Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Frivolous Lists: Italy

As I'm attending the Neorealism series at the Walter Reade, I idly put together a list of my all-time favorite Italian films - one film per director.
  1. Paisà (Roberto Rossellini, 1946)
  2. L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
  3. Alfredo, Alfredo (Pietro Germi, 1972)
  4. La signora di tutti (Max Ophüls, 1934)
  5. L'Assassino (Elio Petri, 1961)
  6. Io la conoscevo bene (I Knew Her Well) (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)
  7. Pranzo di ferragosto (Mid-August Lunch) (Gianni Di Gregorio, 2008)
  8. Dillinger è morto (Dillinger Is Dead) (Marco Ferreri, 1969)
  9. Banditi a Orgosolo (Bandits of Orgosolo) (Vittorio De Seta, 1961)
  10. Kaos (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1984)
Without a one-film-per-director rule, Viaggio in Italia, Cronaca di un amore, and Il grido would no doubt have shoved their way in. The newest film on my list, Pranzo di ferragosto, is slated for a theatrical premiere at Film Forum on March 17, 2010.
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13 comments:

  1. Jesús CortésNovember 10, 2009 at 2:48 AM

    No particular order and only Italian filmmakers:
    1.- Germannia anno zero (ROSSELLINI)
    2.- Bubu (BOLOGNINI)
    3.- Incompreso (COMENCINI)
    4.- I sogni nel casetto (CASTELLANI)
    5.- I fidanzati (OLMI)
    6.- Il Gatopardo (VISCONTI)
    7.- Catene (MATARAZZO)
    8.- Una vita difficile (RISI)
    9.- La prima notte di quiete (ZURLINI)
    10.- Roma, ore 11 (DE SANTIS)

    ReplyDelete
  2. steeveeNovember 10, 2009 at 9:13 PM

    I'd go with the following, allowing one per director:

    1. VOYAGE TO ITALY (Rossellini)
    2. L'ECLISSE (Antonioni)
    3. ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (Visconti)
    4. INFERNO (Argento)
    5. CHINA IS NEAR (Bellocchio)
    6. IL POSTO (Olmi)
    7. BICYCLE THIEVES (de Sica)
    8. BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (Bava)
    9. TEOREMA (Pasolini)
    10. THE CONFORMIST (Bertolucci)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dan SallittNovember 11, 2009 at 12:19 PM

    Other than all favoring Rossellini, we mostly picked different directors. I don't know anything about Matarazzo, one of Jesús's directors - I'll keep an eye out for him.

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  4. Jesús CortésNovember 11, 2009 at 4:35 PM

    It´s difficult Dan nowadays to know Matarazzo. There are few films released on DVD so he couldn´t be rediscovered or just simply known by many critics and aficionados that probably wuold appreciate his talent, at first glance close to Sirk´s skills in melodrama and ultimately above average in Italian neo-realism.
    His films were straight, clean, vivid, calmly paced and told us the most incredible stories like if there were perfectly possible, without emphasized mise en scene.

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  5. BilgeNovember 13, 2009 at 3:21 PM

    The one-director thing is messing my sh*t up big time, but here we go:

    THE CONFORMIST (Bertolucci)
    THE LEOPARD (Visconti)
    NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS (Taviani)
    ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Leone)
    WE ALL LOVED EACH OTHER SO MUCH (Scola)
    HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS (Pasolini)
    RED DESERT (Antonioni)
    DESERT OF THE TARTARS (Zurlini)
    VIAGGIO IN ITALIA (Rossellini)
    UOMINI CONTRO (Rosi)

    ...and, for what it's worth, here's 11-20:

    CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE (Sorrentino)
    SHOESHINE (De Sica)
    VINCERE (Bellocchio)
    IL GRANDE SILENZIO (Corbucci)
    OPERA (Argento)
    LOVE AND ANARCHY (Wertmuller)
    SEDUCED AND ABANDONED (Germi)
    IL BELL ANTONIO (Bolognini)
    IL POSTO (Olmi)
    FOUR STEPS IN THE CLOUDS (Blasetti)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dan SallittNovember 14, 2009 at 12:08 AM

    11-20, eh? In reverse chronological order:

    Come l'ombra (As the Shadow) (Marina Spada, 2006)
    L'imbalsamatore (The Embalmer) (Matteo Garrone, 2002)
    Scarlet Diva (Asia Argento, 2000)
    Il ladro di bambini (Stolen Children) (Gianni Amelio, 1992)
    Gli occhi, la bocca (The Eyes, the Mouth) (Marco Bellochio, 1982)
    La luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1979)
    Divina creatura (The Divine Nymph) (Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 1975)
    El Greco (Luciano Salce, 1966)
    La spiaggia (The Beach) (Alberto Lattuada, 1954)
    Lo sceicco bianco (The White Sheik) (Federico Fellini, 1952)


    If El Greco is too much of an international co-production to count as Italian, fill the list out with Giorni d'amore (Days of Love) (Giuseppe De Santis, 1954).

    Am I the first person here to mention Fellini? Kind of weird.

    ReplyDelete
  7. BilgeNovember 14, 2009 at 3:56 PM

    RE: Fellini. Ugh, that was actually a cut and paste error for me when I moved 8 1/2 from 1-10 to 11-20. That would probably be 11 or 12, though it would occasionally have to fight back LA STRADA for the Fellini spot.

    It occurs to me that if we were allowed to name more than one film by one director, my Top 10 would be ridiculous(-ly awesome):

    THE CONFORMIST (Bertolucci)
    THE LEOPARD (Visconti)
    WHITE NIGHTS (Visconti)
    NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS (Taviani)
    1900 (Bertolucci)
    THE SPIDER'S STRATAGEM (Bertolucci)
    ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (Visconti)
    ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Leone)
    THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (Leone)
    WE ALL LOVED EACH OTHER SO MUCH (Scola)

    ...with TRAGEDY OF A RIDICULOUS MAN (Bertolucci), LUDWIG (Visconti) and DEATH IN VENICE (Visconti) in line for the next few slots.

    (I'm assuming Bertolucci's late period works aren't eligible. If they are, I'd probably have to find room for THE LAST EMPEROR and THE SHELTERING SKY up there somewhere.)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dan SallittNovember 14, 2009 at 4:25 PM

    Italy seemed to be involved in a lot of international co-productions, so I wasn't clear about the eligibility lines myself. (I couldn't bring myself to include films like Eva, El Cid, and The Garden of Earthly Delights on an Italian list.) The Sheltering Sky was neck and neck with La Luna for my Bertolucci slot, but it seemed less Italian.

    ReplyDelete
  9. BilgeNovember 14, 2009 at 5:47 PM

    Up through LITTLE BUDDHA, Bertolucci continued to work with mostly Italian crews, often with the same people that had worked on his films in the 70s. I imagine that if one were to wander onto the respective sets of LA LUNA and SHELTERING SKY, they wouldn't have looked or felt all that different. (Though LA LUNA certainly is more Italian in content at least.)

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousNovember 24, 2009 at 7:57 AM

    With Italian cinema you may get sooner than with most other "national cinemas" wondering What makes a film Italian? (or Spanish, or French). Somehow, I cannot think of Leone's "Once Upon A Time In America" as an Italian film.
    Another problem. If I don't follow the one film per director, I may end listing 10 Rossellini movies and headed by "Deutschland im Jahre Null" (1948), the true original version of "Germania anno zero" which of course is a film about Germany made in Germany and in German!... before I get to the next... which, ouch!, would be the very Italian melodrama "La Signora di tutti"... directed by Max Ophuls.
    But to pick only 10 directors is hard, too. Rather 20 to 25, in order:
    1. Deutschland im Jahre Null (R. Rossellini, 1948) or Paisà (1946)
    2. La Signora di tutti (Max Ophuls, 1934)
    3. I figli di nessuno (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1950) or L'Angelo bianco(1955)
    4. Prima della Rivoluzione (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1964)
    5. Due soldi di speranza (Renato Castellani, 1951)
    6. Bubù (Mauro Bolognini, 1971)
    7. Italiani brava gente (Giuseppe De Santis, 1964)
    8. Il Gattopardo (Luchino Visconti, 1963) or Le notti bianche (1957)
    9. Professione:Reporter (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975) or Il Grido (1957)
    10.Le notti di Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957) or Ginger e Fred
    11.Un Maledetto Imbroglio (Pietro Germi, 1959) or Il Cammino della Speranza(1950)
    12.La prima notte di quiete (Valerio Zurlini, 1972) or Estate
    violenta(1959)
    13.Sicilia! (Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, )
    14.I fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi, 1962)
    15.Traviata 53 (Vittorio Cottafavi, 1953)
    16.Che cosa sono le nuvole (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1967) o La Terra vista dalla Luna (1966)
    17.Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, 2009)
    18.I bambini ci guardano (Vittorio De Sica, 1943)
    19.Malombra (Mario Soldati, 1942)
    20.Tutti a casa (Luigi Comencini, 1960) or Incompreso(66)
    21.Il sorpasso (Dino Risi, 1962)
    22.Risate di gioia (Mario Monicelli, 1960)
    23.L'Orribile segreto del dottore Hichcock (Riccardo Freda & Mario Bava, 1962)
    24.La ragazza in vetrina (Luciano Emmer, 1960)
    25.Italiani (Maurizio Ponzi, 1995)
    Miguel Marías

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dan SallittNovember 26, 2009 at 11:45 AM

    Miguel - I would have had a similar Rossellini glut in my top ten without a one-film-per-director rule. Glad to see the estimable Mr. Cottafavi make an appearance: after all these years, I still have had almost no opportunity to investigate the claims for his greatness. And you and Jesús have definitely put Matarazzo on my radar.

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  12. rohmerinMay 28, 2012 at 2:37 AM

    My list of those non so topic Italian films (not in special order).

    1. Romanzo Popolare (Monicelli)
    2. Un amore a Roma (Risi)
    3. Caccia tragica (De Santis)
    4. La parmigiana (Pietrangeli)
    5. i complessi (3 Episodes)
    6. La voglia matta (Salce)
    7. I giovani mariti (Bolognini)
    8. Anni ruggenti (Zampa)
    9. Il signor Max (Camerini)
    10. La corona di ferro (Blasetti)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Dan SallittMay 28, 2012 at 4:21 PM

    Unusual list, at least in comparison to the ones above. I've seen only a few of your titles: I'm especially eager to see La Parmigiana, and to explore Pietrangeli's work in general.

    ReplyDelete