How do you give a visual makeover to a classic tale that's centered around appearances? That was the question facing award-winning costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini when he began work on the latest screen adaptation of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play "Cyrano de Bergerac," and he had 26 days to figure it out. "Because of the schedule and the pande...
READ MOREThe most censored film in Italian cinema is titled “Harlem” (1943) and it was a fascist propaganda work about an Italian boxer who defeats a black rival. The tape was cut when Mussolini’s regime ended, but eight decades later it has been recovered to reveal the rhetoric that hammered Italians with the illusion of racial superiority. The film, which...
READ MOREFrancis Ford Coppola lives—as he has in one way or another since directing 1972's The Godfather—in splendor. Loosely held splendor: In the ensuing five decades, Coppola has filed for bankruptcy at least once and has been expelled from Hollywood more than once. But splendor nonetheless. His primary residence is in the Napa Valley, on the grounds of...
READ MOREIt has been 50 years since “The Godfather” premiered and became one of the best-loved movies in Hollywood history. Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle and arts and culture writer Tony Bravo — two Italian Americans from different generations and different coasts — came of age with completely different attitudes about the film. One practically grew up...
READ MOREThe Southern Question has been a major topic in Italian political, economic, and cultural life for a century and more. The South remains a resonant theme in Italian literature and cinema. What consequences has the Question had in controlling the imaginations and actions of intellectuals and those with political and other forms of power? In this lec...
READ MOREHe did it again. Just 7 years after the victorious trip to Los Angeles for The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino is back competing for an award. The Hand of God is in fact nominated for the 2022 Oscars for Best Foreign Film. Sorrentino has a stunning ability to center the events of his movies in certain locations, making the audience fall in love with...
READ MOREAny nonagenarian European likely has some stories that would make most of their American contemporaries’ encounters with the course of history seem tame by comparison. The 91-year-old Paolo Taviani’s ambitious new film Leonora Addio attempts to sum up the history of cinema and of the 20th century as a whole from an Italian perspective.
READ MOREFrank Pesce, a colorful character actor whose dozens of credits range from Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and Midnight Run to Miami Vice, Matlock and Kojak, has died. He was 75. His girlfriend Tammy Scher told Deadline that Pesce died February 6 in Burbank of dementia complications. Born on December 8, 1946, in New York City, Pesce put the “character”...
READ MOREOn February 2nd Italy lost a queen, the queen of Italian cinema. Maria Luisa Ceciarelli, the real name of Monica Vitti, died at the age of 90 years, after a long-suffering period of disease that made her retire from the scenes for almost 20 years now. Monica Vitti was born in 1931. She studied acting at the academy and began her career as an actres...
READ MOREFremantle and Italy’s Cinecittà have entered a five-year pact involving the continuous rental of six sound stages at the iconic studios, which are currently undergoing a major revamp. The deal “confirms Fremantle’s strategic decision to make some of its top international productions in Italy: a decision that finds the perfect and natural partner in...
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