Posts Tagged ‘ Marcello Mastroianni ’

Classic of the Week: La Notte

The 1961 Italian classic La Notte is a beautiful and somber piece of filmmaking on waning love and alienation. Director Michelangelo Antonioni is a master with the camera; he surrounds his characters with empty space, shoots them from odd original angles, and creates revealing situations and locations for them.

The two main characters are Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni), a well-known writer, and his wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) who live in Milan. The first part of the film (the day), they spend visiting a dying friend in the hospital, and then going separate ways–Lidia wanders an old neighborhood where they used to live, and he lounges about in their apartment wondering where she is. The second half of the film (la notte) they spend going out together to a nightclub and then to a party at a villa. At the party, they both again get separated and entertain the idea of infidelity with attractive strangers, Giovanni’s stranger being the beautiful and alluring Valentina (Monica Vitti).

The film is just gorgeous to behold; it’s one perfectly set-up and aligned shot after another, the camera attentively framing the characters with buildings, car windows, and each other. Much attention is given to Lidia, so that the viewer sympathizes more with her than Giovanni, and we also understand more of how she feels, especially in the last scene where she voices her changed feelings towards Giovanni. It is meditation on love, old and new, and how love can change and disappear, although it was once incredibly strong. Giovanni seems to have too much love; he still has love for Lidia, but becomes quickly enamored with Valentina. Lidia is alienated from the people around her; she observes and interacts, even tries to have some fun during the party, but is ultimately quite melancholy and has lost her love for her husband. Valentina serves as a contrast to them both as a young free spirit, with an negative view on life and love –“Love restricts a person. It creates misunderstanding all around,” she states. The three characters create a compelling and thought-provoking narrative, although there is not much plot per se. It’s an exploration of emotions and interactions, as much European cinema is, but with the Antonioni touch of striking yet often empty and lonely shots.

The film also gives an intriguing illustration of Italian society in the early 60s, as the films of Fellini does; it gives a tour of the streets, nightclubs (with amazing and odd dancers) and cultured rich people of Milan. But of course, Antonioni is much more focused on conversation and personal feelings than Fellini, and is much more somber and quiet in his execution. The two directors must go hand in hand, however, when studying Italian cinema, and indeed, classic cinema in general.

2010
09/14
CATEGORY
Films of the Week
TAGS




Leave a comment

8 1/2

Fellini’s 81/2 (the title refers to how many films Fellini himself has made) of 1963 is a tour de force. Everything about the film is big, complex, existential, and also incredibly personal. It’s probably the first instance in which we have a film within a film—a director reflecting on his own medium. There could be a debate on whether it’s a completely narcissistic project or a film that has political and social commentary as well.

As in La Dolce Vita, there is an unusual narrative structure; there’s not a traditional plot line or story. Marcello Mastroianni is once again the central character, this time a filmmaker named Guido who is going through a sort of mid-life crisis. He is struggling to start production on a semi-autobiographical film, pressured by producers and writers as he tries to create a truly personal and experimental piece of work. 81/2 switches between Guido’s fantasies and/or memories, and the ever-present reality. The film displays the plight of the artist, but also makes fun of the process of creating art by presenting it as somewhat futile.

Guido is a successful yet unsatisfied director, who is unable to be faithful to his wife (played by the ever lovely Anouk Aimee) and unable to give any of his film crew direct answers about the project that they’re all trying to make a reality. He is residing in a retreat in the country, full of bathhouses and mineral springs, to improve his failing health. The production design of this film is such that Guido is always dwarfed by his surroundings, illustrating his alienation in the luxurious and imposing world he is a part of. His fantasies are spread throughout the film, sometimes spurred by the real action, sometimes coming from nowhere. The fantasies are always clearly separate from the reality, however, so it’s never too confusing or blurred, however ridiculous they may be. Guido also discusses figures and characters we’ve seen in his fantasies with his production team, so his visions are constantly reflected in the film being made. These visions or daydreams include being trapped in a car and almost suffocating and then flying into the sky, visiting his deceased father and mother in a graveyard, and remembering his childhood when he took baths in a vat of wine and was chased and scolded by catholic priests for dancing with the lustrous and shameful Saraghina.

With the fantasy scenes, Fellini creates a world full of symbolism and nostalgia, a world that a man in mid-life crisis escapes to in order to deal with his every day reality. The pinnacle scene that explores Guido’s past and present in a truly psychoanalytical manner is the harem scene in which Guido is the master of a harem with every woman he has ever desired—the ultimate male fantasy. This fantasy is by no means simple, however; he is the child of the house as well as the master, and at one point, the women turn against him in his own fantasy. The women in his life all symbolize something different that he desires, but Fellini makes it clear that it’s impossible to have everything one desires.

The film (and the film within the film) also explores Catholicism in a modern world. Guido’s childhood memories show the upbringing of an Italian boy in which sexuality and pleasure are at odds with religion, never explained or dealt with. Naturally, the boy grows up to be an unfaithful husband who explores sexuality and women through his art. However, Guido meets with priests and even a cardinal once to discuss his film, and again in a fantasy, and is obviously reverent to them, respectful and pious to his religion. Fellini once again explores the complexity of religion for modern Italian people: their reverence and faith versus their desire.

Although Guido’s film is in a downward spiral, Fellini’s film triumphs in illustrating the interior of one man’s mind (his own?) while reflecting on the art of film and the post-modern world. The film is revolutionary in it’s exploration of fantasy and reality with the use of music and sound, cinematography and design. The narrative structure was completely new for the average film-goer, European or American, and with it Fellini continued to influence Hollywood and Art Cinema. Although the film is not quite as unique today in structure and idea (with films like Synechodoche, NY being made) it still makes an impact in illustrating a personal experience, in reality and memory, while reflecting on the art form of cinema.



2010
08/21
CATEGORY
Fellini
TAGS



Leave a comment

La Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) from 1960 is Fellini’s introduction to the coming era of turmoil, modernity, and sexuality. Fellini comes out of the 1950s by making a film different from anything he had made thus far– wild, confusing and complex in exploring the everyday life of the famous, rich and disillusioned population of Rome.

La Dolce Vita follows Marcello, a womanizing journalist (Marcello Mastroianni) who follows celebrities and socialites, looking for stories to write about, women to seduce and parties to join. There is no real plotline to this film; it’s simply an exploration of human existence in the metropolis of Rome, but focusing on the upper class and the famous rather than the lower or working class we saw in Le Notti di Cabiria, for example. It can be a confusing whirlwind for a first time viewer; none of the scenes really connect, each is like a new episode as we follow Marcello from one party or nightclub to another, from the Trevi fountain in the center of Rome to a castle on the outskirts. Multiple viewings may be required to capture the content of the film, and appreciate the cinematography, art direction, costume (for which it won an Oscar) and writing.

The film begins with the famous shot of a helicopter carrying a statue of Jesus over the city. It flies over the outskirts, the ruins, and then over a rooftop of sunbathing women, when Marcello is revealed inside the helicopter, trying to make conversation with the women below. Why this is happening or where it’s going is not explained; it is an absurd yet visually intriguing introduction. Among the many characters Marcello comes across, some that stand out are Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), the Swedish English-speaking actress, a beautiful but lost soul who picks up stray kittens and wades in a fountain in the middle of the night. There’s also Maddalena ( the French actress Anouk Aimee), a lovely and bored socialite, and Emma, Marcello’s suicidal fiancee with whom he has a fiery relationship, since he is never faithful to her. Marcello’s friend Steiner is a more pensive character who gives us some intellectual thoughts on life, but is himself quite unstable. This vast array of characters, along with some outrageous background characters, give a colorful view of the city and night life Marcello encounters every day. Also accompanying him is a cameraman named Paparazzo, and it was from this character that the term paparazzi was born.

For a display of cinematography (once again by Otello Martelli) and art direction, there are certain scenes that stand out. Fellini gives us yet another spectacle of religion when Marcello and Emma go to see a “miracle tree” where two young children claim to have seen the Madonna. Crowds of people come, as well as the paparazzi and TV crews, and the scene becomes increasingly chaotic when the two famous children show up and it begins to rain. The camera weaves in and out of the crowd, following the children running through the rain insisting that they are following the Madonna. Another scene of a very different crowd that is dreamlike and odd is a party at a castle that Marcello tags along to, filled with the upper class and models in ridiculous and fabulous gowns who explore a neglected guest house by candlelight.

Although there is no real plot, and one can find many subjects running throughout the film, one theme that is explored and discussed often, although never with a solid resolution, is love and women. Marcello can’t seem to be monogamous; he is enchanted with nearly every woman he meets. There are discussions about the nature of love, as if it’s something to study and analyze, and men and women advise Marcello to have as many partners as he can, and never choose between them, but this way of life really doesn’t seem to make him happy. The problem of love and women will from this point on come up frequently in Fellini’s work, especially in 8 ½.

With La Dolce Vita, Fellini made his mark as an auteur— a term that had just been coined by the writers of the Cahiers du Cinema and referred to the filmmakers of the New Wave such as Truffaut and Godard, as well as filmmakers of Hollywood, but it can also be applied to Fellini. An auteur should display a technical mastery of cinema, as well as a personal style, and La Dolce Vita reveals Fellini as having both. Consequently, he brought about a new form of cinema— along with the French directors and other Europeans such as Bergman and Antonioni— that American directors would be inspired by and emulate during the 1960s and 1970s. The American filmmaking of the 60s that so changed cinema can be partly attributed to these European auteurs, and La Dolce Vita illustrates the vitality and sexuality, as well as disillusionment, of people at the beginning of a new era.

2010
08/21
CATEGORY
Fellini
TAGS



Leave a comment

Recent entry

Archive

Category