Love and Anger

How can a film with sets by Bertolucci, JLG and Pasolini, amongst others, be so incredibly bad? I have spent a lifetime watching thousands of films from across the globe, and this junk easily fits into the top 3 Worst Films of All Time category. Indifference has nothing new to add after the first 15 seconds; Bertolucci's Agonia is just embarrassing to watch; Pasolini's contribution is pointless; JLG's Amore is beyond pretentious (to be expected, perhaps) and, as I actually tried to follow the student debate on Marxism, capitalism and Vietnam etc., I soon realised that they were saying nothing whatsoever. Perhaps - just perhaps - the directors had basic ideas about each set, but the execution is appalling. Of the directors, Bertolucci easily wins the WTF Award and should have been sent to prison in El Salvador as a prize.

Who knows - perhaps this film is the reason Pasolini was shot?

I am shocked that a serious film company would let this content be released - surely someone actually looked at it before it was distributed? But if they did, how could they not demand a total re-make? I really had to struggle to finish this film - the only thing that kept me sitting there was the hope that the next segment would be better. Which clearly was not the case.

I want my money back.

The '60s at its most annoying, this has got to be the worst of all the European portmanteau films. There's very little of worth in these shorts even if you're a die hard fan of the directors. The one possible exception is Godard's segment, "Amore," which is kind of pretty, mostly due to the two gorgeous actresses who star in it (Christine Gueho and Catherine Jourdan). Kind of an amusing cinematic deconstruction, it gets a bit lost in the leftist politics of the rest of the film. The first segment, by Carlo Lizzani, starts interestingly enough, as a cinematic study of the psychological principle of diffusion of responsibility. A woman in New York City is being attacked, but no one will help her. Then there's an auto accident, and a gravely injured woman is forced into the car of an unwilling bystander. The plot gets really silly as the driver of that car turns out to be a wanted criminal. The short just randomly stops. Bertolucci's segment comes next and is little more than some stuff left on the cutting room floor from his most recent feature, Partner. It's somewhat cinematically interesting, but it doesn't go anywhere and it gets annoying long before it ends. Pasolini's segment is third. It's probably the least annoying of the shorts, but it's also completely forgettable. Ninetto Davoli, that afro-ed boy who appears in many of Pasolini's films, walks along a busy street, often carrying a giant flower. Images of the Vietnam War are superimposed over the street scenes. Godard's sequence, which I've described above, comes next. The final and worst short is by Marco Bellocchio and Elda Tattoli. A bunch of student protesters burst into a university lecture and spout Maoist slogans. The subtitles become an uninterpretable wall of text after around one minute. It immediately brings to mind one of my favorite Kent Brockman lines from The Simpsons, when describing the 1960s: "What a shrill and pointless decade."

Once interested in viewing a script outline or a detailed dialog box inspired by the short séance "DEL FIORE DI CARTA", you are kindly requested to refer to the Italian revue ANTEPRIMA, No 5, Sassoferatto , Ancona, Italy, published in January 1998, page 31, where I published the film scenario entitled "ISMAEL", with a prologue about Laura Betti's opinion Nicolas Xenios, ISMAEL, Omaggio a Pier Paolo Pazolini, Translated and adapted by Tea Boldrini. The story is about an archetypal three-membered family of the western cultural context , who walk and talk about death in their typical middle class apartment . In parallel, a Guillotine is being prepared in a medieval small town in front of the prison where the leading role, Ismael, is about to be condemned to death by the local judge. The crowd is invited to accomplish the procedure by gathering in front of the prison, where the execution will take place as soon as the flower Narcissus near his prison window will faint. The unexpected fact will be that the prisoner's daughter, after her long prayers to God, will decide to replace the real flower Narcissus near her father's window by a similar paper flower that will, naturally, never faint. The result is that FEAR of the eternity will replace the existentialists fear for DEATH and the prisoner's shadow will purchase him for ever and ever.

The text is published in Italian. You are welcomed to read and comment on it my Italian speaking friends. Bye thanks

Comments have complained that this portmanteau film is dated. It would be better to say it registers a crucial political, cultural, and cinematic moment. Marco Bellocchio's short film works best to my thinking. His "Discutiamo, discutiamo" (Let's Talk; We're Talking; or maybe Talk and Talk, if you're inclined to be bored) is a dramatic imitation by students of the university movements of the late 1960s, and includes real differences of opinion (it starts with a lecture on Croce's aesthetics; later there's an attempt to set a Croce paperback on fire), and opinions worth remembering once existed. "La lotta continua" (class struggle), authoritarian schooling in ruling class values, the small percentage of youths of poor families in university--sure, that's so passé.

And for Bertolucci there's Julian Beck as Artaud; for Pasolini, dialectic around the pleasure of Ninetto Davoli. Even Godard's go-gauche, lordly treating every opinion as a quotation, letting all the wind out of what might be concern--or Amore. (See better Bellocchio's "La Cina è vicina" for a fashionable leftism.) The Rabbia or righteous wrath of the title is mostly also left to viewers back then or now, and maybe it didn't get rooted.

One of these countless pseudo cinema vérité works which throve in the sixties in the wake of Godard and the events of 1968.This one is for highbrows ,die-hards.The rest of us can taketo their heel,or else they will yawn their head off.

Segment one is "l'indifference" :the beginning is some kind of illustration of Phil Ochs's song "outside of a small circle of friends"(1967);but soon enough is enough and when the reluctant driver appears ,it totally fails to convince.

Segment two is the most "avant-garde" ,so to speak ,of the lot: a dreadful pot-pourri of OM,Christian religion,group psychology(?).Some equivalent of one of Yoko Ono's pieces of work circa late sixties.

Segment three is Pasolini's contibution to this bill of fare:his favorite actor ,Ninetto Davoli,is wandering (dancing?)in the streets ,hoding a big paper flower(that's the title of the short).Let He who Hath understanding see the meaning.

Segment four is Godard's "l'amour".There are two sides:the political one,which focuses on Cuba,and some kind of self-criticism:his dogma ,his refusal to consider the movie as a story:at least here he says that it's not because you 've seen a lot of movies that you know the cinema;and that the seventh art is like maths before Euclide;and he goes not as far as to say that the nouvelle vague was Euclide.Modest,for a change.That does not make his segment interesting for all that.

Segment five takes place in an Italian university where student exchanges trivia about the Bourgeoisie's stranglehold on the culture.Plus ça change..

The precedent user complains about the different languages that they used in the different segments:now English,now Italian ,now French,even German;it's all in the cinema vérité game!

If you want to see a beautiful contemporary political movie that will not give you a headache ,take Luigi Comencini's "lo scopone scientifico" instead.