Movies in Italy: Lo sceicco bianco (Federico Fellini, 1952)

In Fellini's early critique of patriarchal Italy, a couple, Ivan and Wanda, travels to big-city Rome for their honeymoon, to meet Ivan's extended family, and to meet the pope.  It's Italian provincialism coming home to roost in its big glittering capital that, for all intents and purposes, operate along the same codes of conduct.  The proud Ivan wants everything to be perfect so that his family sees his picture-perfect wife, but Wanda has other plans.  When her husband takes a nap, Wanda escapes to the Cinecitta, where she meets her film idol "the White Sheik".   However, what was supposed to be a few minutes of fawning turned into hours of discovering the reality behind the film industry, while Ivan spends his time worrying about his family's reputation if they find out that his wife left him for a foreign royalty.  Even though the woman is shown as a victim not only of social repression but also the illusions provided as a form of "escape,"  the husband is ultimately seen as the one who shoulders much of society's demands, trying to coordinate the conflicting wants of his society, family, and wife.  Throughout the film, Ivan sports a discombobulated and helpless look, and for much of the film he is reduced to a sobbing boy incapable of maintaining his crumbling world.  When he finally reunites with his wife, he goes back to his domineering demeanor as he meets his family in the Vatican, in a symbolic return back to the stability of the family and church.

Movies in Italy: A Little Romance (George Roy Hill, 1979)

First off, it is a bit ballsy, if not foolish and misguided, for Mr. Hill to refer to his own movies in an effort to show the "Hollywood" that stands for American culture to Europeans. It is then not surprising that he includes a depiction of a self-absorbed American director in his film, either as an absolution from his pride or an inside joke that he himself may not have understood. Regardless--notable for popularizing the legend of kissing in a gondola passing under the Bridge of Sighs during sunset to ensure everlasting love, A Little Romance's strength lies not on merely solidifying the romantic allure of Venice, but on emphasizing the child-like naivete of Venice's draw. The two young protagonists--who try all they can to cross the border from France to Italy to seal their love in Venice before getting separated--act like adults acting out childhood fantasies. They are thirteen year-olds talking about Heidegger and worrying about food, but snaps into attention when told by a charming man played by Lawrence Olivier about the possibility of eternal love. This comparison between the cold reality of life and the warmth of a romantic fantasy is mirrored by the difference between business-minded and crowded France and easy going Italy, where even a misfired gun directed towards a spastic priest is met with laughs rather than concern. Italy is portrayed as a place where children can be children and adults are forgiven for being responsible. It could have been an insulting premise, but instead of being about an exoticized idea of Italy, the story is more about the lovers and how Italy is transformed to fit the story these lovers are trying to construct. We don't see "Italy," but the process in which we as foreign visitors construct our ideal world grounded on the stuff Italy is made of. Ultimately, just as it is true for the rest of us, these lovers did not see Verona, only the story of Romeo and Juliet; and they did not see Venice, only the promise of eternal love. Their, and our, earnestness forgives our heady silliness.  

Movies in Italy: Voyages in Italy (Roberto Rosselini, 1954)

A film about the disintegration of an upper class English couple set in Naples, this film was originally considered a failure, Rosselini's cementing of his turn away from neorealism towards plotless stories about the upper class. The Italian and American critics hated it, but the French loved it, with Rivette proclaiming, "With the appearance of "Viaggio in Italia', all films have suddenly aged ten years". Although I would disagree that this film was as radical a shift from the films that came before it, it is definitely a departure from the typical products of the time. Rosselini does not use a traditional three-part narrative to portray the conflict between husband and wife. Instead, it is unfolded through their interactions with Naples: with its copious pregnant women, religious fervor, ancient ruins, and affinity for catacombs for the dead--almost a teaser for the far radical departure in narrative that will be introduced by Antonioni five years later. Some may think that the ending is abrupt and contrived, but do notice the actual ending: the film cuts away from the protagonists into a random street scene, which says a lot about what the filmmaker is really thinking about this "relationship".

Movies in Italy: The Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999)

*This series is to introduce you to the various films that were either set in Italy or were made in Italy, discussing how we as outsiders view the country and how Italians view themselves, and how this is expressed and experienced through the art of cinema

The Talented Mr. Ripley is an all-around movie that you could relate to whatever it is that’s bugging you at the moment: the role of women in a patriarchal society as seen in Marge’s character; Tom’s shape-shifting but ultimately tragic homosexual; Dickie’s invincibility and invisibility afforded to him by his privilege; even the rift between classical and modern music representing the coming social rift represented by the 60s. But for me what appealed is the Italy portrayed, and how it represents the Italy most expect when they visit the country. I think the movie tries to parody the self-absorbed relationship that the upper-class visitors has to Italy, but only unconsciously. There’s drama ,conflict, murder, but all of which have nothing to do with Italy or its people. A side-story about a tragic love-affair with an Italian woman was the closest these characters had at actually perceiving the country beyond their rose-colored spectacles, but even then it was easily dismissed as an element that revealed Dickie’s true character, without regard to the largely perfunctory and silent female character. The film have a lot of village scenes and postcard-pretty shots of Rome, Venice, and Sanremo, but it’s so remote to the story that I often questioned if the scenes were set in a sound studio. It’s like the film crew was on vacation, and they just needed to prove that they were there. There was no direct way that the scenery was engaged, no efforts to make the obviously staged market and street scenes more believable, not even to make the obviously exotic locales more palpable in their alieness. It might as well have been just another serial killer story set in Cleveland.