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Still believe in the goodness of people? Still hold out hope for the future? If so this is one picture you’ll want to catch up with sooner than later. ‘The Good Totò’ is literally found in a cabbage patch; the simple magic of kindness enables him to turn a shanty town into a little Utopia . . . for a few days. Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini fashion a story that insists that magic is as real as sunlight, music, and the words ‘Good Morning’ — and that man is imperfect and his institutions unjust. Francesco Golisano, Brunella Bovo and the heavenly Emma Gramatica are unforgettable. The warmth and understanding here bests that of Charlie Chaplin.

Miracle in Milan

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1119

1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Miracolo a Milano / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 19, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Emma Gramatica, Francesco Golisano, Paolo Stoppa, Guglielmo Barnabò, Brunella Bovo, Anna Carena,...

Next year will mark the centennial of Federico Fellini, born on January 20, 1920 in Rimini, Italy. While we imagine there will be no shortage of retrospectives and screenings celebrating the Italian master, New York City’s Film Forum is getting ahead of the pack with a presentation of a new 4K restoration of the director’s first solo directorial effort The White Sheik. We’re pleased to present the exclusive trailer debut ahead of an opening on Christmas Day.

Coming after Fellini’s 1950 debut Variety Lights, co-directed with Alberto Lattuada, this 1952 slapstick rom-com follows a honeymoon gone off the rails when the bride (Brunella Bovo) goes off in search of her titular idol. Based on an original treatment by Michelangelo Antonioni, the film also marks a number of early collaborations with future Fellini stalwarts, notably a memorable cameo by Giulietta Masina as Cabiria (five years before Nights of Cabiria) and a score by composer Nino Rota.

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Federico Fellini's The White Sheik (1952) is showing January 20 - February 19, 2018 and Nights of Cabiria (1957) from January 21 - February 20, 2018 on Mubi in the United States. Even the most straight-faced Federico Fellini film veers toward the illusory. From the lackadaisical daydreams of wayward young men to the ingenuousness of a simple-minded woman wanting nothing more than to be loved in a world that is anything but loving, his characters regularly search for something so perceptibly near and so conceivably real, yet something often revealed to be deceptive at best, nonexistent at worst. And when he applies this tendency with extravagant conviction, enhancing the whimsy further toward the fantastic, the result is something for which an adjective had to be created: “Felliniesque.” Variety Lights (1950), the first film Fellini directed—in collaboration with Alberto Lattuada—revolved around the world of vaudeville, so...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Katalin Berek (1930-2017) - Hungarian Actress. She stars in the Oscars-submitted film Adoption and appears in A Half Pint of Beer, Sacra Corona, The Upthrown Stone and Istvan, a Kiraly. She died on February 27. (Index) Brunella Bovo (1932-2017) - Italian Actress. She stars in Federico Fellini's The White Sheik (see below) and Vittorio De Sica's Miracle in Milan. She died on February 21. (Corriere di Rieti) Neil Fingleton...

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