Any art house patron in the early sixties must have thought modern society was headed toward a complete collapse as witnessed by the emptiness of life and the bored, amoral behavior of characters in films like Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960). That film was mostly a portrait of wealthy, jaded Romans and ambitious social climbers that was probably the most famous in a wave of films that viewed Italian society as a lost and alienated culture. Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961) and L’Eclisse (1962) offered similar views of a world where modern progress and technology had a dehumanizing effect on relationships while Antonio Pietrangeli’s I Knew Her Well (Italian title, Lo la conoscevo bene, 1965) focused on a naïve working class woman who seeks an acting career in Rome but finds herself exploited and eventually discarded by the people that profession attracts. Less well known, Franco Brusati’s Il Disordine (Disorder, 1962) differs from the above films in that it depicts both upper class and economically strapped folks in Milan who share the same sense of disillusionment and despair over their lot in life. Also, it is almost epic in scale and more tragic and heartfelt than the aforementioned titles.
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Rocket Man
It would be hard to find a more controversial figure in the history of space exploration than the brilliant rocket scientist Dr. Wernher von Braun, the subject of J. Lee Thompson’s biopic, I Aim at the Stars (1960). Continue reading
Romain Gary’s Cinematic Overdose
How many times do you need to say Kill! In a movie title if you want to stress that it is about murder on an international scale? Apparently the distributors of this 1971 oddity were uncertain about that so they created various poster versions for the global market that ranged from four emphatic Kills! to a succinct single Kill! for promotional purposes. They covered all their bases but forgot to identify a target audience for this chaotic, frenzied and wildly improbable mash-up that freebases elements from conspiracy thrillers, secret agent exploits and sexual melodramas with a political agenda. Of course, you wouldn’t expect anything less from author-turned-filmmaker Romain Gray whose only other directorial effort was the pretentious art house mega-bomb Birds in Peru (1968), which starred his wife Jean Seberg as a suicidal nymphomaniac in the Caribbean. Continue reading