L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano W hen he entered the l e g e n d a r y gates of Cinecittà for the first time, Marcello Mas- troianni was only 11. Neverthe- less, his entire life as an actor was intense. He spent many years as a theater protagonist playing leg- endary and memorable dramas. Then, he spent the rest of his life building a vast filmography, being part of more than 170 films, many of which are well known masterpieces, true mile- stones in the history of worldwide cinema. Marcello Mastroianni and five of his most iconic movies are coming to San Francisco in Sep- tember, thanks to Cinema Italia SF. Following Pier Paolo Pasoli- ni, Bernardo Bertolucci, Vittorio De Sica, Anna Magnani, Dino Risi, Lina Wertmüller, and Michelangelo Antonioni, the pro- gram is now at its eighth series and wants to pay an overdue homage to a great star, 60 years after the making of La Dolce Vita. We talked to Amelia Antonuc- ci, the Program Director, whose passion for Italian cinema has turned into something more than a simple showcase for Italian movies. Amelia, it's not the first time you bring Mastroianni to San Francisco. What's different, 18 years later? I had the honor and the plea- sure to present a more extensive retrospective of Marcello Mas- troianni's in 2000, while serving as Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco. The retrospective was organized by Marcello's wife, Anna Maria Tatò, and named The Stuff that Dreams Are Made of. That recalled a sentence to which Mar- cello himself referred to during a long interview regarding the movie I Remember, Yes I Remember. Eighteen years ago, after the event in New York, twenty-two movies were present- ed in San Francisco, thanks to a wide collaboration between Cinecittà International, the Istitu- to Italiano di Cultura, the Pacific Film Archive, and the San Fran- cisco Film Society. By working together, the impact was great, so were the press coverage and the involvement of important local sponsors like Armani and Bul- gari. SERENA PERFETTO La Dolce Vita is a masterpiece, so is 8½: watching the two movies on a big screen is a dream coming true. Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, a three- episode comedy by De Sica, is a gem and A special Day and Divorce Italian Style are two films at the highest level of cine- matography, the best made by Ettore Scola and Pietro Germi. There is only one Marcello in the world of cinema. And it's Mar- cello Mastroianni. "The Latin lover, the quintes- sential continental man, the world-weary Don Giovanni: for over five decades Marcello Mas- troianni epitomized and compli- cated onscreen masculinity, and remains a key symbol of postwar Italian cinema," the Film Society of Lincoln Center wrote about Mastroianni. If you want to experience Italian cinema at its best, join Cinema Italia at the Castro The- atre on September 22nd. In this second event in 2018, Cinema Italia SF is working independent- ly and thanks to the support of the Italian Cultural Institute, the Italian Consulate General, and The Leonardo da Vinci Society. Few and dedicated sponsors are making the "dream" happen again, Maria Manetti Shrem & John Shrem; Della Toffola; John and Karen Diefenbach; and the Italian Homemade Co. alongside the long-standing sponsors C'era Una Volta, Italfood, and Il Gat- topardo. Why is Mastroianni so important for Italian cinema? Mastroianni represents the man that everybody wanted to be, the latin lover with a baby's smile who seduces the best actresses with a special ingenious flair. Mastroianni thought that being an actor is like creating Chinese shadows. Richard Peña, the curator of the retrospective and also director - at the time - of the Lincoln Center Film Society, wanted to honor this idea taking the wording from The Tempest, Act IV: "Actors…? We are such stuff as dreams are made of." He was an actor in the real sense of the word, going deep in each character and transforming him- self when directed by different people. What made you decide to choose Mastroianni's movies for this second yearly edition of Cinema Italia? Last Spring, the wide success of Antonioni's series made us proud and excited, indeed almost 2000 people attended the screen- ing in one single day. We decid- ed to work on the fall program on our own, as we did last year when we brought the Lina Wert- müller program to the Castro Theatre. This time, we have found most of the movies in the US (both in 35mm and restored digital copies). The only one we imported from Luce Cinecittà is A Special Day, in 35mm. What's the goal of this pro- gram? We want to show all the ways Mastroianni was directed by dif- ferent directors. This allows to show his incredible acting skills: a playboy, yet not a macho, he was in fact a man who made a case for the very deconstruction of machismo. When wearing ele- gant suits and his inseparable Persol sunglasses, he fascinates the audience, even when he finds himself in embarrassing and unusual situations. Mastroianni is an icon well known abroad and should be easy to bring people to the Cas- tro theatre... I really hope so. We are trying to keep the standard of the previ- ous programs and I don't want to disappoint our audience. Not only did I chose five movies that won the Academy Awards, the Palm d'Or, and other internation- al prizes, but I also wanted to show the audience the hands that forged him: De Sica, Fellini, Scola, and Germi. Those four movie directors gave Marcello four different faces and four unforgettable characters. Amelia, what's your expec- tation for this year's program? I always panic before each program and my partner Sophoan Sorn tries to reassure me. "Everything will be fine," he tells me. So, I don't have any particular expectation this time, neither. As a Neapolitan, I am a bit superstitious but, at the same time, I would like to see this pro- gram succeed and gain a wider audience compared to the last one. On the other hand, I am sure our viewers will be happy to know that we found the black TR3 car that Marcello was dri- ving in La Dolce Vita in Palo Alto, and it will be in front of the theater for the entire day of the program. Why are you so attached to Mastroianni and his movies? Marcello Mastroianni's movies were and are just part of my life. As child and a teenager, I was nurtured by cinematogra- phy, as much as he was. I would go to the theatre almost every night. Marcello's movies and his characters were my friends, as well as a way to learn about soci- ety and about a world, which used to be, especially for those living in small towns around Italy, way too far. Mastroianni was not as unreachable as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, or Gregory Peck, he was the man next door, a Latin lover with a beautiful, dangerous smile. Any final thoughts on why everybody should watch Mas- troianni's movies at least once in a lifetime? The movies we chose are five wonderful mirrors of Italian soci- ety of that time. The characters played by Marcello Mastroianni have become eternal. Many American movie directors, just think of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, have stud- ied these movies and tried to get some inspiration for their own. Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg in an iconic scene of La Dolce Vita SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY Marcello Mastroianni, La Dolce Vita and much more at Cinema Italia SF this September

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