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Sex and swastikas! — that combo shows up in both trash cinema and high art. Luchino Visconti’s searing look at Nazi corruption sees an industrialist family torn apart by murderous greed and ambition worthy of the Borgias. The fiendish Countess Ingrid Thulin has raised a twisted son (Helmut Berger) to serve her deadly schemes; her path to power involves framing one heir for a killing while another rival is sacrificed in an SS massacre for the good of the Reich. The chilling treachery plays out at family dinner tables, in the offices of a steel mill, and in various bedrooms; Nazi fervor is equated with sex perversion. The uncut original version, remastered, also stars Dirk Bogarde, Helmut Griem, Renaud Verley, Umberto Orsini, René Koldehoff, Charlotte Rampling and Florinda Bolkan.

The Damned

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1098

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 157 min. / La caduta degli dei, Götterdämmerung / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 28, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Dirk Bogarde,...

It’s yet another masterpiece from the Italian director Francesco Rosi, adapting a fiction novel about a political murder conspiracy that is altogether too much of a good fit for the troubled Italy of 1975. Crime star Lino Ventura is the incorruptible detective investigating a series of killings of high-level judges, who begins to intuit that his superiors want the murders to continue. Dark and moody, Rosi’s picture is impeccably directed for a kind of nagging, uneasy suspense, with frightening hints that Ventura is being drawn into a bigger, more sinister frame. With Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow and Fernando Rey, and music by Piero Piccioni. The insightful audio commentary is by Alex Cox. The original Italian title is even more blood-curdling: Cadaveri eccelenti.

Illustrious Corpses

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Cadaveri eccellenti; The Context / Street Date September 28, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi,...

It’s a perfect movie for a dark time: Carlo Levi’s famed novel about a political undesirable became a major Italian miniseries by the great Francesco Rosi, starring the now-legendary Gian Maria Volontè. In Mussolini’s most popular years of make-Italy-great-again Fascism, a dissident is given an indefinite ‘time out,’ an exile to a small town in a corner of the country so remote and primitive that not even Christianity could fully change it. He expects nothing but receives revelations about his country, his life and one’s place in society. It’s meditative, it’s illuminating, it’s like a book one can’t put down. It’s also uncut, as opposed to the theatrical version that made a splash here in 1980, as simply Eboli.

Christ Stopped at Eboli

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1043

1979 / Color / 1:33 flat / 220 150, 120 min. / Cristo si è fermato a Eboli / available through The Criterion Collection...

Luchino Visconti’s handsome final feature adapts a classic Italian novel about an arrogant aristocrat whose selfish double-standard philosophy causes ruin and misery. The 19th century villas and ornate costumes dazzle, but the depressingly fated story will be tough going for sensitive audiences. This new disc encoding highlights the intoxicating atmosphere, and the intense performances of Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli and Jennifer O’Neill.

L’innocente

Blu-ray

Film Movement Classics

1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 129 112 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / 29.95

Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Rina Morelli, Massimo Girotti, Didier Haudepin, Marie Dubois, Roberta Paladini, Claude Mann, Marc Porel.

Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Franco Mannino

Production Design: Mario Garbuglia

Costumes: Piero Tosi

Written by Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti from the novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio

Produced by Giovanni Bertolucci

Directed by Luchino Visconti

The availability of European art cinema became spotty in the 1970s,...

Did they, or didn’t they?

Any baby boomer who saw Franco Zeffirelli’s sumptuous “Romeo & Juliet,” which opened in U.S. theaters Oct. 8, 1968, has wondered if stars Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting actually fell in love during the production.

Their performances as Shakespeare’s star-crossed ill-fated lovers were so passionate, audiences naturally thought they were acting out their own feelings.

“I had never been with anyone before we shot the film,” noted Hussey, author with her son Alexander Martin of the new memoir, “The Girl on the Balcony: Olivia Hussey Finds Life After ‘Romeo & Juliet.”’

“But Leonard and I held hands, kissed,” Hussey, 67, explained during a recent interview at a Studio City bistro. “I guess we sort of saw each other as boyfriend and girlfriend — but young. It wasn’t the way it might be today. A 15-year-old girl today is a lot more promiscuous than we were.

Welcome to the final film of the aesthetically precise, rigorously austere Robert Bresson, an adaptation of a fateful tale by Leo Tolstoy visualized in Bresson’s frequently maddening personal style. An extreme artist makes a fascinatingly unyielding show: as with the classic paintings that Bresson admires, appreciation requires special knowledge.

L’argent

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 886

1983 / Color / 1:85 anamorphic 16:9 / 85 min. / Money / Street Date July 11, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Christian Patey, Vincent Risterucci, Caroline Lang, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Báatrice Tabourin, Didier Baussy.

Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis, Emmanuel Machuel

Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy

Film Editor: Jean-Francois Naudon

Written by Robert Bresson from a short story by Leo Tolstoy

Produced by Antoine Gannagé, Jean-Marc Henchoz, Daniel Toscan du Plantier

Written and Directed by Robert Bresson

Some movies need disclaimers, and many of the pictures of Robert Bresson could use a caption reading, ‘not for beginners.’ Bresson’s filmography includes the spiritually mysterious Diary of a Country Priest...

On this very gay day (4/24) in history as it relates to showbiz...

1873 Silent film director Robert Wiene, best known for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) born in Breslau (Note: other online sources disagree with the IMDb on this birthdate but it's always fun to think about Caligari)

1927 Oscar winning cinematographer Pasqualino de Santis born in Italy. Classics include Romeo and Juliet, The Damned, Death in Venice, and L'Argent

1930 Richard Donner, superstar director/producer of the 1980s, behind films like The Goonies, Lethal Weapon, and the first two Supermans. Apparently retired after 16 Blocks (2006) with Bruce Willis

1931 The Public Enemy starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow was enjoying its opening weekend at movie theaters. It was a big hit, ending in the top ten of its year. Variety claimed it was "low brow material" attempting to be high brow by its craftsmanship. If only critics knew in the moment -- they almost...

This past weekend, the American Society of Cinematographers awarded Greig Fraser for his contribution to Lion as last year’s greatest accomplishment in the field. Of course, his achievement was just a small sampling of the fantastic work from directors of photography, but it did give us a stronger hint at what may be the winner on Oscar night. Ahead of the ceremony, we have a new video compilation that honors all the past winners in the category at the Academy Awards

Created by Burger Fiction, it spans the stunning silent landmark Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans all the way up to the end of Emmanuel Lubezki‘s three-peat win for The Revenant. Aside from the advancements in color and aspect ration, it’s a thrill to see some of cinema’s most iconic shots side-by-side. However, the best way to experience the evolution of the craft is by...

Franceso Rosi's warm, thoughtful tale sees a family gathering observe grievous modern problems -- after so much violence in Italian politics people are still looking for humanistic solutions. Philippe Noiret heads a great cast (with Charles Vanel) in this mellow reflection on 'the things of life.' Three Brothers Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD Arrow Academy (UK) 1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date April 4, 2016 / Tre fratelli / Available from Amazon UK  Starring Philippe Noiret, Michele Placido, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Charles Vanel, Andréa Ferréol, Maddalena Crippa, Rosaria Tafuri, Marta Zoffoli, Simonetta Stefanelli. Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis Editor Ruggero Mastroianni Original Music Piero Piccioni Written by Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi from the book by A. Platonov Produced by Antonio Macri, Giorgio Nocella Directed by Francesco Rosi

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

So few of Francesco Rosi's films were released in the United States that until Criterion's disc of Salvatore Giuliano my only image of...

Criterion digs Bitter Rice out of obscurity this month, a pulpy mix of social drama and dime store pathos from director and screenwriter Giuseppe De Santis. Premiering at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival, the title was also nominated for an Oscar in 1950 for Best Story. Lumped in with the neo-realism movement, it’s been a well-regarded minor title, but its problematic noir elements seem to have denied it prominent classification, at least compared to De Santis’ contemporary, Roberto Rossellini, whose Rome, Open City (1945) birthed the movement (and had just finished his notable war trilogy the year prior to release of this title). But De Santis creates something a bit stranger with this hybrid, a darker examination of sex and violence from the perspective of two central female characters. In its native language, the title is a pun since the Italian word for rice can also be substituted for the word laughter,...

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni star in a serious drama about two outsiders in Mussolini's Rome of 1938, an ordinary housewife and a political undesirable. They have a lot in common, as it turns out. Writer-director Ettore Scola condemnation of an oppressive authoritarian state, addresses the most basic human rights violations. A Special Day Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 778 1977 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / Una giornata particolare / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 13, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, John Vernon, Françoise Berd. Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis Film Editor Raimondo Crociani Original Music Armando Trovajoli Written by Ettore Scola, Ruggero Maccari, Maurizio Costanzo Produced by Carlo Ponti Directed by Ettore Scola  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Veteran Italian screenwriter and director Ettore Scola's best-known movie in the U.S. is 1974's We All Loved Each Other So Much, but my instant favorite is this 1977 drama. Movies about life under Fascism usually gravitate toward extreme,...

A testament to the importance of restoration, the new digital transfer of Ettore Scola’s 1977 title A Special Day is a beauty to behold. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, it went on to collect a number of accolades, winning a Golden Globe and a Cesar for Best Foreign Film, and scoring Marcello Mastroianni an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Scola is one of the great Italian auteurs who hasn’t received the same international renown as Fellini, Pasolini, Petri, and others, all considerable forces by the time Scola’s career was taking off in the early 1970s. He’s played in competition at Cannes eight times (winning Best Director in 1976 for Ugly, Dirty and Bad and Best Screenplay in 1980 for La Terrazza), and his most recent film, 2013’s How Strange to Be Named Federico was a playful homage to Scola’s friend, Fellini. In 2014, Criterion restored his 1962 title Il Sorpasso,...

A review of "The Devil, Probably" by Mireille Latil-Le-Dantec. Originally published in Issue 77, July-August 1977, of Cinématographe. Translation by Ted Fendt. Thanks to Marie-Pierre Duhamel.

"I challenge you all now, all you atheists. With what will you save the world, and where have you found a normal line of progress for it, you men of science, of co-operation, of labour-wage, and all the rest of it?

With credit? What's credit? Where will credit take you? [...] Without recognizing any moral basis except the satisfaction of individual egoism and material necessity! [...] It's a law, that's true; but it's no more normal than the law of destruction, or even self-destruction. [...] Yes, sir, the law of self-destruction and the law of self-preservation are equally strong in humanity! The devil has equal dominion over humanity till the limit of time which we know not. You laugh? You don't believe in the devil? Disbelief in the devil is a French idea,...

Blu-ray Release Date: April 10, 2011

Price: Blu-ray $29.98

Studio: Raro Video

Burt Lancaster stars in Luchino Visconti's 1974 drama Conversation Piece.

Italian DVD label Raro Video releases the 1974 drama Conversation Piece, Luchino Visconti’s (Senso) penultimate film, one month after issuing the film on DVD in early March, 2012.

Entitled Gruppo di famiglia in un interno in its native Italian, the movie examines the solitary life of a retired American professor (Burt Lancaster, Sweet Smell of Success) who lives alone in a luxurious palazzo in Rome. When he is confronted by a vulgar Italian marchesa Silvana Mangano, Dune) and her companions – her lover (Helmut Berger, The Romantic Englishwoman), her daughter (Claudia Marsani, The Hired Gun), and jer daughter’s boyfriend (Stefano Patrizi, Lion of the Desert) – he is forced to rent them an apartment on the upper floor of his home. Before long, the introverted professor’s routine is turned upside down and...

(Francesco Rosi, 1984, PG, Second Sight Films)

Though not as original in conception as Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni, which was also produced by Daniel Toscan du Plantier and conducted by Lorin Maazel, this wonderfully performed and staged version of Bizet's masterpiece is one of the great opera movies, the work of the distinguished Italian realist Francesco Rosi, director of Salvatore Giuliano and Three Brothers. Using the spoken dialogue of the original stage production, it is shot entirely on Andalucian locations with a magnificent central trio: the alluring, powerfully confident Julia Migenes, a sort of dark-haired Gypsy Streisand, as Carmen; Plácido Domingo, a painfully vulnerable (if perhaps slightly too old) Don José; and Ruggero Raimondo (Losey's Don Giovanni) as a wiry, proud Escamillo, who has the pained eyes of a man long used to facing death in the afternoon. Knowing that the ultimate emotional and psychological force comes from the music and singing,...

Producer of Pier Paolo Pasolini's early films

Though an enterprising film producer, often ahead of his times, Alfredo Bini, who has died aged 83, is best remembered for having given the poet Pier Paolo Pasolini the chance to make his debut as a film-maker with Accattone (1960), when no other film company was prepared to back it. Bini produced more than 40 films, including all the features made by Pasolini up until 1967, including Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St Matthew, 1964). Among his other films were many starring his wife, Rosanna Schiaffino.

Bini was born in Livorno, Tuscany, and, during the second world war, ran away from home to join the army. He was wounded and got a medal, but went back to finish his studies in biology. He soon gave up the idea of a scientific career and in 1945 moved to Rome, where, after taking on various jobs, he managed a theatre group.

"La Tregua" (The Truce) is a multilevel saga about a man making peace with himself. In this case, it is the magical awakening and spiritual revitalization of a former Auschwitz prisoner who, during a long and arduous trek home after his concentration camp imprisonment, rediscovers his feelings and humanity.

Magnificently scoped and elevated by a rousingly tender musical score, this competition entrant should win much praise for its ambitious and eloquent equivocation of one of the most horrifying sagas in human history.

A picaresque saga of both physical and psychological dimension, the film begins with the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army. Centering on Primo (John Turturro), a deferential Italian chemist who has endured the heinous degradations of Auschwitz, the complex, spare narrative uses Primo's experiences and observations as a prism for all prisoners of the concentration camps -- Jews, gypsies or anyone else considered an "undesirable."

A diffident and intelligent man, Primo is somewhat baffled by his own survival: Why did God grant him life when others, such as the youngest children, were led to their immediate slaughter? Like Abraham, he questions God's notion of mercy. Throughout the film, philosophical quandaries as well as religious questions magnify the story beyond its mere logistical dimension. Nevertheless, screenwriters Franceso Rosi and Tonino Guerra have fortified this odyssey with observations and ruminations from Primo's intelligent and introspective recollections that have profound significance. Admittedly, the pronouncements sometimes radiate with a specious simplicity that takes its credence from the enormity of the subject, but, in general, they are of a solid and illuminating nature.

But not all is speculation and discourse. "La Tregua" bursts out with energy and high spirits as Primo travels, largely by train, from Auschwitz to his hometown in Italy. Exuberant ethnic celebrations enliven the trip and, for Primo, serve as catalysts to touch down to his most decent emotions -- feelings almost subsumed by the callous shell he developed as a means to survive the concentration camp. While these musical outbursts are wonderfully colorful and serve as intellectual rest stops from Primo's ruminations, they are at times overdrawn and somewhat glorified. Roaring scenes of the Red Army, booming away en masse on some nationalistic march, are somewhat prolonged and, alas, aesthetically old-fashioned. Indeed, director Francesco Rosi's narrative cadence occasionally trips into a lock-step mode: reflection, musical production number, train. Nevertheless, it is an overall percussively powerful filmic journey.

As the focal point of this largely wonderful work, Turturro's incisive performance is a wonderful portrait of a man's reawakening and his reaffirmation not only in himself but humanity. Coursing the production with some flesh-and-blood gusto, Rade Serbedzija is terrific as an irrepressible Greek.

Compositionally grand, thanks to cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis' robust framings and composer Luis Bacalov's rich shadings, "La Tregua" resounds with hard wisdom and compassion.

LA TREGUA (THE TRUCE)

In competition

Capitol Films

In association with Channel Four Films

A 3 Emme production

A film by Francesco Rosi

Producers Leo Pescarolo, Guido de Laurentiis

Director Francesco Rosi

Screenplay Francesco Rosi, Stefano Rulli,

Sandro Petraglia

Based on the book by Primo Levi

Dirs. of photography Pasqualino De Santis,

Marco Pontecorvo

Editor Ruggero Mastroianni, Bruno Sarandrea

Music Luis Bacalov

Costume designer Alberto Verso

Production designer Andrea Crisanti

Casting Shaila Rubin

Sound mixer Alain Curvelier

Cast:

Primo John Turturro

Cesare Massimo Ghini

The Greek Rade Serbedzija

Daniele Stefano Dionisi

Col. Rovi Teco Celio

Running time -- 117 minutes

No MPAA rating...