Country: Italy
Year: 1977
Duration: 90'
Mario Cioni is a young member of the underclass who has entrusted
his hopes for vindication to a revolution led by the secretary of
the Italian Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer. A victim of an
Oedipal relationship with his mother and obsessed by sex, he spends
his days with his friends or rambling through the Tuscan countryside
talking nonsense, improvising scurrilous monologs and absurd
reflections on God, morals and sex. When his friends play a trick
on him and tell him that his mother has died, Mario is distraught
and spends the night in aimless wandering.
“I depicted a world halfway between the urban proletariat and the
peasant underclass. With the events of 1968, the class I come from
lost its peculiar characteristics and I wanted to make a film about this
category that had become indistinct. Benigni and I tried to break
the mold of classic Italian comedies and to recuperate roots that were
different from the typical, lower-middle-class ones. We returned to
an archaic dialect and created a lumpenproletariat, a figure which
had always been excluded from that type of comedy.”
Biography
film director
Giuseppe Bertolucci
Giuseppe Bertolucci (Parma, Italy, 1947) debuted in films in 1970 as assistant director for the film The Spider’s Stratagem, directed by his brother Bernardo. In 1977 he directed his first feature film, Berlinguer: I Love You followed, three years later, by Lost and Found and by the documentary Panni sporchi. After Segreti, segreti (1984) and Tuttobenigni (1986), he then made Strana la vita (1988), I cammelli (1988) and Love in Progress (1989). In 1994 he directed Troppo sole and in 1999 Il dolce rumore della vita. In 2006 he presented the documentary Pasolini prossimo nostro at the Venice Film Festival and two years later, always at Venice, La rabbia di Pasolini.
FILMOGRAFIA
filmografia essenziale/essential filmography
I poveri muoiono prima (mm, doc., 1971), Berlinguer ti voglio bene (1977), Panni sporchi (tv, doc., 1980), Oggetti smarriti (1980), Segreti, segreti (1984), L’addio a Enrico Berlinguer (collettivo/collective, doc., 1984), Tuttobenigni (1986), Strana la vita (1988), I cammelli (1988), Amori in corso (1989), La domenica specialmente (ep. La domenica specialmente, 1991), Troppo sole (1994), Il pratone del casilino (cm, tv, 1995), Il dolce rumore della vita (1999), L’amore probabilmente (2001), Luparella (2002), Il mal di denti (cm, 2003), Pasolini prossimo nostro (doc., 2006), La rabbia di Pasolini (doc., 2008).
Cast
& Credits
regia/director Giuseppe Bertolucci
soggetto, sceneggiatura/story, screenplay Giuseppe Bertolucci, Roberto Benigni
fotografia/cinematography Renato Tafuri
montaggio/film editing Gabriella Cristiani
musica/music Franco Coletta, Piero Farri
suono/sound Raul Montesanti
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Roberto Benigni (Mario Cioni), Alida Valli (la madre/Mother), Carlo Monni (Bozzone),
Sergio Forconi (Vladimiro Tesoroni), Giovanni Nannini (don Valdemaro), Mario Pachi (Gnorante), Maresco Fratini (Buio), Chiara Moretti (Ester), Marta Moretti (Marta), Donatella Valmaggia (Wanda)
produttore/producer Gianni Minervini
produzione/production A. MA Film
soggetto, sceneggiatura/story, screenplay Giuseppe Bertolucci, Roberto Benigni
fotografia/cinematography Renato Tafuri
montaggio/film editing Gabriella Cristiani
musica/music Franco Coletta, Piero Farri
suono/sound Raul Montesanti
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Roberto Benigni (Mario Cioni), Alida Valli (la madre/Mother), Carlo Monni (Bozzone),
Sergio Forconi (Vladimiro Tesoroni), Giovanni Nannini (don Valdemaro), Mario Pachi (Gnorante), Maresco Fratini (Buio), Chiara Moretti (Ester), Marta Moretti (Marta), Donatella Valmaggia (Wanda)
produttore/producer Gianni Minervini
produzione/production A. MA Film