and overwhelming. Watching Cleopatra is a luscious Technicolor orgy for the eyes.

Is it a good movie? It kept me engaged, at least what I stuck around for (see next paragraph). Taylor injects her wry wit into Cleopatra. It’s fun and weird to see Carroll O’Connor (i.e., Archie Bunker) as a Roman senator. All that said, though, Cleopatra is not exactly entertaining.

Speaking of Latin class, Cleopatra was parsed out over a week, so it didn’t seem as long as it is: over four hours—edited from its original plan of six hours! Even the trailer is long. Fuck. Sadly, it’s too much for a school night. I left during intermission after the first segment—Julius Caesar and Cleopatra—and that is still longer than most movies today. For the record, I’m not counting this in my official tally because I didn’t stay for the whole thing. Et tu?

(Music Box) C+

Music Box Theatre 70mm Festival

The Bicyle Thief [Ladri di biciclette]

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(Italy 1948)

I didn’t expect much from a film approaching 70 years old, but I was wrong. So wrong. Deceptively simple, beautiful, and easy, The Bicycle Thief strikes a universal chord that resonates today as much as it must have when it was originally released. Bravo!

The plot is practically nothing: a down-and-out bricklayer (Lamberto Maggiorani) gets lucky and snags a job hanging posters advertising movies (Rita Hayworth, specifically) in Rome. He needs a bicycle to do the job, and his bike is stolen on his first day of work. The impact is devastating: he can’t do the job without a bike, which means his family goes hungry. So, he enlists his son (Enzo Staiola) and neighbors to track it down. His desperation is palpable, and it gets all the more intense with each unsuccessful attempt at finding his bike. A series of events leads him to the thief (Vittorio Antonucci), culminating in a confrontation that does not go as expected. There’s a moral to the story, and it hits hard.

I’m blown away by the psychology here: Vittorio de Sica’s statement on human nature is simple yet eloquent and totally spot on. The Bicycle Thief is a fine example of cinema, Italian or otherwise, at its best.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) A

The Passionate Thief [Risate di gioia]

Posted on by moviebloke

(Italy 1960)

A quirky trio—Tortorella (Anna Magnani), an aging film extra; her buddy, professional fraudulent claimant Umberto (Toto); and his partner in petty theft, Lello (Ben Gazzara)—converge through a series of mishaps on New Year’s Eve. Their conflicting agendas become clear as they move from one crazy character and mad caper to the next, ultimately ending up in church.

A decidedly unglamorous take on Roman life reminiscent of Hollywood “screwball comedies” of the Thirties and Forties, Mario Monicelli’s The Passionate Thief is a lot of fun despite a couple of tiresome scenes I zoned out on. Fred Clark’s portrayal of “the American”—loud, rich, and unsophisticated yet likable—made me laugh out loud.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B-

http://www.rialtopictures.com/passionatethief.html