Bam! 3 Sophia Loren & Marcello Mastroianni films to review. Thanks, TCM.
I started with Priest's Wife, a very unusual rom-com which starts on a slapstick note and gradually winds down to a somber ultra-realistic reflection of human casualty. Its obvious that Sophia & Marcello were very game to push boundaries with their electric screen chemistry. They give audiences the darker, more obscure sides of male/female relationships. This one explores bureaucracy, fundamentalism, sexual experience, maturity levels & intense personal differences. While it is very mature and even tragic, its somewhat hopeful and vague. The filmmakers were respectful enough to let the viewer decide on the ending they want. Of course, the film is beautifully arranged, decorated and shot too courtesy of director Dino Risi.
Vittorio De Sica directs the screen couple in the next two films and wins a "Foreign Film" Oscar with Marriage. Its an excellent, theatrical piece of work where both actors flex light and dark sides of their souls. Its so much fun to watch them play off each other in various games of roleplay. The plot is fairly elaborate, operatic & testy. This was the 2nd (but earlier) film I've watched of theirs to use domestic abuse as a moment of high emotional bonding or romantic pretext. And very interesting that Scorsese would explore this in his films as well. Italians don't have a monopoly on abuse, but they don't shy from representing it in cinema. Its that touch of neorealism, that brooding and violent rejection of judgmental American artifice, that frees this subculture to address the uglier and steamier sides of human romance. The frankness of this film must have been so radical and yet its so commercial without selling out its Italian roots.
Yesterday is even earlier and even more radical. First, its an anthology rom-com that plays the same actors as very unsavory but human roles. This film studies the class difference of couples and the struggles that brings. Its all the most subtle and realistic of comedy with a very muted and mellow seriousness. One excellent touch is how De Sica personalizes the aesthetic of each short film. Story to story he toys with camerawork in the 3rd, lighting in the 2d and staging in the 1st. There are lots of other subtle distinctions to savor and analyze.
This was a big exposure to me. I'm very familiar with low rent grindhouse from Italy and I'm growing a huge appreciation for Italian arthouse, but hadn't found the big budget middlebrow productions like these rom-com's or what Sophia Loren was surprised to learn are called romantic "drama-edies". These films were meant to rival Hollywood's sanitized cheesecake films starring Doris Day & Lana Turner. They are not rip-off's but reactions, reversals and rejections. The spirit of Italian cinematists was more jaded and unwilling to repress or reproach from pressing psychological, emotional and sexual issues in home life. And we must thank them for it. These films played with the medium in less restrained or commercialized ways. They established a technical style highly influenced by theater and photography of Italian nature, fashion and still life. You can feel the exuberance the filmmakers had in just putting these films out into the global market while representing & speaking to their country primarily.
The films have aged nicely and they were beautiful to begin with. This is important & influential stuff and you revel in the fact that it still plays as relevant, immediate and sensual as it was then.
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