A vibrant community celebrating the prominent achievements of Italian cinema — from Neorealism to the present.
It's funny sometimes when you watch a film that you like and then come across another one done couple of years later with same theme and even same actors. For those of you who follow my occasional cinematic thoughts, you'll find this film very similar to Domenica d’agosto – Sunday in August (Luciano Emmer -1949), both represent typical movies of Commedia all'italiana genre of early 50's-60's.
Have plans for New Year? Not yet? Well…now you do!
Looking for a classic heart-warming comedy?
The magic of cinema as you know can sometimes inspire you to tell your own stories. Here is a short story I wrote a few years ago as a tribute, a tad futuristic, to a particular masterpiece by director Alberto Lattuada. Can you guess the film?
I saw this charming Italian comedy the other night on YouTube projected on my big screen and tried to imagine some of the thoughts that ran through audiences' minds who saw it for the first time in Italian movie theaters in the early 60's.
With the global success of Fellini’s 1960 La Dolce Vita, Cinecitta’ the glorious studio in Rome continued the theme of love in modern times, featuring four leading directors: Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Vittorio de Sica. The last three were considered veterans back then, whereas Monicelli an up and coming director that his 1958 film I soliti ignoti – Big Deal in Madonna Street - is considered the first of the commedia all’italiana genre. Luciana waiting for Renzo in the packed swimming pool with the lurking boss approaching.
With the spirit of experimentalism Antonioni was known for as exhibited in this film that serves part of his existential trilogy – I figured we could try a new post format today. Interested? Well read on. The following paragraphs will all have two common characteristics: 1) they all answer a simple question; what I liked about the film and 2) they’re all in a tweet bite size (140 characters), so any piece you particularly like, you can easily share on Twitter by simple copy & paste.
When you think about what makes a film a masterpiece, beyond the usual suspects like clever script, believable acting or memorable soundtrack – what I believe worked extremely well for post-war Italian cinema is the historical context. For the neorealism genre it supplied ample stories of hardships told by non-professional actors in actual locations with uncompromised honesty.
