Marco Bellocchio has ruffled some feathers over the years – starting with his feature debut “Fists in the Pocket.”
“I do remember that people were shocked about me making a film, in Italy, about a son killing his mother. They were surprised and I don’t know why. I thought it was a good idea – from a dramatic point of view,” he said at International Film Festival Rotterdam during a talk with festival director Vanja Kaludjercic.
While his colleague Bernardo Bertolucci found himself in even bigger trouble – “They wanted to burn the negative of ‘The Last Tango in Paris,’ which was absurd! I had issues, but not as big as this one” – “Fists in the Pocket” still angered many. Including Luis Buñuel.
“He is perceived as this great surrealist, a revolutionary, but he was a conservative moralist. He couldn’t believe this angry young man was so bitter against his mother.
“I do remember that people were shocked about me making a film, in Italy, about a son killing his mother. They were surprised and I don’t know why. I thought it was a good idea – from a dramatic point of view,” he said at International Film Festival Rotterdam during a talk with festival director Vanja Kaludjercic.
While his colleague Bernardo Bertolucci found himself in even bigger trouble – “They wanted to burn the negative of ‘The Last Tango in Paris,’ which was absurd! I had issues, but not as big as this one” – “Fists in the Pocket” still angered many. Including Luis Buñuel.
“He is perceived as this great surrealist, a revolutionary, but he was a conservative moralist. He couldn’t believe this angry young man was so bitter against his mother.
- 1/29/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Most films ask nothing of you. You simply press play and watch the story unfold, gleaning context as the filmmaker colors in their narrative. But the occasional movie demands prerequisites to appreciate. Think: Dušan Makavejev’s Man Is Not a Bird, or last year’s competition title Petrov’s Flu, Kirill Serebrennikov’s mind-numbing swan dive into the socio-political climate of post-Soviet Russia whose commentary nearly requires a Ph.D. to unpack. Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night hovers somewhere in-between.
It would help if the historical thriller came with the equivalent of a summer reading list, but there’s enough explanation to clue you in if you’re not brushed up on your 1970s Italian politics. Perhaps more important that the story is easy to get wrapped up in, a six-episode miniseries that feels like a brisk five-and-a-half hours. No doubt it will be richer the more you know, but Bellocchio––with co-writers Stefano Bises,...
It would help if the historical thriller came with the equivalent of a summer reading list, but there’s enough explanation to clue you in if you’re not brushed up on your 1970s Italian politics. Perhaps more important that the story is easy to get wrapped up in, a six-episode miniseries that feels like a brisk five-and-a-half hours. No doubt it will be richer the more you know, but Bellocchio––with co-writers Stefano Bises,...
- 5/19/2022
- by Luke Hicks
- The Film Stage
Italian director, screenwriter and producer Marco Bellocchio has opened up about his career and upcoming projects during a masterclass at the 53rd edition of Visions du Réel, where he received an honorary award.
The 82-year-old master is guest of honor at the documentary film festival, which includes a retrospective of a dozen of his works and a screening of his latest film, “Marx Can Wait,” a documentary about his twin brother Camilo’s suicide in December 1968.
Featuring footage filmed during a family get-together, personal archive material and clips from his films, it is an intimate and poignant documentary that explores how his brother’s death deeply influenced Bellocchio’s work over the decades.
At the time, Bellocchio explained, “the revolution of ’68 was underway, there were protests and riots, and I said to myself ‘I have to do something.’ So in September, together with friends who had founded the Maoist movement,...
The 82-year-old master is guest of honor at the documentary film festival, which includes a retrospective of a dozen of his works and a screening of his latest film, “Marx Can Wait,” a documentary about his twin brother Camilo’s suicide in December 1968.
Featuring footage filmed during a family get-together, personal archive material and clips from his films, it is an intimate and poignant documentary that explores how his brother’s death deeply influenced Bellocchio’s work over the decades.
At the time, Bellocchio explained, “the revolution of ’68 was underway, there were protests and riots, and I said to myself ‘I have to do something.’ So in September, together with friends who had founded the Maoist movement,...
- 4/13/2022
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes competition entry “The Traitor,” which follows the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, is Italy’s candidate for the Oscar for international feature film.
The drama, which Sony Pictures Classics will release in the U.S., was selected out of a roster of five titles by a committee convened by the Italian motion picture association, Anica.
The other top contender was Pietro Marcello’s “Martin Eden,” which recently won prizes in Venice and Toronto and has been acquired for the U.S. by Kino Lorber.
In “The Traitor,” Pierfrancesco Favino stars as Tommaso Buscetta, who in 1984 decided to start cooperating with Italian and, later, American prosecutors after a war within Cosa Nostra caused the killing of members of his family. He turned against the Corleonesi faction in the first major betrayal within Cosa Nostra’s senior ranks.
The drama, which Sony Pictures Classics will release in the U.S., was selected out of a roster of five titles by a committee convened by the Italian motion picture association, Anica.
The other top contender was Pietro Marcello’s “Martin Eden,” which recently won prizes in Venice and Toronto and has been acquired for the U.S. by Kino Lorber.
In “The Traitor,” Pierfrancesco Favino stars as Tommaso Buscetta, who in 1984 decided to start cooperating with Italian and, later, American prosecutors after a war within Cosa Nostra caused the killing of members of his family. He turned against the Corleonesi faction in the first major betrayal within Cosa Nostra’s senior ranks.
- 9/24/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
For decades Marco Bellocchio has been making films dealing with important moments of Italian history, most successfully with Good Morning, Night, his look at the Aldo Moro kidnapping by the Red Brigade, and Vincere, about Mussolini. He’s back in Cannes with a film in competition, this time looking at the maxi Mafia trials of the 1990s, which led to a slew of convictions, in part thanks to the traitor of the title, ex-Cosa Nostra ‘soldier’ turned state witness Tommaso Buscetta.
Buscetta is played by the extremely watchable Pierfrancesco Favino, whose portrayal of this don is both highly credible and somewhat disturbing. The latter is not due to Favino’s performance, which is one of his best, but to the director’s choice to depict Buscetta as a man of honour. Instances of Buscetta’s past are glimpsed throughout the film, but there is little evidence of what this man...
Buscetta is played by the extremely watchable Pierfrancesco Favino, whose portrayal of this don is both highly credible and somewhat disturbing. The latter is not due to Favino’s performance, which is one of his best, but to the director’s choice to depict Buscetta as a man of honour. Instances of Buscetta’s past are glimpsed throughout the film, but there is little evidence of what this man...
- 5/28/2019
- by Jo-Ann Titmarsh
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
ROME -- La Meglio Gioventu, Marco Tullio Giordana's drama about the lives of two Roman brothers through the years 1966-2000, was the big winner at Italy's 59th Nastri d'Argento (Silver Ribbon) awards Tuesday. A RAI Cinema co-production, Gioventu won the prizes for best director, producer, screenplay, actress, actor, live take and editing. Gioventu has been a boxoffice success in Italy and has received rave reviews in Italian newspapers. The best actress prize was awarded to the film's entire female cast, while the best actor award went to its male cast on equal merit with actor Roberto Herlitzka (Buongiorno Notte).
American Vantage Media's indie film banner Wellspring continued to acquire product Tuesday, snapping up domestic rights to Marco Bellocchio's Good Morning, Night. The deal comes on the heels of Wellspring negotiating to acquire U.S. rights to Cedric Kahn's Red Lights (HR 3/1). Both titles came from the Paris-based sales outfit Celluloid Dreams. Wellspring will release Lights theatrically in the United States in the summer and Morning later this year.
ROME -- The organizers of Italy's biggest film awards ceremony, the Nastri d'Argento, have unveiled their 2004 nominations a few weeks earlier than in the past with an eye to extending the life of Italian movies at the boxoffice and help make up for last year's poor sales. Marco Bellocchio for Buongiorno, Notte (Good Morning, Night), Bernardo Bertolucci forThe Dreamers, Daniele Cipri and Franco Moresco for Il Ritorno di Cagliostro (The Return of Cagliostro), Marco Tullio Giordana for La Meglio Gioventu (The Best Youth), Ermanno Olmi for Cantandp Dietro I Paraventi (Singing Behind the Windscreen), and Paolo Virzi for Caterina Va in Citta (Caterina Goes Into Town) were nominated for the best Italian movie director award.
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