La corruzione

I really love the cinema of the 1960s, and this film was an interesting find with its cool 1960s Italian vibe and provocative storyline. Stefano, played by Perrin, is a recent graduate who wants to become a priest against his father's wishes. Rosanna Schiaffino is radiantly beautiful and plays temptress, but she is also a pawn, corrupted by the material world. The film portrays the struggle between the idealistic and the virtuous, with the temptations and "corruption" of the materialistic nature of the modern world. Great cinematography by Leonida Barboni, especially in filming on a yacht. It has a very cool soundtrack by Giovanni Fusco, whose rhythmic song accentuates a vague modern ending with a synchronized Madison Dance scene. Surprisingly, this film is not part of the Criterion collection but it is well worth viewing.

Alain Cuny had recently played a haunting key supporting role in Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita', which had marked the Italian cinema's decisive break with concern for the underdog to charting the dissolution of the wealthy but aimless. Here he presides over an unholy trinity at sea reminiscent of Polanski's 'Knife in the Water', the younger man this time his vulnerable young son planning to take the cloth; a prospect his satanic father Cuny views with utter abhorrence.

Jacques Perrin has just graduated from high school and has determined to go into the priesthood. His father, Isa Miranda, is a rich industrialist who wants his son to follow in his footsteps. So he takes the youngster on a cruise on his yacht and invites Rosanna Schiaffino along, figuring that nature will take its course.

Mauro Bolognini directs the movie for beautiful images, both at sea and when looking at Signorina Schiaffino. If he is attempting to expose the corruption of the rich, I'd say that he has done so in a simple and obvious manner. What he has done for me is expose the essential black-and-white thinking of his young protagonist, in which everything is either all good or all bad, including himself. Except for that point about naivete -- and if he wants to become a priest, there's still confession -- the only thing stopping him is his own pride.

This bears all the hallmarks of a film by Mauro Bolognini: stunning visual sense, literate script and of course, beautiful people.

Ruthless businessman Leonardo will stop at nothing to prevent his only son from entering the priesthood and once he has introduced him to the luscious Adriana, the young man's fate is sealed. Another nail in the coffin of his idealism is the realisation that a leftist intellectual writer whose works he admires has become one of his father's paid cronies. His fine ideals are eventually worn down and in the final scene he defiantly declares: 'I will defend my money, just like my father'. As he sobs in the car one is left wondering if he will ever come to terms with the life he is now obliged to lead.

Alain Cuny is tremendous and eminently plausible as Leonardo, the ultimate capitalist who believes that everything and everyone has a price(in which he is not far wrong) His son is played by Jacques Perrin. It is more difficult for an actor to play 'good' than 'bad' and he succeeds admirably in portraying young Stefano's moral and spiritual anguish.

Adriana, as played by Rosanna Schiaffino, lives according to her particular moral code whilst her beauty, energy and 'gioia di vivere' are intoxicating. This sultry, smouldering actress was not used to great effect in Hollywood and her best work by far is on 'home turf'. Isa Miranda impresses in a small but harrowing role as Leonardo's ageing, ailing wife.

The stunning images by Leonarda Barboni typify the perfection of black and white cinematography in Italian films of this period. The score is by Antonioni's favoured composer Giovanni Fusco.

The suicide scene at the office and that of the seduction on the yacht are tastefully handled. 'Style over content' is a criticism often levelled at this director's work but that certainly does not apply here. Based upon the novel by Alberto Moravia its theme of disenchantment is timeless.

The film's comparative commercial failure brought the first and most satisfying phase of Bolognini's career to a close.

Stefano is a young man leaving school with a regular diploma, the only son and heir of a wealthy publishing business in Milan, but he has no mother. She is chronically ill lying in hospital, and his father doesn't want to see her. He confesses he started hating her when they married. Stefano decides for a different course of life than the father's wealth and success, and decides to become a priest. The father doesn't object, but brings his son out on a yachting tour to the islands without telling him that his mistress is following them on board. We soon understand that the father's intention is to let his mistress seduce his son, to make him enter another state of mind, which she does. He tries to escape but fails, the father brings him back to Milan where he has a traumatic experience at the father's business, which leaves him devastated. We never learn if Stefano really entered the monastery or if he continued the relationship with the mistress, but we do learn that he saw through all the hollowness of his father's career and was thoroughly disgusted, as if another opportunity for him could be to throw himself out of the window of his father's office.

The acting is splendid, the psychological battle over the son's soul between father and son is brilliantly exposed, while the mistress' character totally void of morals is more plain and superficial. It's a rather morose film of a fine son being totally disillusioned about his own father, and no women can help him, least of all his hypochondriac mother, so maybe he really should enter that monastery and have done with it all.