BECOMING ANITA EKBERG

Mastroianni and Ekberg in La dolce vita and 27 years later, both still sexy

BECOMING ANITA EKBERG
 (2014  documentary). Director: Mark Rappaport.

While I always strive to review a book or movie for what it is as opposed to what it isn't, sometimes you're not given much of a choice. If you tune in to a (very short) documentary entitled Becoming Anita Ekberg, you would think you'd have a right to expect some sort of biographical treatment, and that you might be told, say, what her early life was like; who, if anyone, she might have married; some of her personal thoughts on her films and co-workers; how she got her start in show business; and so on. Alas, Becoming Anita Ekberg is yet another of director Mark Rapport's insufficient "video essays," this time purportedly on Ekberg but more about the nature of stardom and the short shelf life of sex symbols. (Some of this is interesting while much of it is obvious and pretentious.) You won't learn much more than the basics about Ekberg herself: how she played "Anita Ekberg" in the Martin and Lewis comedy Hollywood or Bust (an all too obvious title); reached international stardom as the movie star in Fellini's famous La dolce vita; and wound up playing herself again in Boccaccio '70, this time as a giant-size poster of herself that comes to life. For the record Ekberg was married to actors Rik Van Nutter and Anthony Steel and had sixty-five credits in films, few of which are even mentioned. Her life and career were actually quite interesting, but you will learn much more at imdb.com than you will from this "documentary." Obviously, this is just a collection of clips tied together to illustrate Rappaport's ruminations, with the clips coming first and the ruminations second. There's also a bit of ageism in this as the film tries to make out that Ekberg has become hideous or something because she's older, but she and Mastroianni, although undeniably older, still look quite attractive. One of her later movies was Killer Nun. She was certainly prominent in the poster for Back from Eternity, which gurgled "Ooh That Ekberg!" Rappaport was also responsible for Debra Paget, For Example, which is somewhat better than this.

Verdict: Skip it and watch one of Ekberg's movies instead. *. 

PUKEY REPEATS

PUKEY REPEATS (1946). Director: Federico Fellini.

Although the studio deemed the June Allyson comedy Pukey to be unreleasable, famed Italian director Federico Fellini caught a special screening of it during a trip to Hollywood and was -- bizarrely enough -- totally enchanted. He contacted Allyson and arranged to make another Pukey film which can be considered a sequel or a remake or both. In this the cookie-tossing singer Pukey (Allyson) decides to take up opera, with completely unamusing results. Although she can't even sing normally, she somehow manages to acquire a contract with La scala in Milan, where much of this was filmed. Keefe Braselle, who appeared in the first film, absolutely refused to be associated with the second, so he was replaced by Broderick Crawford, who makes a highly unlikely love interest for Allyson. You have to hear Allyson attempting to croak out "Nessum Dorma" from Puccini's Turandot to believe it! Fellini filled the film with his usual interesting and exotic faces, but the script -- based, believe it or not, on a play by Italian artist and WW 1 hero Gabrielle D'Annunzio -- is just abysmal.

Verdict: Dreadful! *.

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI: HIS LIFE AND ART

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI: HIS LIFE AND ART. Donald Dewey. Birch Lane/Carol; 1993.

In this absorbing and well-written bio and career study of the actor, there are few first-person interviews, but Dewey makes up for this with an intensive look at Mastroianni's work and its context in the changing political and sexual landscape of Italy. Like many actors, it comes across that there wasn't much to Mastroianni beyond being an actor, but considering his talent and achievements that's more than enough. Mastroianni's often conflicting opinions on movies, the thespian profession, women, co-stars, politics and religion are prodigiously quoted (often too much so), but it is made clear that the actor had little use for the religious dogma of, say, Italian censors. Mastroianni was married to the same woman for many years but had numerous affairs, most famously with Catherine Deneuve. The book also goes into his work and relationships with such famous directors as Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and Vittorio de Sica, Mastroianni hated being seen as the Latin Lover, but he happened to be quite good-looking and that was that. It's interesting that the actor became internationally famous despite the fact that he only appeared in one full-fledged American production, and -- frustratingly -- most of his films are unseen and unavailable in the U.S. However, his fine work in such films as La dolce vita and Le Notti bianchi are evidenced on DVD. It's strange that the photos of the actor used for the front and back covers are not flattering. Mastroianni died at 72 three years after this book was published.

Verdict: Exhaustive look at a fine Italian actor. ***1/2.

LA STRADA

Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn

LA STRADA (aka The Road/1954). Director: Federico Fellini.

After her older sister, Rose, passes away, Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina, wife of Fellini) is sold by her mother to the strong man Zampano (Anthony Quinn) for 10,000 lira. The odd couple travel around the countryside while Gelsomina aids him in his act, which simply consists of his breaking a chain across his chest. Zampano is brutish and insensitive, while Gelsomina is a fragile, child-like (although not necessarily simple-minded) creature  -- in some ways self-absorbed as only a child can be -- who only wants to be loved. The twosome arrive at a circus where they encounter "the fool" (Richard Basehart), an ever-laughing, sarcastic man who does a top-drawer high wire act and in his own way can be just as insensitive to Gelsomina as Zampano is. The conflict between the two men leads to tragedy, and traumatizes Gelsomina. Her half hysterical half-numb state gets on Zampano's nerves and only adds to his guilt so he makes a perhaps unwise decision ... La strada is early Fellini from the director's truly great period (which includes Nights of Cabiria and I vitelloni), before he became FEDERICO FELLINI and every picture had to be a grotesque, overblown spectacle (such as Fellini Satyricon) in which the human drama got lost. In La strada Fellini never forgets that he is doing a character study of two disparate individuals and the film is all the better for it. Quinn offers another magnificent portrayal in the movie, and he is matched by Masina, who may seem at first like a distaff Harpo Marx but who finally etches a very affecting and convincing portrait. Basehart [Tension] is given a less defined role but is fine. With excellent photography from Otello Martelli [Stromboli] and a poignant and lovely score by Nino Rota, La strada is a very moving experience. One could quibble about certain aspects (what exactly happened to Rose, for instance?), but this is still a remarkable motion picture. Some people feel sorry for Zampano at the end, but considering his behavior I ultimately find him much more pathetic than sympathetic.

Verdict: Fellini at his best. ***1/2.

FELLINI SATYRICON

The pictorial splendor of Satyricon

FELLINI SATYRICON (1969). Director: Federico Fellini. 

"Better to have a dead husband than to lose a living lover."

Petronius' episodic novel "Satryicon," which survives in fragments, is one of the oldest works of literature that still survives in any form. Fellini's film version, which is "freely adapted," is just as episodic and fragmented as the book. The film is full of pictorial splendor and often striking settings and scenic design, making it rather good to look at for the most part, but its lack of a strong narrative structure occasionally makes it exasperating and eventually tedious. The story, such as it is, takes place in ancient Rome and concerns Encolpio (Martin Potter), who tries to wrest his lover, a sixteen-year-old slave boy named Giton (the unprepossessing Max Born), from his, Encolpio's, former lover, Ascilto (Hiram Keller). Unfortunately for Encolpio, when asked to choose between the the two men, the fickle Giton decides upon Ascilto. Giton eventually disappears from the film as the two other men have a variety of bizarre adventures, including attending the garish feast of a pretentious rich man, and becoming slaves of the weird Lica (Alain Cuny). whom Encolpio has to marry before the former is beheaded. In scenes that were not in the novel, Encolpio and Ascilto murder the guards of a hermaphrodite with magical powers, and kidnap her, basically turning into two thugs. Another added Fellini-sequence has Encolpio battling a man made up as a minotaur in a maze beside an arena. Although Encolpio's bout with impotency and attempts to cure it are in the novel, it doesn't seem to occur to him or anyone else that he might regain his potency by bedding a male [after all the only one he is in love with is Giton] instead of the typically grotesque females paraded across the screen by Fellini. It's strange that Fellini made a film with so many homoerotic aspects to it, although most of the characters in it seem bisexual, if not pansexual. Apparently in the novel Encolpio was a former gladiator, so his begging for mercy from the "minotaur" in an almost cowardly fashion -- he says he's just a student and not a fighter -- makes little sense and might even be considered homophobic to a degree. [But the movie seems as confused on that subject as the novel probably was. ] The sudden collapse of a Roman apartment building is an effective sequence, and there are others. The film has sub-titles but because of the international cast it is also dubbed -- and quite badly. Among the many attractive and hideous faces on view, the only recognizable actor is Capucine [The Pink Panther]. 

Verdict: Sometimes this resembles a really bad Russian sci fi flick but if it's more artistic it's not necessarily more successful. **1/2.

FELLINI'S ROMA

The ecclesiastical fashion show!

FELLINI'S ROMA (1972). Director: Federico Fellini.

In his love-valentine to the wonders, joys, excesses and beauties of Rome, Fellini has fashioned not a true documentary -- many scenes are staged -- but a mock documentary that expresses his conflicted feelings about the great world capital. The film bounces back and forth in time, with the main 1940's "storyline" involving a young man (Peter Gonzales Falcon, apparently playing a young Fellini) who comes to board with a family and attends a delightfully vulgar variety show with a rowdy audience (one mother just lets her child piss right in the aisle), experiences an air raid, and goes to a brothel or two. In one "low-class" whore house the hookers are almost as old and unattractive as the madames, and the situation in the more expensive brothel isn't much better. In modern sequences an underground chamber with ancient frescoes is uncovered during an excavation for a new subway, but the fresh air destroys them. There is a scene showing busy traffic entering Rome from the airport, and a more memorable sequence showing dozens of motor cyclists zooming all around the city. The highlight of the film, of course, is the ecclesiastical fashion show [see photo], an irreverent look at the clergy in all their popinjay finery.

Verdict: A mixed bag, interesting, but hardly a masterpiece like I vitelloni . ***.

NINE

Daniel Day-Lewis as Fellini-Contini

NINE (2009). Director: Rob Marshall.

"My body's nearing fifty and my mind is nearing ten."

Famous Italian director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), whose last couple of films have been flops, is trying to come up with a script for his new one -- his ninth -- while juggling a wife, Luisa (Marion Cotillard), a mistress named Carla (Penelope Cruz), who is also married, and other women as well. This is  based on the Broadway show of the same title, which in turn was inspired by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8 1/2 [which has never been one of my favorite Fellini films]. The trouble with the script, which tries to deal with the conflict artists have with a repressive church and friction between their personal and professional lives among similar matters, is that it has nothing new to say on those subjects. Contini is the stereotypical neurotic ladies man with a big ego and a few moments of sensitivity, and while he's very well played by Day-Lewis, he ultimately isn't very interesting on his own. What we're left with is an entertaining adaptation of something that probably played better on the stage. Maury Yeston's songs are tuneful enough without being spectacular, and there are some well-done and sexy production numbers, such as the hookers singing "Be Italian." Cruz and especially the very lovely Cotillard are excellent, and there is good support from Nicole Kidman as a movie star, Judy Dench as a costumer-assistant to Contini, and Sophia Loren as Contini's mother! Not to put it crudely, but many see this film [and 8 1/2 as well] as less a celebration of womanhood than a paean to the arrogant male ego and his obsession with "pussy."

Verdict: Flawed and minor in most ways, but also colorful and well-produced with a fine lead performance. ***.

SAMSON VERSUS THE TURKEY MONSTERS

SAMSON VERSUS THE TURKEY MONSTERS (1962). Director: Federico Fellini.

Although Fellini has denied for decades that he ever directed a sand and sorcery epic, this picture has finally surfaced and has many of Fellini's directorial touches. The movie was filmed in the early fifties as The Loves of Samson and was meant to be a fairly serious epic with psycho-sexual pretensions. The studio deemed it unreleasable -- not only because it ran over four hours -- and it was put in the vault. In 1962, the film was cut down to eighty minutes, and what was meant to be a brief humorous scene involving Samson's capture of a wild, giant turkey was expanded into a whole movie about Samson saving a village from an attack of carnivorous turkeys thirty feet tall. New, very bad footage was shot and inserted into the film. Although it's called Samson versus the Turkey Monsters plural, there is actually only one giant turkey terrorizing the villagers. Some atmospheric shots and fascinating faces are all that's left of Fellini's original vision. A no-name cast except for Alida Valli as a horny sorceress.

Verdict: A giant turkey indeed. *.

I VITELLONI

I VITELLONI (1953). Director/writer: Federico Fellini.

This is a charming and engaging slice of life about five friends and their life in a small post-war Italian town. Fausto (Franco Fabrizi) is a rake who has knocked up a young lady, Sandra ([E]Leonora Ruffo), and who wants to flee, but his father forces him to marry her – although he can't keep his hands off other women. Alberto (Alberto Sordi) lives with – and is supported by – his mother and sister but it looks like he'll have to get a job when his sister, who's involved with a married man, leaves home. Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste) is a would-be playwright who shows his work to an aging actor who's more interested in cadging a meal – and perhaps sexual favors – from the fellow than he is in mounting his work. Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini) is a tenor, and sensitive Moraldo (Franco Interlenghi) is the brother of Sandra who longs for something that small- town life cannot give him. The movie may not necessarily be “deep,” but there's a lot going on beneath the surface, and it casts a spell if for no other reason than its sheer quality: it is beautifully directed, photographed, acted, and features a lovely score by Nino Rota. Moraldo is a bit of a shadowy figure – today his friendship with the twelve-year-old Guido (Guido Martufi) would raise eyebrows, although in Guido he actually sees himself – but perhaps the saddest character is Leopoldo. He is representative of all the wannabes in small towns who long for art and culture but haven't the talent or wherewithal to make their dreams a reality. All of these young men long for something else, but Moraldo [Fellini himself?] – whose dreams are never expressed – is the only one who actually leaves. There are many striking characters and images in the film, such as the village "idiot" poignantly touching the statue of the angel on the beach, and the middle-aged wife of Fausto's boss, whose sensuality is momentarily awakened by Fausto's touch even as she recoils from it. The actors playing these young men may all seem a few years too old but I think the point is that they are all past the age where they should have long since left home and found themselves.

Verdict: A lovely movie. ****.