june/july/august 2002 Cinema Paradiso

This summer's television screenings of Martin Scorsese's MY VOYAGE TO ITALY, his valentine to the glories of post-war Italian cinema, provides the opportunity to do just what the professor implores at the end of his four-hour reverie: see and be moved by the power of these great films in their entirety. We are pleased to present ten seminal works by some of the masters of Italian cinema, which will prepare you for a September screening of MY VOYAGE in cased you missed it. In conjunction with this month's Festa Italia celebration, we are also pleased to present a special screenings of Gabriele Muccion's LAST KISS, winner of five Italian Academy Awards including Best Director.

AUGUST 3 SAT 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
OSSESSIONE
ITALY 1943
DIRECTOR: LUCHINO VISCONTI
“Made before the term neo-realism had been coined, but considered the first Italian neo-realist film, Luchino Visconti's debut is based on the Cain novel “The Postman Always Rings Twice. ” Transposed from it's original California setting to a squalid trattoria in the Po Valley, Visconti's version adds such striking elements of realism and proletarian sympathy that the Mussolini government insisted it be cut. In depicting the doings of a truck driver and a demoralized proprietress conspiring to murder the complacent husband, Visconti extends the meaning of the act to society as a whole, introducing the theme of depravity in the social order that preoccupied him throughout his career.”—Pacific Film Archive. (142 mins.)

AUG 9 FRI 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
OPEN CITY
ITALY 1945
DIRECTOR: ROBERTO ROSSELINI
Shot under the noses of the departing Germans at the end of WWII, Rosselini's film became the most influential film of the neo-realist period. Pina is the pregnant lover of a resistance worker, Francesco; they take in another resistance leader, Manfredi, who is wanted by the Gestapo. The priest who is to marry Pina and Francesco tomorrow, Father Don Pietro, runs errands for the underground. Using non-professional actors, street settings, and a script taken from the memoirs of an anti-fascist priest, Rosselini shot a film that blended fiction with newsreel-like camera work and inspired an entire movement in filmmaking. (100 mins.)

AUG 10 SAT 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
SHOESHINE
ITALY 1946
DIRECTOR: VITTORIO DE SICA
The familiar neo-realist subject of survival in the aftermath of WWII is taken to another level in De Sica’s film by showing the effects of poverty on two children. Pasquale and Guiseppe are street urchins who dream of owning a white horse while toiling away as shoeshine boys. Their dream leads them to petty crime, and eventually prison, where the competition to survive is even more intense. But as with all of De Sica's films, as we watch these boys' innocence give way to cynicism, there are moments of compassion and even humor. "If Mozart had written an opera set in poverty, it might have had this kind of painful beauty." —Pauline Kael (93 mins.)

AUG 11 SUN 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
THE BICYCLE THIEF
ITALY 1948
DIRECTOR: VITTORIO DE SICA
Lamberto Maggiorani, an Italian factory worker with no previous acting experience was chosen over Cary Grant to play the lead in this simple story of a husband and father who needs a job in poverty stricken post-war Rome. Ricci (Maggiorani) trades his bed sheets for a bicycle so that he can work as a billposter, only to have the bicycle stolen as he pastes up a picture of Rita Hayworth in a moment that emphasizes the distinction between the Italian neorealists and the glamorous filmmaking of Hollywood. What follows is the desperate search for the one thing Ricci needs so desperately to provide for his family. (90 mins.)

AUG 16 17 FRI 7 P.M., SAT 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
PAISAN
ITALY 1946
DIRECTOR: ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
Drawing on his experience as a filmmaker for the fascist government, Rossellini made this film relaying the experience of Italians during the allied invasion in six episodic vignettes, each beginning with a view of a map of Italy to show where the following story is taking place. But instead of the nationalistic tone of a newsreel, Rossellini's characters are more concerned with survival than with political affiliations. The film was shot with natural light and all of the actors are non-professionals playing characters close to their own identities. This heightened realism coupled with powerful images, such as a dead Partisan floating down the river with a sign marked "traitor" on his back, made the film an affective antidote to the wartime propaganda. (90 mins.)

AUG 17 18 SAT 7 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
VOYAGE TO ITALY
ITALY/FRANCE 1953
DIRECTOR: ROBERTO ROSSELINI
A reserved British couple takes a break from the chaos of London and retreat to the rugged landscape of Naples, only to find that outside of the structure of their everyday lives, the tedium of their marriage begins to emerge. The use of the environment as a relevant character is a precursor to Antonioni's bleak industrial landscapes. The fifth of six very personal films Rosselini made with Ingrid Bergman, it can be seen as a link between neo-realism and the subjective cinema of the sixties. (97 mins)

AUG 22 THU 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
I VITELLONI
ITALY 1953
DIRECTOR: FEDERICO FELLINI
Among Fellini’s finest films is his neo-realist evocation of adolescent boredom and rootlessness in a provincial Italian town which seems to offer no hope of escape. Based on his own and four friends’ remembrances of an indulgent middle class upbringing, Fellini recalls their aimless follies in a warm and satiric tone. The loafing, idiotic pranks and fantasies of women, wealth and fame are reminiscent of George Lucas’ AMERICAN GRAFFITI, which was no doubt influenced by this classic work. The film’s themes extend their influence to today in THE LAST KISS (August 21). (104 mins.)

AUG 23 FRI 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
L’AVVENTURA
ITALY 1965
DIRECTOR: MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
Antonioni’s study of the idle rich explores themes of impermanence of romance, bourgeois boredom and the ease at which we betray each other. On a yatching trip off Sicily, a woman (Lee Massari) mysteriously disappears during an excursion on a desolate island. Her lover (Gabriele Ferzetti) and her friend (Monica Vitti) begin a search, but during the vain quest, each slowly becomes enamored of the other and their guilt is soon replaced by passion. L’AVVENTURA is at once a mesmerizing mystery, a thought provoking study of human behavior, an experiment in the expressive use of landscape and architecture, and an allegory on the troubled state of postwar Italy. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes.
(145 mins.)

AUG 24 25 SAT 7 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
81/2
ITALY 1963
DIRECTOR: FEDERICO FELLINI
Fellini’s Oscar-winning film brilliantly connects memory, fantasy and reality and remains fixed on most lists of cinema’s greatest and most influential films. The autobiographical schema posits a film director’s “creative block” as he sets out to make a new film. Marcello Mastroianni fully inhabits the character of the director Guido, who, with a string of critical successes behind him, a wife, mistress, host of other women who adore him and a crew ready to start filming, has not a clue what to do next. The possibility of being found shallow has never seemed more beguiling. (135 mins.)