A funny and tantalizing comedy about risky desire, Casanova 70 follows the romantic exploits of Andrea (Marcello Mastroianni, who else) as he tries to deal with an unfortunate and fairly unusual sexual condition. It seems that Andrea can only become aroused when he is in a dangerous situation, and this leads to all sorts of problems with the variou...
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The greatest difficulty in making a portrait of one of the most prolific and complex auteurs of Italian cinema resided mostly on choosing which aspects we would favor among so many possible ones. At first, we tried to have Mario tell us his intense and rich vision of life, because life is what his cinema is most intrinsically connected to. Then, we...
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The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Vincenzo Cerami, the future screenwriter of Benigni films, although at the time he was primarily Pasolini’s ex pupil. And it is no coincidence that the book places itself at the core of reflection on an Italian society in the throes of deep transformation: the protagonist is a gray, mean min...
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Monicelli’s most recent documentary is within the framework of what we might call a series of “filmic love letters” to the places he knows best and appreciates most. Vicino al Colosseo… c’è Monti is a 22-minute short in which Monicelli draws an affectionate portrait of the Roman neighborhood in which he has liv...
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After shooting È arrivato il cavaliere! (1950), Monicelli and Steno directed this choral film set in the world of third –or fourth– rate provincial vaudeville shows, a genre which, for all its artistic limitations, had been immensely popular in the 1920s and 1930s, but which had entered a decline throughout Europe after the Secon...
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