Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 09/08/19

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, September 8, 2019

Adua and Her Friends (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1960)

Cast: Simone Signoret, Sandra Milo, Emmanuelle Riva, Gina Rovere, Marcello Mastroianni, Claudio Gora, Ivo Garrani, Gianrico Tedeschi, Antonio Rais, Duilio D'Amore. Screenplay: Ruggero Maccari, Tullio Pinelli, Ettore Scola, Antonio Pietrangeli. Cinematography: Armando Nannuzzi. Production design: Luigi Scaccianoce. Film editing: Eraldo Da Roma. Music: Piero Piccioni.

A 1958 law passed in Italy shut down all the houses of prostitution, putting many of the women on the streets. But Adua (Simone Signoret) and three of her fellow sex workers decide to go semi-legit: They find a rundown property on the edge of Roman and with their savings and the help of Ercoli (Claudio Gora), one of Adua's wealthy former clients, they open a restaurant which they plan to use as a front for an illegal brothel. But the restaurant proves to be so popular that they decide they can get out of the sex trade entirely. Adua even strikes up a promising relationship with the slick car salesman Pietro (Marcello Mastroianni). But tension between Adua and Ercoli eventually undoes the whole plan. Adua and Her Friends is a well-made, mostly comic film with a downer ending.