Nos amábamos tanto

Sorry for being much too lenient but in these perverse times where everybody is talking of global warming, please excuse me when I say that I just have wonderful praises for this great film. It is great on every front. What is the yardstick by which a great film can be measured ? A great film can be recognized by its inherent ability to make viewers shed some emotional tears and weep inconsolably. This is what this great masterpiece by Ettore Scola did to me. We all loved each other is such a pleasant film that it can be compared to a sweet lullaby. The ease with which the various dramatic events happen is a joy to behold. I am not really sure about this fact but I think that may be French master Claude Sautet must have been influenced by this film when he decided to make a similar masterpiece called "Vincent, François, Paul et les autres".Which one is the better film ? Watch both of them and find out for yourself.

A great movie by a great director in a unique creative state of grace. Some of the scenes are pure poetry: the sudden change from b/w to colour picture (underlined by a moving music score), the dramatic conclusion of a night out in Piazza di Spagna, the overall feeling of nostalgia permeating the entire movie. Yes, this is a movie that will age like good wine. You can grow old with this movie, watch out not be caught too much into its spires of nostalgia. Just glance at Vittorio Gassman last, defeated, cynical look in his face, here the actor and the man are one and the same. The rest of the cast are just as effective and well sorted, nothing is out of place, the synergy between Manfredi, Satta-Flores, Sandrelli, and the great Aldo Fabrizi will keep you enthralled. Simply cinematographic art at its best.

When nostalgia meets subtle humor, nonchalance and Italian "bigmouth"-way of expressing ideas, there's where you can find "C'eravamo tanto amati". The emotion is always there, but the smile is never far away.Italian filmmakers (not all, but Scola is definitely one of them)have this lovely way to make sad things seem quite funny (apart of one or two very touching scenes), and funny things a bit melancholic. This film talks to your heart. It appeals to a wide range of emotions, each of them never alone but delicately mixed with others. This story about love, friendship, political involvement, and their evolution (dilution?) through the years could have easily lost itself in drama and self-pity, or in first-degree optimism, which are the two great traps which lots of directors fall in. But Scola is far, far above that. This film is life as it goes. Special mentions to the scenes between Vittorio Gassmann and Giovanna Ralli.

My only all-time favorite, ever since 1979 in Tuschinski. The theme is simple, strong and light, and does not evoke grand historical events but a mere musing on one's own growing up. The use of black/white and sepia flashbacks, changing into into present day colors at a sidewalk drawing, give extra depth to past and present with only a few stroke of the brush. Extra attention has been devoted to sounds and melody: the voices of the main characters reinforce the roles. The melody theme is played simply on one trumpet and echoes the simplicity of the theme. The memory of the move does not fade even after 25 years. I guess it was intended to do so. A very natural composition.

Produced in 1974, 'C'eravamo tanto amati' (The English title is 'We All Loved Each Other So Much') was for Ettore Scola his first highly successful film, that also brought him international recognition. Many remarkable movies were to follow, but this bittersweet saga of Italy's first 30 years after World War II remains one of his best films. Scola can be considered the last of the great directors of the glory period of Italian cinema, although he was decades younger than De Sica, Visconti or Rossellini, and about ten years younger than Fellini and Pasolini. Through the epic force, the political commitment and the perfect mastery of the means of cinematic expression, and also because of the explicit homage paid to the masters and colleagues De Sica and Fellini, 'C'eravamo tanto amati' can be looked at as a beautiful period finale. At the same time its Italian comedy style makes this film a light (in the good sense of the word) and enjoyable cinematic experience.

The action of the film begins in 1944, when three friends, three heroes in the cinematic sense but also in their real life, descend victorious from the mountains in which they had fought as partisans against the fascists. Their paths in life are separated, but they will intersect several times and the film captures precisely these encounters spread in time over the next three decades. Giani (Vittorio Gassman) becomes a lawyer and defender in some not very clean cases, makes a convenient marriage that enriches him and becomes a building magnate. Antonio (Nino Manfredi), a left-wing intellectual and a passionate of cinema, refuses to compromise, leaves his wife and son as well as teaching in a small provincial town to become a film journalist in Rome. Antonio (Stefano Satta Flores) is a paramedic in the hospital and leads a modest existence illuminated only by the love for the beautiful actress Luciana (Stefania Sandrelli) that in fact all three men will fall in love with at one time or another in the story. So we are dealing with a capitalist, an intellectual and a proletarian, plus a muse. The fates of the four and their encounters are traced over thirty years, with their meanders and conflicts, and with their intersections with the history of Italian film that lives at the same time its golden age (Frederico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, Marcelo Mastroianni contribute with cameo appearances in the film).

Half of 'C'eravamo tanto amati' is filmed in black and white and the other half in color in parallel with the film transition that took place in the history of the film during the story. The acting interpretations are all remarkable. To the quartet of heroes I mentioned I would add the character of Gianni's father-in-law played by Aldo Fabrizi, a formidable role of composition. The accessible Italian-style comedy style makes the film enjoyable to watch, while the insertions of elements borrowed from theatre (the heroes addressing the audience as if from the stage) or from the 'cinematic kitchen' (repeated takes or stop-frames) make watching the film interesting for more experimental cinema enthusiasts as well. Ettore Scola was one of the directors who knew how to combine inventiveness, accessibility and narrative talent. The disappointment of the heroes is that of a generation that not only dreamed of a better world but also fought for it, but for which the hour of balance is also the hour of disappointment. A story that seems to repeat itself generation after generation.