“Maggiorate” and “Mamme”:
Leading Women of Postwar Italian Cinema
From May 2 through June 3, in collaboration with Cinecittà Holding and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents “Maggiorate” and “Mamme”: Leading Women of Postwar Italian Cinema, a series of 12 films highlighting Italian screen goddesses of the postwar period.
Postwar Italian cinema is enshrined in film history books for its neorealist movement, but it produced another phenomenon, which, although perhaps less prestigious, also had an enormous impact on world cinema: the arrival of a new generation of Italian actresses who revolutionized the image of women on screen. Actresses such as Anna Magnani, Gina Lollobrigida, and Sophia Loren were the first Italian-based screen performers to become international superstars. They were widely sought after by other national cinemas, especially the American, where their invasion of Hollywood easily eclipsed the scattered European imports (Marlene Dietrich, Simone Simon, Hedy Lamarr, et al.) of the 1930s.
The versatile new breed of Italian actresses were equally at home with the grit of neorealism and the glamour of Cinecittà. They could play aristocrats or proletarians, earth-mothers or sexpots, mamme (moms) or maggiorate. The term “maggiorate” (roughly, “super-sized women”) was used for curvaceous actresses such as Mangano, Lollobrigida, and Loren, whose bountiful figures symbolized a return to well-fed plentitude after years of war-induced privation. With their legendary physiques and earthy manner, they contributed mightily to the more mature depiction of sexuality in postwar cinema, defining an image of womanhood that was as emotionally full-blooded as it was often physically full-bodied.
Included in “Maggiorate” and “Mamme” are such classic performances as Anna Magnani’s breakthrough role in OPEN CITY, Giulietta Masina’s heartbreaking turn in LA STRADA, and Sophia Loren’s Oscar-winning effort in TWO WOMEN. The series also provides rare opportunities to sample lesser-known actresses in long-unseen gems, such as Alida Valli in the period melodrama OLD-FASHIONED WORLD, Stefania Sandrelli in the dark satire I KNEW HER WELL, and Sandra Milo in Rossellini’s rarely shown Stendhal adaptation VANINA VANINI.
"Maggiorate" and "Mamme": Leading Women of Postwar Italian Cinema was organized by Cinecittà Holding and is sponsored by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago. Special thanks to Tina Cervone and Patrizia Gambarotta, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago; Federica Terzulli, Cinecittà Holding; James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario; Jim Sinclair, Pacific Cinematheque; Marian Luntz, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Todd Hitchcock, AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center; Helena Brissenden and Jared Sapolin, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
-- Martin Rubin
BREAD, LOVE AND DREAMS
(PANE, AMORE E FANTASIA)
(aka SCANDAL IN SORRENTO)
1953, Luigi Comencini, Italy, 93 min.
With Gina Lollobrigida, Vittorio De Sica
Gina Lollobrigida became an international star with the success of this breezy romantic farce that scored an Oscar nomination for Best Story. “La Lollo” delivers one of her most appealing and naturalistic performances as a village beauty whose unmerited reputation for easy virtue attracts the attention of the lecherous police chief (De Sica), but she only has eyes for the chief’s hunky young subordinate (Roberto Risso). In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Friday, May 22, 6:00 pm
GIRL WITH A SUITCASE
(LA RAGAZZA CON LA VALIGIA)
1961, Valerio Zurlini, Italy, 111 min.
With Claudia Cardinale, Jacques Perrin
“One of the most complex and nuanced treatments of intergenerational sexual attraction the movies have ever depicted.”--Steve Vineberg, The Boston Phoenix
Claudia Cardinale is vivacious, vulnerable, and heart-stoppingly beautiful in this key early role in which she plays an unemployed nightclub singer teetering on the edge of prostitution as she struggles to survive in a man’s world. After being dumped by a wealthy boyfriend, she attracts the attention of his teenaged brother (Perrin), whose infatuation with her is both impassioned and unrealistic. Tito Santoni’s richly textured black-and-white cinematography and Mario Nascimbene’s jazzy score complement Zurlini’s psychologically acute direction. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Due to shipping circumstances beyond our control, we will be unable to present GIRL WITH A SUITCASE. In its place will be Fellini's JULIET OF THE SPIRITS. We apologize for the inconvenience.
I KNEW HER WELL
(IO LA CONOSCEVO BENE)
1965, Antonio Pietrangeli, Italy, 99 min.
With Stefania Sandrelli, Nino Manfredi
I KNEW HER WELL is a genuine discovery from a talented director who is too little known outside of Italy. Compared by critics to Julie Christie in DARLING and “a lusty Mediterranean Holly Golightly,” the heroine (played with remarkable depth by the 19-year-old Sandrelli) is an ambitious country girl who comes to Rome with the dream of becoming a star. The comic tone turns progressively darker as she drifts through a series of inconsequential affairs and becomes easy prey for the sharks of the showbiz world. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Monday, June 1, 6:00 pm
JULIET OF THE SPIRITS
(GIULIETTA DEGLI SPIRITI)
1965, Federico Fellini, Italy, 148 min.
With Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo
For his first color feature, Fellini structured a story around the brilliant and unique actress, his wife Giulietta Masina. The film won his second Oscar for Best Foreign Film. It’s been called a female version of 8-1/2 for the intensely personal collage of memories that make up a woman’s inner life. Intimidated by her husband, outshined by her gorgeous sisters, and browbeaten by her mother, Juliet (Masina) is a model of low self-esteem. In the course of a séance, Juliet discovers she is able to channel the spirits of her grandfather and others, who urge her to find the joy in life that she’s been missing. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
An additional screening of JULIET OF THE SPIRITS has been added in place of GIRL WITH A SUITCASE, which has been canceled due to a shipping error. We apologize for any inconvenience
Saturday, May 16, 3:00 pm
Sunday, May 17, 4:45 pm
Wednesday, May 20, 6:00 pm
OH! SABELLA
(LA NONNA SABELLA)
1957, Dino Risi, Italy, 95 min.
With Sylva Koscina, Nina Pica
Buxom, Croatian-born Sylva Koscina (HERCULES) is top-billed in this rustic farce by prolific comedy director Risi (THE EASY LIFE), but the film is dominated by veteran character actress Nina Pica in the title role. Based on a popular novel by Pasquale Festa Campanile (who also wrote the screenplay), it features Pica as an iron-willed village matriarch whose seemingly imminent demise would free her grandson (Renato Salvatori) to marry the girl of his dreams (Koscina). In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Saturday, May 23, 5:00 pm
OLD-FASHIONED WORLD
(PICCOLO MONDO ANTICO)
1941, Mario Soldati, Italy, 106 min.
With Alida Valli, Massimo Serato
Though she is best known today as the stern beauty of such postwar films as THE PARADINE CASE, THE THIRD MAN, and SENSO, a softer-edged Alida Valli shot to stardom in the early 1940s, when she was barely 20. Based on Antonio Fogazzaro’s classic 1895 novel, OLD-FASHIONED WORLD--like SENSO and VANINA VANINI--pits politics against passion during the Risorgimento period. A shop girl (Valli) marries a Lombardy aristocrat (Serato); both his marriage and his liberal politics incur the wrath of his intimidating grandmother (Ada Dondini). In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Due to shipping circumstances beyond our control, we will be unable to present OLD-FASHIONED WORLD. In its place will be Vittorio De Sica's TWO WOMEN, starring Sophia Loren and Jean-Paul Belmondo. We apologize for the inconvenience.
OPEN CITY
(ROMA, CITTÀ APERTA)
1945, Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 100 min.
With Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani was already an experienced stage and screen actress when her stunning performance in this groundbreaking neorealist classic catapulted her to international stardom. Rossellini’s portrait of Rome under the German occupation centers on the manhunt for a resistance leader and its effect upon several characters, including a partisan priest, a corrupt actress, a Gestapo major, a gang of street kids, and a feisty pregnant woman (Magnani) about to celebrate her long-deferred wedding. Although praised at the time for the purity of its realism, OPEN CITY now seems most impressive for its vigorous, complex mixture of documentary, melodrama, humor, and brutality. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Saturday, May 2, 5:15 pm
Sunday, May 3, 3:00 pm
Archival print!
SANDRA
(VAGHE SELLE DELL’ORSA)
1965, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 105 min.
With Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel.
Newly married to an American, a young woman (Cardinale) returns to her family’s mansion in Tuscany and finds it haunted with secrets from the past, including brother-sister incest and collaboration with the Nazis. Strikingly photographed in high-contrast black-and-white, SANDRA is one of Visconti’s least known and most complex films. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm archival print courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment. (MR)
Saturday, May 9, 3:00 pm
Monday, May 11, 6:00 pm
LA STRADA
(THE ROAD)
1954, Federico Fellini, Italy, 107 min.
With Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn
Fellini won his first Oscar for Best Foreign Film for LA STRADA. The simple and gentle story endures most especially through the profoundly moving performance by Fellini’s wife, Giulietta Masina, as the waif Gelsomina, sold by her mother to the brutish traveling circus strongman Zampano (Quinn) to function as his servant, sideshow assistant, and mistress. Her empathy for the impish tightrope walker called The Fool (Richard Basehart) brings tragedy when his free spirit collides with Zampano’s brute force. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, May 2, 3:00 pm
Thursday, May 7, 6:00 pm
TEOREMA
1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 105 min.
With Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp
“Apart from his final feature, SALO, this is probably Pasolini’s most controversial film, and, to my mind, one of his very best.”--Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Best known as the short-shorts sensation of BITTER RICE (1949), Silvana Mangano quickly moved beyond sexpot roles and became a favorite actress of Pasolini (OEDIPUS REX, THE DECAMERON) and Visconti (DEATH IN VENICE, LUDWIG) in the 1960s and 1970s. In Pasolini’s provocative, nearly wordless parable, a wealthy household is visited by a mysterious stranger (Stamp) who proceeds to seduce all of its members, including maid, son, mother (Mangano), daughter, and father. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Saturday, May 30, 5:15 pm
Wednesday, June 3, 6:00 pm
TWO WOMEN
(LA CIOCIARA)
1960, Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 100 min.
With Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo
“Loren won a deserved Oscar for her performance as the life force encased in a magnificent body, and De Sica has rarely done better work.”--Don Druker, Chicago Reader
Sophia Loren became the first foreign-language actress to win a Best Actress Oscar in this powerful collaboration by director De Sica, screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, and novelist Alberto Moravia. Set during the waning days of World War II, the film stars Loren as a Roman widow who flees with her 13-year-old daughter (Eleanora Brown) to a rural village. There they befriend an anti-fascist student (Belmondo), until the war reaches into their sanctuary. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
An additional screening of TWO WOMEN has been added in place of OLD-FASHIONED WORLD, which has been canceled due to a shipping error. We apologize for any inconvenience
Tuesday, May 19, 6:00 pm
Sunday, May 24, 5:00 pm
Wednesday, May 27, 6:00 pm
Archival print!
VANINA VANINI
1961, Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 113 min.
With Sandra Milo, Laurent Terzieff
Based on a Stendhal short story, VANINA VANINI is a lavish historical romance (somewhat similar to Visconti’s SENSO) about a spoiled, staunchly Catholic princess (Milo) who becomes passionately entangled with an anti-papist patriot (Terzieff). Rossellini envisioned an in-depth portrait of the Risorgimento period; the producer, who was infatuated with Milo, cut out the history in favor of the love story. Rossellini expert Tag Gallagher writes, “There are wonderful action scenes, marvelous crowd scenes...at least half the time we are watching Rossellini at his best.” In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm archival print courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment. (MR)